Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies (19 page)

Spell Binding

I try to write a “what if” question every day. Many of my stories come from that. In this case, the “what if” was, “What if a wizard used a spell book as a trap to defeat a rival?” Naturally, the idea could have been spun out into a wide variety of stories. It could have focused on the rival (as did “The Wizard's Mandolin” from
The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies
). But this is the variation that caught my fancy.

Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies

When my daughter was young, she played on various rec-league teams. There was always a handful of parents (and, sadly, even some coaches) who took things far too seriously. Whenever I thought about possible Weenies title stories, that was one concept that came to mind. But the story itself came together in bits and pieces. I knew there'd be an opening scene with some sort of sport being played. Originally, I thought about soccer, but when the word “strikeout” came to me as part of the title, I realized the story would probably have to be about baseball, at least in part. And when I saw Bill Mayer's amazing cover art, that cemented things. The idea for the ending came next. In the original idea, the story stopped when the Bleacher Weenies got carried off for their reward. But it felt wrong to do that to a bunch of parents, even if they'd behaved pretty badly. As I was thinking about this, the idea for the last scene, and the whole thing about “losing heart,” came to mind, and I knew I could now make the penultimate (I love that word) scene as grisly as I wanted without making the story too scary or depressing. The added kicker about “sacrifice” hit me as I was doing a revision pass. (In case you are wondering, I do a lot of revision passes on these stories. Most of them have been revised at least fifteen or twenty times before I'm finished with them.)

Camping Out

I went camping. Once. That was enough for me. But I got a lot of ideas from that experience, including the plot for a title story, “The Curse of the Campfire Weenies.” (Side note: I wrote that story because my brilliant editor, Susan Chang, felt that a camping scene would make a great cover.) When I started out writing about the girl on the camping trip, all I knew was I liked the idea of someone waking up in a tent and discovering she was alone. When I set the character on the trail, I had no idea what would happen. As much as it's a good idea to plan a story and to do an outline, sometimes it's fun to just start writing and see where your imagination takes you. Just don't forget to bring a flashlight, so you can see what's lurking in the darkest corners of your mind.

Dominant Species

I read an article about the fungus that appeared to be a lot of small growths but was actually one huge life form. That led me to think about other things that are spread across the land, which led me to sand. This story is a good example of how varied the narrative voice and viewpoint can be in different stories in a collection. It's also a great example of how short stories are the perfect way to explore things that would be difficult to pull off in a novel. Basically, I wrote a story about sand, told by an omniscient narrator, after which you read a story about sand. If I wrote a novel about sand, I suspect nobody would ever get to read it.

Swing Round

I've heard about the inside-out thing ever since I was a kid. (Yes, we had swings way back then. They were made with rocks and vines, but they worked pretty well until the mastodons chased us off the playground.) And I am fond of young scientists. (If you share my admiration for young scientists, check out the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie books. Nathan's friend Abigail is an awesome science genius.) This is another case where I started writing with no idea what would happen. That gets easier with practice. I don't recommend doing this too often when you're starting out. It's good to have a road map. But I've written so many short stories, over so many years, I feel pretty comfortable hitting the road without a GPS.

All the Tricks

I was a magic geek when I was in elementary and middle school. (You can see a totally geeky photo of me performing if you go to the biography in the personal section of my Web page,
www.davidlubar.com
.) I remember going to a magic show at the high school auditorium back when I was around ten years old, and feeling pretty smug that I knew how most of the tricks were done. I really wanted to be the kid who got called onstage to help with a trick. It's probably a good thing I wasn't picked. I suspect at best I would have been pretty annoying and, at worst, I would have made a total fool of myself. Those memories inspired the story. As an adult, I can look at that sort of situation from the perspective of the magician. That's what inspired the ending.

enDANGERed

I wanted to write a scene where people are melting down silver so they can hunt a werewolf. (And, for anyone wondering how I came up with ninety-seven pieces, don't forget that backgammon includes two dice and a doubling cube.) The original story started off with a very moody feel. But the story took a twist during the final scenes, and I found myself with a lighthearted ending that didn't match the rest of the story at all. I had two choices. I could find a different ending with a moody feel, or I could keep the ending and make the rest of the story lighter. As tough as it was to give up an opening I felt was nicely crafted, I liked the ending. Moody, literary prose tends to get more respect, and is viewed as having more value, but humor is actually a lot harder to write. (This is an opinion, not a fact.)

Just for fun, I figured I'd share a bit of the original, unedited opening. It would have been very jarring to follow something like this with a funny ending.

My mother looked like she was going to cry when Dad melted down her favorite candlestick. I'd heard rumors and whispers for weeks, but until that moment, I hadn't really believed any of this was real.

“What's going on?” I asked him.

“It's nothing, Sabrina.” He put a hand on my shoulder and smiled, then went back to pouring the molten metal into the molds. I would have felt better if I hadn't felt his arm tremble.

“You're making silver bullets,” I said. “Why?”

“It's just something I have to do,” he said.

I looked over at Mom. She was trying to be brave, too. I guess she was fighting both the sadness of her loss—she'd loved those candlesticks—and the fear of what could happen to Dad. It would be unbearable to lose him.

Two Timers

I started out with the idea that kids find a device that lets them travel a short distance into either the past or the future. Time travel is very tricky to write about. (Note that I used “distance,” which is a spatial measure, to talk about time in the first sentence. It is often easiest to think about time in terms of the properties of space.) When I realized I could set things up so someone traveled in both directions at once, I knew I had a solid basis for a story. As always, any given concept could have led me to all sorts of different endings. I'm not sure I should have let the bully win, and beat up the two kids. Maybe I'll travel back in time and tell myself to change this one so something bad happens to the bully. (Maybe I've already done that. You'll never know.)

