I did not watch the Royal Wedding. No, I did not. I can't even tell you the name of the heir presumptive who got hitched. George? Edward? Thorin? No, it's a blank. But that's beside the point and really, best wishes for the happy couple and all of that.
No, I come here not to talk about rich white folks but to warn you all that next week, we'll be conducting an amazing and fascinating experiment here at the Lab, so wear your laboratory coats and bring your protective eyewear. We'll be doing a study about the uniqueness of voice, and Michelle, Domey and I have brought in the redoubtable Anne Gallagher to be part of the team on this one. I predict a lot of thinking with our brains and conclusions having been come to at the terminus of the empirical testing stuff. It's going to be just grand, we promise.
Also, if anyone can explain the title of today's post, I'd really appreciate it.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Truth vs. Verisimilitude
Do you think some parts of fiction have to adhere to fact?
Check out Scott's posts on Truth versus Verisimilitude on his blog Six Words For A Hat.
Start here.
Then go here--and check out Tara Maya's excellent comment (there's nudity involved) on the matter while you're at it.
Added later: There's now a third post here.
I'm also excited to announce that my evening as featured writer with The New Short Fiction Series has been announced. On July 10th, five actors here in Los Angeles will be reading some of my short stories to coincide with the release of my upcoming collection The Wild Grass and Other Stories. I'll definitely be talking more about this as we get closer to the date. I'm very excited!
Check out Scott's posts on Truth versus Verisimilitude on his blog Six Words For A Hat.
Start here.
Then go here--and check out Tara Maya's excellent comment (there's nudity involved) on the matter while you're at it.
Added later: There's now a third post here.
I'm also excited to announce that my evening as featured writer with The New Short Fiction Series has been announced. On July 10th, five actors here in Los Angeles will be reading some of my short stories to coincide with the release of my upcoming collection The Wild Grass and Other Stories. I'll definitely be talking more about this as we get closer to the date. I'm very excited!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Analysis of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I've been meaning to talk about The Book Thief by Markus Zusak for several days now. Briefly, it tells the story of a young girl, Liesel Meminger, as she is raised by her foster parents during World War II. I don't want to review the book--there are plenty of good reviews around. Instead, I want to talk about the book from a writer's standpoint, because it made me think about effective writing and why this book "works" in some ways and not in others.
To start, though, I'll say that I didn't love this book. When I read the prologue, I was excited to continue. But, for me, as the book progressed, I felt a little cheated. I felt like there was a lot of material that was trivial, so those pages were a waste of my time. I guess I wanted the prose to be more dense.
That's not to say that I don't admire Zusak, though. He has a lot of strengths as a writer. I'm going to talk about some of what I thought were his strengths and then digress a bit into some more general views and questions.
Zusak's characters in this book were particularly strong to me. What made them effective was that they were clearly rendered and stayed true to the initial personalities established in the beginning of the book. Each character had a strong personality and had a mix of both positive and negative traits. I found, though, that they weren't particularly complicated. For the most part everyone could be quickly understood and classified as "good" or "bad" with the exception of the Mayor's wife, who was by far the most interesting character for me. Compared to other literary characters such as, I don't know, say, Anna Karenina, Zusak's characters were flat. But, I realized that these flat characters, in part because they were flat, also made them memorable. They were simple and clear, like a nursery rhyme. And I wondered if maybe the more complicated a character is, the harder they are to render in the same memorable way.
Zusak also chose an interesting setting for his story. Setting the story in World War II naturally allowed the book to inherit a lot of emotion and drama. With the devastation of war in the background, even the most ordinary events could come off as haunting. When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher tell me that our stories should be about individual people, but hung against a backdrop of something that is more universal. Zusak did exactly that when he portrayed this German family in the middle of war. But is it "cheating"? Does such a dramatic subject matter serve as a crutch that lets a writer get away with not creating as much emotion on his or her own? The emotional climaxes of this story were completely reliant on the emotional events of war. In a way, it didn't feel earned, and yet it was still effective.
I'm neutral about the structure and formatting of the book. For those who haven't read it, the book contains some short and bolded lines like headlines, along with some illustrations and comic-book type sections. For the most part, I thought they worked, but there was quite a bit of redundancy in the headlines. Often I felt as if I had read something only to have to read it again in headline form. It became too cute for me. The illustrations, however, worked, and I did appreciate that variation from the norm. As far as the structure of the story went, I thought that was clean and straight forward. Like I mentioned in the beginning, some (and I might even say many) of the scenes felt trivial. I don't skim through books, but I wanted to in several spots while I was reading this.
