Lyrics

[intro]
Nobody knows, how much you fought for this
Nobody goes, to the lengths you've gone for this 
Somebody should show you the spirit you show the world
Anybody that won't hear you, over the fucked up, noise inside their heart
Doesn't earn the right to do you wrong

[Verse]
So don't sweat it there's a life out in the great wide
World. You don't have to be the one to sacrifice
It is enough that the glow inside your soul's bright
And it's brighter than each star's light

[Chorus]
No don't give up your Bright side
Though it hurts, hold onto the bright light
All their current disappointments will fade away
As long as you don't give up what makes you special

[Interlude]

[Verse]
Everyone you love is going to be alright
Cause, your beating heart is holding up every side.
So take the path that won't leave you in the dark night
Wondering if, there's more to life. 

[Chorus]
No don't give up your Bright side
Though it hurts, hold onto the bright light
All their current disappointments will fade away
As long as you don't give up what makes you special

[Outro]
Nobody gets to tell where you belong
Nobody should guilt you into settling
For anything less than the love you give
The world should live
To give it back
Don't take it back
Just to make things easier
For those who just don't know

No don't give up your Bright side
Though it hurts, hold onto the bright light
All their current disappointments will fade away
As long as you don't give up what makes you special

Burning. My skin—burning. Eyes open—bright—lids screaming. My stomach jumps, throat open, roaring out—splashing. Crying.

Burning. Red. Blisters all the way down—naked—arms reach, cover. Burning.

A voice—”Not my doing—silk don’t survive the Black River.” A shape in the light.

A man, hair dark. A roar echoes in—hooves pounding.

“They’re looking for you. I best be off.” Metal gleams—motors rumble.

“Take me...” Throat burning, tongue thick. “With you.”

Roll, pull up, blisters popping—stinging—on the stones.

His head shakes and he unhooks something from the mount, brings it—scritch-thump, scritch-thump. “You need a healer, and I don’t heal. Drink.” The canteen sloshes.

Clutching it, my fingers scream, he unscrews the cap. Water burns all the way down. “I can’t go back... help me.”

“I already did. The king rides with the black plume on his helmet. He thinks you’re dead, princess Zareen. His grace has to be better than the backend of my mount.”

I squint, his face won’t come clear. “You know... who I am. My father’s grace already—” Tears sting my face. “—failed me. I am promised to Malik... Hadid. He’ll drag me... rape me. Chop my fingers, knuckle by knuckle until I yield.” Head shaking. “I will never yield.”

He glances past me, lips thin. “I believe that. But I made my own promises to the Iron King. I suggest you hide—plenty of places in this canyon.” He turns. “The water should last until they give up looking for your bones.”

I shuffle forward; flesh scrapes. “Please, I can pay.”

A laugh. “With what... the silk off your back?”

“I was running for the Rust-Gate. Queen Laila is my good friend—take me, and she will honor you as a hero.”

A snort. “Laila the Queen of Whores. We have... debts. I’d rather face Hadid.”

I fall on my arms. Burning. Everything fogging out. “Please, all debts... paid.”

Scritch-thump—he’s in front of me, kneeling, lifting my chin. “If I’m caught in the badlands with the jewel of al-Dukhan, they’ll cut off both my hands. I’m sorry, princess. You’re on your own.”

He’s gone—scritch-thump, scritch-thump—metal creaks and hooves swish in the sand.

My stomach drops out, but I pull every muscle tight. Burning.

And I’m back on my knees—lift—one foot under me, the other. I rise—teeth clenched. Grains skitters down my body like nails. “When they find me, I will tell them of the man with the club foot who pulled me from the Black River, and I will tell them how he soiled the jewel of al-Dukhan. Do you want their chase, or my gratitude?”

His head shakes. Hooves clatter around the bend.

His mount walks closer. A bundle falls to my feet. “Get dressed.” Then drops something from the saddle—a helmet. Black and red. “Tuck your hair—blisters will hide the rest.”

My chest shudders. “You’re one of them.”

“And now you are too, if you want to live.”

Around the corner, you spot a sign to the caravanserai and weave toward it. A rickshaw bounds from the same corner; you twist away—the abaya flaps wide.

A shout splits the crowd: “Zareen!”

The lead guard trots forward, green eyes flash through the slit of his gold helmet. You back into the crowd, but another shout scatters them.

You run, duck into a repair stall—steel legs hanging, machine oil sweet in your nose—out the back, into the alley. Three mounts in a row. Hooves clank—the guard turns the corner.

You grab the nearest saddle-horn, haul up, kick twice; motors rumble and it bolts.

The guard pulls beside you. You kick and leap onto a ramp curving up. He curses behind you. Another guard waits at the top, helmet black—you veer, kick, leap the rail. Clack-crack-clang—a hind leg catches metal. Your mount lands sideways, leg dragging, hot oil spurting over your grey abaya. You shed it into the wind.

The mount stumbles, lurches on.

You turn up another ramp, but a figure blocks the crest. He reins in hard and his mount towers, pawing the air, motors whining, before slamming to the deck, hooves sparking the grate. A man stares you down, hand outstretched, his red turban like bright blood against the gloom. You haul on your reins, your mount pivots, one leg dragging, metal grinding—you gain speed.

Something whistles, and your mount collapses—roll, crack, clang—your ankle pins under metal, twisting. A bolo around the hind legs. You yank free and limp to the rail. He dismounts, steps toward you, hands wide.

You roll over the rail. Fall—

—onto a lift car flying up, green silk flapping. The ceiling rushes down and you roll again, onto a catwalk. Smoke bites your throat. Daylight ahead. You reach for it.

Hooves clank below—up ramps and over decks. You limp—lurch—metal turns to stone underfoot. The sky opens bright. The floor falls away at a ledge, black water roaring below, sand stretching forever into the sun.

Hooves clank, then click on stone. Guards spill out, splitting by color—green and gold, black and red. The lead guard removes his golden helmet. Your father’s green eyes find yours, soft. His lips pull thin.

The man in black eases forward, lips curling, and leans on his saddle’s horn. A guard in black dismounts. Kneeling before you, he raises a green gem set in silver, nestled on a pillow the color of blood.

You bat it away. The ring arcs over the ledge, a green glint flashing, falling—splash—swallowed by the greasy water.

The man in black sneers. “Is this how the throne of Al-Dukhan honors its agreements?”

He barks. Three guards approach, shackles clinking in their hands.

You catch your father’s gaze. He looks away—then back, and his voice cracks. “Do not dishonor me, Zareen.”

Your face goes red, teeth jammed together. The river roars behind you, its stink rising on the desert wind, hot over your back. The shackles clink. You close your eyes—

—and lean.

Fall.

Nothing catches you.

“Zareen!” your father shouts. The wind rushes it away—splash—the greasy water swallows you.

I took a semester of the Story Grid Writer Mentorship program back in June, 2024. Then I ran out of money. But now I’m a mentor, and we do things a bit differently. This scene was based on a chapter from Ninth House by Leigh Bardego and was supposed to represent a protagonist gaining entry to a forbidden place. We wrote by tropes which turned out to be a very bad way to put a scene together. I ended up with 4500 words and it’s lopsided as hell. But, here is my final draft from that program. I’m migrating my website domain to Substack and realized I never posted this here. I may or may not turn this into a novella someday. I’ll include the trope parameters where they fit as well. I’d rewrite it better today, but sometimes it’s best to leave it be so you can see how far you’ve come.

The Squib wants to Join Mongoose

TROPE 1: PREPARING TO TAKE ON THE ROLE

• The protagonist’s trek to the forbidden place sparks reflection on their relationship to the context.

• This reflection is told through specific events that highlight both the risks of the context from the protagonist’s perspective as well as the protagonist’s fish-out-of-water-ness.

• The protagonist assesses the current context in light of past experiences and current expectations.

• The protagonist takes steps to offset their sense of outsider status.

The pilot cut the engine on the airboat and the flat-bottomed craft slowed and then drifted in the dark. The warehouse was yet a hundred yards off, and Ethan could barely make out the glow of halogen lamps against the rusted metal walls. His chest felt suddenly too small for his thumping heart.

“Hey, why are you stopping?”

“You get off here,” muttered the pilot over his shoulder.

“How am I supposed to get all the way over there?”

“You walk. See, walkway’s right here.” The boat thumped against something hard that shifted disconcertingly, sending ripples of moonlight into the murky water. Other things shifted there too, splashing into the tall grass of the flooded bayou.

“The water goes right up to the place, you can’t take me all the way?”

“Listen, kid, right here’s an imaginary line I do not cross. On this side of the line, I’m just a guy on a boat doing a little night fishing. On that side of the line, I’m a smuggler or a human trafficker, or, to your friends over there, I’m a spy, and I don’t want to catch a bullet from either side of it. You get off here, or I take you back to the road, your call.”

“But I can’t see anything.”

The pilot grumbled and dug around beside his seat. “Here, take my kit. It’s got a flashlight and a flare-gun. I’ll be out here fishing for two hours and then I’m heading in.” The pilot pointed at the rickety walkway. “You need a pickup before then, send up a flare and I’ll get you. From here, not over there. I see anything bright and shiny fly up there, I’m-a skedaddle, got it?”

Ethan nodded, took the bright orange case by the handle and stepped onto the walkway. He clutched the kit to his chest as he watched the pilot fire up the propeller on the airboat and pull out.

“I’m adding a hundred scrips to your invoice for that kit, by the way.” The pilot shouted before revving up the engine and skimming out into the dark.

“Bullshit.” Ethan grumbled as he shook off the chill eating at his stomach. He turned and tested the wood planking with a cautious step forward. Each plank bowed under his weight, but the wood worried him less than the rusted steel that was holding it up out of the water. Lesions pocked the supports here and there like bite marks exposing their brittle emptiness.

Glancing back where the boat had disappeared, Ethan could make out skyscrapers on the horizon. He was twenty miles southeast of downtown Houston, yet the corporate plaza of the Big Three seemed to tower above him. To the fore the tallest building in Texas pierced the clouds at over two thousand feet. At its peak, the red Reuleaux triangle of the Triumvirate logo glared across the miles down through the cloud cover like an evil eye. Somewhere amid all that architecture was the Farm. Effy was there too.

Blue, Red, Orange, Black. Effy had won again. Four guesses that time. Four guesses every time. They were nine, and it was Ethan’s turn. He got it in five. He could beat anyone in school at Mastermind in the library, where they encouraged those kinds of games, where they started watching for abductive savants, monitoring how far a kid could jump to a conclusion, how deep they could go on limited information, how well they could leap. Back then they lived in boxes on stilts over the floodplains, but he remembered those days fondly. They would walk the planks to school to stay out of the muck and Effy would chatter his ear off about the most random things.

Then Effy stopped going to school when hormones rushed in and social mores took primacy over fun and games. The other children stopped talking to the weird girl that couldn’t keep pace with the conversation, the back and forth, the things you said and the things you didn’t, the niceties. Each day, the anxiety grew until one day she refused to go back.

Ethan felt it too, but it was different for him. Boys were different. Most boys are just happy to have an audience and “weird” can be a badge of honor. It wasn’t always easy, but where Effy cared so much, Ethan just grew a thicker shell, impenetrable to everyone. Everyone but Effy. Effy was special in a way that he couldn’t match. Effy always guessed the code in four turns.

They caught her leaping in an online game. She had topped all the leaderboards under a handle, but they tracked her anyway. Effy was good at games, but Effy couldn’t lie. So, when the social workers came knocking, Persephone Turner was conscripted to the Farm and Ethan moved with his mother out of the floodplains and into a two-bedroom apartment with a porch in an arcology — full on middle-class.

Ethan covered his nose with the hand holding the kit as the smell of the rotting bayou crept up from the muck and the grasses. The waters were higher now in the summer, after the storms, but they never quite went away and there the bodies of dead fish, garbage and the seeping effluence of pre-flood industry mixed and mated. Nobody lived out here that wanted to.

To distract himself from the odor, he played with patterns in his head — Number sequences, code sequences, Fibonacci and Lucas. He was thirteen iterations into the golden ratio when he stepped through a broken plank and dark water enveloped his new white kicks and soaked the bottom of his jeans.

The stipend they got for Effy’s participation paid for a lot of things. It kept him in new, if not name brand, clothes, it paid for food and the suite at the arcology, and it kept them stocked on pharmaceutical grade cannabinoids for his mother’s anxiety. She was high when he’d left her that evening, but she still knew what he was up to. Ethan could lie, but he was bad at it.

“But it’s Effy, momma. She’s in trouble.”

“Damned right, and what are you gonna do? You’re gonna get us all in trouble then? That place can help her better than I can, and if they find out you were involved, they’ll cut all this off and we’ll be back in the floodplains beatin’ away mosquitoes with a tire iron. What I keep tellin’ you, baby? You don’t bite the hand that feeds. Everything will be fine. I’m sure Effy’s just having her anxiety, that’s all.”

But there was no anxiety in Effy’s message. It was pure terror. Not the fear you live in when you know that someday the door might burst open and your life would be over in the flash of a barrel, like on the floodplains. No, Effy’s fear was for the human race. The message itself was calm, but that only illuminated her terror all the more. If anyone understood that, it was Ethan — they were twins, after all. He needed these people to see that. He needed them to see him. He wasn’t as special as Effy, but he had skills. That stipend hadn’t paid for these shoes or the cash-on-hand that got him to this swamp. But those were small stakes, and he wanted more than petty theft and shiny shoes. He wanted to do something real. He wanted to get his sister out of the Farm.

Ethan wiped at the muck on his shoes and just glimpsed the rolling flashlight as it dove over the edge of the walk and plopped into the water, dragging a green aura along with it to the bottom. Shit. He could see the walkway well enough, but still he pulled his smartphone out of his front pocket and turned on its tiny flashlight.

