Where are you going? Where have you been? Discussing a short scary story by Joyce Carol Oates

Sometimes the best way to learn about writing is to see what someone else has done and why it worked. That is what Emma and I did today. She shared Joyce Carol Oates' short story with me, entitled, "Where are you going? Where have you been?" If you are interested in reading it for yourself, see link below. http://www.d.umn.edu/~csigler/PDF%20files/oates_going.pdf I learned one technique about creating fear in the reader from Stephanie More, which was that the audience knows more about the situation than the main character, because the main character rationalizes the danger away. In this story, however, Oates doesn't do that. The reader does know more about the situation than the main character, and in fact, is probably one step ahead of her all the way, and the effect is terrifying. Oates also spends a lot of time setting the terror up, by presenting several pages of banality, and typical teenage angst and behavior, to the point that I started flipping the pages, wondering how long this story is. But when the danger sets in, I understood why she did what she did: the contrast between yawning boredom and the scary guy made the fear more tangible. Em and I had a great time picking the story apart: noting all the foreshadowing, the close third person point of view (which allowed the reader to know more than the main character about her situation), the skill that Oates used at the climax of the story (incredibly awesome use of bodily functions as metaphors for murder), and the way she portrayed the antagonist's perception of reality. We were confused about the secret code used in the story, and read several essays about it, and I wondered why someone just didn't ask Joyce Carol Oates what she meant by those numbers. If you decide to read this story, I encourage you to read it in the light of day.

Blah, blah and blah

He was a nice older man, who looked ten years younger than his seventy-something years. Jim was his name. Yes, Jim. He introduced himself to Emma and me after talking non-stop for an hour, only ceasing because I packed up my computer and left the coffee house. Emma is more tolerant than I am. After fifteen minutes I was ready for him to be quiet and let us write. But he didn't stop, and blah blah and blahed some more. About his great life, about partying with the Grateful Dead, about Janis Joplin and her psychedelic sports car that someone stole. About how he didn't like alcohol, but really liked pot. The hippie talk annoyed me, but when he started in telling my daughter about how much he enjoyed smoking pot, I bristled inside. The man has no judgement, no filter about who he is talking to. Yes, my daughter at nineteen is an adult, but I really don't need some stranger telling my kid the wonders of pot. So, an hour for writing lost. Emma did remark what a good character he was, and to a certain extent she's right. He said something about his brain being so strong it could make a noise, and then he did something with his hearing aid that made it squeak.