Photo of the Week
This week’s photo is a classic view of an ocean. The lack of any defining feature on the ruffled surface makes the ocean seem endless. How about writing something watery this week?
Can Violence Redeem Us?
A few years ago I read and was deeply moved by The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It was a very unusual work with flaws, but also a eerily reverent power and strong, nearly Biblical language and imagery. But that was my first McCarthy, and fellow writers kept telling me it wasn’t typical, and I had to tackle his real classics. So I’m currently in the middle of what is considered to be one of his best works, Blood Meridian.
As I was warned, Blood Meridian is bloody. It is full of atrocities such as casual scalpings, brutal massacres, and jail-cell or wartime torture. What is most disturbing about this violence, though, is how it’s treated; McCarthy’s style is the definition of hard-boiled, and every midnight-black event is presented baldly, free of emotion or judgment. Our main character, the Kid, seems unaffected by all that he sees, merely trying to survive, wandering from one bloody clash to the next. So what is McCarthy trying to say about violence? He might be arguing that it is fundamental to the human condition, which is a compelling point. But more than that, he might be arguing that there is something purifying, something redemptive, something deeply cleansing about being washed in blood.
The review on the cover of my copy says it all: according to critic Michael Herr, Blood Meridian is “A classic American novel of regeneration through violence.” I haven’t finished the book yet, but already I’m wondering — what does he mean by that? Could McCarthy be arguing the unthinkable — that we need violence to be fully human?
It’s a deeply troubling question, but one that I’m glad McCarthy is raising. Other novelists who indulge in violence are usually repugnant to me because they present it as a kind of pornography, eroticizing the violence, tying it firmly to a deep-seated hatred or fear of women. That may come later, but from what I’ve seen so far, McCarthy isn’t marrying violence with sexuality or arguing that women have no place in his world. His story is about men, but it is an historical tale, and the violence is not eroticized. It is, instead, simply what it is: brutal, often purposeless, often strangely fascinating.
Use a Date Book as a Plot Device
We’ve all seen this moment in a movie. Amateur sleuths, whether it’s a kid or a suspicious neighbor or a wary spouse, want to do some digging and figure out what a person is really up to. The first thing they’ll do is check the date book. There will be a mysterious appointment penciled in. A trip to the appointment at the right time will reveal unknown secrets.
Another way this trope appears in movies is with the deceased. After a character dies, it’s impossible to find out more about what his or her life was like without detective work. A check in the date book will reveal the secret fight club she was attending, or the dog shows he’d been attending that no one knew about. Character – revealed!
All this is a reminder that the date book — or its modern equivalent — is a treasure trove of character. You may not keep a paper date book anymore — I know I’ve moved to iCal, and even my parents have moved on from the same black leather calendar they used to get every year and now use Google or Yahoo calendars. All the same, a paper or electronic date book is where our lives truly unfold. Date books tell stories about characters’ lives, just as they’re used for detective work in movies. They tell people who we care about meeting and when; who we’re dating; who we’re keeping secrets from; what hobbies we have; and what we don’t want others to know. Date books are as intimate as diaries in many ways.
After the jump: using date books in fiction.
Sunday Review: Dubliners
I always enjoy delving into short stories; they teach me about form, function, and language even more than most novels, and they’re too often neglected. Let’s take today’s review, James Joyce’s Dubliners, as a prime example; it is usually overshadowed by his mammoth and far more opaque novels Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. Both of those novels are well worth reading (I assume; I haven’t gotten to Finnegan’s Wake yet), but it is the slim collection of short stories that I believe can teach writers more about writing. These short stories are also an important stop on the march of evolution of the short story. Following Chekhov, the father of the modern short, we cannot neglect Joyce, who defined the concerns and structure of short stories in a new way.
After that introduction to whet your appetite, let’s start with some good news: Dubliners is in the public domain, and can be downloaded for free in a variety of formats at Project Gutenberg. I had read it years ago in high school, but I decided to re-visit it recently on my Kindle; it’s great protein powder for anyone trying to tighten up their language. Dubliners is a series of profiles, as the title implies; it aims to capture a wide range of stories, all of them unfolding in the city itself. Dubliners is a very Irish work, with familiar tropes and archetypes; the stories are often populated by kind or oppressive priests, drunken and abusive fathers, stern schoolmasters, and long-suffering wives. The characters are familiar, but each story is unique; Joyce makes each character’s story seem unusual, heartfelt, or surprisingly tender or brutal.