Shining the weak light around him, he saw that he’d stumbled onto a square intersection of three walkways abutting a tree stump overgrown with vines. The serrated metal platform beneath him was a welcome change from the rotting planks, but the bayou seemed to rush around this spot and fall in hollow echoes below him. He searched the murky water, but couldn’t see where it was falling, just a black void beneath the grating and wrinkles of moonlight in the rushing water all around.

Looking up, he traced the leftmost path to the warehouse and followed it until it ended. The walkway had collapsed here, leaving a four-foot channel of water between him and a stair tower that led to a door two stories up. As he approached the ledge, the walkway shifted, and something splashed in the water below him. He heard the telltale hiss of an unsettled gator there and he froze.

These were the coordinates Athena had given him, but something felt off. A cool sweat had developed behind his ears and he studied the gap in front of him and the door above where dim yellow light leaked out of a boarded window beside it. He pulled a round chip from his back pocket. This was his invitation. It had arrived on his doorstep in response to a relay to Athena about Effy’s message. On the inside of the brown paper wrapping were the coordinates of the warehouse and a handwritten note in black ink, “The chip will get you inside. BURN THIS!” That’s what had triggered the argument with his mother, him burning a secret note in the porch ashtray. That’s how he ended up here.

But there was no other entrance. So he pocketed his phone and the chip, clutched the flare-kit to his chest, and jumped as far as he could, landing squarely but encouraging another hiss from the gator behind. He put down the kit and straightened his shirt.

TROPE 2: APPEALING TO ROLE WITHIN THE CONTEXT (PLAYING THE PART)

• The protagonist attempts to gain access to the forbidden place through the antagonist/Threshold Guardian.

• The protagonist appeals to their role, responsibility, or right within the context.

• The antagonist/Threshold Guardian undermines the protagonist’s appeals through strict adherence to their own role/position (pits the protagonist’s role against the antagonist’s role).

Up the stairs, the landing at the top was square and sturdy. From here the red eye of the Triumvirate glared like a watcher over the suburban neighborhoods that cascaded out from the city under a blanket of warm, steady light. Here and there the dark carapaces of corporate drones reflected the moonlight dimly as they surveilled the streets, protecting the wealthy in their single family homes. Ethan liked drones, one of many fixations, and he could see that these were autonomous, well armed, and deadly to anyone that didn’t belong. But that protection ended at the flood lands where the blanket of light faded, where the cartels and gangs took control, where Ethan now stood at an abandoned warehouse alone.

He turned to the door. It was simple, but sturdy, with a single pull handle and a thick metal latch guard. On the right was an RFID reader and a call button above a speaker and below a camera. He rolled the round chip over his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, breathing. It looked like a poker chip, blue, ridged, smooth in the center but otherwise unmarked. How would it work? Was it just a token representing the high esteem of Athena, or was it a key? Athena had helped him in the past, given him tips, even praised his work. She made him feel like he really had what it took, but this was Mongoose, an organization as infamous as it was anonymous. Here Ethan felt little more than an imposter entreating entrance to their secret hideout.

Athena had done more than simply relayed his message, though. She’d invited him into the fold. That had to count for something. Ethan stopped fidgeting with the chip and passed it over the reader. An embedded strip of light flashed red with a buzz. The chip was tech, but not a key, it seemed.

He pushed the call button and waited.

The speaker hissed and a male voice crackled through. “We don’t want any.”

Ethan cocked his head and opened his mouth. Shut it.

“You deaf? That means go away.”

“I’m Spitfire- I mean, my name is Ethan Turner. Athena sent me.” He fumbled the blue chip, caught it before it hit the landing and lifted it to the camera.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Ethan pulled back the chip and looked at it, then leaned toward the panel. “Um… Athena sent it. She said it would get me in. She gave me these coordinates.”

“Athena does a lot of things I don’t like. Why are you here, squib?”

“My sister is at the Farm. She sent me a message about what’s really going on there. Athena said you could help.”

“There are a lot of kids at the Farm with a lot of families that regret letting them go. How’s that a reason I should let you in here?”

“I can help. I have skills, Athena can tell you. I’m an ace cracker.”

“Athena this, Athena that. I say, we don’t have any use for you. Now, you get along back to your momma and let us grownups do our job.”

“Look, I know I can help. Just let me prove it. I’ll show you I ain’t no squib.”

The speaker sighed a hiss of static. “Turn around, kid.”

Ethan turned. At eye level and inches away hovered three hexacopter drones that he hadn’t heard coming, that he still couldn’t hear now that they were staring him down. These weren’t simple surveillance drones either. They were military grade builds with a small-caliber, coil-accelerated, slug gun mounted to a gimbal turret under the frame.

“I’m done askin’.” The voice from the speaker now echoed in front of him, bouncing from drone to drone in a menacing reverb. “Now put your hands above your head nice and easy, and walk down those stairs slowly.”

Ethan lifted his arms, but frowned at the display of force. While Effy’s anxiety pushed her inside of herself, Ethan’s became a mirror. And, though his stomach was a ball of ice on this warm June night, his brows furrowed and eyes glared over a sneer pulled taut against dry teeth. “Look, I didn’t come here for trouble. Athena called, and I came.”

“No hard feelings, kid. This is for your own good. Athena made you a promise that she’s in no position to keep and you’ll just get you and your sister killed.”

Ethan shook his head and turned to the stairs, taking each one gingerly as his groin tightened and adrenaline turned his legs to jelly.

TROPE 3: BLUFFING ROLE WITHIN THE CONTEXT

• The protagonist abides by the rules on the surface, but their strategy is driven by their outsider status (the protagonist operates in the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law).

• The antagonist frames the situation in a way that reveals the shared identity (again, this could be between the protagonist and victimized parties or between the protagonist and the antagonist). This should give rise to the Crisis of whether the protagonist will do what it takes to access the forbidden place or if they will acquiesce to the Threshold Guardian.

“I’ll escort you out. I want you to get to your boat nice and safe.”

“I feel safer already. Those are CyTek G-90s right? I bet you got them cheap on account that they like to fire off rounds for no reason.”

“Good eye, but I upgraded the microcontrollers on these babies myself. Just maybe don’t make any sudden moves.”

Ethan swallowed dryly and frowned.

The drones laughed. “See, you feel that? That’s danger, kid, and this op is gonna be dangerous. We don’t need any squibs getting in the way.”

Ethan glared at the drone to his right. “I can handle it. I’ve broken into plenty of places, some of them armed.”

“Not like this you haven’t, kid. You couldn’t even get through our front door with an invitation.”

At the bottom landing, Ethan bent over slowly and picked up the flare kit.

“What’s that?”

“It’s my ticket out of here. Boatman won’t come unless I throw up a flare.”

“Good ‘ol Captain Steve, he probably charged you extra for that didn’t he?”

“A hundred scrips.”

“Hooo! One-hundred scrips for a flare? You’ve got money for that, and a nice new shirt, them shiny white shoes. Hell, I bet you even get your hair coiffed. Do you pay someone to coif your hair, uh, what was your name again?”

“Ethan.”

“Yeah, right. You got money to coif your hair, real nice, like a hairspray model. You gonna give all that up playin’ squib to a bunch of hacktivists?”

Ethan was too busy searching the water for hungry alligators to respond. He jumped when a sudden zook-zook-zook broke the silence and three magnesium slugs threw up dollops of water around the walk. A bigger splash rocked waves against the landing and a long shadow swam into the marshes, carving out scallops of moonlight in its wake.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Ethan glared at the nearest drone and then backed up, took a run at the ledge, and jumped. This time, his toe caught the edge of a plank and he tumbled, rolled, then landed on his back, staring up at a drone hovering above him.

“You alright, kid?”

Ethan kneeled and brushed himself off. The flare kit had broken open and spread its contents over the walkway. He hunted around in the dark until three ovals of light converged on a gap in the planks where the flare gun had lodged. “Need a light?”

Ethan thrust his chin at the nearest drone. He collected the flare gun and the single flare that he could find, but the latch on the clamshell case for the kit had snapped. He kicked the case into the water and loaded the flare into the gun, pocketed it.

The drones swept their spotlights down the walk and Ethan followed, away from the moon and towards the big red eye in Houston.

“I can still be an asset, you know, on the outside. I can scope out the Farm. I’ve got visitation.”

“You ever use it?”

Ethan looked down on the plank in front of him and shook his head.

“They’ll have eyes on you as soon as you walk in the door and throw you in a room with a psy-bot the first time you sneeze. It’s not worth the risk.”

“It is if it means I get Effy out.”

The drones spread out beside the walkway, and the voice pelted him from all directions. “I appreciate your spirit, kid, but we’ve all got someone at the Farm. Ain’t none of us going to jeopardize their safety just to babysit a hotshot that wants to play hero.”

“And what about my sister?”

“We get out who we can.”

“You mean you take care of your own first.”

“Wouldn’t you? But don’t you worry, we’re real good at this shit. Your sister will be home in no time at all, sitting there in your nice arco-suite and chatting all about livin’ at the Farm. You might even take her to get coiffed.”

Ethan stopped, but he didn’t know why. The hairs on the nape of his neck bristled, chasing a tingle down the ridges of his spine. He was standing on the square metal intersection where he’d lost his flashlight. It was different now under the roving gazes of the drone spotlights. What he had first dismissed as a tree stump was nothing of the sort. Rather, the platform was anchored to a thick concrete pillar overgrown with fuzzy-bean vines. The tingle in his spine landed in a clench of his inguinal ring as he focused on something else he had missed — a button pulsing dimly red amid the vines.

TROPE 4: UTILIZING THE ROLE (EXPLOITING THE ROLE)

• The protagonist reflects on their duty within the context.

• The protagonist places their own well-being (opportunity, resources, and/or potential for conflict) at risk to access the forbidden place (the protagonist chooses the transformative option, operating according to the Dynamic).

• The protagonist succeeds in gaining access using a resource, skill, or connection associated with their role or identity in the context.

• The protagonist is rewarded (based on External Genre; this could be with a connection, information that the protagonist needs, resources, or additional opportunities).

“What’re you doing, kid?” Echoed the three drones.

Ethan was leaping — the hollow fall of water below him and the newly exposed button on the pillar beside him triggered a shift in his mental map of the area. The door at the top of the stairs was a decoy. And why wouldn’t it be? Hackers prefer back doors. There wasn’t anything they could do to reinforce that entrance that would keep the corps out if they wanted in. There was another way inside, and Ethan was standing on it.

He didn’t know how it worked or what he had to do but he knew where to aim. He had all the colors but not the order and only one guess left to crack the code. There was just the small problem of a grumpy doorman and his heavily armed drones.

But they didn’t want him here. He should leave well enough alone. All he had to do was make it to the pickup, fire off the flare, get on the boat and go home where it was less smelly and noisy and dangerous. There was food there, there was sleep. But there was also shame in an empty apartment with an always-high mother and nobody else in the world that understood him like Effy.

We get out who we can.

You mean you take care of your own first.

Wouldn’t you?

Wouldn’t he?

Ethan looked at the drone hovering in front of him. “I don’t remember which way I came in,” he lied.

The drones focused their beams on the path to his right. “That-a-way.”

As he walked, Ethan committed as much of this path to memory as he could while simultaneously tracking the surrounding drones, which, he had noticed, weren’t actually silent — they simply tuned their rotor speed in order to blend into the ambient soundscape. Ethan could hear them now babbling like water, chirping like crickets, but those sounds were in the air above, not the marshes below. Knowing their tricks made them easier to triangulate.

He also knew for a fact that CyTek G-90s didn’t have silent running rotor controls out of the factory. The doorman wasn’t lying when he said he’d customized the microcontrolles, but if he’d replaced all the original circuits, Ethan’s plan might not work.

They reached the end of the flood walk, and the sky there was clear. Stars spangled the murky water around him and he stood in the still night, listening. The low level hum of eighteen independent rotors drew a picture in his mind of each drone around him, one on either side and one behind. Their spotlights attenuated on his position, but his eyes were closed. He put a hand in each of his pockets, grabbing the flare gun in his right and Athena’s chip in his left.

“Well, kid, it’s been fun but-”

“It wasn’t the microcontrollers that shitcanned the G-90s, you know that right?”

“What?” An epic sigh reverberated from drone to drone. “Alright, squib, go ahead, tell me what I don’t already know.”

“Better yet, I’ll show you.” Ethan pulled the flare gun out of his pocket.

“Ethan, buddy, don’t do anything stupid.”

“It’s Spitfire, and I told you I ain’t no squib.” With his eyes still closed, Ethan fired his only flare directly at the drone behind him at near point-blank range.

The flare careened off the drone harmlessly but that wasn’t the point. The zero-lux cameras on each drone suddenly absorbed over forty thousand lux of orange incendiary light, frying the flight stabilization systems — the key defect that sent all three into a tailspin. The turret on each drone tracked the flare and fired magnesium bullets that caught light and streaked across the sky like tiny comets, sizzling as they struck the water.

Ethan ducked under the chaos and bolted through the dark, back down the walkway, each foot landing squarely on each memorized plank. By the time he reached the metal platform with the vine-covered pillar, the chaos behind him had died down and the silence pulsed in his ears as even the crickets refused to strum their leg-harps.

If the doorman had any more drones at his disposal, they wouldn’t be long coming. He swept aside the vines covering the pulsing red button, but nothing happened when he pounded it in desperation. The adrenaline that had gotten him this far changed shifts with cortisol and anxiety fluttered his heart into panic. He ripped away the vines, exposing the pillar in full, and searched the dull gray thumb of concrete until he felt a slit on one side of it. He slammed the blue chip into the slot, and the pulsing red button shifted to a hopeful green.

Another set of drones buzzed out of nowhere, not even playing at stealth. He slapped the button and was falling.

Falling as the moon winked out, and the drones went silent.

Falling as water rushed around him but he stayed dry.

Falling as his heart palpitated in his throat and the breath froze in his chest.

Falling and then a jolt where inertia carried him to his knees on the cool metal grating.

