HOW OBAMA LOST THE PRESIDENCY

By Guy Hasson

The most hush-hush, hidden, underground secret in the United States today is not a military secret or any kind of security concern. Not enemy movements, not terrorist chatter, not spies lost behind enemy lines. No, no, no; don’t be silly. The number one secret in the U.S. today is how Julian Fischer, chief political advisor to the G.O.P., got Stanley Washington elected president. Two months before the Republican primaries ended, Julian Fischer decided to back the one man who had zero chance of winning. Fischer staked his own reputation on the outcome of these elections and moved mountains in his party to win. And, to the surprise of any poll-followers out there, Washington beat the most popular president since Clinton by a landslide.

Oh, did I forget to mention the one fact everyone knows but no longer find it politically-correct to say? Stanley Washington is a zombie. ‘Naturally born’ in the U.S. he certainly was. The Constitution just failed to take into account the ‘unnaturally reborn’.

So. Nobody knows why Julian Fischer gambled it all on zombie. Nobody knows why he turned out to be right. Nobody in politics, at least.

Did I say “nobody knows”? I meant “nobody knew”. I got the secret off him just after three a.m. today.

Little ol’ me, with my tall-ass legs, luscious lips, and abundant cleavage. Little ol’ me, a girl he’s never seen with a Louisiana accent, just hired by the NY Times, not yet known enough to be recognized by any politicos.

I sat there at the bar stretching my gorgeous gams at one of merrier of inauguration bashes, on the one day his ego would be so inflated it would blind his judgment. Us Southern girls, we know how to stoke a man’s ego to the point where he’s just dying to tell you how great he is. A little immature ejaculation. Of the verbal kind.

So there I was, all by my Louisiana lonesome. And he came. And he bought me a drink, and I made sure he drank five to my one. A little bat of the eyelashes here, a little stroke to the arm there, a little marveling at everything he said about who he was and all he had done. And the next thing he knew, his dream was coming true, because I suggested we go up to my room in the hotel.

A little less clothes, a little more touching, and I started homing in on my target. Didn’t care that I didn’t warn him I’m a journalist. Didn’t care I was crossing a line by dangling hush-your-mouth in front of him and touching him more than a journalist should. Tomorrow the headline would be mine. If the quote was good enough, and I now know that it was, no one would care how I got it. Only the story would be remembered. Boy, would it be remembered.

“Tell me,” I whispered in his ear. “You’re so smart. How’d you do it? How’d you know?”

“He’s a great candidate,” he said between kisses to my neck. “Articulate. He knows how to be in front of an audience. Never loses his cool.”

“Yeah,” I purred. “But he’s a zombie!”

He was getting hot and bothered. I scratched him softly behind the neck: a mind-blinding hormone torpedo.

“He’s not dangerous. And he’s the best man for the job. He’s got qualifications up the wazoo. Former Secretary of State back when he was alive, one of the greatest lawyers our country has ever seen, ambassador to—”

“Yeah, but he’s a zombie! How’d you know? How could you be that smart?”

And I saw it in his eyes. There it was. It was coming.

“You have to be really good,” he said, my hand digging into his chest.

“Yeah?”

“You have to know how to read the American people, know which button does what, and where the fault lines are.”

“Yeah?”

“With a small push of one button, you rock a fault line and move millions.”

“What did you do? What did you see?” He was going to tell me. I knew it. In my head, I was already indignantly throwing him out of the room a second after he gave it to me.

“I was smart enough to see the truth no one else was willing to admit.”

“Yeah?”

And then he whispered tomorrow’s headline ever so slowly.

“I realized the American public…”

“…Yeah?…”

“…Was more afraid…”

“…Yeah?…”

“…Of a black man than a zombie.”

Read all about it in today’s paper.

–THE END

The Assassination is about an old man, an old hero, who has built his entire life around a deed done in his youth. But thanks to time technology, he can look back and learn the truth about his deed. In the story, the personality he has built upon his heroic deed in stripped away, step by step, as he slowly finds who he really is and who he always was.

Nova 18

Here’s the first line of in the story:

“They said it could never happen, but scientists have discovered the secrets of imagination! The full story after these messages.”

Once Upon a Future 2011

The first article talked about how to get the most of closure.

The second article talked about how to give readers a feeling of beauty in your beautiful ending.

The third article covered the emotional core of a beautiful ending.

Enjoy.

In Writing Comedy, Part I I introduced my comedy bona fides and gave us a shortcut to writing comedy.

In Writing Comedy, Part II we tackled the first basic element of comedy: Over-exaggeration.

In Writing Comedy, Part III we tackled the second basic element of comedy: Under-exaggeration.

In Writing Comedy, Part IV we tackled the third basic element of comedy: Comic Distress. The difference between dramatic distress and comic distress is the fine line between drama and comedy.

In Writing Comedy, Part V we tackled the fourth basic element of comedy: The comic problem.

In Writing Comedy, Part VI we tackled the fifth basic element of comedy: Distance. The fifth element of comedy, surprisingly enough, isn’t funny.

In Writing Comedy, Part VII we explored the most basic structure of comedy, both in micro and in macro, and the large role logic has comedy.

Enjoy.

From the review:

SECRET THOUGHTS is beautifully crafted with a straight-forward writing style and well-honed plot. Each story exposes a darkness (and beauty) to humanity. The  pacing is slower at points than I would like, and some introspection could have  been cut. But I urge readers to stay the course! SECRET THOUGHTS will entertain  and enlighten you.

Secret Thoughts is available in various formats here.

Article #1: The Art of Dialogue

Dialogue isn’t words. It’s actions. Words are only shadows of the actions.

Article #2: Dialogue as Vectors

Once you know what actions are, you can look at them as vectors: what we do is the result of opposing needs.

Article #3: What To Do With Characters When They Talk?

Dialogue in a visual medium means you need to solve what the characters physically do.

Article #4: How To Save Bad Dialogue

Sometimes bad dialogue can’t be changed. How do you save the scene? Here are a few tips.

Article #5: 10 Dialogue Don’ts

Here are ten often-repeated dialogue mistakes that you want to avoid.

Then there was another article, not about dialogue, but about consistency. Consistency in storytelling is a virtue. But is there a loophole that allows us to be inconsistent? The article wHen iS iT oKay tO bE InconsistenT shows you that loophole.