How To Dismantle With Care

Hi there. Lakshya here, again, back with a new guide where I tell you 'how I wrote it'. This one is about my story 'Dismantle With Care'. Probably best that you read it first. 

Side-note: We also have 'Dismantle With Care' as an adventure on the Playground, which some of you have already partaken in. You're welcome to try it out!

Alright, back to the guide. Hope you've read the story by now. And at least breezed through the adventure because it tells you about the limitations I set for the story. Mainly that it had 3 levels of exploration and had to have a reading time of under 30 minutes. 

With this story, I wanted to tackle the idea of 'the full circle of love': the beginning, the middle, the end, and then back to the beginning again. 

I’ve tackled divorce before. Or at least the idea of it. But this one, had to be real. These two had to be two people that you do not want to see together, because they were a mess.

Or at least that’s what I thought when I started this thing. Because what started as a fun thing to write where I just have two people throw insults at each other, became something much deeper. I didn’t know it when I started it, but I was about to write a story about uncured pain.

And when I started writing about the present, I had to build a backstory. And that’s when I realized that I could just show you rather than tell you. So I wrote the past days. To figure out who these people must have been, how different and hopeful their story was, back in the day.

Stitching them together wasn’t super easy. I was essentially writing two separate short stories, that just happened to be starring the same people at different points in time. So let's break things down into sections so I ramble less. 

What's The Point

This is the first thing I think about when I start working on a new story. What's the whole goddaaammm point of me taking time away from playing the new God Of War game and putting it into writing something new? With this one, the first thing I wrote was in January of 2017. And it was the following words...

A divorced couple meet years later and talk. It'll be 'A Divorce To Remember'. 

That was the working title on this thing until a couple weeks ago. What followed that sentence (probably a few days / weeks after) was the first scene of the story where M & W just start saying mean things. The point of starting with that section was to drop you right into the story and let the dialogue show you who these people are, what their relationship is, and why they're seeing each other again.

This initial exchange between these two people is where the idea of 'uncured pain' became the focus. But it took me about 15 months to figure that out. I wasn't thinking about this story during that break, because it wasn't the headspace I wanted to be in. I needed to write a lot of other things before I could think about this one. Patience was key here. I knew that I would get back to it eventually, but I needed to learn some other things about my writing before I could tackle something like this. 

So around the end of March, a few weeks after I'd finished YODO, I went through my unfinished drafts, looking for something that clicked. Something I was ready to figure out. It's in these moments where my drafts list feels a memory palace. I walk around through it, and see what calls to me. It's really weird and romantic at the same time. Reminds me of the time I walked through Amsterdam's 'Red Light District'. Surreal, almost fantasy-like. 

Anyway, that stroll through Lakshya-Narnia (Larnia?) is how I came back to A Divorce To Remember, which I then retitled to 'Dismantle With Care'. So let's talk about that title now.

The Title

My titles aren't just titles to me. They're more like the TARDIS from Doctor Who: bigger on the inside. I've probably mentioned this before, but I'll re-state it - in order to fully immerse myself into writing a story, I need to know the title. Which means I also put a lot of pressure on myself to get the right title. Because if the title isn't good, what does that say about the story? 

The story of how this story's title came to me is actually quite full circle in itself. Around April 1, we launched Launchora Store. And then a couple days later, we started putting together the first set of deliveries. So I was walking about office, and I saw this tape that said 'Handle With Care' because it's what we were putting on any packages with the framed art print. So I thought - it would be funny if we started putting that tape around people. Because that's what falling in love can feel like sometimes. We're trying to tell the other person - 'handle me with care'. Then I thought, how would you apply that to a couple whose relationship is disintegrating? Because the end of a relationship is usually supposed to be messy and emotional. So I just said it out loud - 'Dismantle With Care'. That's the hope. The goal. That when you end something, you do it with care. 

So I liked that title. But then I realized that my story wasn't about their divorce. It was about them seeing each other again years after the divorce. So the title wasn't about the end of their marriage, and more about the end of the anger that these two had towards each other. So when they are telling each other how they feel in this story, they're letting go of all the things they wished they had said or done, and instead are finally being honest without fear of losing that person. Because that part's over. So the dismantling became out the emotions, and not just the relationship.

When I figured that out, I knew that just focusing on these two old people isn't enough. I had to create a theme of...

Youth vs Adulthood

Growing up is not easy, and sometimes not even fun. And people and plants aren't the only things that grow up - relationships do some growing too. And sometimes that too can become not-so-pretty. So in order to balance out the moods, and show you who these two people used to be, I split the story into two timelines - the 'Present Day', and the 'Past Day'. Both timelines are talking about Youth and Adulthood. Not wanting to grow up and become an adult. Becoming an adult and wanting to re-discover their youth. All the potential young love and youth can create. All the disappointments adulthood can bring about. 