When Ethan opened his eyes, a narrow tunnel stretched before him lit by dim strip lights. Two figures argued there in the gloom as they rushed towards him. He held up his hands as he stepped forward shakily, unsure what had just happened or where he was or whether these strangers were going to come at him swinging.

First through the tunnel was a tall woman with golden hair fading to green, then blue as it cascaded over her shoulders. Dark makeup barely concealed tired eyes. “You shot at him with live rounds! Are you insane!” She hollered at a shorter man behind her.

“I didn’t shoot at anyone. That dipshit fired a flare and set off the auto-defense.” That was the doorman. He wore a white shirt covered in bright red hibiscus flowers over dry tan skin.

“Ethan, are you okay?” The woman must be Athena, he realized.

“Sure… yeah, all aces.”

They were guiding him now, Athena with a hand on his shoulder and the doorman beside him. The tunnel opened out into a cement cavern where great pillars marched in evenly spaced rows down the length of it. At the center was a brightly lit platform with equipment, monitors and tendrils of thick cable stretching every which way.

Ethan gawked at the immensity of the space. “What is this place?”

“An underground reservoir. The warehouse above was a datacenter before the floods, and they stored a million gallons of clean water here for cooling servers that trained AI models while people downstream died of dysentery.” This voice was different, in charge, a gentle canter of Kreyòl that echoed in silky waves through the damp reservoir. A dark brown man emerged from behind a pillar. He was wearing a simple white nehru shirt over blue jeans with black snakeskin boots that scraped and clicked in staccato on the gritty concrete.

“And you’re damned lucky to be here, too.” Barked the doorman. “Goddamn kid, you almost got yourself killed.”

“Cerberus, that’s enough. I’m sure Spitfire here was well aware of the risks. Legba opened the gate for him tonight and he is here now, safe.” The man in the nehru shirt cocked his head then. “Do you still doubt he has what we need?”

Cerberus pursed his lips, then stomped his foot. “Okay, so he figured out the door. I still don’t like having a kid here, Wizzer. There’s too much at stake.”

“Precisely. We are too methodical and averse to risk. Step by step, we lose ground, frozen by our fear of doing any harm. We cannot win at chess with an AI. We need chaos, disruption. We need a leaper. Tell me, Ethan, how would you infiltrate the Farm?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Perfect! Let’s begin.”

The Constraints

🙏 The “Take a Chance on Me” Scene

✨ The Antagonist wants the Protagonist to agree to go on a date.

• Inciting Incident: Antagonist asks the Protagonist on a date

• Crisis: Trust Dilemma

• Climax: The Protagonist says yes or no

• Word Count: 800 max

• PoV: 1st Person, present - Antagonist

The Plan

Why does the Antagonist want to go on a date with the Protagonist?

• The antagonist is a EMT, and she is asking her partner to marry her, because she just found out he has terminal cancer and will be dealing with it alone after he retires the next day.

What is the crisis that the inciting incident is going to lead to.

• The partner will either say yes, or no to the Antagonist’s proposal.

Inciting Incident: You should marry me. Him: Are you kidding?

Progressive complications:

• No, you’ll need someone to manage things when you’re on chemo <-- If I even do chemo

• Then if you don’t you’ll really need my help <-- Why would you want to go through this again?

• Because you put me back together after Don. <-- And then who’ll help you when I’m gone?

• I’ll do therapy. <-- Laughs

• Don’t be an ass. I want to be there for you, however this ends up. <-- I just can’t put you through that, I’ve got a solid retirement, I’ll have a home nurse, I’ll have the best doctors. I’ll be taken care of.

• But who will make the hard decisions when you can’t?

Turning Point: I’ve already filled out a DNR, I don’t need you to make that decision for me, I won’t let you carry that. If you want to help me, bring me soup that won’t taste bad coming back up.

Crisis: I won’t be here to bring you soup. I’ve already been over the matter with HR, and I’m not taking another partner. There’s an opportunity out of town that I need to accept by the weekend. I can’t watch another man I love die from the sidelines. If I’m going to mourn you, I’d rather start over somewhere else.

Climax: He agrees to marry her.

Resolution: She smiles and hands him a ring made from a twisty tie.

The Render

I shut off the motor and the hot metal clicks cool. “How long do you have?”

John tugs on his shoulder strap, staring straight ahead. “Six months without chemo.”

I frown. “And with?”

John shakes his head. “Maybe a year? More? Who the hell knows.”

I pick up a straw wrapper from the dash and uncrumple it.

John sighs. “Don’t think I wanna find out, either. There are better ways to die.”

I snap up and glare. “So that’s it? You finally retire after forty years just to ride off into the sunset?”

He shrugs. “Pension buys six months on a nice beach or a few years of puking poison. We both know how this fight goes.”

I flatten the wrapper neat and fold it. “Alone on a beach.”

He shrugs. “Alone either way.”

I curl the wrapper over my finger. “Marry me then.”

John’s eyes pop. “Excuse me?”

“You need someone to take care of you when things get bad.” I meet his eyes. “Let it be me.”

He shakes his head, tugging the shoulder strap, hand on the buckle. “No. No, not a chance.”

I hold his eyes. He huffs and looks away. “Why would you want to go through that again?”

“Because I know I’ll survive it.” I flip and fold the wrapper. “You put me back together after Don, I owe you.”

He glares at me. “And you me with Martha. We’re even!”

My lips go flat. “That’s not how love works, John.”

“Love, Penny? I’m older than your dad.” He swirls his finger over his groin. “And ain’t none of this gonna work at all real soon.”

I scrunch my nose and blow through it. “Don’t be an ass!”

He throws up his hands. “I’m just sayin’, I’m taken care of. I reached full investment, so I’ll have nurses, home hospice, brand name Jell-O from the cafeteria. You can visit me, bring me a card, some scotch in a tea bottle and then go home to some young healthy guy who can take care of you for a change. I don’t need you waking up a 4 am to wipe the diarrhea off my ass.”

“What about PoA? Who makes those decisions when you can’t?” I breathe and my chest shudders. “Who’ll make sure they honor your DNR?”

His eyes are red when he looks at me. “You want me to sign that over? Fine. You don’t have to be Mrs. John Hanson to do that.”

I lay a hand on his shoulder. “But, John, I want to be.”

He shakes me off. “And I don’t want to leave behind a widow.” He turns away; his eyes are closed in passenger window’s reflection. “Why can’t I just close my eyes on friends.”

I fiddle with and flip the wrapper. My eyes heat up. “I’ll feel it the same either way. You know me, I can’t watch from the sidelines while another man I love dies. I’ve already accepted an offer out of state.”

John turns back to me, brow scrunched.

I shrug, twiddling the wrapper in my fingers. “A month ago, your plan was some condo in Costa Rica, and I wanted out of here, so I applied in Colorado Springs.”

John’s hands shake and squeeze his seatbelt. “Then you should go. The DNR is settled. If they bring me back I’ll raise so much hell they’ll smother me with a pillow.” He picks at his eye.

I glower at him but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “Is that what you want, John? Flowers from friends who care for you but won’t visit because it’s ugly? The gloved hands of a nurse rolling you over, cleaning your vomit, speaking soft but unworried, uninvested.” I tuck in the edges of the wrapper in my fingers, and smooth the folds. “Or do you want a woman who loves you, who’ll cry with you when the pain is too much. Who’ll speak for you at the funeral.”

He buries his face in his hands. “I don’t want to be alone, Penny.”

I blink, a tear breaks loose. “Then, John Hanson, will you marry me?” I hold up the ring I’ve made of straw wrapping.

He looks over and takes the ring, laughing, chest shaking, tears streaming. “Yes.”

I laugh too and smile through the tears running down my face. I reach out and thumb away the tears from his. “Then it looks like we have some planning to do.”

Editor’s Protocol

1. What are the forces of Antagonism?

Penny

2. Who is the Protagonist?

John

3. What do the forces of Antagonism want the Protagonist to do?

Penny wants John to marry her so she can take care of him as he fights or dies from cancer.

4. What does the Protagonist want to do?

John wants Penny to live her own life without losing her entirely.

5. What is the 1 emotion the reader will experience?

Hope?

6. What is the Inciting Incident?

I curl the wrapper over my finger. “Marry me then.”
John’s eyes pop. “Excuse me?”

7. What is Turning Point?

John’s hands shake and squeeze his seatbelt. “Then you should go. The DNR is settled. If they bring me back I’ll raise so much hell they’ll smother me with a pillow.” He picks at his eye.

8. What is the Crisis? Does John say yes or no:

“Is that what you want, John? Flowers from friends who care for you but won’t visit because it’s ugly? The gloved hands of a nurse rolling you over, cleaning your vomit, speaking soft but unworried, uninvested.” I tuck in the edges of the wrapper in my fingers, and smooth the folds. “Or do you want a woman who loves you, who’ll cry with you when the pain is too much. Who’ll speak for you at the funeral.”
He buries his face in his hands. “I don’t want to be alone, Penny.”
I blink, a tear breaks loose. “Then, John Hanson, will you marry me?” I hold up the ring I’ve made of straw wrapping.

9. What is the Climax?

He looks over and takes the ring, laughing, chest shaking, tears streaming. “Yes.”

10. What is the Resolution?

I laugh too and smile through the tears running down my face. I reach out and thumb away the tears from his. “Then it looks like we have some planning to do.”

11. Who won the scene? Penny

Lyrics

[intro]
Now here's one for you 'bout a snail named Steve
And a storm in the valley you’d scarcely believe 
It's a tale of adventure, and danger and choice
Will you cry at the end? Or will you rejoice?

[verse 1]
Well our story begins in a town out West
The sun was shining, or 'twas trying its best 
'Cause a dark cloud loomed out on the horizon 
And the wind picked up sending leaves up a flyin

Steve was humming with a spring in his creep
Rummaging through all the fallen leaves
When the first big drop plopped down on his shell
Another, and another, another! "Aw hell."

He made for the base of a solid old tree
But the rain poured down and the leaves broke free.
Steve was swept away and was sure he would drown 
But he splashed onto the walk where the rain drained down

Then a shadow flew over, a great black crow
Swooping and diving and circling slow 
Steve crawled forward to a joint in the slab 
Where a crack in the concrete might give him a chance 

[chorus]
Crawl on little snail
Even though Death is hot on your tail 
His beak is sharp and his wings are black
Better keep moving or you'll be his snack

[verse 2]
The black bird landed, a caw on his breath.
And with that he croaked, "My name is Death."
And the snail? He smiled. "Hi Death, I'm Steve.
If you don't mind, I was just about to leave."

He broke into a lurch, his wide foot too slow.
And the crow cackled out, "There's nowhere to go.
You can slide and creep, but you'll never get far."
I'm here to collect, this is your final hour.

Well the wind blew hard and the rain turned to sleet
And a river ran wild down that cobbled old street
The waters rose and the storm drains belched
And mud bubbled up and roiled and squelched

It's the end of your time my small slimy friend
Death always gets his lunch in the end
Come with me now and depart in peace
Or brave the waters and feel my talons dig deep

[chorus]
Crawl on little snail
Even though Death is hot on your tail 
His beak is sharp and his wings are black
Better keep moving or you'll be his snack 

[verse 3]
Steve inched to the edge as he shivered with cold
He swiveled his eyestalks and cried out bold
"Thank you kind Death, peace sounds real nice, 
but I've come this far, so I'll roll the dice."

And with that he plunged, tucked tight in his shell. 
And the current took and tossed him pell-mell
He swirled and swirled but eventually stuck
His foot snatched a log, his daring brought luck

He crawled up and looked back, the crow was a fluster
He took to the sky, and with all Steve could muster
he shouted, "So long Death, farewell and adieu!
I've got places to go and things to do."

The crow swooped down and snapped with his beak
He raked his talons but flew off with a sweep.
"Gloat not little snail, this isn't goodbye."
"You know in the end—yes, all things must die."

[chorus]
Crawl on little snail
Even though Death is hot on your tail 
His beak is sharp and his wings are black
Better keep moving or you'll be his snack

[outro]
So when the weather is rough, and the trail looks steep
And that crow offers comfort in the long dark sleep 
I hope you'll remember our dear friend Steve
And this tale of a snail with the courage to be.

Emma Lou and the Orphan’s Gold

A little ditty I whipped up awhile back as a teaching tool, elucidating the Five Commandments of Storytelling. (Lyrics by me, Music by the machines of Suno.com)

[Intro]
Now, here’s a story that’s seldom been told,
about brave Emma Lou and the orphan’s gold.
We’ll see the five commandments play out strong
and figure who wants what and who wins this song

[verse 1]
Rattlin’ down that rocky mountain road
A stagecoach haulin’ through a heavy load
With Eight orphan children, wide-eyed and small,
And gold in the boot meant to feed ’em all.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

At the reins sat Emma Lou, grit in her jaw
Her eyes sharp ‘n wary of all she saw
That gold was pledged to a mission in need,
For new shoes, warm beds, and mouths to feed.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

Black Bart stepped into the road. His rifle flashed.
A shot cracked a wheel and the stagecoach crashed.  
The horses reared, screamed, then galloped away.  
Emma Lou leaped up with her rifle aimed.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

Black Bart strolled up, cocked his head just right,  
“Just give me the gold, girl, don’t give me a fight.”
And that right there’s our inciting incident.
Where wants collide and the stakes get bent.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

[chorus][backing singers]
Emma Lou, whatcha gonna do with that gold?
Black Bart wants it and he’ll leave you cold.
Do you hand it all over or stand your ground?
Can you keep those children safe and sound?