What I found most interesting about this book, though, has to do with my post a couple of weeks ago on the changing definition of "literary" writing and the combination of insightful prose with other elements of the story, mentioned here. While The Book Thief did not have what I would consider to be beautiful, literary prose (in the best sense of the word) it did have the other elements that I find missing in some contemporary literary work: character, plot, premise. These are important elements! I feel as if we as writers have somehow separated prose quality from all the other important parts of a story and wrongly classified them as two distinct genres or branches of fiction. The snoots care only about the beautiful prose, while the mainstream writers care about everything else.
It may seem like an obvious choice. After all, prose is only one element in a story, and apparently not always a very relevant one. But, what I find among the best prose writers is that it is in those small moments that the deepest emotions of life come forward. A good prose passage provides dozens of insights into the world instead of simply guiding a reader towards The End the way simple prose does.
Take this short excerpt from Nina Barberova's story "The Resurrection of Mozart":
The silence was so complete that when they stopped talking and returned to their own private thoughts, they could hear through the open windows the clock ticking in the large old house. The sky was green, clear and lovely, and the stars were just beginning to shine, so few and far-flung that they failed to form any definite pattern. The old trees--acacias, limes--neither breathed nor trembled, as if standing stock-still were a safeguard against something that was invisible to men but somehow immanent in the summer evening. The hosts and their guests had just finished supper; the table had not yet been cleared. Some wine-glasses were still on the table. Slowly, the green light of the darkening sky transformed the faces of the seated company which was not obscured by shadows. They were talking about war and about the omens of war. A young woman, a guest who had driven out from town with her husband and sister, restraining her brassy voice, remarked that she had seen a meteor a fortnight before.
The way I see it, all of the other elements can lead to one good story, but good prose creates dozens or even hundreds of additional good stories draped over that one good story.
The truth--or at least what I believe to be the truth--is that readers want it all. Perhaps when given the choice, some would choose plot over prose or vice versa, but the only reason they have to choose in the first place is because so few books are able to combine all the elements that make up a truly excellent book. I don't think that lets either camp off the hook. I believe we should continue to challenge ourselves to truly reach that balance.
To start, though, I'll say that I didn't love this book. When I read the prologue, I was excited to continue. But, for me, as the book progressed, I felt a little cheated. I felt like there was a lot of material that was trivial, so those pages were a waste of my time. I guess I wanted the prose to be more dense.
That's not to say that I don't admire Zusak, though. He has a lot of strengths as a writer. I'm going to talk about some of what I thought were his strengths and then digress a bit into some more general views and questions.
Zusak's characters in this book were particularly strong to me. What made them effective was that they were clearly rendered and stayed true to the initial personalities established in the beginning of the book. Each character had a strong personality and had a mix of both positive and negative traits. I found, though, that they weren't particularly complicated. For the most part everyone could be quickly understood and classified as "good" or "bad" with the exception of the Mayor's wife, who was by far the most interesting character for me. Compared to other literary characters such as, I don't know, say, Anna Karenina, Zusak's characters were flat. But, I realized that these flat characters, in part because they were flat, also made them memorable. They were simple and clear, like a nursery rhyme. And I wondered if maybe the more complicated a character is, the harder they are to render in the same memorable way.
Zusak also chose an interesting setting for his story. Setting the story in World War II naturally allowed the book to inherit a lot of emotion and drama. With the devastation of war in the background, even the most ordinary events could come off as haunting. When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher tell me that our stories should be about individual people, but hung against a backdrop of something that is more universal. Zusak did exactly that when he portrayed this German family in the middle of war. But is it "cheating"? Does such a dramatic subject matter serve as a crutch that lets a writer get away with not creating as much emotion on his or her own? The emotional climaxes of this story were completely reliant on the emotional events of war. In a way, it didn't feel earned, and yet it was still effective.
I'm neutral about the structure and formatting of the book. For those who haven't read it, the book contains some short and bolded lines like headlines, along with some illustrations and comic-book type sections. For the most part, I thought they worked, but there was quite a bit of redundancy in the headlines. Often I felt as if I had read something only to have to read it again in headline form. It became too cute for me. The illustrations, however, worked, and I did appreciate that variation from the norm. As far as the structure of the story went, I thought that was clean and straight forward. Like I mentioned in the beginning, some (and I might even say many) of the scenes felt trivial. I don't skim through books, but I wanted to in several spots while I was reading this.
