Anatomy of a Short Story

If you had not read the story The Woman On The Train, then any word beyond this point would make no sense to you.
If you are still interested, you can read it here, and come back, otherwise feel free to skip this post. :)

I had been wanting to write a story on something like - boy meets girl on train, develops liking, but girl gives jolt in the end - kinda plot line. The idea lingered for almost a year, I guess. (Ya, at times, it takes lot of time for me to bring them on to paper).
For these kinda plot lines, it's the endings that make a difference. The girl already having a boyfriend/husband would be predictable. I had to think of something really different. I guess, girl being a crook is a tried one as well. So I had to drop that too. I was thinking hard to get something unexpected for the ending. A few days passed by. Chance that I was reading about Alan Turing, the genius mathematician who gave us the Turing test. I learned that Turing was homosexual - that very moment I knew my story was complete.

The description of Vinaya's features was written in April 2008. It was written with no particular story in mind. It just found a use here.
The details on the train, stations, timings, the loco replacement at Guntur are very much authentic. The jumping-off-train-at-Nadikode-Jn for supper is true too - I'd done it myself many times, not for any girl though. ;) :p And Chennai Exp runs late perennially, at least when I used to travel. Thanks to my frequent shuttling between Chennai and Hyderabad for all the knowledge. I had travelled back and forth nearly a score times in less than a year.

The number 377 (no. of emails) is a hidden reference to the Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a law enacted nearly 150 years ago, which this ostracised community is fighting against. There is a vague reference to section 377 in the story - that's when Vinaya is about to say, the TTE interrupts.

A lot of lines are enclosed in parentheses and italicised - which is usually in direct speech - that of the protagonist. These words are what ran across the protagonist's mind at those points of time and not uttered. It is just a window to what the protagonist thought at that time. This usage of soliloquy was borrowed from Erich Segal. But I guess I overdid it :D

Initially, I had set out to write this as a two part story. Obviously I couldn't contain it due to lack of brevity of expression. The first part got consumed in bringing out the edgy character of the protagonist and the office sub-story. You might think that all the talk about emails and work related stuff in first part could have been done away with. There is a reason for it to be there, which we'll see shortly.
As said earlier, the girl-being-crook idea was dropped because it sounded like a tried one. The moment I got my last link for the story (after reading about Turning), it occurred to me that I could use the laptop-missing incident as a subplot in Vinaya's favour - that incident was intended to strengthen the already strong character of the girl. I think it did work out decent enough (But as readers, you would know better). To bring this subplot in, I had to convince that charging the laptop was very necessary. That took me straight to work emails of Ranjan (protagonist). I had to stress on the importance of those emails by creating an office sub-story - like how many people receive it, how critical they were that nobody wants to touch the system kinda jig. At the same time I tried to take a dig at IT services - like how such menial backoffice work is glorified as brain work in the world outside.
Now you know why that work related sub-story figured in part one.
Research says 800 words is the ideal length for a blog post. So I usually tend to stop at around 800-1000 words. Consequently the story spilled into next part. When I started writing part two, it was only obvious that part three was imminent. So, I relaxed myself a bit with part two. But I hadn't decided yet as to how and when I would break second part. On hitting about 800 words I knew I had to break. First, I thought I'll set up a conversation where Ranjan asks if she's married or got a boyfriend and I'll break before Vinaya answers. That seemed ideal. But with the way second part developed, it appeared Ranjan still didn't gain courage to broach the subject. Also this kind of setup would be a suspense only to the readers and not to the writer (Ranjan) - in other words,it would appear that the narrator holds back until next episode. The moment this disparity arises there will come a disconnect between the narrator and the readers.
The phone conversation which Ranjan overhears creates enough suspense both for him and the readers. This seemingly puts the readers and narrator(protagonist, in this case) on the same page and most often readers tend to empathise with the protagonist.

Once I started writing part three, I began to see part four round the corner. At one point I was so tempted, that I thought I'd stretch enough to break at the laptop-missing incident. I didn't give in and cut back some stuff to bring it to a finish.
Here's a soliloquy that was scissored out - the ones enclosed in parentheses.

I thought I should do something really impressive before she gets down.
(I'll call Suresh and ask him to get flowers to the station. Flowers so early in the morning? No. Er...I could send them to her home It would be a helluva surprise! But, address? Sh**!
Hey Mr Ranjan, why do you think like you do at work - all infeasible solutions. Try doing something with what you have than you wish to have. May be you could talk something impressive - you know, the intellectual kind.
Yeah. That's a good idea. I'll talk about String Theory or may be Infinitely Nested Radicals.
String Theory early in the morning to a stranger you met a while ago? Silly nerd! You'll never get any girl in your life, forget Vinaya. Talk something she would appreciate - may be about her or her work.
Yeah, that's a better idea.)
Someone shut the lights and I dozed off.

Other than giving a peek into nerdy mind of the narrator, it doesn't serve any other purpose. May be it bordered on something remotely humorous. So it had to face the axe.

Originally, I didn't want to write that last para where the protagonist sums up what he thinks of the woman. I felt this would somehow dilute the impact of the previous lines. There is a chance that some readers tend to miss the point after quite a deal of reading a lengthy post. So I bargained and brought that last para in. It also helped to emphasise the protagonist's neutral stance toward the marginalised community.
But now I feel I should have stopped with:

"Yeah," she continued with a wink, "she is my better half!". Prerna nodded in unison.
"Oh!" I bit my lips in shock.

or even:

Moments later I received a message - "Like I said its not possible :)"

And that's the story of how a story was created.

msr
PS: sorry that this post ran in excess of 1200 words ;)