There are many things to learn from these lean, telling stories, but one main reason that they work is that each character does have a plight, a problem of real drama. Boys out of school on a carefree afternoon find themselves followed by a threatening older man; a girl decides whether to elope; a man endangers his job by repeating old habits. Many of the stories are shadowed by a very heavy, very Irish-Catholic sense of guilt, shame, sin, and the precariousness of virtue. People can make one poor mistake that will lead to disaster; the danger of sin, or of disfavor with the city, with God, and with oneself, is never more than a step away. Joyce reminds us that all of the quiet drama unfolding in a city is rich, complex, and human.
Simply put, Dubliners is good education for writers, and pure enjoyment for readers. The stories often end in the middle, or with problems unresolved; while this made some of the stories seem more like sketches, in most it seemed to make Joyce’s point about the never-ending conflict of the many lives in a great city like Dublin.
Photo of the Week
It’s that time again, readers — time for me to respond to some of your thoughtful comments. This week I’m responding to comments on my post about choosing the right subject for your stories, as well as my post reflecting on finding words after trauma. Let’s see some comments!
On choosing the right subject, Savanna said:
This was fun to read, I’ve had similar experiences in Creative Writing groups, or classes. I’ll admit that I’ve never taught one, but upon sharing work I find that I’m listening to a multitude of pleasant (boring) stories regarding the beach.
Personally, I’m a big fan of conflict. Without some form of conflict within my own stories, I get bored with my own writing and move on to something else. I think that it’s a key element in short fiction.
Thanks, Savanna! I don’t know why people seem to think that their vacations will be interesting fictional fodder for others to read — it’s like telling other people our dreams! But I’m just as guilty — for some reason, I often find myself shying away from that most essential story ingredient, conflict. It’s true that without conflict in my story, even I’m likely to get bored with it.
Margaret said:
I’m 65, and there are still experiences in my life I don’t want to write about for publication. Perhaps the students are suffering from “my God, I can’t write about that. People will know that…” Self-revelation, which is IMO what happens when we write about subjects that matter to us, is inevitable in such cases.
Good point, Margaret — I think many of us want to avoid writing about personally traumatic or disturbing events. The fun of fiction, however, is that we can make our characters suffer — though if the subject hits too close to home or we get too attached to our characters, we may feel like the events are happening to us anyway. As commenter mary brady points out, why would people want to read all the darkness and turmoil that made us miserable? What’s important to remember, however, is that fiction can be a way of taking control of a subject, of making sense and order out of it, or at least shutting it away, safe on the page. Students who are afraid to put fictional conflict in their stories should remember that we read to learn about conflict — and sometimes, we read to learn how to resolve conflicts of our own.
After the jump: responding to and writing after trauma.
When NOT to Connect the Dots
One of the joys of a Netflix account these days is the ability to re-discover old, beloved television. I’m a bit of an old fogey when it comes to the media I enjoy; I grew up listening to motown with my mom, and watching Nick at Nite, so I know more about I Dream of Jeannie than whatever was on MTV when I was a teenager. One old television show I’m happy to be re-watching is The Wonder Years. It’s a classic show that often beautifully taps into the experience of growing up and facing a large and frightening world, particularly during a time of fracture and conflict (the show is set during the 1960′s).
As much as I love the Wonder Years, though, I also love to use it as an example for what NOT to do when write a short story or novel. What works in the framework of a half hour television show — a framework in which we often expect strong, clear emotional setups and sentimentality — often falls flat in writing. A teacher of mine called this problem “The Wonder Years” syndrome.
Here’s the setup: you’ve managed to pull your characters into a nice juicy conflict and given them a great payoff. The action has come together into a nice, poignant moment. And then, you ruin it. You step in with a large heavy-handed voice-over and connect the dots for the audience, telling them exactly what it is they’re seeing, what it means, and how it is significant in the larger picture. If you’re familiar with the show, you’ll know that this sounds familiar; at the end of some great bit of poignant action, the voice-over will come in and wrap everything up tidily, telling you what everything means.
