Young Writers Society

Mr. Smithers’ Marvelous Multicolor Revolution

Another Monday morning had fallen and New York was gray. The clouds were gray. The buildings were gray. The man walking down the street was gray. The gray was so absurdly, oppressively dull, his face was gray as well. He didn’t smile. He just walked swiftly down the gray sidewalk in his gray suit and bowler hat, humming a melancholy tune and staring straight ahead. The man wore a police badge, grey of course, and there was a slight bulge at his side, underneath his jacket.
He continued his quick and steady pace on past gray department stores and gray high-rises. Eventually, he reached a tall, gray skyscraper. His eyes scanned a sign that listed the businesses in the building until they stopped on the office of Dr. M. B. Caesia, general practitioner. He pulled a pocket watch, furrowed his brow, and prepared to enter the building.
A piece of paper blew down the sidewalk. The gray man stooped to pick it up. It was written on old, yellowed paper by an antique typewriter but the type was far too clear and persistent to be anything but modern. It said:

All hail the multicolor revolution!
The gray will die today!
≈Mr. Smithers

The gray man muttered to himself about the nonsensical nature of the note and threw it to the side. It drifted along for a ways and then landed in a puddle. He turned to the door, rechecked the floor number, and went hastily in.

The gray man found his way to a small room on the 54th floor of the building. He entered the doctor’s waiting room and found it filled with gray tables, chairs, and posters of government propaganda. This room was even drearier than the city outside. The air was stale and lifeless and everything about it seemed stiff. The grayness was tyrannical; not even the peppermints in the dish next to the gray man’s chair could overcome its sheer power. He frowned and picked up a magazine glorifying President Canitiei’s crushing victory over whoever ran against him this time, sat down, and began to read.
A few minutes passed uneventfully. Then, the door to the waiting room was flung open and a second man stepped in. He wore a lime green top hat, a purple tailcoat, and bright red suspenders. In one hand he carried a typewriter and in the other, a firecracker. He sat down calmly next to the gray man, set the firecracker on the table, and began to write.
The gray man glanced at the writer and scowled ferociously. He read the magazine furiously, but glancing up occasionally at the writer, smiling faintly as he typed. Finally, the gray man turned to the other and said in a forcibly polite tone, “The weather’s good today, don’t you think?”
The writer gave him a look of surprise and said in a very cheerful, animated voice, “Certainly not, good sir! It’s gray today!”
“Of course.” came the grey man’s surly reply. Another long period of silence fell. The gray man frowned more deeply. He made another feeble attempt at conversation.
“So, sir. What did you think of the election? Canitiei the best choice, or so I believe.” The writer looked up sharply.
“Certainly not, good sir! Canitiei is a very gray sort of person, somewhat like yourself. I don’t think I like him at all.” Looking rather miffed, the gray man harrumphed a reply and returned to his magazine. He glanced at first at the firecracker and then at the man. At last he turned back to his typewriter.
The silence returned only to be broken by the loud clicking of the writer’s typing. Neither spoke for some time, the gray man grimaced and the writer smiled calmly and wrote. The typing clearly made him uncomfortable as he fidgeted constantly and jumped at the ding at the end of each line. Eventually, he pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter, folded it neatly, and placed it in his jacket pocket. He glanced again at the firecracker and then shook his head. The gray man was making a visible effort not to look in his direction. Tranquilly and with exquisite precision, the writer took a single peppermint with two fingers from the dish and licked it carefully. He paused and looked at the gray man with a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous grin. He reached forwards and gently placed the peppermint into the gray man’s ear.
The man leaped from his chair as if stung by a bee, his voice shaking and his large form quivering like Jell-O. His face was a picture of fury and indignation, beat red and wild eyed. He pointed his finger and yelled, “Who do you think you are? What in the world are you doing?”
The writer smiled. “You seem like a very gray man. I was doing you a favor. I was adding some color to your life.”
The gray man stood there for a few seconds, not speaking, but never taking his eyes of the writer and his top hat. He looked over the man from top to bottom and then gave a sight gasp and a stare of complete disbelief.
“Wait a moment!” said the gray man with a start. “Are you the man who phoned the government the other day threatening to put colored lights on the New York Christmas tree?”
The writer grinned broadly and laughed. “And I will too, no mater what you say about it! There will be not gray lights this year! This year I will bring back the color!”
The gray man yanked a handgun from within his jacket and pointed it at the writer. “In that case, in the honorable name of the United Corporate States of America, I am placing you under arrest for disturbing the peace and endangering the nation.”
The writer’s eyes widened. Giving no warning whatsoever, he leaped onto the table and screamed at the top of his lungs. “My name is Mr. Smithers! My mission, freedom! My law, insanity! Tally-ho!”
With that, he jumped out the window.
The gray man stood there for a moment in silence. Then he said to no one in particular, “Well, that problem certainly fixed its self.”
Then he noticed the firecracker still sitting on the desk next to the peppermints. He observed calmly that it was lit, the spark slowly climbing the fuse towards the rocket itself. His eyes widened and he started to chuckle, letting it advance into full raucous laughter that echoed around the room. The spark reached its destination with a hiss.
The city had never seen such a magnificent display of light and color.

First off, I see you're new, so welcome! Now, let's get to it, shall we?

On the Colour Gray

Okay, so the repetition of gray got to be very tiresome, very quickly, especially within the first paragraph. Upon noting that the entire city is gray, believe it or not, we do get the message and there is no need for repetition. All you need from that point on is to avoid mentioning any colour whatsoever - you can show us the lack of colour, rather than constantly telling us of the one shade everything appears to be.