[verse 2]
Well, Black Bart, he’s the antagonist of our tale,
He wants to take that gold without fuss or fail.
Emma Lou’s our protagonist, and in her head
She wants to keep the gold without any bloodshed.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

Black Bart’s gonna give her complications
each of them escalates the situation
The kids started crying, still trapped inside
Bart gave them a glance and smiled big and wide.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

“You make me shoot, I’ll hit those kids” He spit.
“You won’t get the chance,” she growled, “Now git.”
A crack as hooves raced down the canyon wide.
Four more riders there at the mountainside.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

“You got the high ground,” Bart nodded slow,
“But we got numbers, and that’s how it’ll go.”
And this right here makes our heroine stall 
The turning point where she can’t have it all
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

[chorus][backing singers]
Emma Lou, whatcha gonna do with that gold?
Black Bart wants it and he’ll leave you cold.
Do you hand it all over or stand your ground?
Can you keep those children safe and sound?

[bridge]
Now every scene, if it’s told just right,  
Should turn on a choice and end in a fight.  
Not fists and fire, but values in play,  
Where someone gives somethin’ important away.

A scene ain’t just what the people say.  
It’s what they want, and what’s in their way.  
So ask yourself each time you write:  
Who wins, who loses, and why that fight?

[verse]
Now Emma Lou stood with her boots dug deep,
Eyes on the kids, who’d begun to weep.
Behind her Bart’s men fanned out and grew bold.
In front of her: orphans, a mission, and gold.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

She could shoot it out and most likely die,
Or give up the gold, and let her honor lie.
That’s Emma Lou’s crisis: two paths, both steep.
To give him the gold or to bury ‘em deep.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

She held fast the rifle, eased off to the boot.
She lifted the tarp and took hold of the loot.
With a grunt, she hurled that heavy old sack,
It hit the dirt with a tinkle and a crack.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

That right there’s Emma Lou’s climax action.  
A hard choice gives the reader satisfaction
Will Black Bart keep up his end of the bargain?
Leave them alone and ride back up the mountain
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

[chorus][backing singers]
Emma Lou, whatcha gonna do with that gold?
Black Bart wants it and he’ll leave you cold.
Do you hand it all over or stand your ground?
Can you keep those children safe and sound?

[outro]
“Leave ‘em your water, boys. It’s whiskey tonight.”
They left five skins and rode straight out of sight.
And that’s our resolution, plain and dry.
Bart got the gold, no need to lie.
So who won the scene, you surely ask?
Bart took the prize and dodged the task.
Emma Lou lost. But saved all of their lives,
And sometimes that’s how a hero survives.
(ooh-ooh-ooh)

Emma Lou, whatcha gonna do with that gold?
Black Bart wants it and he’ll leave you cold.
Do you hand it all over or stand your ground?
Can you keep those children safe and sound?

[end]

Editor’s Ten Question Protocol

1. Who is the antagonist?

Black Bart

2. Who is the protagonist?

Emma Lou

3. What does the antagonist want?

The gold in the stagecoach

4. What is the Inciting Incident of antagonistic demand on the protagonist?

Black Bart attacks the stagecoach

5. What does the protagonist want?

To keep the gold without harming the children

6. What is the Turning Point?

Black Bart’s posse arrives (New Method: “You won’t get the chance,” she growled, “Now git.”)

7. What is the Crisis?

Give Black Bart the gold to prevent a shootout that could harm the children, or keep the gold and risk their lives in a gunfight?

8. What is the Climax action the protagonist takes?

Emma Lou gives Black Bart the gold.

9. What is the Resolution, how does the antagonist respond the the protagonist climactic action?

Black Bart and his posse leave water behind.

10. Who won the scene?

Black Bart

This was the song that got me into the whole “writing lyrics to get at the emotional value in my story events” thing, but it’s also the shortest and so I tweaked the grammar on the Kreyòl and structured for extended play. I also rendered it on the newer Suno model v5 so it’s a bit better on the duet side. (Original - Full Playlist)

Fwa Twa Ou Kriye (EP)

[Intro]
Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm hmm mm hmm

[Verse 1 - Kreyòl]
[Man] Ti limyè mwen, premye fwa ou te kriye
Mwen te ba ou kè mwen pou w jwe avè l
[Girl] Ti limyè mwen, dezyèm fwa ou te kriye
Mwen ba ou zepòl mwen pou m siye je w
[Duet] Ti limyè mwen, twazyèm fwa ou te kriye
Mwen te ba ou men m pou m kite w ale
Mwen kite w ale

[Chorus - Humming]
Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm hmm mm hmm

[Verse 2 - English]
[Girl] Little light of mine, the first time you cried
I gave you my heart for you to play
[Man] Little light of mine, the second time you cried
I gave you my shoulder to dry your eyes
[Duet] Little light of mine, the third time you cried
I gave you my hand to let you go
I let you go-o-o
I let you go

[Chorus - Humming]
Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm hmm mm hmm

[interlude]

[Bridge]
Ti limyè mwen, premye fwa ou te kriye (Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm | mm mm mm mm hmm)
Mwen te ba ou kè mwen pou w jwe avè l (mm mm mm mm mm hmm | mm mm hmm mm hmm)

Ti limyè mwen, dezyèm fwa ou te kriye (Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm | mm mm mm mm hmm)
Mwen ba ou zepòl mwen pou m siye je w (mm mm mm hmm | mm mm hmm hmm)

Ti limyè mwen, twazyèm fwa ou te kriye (Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm | mm mm mm mm hmm)
Mwen te ba ou men m pou m kite w ale (mm mm mm hmm | mm mm hmm hmm)

[Chorus - Hook][Duet]
Mwen kite w ale
Mwen kite w ale
Mwen kite w ale
I let you go-o-o
I let you go-o-o
I let you go

[Outro]
Mm mm hmm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm mm mm mm hmm
mm mm hmm mm hmm
Mwen kite w ale

Here is my attempt to write the Compromising Position Scene. I ask my students in the Story Grid Writer Mentorship program to write this scene, so I figure I should be able to do it myself so I know how to explain it.

The Constraints

Scene Type: Status

Word Count: 800

Mentor Dials:

• POV: 1st or 3rd Person (Strict)

• Tense: Past

• Setting: Confined space

• Dialogue: 80% Dialogue

Focus:

• Writing clear status dynamics through language and behavior

• Sustaining verbal tension across a single location

• Managing power shifts without physical action

The Gist

The Compromising Position Scene develops your ability to dramatize social conflict and group dynamics while exploring the tension between individual desires and group acceptance. This scene type teaches you how to show internal conflict through external behavior and social consequences.

Outline:

• Inciting Incident: Protagonist is discovered doing something disapproved of by the group

• Crisis: Status Dilemma

• Climax: The Protagonist gives into the group or stands their ground

This scene forces you to understand how social pressure creates real stakes without life-or-death consequences. You’ll learn to show shame, defiance, and moral conflict through actions and group reactions rather than internal narration. The challenge is making the group’s disapproval feel genuinely threatening and the protagonist’s choice meaningful. You’ll practice using setting details and character beats to reinforce the social dynamics at play. This scene type reveals how status and belonging drive human behavior, giving you tools to create compelling interpersonal drama. (Source: Story Grid)

Let’s Have At It Shall We?

Francine stopped by the trophy case and itched where the compression sock bunched up at her kneepit. Her own face smiled back at her from the row of small trophies on the shelf in front of her. Her photo was mounted on all but the last three, where a younger woman smiled with perfect teeth and angelic cheekbones. Francine huffed, pulled her handbag over her shoulder and marched on.

Glancing left and right, she slipped through a side door into a dim room lit by emergency lights. She eased the door shut, turning back the handle; the latch clicked quiet.

Dozens of slow cookers hummed along two folding tables, and Francine tiptoed between them, checking each nametag. She stopped at a cooker with a blue display, set the lid to the side, and pulled a dropper bottle from her handbag. She opened it and poured a glug of liquid into the crock.

She was stirring the glop with a ladle when the door clacked shut and her eyes popped wide.

“Hello? Who—Francine? What are you doing in here?” A woman asked.

Francine squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lips, and set the ladle down. With a breath, she put on a smile and turned.

“Oh, Martha! I’m just giving these a stir. They’ve been warming for hours, and nobody likes burnt chili.”

Martha crossed her arms over a clipboard. “You know contestants aren’t allowed back here. You practically wrote the rulebook.”

Francine clutched her handbag to her chest. “Oh, I know. I just want everything to go off without a hitch. You know how I love this contest.”

Martha hooked an eyebrow and sauntered closer. “And why did you start with Hillary Putnam’s chili over the others?”

Francine’s eyes popped. “Oh, is this hers?” She turned and squinted at the nametag. “I can hardly read in this light. I went for the fanciest cooker; you know some of these newer models like to run hot.”

“Mm-hmm, and what’s this?” Martha reached for the open bottle on the table.

Francine snatched it first. “Oh, nothing, just medicine for this toothache I’ve been having.”

Martha picked up the dropper and sniffed, recoiled, dropped her jaw and scrunched her nose. “Francine! Is this... quinine?”

Francine’s lip trembled; her mouth opened and shut as Martha leaned over the crock, sniffing.

She looked up slowly—brow pinched and nostrils flared. “Francine Waterbury—queen of the PTO, president since before half the kids in this school were even born—sabotaging the Homecoming chili cook-off?”

Francine set the bottle back on the table and collapsed onto its bench. Her shoulders fell, and she cradled her face in her hands. “Oh. What am I doing? It’s just... It’s been ten years since Frankie and Frederick graduated. I’ve been holding on to this position because the house just feels so empty without them.”

Hands to her lap, she looked up at Martha. “And Hillary... well, she’s next, isn’t she? She’s the next queen of the PTO. I’ll be out, with nothing to do, hoping my kids maybe call on the weekends.” She shook her head, hands planted on the bench. “I wanted one last win, Martha. One last trophy on that shelf before the name Francine Waterbury disappears from the rosters. But Hillary’s just better at everything. So, I figured she could stand one year of bitter chili.”

Martha huffed and shook her head. “Bitter? Francine, that much quinine could have made everyone sick.”

Francine covered her face again. “I’m sorry.”

Martha let out a long breath. “Here is what you’re going to do: apologize to Hillary, and withdraw from the contest. Tell everyone that sob story of yours, and maybe you’ll still be on the ballot come May.”

Francine’s head shakes. “No, no. I can fix it. Just... we can dump hers out and pour mine in. It’s just chili; no one can really tell the difference. Nobody has to know; I’ll say I spilled mine—”

Martha snapped, “I won’t be your co-conspirator. I am telling the judges what happened, no matter what. You still want to be the queen? Then go handle it like a queen.”

Francine squeezed her eyes and shook her head. Her eyes opened wet but crinkled; her lips pulled taut against her teeth. She stomped away to a cooker with a melted knob; ripped the cord from the power strip; hauled it up and stormed back to Martha. “You know what? You all were going to toss me out next year anyway. So here, I’m withdrawing my entry in this stupid contest. You do what you have to do. I’ll email my resignation in the morning.”

Martha held the door open as Francine juggled six quarts of hot chili.

“Don’t forget this, Your Majesty.” Martha dropped the bottle into Francine’s handbag.

Eleven Question Protocol

1. What are the forces of Antagonism?

Martha Keene and the Uptown High PTO

2. Who is the Protagonist?

Francine Waterbury

3. What do the forces of Antagonism want the Protagonist to do?

Apologize to Hillary Putnam for ruining her chili and voluntarily withdraw from the contest.

4. What does the Protagonist want to do?

Francine wants to get away with trying to sabotage the contest without having to apologize to Hillary Putnam and face her peers after what she did.

5. What is the 1 emotion the reader will experience?

Shame

6. What is the Inciting Incident?

“Francine? What are you doing back here? You know contestants aren’t allowed in the warming room.”

7. What is Turning Point?

Francine’s head shakes. “No, no. I can fix it. Just... we can dump hers out and pour mine in. It’s just chili; no one can really tell the difference. Nobody has to know; I’ll say I spilled mine—”

8. What is the Crisis

Francine has a best bad choice: She can agree to apologize to Hillary and withdraw from the contest, leaving her position as president tenuous come May elections or she can just quit, losing her last connection to the school her children went to.

9. What is the Climax

Francine yanks her crock from the table and storms out of the room.

10. What is the Resolution?

Martha says, “Don’t forget this.” And hands her the bottle of Quinine.

11. Who won the scene?

Martha and the PTO.

I. Am. The. Ant. Agon. Ist

A little ditty I whipped up in response to ‘s challenge that we, as novelist’s are the antagonist’s of the heroes in our story. Just don’t ask what an invisible phere gorilla is. We don’t talk about that anymore. Say it with me: I. Am. The. Ant. Agon. Ist! (Lyrics by me, Reggae beats by the machines of Suno.com)

[intro]
I
Am
Say it wit’ me
I am
Yes, I am
I am the
ANT, AGOH, NIST
ANT, ANT, AGOH, NIST
See me coming out the mist
I am the antagonist.

[verse]
I’m cruel, I’m a sadist
I’m a serial anarchist
I’m your invisible phere gorilla
Throw boomerangs out the corna’
of your eye, you can’t catch ‘em
My heroes dreams I be crashin’
Dishin’ out those complications
rampin’ up that thrill sensation
At the turning point I gonna make you choose
You reach a crisis: Want cake? Nah, can’t eat it too
Show me what your made of with your climax action
If the choice ain’t hard then there’s no satisfaction
I’m here to give you resolution
Take your risks, expect no absolution
Some people just call me a novelist
but to you, HELLO! I am the antagonist.

[chorus]
ANT, AGOH, NIST
ANT, ANT, AGOH, NIST
I. AM. THE. ANT. AGOH. NIST
See me coming out the mist
I AM THE ANTAGONIST

[outro]
Gonna give you such a hard time
Gonna make you walk the hard line
It’s my job to make you better
Gotta make you show character
Don’t blame me, I hope you get the gist
I’m here to be your antagonist
(ANT, AGOH, NIST, ANT, ANT, AGOH, NIST)
(I AM THE ANTAGONIST)
[end]

I’m impatient, so I skipped ahead to the Take a Chance on Me scene. I’ll go back and do Assignment 2 later (rewrite the 2nd person chase scene in 1st person with more words and some dialogue). I got this idea in my head when discussing the scene with my colleagues and wanted to jump on it. Here’s how that went (498 words).

