Pause to Reconsider

“This is the book that won’t let go/no it hangs on and on my friend….”

There are so many parts that I love about D:F, and only a few that I don’t – maybe letting it go is not as easy as I thought. Sure, ideas are coming for book two; but ideas are coming for book six, too. I’m sure I could pick any point in the series and start writing.

There may be recourse: my academic advisor has already assured me he would be thrilled to read my manuscript and give me advice (an advisor who advises? Where do you find such people?) on not only the book, but on crafting a query letter as well.

The problem, loyal followers (and those just passing by my street corner), is that book one is the start of the series. In case I get published, I can’t say much more than that. But there are some very important things in D:F that carry through, that’s rather important for the reader to have before moving on. Let me put it another way: I get the sense that, if one reads D:R first – and then D:F – D:F will sound like a prequel. And the plot of D:R doesn’t really, really allow me to move the info from D:F to D:R.

Another problem is, I’m just not cocky enough to think I got this thing right. I know people like that – and not the annoying people who are just loud and stupid, but people who actually are that good, know it, and have the chutzpah to move forward. Me? I’d rather get someone else who should know what they’re talking about tell me in a very objective manner: “yes, you are most likely on the right track.” Saying I’m definitely on the right track might seem a bit easy: “most likely” sounds more reasonable, especially where writing and publishing are concerned.

So, before Christmas/Winter Break, I’m going to be fixing up a few majorly problematic areas, printing the entire MS, and seeing if my advisor might read it over by spring semester. And maybe, on some levels, I might have been dreaming too big – like, maybe I can send this to some small independent presses. Not self-publishing: I will never, ever go that route. We’ll see what happens.

See you tomorrow.

Emotion du jour: Apathy

So here we are, once again on Fiction Tuesday (which, admittedly, is the same as Fiction Thursday in every way but the name), and I have not much to inspire me. But, never fear, I did get one bright point of inspiration.

In 1998, Story Press published a book by one Ann Hood titled: “Creating Character Emotions.” While I was hoping for a list of adjectives that I could append to speech tags, what the book does instead is give bad and good examples of 36 emotions, arranged by chapters alphabetically. So, on my fiction days, if no specific inspiration is coming (like today), I will delve into this book, pick an emotion, and give you my attempt at conveying it. You will easily recognize these by the one word titles. Today’s, you can see, is apathy. You’ll have to forgive me a little if I cheat on this one, and write something closer to fact than fiction. Apathy is difficult, as Mrs. Hood agrees. Anyway, here goes: I hope you enjoy it.

“What’s it like over there?”

It’s everyone’s favorite question, when I tell them I was in Iraq, ’05 to ’06. I always come up with something: “It was rough, at first, till we moved closer to Baghdad.” Or: “I was on the radio for most of my tour, so it was actually kind of boring.” Or: “It was....interesting.” I like that last one: it lets them fill in their own minds what “interesting” might imply.

What I can’t seem to tell them is the truth: it was like being here – hotter, and sandier, but it was like being here. What about bad guys? What about bombs? What about them? It’s not like you think about that all the time, you’d go nuts. Yeah, we had two trucks go up, lost five guys – and we still drove around after that. We had to. And I’m supposed to, every foot we roll, worry about something going off under me?

It hurt, losing those guys. I went to a football game with one of them, just before we left – had dinner out with four of them at another time, too. I knew some of them from when I came in. And yeah, I thought I was going to be killed – I worried about it until we went back out. But like I said, you can’t function with that worry. So you bury it. You do what you’re supposed to, whatever they tell you. You take what comes – they’d been drilling that into us, whether we realized it or not, for months. They’d been preparing us to die from day one – or to take death without worrying about it too much. We had a job to do, whether we died doing it or not.

I had started writing further, and realized what I was writing was not apathy, but just a healthy view of the temporariness of life. Which is a good pitfall to avoid, I would say – at least, when you’re striving for pure emotion. Or, non-emotion in this case. As Mrs. Hood explains, apathy – like all other emotions – shouldn’t happen in a vacuum, they should each be part of a spectrum of emotions. But the point here was to only convey apathy. You can judge whether or not I succeeded.

See you tomorrow.

Swift Update

It’s been an eventful month, whether anyone was curious or not. I’ve gotten hooked up with an alumnus from my college who has published one series of books, and is working on another series now; in the next few days I’ll be sending him some ideas and hoping to get feedback on where to go with my books.

See, the things is, I started looking at my series as a whole the other day. I wrote quick, one paragraph to half-page synopses of all 8 (it used to be nine, now it’s eight) books, and have begun to see tremendous inter-weaving of all plots. Which is good; I wanted that to happen: but now it becomes a little more critical in which order the books are published. It still won’t matter in what order they are read, at least for the first six books, and at least as far as understanding the series as a whole. But I believe the reader experience will be heightened by reading them in a particular order. The problem is, I don’t know what that order needs to be.

So that’s what will be happening this week, in between getting back to school-work and preparing for finals, and everything else I’ll have going on. It’s time to stop being short-sighted, and really look at this casserole that’s been stewing for about ten years now. I’ll still be posting little writing pieces twice a week, and blogs about Christianity and writing the other three days – and I’ll still be writing in general. What I will not be is stationary – that I guarantee.

So stay tuned, and let’s see where this adventure train takes us next. See you tomorrow!

Holidays

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (at least those of you in America to whom that tradition actually means something – to the rest of you, I hope your Thursday was nice) and that none of you got trampled to death in Wal-Mart, and not only because that’s a crappy place to die, but because I don’t think I’m ready for my readership audience to extend into Heaven (or Hell – you know who you are).

