Story

In old movies, you’ll sometimes see a jaded newspaper reporter, cigar jammed between his lips, telling a young girl reporter with stars in her eyes: “What’s your angle?”

“Angle” sounds cynical. But in fiction and in nonfiction, a writer does need to find the story.

The difference between nonfiction and fiction: it’s easy to see how the story is set up. In good books, this set-up is very clear. And if it isn’t, the nonfiction book will go down the dumbwaiter of obscurity.

On Imus right now a guy is describing the book in which he chronicles the lives of the men who held the flag aloft in Iwo Jima. His father was one of those men. Two things stand out here: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (after twenty-seven rejection letters) is a bestseller, and, I wish I could get my book on Imus.

But listening to the author talk about his book got me thinking: if I were tapped to write Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro’s story (that’ll never happen), what would be the lynchpin? The obvious story is about a sensational horse who looks to be a lock for the Triple Crown after a drought of twenty-eight years, but breaks down catastrophically, and his owners go to great lengths to save him. It is the classic Hero’s Journey of myth, which I have chronicled here before.

But another part to the story is just now emerging. Barbaro was a Super Horse. If he had not broken down, it seemed inevitable that he would have been the horse we were waiting for. Some people wait for the Second Coming; horse people wait for the next Triple Crown winner. But while the cameras were trained on Barbaro holding his hind leg up off the ground in pain and fear, while Edgar Prado stared at his saddle on the ground, his face drawn in deep lines of sorrow, another story was about to take hold. A horse named Bernardini went on to win the Preakness.

Hardly anyone saw him win it, though. All eyes were for Barbaro off to the side as Bernardini ran by. Barbaro being stabilized, the horror unfolding. Bernardini’s victory was the most hollow in sport.

Since then this marvel has notched the Jim Dandy, the prestigious Travers, the Jockey Club Gold Cup against older horses, and most people believe he will run away with the Breeder’s Cup Classic. Bernardini is a living flame, and try as the folks who already have it written in stone might, he is altering this saga for good. Some people despise him for that. He’s a racehorse, doing his job, winning with effortless grace and flawless beauty, Javier Castellano sitting chilly on him with a trademark loose rein—but this damn horse is ruining everything!

Or is he?

Speaking as a teller of stories, I think that he has made the legend even greater. He has added scope and dimension to an already spectacular story.

Barbaro’s story is one of tremendous courage and stamina. He is running the greatest race, and he shows every day that he is a Thoroughbred who was bred for the challenge. Never once has he given up. Other horses have. When he was stricken with laminitis, he had a ten percent chance to live. His owners, who love him dearly, did not want him to suffer. His surgeon thought he saw a small chance. Gretchen Jackson looked at the horse in the stall and she did not see an animal about to die. She saw an interested party, and he was saying, “Aren’t you going to consult me?”

This is a story of fortitude. Of months – maybe even another year – of Barbaro slowly growing his hoof back. There’s a sign at New Bolton Center: “Grow Hoof Grow”. There’s a saying at Tim Woolley Racing: “Another comfortable night”. Loving Barbaro is like watching grass grow.

The story is a great one, but as an author, I can see the glimmer of something more. I can see the contrast between these two horses, and the races they are running. They only met once, in the race in which Barbaro broke down.

Who is better? Or can we even compare them? Should we compare them?

Like it or not, this is the story that is taking shape, and if I were writing this book, it would be about the two horses, not one. I do not see Bernardini as an antagonist, but lots of people do. The resent him because they think he’s stealing the spotlight away from Barbaro.

But I see this as the story of two horses, their paths converging and then diverging. It is the story about courage and brilliance both. One horse calls on his inner strength every day and is fighting for his life while another is burning up the tracks, a bright sensation. Both are Thoroughbreds, doing what they were bred to do. Barbaro was sired by Dynaformer, a true stayer. And Barbaro’s a stayer in the most important sense of the word. But it is the contrast of his new life with his old life, the contrast of his quiet battle with Bernardini’s brilliant run, that truly shows his greatness, and the greatness of the Thoroughbred.

This is what I believe about story: the best ones are organic. The best ones have room to grow. You start in one direction, and suddenly you come across the real story, because you’ve been picking your way along the road, looking at the ground for gold and you find it.

Think about THE PERFECT STORM or SEABISCUIT. Both of these books could have never seen daylight, had the author not found the real story.

In nonfiction as in fiction, you have to have everything: characters, plot, writing that pulls you along, a climax. But most of all it comes down to story.