Chapter 1: The Exposition
Exposition. I use the word when I’m talking about art. Or long-winded explanations. Or plot charts.
I think the word can sometimes be intimidating. I think sometimes people don’t like the prep work. They want the meat. The action. They can’t stand Tolkien’s long-winded explanation of the Hobbit’s histories or Rocky’s slow start. Exposition can sometimes feel like a layer of fat on the top of your meat that you want to just skim off.
If you think of a plot chart like a mountain, sometimes people don’t want to prepare for the climb. They are bored of the fastening, the tightening, the arranging of gear, the phone calls with parents of how long you’ll be gone, and the restocking of food supplies.
But Everest is only as good as its base—it wouldn’t be a mountain with nothing to rest on.
Now, if you know anything about literature, you may be thinking—what about in media res? Don’t authors not need an explanation for everything? Not every story begins with “once upon a time…”
If your friend meets up with you on the day of your big climb and they see you already 15 feet off the ground, rope resting atop one knee, gloved hands jamming your way into a large crack, they’ve missed the exposition. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Exposition is the start of the climb, the essential start of any plot chart, any narrative—whether you see it or not.
Chapter 2: The Initiation, or, the Inciting Incident
BANG!
Skin bleeds into soggy boots as rain water seeps into his jeans.
He holds the revolver—the .38 Special with a smoking hot tip. Eyes water and lips tremble. He retches but manages to swallow back the sick. It stings his throat as he pushes it back down his worn esophagus. Some of it dribbles down his chin into his matted beard. The taste is something like corroded boyhood mixed in with the sour-vinegar taste of halfhearted revenge.
You’ve started the climb. It’s hard going at first, but you’ve gotten your feet off the ground. There’s prep before the climb, sure—but your climb starts when you lift your foot off the ground. You can look up at the wall all day long but it’s pulling your weight off the ground that incites the climb.
Chapter 3: Fall First. Then Rise.
He’s a murderer now and his first victim was his primary school teacher—a thin, wheedling man with thick glasses and a thick skull. The man is about 70 now. He walks with a cane to church every Sunday. Barbara, his meddlesome yet kind wife, helps him up the steps. They don’t creak beneath his weight—he’s too much of a wisp to matter.
Eyes water and lips tremble. The rain is pouring now, in wishy-washy bouts that come and go as they please. The blood is seeping into the soil, mixing with the water and puddling up around the old man laying sideways, limbs splayed out, mouth gaping open with maroon-black hole through the side of the jaw where the bullet burrowed its way through.
I couldn’t even aim right, he thought. I shoulda hit him smack in the skull. Instead, I disconnected his jaw and watched him bleed out.
He doesn’t really know what to think after that. Except that he needs to bury the body. And maybe vomit again.
After the crack-climb section of the route, you now have to maneuver your way along a crimpy section with barely any feet. You hope you somehow manifest the ability to stick to the wall and stick your foot out to the right. It slips. You fall a full fifteen feet before slamming back into the wall. Your friend calls out to you from below but you can’t hear them. Your heart is drumming in your ears and you want to quit. Breath comes in short spurts. Eyes water and lips tremble.
But no—you’re better than this.
Reaching back, you chalk up. Breathe. Reach up. Let the wind rustle your hair and send chills down your spine. Hear the cry of birds from a quarter mile away. Then breathe again. Block it all out. It’s just you and the wall now. No more of this inaction on the wall. Just rise.
He sits on a train contemplating life and death and his empty stomach. His satchel is full of wet, bloody cash. He can’t go home now, can’t run back to Mama. Can’t run back to the past neither. Can’t find a home in hopelessness and sorrow because even sorrow won’t have him. A murderer.
There’s never been a place for him in this world, not with a face like his. Even his teacher knew it. That’s why he called him out on it every day. As if lunch break taunts and beatings weren’t enough.
But guilt doesn’t discriminate. No matter what excuses he threw at it, the feeling still bore through him like the bullet bore through his victim’s head.
He breathed. Breathed again. Let himself hear the screaming child on the other side of the train car and the young woman tap her leg and a young boy say, “What’s wrong with his face, Mama?” And then he let everything fade away.
There’d be a time when he didn’t have to show his face again. A day where he could wear a mask that would become him. He smiled. The bloody cash was his ticket to Better.
The guilt loosened its grip.
Photo Credit: Tracy Zarubin