Mine was a bit non-traditional for me: first, we had “dinner” at noon – and since I slept a little late, it ended up being the first meal of my day. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Kellogg’s Pops is generally good enough of a breakfast for me – I don’t need ham, turkey, macaroni and potato salad, Pillsbury Grands and Crescents, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with beef and chicken gravies, deviled eggs, beet-juiced eggs, home-made stuffing, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce. What am I, King of England here?

Secondly it was non-traditional because it soon turned into more of a “Dishes Day” than “Thanksgiving Day.” Granted, I did nothing to help prepare the meal, so it was only right that I do the clean-up afterward. But coming back to the apartment and proceeding to do general accumulated dishes there? I guess I can be thankful that I just twist a knob and get potable water at high pressure, and for the folks who invented Dawn dish liquid (and I am thankful, especially for the first part).

And now it’s Black Friday – though I see some stores just couldn’t wait. Is there any greater evidence of consumerism, commercialism, and instant gratification in our culture than Black Friday being pushed into Thanksgiving? It’s bad enough we try to cram thankfulness into only one out of 365 days (though it brings joy to my heart to see all the folks doing “30 days of thankfulness” for all of November); but now we don’t even want to take the entire day. Hurry up and stuff yourselves and get out there and shop! What is this, a struggling country? Did you plant, cultivate, and harvest what was on your table? Did you do anything more than drive a few miles to the grocery store, curse the lines, cook everything in a controlled (or not so controlled) frenzy, curse at the number of dishes and the contrary relatives, curse at the Detroit Lions, and finally fall asleep? Of course not! You have no excuse to be thankful; so go buy more stuff.

For me, and as much as it drives my fiancée nuts, I will not celebrate Consumermas until December 1^st, thank you very much. That part of the holiday should be thankful I give it the time of day, much less a month of my life. If you want to spend the month thankful for the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we can talk.

But just so you know, money is kind of tight for me this month, so I probably won’t be able to get you any presents. But that’s okay, because that’s not what Christmas is about – right?

See you Monday.

Personal, Intentional, Effectual

I know this doesn’t have much to do with Thanksgiving (a topic seemingly quite popular this week among the other blogs I follow) but that will come, I promise. I’m going to step perhaps far out of the bounds of popular authors today, and more fully develop some thoughts I’ve discussed before. It has to do with author intention.

As I’ve sort of discussed before, there are two tracks I hear authors taking these days: 1, the “my characters usually end up telling me what the story is about” approach; and 2, the “I just write what I know I’d like to read” approach. Now, the second one might simply be a different way to couch the language I’m about to use; but I’ve never heard an author say: “I write so that my readers will understand what I’m trying to say.”

Now, there are some particulars that must be hashed out. What might the writer be trying to say, for instance? Are they just writing a story? Because, see, the first two approaches seem rather haphazard, like throwing darts blindfolded, or with precise aim at a covered target: “I know what I like; hopefully there’s some others who will like it too.”

But what makes great literature last so long? Is it because it’s just so well-written? Lovers of Dickens may say so; those with more modern tastes would disagree. Is there just a large enough contingent of Dickens lovers to keep him alive? Or is there something in his stories that does still speak to who we are as humans, even if his prose is difficult? I would argue the latter.

And how many Presidential speech writers, do you think, write the State of the Union, or any other address by the President, with the thought in mind: “Well, I know what I want to hear; hopefully the rest of America wants to hear it too”? I hope you answer none of them.

But should literature boil down to rhetoric? I hope you answer hesitantly “no.” And it shouldn’t; it’s literature. So it shouldn’t be as bold-faced as rhetoric. But I do believe the great writers had just as great an agenda as current rhetors, whether they admit it outright or not. They see something about human life wherever they are that they either agree or disagree with, and they write about it.

I can imagine this isn’t a popular notion – but I also believe most works today won’t survive past my generation. The ones that I believe will are the ones that also most clearly follow this thought-pattern. Twilight has certainly struck a chord in today’s society: do you think it’ll survive the test of time?

The Day They Came to America

This is going to be a bit of a stranger theme than before, but perhaps you will still enjoy it. The inspiration comes from the Circ song “Destroy She Said.” Not the whole thing, just the one line actually. Still, here it is.

It was Labor Day, the last day of summer – and what a gorgeous day it was. Dad was in the front yard, trimming the hedges; mom was in the kitchen, preparing hamburgers and salads of various kinds – I always went for the macaroni salad – and trying to keep Mallie entertained in her high-chair.

Mr. Sievers’ red Taurus drove by, and dad waved a gloved hand as he passed. Mr. Sievers lived just three houses down from us – in fact, it was his trimmers dad was using now. Mr. Sievers, I knew from Mr. Malkin, didn’t lend his tools to just anyone. But everyone in the neighborhood knew those trimmers would be returned before nightfall.

Speaking of Mr. Malkin, I could hear him cutting his grass next door, and I could catch sight of him every time he rounded the corner near our driveway. I could close my eyes and hear the brrrrrr of the mower fade, warble a little, begin to grow louder, then open my eyes just as the noise exploded from behind our garage and Mr. Malkin would come into view. After ten summers, it was just one of those things you became accustomed to.