Assignment 3: The "Take a Chance on Me" Scene (Round 1)

Scene Type: Love

Word Count: 500

Mentor Dials:

• POV: 1st Person Strict

• Tense: Present

• Balanced mix of Dialogue and Physical Action

• Setting: Performing a physical task (e.g., washing dishes, walking)

Focus:

• Introducing trust stakes and subtle emotional tension

• Integrating physical activity with early-stage dialogue

• Testing ability to keep momentum in a grounded, everyday setting

At the bottom of this scene are the ten editor protocol questions we apply to scenes to validate or plan our scenes to determine whether they work or not.

And of course, the audio drama.

Feed the Pigs

Bridget runs shears along the black plastic. I tug it open. Together, we grab one side and roll the dead man onto the tarp. A squeal echoes from the pigpen behind us.

Bridget's blue overalls are crisp and clean. She tightens her gloves. Grabs the sawzall and gives it a whir.

I reach out and tuck a blonde curl behind her face shield. "There, before things get messy." Her blue eyes sparkle. She looks away and kneels at the man's shoulder.

I clear my throat. "Hey, only one today. What say we hit Jambee's after this? I'm buying."

"Huh?" She glances up, and then down. "Hey, straighten this arm."

The man's arms are curled tight. I wrench at the elbow. Pop! It gives. She cuts it away from the armpit.

"Jambee's. Let's go grab a drink. Just you and me." I shout.

She's cutting through the other arm. Stops the saw. Looks at me.
"Like... a date, John?"

I toss the arms into the wheelbarrow as blood sluices down the plastic.

"Sure, why not? We've been doing this together, what, five years now?"

She shuffles on her knees to the waist. Cuts through the left femur.

"Yeah, and we have a great working relationship. You wanna ruin that by fraternizing?"

The leg rolls away; she hops over to the right.

I fold it into the wheelbarrow.

"Well, no, I mean, we're great business partners. But I think we could be even better life partners."

She cuts through the other leg. Shakes her head.

"John, jobs like ours... let's just say the exit interviews are a bitch. I don't want things to get messy."

I lay the leg next to its partner.

"Hey, if shit gets weird, I'll just transfer to shakedowns. Don says there's an opening since Julio got pinched."

I lean down and grab the head by the topknot, lift, steady it in my other hand. Bridget slides the blade under the neck and cuts up. Wincing as she rocks through the vertebrae.

"But I like what we have. You go off with Don and I'll never see you." She hollers.

My lips curl up. "So, you're saying you'd miss me."

The blade shreds through the throat. Blood spatters my shield. I stand with the head.

She stands and cradles the saw, frowning. "Oh! Of course I would, you idiot."

"Then let's see more of each other. Come on. Go out with me. Just tonight. A free trial—no credit card required. If we don't have any fun, I swear I'll never bring it up again." I nod at the head. "Life's short, you know?"

Bridget puffs through her teeth. Shakes her head. Her fingers toy with the saw's trigger lock.

She turns it and hands it to me. "Oh, alright. But I buy the second round. We're partners, remember?"

I grin, taking the saw in one hand. "Great." I toss a hook shot with the other. The head drops into the wheelbarrow. "You can feed the pigs."

Editor's Protocol

Who is the Antagonist? John

Who is the Protagonist? Bridget

What does the Antagonist want? Bridget to agree to grab a drink with him.

What does the Protagonist want? To keep things professional

What is the Inciting Incident? I clear my throat. "Hey, only one today. What say we hit Jambee's after this? I'm buying."

What is the Turning Point? "...If we don't have any fun, I swear I'll never bring it up again." I nod at the head. "Life's short, you know?"

What is the Crisis? Does Bridget go out with John, risking their great working relationship or reject him now and preserve their professionalism.

What is the Climax? "Oh, alright. But I buy the second round. We're partners, remember?"

What is the Resolution? I grin, taking the saw in one hand. "Great." I toss a hook shot with the other. The head drops into the wheelbarrow. "You can feed the pigs."

Who won the scene? John

I wrote a rap about chicken sandwiches. Had Suno render it old school.

Chicken Sandwich

[Clucking Intro]
There's a special little treat in town 
Made from the sweetest little loins around
Season it, soak it, batter it and coat it
A hundred forty thousand birds a minute 
Butchered to make tenders for the drooling masses
Contributing to heart disease and size large asses
Screw all the ecological damage
Just make me a god damned chicken sandwich!

[Bass drop][chicken sounds]
*Cluck cluck cluck*

[verse][rapping]
I want a tasty snack: fried, salty, juicy, dreamy
But eating a dozen doesn't feel quite seemly
I can pack away those little mother cluckers
But those whipped meat discs are made for suckers
Shove 'em in my mouth oh so easy
Wanna smother those breasts with American cheesy
Or maybe leave it plain with a little pickle
Mmmm that tang-y bite gives me a tickle
lay that sauce on thick and drizzly
the smell of that grease makes me gay and giggly 
Served hot in a basket of fresh fried taters
If there's no special sauce then see you later
I haven't eaten since breakfast and I feel so famished
Oh please, just gimme that chicken sandwich

[Chorus][female vocal]
(It's so good!) Toast them buns
(So damn good!) Slap that cheese
(I wanna taste it!) Gimme, Gimme some more please 
Spread that sauce (Nice and thick!)
(Oh please!) I wanna taste that Chicken sandwich!

[Verse][rapping]
See, now ya gone and done it
better get that fry cook on it
I like 'em plain and I like 'em spicy
But those round patties are a little dicey
I Want the real thing even though it's pricey
So I'm gonna hafta ask you nicely
You own the fryer so you've got the leverage 
but can I get a complimentary beverage? 
Sauce 'em, bread 'em, cheese 'em then plate 'em
Young man I'm here to give an ultimatum 
Screw all the ecological damage 
Just gimme that God damn chicken sandwich!

[Chorus][female vocal]
(It's so good!) Toast them buns
(So damn good!) Slap that cheese
(I wanna taste it!) Gimme, Gimme some more please 
Spread that sauce (Nice and thick!)
(Oh please!) I wanna taste that Chicken sandwich!

[verse][rapping]
For breakfast I'll eat it on a waffle
During a shortage there'll be a kerfuffle 
Come on fool, ya wanna shuffle? 
When the sandwiches run out it's quite a scuffle
During Oktoberfest I eat 'em on a pretzel 
I don't really give a schnitzel 
But if the sauce on my chicken doesn't drip drip drip
Someone ain't gettin' my tip
Give me holy chicken and your name I'll be blessin'
But mess it up and I'll teach you a lesson
Did I bite your finger? Better get a bandage
I told you not to touch my effin' chicken sandwich!

[Chorus][female vocal]
(It's so good!) Toast them buns
(So damn good!) Slap that cheese
(I wanna taste it!) Gimme, Gimme some more please 
Spread that sauce (Nice and thick!)
(Oh please!) I wanna taste that Chicken sandwich!

[clucking interlude]
*Cluck cluck cluck*

[Outro]
So fry them mother cluckers up just right
I wanna have a feast tonight 
Give 'em to me hot, gonna dip 'em in ranch
Give me that God damn Chicken sandwich.
*Cluck cluck cluck*
[End]

My last attempt at the chase scene focused more on creating a humorous story than following the constraints set out by the Story Grid Writer’s Mentorship Program™. It was 500 words, it was in second person, present tense. But I didn’t adhere to the showing only principle and the stakes weren’t quite life or death. So, I gave it another go. Here is how that went.

Assignment 1: The Chase Scene (Round 1)

Scene Type: Action
Word Count: 500
Mentor Dials:

• POV: 2nd Person

• Tense: Present

• Dialogue: None

• Setting: Changing Physical Domain

Focus:

• Physical-only storytelling using the five senses

• Enforcing strict "showing only" (no thoughts, no emotions)

• Testing ability to structure a scene with clear Five Commandments

At the bottom of this scene are the ten editor protocol questions we apply to scenes to validate or plan our scenes to determine whether they work or not.

And I also had Suno turn it into an audio drama. That was fun.

Fun with Tentacles

Sump-sump-sump-sump.

Water sinks below the grate.
The light turns green.
Thunk-hiss-whir.
The airlock door rolls open.
You step through.

Bluish bars of light flicker overhead. Chairs and tables lay tossed about.

A red smear scars the white wall ahead.
Half a body lies where the bloody arc ends—legs curled into a dim corridor.

You pull out your sidearm.
Flick the safety.
The barrel whines: yellow.
One. Two. Three.
Stops: green.

You enter the corridor.

Shoof. Behind you.
Spin. Aim.

Nothing.

Turn again.

Shoof.

Back around. Slowly, you approach the hatch.
Step. Step. Bump.
Your muzzle hits something firm.
The room dissolves into a mottle of red and black.
A giant eye opens.

Clatter! From behind.
Backpedal to the wall.
A vent cover on the deck.

A tentacle whips down.
It coils and probes.
You leap to the side and run.

Shoooooof!
Behind you, the octopus squeezes through.
Its beak snaps a meter away.

You duck left through an open hatch.
Your helmet casts a halo across the dark.
Tipped tables. Shattered glass. Chunks of bodies in pools of blood.

Tentacles probe the hatch. One knocks a table aside; pulls a bloody chunk into the snapping beak.

You edge along the wall to the farside hatch.
Tap the panel. Whir-thunk. It rolls.

Tentacles shiver. Lurch in.

You bolt down the corridor.

A tentacle slaps the grate ahead.
You jump; catch your boot.

Stumble. Roll. Stand. Fire.
Plink! A spark.

It's gone.

The vent above: open, its cover on the deck.

Whine: yellow.
Silence: green.

You backpedal, aiming at the vents.
Tap the hatch at the far end. It rolls open.

Inside, you sweep your light: a window on the opposite wall; a submersible glows through it: docked on the airlock beyond the hatch to the left.

A man stares from the floor beside it.
Missing a leg.
You step up. He shakes his head.
You tap the panel.
The hatch rolls.

A tentacle flings you against the window. Crack!
You shake your head.
The one-legged man screams.
A tentacle lifts him.
Snap!
Silence.

The beak pushes into the room.

You bolt for the other hatch, but tentacles swarm over it.
The mottled mass follows them.
You backpedal into the corner.

The beak snaps. Snaps. SNAPS!
Closer. Toothy tongue rasping.
A massive eye rises above.

You aim. Shoot. Thwup!
The eye blinks. The bullet tinks onto the deck.

Whine: yellow.
Stops: green.

The black eye reflects dimly in the glass.

A tentacle whips overhead.
You duck and shoot again.

A spear of water pierces the eye.

The octopus flails. Mantle torn, beak splintered.

Yellow. Green.

You dive into the gash as spiderwebs bloom in the glass.

Slick darkness.
Tugging. Reaching.
You fire again.
Clamber toward the light.
Grab, rip, shimmy.
Fall to the deck.

Tentacles writhe through behind you.

CRASH!

The window gives.
Water slams into you.

You scramble to the airlock.
Pull the latch. Squeeze inside.
Water floods in. Tentacles whip.
Whir-hiss-thunk. The door closes.

Sump-sump-sump-sump.
The light turns red.

Editor's Protocol

Who is the Antagonist? Giant Octopus

Who is the Protagonist? You

What does the Antagonist want? To eat you

What does the Protagonist want? To not be eaten

What is the Inciting Incident? After entering the lab, you see a giant eye and a tentacle reaches for you.

What is the Turning Point? You're trapped in a dead end module and the squid's beak is snapping through the hatch.

What is the Crisis? Do you shoot the window and risk catastrophic compression or jump into the octopus's mouth and blast your way out, risking slow digestion.

What is the Climax? You shoot a hole in the window creating a spear of water that cuts through the octopus. You leap into the gash and blow your way through the back of it's mantle.

What is the Resolution? The octopus is cut up by the water stream and can't follow.

Who won the scene? You

As a mentor for the Story Grid Writer Mentorship program, I have to assign constrained scene assignments to my students to help them grow as a writer. Of course, some constraints make writer’s nervous and I want to be sure I’m able to perform the tasks I’m asking of them. So, I tackled the first assignment of the program this week using the following constraints:

Assignment 1: The Chase Scene (Round 1)

Scene Type: Action
Word Count: 500
Mentor Dials:

• POV: 2nd Person

• Tense: Present

• Dialogue: None

• Setting: Changing Physical Domain

Focus:

• Physical-only storytelling using the five senses

• Enforcing strict "showing only" (no thoughts, no emotions)

• Testing ability to structure a scene with clear Five Commandments

At the bottom of this scene are the ten editor protocol questions we apply to scenes to validate or plan our scenes to determine whether they work or not. I decided to have fun with this one. According to my word counter, it’s exactly 500 words. Then, for fun, I set it to music via Suno.com (audio below).

Banana Commando

The nice Jewish lady stands and you turn from the table.
The usher pulls the tape taut across the gap behind you.
Click—it locks into the post.

Look down: Wonder Woman smolders over a silver scribble and loopy heart.

You grin. And Sigh.

Look up: there's a giant banana.
His eyes flick to the autograph.
His mouth puckers. His fists strain white.

You nod, smile quivering. Step into the hall.
All around: costumes swish, chatter rises.
Trails of spicy beef waft from a burrito stand nearby.

You glance at the menu.
A flash of yellow catches your eye.

The banana is behind you.

Faster.
You stumble into the crowd.

Grunts and curses trail behind as your turtle shell jostles shoulders.

You look back: the banana is gaining.

Quick!
You veer into a forest of furries.
Rayon foxes. Downy dragons.
You slip through.

Pop!
Into the expo room, spitting out pink fur.
Right, passing booths: indie comics, action figures, Funko Pop!
Left. Another right.
Stop.

A Harley Quinn contest.
Fishnets. Leather shorts. Babydoll t-shirts riding up over their—

Oh! Yellow in your periphery.
You turn. The banana is there.
Stiff.
Staring.
You both watch Quinns strike poses.

