Garithin

Garithin is a small town that lays outside of the big city. It is a fictional town/suburb that may or may not have a real world equivilant. It exists in my mind. It could really be any small town that many of us grow up in around the country, and the idea is that anyone can relate to it. Like Katonah, New York, Middlebury, Vermont, Amherst, MA, Encinitas, CA, the burbs outside of Omaha, or any of the other millions like them in our country.
The idea is not so much to be spcific about the location, but to be specific about the people. Characters in a story are the ones who truly capture our attention and our heart. [When I am melancholy and deppressed I seem to do my best writing.]We want characters that are real and we can sympathyze with. By creating real characters a plot will evolve, and these are the two most important parts of a story. Building characters takes some time and filling in their history is essential to getting to the meat of the story. By meat, I mean the present situation of the characters and where they are going, not where they have been. That is why so many of my favorite novels, the beggining tends to be slow and slightly drawn out, because there is much exposition. Dealing with exposition creatively and assertively is what makes great writing.
So, in my story of Garithin, I introduce the characters that are important to the story. Steven, Molly, and the old Bicyle Factory owner. After introducing these characters and giving them a bit of a back ground, other sub-characters will come out.
Of course getting through the post mortum deppression and withdrawl from a loved one has to be dealt with.
Garithin has a population of about 100,000, which is rather irellavant to the story. The Bicycle factory is rather large, employing almost 2,500 people. The city needs a change, and needs to identify itself. Like most cities in our country there is nothing to differentiate it from other cities in the country. It is a cookie cuter culture, where different will get you killed. Yet, Old Graver has been different, in that he left a wealthy endeavor for one that would seem to many to be idealistic in nature. He lives the oil business, where he makes billions of dollars to persue a clean air project that supports a town, and makes a positive change to the masses. Would this really happen in real life? I guess in my heart I have always hoped so. I've often wished that some Rising star would branch away from the American Dream, and realize that "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness for all," means that we the powerful, we the rich, we the strong, have an obligation to help those less fortunate then us. On this road, unfortunately we will get burned, as Graver does. His wife dies. He looks for comfort in a younger woman, and when she takes him for all he is worth, he is virtually left penniless. His friends abandon him, then his dog dies, which really sucks cause that was the dog he and his wife found milling around Coney Island homeless. One minute he's on top, the next he is abandoned and left to die.
On this path of solitude and disaster, he gets in his car and drives from his home in Houston, Texas, all the way through the midwest towards Ohio. He is just driving, no real destination, and he's not even sure that he will live much longer. That's about the time that he reaches Garithin. He drives by an old motorcycle factory and see's a big sign, "Space For Rent. Convert Old Factory Into $$. Call 515-678-7890." So, he pulls off to the side of the road and dials the number. He waits for the ring. He starts asking himself what he will do with a factory. He has seen the world from the top. The money laundering, the squanering, those less fortunate then him get swept away. For thirty years, he never thought anything of it until it was all taken away. In the car, by himself, he had done a lot of thinking. His business partners had offered him zilch when his new wife left him, and almost blamed him for his inability to keep her. He had never experienced such rejection in his life, so he imagined that his friends must be right. He proceded to beat himself up and enter despair. He got in his Mercedes benz, and decided to drive. There was nothing left for him at his home, and they would just forclose on him while he was there. So, he moved on. Some might say he ran, and if you asked him he would agree with both. He released all his house employees and divided up there fund equally amongest them. He told them to take what they wanted from the house as well, and not leave anything behind for the bank. He would later claim that the house had been robbed and he knocked unconscious during the raid. He had been drinking a lot and not socializing much with his friends, so the story was legit. His driving staff also received bonuses from what was left of the salaries, and the cars that they drived except for his Benz, which he aqusitioned for himself. He signed all the Titles to the cars over to the drivers for $1 a piece. He had always been generous, or at least he thought so, to his servants. But now he realized how little they got payed. He had just payed them what everyone else in his neighborhood payed them. Didn't that seem fair? Now he realized as he talked to them before he left how little they made. $17,000 a year? Could some one live off of that? After he divied out the money, he realized that there was not much left for himself. He went to the local pawn shop, sold his gold watch, rings, and some silk suits. When all was totaled he had managed to get $22,000, which was a far cry from the 11,572,000 he had made the previous year. That didn't include all paid vacations, all paid car services, hotels, taxes, you name it. He was quickly learning what it meant to be a "Middle-Class" american.