Faintly, far down the road, another customary noise cut through the noise of the lawn mower: Pop! Goes the Weasel was jangling, but only every couple notes – the really loud, high ones – would actually make it through the din of the mower. It didn’t matter: I could fill in the other notes by memory. I felt a little old now, to be chasing after ice cream trucks, but I could imagine every kid in the neighborhood scampering to their parents for a dollar or two.

Soon, the truck was supplying all the notes as it rounded the turn down the road. It came slowly, not wanting to run over any kid who was perhaps a little over-eager. Dad paused and looked up, then back at the house with a smile. I’m sure he was remembering the days I would burst out of the door and come running to him. I could certainly remember the days of him scooping me up, carrying me the last yards to the road, bouncing me on his shoulder as he asked what I wanted, and reminding me not to tell mom when he gave me his.

Then I saw the kids; they streamed from front doors almost simultaneously, tearing across front yards and ducking through hedges and pounding around the little low wooden gates some of our neighbors had put in their yards.

The truck stopped at an angle so that in my line of sight it was just beyond Mr. Malkin’s yard. I thought I saw the driver: but something was wrong. I knew it was supposed to be Stephanie. She complained to me last week that it was the only job she could find, even though summer was over and she might only make two or three trips. But the person I thought I saw was a man.

Just then, Mr. Malkin’s mower roared from behind the garage. He stopped, watching the crowd of kids flocking to the side window. Dad paused to watch too, and it seemed the entire neighborhood waited as their children clamored for ice cream.

The truck went up in smoke and flames, and little bodies were ripped and thrown back the way they came in lifeless acrobatics. Windows shattered; cars were flipped over; Mr. Malkin disappeared in the smoke of the blast. My dad was screaming in the front yard; the shears had taken off his arm.

I tried to gasp, but I couldn’t breathe. The window in front of me was gone. Mr. Malkin’s mower blade was in my chest. The room tipped over, and as I gazed at the ceiling fan I heard my mother scream.



Why, you ask? The opening of the song says: "Like towers falling down/Like a bomb blast in your town." My mind began thinking about the explosiveness, the suddenness of bomb blasts. Originally, my thinking was tending toward someone watching her town get bombed in a war-time situation. But when I woke up this morning, the scene had shifted in my head into something much more sudden and unexpected -- more like what I envisioned when the words of the song first hit me. I think it's the thing that makes terrorism appealing to the terrorist, because it is so shocking that we can't fathom living in a place where such things occur. In order to not live in such a place, we conform to the terrorists' ideal for life, so they stop bombing us. Hopefully that shock and suddenness came through in this story. See you tomorrow.

Who ARE These People?

An interesting thing occurred to me the other day – Saturday, I think it was, officially – concerning my book. My current book, D:R. I felt like, in chapter one, I’ve already introduced all the conflict there is to introduce, and all that’s left is to resolve it. Which is probably good, though not precisely true, except that I feel like I could resolve everything in about three chapters. Making it a very, very short novel – a non-novel, for how short it would be. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became why I felt this way.

First, the movement of the characters – the action part of the plot, that is – is really very basic. Not in a bad way, I don’t think; but it could really be told in a short story of about 15,000 to 25,000 words – if I was only concerned with the action part of the plot.

But then I began to think about a character I’m about to introduce – he’s not a foil, per se, but he’s the rasp that will sharpen the main character. Then I began to realize that this is the first piece I’m working on – and it happens to be a novel – in which character development is probably the heftier part of the story. The action drives the characters, to be sure; but the characters drive each other too – and really, a major point of this story is the depth of these characters. The theme is tied not just to what they do, but how they are. Similarly, the culture of the land is huge in advancing the theme, and much of the story will be spent on that as well.

So this is very new territory for me, and when I think in terms of moving the story forward I cannot simply think of physical foils to the character’s journey, but mental foils as well. I have begun this process, in working out what drives the traits of each character. But I had forgotten, for a time, how much I need to develop that not only for each character, conjuring situations which allows the reader to see how these characters tick, but also I need to develop situations in which the characters act and react off each other – and then spin all that toward the theme of the novel.

My fiancée recently advised me not to expect to write this story as swiftly as I revised my first attempt at a novel. Which is true on two fronts: in the revision, though it was essentially from scratch, I knew the plot intimately. I’d been with that plot for a number of years. But secondly, that story was – in its former state – much more about action and much less about characters. I’m convinced now, working on this book, that the focus will change to the characters by the time I get back to it. And I will be totally revising it again – but definitely for the better.

I still hope to finish a chapter a week, but it will take more effort than perhaps I first anticipated. We’ll see how it goes. See you tomorrow!

Choices and Context

So today I thought we’d take a somewhat oblique look at why I love the English language, and writing in particular. Now, obviously, everything I’m about to say can probably apply to many of the languages of the world, and perhaps some can even do it better. But regardless.

To this stated end, I want to take you on a journey from a basic, non-descript sentence, to one which reveals character. Finally, I’ll show you one common amateur mistake, or temptation.

“A man drank tea.”

It’s a better start than some – at least this is a complete sentence – but still rather bland. We are, after all, trying to give character. So, let’s start obviously and give our random man a name.

“Richard drank tea.”

We’re getting somewhere – but let’s pick some more colorful verbs.

“Richard (sipped, gulped, swallowed, slurped, drained) tea.”

In the name of expediency, let’s advance our sentence to: “Richard sipped his tea.”

We’re coming much closer. But let’s add an adverb just to spice things up a little.

“Richard sipped his tea (slowly, cautiously, bitterly, gingerly, calmly, indifferently).”

Let’s go with: “Richard sipped his tea calmly.”

