Disagreeing Agreeably

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Come close, youngsters, for I want to tell you of a magical time, not so very long ago, but before you were born, when, in our fair land, it was possible to disagree with someone without getting ridiculed, doxxed, canceled, mobbed, shot, stabbed or otherwise eliminated from life or society.

I know it will be hard for you to believe this, but there was a commercial-free television show back then where a staunch conservative named William F. Buckley, Jr. would sit in a chair opposite a staunch liberal (or two, or three) and for an entire hour discuss ideas without once yelling, cursing, or throwing chairs.

Yes, truly! And the show went on for twenty years before a fellow named Morton Downey, Jr. came along to shift the paradigm. Downey figured out that you get more attention (we call it getting “clicks” today) by being obnoxious and starting verbal—and sometimes physical—fights on his “talk” show.

“Trash TV” thus became a thing, perfected by a rowdy named Jerry Springer.

And then came social media, where any malcontent can get attention—and even perhaps “fifteen minutes of fame”—by ranting and raving and using language that would make even a stevedore shout, “Enough!”

So here we are. Debate has been replaced by berate, civility by savagery, discussion by repercussion.

What they call political debates these days are a joke. These aren’t debates. They’re soundbite contests fueled by nattering nabobs of negativism shooting gotcha questions at a stage full of Ralph Kramdens who, when they aren’t shrieking and talking over each other, are looking for a place to drop in a consultant-prepped bon mot.

Not exactly Lincoln-Douglas. Or even Nixon-Kennedy.

The lust for the devastating soundbite can be traced back to 1984 and the second presidential debate between incumbent Ronald Reagan and challenger Walter Mondale.

In the run-up to this debate the press was carpeting the newspapers with “concerns” about Reagan’s age. He was all of 73 years old.

At one point Reagan was asked by journalist Henry Trewhitt whether he, as the oldest president in history, had any doubts about his ability to handle the job.

To which Reagan replied,

“Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt, and I want you to know also that I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

The audience erupted in laughter and applause and Mondale’s goose, such as it was, was fully cooked. (You can watch the clip here.)

That’s all every candidate is looking for now. File this desire under Ridiculous and Unhelpful.

Here at TKZ, we talk about writing. We share thoughts, tips, opinions. Our community of commenters chime in helpfully. It’s a nice little oasis in the Desert of Vituperation.

Let’s keep it that way.

In his autobiography, sagacious ol’ Ben Franklin wrote:

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

So today, let’s open things up. What is a piece of writing advice you are unsure about or perhaps disagree with? (Agreeably, of course.)

The Better Angels of Our Nature

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

On September 25, 1919, a white woman named Agnes Loebeck told police she’d been assaulted by a black man on the streets of Omaha, Nebraska. The next day the cops nabbed a suspect—a 41-year-old packinghouse worker named Will Brown. They took him to the Loebeck home where Agnes ID’d him.

News of the assault spread rapidly. The Loebeck house was soon surrounded by a mob crying for a lynching. Police reinforcements had to be called in. They were finally able to get Will Brown to the jail at the courthouse.

The howls for blood grew louder. A contingent of almost fifty police officers was dispatched to guard the jail.

On Sunday, September 28, a mob started a march to the courthouse. By the time they got there it had grown to an estimated size of 15,000. Looters hit the stores of downtown Omaha, stealing guns and ammo.

Some of the rabble started firing at the courthouse. The cops returned the gunfire. A 16-year-old mob ringleader and a 34-year-old businessman were killed.

Around 8:30 p.m. the crowd set fire to the courthouse. When firemen arrived the mob prevented them from dousing the flames.

Inside the jail Will Brown cried out to the sheriff, “I am innocent! I never did it! My God, I’m innocent!”

The mayor of Omaha, a man named Smith, tried to reason with the mob. Somebody whacked him on the back of the head. He came to with a rope around his neck. Somehow somebody rescued him, though Smith ended up in the hospital.

Then around 11 p.m., with the people inside the courthouse forced out, the ravenous pack got their hands on Will Brown.

They beat him until he was bloody and unconscious, stripped off his clothes, and put a rope around his neck. Will Brown was hoisted into the air from a lamppost and, with his body spinning, the mob used it for target practice.

They tied Brown’s body to a car and dragged it through the streets. In the middle of a prominent intersection they doused Brown’s body with fuel taken from lanterns and set it on fire.

When the fire went out they dragged the remains once more around the streets of Omaha so the crowd could have a look.

Bits of the rope used to hang Will Brown were sold for 10¢ each.

There was a fourteen-year-old boy who witnessed the killing. His father owned a printing plant across the street from the courthouse. They both happened to be there that night.

