Week 2 Exercise: From Situation to Plot

The nurses and doctors have finally left my side. Now it is just my mother and father in the room. I know it is tough for them to see me like this, but it could have been worse. It was a freak accident that put me in this hospital bed. I was crashing the net, going for the loose puck like I have done many times before, but this time I lost my balance. The opposing D-man and I collided – and then I collided with the boards. I thought it was just a stinger, until I blacked out.
I have been playing hockey my whole life. I just turned sixteen a month in to this season. I was finally playing in the OHL, and was doing well. My ice time was increasing, and my shifts becoming more regular. My parents financially supported me through the years. The skates and equipment was not cheap, and they made sacrifices. I was finally showing them that it was paying off. The better I did, the worse my home-life got.

My mother and father fight a lot. I am frequently used as the source, though I am sure that without me, they would still fight. Maybe without me, they would be divorced. My mother hates hockey. She deems it too barbaric. She used to always say, “one day because of this stupid ‘game’, you will wind up in the hospital.” My father would mock her, and I would laugh. I look at both of their faces and see no laughter now.

I will be okay. There will be no permanent damage. The doctor says I am lucky. There have been cases similar to mine where the player became paralyzed. Player. I always hated that term. I do not merely “play” hockey. I live it. From when I learned to skate at four, until now, all I wanted to do was be on the ice. In the beginning it was just because this seemed to be the only thing that made my father proud. My mother could barely watch my games. When I was younger, and my father was at work, she had to take me to games. She never watched. I could sometimes see her in the near empty stands reading a book. I wonder now if she ever could fully concentrate on the novel. Tonight was the first time she came to a game this season. And I ended up crumpled along the end boards.

My mother was still slightly sobbing. Her eyes were red and puffy. She no longer had the tissues in her hand though. My father had his arm around her. He was comforting her. It felt like a normal family for once. No yelling across the dinner table. No fights about the lack of money – which was often blamed on the travel and equipment needed for hockey. I actually felt comfort. Maybe it was a small, unfortunate incident that could make us a family again. Maybe my parents could see that they still loved each other, and that I loved them. We could be a normal family. Our nights could be spent joking around, and telling each other how our days went – with no accusations.

“Don’t worry honey. The doctor stated it is only a concussion and an inflamed disc. Everything will be okay and back to normal soon enough. This isn’t career-ending.”

As soon as he stated that, I knew nothing would be okay. I saw my mother stiffen up and pull away from him. She started yelling. I could hear the anger, but I swear there was some fear in her voice too. How could he even think about me playing hockey again? She was stating that it was because of him pressuring me to continue playing that I almost wound up paralyzed. I wished the nurses would come in to check on us, but my wish was unfulfilled. My father tried to find the right words to say. Tried to go back to being comforting. He was never good at that. I could hear the frustration creep in to his voice. The more she accused him of causing me to end up here, the angrier he got. I was trapped. I was unable to get out of the bed. There was nothing I could do to get both of them to stop fighting. If I gave up hockey, I would disappoint my father. I would disappoint myself. If I didn’t give up hockey…I am unsure what my mother would do. I fear that this would be the end of their marriage. This would be the incident that finally made her give up. This seemed to be too much weight to put on a teenager’s shoulders. I have to not only choose sides…but whatever I stated would affect my life. Do I give up the sport that I love, and potentially save their marriage – and our family? Do I state I want to continue to play, knowing that the fighting will never end, and knowing that there is only a slim chance that I could make a career out of hockey? I had to choose between my two loves – hockey and family.

“Don’t worry, dad. I will be ready by playoffs.”

Analysis: I chose to post my story for the From Situation to Plot Exercise 54. I don’t feel this is my strongest story, but I felt this might be the best one to get some feedback. I will briefly mention the other exercises at the end.

I tried writing this a few times. I realized that the only way I seem to be able to move forward is in front of a computer. I just can’t do longhand writing. I don’t know why this is, and seems like this will make things harder for me to edit and review – but I will fail every time if I use a pen. My paper remains blank.

I am not fully sure if I succeeded in having this fully character-driven. The end seems to have moved to the plot-driven. I am unsure if that is true, and I hope someone will comment on if they feel this was completely character-driven, or if I faltered. I noticed that I didn’t use anything from the props exercise. I struggled with this exercise, therefore this is probably something that I am going to attempt again on my own. The ending seems to be a bit open-ended, which goes against Aristotle’s “a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I think this is acceptable because of the top of the page states there should be a resolution of the crisis “or at least ‘something happens’”.

The Skeleton exercise (which won’t be posted) was interesting, because it was tough to focus on just one person. I think when I write, it is usually from one main POV, but there are more than one fleshed out character. I just didn’t like my stories for this exercise.

The What If? and There’s a Party…exercises were not really delved in to that much. My workplace encountered an unexpected turn of events. I had trouble focusing on past stories that I got stuck in. My thoughts have been mainly on my job. There was a short story I wrote and posted in the past that people liked. I thought about strengthening that story – but I feel that went against the goal of these exercises. I was content with the way it ended. Others seemed to enjoy it too.