What I found most interesting about this book, though, has to do with my post a couple of weeks ago on the changing definition of "literary" writing and the combination of insightful prose with other elements of the story, mentioned here. While The Book Thief did not have what I would consider to be beautiful, literary prose (in the best sense of the word) it did have the other elements that I find missing in some contemporary literary work: character, plot, premise. These are important elements! I feel as if we as writers have somehow separated prose quality from all the other important parts of a story and wrongly classified them as two distinct genres or branches of fiction. The snoots care only about the beautiful prose, while the mainstream writers care about everything else.
It may seem like an obvious choice. After all, prose is only one element in a story, and apparently not always a very relevant one. But, what I find among the best prose writers is that it is in those small moments that the deepest emotions of life come forward. A good prose passage provides dozens of insights into the world instead of simply guiding a reader towards The End the way simple prose does.
Take this short excerpt from Nina Barberova's story "The Resurrection of Mozart":
The silence was so complete that when they stopped talking and returned to their own private thoughts, they could hear through the open windows the clock ticking in the large old house. The sky was green, clear and lovely, and the stars were just beginning to shine, so few and far-flung that they failed to form any definite pattern. The old trees--acacias, limes--neither breathed nor trembled, as if standing stock-still were a safeguard against something that was invisible to men but somehow immanent in the summer evening. The hosts and their guests had just finished supper; the table had not yet been cleared. Some wine-glasses were still on the table. Slowly, the green light of the darkening sky transformed the faces of the seated company which was not obscured by shadows. They were talking about war and about the omens of war. A young woman, a guest who had driven out from town with her husband and sister, restraining her brassy voice, remarked that she had seen a meteor a fortnight before.
The way I see it, all of the other elements can lead to one good story, but good prose creates dozens or even hundreds of additional good stories draped over that one good story.
The truth--or at least what I believe to be the truth--is that readers want it all. Perhaps when given the choice, some would choose plot over prose or vice versa, but the only reason they have to choose in the first place is because so few books are able to combine all the elements that make up a truly excellent book. I don't think that lets either camp off the hook. I believe we should continue to challenge ourselves to truly reach that balance.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Talking About Writing (with video!)
My pal and fellow Seattle-dweller Layne Maheu has been interviewed on Anne Mini's "Author! Author!" blog about his debut novel The Song of the Crow, the process of writing his second novel, the joys of reading and all sorts of other stuff. Go watch! Now!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday Filler: Dear Mr Shakespeare
Dear William,
Thanks so much for submitting your play "Romeo and Juliet" for consideration. I think that you did an excellent job of establishing the time and place of historical Verona, and some of the dialogue (especially the opening sequence of ribald jokes between the two gentlemen) is very funny indeed. I also liked the 'forbidden romance' plot, which you introduced right away. However, as the story progressed I felt that the characters were spending a lot of time running from set to set, location to location, and the mood of the play became increasingly depressing rather than entertaining. As a result, I'm afraid that we will have to pass on "Romeo and Juliet." Best of luck placing this with another publisher.
Yours sincerely,
John Danter
London, 1597
Thanks so much for submitting your play "Romeo and Juliet" for consideration. I think that you did an excellent job of establishing the time and place of historical Verona, and some of the dialogue (especially the opening sequence of ribald jokes between the two gentlemen) is very funny indeed. I also liked the 'forbidden romance' plot, which you introduced right away. However, as the story progressed I felt that the characters were spending a lot of time running from set to set, location to location, and the mood of the play became increasingly depressing rather than entertaining. As a result, I'm afraid that we will have to pass on "Romeo and Juliet." Best of luck placing this with another publisher.
Yours sincerely,
John Danter
London, 1597
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Getting myself to read more
I have a new strategy to get myself to read more. I've fallen into the bad habit of only reading books partway through--usually until I get bored--and then giving up on them and moving on to something else. So, now I'm going to leave a glass of water on my nightstand. I'm not allowed to replace that water until I am done reading a book. No matter how dusty and gross it gets, I must drink one gulp every night until I finish. Sounds good, doesn't it?
If this doesn't work, then I'll replace it with milk.
Seriously, though, I've been doing pretty good this year by my own standards. In the last couple of months, I've read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Breakaway, The Book Thief, a novella by Nina Barberova, and I'm partway through Cocke & Bull and Falconer.
I'm trying to figure out how to review these books in a way that writer's might appreciate. Maybe I'll do an analysis of the writing techniques or something.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A Long Slope Called Burn-Out
I feel like I haven't been here forever! The truth is, I've been sliding down a long slope called "burn-out" and I really can't think of much to talk about that hasn't already been said a hundred times before on this blog. So, whether or not it will bore you to tears today, I'm going to talk briefly about a few things - my writing at the center of it all.