Later in life that boy, the actor Henry Fonda, would reflect that it was “the most horrendous sight I’ve ever seen.” That’s why Fonda, when he became a movie star, fought hard to make the film version of The Ox-Bow Incident, about mob madness and the lynching of three innocent men.

And why Fonda brought such empathy to a scene from John Ford’s classic Young Mr. Lincoln. It’s my Fourth of July movie recommendation. The film is loosely based on a real murder defense successfully conducted by Lincoln, in what has come to be known as the “Almanac Case.” I say no more, as I want you to get the full enjoyment of the movie.

Here’s the setup. After a prologue covering a bit of Lincoln’s life in New Salem, Illinois, we move to Springfield in 1837 where Lincoln hangs his shingle. At the Independence Day celebration a local man is found stabbed to death. Two sons of a widow are accused and hauled off to jail.

Immediately a lynch mob forms. Lincoln, observing it all, tells the widow he’s now her lawyer. He gets to the jail and faces down the mob. The rest of the film is the famous trial.

It’s one of Fonda’s iconic performances, perfectly nuanced. I must also mention the supporting performance of Alice Brady as the mother of the accused. Brady was an outstanding actress who could bounce between screwball comedy (My Man Godfrey, for which she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress) drama, and musicals. She won a gold statuette for her supporting performance in In Old Chicago. Tragically, Young Mr. Lincoln was her last film, as she died of cancer at the age of 46.

The movie is magnificent hagiography, in the inimitable John Ford style. And what is the purpose of hagiography? To put it in Lincoln’s own words, it is to inspire in us “the better angels of our nature.” In that spirit, let me leave you with a short clip from the movie. Lincoln addresses the mob—and us:


May you have a happy and reflective Fourth of July.

* Source material for this post may be found here and here

All Stories Have Legs

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

During Abraham Lincoln’s law-practice days, he had occasion to share a stagecoach with his soon-to-be adversary, Stephen A. Douglas, and a man named Owen Lovejoy. They were on their way to the courthouse at Bloomington, Illinois.

Douglas, known as “The Little Giant,” was about five feet tall with a long body and short legs. Lovejoy, on the other hand, had a short body and long legs. Lincoln, of course, was 6’4”. It must have been crowded in that coach.

At one point, Douglas tossed some shade at Lovejoy, remarking on his “pot belly” and long legs. Lovejoy came back with a barb about Douglas’s vertically-challenged sticks.

Then Lovejoy looked at the future president and asked, “Abe, just how long do you think a man’s legs should be in proportion to his body?”

Lincoln replied, “I have not given the matter much consideration, but on first blush, I should judge they ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground.”

And how long should a story be? Long enough to reach the end, and no longer. (Please note, I have not run this theory by George R. R. Martin.)

Which is why I love the novella form. In a brisk 20k-50k, you can grab a reader and deliver a wallop. Did you know that The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain is only about 35k words? Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea has a similar count.

Stephen King has done some of his best work in novellas (e.g., The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption)

The novella really matured during the golden age of the pulp magazines. In the classic years of the pulps, roughly 1920 – 1955, America was awash in inexpensive commercial fiction of all types. These were printed on cheap wood-pulp paper, bound between wonderfully lurid covers. You could buy one of these magazines for a dime or 15¢, and inside you’d have a plethora of short stories and novellas and perhaps even an entire novel (or an episode from a novel in serialization).

A productive pulpster who could deliver the goods could make a living, even at a penny a word.

The novella largely disappeared after the death of the pulps. It was a difficult sell for book publishers who had to price them to make a profit, while bookstore browsers thought they might not be getting enough story for the price.

That didn’t mean the occasional novella didn’t break out (***cough***The Bridges of Madison County***cough***). But by the 2000s there were few being published simply because production costs exceeded revenue.

Now, because of the digital universe, those costs have disappeared, which has brought a revival of novella-length fiction.

Like the one I’ve just published.

Here’s how Framed came about. A couple of years ago I was playing the first-line-game. That’s a creativity exercise where you just come up with great opening lines and see if any of them spark a story idea. I’ve got a whole file full of ’em, some of which have led to published work.

This particular morning I found myself writing It’s not every day you bleed to death.

I had no idea who my character was or how he or she got into the implied predicament.

So I started to play with it. How could this have happened? Was it a suicide or attempted murder? Did my character have a near-death experience? Could he be narrating from the beyond?

I kept asking myself what if questions and writing things down, and eventually came up with an explanation that I liked. And from there I proceeded to develop the story.

I set it aside for awhile as I worked on other projects, then late last year came back to it and finished it. And you know how I knew it was done?

Because its legs had reached the ground. The ending felt just right.

So now, in the spirit of the pulps, I am launching the ebook for just 99¢ on Kindle. I want you to have it. I believe there is a huge market for brisk, suspenseful fiction, just like there was in the 1930s and 40s.

Do you agree?