Now what?

Harvey, supervisor of the Loading Dock and ABC Trucking, hates to delegate. His new employee, Albert, is frustrated. Harvey’s boss, Bert, is getting ready to write Harvey up for poor performance because Harvey’s employee, Albert, who is untrained, keeps messing up. Albert has already sent a shipment of propellers to an obscure warehouse. Bad idea.

Is this a story? (One hint. Harvey shows up with a fake beard one day. Hmmm. Why does he do that? Clearly, this is not stereotypical business behavior.)

Okay, I didn’t want to make this a workday blah-de-blah, but a chance to write creatively. What’s going to happen?

Characters

I’m reading a book called the “Beekeeper’s Apprentice.” It’s about a 15-year-old English girl, recently orphaned, well-to-do, and living with a creepy aunt in the English countryside around 1915. On one of her lonely long walks she encounters a retired Sherlock Holmes. They become fast friends. I’m only a couple of chapters in, so I don’t know the rest. I knew the premise before I started reading.

I realized as I read the beginning that I was secretly concerned that the first person narrator (the girl) would turn out to be an under-achiever, a female incarnation of Dr. Watson, doggedly trying to keep up with Sherlock’s brilliance. A minor sidekick.

I was wrong. Turns out she’s as bright as dear Holmes, and though young, clearly his equal in IQ points. Phew, I thought. Now I can like her.

Then I stopped. Do I always demand that I like and admire the main character? That’s my question for you. Must the hero be heroic for us to enjoy the story? How many shortcomings can we tolerate? Clearly, no one is heroic from A to Z, but is there a reader’s urge here that we, as writers, need to understand?

What do you think?

Perseverance?

Perseverance furthers, says the I Ching and also Calvin Coolidge. I couldn’t start my new chain saw today. Damn. I know it’s a new tool, but you’d think I could make the dang thing work. Hey, I even had a manual. But I hate to admit how loath I am to study such things. “Click on the cold start icon with the starter lever in safety and the feed bar locked. Hold on with your left arm until it goes numb. Stamp on the thingy that rests on the ground and pull the very reluctant cord that wants to snap your arm off until you hear that wonderful roar of a gasoline engine. Voila!” Yeah, right. Okay, I’ll get it tomorrow. I’ll be more patient. I’ll read the words, call the chain saw guy if I have to, but I WILL MAKE IT WORK. Perseverance. My favorite trait. On what tasks do you bring that slitty eyed, teeth-bared determination to heel?