I'm published.
Does that make me a good writer?
The funny thing is that I'm SELF-published at the moment, but will be traditionally published as of September 15th of this year. Does it truly make any difference? Does it freaking matter? My conclusion is absolutely not. I wrote a book. That's what matters. In fact, I'm working on my 6th book. It's pretty awesome that I've written that many. Only one I've shelved for good.
After six books, I've finally figured out a system. Or so I think. It takes me on average 7 months to 2 years to write a book, depending on the length and complexity. For the rough draft, it takes me 3 - 5 months.
Do I outline?
You bet I outline. However, it's not what most people would really call an outline. It's more like a really long synopsis, and it's very loose. In fact, my story often cuts away from that synopsis. It always comes back, though, like a wave washing on the shore - finally ending up at that last scene I planned from the beginning.
Do I need feedback?
You bet I do. I have never been able to write a book without letting someone read parts of it as I go along. It seems to be a need, but it also seems to be waning as of late. More and more I only need 1 or 2 people to look things over. I also don't rely on them to give me feedback on prose like I used to - but more on big huge gaping holes I left lying around and somehow couldn't see. I'm kind of blind to those.
Why am I burned out?
Because marketing a book SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF ME. I'm not kidding. Marketing my novel Monarch has left me feeling like I've been run over by a freaking truck, and despite everything I've done, I don't feel like much of it has been very productive. That's the worst part.
I feel like it's time to take one big huge break. We just got NetFlix and watching a lot of movies sounds nice. Also, I have a huge stack of books I want to read. I have a feeling my future posts are going to be about reading more than writing. After all, that's where my love of writing started.
I'm published.
Does that make me a good writer?
The funny thing is that I'm SELF-published at the moment, but will be traditionally published as of September 15th of this year. Does it truly make any difference? Does it freaking matter? My conclusion is absolutely not. I wrote a book. That's what matters. In fact, I'm working on my 6th book. It's pretty awesome that I've written that many. Only one I've shelved for good.
After six books, I've finally figured out a system. Or so I think. It takes me on average 7 months to 2 years to write a book, depending on the length and complexity. For the rough draft, it takes me 3 - 5 months.
Do I outline?
You bet I outline. However, it's not what most people would really call an outline. It's more like a really long synopsis, and it's very loose. In fact, my story often cuts away from that synopsis. It always comes back, though, like a wave washing on the shore - finally ending up at that last scene I planned from the beginning.
Do I need feedback?
You bet I do. I have never been able to write a book without letting someone read parts of it as I go along. It seems to be a need, but it also seems to be waning as of late. More and more I only need 1 or 2 people to look things over. I also don't rely on them to give me feedback on prose like I used to - but more on big huge gaping holes I left lying around and somehow couldn't see. I'm kind of blind to those.
Why am I burned out?
Because marketing a book SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF ME. I'm not kidding. Marketing my novel Monarch has left me feeling like I've been run over by a freaking truck, and despite everything I've done, I don't feel like much of it has been very productive. That's the worst part.
I feel like it's time to take one big huge break. We just got NetFlix and watching a lot of movies sounds nice. Also, I have a huge stack of books I want to read. I have a feeling my future posts are going to be about reading more than writing. After all, that's where my love of writing started.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Who Cares if You Win an Award?
On Monday it was announced that Jennifer Egan's book A Visit From the Goon Squad has won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I haven't read the book yet, but now I will.
You see, I read all of the Pulitzer Prize-winners. It's something I do to keep in touch with American literary culture or something. Maybe it's just a habit. Mighty Reader reads all of the Man Booker Prize winners. Some people read all of the Hugo Award winners; some people read all the Edgar Award winners; some people read all the Nebula Award winners; some people read all the National Book Award winners; some people read all the Newberry Award winners. I could go on, but I won't.
I'm wondering what prizes mean to us, we who also write. Certainly a big prize will get a lot of attention in the press and will get buyers/readers to pick up these novels. And I think that's a good thing.
Do you read books if they've won a particular prize? Are you happy to see books/authors you like win prizes? Do prizes like this mean anything at all to you?
You see, I read all of the Pulitzer Prize-winners. It's something I do to keep in touch with American literary culture or something. Maybe it's just a habit. Mighty Reader reads all of the Man Booker Prize winners. Some people read all of the Hugo Award winners; some people read all the Edgar Award winners; some people read all the Nebula Award winners; some people read all the National Book Award winners; some people read all the Newberry Award winners. I could go on, but I won't.
I'm wondering what prizes mean to us, we who also write. Certainly a big prize will get a lot of attention in the press and will get buyers/readers to pick up these novels. And I think that's a good thing.