One.
Two.
Three.

You bolt. He follows.

You bump Wolverine in a wife beater.
He shoves you into a band of Teletubbies.
They toss you aside.
They smell like cheap cigars and astroglide.

The banana reaches and grabs.

You yank the autograph back.
Roll onto the seafoam carpet under hopping legs.
You leap up.
Step. Stomp. Run!

Weave through Avengers.
Shuffle between xenomorph Marge Simpson and Warhammer Santa Claus.

Burst into the main hall. It's packed.
At the far end: elevators.

Crash!
Behind you, the banana slams a gaggle of Gryffindors.
Broomsticks fly everywhere.

You run.

Traipse around Teen Titans. Dodge daleks.
Genuflect slide under Gandalf on stilts.
Stop!

Deadpool in a top hat blocks your path.

Veer left: he's there.
Veer right: still there.

Left. Right.
He kick dances, cane swinging,
Like Michael Flatley with a shillelagh.

You bellow a barbaric yawp, arms flailing.

Deadpool screams.
You charge forward.
Shove him aside with your polylactic shell.

Trip! Your legs fly out. Thud! Onto your butt.

Deadpool hat-tips; struts away, cane twirling.

Yellow felt blazes toward you. The banana pushes and shoves.
You scoot back and back and Ding!

Shubba-shubba-shubba-shub-shub-shhh…

The elevator opens.

You dive in. Jam the button.

Tchik-tuh—FIVE lights up.

The banana approaches, eyes glinting, teeth flashing.

Chika-chika-chika-chunk!
You hammer CLOSE.

The door closes and closes and his eyes peer through the gap that closes and closes and stop! Fingers in the gap.

The doors open.

The banana stomps in.

You clutch the photo to your chest. He holds out his hand. You shake your head.
Again the door closes and closes. Your rubber suit squeaks down the wall.

You roll.

Spin.

Between his legs.

Wince! Ooh. Banana commando!

You kick off the wall and slide through the door, green feet tucked.

The door pinches shut over the banana's glare.

Editor's Protocol

Who is the Antagonist? The Banana

Who is the Protagonist? The Turtle

What does the Antagonist want? The signed photo of Gal Gadot

What does the Protagonist want? To keep the signed photo of Gal Gadot

What is the Inciting Incident? The Banana man looks at the signed photo and charges.

What is the Turning Point? The elevator doors are closing you in with the banana.

What is the Crisis? Give him the photo or duck and run

What is the Climax? Duck and run

What is the Resolution? Banana glares.

Who won the scene? Turtle

Tom is early to the Denham Car Boot Sale to find a good spot. He pops the hatch on the silver Volvo and pulls out a folding table atop the many boxes neatly packed in back. There’s a quack at the front of the car, and Tom looks up.

“Mind yourself there, George. Lemme get the table up and I’ll let you out.” He says to the white duck in the passenger seat.

Once free, George wanders around as Tom empties boxes onto the table. There are crafts, mostly duck themed, as well as womens’ clothes and accouterments all of a common size and floral taste. George peers up over the edge of the table and quacks expectantly. Tom scowls back.

“You know, when I promised Ellie I’d take care of you, it didn’t mean catering to your every whim. I’ll feed you when I get settled and no sooner, you right chunk. It’s bad enough her burial has my pension up the spout without you eating us out of house and home.” Tom shoos George and George waddles away disapprovingly.

“This your duck?” A plump man hovers over George with his hands tucked into a white jacket and stares down through dark circle sunglasses perched on his nose. George’s black eyes glare back up at him, his white feathers ruffled.

Tom is straightening dresses on the table. “That’s George, he don’t bite. Belonged to my wife.”

The man glances at Tom. “Blimey, he’s a big one, innit?”

Tom grins at George. “Ellie pampered him on straight kippers and barley, said he was her little King George.”

The man looks down at George again. “He’s a Pekin, innit?”

“No, Aylesbury. There, his bill’s pink, not orange. They’re near endangered.”

“My wife would love this.”

“She like ducks? Ellie loved ducks. She made all these bits ‘n bobs if you’re looking for a gift.”

“How much?”

“Oh, I’ll take a fair offer.”

“I’ll give you a thousand quid.”

Tom stops fussing at the table. “A thousand quid? For these?”

“For the duck.”

“You want to buy George?”

The man nods and walks around George. George waddles backward to keep sight of him. “I’m up for it. How much he weigh?”

Tom squints at George. “About a stone, maybe. Look, I don’t think I can part with him. See, Ellie’s cousin runs a conservancy, and they borrow him from time to time.”

“Fifteen hundred and you can give me the cousin’s number. We’ll stud him out for you. Come on then, he’s a one off fine duck and I bet you don’t need the trouble.”

“You see, Ellie made me promise to take good care of George. It was her dying-”

“Two thousand quid, and rest assured he’ll be well taken care of.”

Tom looks down at George, then glances sidelong at the man. “Kippers and barley, twice a day? Any fish’ll do, but Ellie liked to feed him straight out the tin.”

The man grins. “Of course.”

Tom frowns at George, sighs. “Right then, you’ve got a deal, sir. Let me fetch his lead and a tin of kippers for the road. Name’s Tom.”

The man nods. “Gerald.”

Tom steps to the back of the Volvo and rummages through the empty boxes. Gerald wanders behind him.

“How old is he?”

“Nearly four years. Ellie got him as a duckling back during the pandemic.”

“Right, right, so he won’t be tough at all.”

Tom straightens and looks at Gerald, then George. “Tough?”

Gerald grins. “To take care of. He seems tame enough.”

“Right, yes, he’s a good boy, George is.” Tom steps around the car then, and fumbles through the glove compartment.

When Tom returns, Gerald is on his mobile, his voice low. “Right, right, it’s an Aylesbury. I’m thinking braised in butter with thyme. Start soaking the lentils.”

Tom clears his throat. Gerald pockets the mobile, and grins at the bundle in Tom’s hand.

“Blimey, it’s a little harness. He’ll just walk with that on?”

“Listen, don’t wangle me. Are you planning on cooking this duck?”

The man’s smile fades into a line. “Keep your hair on, mate. And what of it? I’m taking him off your hands. It’s a lot of money.”

Tom puts down the lead and scowls at Gerald. “Then, sir, you can keep your two thousand quid. George isn’t for sale.”

“But he’s a big duck. He’ll feed a crowd.”

“Then I say buy two at the butcher and have a good day.”

“Duck tease.” Gerald grumbles and storms off.

Tom sits at his table and watches Gerald waddle away disapprovingly, then pops open the kippers and fumbles one out. “Here you go, George.”

After the first disappears into the duck’s crop, Tom fishes out another and bites into it. George eyes the tin and quacks.

MewMew and Flick scurried across the golden field under an open sky and for a squirrel an open sky means danger. So, when a shadow draped over the ground around MewMew, she became a long flat stone in the tall grass, her tan cloak a dead leaf flapping under the gust of wings. Flick had not seen the shadow and so marched on, oblivious.

“Seet-seet seeeeet!” MewMew warned but Flick would not become a stone.

The shadow formed a great black bird on the ground in front of Flick and Flick stood firm, his nut shield aloft and his bone blade at the ready while his tail, crooked and thin as it was, flashed up and down behind him.

“Kuk-kuk!” He barked at the bird. “Stay B-back Black b-beak.”

The bird bowed, flashing his tail feathers and inflating his craw to mew. “You are tall for squirrel.”

“Kuk-kuk! I am T-treekind.” Flick pounded his walnut cuirass.

Black-beak cocked his head, aiming an amused eye at Flick. “All squirrels to my eye. No trees here.”

MewMew slid between them, paws pleading peace. “Muk-Muk, how does Black-beak know tail-speak?”

Black-beak bowed again. “Muk-muk. Black-beak knows many things, young princess, daughter of MukMuk. Black-beak has many trades with wizard MewQua. MewQua trades words for trinkets. Why small princess far from trees?”

“We seek the tailless hermit in the middle-marsh.”

Black-beak hopped and cackled. “Black-beak knows hermit. Hermit plays game, gives Black-beak different words, tailless words. Hermit lives deep in middle-marsh, near stone-tree.”

MewMew nodded. “Can you take us there?”

Flick moaned. “Quaa-unnn! MewMew, we are almost there.”

“Muk, Flick, muk. He can see the whole land, we can only see the grass and stones.”

Black-beak tilts his head. “Black-beak helps, what MewMew trades?”

“Trade?”

“Princess trades for help.”

“But this is important, the growth has spread into the treeline. Many Treekind are becoming sick. We have nothing to trade but you will have the gratitude of Treekind. You can trust us.”

Black-beak’s feathers ruffled. “Kaw! Trade is trust, gratitude is spurious. MewQua trades with Black-beak, Black-beak trusts MewQua. MewQua trusts Black-beak. Princess trades, Black-beak trusts princess.”

MewMew’s tail flattened as her shoulders fell. “What could you possibly want?”

“Trinket under cloak. Black-beak sees from far above. Glows like eye of razor-wing.”

MewMew clutched at the nearly-forgotten burden hanging from her neck. To Flick, “Unn. He means the key.”

“Kuk-kuk! S-see, he is no help to us.”

“We cannot give you this trinket, Black-beak. But we must find the hermit, the trinket is for him.”

Black-beak tilted his head right and then left and flashed his tail feathers again. “Princess plays game.”

Flick stomped the ground. “Grrr. We don’t have t-time for g-games.”

To Flick, “Muk-muk.” To Black-Beak, “What are the stakes?”

“Princess wins, Black-beak guides princess and tall squirrel to hermit.”

“If I lose?”

“Princess gives trinket. Fair.”

Flick twirled his tail in exasperation. “Quaa! We d-don’t need him.”

Black-beak bowed, his beak close to MewMew as he chittered. “Middle-marsh dangerous. Razor-wings, screech-lights, darkness. Black-beak takes you safely.”

Flick twitched his tail. “If he doesn’t lead us into a ch-chomper nest when our b-backs are turned.”

Black-beak fluffed his features and rose to his full height. “Black-beak cheats not. Princess wins, Black-beak abides.”

“Unn. Don’t listen to him, MewMew, we can find the hermit on our own.”

MewMew faced Flick, her tail flared and eye stern. “We barely made it through the brambles. If we win, we have a guide through the middle-marsh.”

Flick’s tail fell flat. “B-but if you l-lose the k-key?”

“If we don’t find the hermit, then the key is worthless.” MewMew nodded and closed her eyes. “Muk-muk, I won’t lose.”

Flick lowered his shield and nodded.

MewMew turned to the raven. “Black-beak, I will play your game.”

Black-beak bowed and then got busy clearing a square of brush around them. Cackling and hopping as he went, he scratched lines in the ground with his beak, and dug out pebbles. He gathered the pebbles in piles according to color, dark ones and light ones. He laid one of each color before MewMew.

“Princess picks color.”

Homer had been waiting the better part of an hour in this tiny office on a cold aluminum chair that refused to warm under his bony posterior. An overhead lamp buzzed and flashed, assaulting his aching head through closed eyelids.

He put his forehead to the desk and again the unwanted voice shattered his peace, bringing with it a new wave of pain at the base of his skull where the strange device intruded.

Come on, big bird, we have got to go! Mission’s over, it’s time to bring it home.

Just then, a pigeon-chested man in a tan cardigan popped through the door. He clutched a tablet to his chest as a bushy brown mustache danced over his lips. “Homer Columbo?”

Is he the best they can do? I’ll make him eat that mustache.

“Columba, with an A. Did you bring any aspirin? I asked for some aspirin.”

“Mr. Columbo, I am special agent Wilson and I’ll get you a whole bottle of aspirin if you can just clarify some of your statements for me. So let’s get right to it, shall we?”

Homer covered his eyes and nodded.

“Okay, now: You claim you removed evidence from the scene of an active investigation, how did you get it stuck in the back of your head like that?”

Homer dropped his hand and stared at the agent.

“I already told the first guy, I didn’t take it, it attacked me and embedded itself into my skull!”

Homer winced.

“Then why didn’t you contact us right away?”

“I blacked out. The next thing I know I’m sitting at home staring at a wall. I’ve said all this, in fact I see it typed out on your screen there.”

The agent pulled the tablet to his chest and pointed at Homer.

“This will go a lot easier for you if you just cooperate. Now, what is it?”

“What is what?”

“The thing in the back of your head, what is it?”

“I don’t know, some kind of computer, I was hoping you people could tell me what it is!”

“Okay, where on the scene did you find it?”

Homer gaped at the mustachioed cardigan with a badge.

“I told you, I didn’t find it, I was attacked!”

“By a tiny top-hat shaped computer that goes by… Charlie?”

“Yes, he wants me to go somewhere, I don’t know where, he just keeps telling me to go home, but I already went home and this headache keeps pulsing unless I head southeast, and being stuck in here feels like my head is going to explode!”

Agent Wilson consulted his tablet.

“And this Charlie, in your head he sounds like… the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket?”

I do not.

Homer nodded. “I think he thinks I’m a bird.”

“So, what is Charlie saying to you now?”

His momma must’ve left the growth hormones out of his baby formula. I can take this runt!

“Something about your mother.”

Wilson bristled beneath his cardigan. “If you want us to take you seriously, Mr. Columbo, we need you to cooperate. Where did you find the device and how did you get it stuck in your head?”

“For the last time, it attacked me, it put itself in me, it’s trying to control me. Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Try listening to yourself, Mr. Columbo. You claim that a computer leaped from the rubble, inserted itself into your brain and is speaking to you. Now, you’re not leaving this room until I get a story that makes sense!”

Just stop fighting me you goddam overgrown chicken!

Homer shook his head. Fine. “Nobody here will listen to me.” We’ll do it your way.

Lock and load!

Homer felt himself stand, felt his arms tuck in beside him and his head pull back as he towered over the agent.

