Pretty Peacocks

I would like to start out by saying that I am immensely confused by this whole situation.

Honored, to be certain. This is the highest accolade I’ve ever received as a professional writer. And this dinner is, wow. Top-notch. It’s funny how the more expensive the dinner is, the smaller the birds you’re eating get. You’d think the reverse, I guess? Anyway, it’s a lot better than the chicken wings and Leinenkugels over which this manuscript was originally conceived.

I should probably explain that this was initially a spy story. Sort of a zero-Glasnost deal where the Cold War never ended and the entirety of America remains stuck in the 1980’s, both politically and in terms of fashion and pop culture and stuff like that.

“So, my heroine’s cool heroine thing is friendship pins,” I said, squeezing a lemon into my beer. “She knows all the codes for all the bead colors, and she uses them to leave messages for her superiors. Plus, some of her beads have special gadgets built into them. So just when you think she’s in a bind, she reaches down to her Keds sneakers and…”

“Okay, first,” my editor said, “you need to cut it out with the lemon.”

A moment’s hesitation while I regarded the offending fruit wedge. “But I like it that way.”

“This is beer, not friggin’ Country Time,” he said, plucking it out of my hand. “You want a thing that’s basically lemonade but slightly browner, order a damn Arnold Palmer. Secondly, I’m not sure you can carry a whole narrative on the gimmick of ‘friendship pins.’ What else does she got that’s cool?”

“She has, um, a cool car.”

“Listening.”

“It’s a Lamborghini Countach. Crazy thing, do you know what ‘countach’ means? Nothing! It’s a Piedmontese expression of surprise or astonishment. It’s like calling your car the ‘gosh’ or the ‘golly.’ Also, hey, did you know that the spoiler on back is entirely non-functional? It’s just a flat plane, put there for cosmetic purposes!”

“Stan,” my editor said, “you’ve been researching again, haven’t you.”

“Well, yes. I’m a writer. I’m supposed to research.”

“How to put this.” He crunched thoughtfully on a bit of celery garnish. “It’s kind of like the difference between hearing relationship stories from a normal person versus hearing them from my sister. Normal person tells me they’re dating someone, I’m all like, hey, cool. My sister tells me she’s dating someone and I see the entire cycle of obsession to meltdown to sobbing into jumbo margaritas playing out before my mind’s eye, and I just sort of smile tightly and don’t say a word.”

“I have a toxic relationship…with my spy story research?”

“Exactly. You get too in love with all the precious little things you discover until you realize they can’t support your narrative and are just gonna laze around on your manuscript’s couch all day eating Sno-Balls and halfheartedly paging through want ads but never going to any interviews.”

“You’re saying I’m into deadbeat details.”

He gestured at me with a wing bone before sucking it dry of Buffalo sauce. “Exactly. You want to sell me on this plot bunny you’re chasing, I don’t want it all laden down with little froo-froo ribbons you’ve had teen-girl-crushes on for years.”

“I’ve always been told that details are the key to good storytelling.”

“Not details you’re way too attached to. Tell you what–have your heroine do the car thing, but have it not be a car you’re overly-fascinated with. How about try a real mundane sorta car. Follow?”

“So, like a Datsun.”

“Yeah. A 1980s Datsun, if you gotta. Maybe not a car. Is there any type of vehicle you don’t particularly care about?”

I floundered for a moment. “Pickup trucks?”

“Sure. A 1980s Datsun pickup. That’s what your heroine drives.”

“Because…I don’t like them?”

“Exactly. That way, you won’t be tempted to yank the audience out of immersion with incredibly precious and oh-so-special-to-you details. Just normal details. The kind that blend in.”

I chewed on my lip a couple times.

“Okay, it’s just that,” I said, “she’s supposed to be a super-spy, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a super-spy driving a Datsun pickup.”

“That’s what makes her memorable. Trust me on this, Stan.”

I rolled it over for a while. Then I took a determined swig of lemony beer. “Okay. I’ll redo the elevator pitch.”

“Excellent,” said my editor. “I really think we’re on the right track with this.”

So, fast forward a couple weeks, over another meal of beer and chicken wings. “You could get it with a crew cab!” I bubbled, stirring up the ranch dressing so that all the dill wasn’t clumped up at the bottom. “Not factory-direct, but as an aftermarket conversion by a third-party shop. It was like an SUV before SUVs were cool! If this were a modern story, everybody would just think, ‘hey, that’s an SUV,’ but since this is the 80s, nobody’s seen anything like it! It’s like a station wagon, but better! And so, I’m already planning this scene where–sorry, is your head okay?”

“Hm? Yeah, it’s fine.”

“It’s just that you’re holding it both hands, so I thought–”

My editor sighed heavily. “Okay, look. It’s clear to me that you went and fell in love with the Datsun idea.”

“Well…yeah! Turns out they’re pretty great little trucks.”

“There! There it is, again. You got attached, and now you’re going to write another precious, darling piece about all the great things Datsun pickups had to offer back in the 80s. It’s a vanity piece, Stan. Nobody’s gonna want to read it.”

“It seems to me that you’re telling me I should be really bored with everything I’m writing.”

“I suppose you’d prefer to turn out stomach-churning junk with your fingerprints all over it.”

