A monthly letter from Gotham’s president, Alexander Steele (writing advice and other musings)
Today begins the climactic chapter of 2020, and I never thought I’d live inside such a story.
For what it’s worth, this year does have all the elements you want in a good tale.
Conflict—The most essential element of any story is tension between opposing forces.
That’s Italian for Before him all Rome trembled. These words come from Floria Tosca, the heroine of the opera Tosca, in reference to the chief of police Baron Scarpia. (We’re now in Rome, circa 1800.)
Scarpia will spare the life of Tosca’s lover if Tosca will grant him one wish: sex.
Tosca is torn. Her lover, Mario Cavarodossi, is a revolutionary arrested by Scarpia and will be sentenced to death if Tosca denies Scarpia. Does she give her womanhood away or save Mario’s life?
It’s a good thing for the mind to wander, especially for a writer.
The other day my mind was wandering and—I have no idea why, perhaps because it’s summer or I was pondering pasta with red sauce for dinner—I thought of a summer job in high school, as a busboy at Il Sorrento, an Italian restaurant in Dallas, Texas, now long gone. Every night I’d come home bone-tired, my pockets stuffed with one-dollar bills (my share of the tips doled out by the mostly Persian waiters). Continue reading “Wander Away”