Now, to really show character, let’s put it in some context:

“Steven laughed uproariously, pounding the arm of the leather chair in delight. Richard sipped his tea calmly.”

Now we have something pointing to Richard’s character; of course, we would need a little more context to see if he lacks a sense of humor generally, or just in this specific incident – suffice to say for now Richard doesn't find this particular incident amusing.

Now for the temptation, which ensnares a lot of aspiring writers in my Creative Writing class – that is, rather than showing more context, the writers tell it.

“Steven laughed uproariously, pounding the arm of the leather chair in delight. Richard sipped his tea calmly, unappreciative of Steven’s sense of humor in this incident.” (And that may be attributing more eloquence than they deserve.)

Please, please don’t do this; let the reader discover for themselves why Richard only sips his tea calmly while Steven’s outburst continues. Let them infer, and if they get it wrong, then you need to practice getting it right. It can be difficult to say “the reader misunderstood” and place all the blame on them – after all, they read it how they see it. There are individual, and even small-group exceptions: but if the general consensus is your protagonist has no sense of humor, then he has none whether you imagined him having it or not.

It’s all about word choice and context, after all. See you Monday.

Dialogue Blog

We had another writing exercise in class, this one strictly dialogue. My professor kept the papers, so hopefully I can recreate this wel enough. The prompt is this: an ad appears in a paper for six puppies needing a good home. A man calls inquiring about the puppies, and the woman who answers gives him directions to the house. When he arrives, though he bore no accent on the phone, it is clear to the woman he is of Chinese descent. He quickly makes it clear he wants all six puppies. Succumbing to the prejudice that dog is a dish in China, she suddenly fears for her adorable puppies. The dialogue ensues:

“All six?” she asks faintly.

“Of course,” he replies with a smile.

There is a pause. “That’s a lot of food. Uh, I mean a lot of dog food. A lot of food to have to feed the dogs, that is.”

“I’m sure they won’t grow that big,” he says with a chuckle.

“Six is a lot of dogs to have.”

“Well my family loves dogs; they’ll probably each want one. Maybe for Christmas.”

“Or Thanksgiving,” she mutters quietly.

“I’m sorry?” he asks.

“No, I’m sorry, Mr--?”

“Chen.”

“Mr. Chen; what is it you said you did again?”

“I’m in exports,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Oh? To where?”

“China, Vietnam…a few others.”

“Is there a lot of money in that?” she asks.

“Some. I’m sorry, is there a problem?”

“I just – I think my ad was unclear. I really only want to give one per family.”

“No, I’m pretty sure your ad was very clear; it said six puppies for a good home. I want to give them that. So what’s the problem?”

“It’s just, people don’t usually buy six of anything, unless they’re…”

“Unless they’re what?”

“Shopping,” she says quietly, her eyes dropping for an instant.

Mr. Chen stared at her for several moments, then burst into laughter. As his chuckles subsided, he wiped his eyes. “Mrs. Devlin,” he says, still smiling. “You don’t eat collies!”

See you tomorrow.

Inspiring A Plot

So we were discussing in class the most difficult part of writing. A general consensus was the plot – coming up with a plot that other people would be interested in, that was a story you liked, and that achieved everything that needs to be achieved for a story to “work.”

In response, then, the professor began to explain a way to come up with a story. For him, the story germinates in a commonplace story that the author then piles conflict upon. He suggested, too, that speaking it out loud was a good way to work the details out. He then proceeded, in class, to come up with an idea, complicate it, and produce the plot of a story. It wasn’t phenomenal, but could easily become so in the writing of it. (After all, “A Man Reading Othello in One Sitting” is a basic idea with no real inherent story – hopefully in the writing of it, I created something you guys enjoyed.)

This interested me, and I began realizing how story ideas come to me, because it was not in this way. I’m not sure what the general way of inspiration comes to authors, but I find myself generally starting with the theme. Now this may sound like a recipe for morality stories of yore; but I don’t transform it into an analogy, where each element is translated directly into a character, and that character does nothing more than illuminate his or her analogous theme. I do work out what kinds of characters portray a certain idea – perhaps one who professes something like Christian ideals, but acts as the hypocrite in not living them out. (Actually, this is the theme of many of my short stories, or is at least one element in them. A very good pastor-friend of mine says that pastors have one sermon, and 52 ways of telling it – I seem to have one theme, and myriad ways of portraying it.)

So, for instance, I have a story that began with the idea of God whispering to us in our “storm,” reassuring us he is there. It came from a line in a Casting Crowns song – and the song’s theme was embodied in that line, that even when we can’t see God at work, He is. In translating it into a story, I tweaked the theme, taking it in the direction of American culture today. I created a blind man whose girlfriend always does a phenomenal job of guiding him where he needs to go. So he should trust her; instead, he finds himself running off on his own. Then, when he gets in trouble, he calls out to her. It reflects, for me, the culture we live in where we kick God out of every social institution we can, then wonder where he is when tragedy strikes – even, sometimes, going so far as the say: “God bless America!” when we see ourselves overcoming something like 9/11. The girlfriend’s line near the end of the story encapsulates, for me, the deep incongruity of this attitude: “Right James; I’m all you think about – when you’re in trouble. But when everything’s fine you do quite well on your own, don’t you?”

Of course, the latter part of her speech is facetious – in the story, he is caught in a storm with a broken leg as she runs off to get help, and in constant pain and fear of his life. And he got there as a result of his “independent soul” as he describes it – in Christianity we might call it a rebellious nature.