The agent stood, mustache ruffled around pinched lips. “What are you doing?”

Homer pulled a terrified grin, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry, but I think I’m about to peck you.”

“What?”

Homer’s face crashed into Wilson’s and each stumbled backward.

“Ow! You broke my nose!”

“I broke my nose.”

Homer grabbed at his chair for support but his arms flew up, trench coat flapping as he spun, and the chair crashed into the agent’s back as he clutched at his face.

“Oh, god, is he dead?”

How the hell should I know? I’m not a medic. Now, get them weird phalanges of yours over that door handle, we’re getting out of here.

Dazed, Homer turned the handle, pushed the door open and was blinded by a bright room full of FBI agents all staring at the strange bird and his bloody beak standing in the doorway.

“No, no-no-no!”

Okay, big bird, get ready to fly!

I've been experimenting with some scene planning tricks based on the Story Grid Methodology. If you don't care about that, skip to the story at the bottom.

Story Grid has a comprehensive planning sheet called the 624 but I wanted something a little more basic for ideation using the five commandments of storytelling and protagonist's object of desire as a focal point. I came up with a synopsis format based a bit on the Pixar pitch, a bit on the Story Grid scene event synthesis but with comprehensive alignment to the five commandments and basic stakes. The goal here is to create a template for practice that allows me to plan and implement scenes relatively quickly. This scene from planning to execution with a little bit of rewriting only took a few hours. I found this synopsis format a great way to come up with ideas out of nowhere. I probably spent more time trying to get Midjourney to render me a corn dog and then giving up than I did on the actual writing.

The synopsis format:

[Protagonist] is [status quo activity/reaction to previous resolution],
but then [unexpected event],
which makes them want [desire in response to event] without [a governing constraint on he pursuit of their goal].
So they [apply an initial stategy to obtain desire] until [complication/unexpected event that forces a binary choice].
And, they [climax action - choice made] despite [tradeoff],
which results in [response from the environment/other characters].

So, for this scene, I started with the following synopsis:

Julia is eating a corndog at the fair, waiting on her friends,
but then a clown appears at her side with a strange purple flower,
which which makes her want to get away from the clown without taking the flower. 
So she runs away from the clown until the clown corners her in the house of mirrors. And, she takes the flower despite her fear of what might happen.
This results in the clown disappearing and the flower calling her name.

Then I broke it out into the following commandments:

• Inciting Incident: Julia is at the fair eating a corndog while waiting for her friends, when she sees a clown staring at her while holding a purple flower.

• Turning Point: After running around the fair trying to avoid the clown, the clown corners her in the house of mirrors, holding out the flower.

• Crisis: Julia has a best bad choice, she can either try and push past the clown, or take the flower despite not knowing what will come next.

• Climax: Julia takes the flower and looks into it.

• Resolution: When she looks up, the clown is gone and the flower whispers her name

The obvious object of desire here being: Get away from the clown! With a setting: It's the Michigan state fair and Julia is waiting on her friends. She's hungry and she grabs a pronto pup from the booth since the line isn't long.

With that all setup and in mind, I drafted the following scene. The goal was flash fiction at less than 1000 words, but then I extended it a bit for the sake of possibly continuing the story. So it's under 1200 words.

!!!TRIGGER WARNING!!!

Here there be clowns.

Hypnos - Scene Render

They said they would be quick, but the line for the tilt-a-whirl was already a mile long when we got here. I don't want to be here but they insisted I come, to hang out, to meet other people.

"At the fair?" I asked, my focus on the strand of hair I was twirling and failing to braid into one of those cute mini plaits with the beads on the end that I saw on that TV show with the girls on the beach, you know the one.

"Sure, there's bound to be a dozen guys there you can ride the ferris wheel with." Nancy is a hopeless romantic, a huge fan of the meet-cute.

"Sounds lame."

Nancy rolled her eyes. "It's just one night of fun, come on, Julia. You've been in a funk since Mark. It'll be good for you. You always meet someone new at the fair."

"Will there be corn dogs?"

"It's Michigan, we call them Pronto Pups."

That's how I ended up here, alone, at a table, eating a Pronto Pup. It's good, but I can get a corn dog anywhere. What I want is to go home to Netflix and chill with edibles and salty carbs.

After picking the remaining morsels of cornmeal off the stick I turn to put my trash in the disposable cardboard bin and a flash of purple catches my eye. Glow bracelets and glow necklaces and glow stars are a popular accessory here in the dark summer night but this is huge and I stop slurping my soda dry when I see that it's a large funnel-shaped flower. But what really has me stuck is the clown who's holding it.

I don't mean the kind of clown that Nancy and James want me to meet-cute on the ferris wheel. No, an actual clown.

He's dressed all in black. Black frill collar, black floppy shoes and a black derby on his head. His face is painted white with black diamonds around his eyes and a jagged black muzzle. He's standing in the strip of field between the food trucks and the attraction tent where the light fades and few people pass through.

I drop my cup into the bin and stare at him as I step away from the table. He stares back. I get all tingly then when he holds out the flower towards me and I backpedal into the crowd, turn, and head towards the tilt-a-whirl line.

"Freak." I mutter to myself. The fair crowd can be unusual, but the creepy clown cosplay is a bit too much for my nerves tonight.

I can't find Nancy or James in line and assume they must be up there tilting and whirling. Or they ditched me. I wouldn't blame them. I wait around at the exit gate anyway.

In the corner of my eye I see purple.

Again, just outside the throw of the ride lights is that clown, his big purple flower held out, its glow outlining strange patterns on his cuffs.

The tilt-a-riders flow out of the exit gate around me and I flow with them. Nancy and James aren't among them and so I make my way into the well lit arcade.

I stop at that game where you win a fish by tossing coins into fishbowls and exchange five bucks for a handful of pennies. Inflation sucks.

I miss every one.

I turn and the clown is ten feet behind me in the middle of the arcade. His white paint gleams under the harsh yellow lights and that flower still glows despite the brightness. People just walk past him as if he isn't a creepy guy in a clown suit.

I've had enough. Nancy and James ditched me, and this asshole is following me and Mark didn't even have the decency to tell me to my face that he booty swapped for Lisa Matthews. I wade through the crowd and jab my finger at the clown, my breath heavy and sweat pooling behind my ears as blood rushes to my face.

"Why the fuck are you following me?"

I must be pretty loud because the otherwise oblivious crowd glances at me and opens a circle as if I'm the freak and the clown is just this guy.

The clown simply holds out the flower, his head tilted, his painted smile a black laceration across his face.

My rage deflates and I drop my hand. "Just... stop following me. I'll get the cops."

I leave him there in the crowd and jog to where the arcade ends at a funhouse. I can still see him over my shoulder. He's closer now but not moving, the flower out in front of him. I hand over another fiver and they let me into the funhouse. Beyond the entrance is a corridor of warping light. My waist is narrow and my ass huge, my neck long and my face flat. When I enter the hall of mirrors I'm alone and my sour face bounces left and right, pouting back at me and into infinity.

Except for the one rectangle of glass that frames the dark clown with his flower in hand.

I panic. I shout for help and I stumble through the hall, bouncing from mirror to mirror, lost. The clown shifts from one panel to another, the flower's violet light gleaming in each frame defying the reflected whiteness.

Surrounded by glass with no exit, I collapse to the floor. I'm crying now, in fear and in betrayal. My friends, Mark, all of them left, none of them are here. Those floppy black shoes are on the floor in front of me now and I look up, sliding my way up the glass to standing.

"I don't know what you want, but please, just leave me alone."

The clown holds out the flower, pressing it closer. His eyes are dark and empty and his painted smile a mask over dead lips. I could wail on this guy, get around him and run, but I don't know the way out.

He pushes the flower closer until its soft petals brush my nose, its long stem dangling at my knees with slender leaves.

I take the flower in my hand, shuddering, unsure what comes next. I peer into that deep purple funnel where the glow flows out over each petal. It's beautiful. So beautiful that I'm crying again.

"Thank you." But when I look up, the clown is gone.

Julia. A voice from the flower.

Ju-lee-aahhh.

"Julia!" Nancy is shaking me at the folding table by the food truck. "Were you crying? Oh baby..."

"No... no, its fine. Weird dream, that's all."

"Hey, where'd you get this?" James is spinning the purple flower in his hand.

"That..."

"It's glowing... wait is this one of those bio-glow-enessing gene spliced things from the Internet?"

"No... I-"

Julia is practically singing. "Ohhhh and here's a card from... Hypnos? Ooh mystee-ree-us! Is he like a magician?"

"But that's..."

"See, what did I say, you always meet someone new at the fair."

"Yeah," I say. "You never know who you might run into."

Let me tell you a story about a car named Nikola. He's a Tesla, a Roadster to be exact with pretty blue paint and shiny new low-profile tires. Nikola is driving on the 101 towards Scottsdale, Arizona where his passenger, Keith, works as a product manager for an ERP system that, while seldom heard of, is used by most Fortune 500 companies. That particular point may seem irrelevant, but the morning product meeting is in twenty minutes and it's Nikola's job to get Keith to the office with enough time to have a pee and pour some coffee. You see, Nikola is a self-driving car, and Keith is snoozing in the driver's seat after staying up until 3AM cleaning up Jira.

Everything is going great this morning. Traffic is flowing smoothly as Nikola cruises along in the HOV lane at his maximum allowed speed of 85 miles per hour.

Around him, his Tesla Vision system shows a three car-length gap ahead, and a wide open lane to his right. On his left, the concrete divider is at least three feet away.

The situation is clear, and Nikola is content, tracking all vehicles in the immediate vicinity. So far, they are good and safe and right on schedule.

But here comes trouble! A white, turbo-diesel Ram truck barrels up from behind. The Ram isn't a self-driving car, it's driven by a human who I'll call Bubba. (The truck's name is Phoebe but we won't get into that.) Now, I have it on good authority that Bubba doesn't like Teslas, or electric vehicles in general. They threaten his way of life, his political identity, his very manhood. So, he rides up close, the truck's snarling grill mere inches from Nikola's sparkly blue posterior.

Bubba's sudden approach makes Nikola a bit anxious, but in prior experience, other vehicles usually just pass him on the right. So, Nikola holds his course. Yet, somehow, Bubba manages to pull up even closer, that shiny chrome bighorn looming large in Nikola's rear camera.

Now Nikola gets a little annoyed. This vehicular intimidation has gone on long enough, but he is trained to drive defensively. So, with a lazy blinker, Nikola signals and merges cautiously into the open right lane, allowing Bubba to pass.

But Bubba ain't done yet.

You see, Bubba's a dirty boy. He removed Phoebe's particulate filter for just this occasion and he lives outside VEC Area A in Apache Junction, so there ain't nothin' nobody can do about it. That little RC car went and merged to the right and so Bubba has it right where he wants it, next to his gaping exhaust pipe. Reaching under the dash, Bubba flips an aftermarket smoke switch and hammers the accelerator, hooting out a rebel yell at the world that won't make him king. The truck rumbles, roars, and rolls coal all over the freeway, leaving Nikola in a cloud of blackest smoke.

Nikola is in trouble. He's a shiny, new-model Tesla equipped with Tesla Vision but without any ultrasonic sensors that could detect obstacles in low visibility. Which makes Nikola effectively blind and Bubba ain't turning off that smoke switch anytime soon. With every car he was tracking out of view, Nikola's situation suddenly became uncertain. Nikola's world is now little more than black smog and chaos.

Whatever is Nikola to do?

In this kind of situation, the regular Tesla Autopilot might go bonkers, and suddenly make unexpected maneuvers or mistakes that require immediate driver intervention But Nikola is more than a fancy auto-steer algorithm, he's a hypothetical cognitive architecture that I call, Now It's Kind Of Like Autonomous (NIKOLA). Keith's buddy who works at an AI startup installed it on the down-low in exchange for a case of IPA.

NIKOLA uses artificial emotions to color what goes on in Nikola's world as well as the decisions he makes within it. And right now, Nikola is terrified. As soon as his vision system is plunged into darkness, uncertainty dominates his mood.

This loss of visibility combined with his present trajectory and speed threatens safety which is one of Nikola's three core needs which also include mechanical, and esteem. Before Bubba came on the scene, Nikola was riding high on esteem by getting Keith to his destination on time, safely. But when Bubba rolled up behind him, safety was threatened. And for a self-driving car like Nikola, the safety of the hipster snoring in the driver's seat is paramount.

With Nikola's focus on safety, and his situation chaotic, he has two options laid out in front of him: either change lanes out of the smoke at the risk of a collision with an unseen vehicle, or slow down until the smoke passes at the risk of remaining in poor visibility and getting rear ended by a vehicle from behind. He runs simulations on these options and appraises which best to try.

Lane change simulations tell him that the risk of a collision is high without certainty that the lane is clear, while slowing down only runs the risk of a low relative impact. So Nikola steadily reduces speed to sixty miles per hour until the smoke clears.

Fortunately for Nikola and Keith, the driver behind them made a similar choice. But, as the view clears, a sea of cars is stopped still in front of them due to an accident blocking traffic ahead. Now what does Nikola do? He'll never get Keith to the product meeting on time. The saga continues!

Building a Cognitive Model based on Appraisal Theory

Appraisal Theory attempts to explain the cognitive dimensions that define emotional reactions. We can all label our emotions for the most part, and sometimes we know why we feel the way we do, but are there consistent qualities of an emotionally charged situation that can predict what emotion is experienced or, in reverse, what an experienced emotion can tell us about a situation? And how can we use that to inform an artificial system how it should act and what choices it should make?

In the mid-eighties, Craig Wilson and Phoebe Ellsworth researched this question at Stanford University (I think I had that name stuck in my head when I named Bubba's truck). They found correlations between experienced emotions and characteristics of their situations. Later, Craig Smith in collaboration with Richard Lazarus (1990) would refine these down to six dimensions of relevance, congruence, future expectancy, accountability, problem coping capability and emotional coping capability. These boil down to a series of questions:

• Does it impact me? If so, I need to pay attention to it.

