Good evening, all. I'm sort of stuck with a short story idea of mine. The premise is essentially Nabakovian: pathology rationalised through gorgeous prose. Essentially, a husband develops a fearful complex surrounding any number of dangers that could be linked to his Wife and child. So, for example, being hit by a car. Random but tangible. He endeavours to protect his Wife and child from any and all eventualities. As time goes on, his condition worsens and he can't help but consider more unlikely circumstances to constitute very tangible threats, for example, slipping on a banana peel and suffering serious head injury, a sinkhole opening beneath them as they walk downtown, or being involved in a terrorist attack. So he becomes more and more pathological, refuses to let the kid go to school, refuses to let the Wife go to work, borders up the house, locks the doors, etc. On the other hand, you have the Wife and the Kid realising that this is insane and trying to reject his attempts to "save them from themselves". The whole thing is told from his point of view to make the pathology seem more rationalised and palatable than it actually is on an objective basis. My clinical understanding of something like this is that, generally speaking, when it gets to a certain point, they realise they cannot save anyone from all of the dangers and it usually results in a sort of god-complex like murder-suicide. My working idea is to have him choke them to death in their house or drive them off a bridge, all the while coaxing them and telling them they'll be safe now. However, I can't help but feel that this is an uninspired and rather predictable ending. Any insight as to a direction it could go?
If he's a father, and he's doing this because he loves his wife and kid and he feels it's the right thing to do, there are 'kinder' ways to try and kill them - if you're set on that kind of ending. The right poison would result in a relatively painless death, and you could ave the Mother realise what's going on and try to stop the kid drinking/eating whatever the father's poisoned. Quietly causing carbon monoxide to flood their bedrooms might also work, and could give an eery/creepy kind of calmness to the end rather than the typical kind of conflict you mention with the choking and the bridge. If you're trying to avoid that kind of ending at all (it's the act of murder you find predictable, rather than the method), have you tried exploring other possible solutions the father might come up with? Imprisoning them in a 'safe' room, perhaps aiming to tie them down so they can't hurt themselves (or paralysing them altogether so they'll sit still), and then catering to them so he has total control. Or look at it from the other angle - given the severity of the situation, since he's already stopped his wife and child from going to work/school, what might they do to escape. Violence? Drugging him so he's groggy or falls asleep so they can break out? Sending messages to the outside world somehow? Figure out how they would seek to end it, then write his reaction to it. It avoids you having to wait until the 'ultimate' end with the murder-suicide, since the W&K solution could come much earlier into the story before his condition develops that far.
The best short stories have great set-ups and unexpected endings. A couple of my favorites in this regard are Ron Rash and Benjamin Percy. Coming up with a creative ending is your challenge—trust your own creativity rather than thinking others can write your plot for you.
A moment of lucidity where he realizes that his "protection" is more dangerous to them than the things outside, resulting in his suicide? Or perhaps the realization that they aren't even there, that they died some time ago, and he's trying to save a couple of mouldering corpses? Lots of Twilight Zone possibilities here.
I really like the carbon monoxide idea, especially given the stillness of the solution and how ominous the whole situation would feel. I guess the problem isn't the method so much as the act of actual murder or coercion as finality coming off as terribly derivative and uninspired. Like, it's not actually saying anything novel about the condition or cutting-edge about a lack of mental health support, or the power asymmetries in the relationships of the main characters. Intuitively, it just feels linear and lacking conviction. A large part of the story is based in the power asymmetry, physical, financial, fiduciary, between the Husband and the Wife and Child (sort of like The Shining, when I think about it, dependents who have nowhere else to go or no course of action to survive beyond fighting back, but in a futile manner), so I feel like them trying to rebel against it and being successful would go against the primary thesis of the story. Also, them surviving would just seem too happy an ending with no real closure offered. For me, it's more about the concepts than the characters. I appreciate your thoughts, I have no idea if I'm making sense. I guess my first post was in relation to how I feel like a murder-suicide or the Wife and Kids escaping are too predictable as far as endings go, whatever the method, and so the gestating story compels a more offbeat direction. One I have considered is, by staggering chance, the three of them end up in a moment of stochastic terror, against all probability - so think like a terrorist attack, some lone wolf takes over a Cafe, hangs a flag out the window, etc. And what happens is the Husband, having effectively simulated these threat situations for months if not years by now on an obsessive compulsive basis, feels terribly underwhelmed by the whole thing. In fact, he doesn't feel as if his Wife and Child are in any danger, and it becomes a sort of absurd exercise in him getting more and more angry with the terrorist, until he eventually starts shouting at him in the middle of a hostage negotiation situation, and tries to choreograph how the terrorist should be acting in order to emit an aura as malevolent and chaotic as possible. The ironic twist would be that this lack of reaction to the environmental stimulus is what would actually save not just him and his family but also several civilians from the threat, and he would for once be able to see beyond the irrationality of his pathology. I've also considered this in relation to a terrible multi-vehicle car accident, and he starts telling the paramedics how to do their jobs, and starts telling the victims how to react to the pain with an appropriate proportion of vehement emotion. Sort of what I was going for above. I can't help but feel almost all of what I write has a bizarro Twilight Zone/Black Mirror feel to it, which means if I'm going to do something like that, then the twists have to be really difficult to see coming. Thanks for all of your posts, I'd be interested in hearing your subsequent thoughts. I probably wasn't expressive enough with my original post.