Novels are, of course, much more complex of an inspirational journey, and I certainly don’t have the space here to discuss that. But often I find the process is much the same.

And it’s great fun. I haven’t yet received a prompt from you guys for tomorrow, so I may try to recreate a dialogue exercise we did in class last Thursday that was quite fun. See you then.

Prompted by Othello

Responding to Glynn’s comment of last Thursday, I present to you a man reading Othello in one sitting.

He had heard of black holes, of course, but never expected to find himself sitting with one held wearily between hands whose ligaments were failing. Yet here it was, and around the edges like a supernova halo were the distractions, fighting to keep their place: above, a stained glass window with multitudinous depictions of creation, fall, and redemption; to the right, a young girl – probably freshman – with a cute smile, curled in a ghastly Victorian armchair; below, thankfully, was only his jeaned lap – that provided no distraction, he had become quite used to it by now; and to the left a contingent of three students, busily yet quietly studying.

But before him, the great vacuum: page 185, line 220: “IAGO     O, ‘tis foul in her.”

It must have great significance, somehow, for he had read it now about thirty times. Involuntarily, yet maliciously on the part of the book, it drew itself to his mouth as he stifled a yawn. The girl with the cute smile flashed him a grin; the students did not break their studies; the window streamed in sunlight; his jeans were silent.

“IAGO     O, ‘tis foul in her.”

He shook his head, blinking the blear from his drying contact lenses. It really wasn’t fair; he had the tremendous privilege of holding in his hand the illimitable Shakespeare – and normally he would have drank it in like the girlfriend’s ear bent on stories of her boyfriend’s youth. Like Desdemona drank in Othello’s stories, actually. But now Othello was ninety, his stories one hundred and ten; and Desdemona was mostly deaf, and glad of it.

“IAGO     O, ‘tis foul in her.”

Even with the text on one page, and notes on the opposite page, 185 pages is a significant number to read all at once. He paused to glance up, ruminating on his accomplishment. Is that writing on the stained glass? It is! But a little too far away to read…could he get up and go closer?

“IAGO     O, ‘tis foul in her.”

A deep sigh is drawn, index finger to temple and thumb to jaw as his head bends back into the text. The cute girl unfolds herself and leaves – a lot of girls on campus wear those jeans, it seems, the stitching in the pocket reminding him of the Conrail logo, or maybe a bird on the wing. The pages turn, more rapidly now. It really is quite nice that the text is only ever other page. The halo of distractions disappear as Othello is drawn deeper and deeper in, Iago’s trap is too neatly laid, and properly for Othello’s pride. Then it comes to it – the bed – the pillow – muffled cries and murderous anguish—

The cute girl has returned. “Whatcha reading?” she asked, her smile of immense power swallowing the black hole – physically impossible, scientists would say, yet here it is. He glances down and blinks.

“Umm…”

Don’t forget to leave a comment for Thursday’s piece! See you tomorrow.

What's In A Book?

What happens when we critically analyze a novel? Can the average reader engage in such things? Or are they just supposed to be pawns of the author, enjoying the story while in the background their opinions and emotions are being manipulated? Hopefully that’s a rhetorical question to which the answer is emphatically “no.” But readers don’t also need a PhD in literature to truly engage a piece of fiction.

(Now there are several ways to interpret a text, at least in the literary critique circles; I have my own kind of blend, so what I say here is my own, and not necessarily the only way.)

First I look for the theme of the work; what is the author reacting to? Speaking against? Speaking for? Exhorting toward? They all do, to some extent; so what is it? Why does this story need to be told? Speaking as a writer, I know that there are a multitude of reasons why I feel compelled to write – and I know those show up in my stories whether I want them to or not.

Now, this probably doesn’t apply to genre fiction: pure fantasy, romance – stuff like that. Those take the form from their literary counterparts and reduce them to mere form. But I am speaking of literature – “news that stays news” as Ezra Pound once put it. It stays news because it speaks to the human condition – and the human condition – once you strip away time, culture, and ideology – has stayed very much the same for thousands of years. And that is why, dear friends, literature is so important, and critical analysis of it is just as important. True literature, regardless of genre, should be walked away from with a sense of “why is this fiction? It seems just like real life.”

Once the theme is determined, it must be found what all the supporting pieces are. Here is where it is critical to not just look at what exists in the novel, but how it is treated. Is wanton sex engaged in by the hero, or the villain? Or graphic violence? It is not enough to just say: “It exists; the author supports it.” The author must make claims on both sides of the fence, upholding some positions while condemning others. But he cannot simply say: “this is bad; this is good.” That’s what dissertations are for. Instead he or she must use the framework of the story itself; if one mode of thought leads the character toward destruction, that thought is condemned by the author. If another thought leads to restoration, that claim is upheld. Often it’s as simple as that – what survives is held to be true by the author, what fails is false.

Consider it the next time you read; you may be surprised by the experience.

See you Monday.

Calling All Prompts

It’s been an interesting few days, for me. I’ve been spending a lot more time actually on campus, talking to people, hanging out at the café…reading all of Othello at one sitting….

And I’m sensing more time on my hands. And I’m sensing that is a trend which I will force myself to continue as we go along.

So here’s an idea, stemming from my last fiction post: why don’t you guys leave a prompt in the comments, and I’ll write something like 500 to 1,000 words based on the prompt? It can be a concept, a first line, or even a full-blown scenario – whatever you feel like dreaming up. Depending on the response, those will be what I post on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in between my regular posts three times a week.

