Your Questions Answered

Someone commented on my story below and asked if any of it related to anything in my own life. I'm pleased to report that the answer is no. I am not (or have never been) in an unhappy relationship, never been unemployed for an extended period (frantically knocking on wood...), nor pondered suicide. This truly is a work of fiction.

One thing I know for sure is that writers love to talk about their stories and how they came up with them, but what I'm not so sure about is whether or not everyone else likes to hear these explanations. So, be forewarned that this may be exceedingly boring for any non-writers among you.

The idea for this story came from a newspaper article I read about a bridge in China that was a magnet for people committing suicide and how the government (mostly didn't) handle the situation. There was also another part to the article, but in the interest of not spoiling my ending, I won't reveal that here. I thought it was truly touching and haunting and it stuck in my brain until one day the first line just came to me. The words were in second person (from Wikipedia: Second-person narration is a narrative technique in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun "you".). Since I was using the second person to help convey the idea that the narrator could be any of us, I decided to not use any pronouns to indicate the gender of the protagonist or his/her significant other. While this convention made some sentences a little "bulky" I think that it works nicely (or is really annoying). I used the suspension bridge in Waco as the setting for "THE BRIDGE" since I went to school there (Go Bears!) and I totally stole the bridge named Bob from the town of Avon, Colorado. I also have to give props to my friend Steven (shout out!) for the "prostitution in a suit comment"--pure genius!

See. I told you. Boring.

I did have plans to work on the story this last weekend, but came down with a hideous head cold on Sunday morning and spent the whole day on the couch surrounded by Kleenex. Ugh.