‘The
Hurting Place’ didn’t start out as many stories do. It didn’t enjoy a smooth and
effortless transition from idea to finished work. In fact, the idea for which I
intended to use the title is an unfinished orphan so well hidden that I cannot
locate its whereabouts. Maybe it’s served its purpose and if that was only to
act as a place holder for the title, then I guess I should be thankful. In my
opinion, the title fits the story. With it attached to the manuscript, I
managed to craft a story I doubt I'd have accomplished with the previous title.
So here is how it all worked out.
The
first germ of an idea occurred in the fall of 1980 when I arrived at Concord
for my freshman year. My housing assignment placed me in The Towers, which stood
in the shadow of the remains of an old water tower. Every day, I passed by this
tower on my way to and from classes. I heard many stories associated with the
tower, but the one that was the most interesting was that the students used to
cut the lock off the service door and go swimming in the tower. This story was freely
passed down from class to class for years. I can only imagine there are
thousands of former students who are receptacles.
Years
later the story of an accidental death surfaced in the nearest town. Apparently,
someone decided the story of someone swimming in the water tower sounded good.
This person decided to go about doing just that in an active water tower. Once
inside the tank they quickly realized exit from the water was impossible. How
long it took for this person to perish is only speculation, but I’d think it
wasn’t a short amount of time.
The
question I posed myself was: If I was the person in the tank, and I knew what the
outcome would be how would I spend my last few living hours? This is the idea I
started with in 2002. The title of the story was to be: ‘In Trouble Deep’. I
set to work and started writing the story. The total word count of my effort
was less than five hundred. The problem was I wasn’t comfortable with the
approach I’d taken to tell the story. I wanted it to be introspective on the
part of the swimmer concerning his life. Where had he been successful and where
had he failed. As much as I tried to make something happen, I couldn’t get the
story to move.
Even though I couldn’t get anything out of ‘In
Trouble Deep',’ I liked the pieces that had given me the idea for the story. On
the other hand, ‘The Hurting Place’ had been assigned to a story about a
homeless man who had met a gentleman who had befriended him and offered to
provide him a place to reside should he ever decide he wanted to live in a home
and not on the street. It is another story that failed to move, but I really
liked the title. So I took the title ‘The Hurting Place’ from one story and
gave it to the water tower story that had stalled. I flipped the idea around
and set to writing.
The
odd thing about the process was that it wasn’t linear. That is to say, I didn’t
start on page one and write until I reached ‘the end’. I wrote scene chapters
as they came to me over a course of nine years. When I would share these pieces
with fellow writers, and they asked where I was in the story I couldn’t tell
them. All I knew was that I wasn’t finished, but the story was moving along.
Slowly, but I was making progress. By the way, I wouldn’t recommend this method
if you want to write a novel. It was very time-consuming and difficult. But I
think I ended up with a nice story.
Okay,
that’s how The Hurting Place got its name.
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