Sound like fun? Sounds like fun to me. See you tomorrow.

Wisdom Cries In The Streets

What to discuss today, hmm? Granted, something new will be up in twelve hours or so. Funny how the day can run away from you sometimes, isn’t it? It’s always good to set time aside, make it a priority. Like me: after this, I’m reworking a bit of scene from my novel – something I was inspired by a few days ago. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up writing for a few good hours – I got time, now.

I realized a bit, earlier today, how much the reader does bring to the interpretation of a text. I mean, you have to react to something – the text is still there, and you and everyone else reading it is reacting to the same text. But wisdom is a tricky thing; it’ll pop up just about anywhere, if you look for it. And it doesn’t always jump in your face, either. I was reading a fellow student’s poetry that she’d written from about 2006 till two days ago. Coming at it – unintentionally, but it happened – with certain things on my mind made me read a lot of them a lot differently than if my mind had been elsewhere. But again, I didn’t necessarily get straight-up answers from what she’d written; but it provoked some thoughts, and as I strung them out and chewed on them a little, answers came. Decisions came. It was weird, and really cool and helpful.

We’re so used to having things handed to us, you know? I need bananas; go buy some bananas. I need help: find a self-help book. I need entertainment: find something on TV or grab a movie. We don’t pause and reflect anymore. That’s why books have to be so sensational anymore; like my Shakespeare professor said, we don’t need our imaginations, and they’ve atrophied. Who needs an imagination when you have Avatar? Or Star Wars? You’ve got to get to the point quick, in books; and as my advisor says, stories have to be so much more poetic because they have to tell a lot in very little time.

But even when they do that, they do nothing if the reader doesn’t actually engage them. If all the reader gets its cool imagery and fancy wording, they may as well read the back of a cereal box. I can pour my heart into my book, but odds might be that only literary critics really understand what’s going on. I hope not; and I won’t sell many if that’s true.

Look for wisdom, it’s out there – and it may be anywhere you want to look, if you really think about it. I’ve had an amazing few days, being more attuned to looking for wisdom. Try it. Maybe find it in a book.

See you tomorrow.

A Brief Writing Exercise

For today, I realized that as much as I talk about writing and trying to be published, no one reading this blog has any idea what my fiction looks like – at least, most people reading this blog. For class today, we had to write a description-dialogue piece, responding to the prompt of a pastor, his wife, and the choir director. The wife suspects the pastor of cheating on her with the choir director; one day, on her way into town, she sees the two at a restaurant. She goes to her husband’s office at the church and overturns it. The wife returns home to wait for him; after dinner, the pastor goes to the office and discovers it in shambles. We were required to write a descriptive scene about the office, and the ensuing conversation when the pastor returned home. Since I have no plans of publishing this, you can read it here. Enjoy.

Coffee stained the doorway outside of Pastor Mike Jeffries’ office – that was from the dropped cup upon arriving, late at night. He had finished meeting with his church’s choir director, and had returned to the church to drop off a few things. Those were set outside the door, as well, for there was no room in the office itself.

Pastor Jeffries’ secretary, Janice Jones, stood outside the door way, the width of her eyes surpassed only by the width of her mouth.

“What happened?” she asked.

Mike knelt in the middle of the floor, spreading his arms helplessly at the chaos around him. “Not really sure,” he said with a shrug. “Tornado?”

It was not as bad as it could have been: one set of papers were in a stack, the ones Mike had managed to collect in the past few minutes. The rest, which came presumably from the over-turned filing cabinet, were now wall-to-wall carpeting. He kicked himself for not bolting the bookshelf to the wall; it had been pulled down, and an army of books like tents had bivouacked near his desk. Sprinkled across the white sheets of paper, like early fall when only the weakest trees have defoliated, were yellow legal-pad sheets. The trash can stood on its head beside his desk, though mercifully the contents of the bag had not been strewn. Pens were laid out in a fountain whose base sprung from the corner of the desk, where the mug once sat. It had been shattered, its broken bits like caltrops across the floor.

“I think you need to go home to your wife,” Ms. Jones said.

Pastor Mike glanced at her wearily, as her face showed shamed recognition. “What is it?” he asked.

“I noticed her driving away,” Ms. Jones said quietly, glancing at the door frame. “That’s why I came here.”

“You don’t think she did this?” he asked, grunting as he stood amidst the rubble.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll work on this; go home, and we can get everything straightened out in the morning.”

Pastor Mike dropped a sheaf of papers, glanced around his ruined office, and raised an eyebrow. “I hope to get some of this cleared up tonight,” he said drily.

*

Rachel Jeffries stood before the stove, trying desperately to calm her unsteady arm as she heard her husband enter. She waited, quietly stirring pasta as he hung up his coat and put his briefcase near the coffee table.

“Where have you been?” she asked, fearing the tremor in her voice.

“Beirut,” her husband said simply.

Rachel’s hand spasmed on the ladle. She couldn’t help it, but a smile crept on her face; she tried quickly to calm it. “Where?”

“Have you been to my office recently, my love?”

“Have you been to Turello’s?” she returned, gazing into the pot as it struggled to boil.

“Yes, I met with Sharon,” Mike replied.

“Oh? Sharon?” Rachel echoed, ringing the ladle against the pot. “Is that her name? Sharon?” She struck the pot so forcefully that the head broke and clattered to the floor. She ignored it, trying halfheartedly to stir with the handle.

“Rachel, don’t tell me—“ Mike began.