After the jump: how to resist the syndrome.
Too many roads in a novel
can lead to chaos.
When you’re writing a novel, there are many ways that you’ve simply got to cut out the clamor in your life and focus on what’s important. You’ve got to turn off the radio, close your email program, close the door to pets, kids, and spouses, and even turn down invitations to parties once in a while. All of these are important ways to reduce the cacophony in the world and focus on your novel.
But what about the clamor in your novel?
Being in the thick of writing a novel is a very exciting time. In many ways, it feels like all the worthy thoughts you’ve had thus far in life, all the astute observations you’ve made or odd characters you’ve encountered, can now finally find the perfect outlet in your large, ambitious work. In the draft and note-taking stages of novel, it’s easy to use your novel as a kind of “drop box” or catchall for everything writerly you’ve been saving up.
The result is chaos and clamor.
If you throw everything but the kitchen sink at your novel, you’ll end up with a snarl of wires, a bird’s nest, an orchestra with everyone playing different songs at once. It won’t be pretty. But the urge to add simply everything — a murder plot, a complicated family, many flashbacks, multiple converging storylines, a political scandal — remains tempting.
After the jump: why we can’t resist the clamor — and how to cut it out.
In this week’s mailbag, I’m tackling comments on my post wondering whether books should be social, as well as my post discussing how to plug into a new world, whether it’s a fantasy world of your own making or just a different sort of experience. Let’s see what readers had to say!
In response to “Should Books Be Social?”, J said:
Um, I never thought about that. Goodreads on the contrary is where I met my “tribes”. There are lots of groups dedicated to “trashy” books you can join. You won’t be judged. If you are self conscious you can create several accounts and have one for your book snobs friends and one for your guilty pleasures. I read all over the map, respected books and trash but I have no shame so I keep everything in one account.
Thanks, J. I love the prospect of a community that judges a little less and simply enjoys the wonderful pastime that is reading; but this fracturing you suggest into separate accounts is precisely what I’m worried about. Who has the time to separate oneself into all of these different selves? I like the enthusiasm and community behind Goodreads — I just think many online social networking sites end up making us perform our lives rather than live them.
mary said:
Anyway, GR sounds like a goldmine to me. As it is, I turn only to my county library for monthly ‘picks’ of good books in various genres. But they are quite good at giving you several reviews from Booklist, etc. Plus, they always say: “if you like such & such an author, you’ll probably like this.” And those quiet little librarians can have pretty out there tastes, too.
It never occurred to me Book Snobs existed, but of course they must–it’s human nature (though I do not believe any person has finished “Infinite Jest” except maybe its late author. I know that NO one has honestly read “Pale King” all the way through–and I am a CPA who prepared tax returns for decades ’cause I LIKED doing them!
Definitely, the algorithms that sites like Goodreads and Netflix offer are truly useful and downright revolutionary — they allow you to enter the collective brain of millions of people and extract recommendations uniquely tailored to what you’ve liked. I’ve appreciated Goodreads’ recommendation feature greatly.
And I have finished The Pale King, mary, or what exists of it — though of course, it is itself unfinished!
After the jump: more comments, more responses.
Some stories are meant to be rough roads.
Don’t apologize for them.
I love writing workshops. I’m an unashamed supporter of them; they give us accountability, which is what really helps me turn out work, and they give us fellow writers to talk writing with. I could go on all day about writing workshops, and I’ve written about them a lot in the past.
That said, workshops aren’t perfect. One problem with them is that they tend to encourage a certain kind of writing. The readers and students in a workshop have a lot on their plates; they tend to support the stories that are the most sensational or entertaining. They would rather smooth out all the interesting rough edges of an experimental or heavy work, and laugh or be pulled in by the sure entertainment of a page-turner.
Nothing’s wrong with writing entertainingly; I’m all for it! But it does mean that other kinds of work have a harder time surviving. Some writing is designed to give the reader a rollicking good time; some is designed to ask tough questions, to challenge us as readers and as people, and to take us on spiritual or emotional journeys. These books are not always the easiest to read, or the best-suited for breaking into digestible, workshop-sized pieces. But that doesn’t make the writing any less necessary.
After the jump: choosing what your story will do.
