The Anecdote, Part 2

Confession: I feel guilty when I throw away paper towels or napkins that are only barely used, but I'm not so environmentally conscious as to save them for later.

Reading:

• "L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story," by Lauren Groff
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Hitches a Ride" - 1,520 words (Estimated completion 17%)
• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold" - Outline 100%
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"
  
• "Cora and the Sea" - Third draft 50%

Four days on, and the Tea lady is silent. Maybe she's drinking tea. Or maybe she read this blog, which reveals the story was originally about coffee. (Horror of horrors!)

No matter. I had a homework assignment, and now I'm going to turn it in. I did hear a really good anecdote today. The best kind office anecdote--gossip! I won't reproduce it in full here, since I'd like to keep my job, but it had a few elements that I'd like to point out.

First of all was the setup. "I've got a good story about that," he said, just before relating the anecdote. "Back when I first met her...." And thus the story began. Since the anecdote was part of a larger conversation, the speaker first indicated that the impending narrative related to the topic of conversation. He did something else, too--he claimed the floor. There were five of us in the room, carrying on a couple of conversations at once, but when the story began, we all fell silent, ready to listen.

Finally, he established the time of the story, in the indefinite past. Since the story was about a work colleague, we assumed that the setting was the workplace. We were almost ready to go.

One more detail... the speaker commented about an aspect of his physical appearance at the time which differed from his appearance now. This was vital to the understanding of the narrative, and it was introduced at an early stage.

Now that the stage was set, the narration began. It was a short reconstruction of dialogue between the two characters, and I must say, the narrator of the story did a pretty good impression of his colleague's voice. As expected, the detail of the physical appearance served as the fulcrum of the story; without it, it would not have made sense, or got a big laugh.

Once the climax had occurred, we all felt licensed to comment on the story, expound on it, or generally return to conversation. The anecdote was over, and conversation resumed.

What I found intriguing about the whole business was the behavior of us, the audience. When the story began, we let it be told. And it would have been rude to interrupt. We accepted the initial detail of the physical appearance even though it had no bearing on the conversation up until that point. Why? Because the very first sentence put us into the framework of a story, and that's what we expect.

I think a lot of the way that people react to the written word comes from our reactions to spoken narrative. We are not expected to contribute, only to pay attention. We can accept unconnected details as relevant, even if they have no bearing on what comes before. The presentation of dialogue is easily understood, and with minimal speaker tags.

Of course, there might be a little bit of the chicken and the egg in this. After all, who's to say how much of our style of telling anecdotes is influenced by a lifetime of reading?

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1.30?
• Rejected: 2
• Pending: 1.70?