If you're married to the idea of him remaining a protector you might not like this idea but what if he becomes so infuriated by his wife doing something normal that he sees as endangering the kids that he kills her? This could jolt him back to more normal, lucid thought, at least enough to create a serious internal conflict. There are lots of directions you could go, especially with so many family members, but it depends what feeling you want to achieve with your ending.
Sounds like you've got a great ending covered! Or, I still think the murder concept could work. Whilst it may seem mundane, constructing beautiful description to convey his emotional and cognitive processes could definitely make it really interesting. I don't think it would be cliched or stereotypical because you're utilising the unique lens of the husband's perspective, as opposed to portraying the predictably terrified reaction of an observer or victim.
The wife and kid turn on the man and dispose of him. Looking back - he installed a night light on the porch, served up a few vegetarian suppers and fixed the car. The 'psycho ramblings' are/were mere inner mechanics of the male brain whilst the wife drips blood from her lip - with the axe held in her fist, the boy-child away - plays appropriately among non-gender specific educational toys. Later - this same child discovers 'GI Joes' suffocated/swinging in the loft extension [that the Dad (RIP) built]. Constantly the mother plays 'Carpenters' music, maybe Joni Mitchell? Possibly a background sheriff figure ultimately arrests the [insane] woman + the boy goes to live with the sheriff.
I like @Iain Aschendale 's moment of lucidity—I'd have it more for the reader though, than the protagonist's realisation. And set two years on. A jump to the scene where your mc's institutionalised and, in a tragic/poetic/ironic way, doped or jacketed to their eyeballs for own and others' safety. Visitors are wife and child who by fortunate rescue (you write this scene –> (pulled from car and icy water by hero tramp neath high bridge or similar)) have recovered and been therapied enough to go visit poorly hubby/papa—for closure.
@Funerary That is an awesome idea for a short story. Whether or not the ending is predictable may not have an impact on how heavy it hits, provided your writing is on point. There's a powerful, powerful sense of dread when the reader sees the direction that someone is headed, but, as a passive viewer, has no ability to stop it. It's like watching a train you know is going to crash but being absolutely powerless to influence it. From some personal experience, car accidents are very similar--even when you know its coming, its the sense of powerlessness that pulls out the emotional feeling--and that's what you're going for with a story like this I imagine. You're pulling a sense of uselessness out of the reader, the idea that even when they know tragedy is coming, even when they see it before their very eyes, sometimes, you just can't do anything. That's something anyone whose experienced real tragedy can empathize with. I think you're already on the perfectly right track, and the best thing to do is write it. You'll know if you want to change it once you have a draft, and I'll be excited to read it when you're done.
The first part sounded like he had OCD, but the ending is very different, so I assume you weren’t consciously trying to go down that route. Someone with OCD wouldn’t then murder their family. I don’t think your ending is predictable at all! I don’t think I’d be expecting it.
I like the idea for this story, but instead of killing them deliberately I think it would be more tragic and impacting if the father killed them accidently instead? That way you have some pathos and irony because in all of his attempts to keep his wife and children safe, he's actually the one responsible for their deaths? And the sober realisation of what he's done and the reality of this situation could be how it ends, that he finally understands what he's been doing and that he's been the problem all along. The more paranoid he becomes, the more drastic his attempts to protect them -- and that could lead to him drugging them perhaps, for their 'safety', or keeping them holed up in a room to the point that they starve or they get sick and need a doctor and he's too scared to let anyone treat them. So long as it happens unwittingly, I think it could be a more hard-hitting ending that he didn't even mean to have happen...