She spun on him before he could finish. “Yes! I saw you,” she said. “I was on my way to get dinner, you should know! Then I see you sitting with her…”

“Yes, wife, I meet with people,” Mike countered. “I am a pastor; I meet with people, and sometimes I try to help them with problems.”

“Oh, you try to help them?” Rachel said with a laugh. “And how dare you call me ‘wife’ after tonight; how dare you ever call me ‘wife’.”

“Honey, you are being very foolish right now,” Mike began tiredly, gripping the back of a chair with both hands as he leaned forward.

“Let’s not get into the myriad times I’ve been made a fool by you, Michael,” Rachel said, stirring the air with the broken handle.

“I was there to help her with a problem,” Mike said.

“What problem? Is she not getting enough sex? Is that her problem that you wanted to ‘help’ her with Michael?” Rachel fists sat resolutely upon her hips, now.

Mike gazed at the table for a few moments. “I can’t discuss with you…” he tried.

“Oh I’m sure you can’t, Michael,” Rachel said, throwing the handle down hard onto the table.

Mike straightened, his cheeks hardening. “I will not discuss Sharon’s problem with you, of all people.”

Rachel’s shoulders sagged. “’Of all people’?” she moaned. “I am supposed to be your wife, Michael. Who can you discuss it with if not me?”

Mike only shook his head slowly.

“Because it’s an affair, Michael!” Rachel spat, once again in her fury. “Can’t you even say it now? You’re exposed! Admit it! Stop the lie, Michael; stop hiding; just let me know you lust after her!”

Mike continued shaking his head, blinking numbly. “Rachel, I can’t…”

“What have I done?” Rachel cried. “I cook every meal for you; I love you; I support you, and attend to you. Have I ever been absent? Have I ever been anything but open and honest with you? I know no one is perfect, Michael, and I might even forgive you. Why can’t you just admit this one thing? I see! I see it! Just admit your lust, Michael!”

“She lusts after you, Rachel!” Mike said suddenly, then wiped his hand down his face.

The air left Rachel’s body. Water splattered out of the pot behind her and hissed on the stove; it had boiled over while her back had been turned.

Multi Tasking

So I might just ramble a little bit here, from something that tickled my mind today. Thinking about “showing and not telling.” Thinking about using dialogue to reveal plot points, or descriptions of setting to reveal characters. Thinking that what’s interesting about it is we’re asking for more than one thing to be going on at once.

Because what does telling do? One thing: it tells you what’s going on. Straight up, no depth. Because even dialogue can tell, not show, right? When the dialogue reveals nothing about the characters, it’s more like the author narrating through their characters – and it sounds really crappy, usually. Usually, it’s stuff the characters shouldn't need to say. Because it doesn’t reveal the characters to us, it just tells us what we, as readers, need to know.

Same thing with flat description, though we usually just settle for flowery language to beef that up. But a lot of the professional stories I read give a glimpse into the setting or characters when they use description. Because you can describe a lot of things; if a picture is worth a thousand words, then most short stories would have to be ten pictures or less. Not enough. So what gets put in the story should be there for a reason; don’t describe a cluttered room unless it speaks to the character. Don’t mention a gold elephant unless the character is going to defend themselves against a rapist by bashing his head in with it, or if her trip to Nepal is going to factor in.

Do as much as you can with the words you’re given. I’m sure there’s a great parable in that, too. Everything you write should point toward character or theme, and everything you write about the character should support the theme. Forget all this post-modern crap about life being meaningless; books are entirely about meaning. It might not be precisely what the author wanted it to mean, but it still means something. And do more than one thing at once.

See you tomorrow.

Creating

We’re world-building! World-building! Makin’ a world and livin’ in it…. I don’t know what any of you did last night, but I spent the better part of two hours last night alphabetizing the names on the world I’m creating, and then getting some basic facts like what kind of terrain they’re on, what their primary source(s) of revenue is (are), and what kind of settlement it is: vatenvilt, village, walled village, walled city?

Oh, I said vatenvilt. Think of it as a purely economic settlement; their sole purpose is to provide goods for travelers. No one “lives” in the boundaries of a vatenvilt, though homes – of course – exist outside them. Within the bounds of the vatenvilt are entirely under the control of the magiss – the magistrate. He keeps track of supplies, costs, fair measurements, etc. They are named after the founding magistrate. But I digress. Sort of.

87 names! Roads, rivers, villages, mountains, plains, and highlands – areas that are marsh eight months out of the year, and places that are so fertile it was once called “The God’s Feast.” Bit by bit, I see the towering rocks, see the slope coming gently down, turning green, and then swooping across a massive valley with homes and farms and herds of sheep and cows dotting the landscape. There’s a river, too, wending its way down the middle of the valley.

Then there’s the highlands; there, too, are mountains – though they masquerade as hills. But here, most often, the grass is scrubby and windswept – farming is toilsome work, and families barely scratch a living out of the dirt. But beneath those hills are minerals and precious ores.

Capping the northern coast is a forest of tall, ancient trees – hardy and sometimes precious wood that supplies the land with both practical and ornamental furniture and modes of transport. There are hardy people too, woodcutters and carvers and carpenters; people who smell of the trees upon which they subsist.

There is a failed city that tried to probe the massive wastes. They are at the end of the road; an appendix to a failed frontier. Yet they, too, survive in sun-parched lands by trading with nomads who circle around twice a year to do trade with the settlers.

It is a wonderful country of both human ingenuity and natural resources; the humans cut the trees, though they cannot make them grow; they farm and pasture the land, but do not supply the rain or the grass. As hard as life is, sometimes, from day to day, still they survive and move on – often, they only really do half the work. Yet they are blessed.

