This Day In History, 1977: New York City Blackout

Twenty-nine years ago today, on Wednesday, July 13, 1977, a blackout started in New York City that lasted overnight into the next afternoon.

I was seven years old at the time, and I remember the blackout somewhat. According to official reports, events leading to the blackout started at 8:37 PM, and the city was plunged into darkness at roughly 9:30 PM. My brothers and I were in our bedroom, reading by the light of the lamp on the bureau of drawers, when suddenly the light went out. I don't recall if we panicked or not. According to my memories, my father came into the room within seconds with a lit candle in a holder.

The 1977 blackout is infamous for the looting and riots that took place. Ensconced in our house in Forest Hills, none of that affected me. We got the news over a battery-powered radio and then somehow managed to get to sleep that night. My memory tells me that it was a hot night.

I don't recall much of the next day except that we did wait for the power to return. I do remember how we discovered that we had power again. I was outside, standing near the gate and tunnel that led into Forest Close, of which my house was a part. (Basically, the entire block consisted of houses that surrounded a locked in common area of grass and trees.) The tunnel contained a light, and although it was a bright mid-afternoon, we saw that the light had suddenly gone on again. We went back into our house, and sure enough, the power had returned.

References:

• Wikipedia entry: New York City Blackout of 1977
  
• The Blackout History Project
  

Copyright © Michael Burstein

Robert's Rules of Writing #53: Set an Alarm Clock

[Rule quoted from Robert's Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know by Robert Masello (Writer's Digest Books, 2005). See my original post for the rules of this discussion.]

Set an alarm clock? Why in the world would a writer want to set an alarm clock?

Masello gives reasons to set two alarm clocks, actually. The first alarm clock is the one you set to make sure you get to your desk in the morning.

The second alarm clock is the one you place in your fiction.

I've heard this sort of advice before, usually phrased not as an alarm clock but as a ticking time bomb. Indeed, Masello refers to a time bomb later on in his essay. On the surface, it's pretty good advice. If you want your readers to keep reading, giving your protagonist not only major stakes but a time limit is a good way to keep a plot moving forward. Obvious examples come out of thrillers, where lives are at stake, and the protagonists have to race the clock to rescue someone or save their own lives.

I've used quieter versions of the alarm clock in my own work; for example, I've written stories where scientists are racing to perform their experiments and prove their theories before funding is pulled from their projects. Perhaps it's not as exciting as a detective trying to rescue a kidnap victim before the kidnappers commit murder, but it's still a race against the clock.

On the other hand, there are certain types of stories where I'd say a ticking clock might be superfluous. For example, if you're writing more of a mood piece, or an internal monologue, a ticking clock might not be something you'd want to add. And there are also times when you might want the clock to stop, especially if you've created a new world for your fiction that you want your characters -- and your readers -- to explore. In those cases, the ticking clock might be too much of a distraction.

However, if your story just feels like it's sitting there, and the plot isn't moving forward, I'd suggest figuring out a way to add that tick of the clock. At the very least, it'll get your protagonist moving.

A deadline has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind. And speaking of which, I need to get back to this proposal...

Copyright © Michael Burstein

My Bulwer-Lytton Favorite

As a few people have noted online, the results of the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been posted. For those of you unfamiliar with the contest, the point is to write a bad opening sentence to a novel.

There's always an overall winner, but they also choose winners in subcategories. My favorite was this winning entry in the Romance category, written by Dennis Barry of Dothan, AL:

Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.

I literally laughed out loud when I read this one. It's the image of monkeys having access to an espresso machine that does it for me.