“Well, no, obviously not, but–”

“‘But’ nothing. Audiences hate it when authors cram too much personal viewpoint into their stories. You gotta be ready to kill your darlings, butcher your peacocks, all that jazz.”

“So, what? Do I find a more boring car for her to drive?”

“Nah. You’re going to just get infatuated with anything I suggest, and that means we’ll never get anywhere.” He crunched thoughtfully on a cartilaginous wing-end. “Tell you what. You seem pretty stuck on this proto-SUV cab topper thing.”

“My heroine was going to be an aftermarket conversion expert,” I said. “There was this scene in her body shop where the handsome Soviet agent confronts her while she’s working on one, and she has to explain all about–”

“Here’s what you do. Find a part of the Datsun that’s really tedious to read about. Have your heroine be an expert in that instead. That way, you’ll only research exactly as much as you need to.”

“I guess that could work.”

“‘Could’ work? You do this right, it’ll be an award-winning piece.”

So, I retooled the pitch and brought it back to him. “The transfer case,” I said, dropping my packet of papers on the table in front of him, narrowly missing a condensation ring from one of the beer glasses. “I learned all about it.”

He eyed me critically. “Did you enjoy it?”

“No. Not one bit. I am now stuffed all full of information about the relative merits of independent versus married transfer cases and I hate all of it.”

“Excellent. That’s the ideal state for you to create from.”

I breathed a heavy sigh and threw myself down on the bar stool. “Great. Glad to hear it. Anyway, my super-spy protagonist is reasonably knowledgeable about Datsun light truck transfer cases.”

“Not the world’s best or anything.”

“No, that would be too interesting. Anyway, she balances her glamorous super-spy career with her transmission service hobby and her stormy relationship with her domineering mother.” My voice grew more animated. “And then there’s the mystery of her biological father, of whom her mother never speaks, and as she goes on her super-spy adventures, she gradually learns about this program called ‘Operation Overcast’ where brilliant Nazi scientists were recruited after the fall of the Reich, sometimes at gunpoint, to aid in the still-ongoing war in the Pacific theater, and–”

“Stop.”

I froze, midway through my enthusiastic gesture.

“This spy lady you have going on here.” He took a long swig of beer and then rapped importantly on the table. “Would you say you’re in love with this character?”

A week later, I brought my all-new pitch back to my editor. “His name’s Frank,” I said. “He’s a divorcee, but it was an amicable split due to the mutual realization of divergent goals.”

“Excellent. I can tell you’re really not into this guy.”

“Anyway, he’s still this super-badass super-spy, which I think we can still use to tell some really fun stories about a perpetuated Cold War. My first idea is–”

“Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say ‘fun’?”

Another week. “Okay, so, Frank is a budget analyst for the C.I.A. Divorced, no kids, never been in the field. And then, one day, this mysterious package–”

“Stop.”

Another week. “He’s a bookkeeper at a regional lumber transfer company, and when he gets off work, he goes home to his empty house and rebuilds Datsun transfer cases.”

“Perfect. You aren’t personally excited about anything in this guy’s life at all.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” My eyes got a little distant. “I see a little of myself in him, though. The poor guy tries so hard. He probably expected better out of his life than to end up as a lumber company bookkeeper, but by now he’s sunk fifteen years into it, and the accounting software they use is so antiquated that he’s hopelessly out of date with the rest of the field, so they have him essentially trapped. And they don’t pay him enough for continuing education, so there he sits, crunching numbers all day and then spending all evening rebuilding manual shift-on-the-fly gear assemblies for Datsun pickup trucks, but not, and I must stress this, not the ones that have had any kind of neat aftermarket conversions.”

My editor shook his head silently at me. “You’re hopeless,” he said, eventually. “I don’t know what to do with you. You start getting personally attached to everything you get a mind to write about.”

“I think maybe there’s at least a little room for–”

“No!” he said, slamming the table. “Audiences can smell preciousness a mile away! They’re like sharks! They will rip you to pieces, Stan! Your only defense is to not at all love anything you’re doing! But I can’t get you to fix that! You’re attached to your precious plots! You’re attached to your precious characters! How am I going to get a decent manuscript out of this?”

In the face of this seething umbrage, I offered the only thing I could. “How about I write something without either?”

He sat back down. “Listening.”

“I could, um, just have my story be purely about lumber company bookkeeping and Datsun transfer cases.”

My editor peered at me, his eyes sharp in the manner of a raptor’s. “Which one of those two things do you love less?”

Anyway. That brings us to now, and I hope that gives everyone here a little perspective. I want to make it absolutely, unambiguously clear that I am honored to receive this Vintage Automotive Tech Manual of the Year award for my detailed exploration of independent transfer cases for four-wheel-drive configuration Datsun/Nissan 720 series light trucks (without crew cab modification) during the 1983 model year.

Let me just say that, despite my confusion, I’m stunned, absolutely blown away. My editor was absolutely correct about the success of this piece, and I hope it will serve as a lesson to all you budding automotive manual tech writers/authors out there. There is a real benefit to aggressive editing, and if you are willing to swallow your pride and murder your peacocks, someday you too might have an engraved plaque from a local trophy shop on your own wall.

Anyway, I’ve gabbed long enough. Let’s sit down and eat these delicious-looking birds.

Whatever they are.