See you Monday.

7 Important Things

I am in a Creative Writing class, for those who didn't know. After reading two stories for critique last night, I feel the need to point out a few important things to remember when you're writing.

1: Finish your sentences. "If anything, Michael was the mature one, not him, because in this situation he held so much wisdom to point out his sarcasm, and that he was" is not the way to end a sentence, much less a paragraph. That brings me to point number 2.

2: Show, don't tell. And if you begin showing, don't stop suddenly and then tell. "...its metallic blue paint had definite rust spots that showed the body needed a lot of work." Yes, rust indicates a wearing down, a need for work. Don't tell us that.

3: Know what you're talking about. "The truck was filled with all sorts of mechanical tools...pipes (the white plastic kind that is used for plumbing)." They're called "PVC pipes." If the reader doesn't know what that is, they can look it up, or just not worry about it. Unless their being PVC and perhaps easier to cut is extremely important later on in the story -- and the reader needs to know what PVC is -- just leave it at that.

4: Avoid attributing an action or noise to the wrong object. "Then she heard the brick sidewalk click as a pair of steel toed boots...approached her." Unless the sidewalk is clicking of its own accord, that noise is either on its own (heard clicking as a pair of steel toed boots approached her on the sidewalk?) or is a combination of two items (heard the clicking of a pair of steel toed boots on the sidewalk?).

5: Use complete sentences as much as possible. "The moon hidden behind some clouds its usual white light tinted a warm shade of purple." is not a good example.

6: Use a thesaurus when you know the word you want, but can't quite think of it, but you know a similar word. DON'T use a thesaurus to find a bigger and/or different word. "...the wind rushing by, pick pocketing her words away." In this context, "thieving" still sounds better.

7: Opening lines are crucial, and really good opening lines are remembered for ages; like, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A good number of people couldn't tell you what book that's from, but they know the line. "Bang! Bang! Bang! Whirr! Buzzz! Eroooon! Vrooom! Bang! Bang! Bang!" is not an opening line that will be remembered.

If I come up with more, I may post again. See you tomorrow.

Pick-Up Sticks, Jenga, Juggling, Chaos

At what point does one thing become more important than another? When does focus shift from here, to there? When should focus shift? At first I thought I might liken this to pick-up sticks; now I think it is closer to Jenga: carefully, gingerly sliding each smooth wood block out, holding your breath lest the least current of air topple the tower. You need to choose your strategy: start at the base, so you work with a higher center of gravity last? Or start at the top, keeping the base strong? When is it more important to work with one block than another?

Often the phrase is used “juggling a lot of things,” trying to “keep everything up in the air.” While the frenzy of six juggling balls may evoke the proper feeling, the actual work is much simpler to those who know how to juggle: you can’t do anything with the balls in the air, only the one in your hand. The problem I sometimes find is, I have ten balls in my hand, and I don’t know which one I am supposed to loft next. To I send my writing on its ballistic orbit? Read Shakespeare? Read for Humanities, Bible, Creative Writing? Work on my blog? Or do I need to spend some time tending to my fiancée, or my relationship with God?

Because they are all important, and I love them all to nearly identical degrees. Trying to do things just as I can does resemble my attempts at juggling: I may start out okay, but then one ball arcs a little more outward than upward, and I chase after it. Meanwhile, my momentum propels the next ball even further forward. Soon I am running pell-mell; shortly, the balls drop with a crash.

Perhaps I need to let one go; but which? Can I let go of God, my fiancée, writing, college?

Unfortunately for my readers, I am not at a point of conclusion, only of recognition of a problem. I can’t tell you what to do if life seems like this. I can say “pursue God, and everything else becomes clear.” But I honestly don’t know what that looks like anymore, not without dropping a lot of other balls.

Maybe by Friday, I’ll have a better blog post. See you then.

*Thursday P.S. Psalm 57:2 "I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me." Working on this, now.*

It's November!

Yeah, first I put a bunch of exclamation points in the subject line, then realized that looked stupid so I got rid of them.

Well folks, it's 9:28am here; why am I blogging at 9:28am on a Tuesday, instead of my customary 1:30pm or 5:00pm, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?

Because: It's November! All around the world, writers and wannabes are huddled around their computers, typing, chipping away at a 50,000 word monolith. Will any of them be good? I imagine one or two. But that's not the point, see; the point is to make yourself write.

At least, that's what I'm told. No, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo (and if I hear one writer correct themselves and say "NahNoeWRYMoe" I'm going to first throw a fit -- or maybe an old washcloth -- and then say "I know it's write and not wreet, but it's also nawvel not "noe"vel, and munth, not "moe"nth. So either say it "NahNawWryMuh" or shut up.") And I'm not trying to degrade those who do; but I'm trying to write an actual novel, and do 15 credits, and work. I'm certainly not going to displace writing an actual novel to write one I will throw away immediately upon finishing.

I work ten years on a novel, rework it for several months, THEN throw it away. Or lock it up until there's a better time for me to throw it away.

But seriously folks, I will be writing a novel this month. Not entirely within it, and not at 1,667 words a day. Maybe that much per week, that would be cool. But maybe not.

So, set a goal and write toward it, whether that's 50,000 by November 30, or 100,000 by next summer. Think Nike: Just do it. And if someone asks you why, say:

"It's November!"

See you tomorrow.

*this blog brought to you by Folger's coffee: drink some, or end up like this guy*