Something that would also help with this is to give your main character a name, thus ending the repetition of the 'gray man'.

Also - although this may be a matter of our spelling differences, we spell it as 'grey' -

“Of course.” came the grey man’s surly reply

and so do you, here. Be consistent in your spelling. Also, dialogue ends in a comma not a period.

There will be not gray lights this year! This year I will bring back the color!”

There will be no gray lights this year - OR

There will not be gray lights this year

On The Use of 'Then'

This word has no place in good storytelling. It does nothing in any sentence. It is a waste of space and should be avoided at all costs. You used it like six times. Why is it so bad? Aside from revealing a poor ability to present well flowing action with seamless transitions? It quite seriously does nothing in a sentence. At all.

It informs us that the following actions is coming after the previous sentence. A redundancy so obvious it borders on the ridiculous.

'Then this happened, then that happened.'

It also leads you to listing action, rather than describing it.

Again, avoid it.

On Action and Climax

Essentially, in the short story, action occurs a lot quicker than in a novel. Great short stories are in fact, naught but the core of the action - the purpose of the story. On the one hand, you have this and on the other you don't.

You introduce the situation quickly, which is good - but you don't quite show the effects of gray on people's lives, certainly not on the main character who, I might mention, I found to be the opposite of engaging. That is to say, I didn't care whatsoever for his wellbeing and certainly, I had no indication of what his disposition was or how and why he felt the way he did about the colour [or lack thereof]

Which means, that although we - the readers, come to want the description of colour quite badly, there is no indication of this effecting the characters. Indeed, it doesn't even seem to affect the antagonist, Mr. Smithers! He seems to be quite colourful indeed, so what need does he have to spread it?

Quite aside from this motivational problem, the build up is lacking to say the least and the climax, well, can hardly be called a climax. Nothing happens; a confrontation almost takes place, yes, its set up to, but well, nothing happens - Smithers gets away, not a shot is fired and a firecracker goes off. Which is all very well and good, yes, but not as the momentous moment in a short story, I promise you that. No, the climax quite obviously, should be around the Christmas Tree. It simply cannot end here. There isn't even a resolution, you understand, it simply ends with his escape, a brief mention of colour and a lack of any lasting change.

On Randomality

So, there's this cop right? He walks into a Doctor's room, okay and he sits down to read the paper. A real colourful dude comes along and the two try to exchange small talk but fail. So, the cop right, he realises all of a sudden that this guy is coloured - in a gray world! (not a very bright fellow, this one)

Well, once he finally gets it, he jumps up and says - "Your the colourful dude, threatening to colour things!"

And the colourful dude agrees and jumps out the window, leaving a firecracker behind. And the cop sees it, laughing maniacally as it goes off.

The End.

That's your story as it stands. Note the randomness of it all?
a) why is there a cop in a doctors room?
b) why does the colourful dude go there?
c) why does the cop, who tries to arrest said colourful dude start laughing randomly when - 1) the perp got away and 2) a firecracker blows up in his face?

d) why on earth should we care?

*

Overall, I quite liked the idea, it just needs to be expanded on and polished up a bit. Hope this helped,
Cheers

If you want to develop this story further (or a similar story), I highly suggest "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. It's an excellent book on the same sort of subject; that is, there is no color in the world. She manages to relate the concept in a very simple yet effective manner. It's written for sixth grade, but I read it again just a few years ago (at age 22), and the books gets better with age.

Anyhow, as Jiggity mentioned, the use of "gray" got very tiresome. In the manner you were using it, I was expecting a humorous story, but then it turned into a political statement with the "United Corporate States of America" line. So what you have to do is decide: what kind of tone do you want to take with this story? The title and the opening part suggests its humorous, but the political slant makes it anything but. Of course, you can tie the two together, but that takes great skill.

Rather than using the word "gray" at all, try conveying to the reader the look and feel of the landscape rather than just saying "gray" all the time. In the dialogue, it worked quite well, but the descriptions came off as a bit aggravating. You can describe the "grayness" without ever using the word "gray."

Just a couple of other points...

New York Christmas Tree: Call it the Rockefeller Christmas Tree if you're going to refer to it; only people not from NYC call it the "New York Christmas Tree." However, I'd suggest not using it all. Christmas (with gray lights or not) implies color, mirth, and fun.

The "as if stung by a bee" simile line: I know you're trying to imply Santa Claus here with the jell-o part, but it doesn't work. Both of the similes in that line sound contrived, and the jell-o again implies color and fun. On similes in general, I'm almost against ever using them because they usually come off as awkward. However, if this story is meant to be humorous, then make it humorous by saying something like "as if stung by a dung beetle."


In general, though, I do like what you are going for here, and this is a good first draft. This is also something that could easily be expanded upon (it's very similar to "V for Vendetta"). I look forward to reading a developed version of this story.


EDIT

I just saw this video and it reminded me of your story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVVyjRY42s

Of course, the last ten seconds won't do for your purposes, but the idea of Santas rioting through a gray NYC reminded me of what you're doing here.

Hey, nice job on this piece. I liked how you portrayed the gloominess of the town in the story. The whole thing had kind of a Twilight Zone feel to it, especially the ending.

The story in general was interesting, although the end was surpirising. I saw a few mistakes, such as the mispelling of "matter". (You put mater). But the wordiing was good. A lot of times, it's hard to put words together in a way that flows, but it seems like you were able to do that. So good job, and keep writing!

Vet