Tanks for Your Contribution

I love visiting aquariums. Soon after I went to the amazing one in Boston, this idea came to me. I think it might actually have been inspired by the remoras, even though they don't suck blood, and by seeing signs for upcoming exhibits. I'll admit I thought about having the kid end up as fish food. And I'll bet some of you expected that, as you read the story. But I gave him a break.

The Girl Who Covered Her Face

The ending came from my “what if” file. The idea of unbearable beauty then led me to think about famous faces. After I seized on Helen of Troy, the rest fell right into place. It almost didn't make the collection. I wasn't sure whether the story was just a bit too dark and disturbing for a Weenies book, since there are many younger readers in my audience. (If you're one of my older readers, and able to handle disturbing stories, I put the tales that are definitely not suitable for the Weenies books into a collection called
Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge.
) I also contemplated an even darker ending, where she tries to destroy her face, but it didn't feel right.

Lucidity

Like Cole, I'd read an article about lucid dreaming. That gave me the basic idea for the story. I thought it would be fun to write about a kid who gets obsessed with trying to know when he is dreaming. Unlike Cole, I don't have terrible friends who play pranks on me. But I have the sort of mind that thinks up pranks (even though I don't play them on my friends), so that gave me the idea for the ending. Speaking of which, the final line, where Benjie flies off (implying Cole is actually dreaming), was a last-minute addition. Until then, the story ended with the fairly weak and unsatisfying line, “Cole had a feeling the nightmare was just beginning.” As I was looking for a better line about Cole, the idea to have Benjie fly off hit me. I hope that wasn't too much of a leap.

Bangs in Your Eyes

The beginning and the ending came to me pretty much together. (This is rare. If I know the opening, it usually takes a bit of thought, or a bit of writing, before I know the ending. And if I know the ending, I have to think a while before I know how things should start.) In this case, the idea of exploding faces and the actual explosion of the calculator arrived on the same bus.

The Talk

This story was born of my own hazy memories. I recall a day when the girls were called to the auditorium, to get a talk about things that applied only to them. I don't know if schools still do that. As I was putting together the collection, I was a bit worried that this story might be seen as implying that only the boys were lectured about becoming adults. That was definitely not my intention. For that matter, I have no idea what the girls in this story were told. And I'm happy to keep it that way.

Same Bird

My friend Josh, who likes to read my stories to his kids when they go camping, told me the following anecdote:

After reading your stories by the campfire, we all took a hike the following morning. My son kept finding feathers and collecting them, each time announcing “same bird.” I said “This feels like a Weenies story. A boy is walking along finding feathers that he thinks are all from the same bird. As he continues, he finds a beak, a foot, etc. Eventually the bird reconstitutes in his hands and flies away.” To which my daughter added, “But first he pecks out the boy's eyes.”

That's the sort of moment that would make any parent proud. Interestingly enough, I had an idea in my “what if” file about a kid on a hike who sees a dead bird, and then, a moment later, sees an identical one. But I liked this version better. As you can see, I gave it a slightly darker spin. I hope Avi and Isabel approve.

Haunting Your Thoughts

This came straight out of my files. “What if a house was haunted in a way where it did whatever each person living there feared the most?” (Some of my what-ifs are fairly long and rather specific, like this one, while others are a lot shorter.) I like to scatter classic horror forms throughout these books. I've written plenty of ghost stories, and I've touched on most of the other traditional monsters, as well. But a while back, I realized that I'd never written a haunted-house story. The what-if came to me when I was looking for an idea to fill this gap.

Differnet Explorer

Fairly often, when I try to type “different,” I end up typing “differnet.” The typo struck me as an interesting word. I realized it could mean a different type of Internet. Which led me to write about an Internet that is mostly far too familiar, but also different in one mind-numbing way that will make your head spin.

Healed

I'm not sure where the idea came from. I also wasn't sure whether to use the story. It's tricky writing about sick kids. But I've also heard from a lot of kids who've told me my stories helped them get through a tough time (as well as several adults who let me know they'd read my books while undergoing serious medical treatments), so I decided to take a chance.

Stunt Your Growth

When I see kids running around a mall, my first instinct is to trip them. I can't do that, of course. It would be wrong, and mean, and I'd get in trouble. But I can throw one of them down a cliff in a story. That feels even better.

Urban Girl

There are all sorts of urban legends and campfire stories about ghosts who appear to travelers and then disappear right after the traveler brings the ghost back home. I took that basic idea and combined it with the question, “what if an urban legend met another urban legend?” This is a very rich playing field for stories.

The Principle of Discipline

It is sometimes difficult for a school to get rid of a bully. Naturally, I thought about what would happen if a principal decided to make it easy to get rid of them. I'm often asked why I write about bullies. The answer is simple. Stories require conflict. (At least, the sort of stories I like to write.) Bullies are definitely a source of conflict. If you want to read a book that tells the story from the viewpoint of both the bullies and the victims, check out my novel
Flip.
It's a lot of fun.

Fwosty

As I look for new ideas for stories for these collections, I'm always searching for areas I haven't explored. I've written plenty of vampire stories, and I plan to write plenty more, because they are such a great subject, but I also like treading new ground. That's why, as I mentioned above, I wrote a haunted-house story. I was thinking about that one day, when I realized I wanted to write about a killer snowman. I might also have been influenced by those great Calvin and Hobbes snowman cartoons that are wonderfully dark and twisted.