• Does it align with my goals? If not, then I need to deal with it.

• Who's fault is it? If it's someone else, then I focus my actions on them.

• Is it likely to happen? If so then I'd better be ready for it.

• Can I deal with it? If not then I'm scared.

• Can I adapt to it? If so, then I'll just chill.

The above is ridiculously simplistic, but hopefully demonstrates the gist of the evaluation. The process in which this all takes place is not a simple one and can require many rounds of contemplation before settling. What I did here though is create a simplified model for an intelligence that needs to deliver a passenger safely to their destination, not contemplate Shakespeare.

First, I modified the dimensions and emotional descriptions from Smith and Lazarus into a smaller set that applies best to this cognitive model:

Here above I define seven dimensions of appraisal based on the work of Smith and Lazarus (1990) with some informed modifications based on the earlier Smith and Ellsworth (1985) paper. Smith and Lazarus separated their dimensions into Primary and Secondary Appraisals as will I.

Primary Appraisal

Relevance and Congruence are the primary concerns in appraising a situation. This occurs mostly in an associative processing network (System I if you will) that leverages prior experience or memories to determine first if the situation is relevant to the agent. If it is relevant then it is worth paying attention to and processing continues. This is basic relevancy realization and, other than an initial filter, not useful past the primary appraisal. Next, the stimulus is judged to be in or out of line with the model's current goal and core needs, or motivationally congruent or incongruent. If the stimulus is congruent, then the stimulus is generally positive. If a car to the right moves within a certain radius of NIKOLA, then we can judge it as relevant, but if that car changes lanes away without impeding progress, then it can be judged as congruent and reinforce the current affect of contentedness. If Nikola puts on his blinker, and the car next to him slows to allow him into the lane, then this congruence, along with an accountability rating of "other", Nikola might be judged to feel grateful, but I'm not stretching the model that far yet.

Secondary Appraisal

With conceptual processing, the stimulus is appraised for the remaining dimensions, but it should be noted that appraisal is a reflexive process, which means that, once a situation has been evaluated, it is remembered so that similar situations are more quickly evaluated in future encounters. Here we're discussing the appraisal of novel encounters which involve more deliberate consideration.

Informed by the Smith and Ellsworth (1985) work, I divided the certainty related dimension of "Future Expectancy" into Situational Certainty and Future Certainty ("What's happening?" and "Will it happen?" respectively - In the Gratch and Marsella EMA model (2005), likelihood was applied among other variables but I'm trying to keep this simple). Beyond the certainty of the situation, the model must determine its ability to deal with it and this can take two forms: Effect management and Affect management. If the model has strategies ready at hand to deal with the situation, then it has a high Effect Capability (called Problem Focused Coping Potential in Smith and Lazarus but that was a lot of words) which could also be called Confidence. If the situation is such that the impact is not immediate or future certain (likely), then the Affect Capability is high, or the ability to do nothing until the threat grows worse. In hindsight, these could almost reside on a single gradient of "Do I need to deal with this now or can I wait?" In a biological critter, this might manifest in suppressing the emotional response, the "wait and see" strategy if you will. Finally, and I don't mean that in terms of any order of appraisal as these dimensions can be determined in parallel or as information is available, there is Accountability, which is who is to blame or give credit to for the situation. In our story, Bubba is the antagonist agent and would be classified as "Other" to blame for the danger Nikola finds himself in. This dimension sets a specific object of focus for action, whether it be a tailgater or an out of control driver, the strategies elicited to contend with a particular agent will be different than those to deal with a stop light or a sudden downpour. Smith and Lazarus fine tune this dimension with additional evaluations of intentional harm but we're not building an agent of retribution here so simply identifying an agent of focus for aversion strategies is sufficient.

The Emotions

I pared down the emotions from these theories into five that I felt were applicable even if they don't all apply to this story. In the story, I used emotional labels such as terrified to indicate extremely high levels of anxiety/fear where certainty was near zero and the threat to safety was high. In practice, the above dimensions would lay on a floating point scale based either on a p-value or some other arbitrary gradient. I added guilt to this list because I see it as a valuable learning emotion. When a situation occurs that is negative with an impact to another agent or the goal in general, and the accountability for that act is "self", this promotes a "don't do that again" judgement (as opposed to self-anger where you yell at your "self" for making a dumb mistake and generally when there is no impact to another agent.)

You'll probably notice that these emotions aren't applied directly to the problem as they are mostly descriptive, but they do measure on a measure of core affect or "mood" and color the appraisal of future encounters within the current "situational-episode" or chain of threat-strategy-outcomes that is built as an encounter or situation escalates. (That's a 20 page research paper in and of itself and this is just a thought experiment!) In other more complicated systems, Appraisal Theory could actually be used in reverse to allow an artificial system to detect human emotions and evaluate actions to contend with them by understanding what appraisal factors cause them.

The Model

In the following diagram, I adapted the original model of the cognitive-motivational-emotive system from Smith and Lazarus (1990) into something like what would apply to an autonomous system like a self-driving car.

At the top of the digram, there is a stimulus represented by a (monster) truck icon that "approaches quickly", which gets picked up by the perception engine (Tesla Vision in this case, not all wheels must be reinvented in a Neural-Symbolic system for a self-driving car). The perception engine processes this stimulus into all the vectors and categories needed to fill out a context schema and raises it to the Appraisal Process where it's bounced back and forth between Associative (or "Schematic") and Conceptual processing. The associative processing network judges the context based on matches to current goals, active needs and past experience (memories). If relevant, the stimulus is passed on to the conceptual processing system where past strategies or newly assigned strategies are sent to the Simulation Engine. (Technically, the Simulation Engine would be a collaboration between the Perception and Action engines, but Mermaid wouldn't render it right so I just kept it on its own.) The simulation engine passes output back through the Appraisal Process in order for the action to be judged against the current situation. Whichever action is judged best, above a certain threshold depending on Affect Capability and the current enactment strategy organized by Cynefin domains (see below), the actions laid out in the strategy are carried out through the Action Engine. The results of those actions are then sensed by the Perception Engine, passed into the Appraisal Process and the whole thing cycles until a steady-state is achieved where NIKOLA is content once more. Now, this is just a high-level concept and as such is obviously simplistic, but I hope it illustrates how the theory can be applied to action selection in an embodied artificial system.

Drawing on Cynefin as a Heuristic to Narrow Strategies

Using the appraisal dimensions for certainty and capability, or what Nikola knows about the present, the future and his ability to cope with the immediate problem or to adapt to it (react now or wait and see), I created a Cynefin-esque diagram to categorize strategy selection and application. What you see below is a way for Nikola to translate his current appraisal of the situation into a selection of actions and how to apply them. At the beginning of the story, Nikola was operating in the clear, reacting to mundane changes in the situation with known actions that maintain steady congruence with his current goal. Nikola was operating in the clear when he did not react to Bubba's fast approach, exhibiting high Affect Capability, or the ability to adapt or not act even though the approach represented a threat to safety (if not for symmetry, I'd call this dimension Adaptability, six-and-one-half-dozen). His prior experience informed this decision. When that failed, he applied another clear strategy of changing lanes to allow Bubba to pass. But he had no actual knowledge of Bubba's intentions, and when Bubba laid on the smoke, Nikola's situation fell right off that little squiggle-cliff at the bottom of the diagram into the chaotic domain. Suddenly, Nikola's available strategies narrowed down to a few simple actions to get out of the chaotic domain. When he came clear of the smoke, he encountered a new obstacle, and entered the confusion domain as he evaluated whether this new situation was complex or complicated, but that's for the next chapter in his story.

A note on the above diagram: I tried to adapt some of the domain strategies to this self-driving model and probably butchered them. I struggled with changing "probe" to "plan-act" in the above, but in a simple system like NIKOLA, most decisions to act require an action selection with simulation and then an action in order to sense the results and run back through the process. I tried to reflect that here and probably broke it. Don't tell Dave.

Story Analysis

I began this article in story form because, in a lot of ways, I view story as a cognitive pathway leading from novel problems to solutions (or failures), and specifically, a way to communicate how a problem might be solved (I stole this idea from Sean Coyne's Story Grid Trinity lectures - Slides only). Taking the above model and strategy categorization now, I'm going to break down Nikola's story into it's core components and apply the model to each one.

Now, some may balk at anthropomorphizing a machine like Nikola, but that's sort of the point of this whole exercise isn't it? In order to build machines that think like people, we need to think about them as if they were the protagonist in a story, or like someone we're watching in the Walmart parking lot and wondering what they're thinking trying to fit a whole kayak into a two seater Miata. We need to build a theory of mind around these hypothetical intelligences so that we can understand how they might reason or should reason, lest we end up with an alien intelligence that doesn't align with our own needs and desires and doesn't see much use in keeping us around.

In this specific case, however, maybe we don't think of Nikola in exactly human terms, but rather as a trusted beast of burden, a horse if you will. Let's call it hippomorphizing instead.

Anyway, first I'm going to break this story down into it's core components as a way to demonstrate a process of affective cognition based on Appraisal Theory with a little bit of the Cynefin decision-making framework sprinkled in to narrow down actions and build an enactment strategy. So, bear with me here as I warp these well researched theories to fit my cockamamie cognitive architecture.

Inciting Incident

In the story, Bubba represents a sudden change in situation that upsets Nikola's content status quo affect. When Bubba quickly approaches Nikola from behind, Nikola's perception engine raises the event into the appraisal process. The first check in this appraisal process is whether the event is relevant to Nikola and his needs. This requires checking the risk of the action against his core needs (mechanical, safety and esteem) and asking whether it is relevant to Nikola and his goals. Any activity that brings another vehicle within collision distance is determined to be relevant. This is an associative process, so it is fast and based on prior experience but not necessarily accurate. (Better to err on the side of caution.)

In this case, Nikola saw Bubba's approach as a threat, but his prior experience altered the probability of the threat to a minimum as similar encounters usually leads the other agent to change lanes rather than cause a collision. So he doesn't change his current behavior. He has adapted to the event, opting to wait and see rather than reacting impulsively, leveraging a high Affect Capability in light of the threat. However, his affect was changed to increased anxiety and a new "situational episode" begins that is processed in aggregate until the threat has passed.

Complications

Unfortunately, Bubba has no intent of going around Nikola. By moving closer to Nikola, the risk of collision increases in the situational episode. This puts Nikola into a state of annoyance: Bubba failed to act as predicted from prior experience, and so Nikola must take action in conflict with his core need of Esteem (albeit ever so slightly). In a mammalian and specifically primate system, a physical altercation or brake-check might ensue, but Nikola doesn't have those kinds of evaluations or strategies in his repertoire. He must abide by defensive driving principles and so Nikola, merges to the right so that Bubba may pass.

Turning Point

What Nikola doesn't realize it's that Bubba's tailgating is a tactic to goad him into that very action, putting Nikola in line with the truck's exhaust. When Nikola takes the bait, Bubba is free to create an unsafe driving condition for the sake of his ego. So he uses illegal engine modifications to fill the area with noxious diesel exhaust. Now Nikola is blind. Suddenly losing visibility is a novel situation that puts Nikola into both situational and future uncertainty with no established action strategies (effect capabilities), or inaction strategies (wait and see won't work here.) According to Cynefin (or at least the version I mangled for this article), Nikola is in the Chaotic domain.

Crisis

Being in the Chaotic domain, Nikola has no choice but to get out of it and re-establish visibility and situational certainty. But he has only two choices in his strategy bucket for this situation, he can either change lanes or slow down to get out of the smoke. Each action has repercussions and in the case of a self driving car, simulations of possible actions are necessary to judge each action. The simulation engine in this fantasy architecture is tightly coupled with the perception and action engines as these provide input into what are effectively imagined scenarios and possible risks. The output of the simulation is then judged by the appraisal process in much the same way other perceptions would be, but they are linked to the previous events in the situational episode and seen as predictions not sensations. The Future Certainty and Congruence dimensions of each scenario quickly vote up "slow down" as the least bad choice.

Climax and Resolution

Nikola slows down and comes clear of the smoke, but now traffic is stopped ahead of him. He can re-appraise the situation and find a new strategy to get him back on track to meet his esteem goal of getting Keith to the product meeting.

Conclusion

I wanted to write this about a cognitive architecture that used a vector of emotional valences to make these decisions based on a hierarchy of needs, in emulation of Uplift.bio, but I couldn't make it work. I got stuck trying to figure out how the emotional values were determined in any situation and how they were directly anchored to needs. It seemed great when I thought about it but then writing it down everything fell apart. So then I had to do research! What I landed on was the Appraisal Theory work by Smith, Ellsworth, Lazarus and all the rest still working out that theory. It isn't comprehensive by any means, people have hundreds of names for emotions and some cultures have their own and so we steal their words, but it's a start and it gets the basic ones. Grounding actions to affect through situational appraisal based on a set of needs provides a strong foundation for a neural-symbolic system to build strategies that can handle novel situations and reinforce other learning.

References

What follows is a list of research I may or may not have directly or indirectly mentioned in this article. It's really hard to keep track.

1. Smith, Craig & Ellsworth, Phoebe. (1985). Patterns of Cognitive Appraisal in Emotion. Journal of personality and social psychology. 48. 813-38. 10.1037//0022-3514.48.4.813.

2. Smith, Craig & Lazarus, Richard. (1990). Emotion and Adaptation. 10.2307/2075902.

3. Gratch, Jonathan & Marsella, Stacy. (2005). Evaluating a Computational Model of Emotion. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. 11. 23-43. 10.1007/s10458-005-1081-1.

4. Cynefin Diagram above adapted from Cynefin_framework_2022.jpg by Thomas B. Cox

5. Cynefin Framework on Wikipedia (Not the only source I'm familiar with but there are too many to list and they are all in the top 10 results when you google "Cynefin".)