I wanted you, my dear reader / storyteller, to be able to relate to these people, even when you didn't want to. Whether you're 15 or 20 or 60, I wanted these two people to say something that made you go 'I've thought about that too.' That way, you're able to stay interested in the characters, and the story. Keeping a broad theme that is inclusive helps draw the reader's attention, giving them one of two feelings: a) I've been through this, and/or b) Will I go through this too?

So their words had to be the focus, not the people. Which is why this story has... 

No Names

You may have wondered why the characters are just called M & W. For all the talk I just gave you about the story title, it does seem like I care very little about the character names. I named them M & W for Man & Woman. Why? Well at first it was to make things easier - I wrote a lot of this story on my phone, which meant a lot of quick typing so I don't lose my thoughts. Then, when I was finishing up the story, I figured that I should keep them as is, because giving them names like Derek and Susan wouldn't add anything to the story. If anything, it felt like a distraction. Like I said earlier, I want you to see yourself as these people. And the easiest way to create the fantasy of belief was to keep them anonymous, so you can be them without even thinking about it. 

Same goes for B & G at the end by the way - the twins are Boy and Girl. 

The letters M and W being upside down versions of each other only helped pushed the agenda of having you ignore their names and even genders. Besides the 'him' or 'her' mentions, you could re-read the entire story by switching their dialogue and it would still make sense. Because my story is not about Man vs Woman. It's just a story about M and W. Heck, you could even imagine M as Mark and W as Walter and it would still work. 

I know this is going to sound like I'm making it more than it is, but to me M and W are two pieces of a puzzle. They technically could fit together, and they did, for about 15 years. And then they broke apart. Which also happens. Sometimes people have doubts. They don't know if there is another piece out there which they could have a better fit with. Which is why the actual writing of this story felt like I was making...

A Puzzle That Solves Itself

I wrote this one like a puzzle. Bits and pieces. Words here and there. I would write a line for Present Day M, and then write one for Past Day W, and keep switching around. It was very confusing sometimes. At some points, I couldn't decide if something was better as a Present Day moment of a Past Day moment. Which is also why I only showed you 15 minutes from their multiple-hours long conversations on both days. I kept the focus on the parts of the conversations that had a correlation across the days. 

The part where it felt most like a puzzle was the ending. I wrote the ending about half way through the story. And by the ending I mean the Present Day timeline's ending, where M & W stop fighting and start developing a new relationship. I knew I didn't want them to get back together or anything like that, but it had to feel like these two are finally done with being angry and are ready to be a family again, without the romance. This new love had to feel new, but familiar. They were friends before, and they are friends again.

Why did this ending feel like a puzzle? Because I had no idea how to get to it. I had a beginning, and I had an ending. I had no middle. I knew everything I wanted the story to be about, I knew who these people were, but I just didn't know how to get them to reach a new understanding which they haven't already been through yet in their 25 year-long history. 

And on top of all of that, I also had a 'fun' self-imposed challenge to keep the story under 30 minutes. So the puzzle had to be treated like one that didn't need to be solved by me. These are two people that need to feel real and relatable, as 22 year olds AND 47 year olds. So their conversations had to feel like a mix of 'things I've always thought about but never said' and 'things I just realized about our relationship'. They are both trying to solve their own puzzles, and I'm just helping them figure it out. And the only way I can help them solve this giant puzzle is through typing, and then even more typing. I do the typing, they do the solving. 

Now, I tend to usually only type stuff I need, so I don't end up with any leftovers. But sometimes, even if you write something or think of something that sounds good, it may not belong in the story. That brings us to the final topic... 

What Didn't Work

I've never talked about this before, which is why I think it's an important thing to focus on. When you're writing a story, you're basically God, and you have all the powers in the universe. You can do anything. You can jump through time. You can have one person say 'No one taught you how to be a man' - which sounds so, so very mean - and then just see how the other person would react. You can even literally play God and cause a Tsunami to hit the bar. I mean, at one point I even thought about having M propose to W in Disneyland in the Past Day.

So how do you play God and still stay away from putting in something that isn't necessary to your fictional story's truth? 

Let's go to a quote from the movie 'Hugo' to figure this out -

'Everything has a purpose, clocks tell you the time, trains takes you to places. I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine... I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.'

Think of your story as a machine with no extra parts. OR a puzzle with no extra pieces. Everything that actually needs to be in the puzzle has a place. Everything that doesn't fit, throw it away. Maybe it is a lose piece of a different puzzle that you'll work on in the future. 

That brings us to the whole point of this guide. There is truth in the fiction we create. And putting together a story requires us to explore those truths. And in order to get it right, and to achieve a sense of satisfaction with your work, you have to first form a picture in your head. Then you have to break that picture into little pieces - just like a puzzle. 

When you start typing, you're dismantling the picture in your head, piece by piece, and then re-creating it with words. So, my dear storyteller...

Dismantle With Care. 

I hope this guide inspired you to solve your own puzzles. Tap on 'start writing' below to start putting the pieces together!