Do you read books if they've won a particular prize? Are you happy to see books/authors you like win prizes? Do prizes like this mean anything at all to you?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Rearranging and Shuffling Scenes
Over the years, the elements of writing that I've had to focus on during revisions has changed. When I first started writing, clarity was a problem for me. I had to learn to see my stories from an outsider's point of view. Then, I remember a time where I had to focus on endings that felt satisfying.
Lately, much of my revision energy has been focused on rearranging the pieces in a scene and shuffling those scenes around in a story. The fact that this simple thing has occupied so much of my time is funny to me. It feels like such an easy thing, and yet I'm finding that it's having a big effect on how engaging my prose can be (in my opinion).
Today, for example, I was working on Cyberlama, and I wrote a chapter that discussed a news story in which one man murdered another man. I wrote on the topic from start to finish, including events before the murder, the actual murder, and then some people's speculations on why the murder had occurred. But, when I was done, I asked myself what would happen if I didn't get into the speculations right away. Instead, I took that chunk out of the chapter and pasted it in several pages later, after I had already written about a couple of other, unrelated topics in between.
For me, shuffling the scenes this way gives my story more tension and also makes the speculations more powerful somehow. There's more tension because the murder story doesn't quite feel complete. It's like a subtle form of a cliffhanger. There are some questions left unanswered. I think breaking up the scene also makes the scene more powerful because when the speculations are farther away from the actual murder events, they resonate more...like they resonate beyond all of the material I inserted between the murder and speculation. By bringing it back at a later time, it feels like something important that keeps re-emerging in my narrator's mind.
I find that I also rearranging things to keep similar elements closer together. I had, for example, a scene where a woman brought her violin in to play for a group of people. When I originally wrote the scene, the violin performance was broken up by the thoughts of some of the audience members. While I was revising, though, I ended up putting all of the audience members' thoughts at the end, so that the the performance was told in one continuous passage. I felt like that made the concert experience more vivid.
Has anyone else focused on moving elements around like this? Like I say, I'm not sure why it's taking up so much of my attention at the moment. But, I'm realizing that it's a powerful revision tool, one that I hadn't taken advantage of as much in the past.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Friday Filler: Or, Where Have We Been and Where Will We Be?
Any of you fine folks who've been reading this blog for any length of time will likely have noticed that Michelle didn't post yesterday, and Thursday is her usual day here. Well, here's the thing: Michelle is busy writing a book and her publisher has given her a deadline. There are worse fates.
You might also be interested to hear that Domey Malasarn is working on a book. While I'm at it, I should mention that I'm working on a new one, too, and I have a couple of novels out on submission via my charming agent, Weronika "Sounds like Veronica" Janczuk. What this means to you, Mighty Writers, is that your hosts are busy writing novels and we also have adult life stuff to do. What I'm getting at is that we've decided that we can no longer guarantee a daily Literary Lab post for you.
This makes us sad, but the sadder fact is that we haven't really had time to put together thoughtful and useful (and sometimes just plain interesting) posts for you, and so we've sometimes been wasting your time lately by enticing you here for a lukewarm meal of Not Much To Say. Michelle, Domey and I want to give you better than lukewarm. We want to give you steaming hot, boiling, molten, flaming and smoking ideas and observations about the venerable and honorable and totally sexy craft of writing. Our hope is that, by posting only When We Have Something To Actually Say, the posts will be worth reading, helpful and thought-provoking.
So that's the new world order here at the Literary Lab, at least for the time being while Domey, Michelle and I are knocking ourselves senseless with new projects. We've agreed that there will be a new post a couple of times each week, from at least one of us, so don't stop following the blog! I forbid that! Take your hand off your mouse, you.
You might also be interested to hear that Domey Malasarn is working on a book. While I'm at it, I should mention that I'm working on a new one, too, and I have a couple of novels out on submission via my charming agent, Weronika "Sounds like Veronica" Janczuk. What this means to you, Mighty Writers, is that your hosts are busy writing novels and we also have adult life stuff to do. What I'm getting at is that we've decided that we can no longer guarantee a daily Literary Lab post for you.
This makes us sad, but the sadder fact is that we haven't really had time to put together thoughtful and useful (and sometimes just plain interesting) posts for you, and so we've sometimes been wasting your time lately by enticing you here for a lukewarm meal of Not Much To Say. Michelle, Domey and I want to give you better than lukewarm. We want to give you steaming hot, boiling, molten, flaming and smoking ideas and observations about the venerable and honorable and totally sexy craft of writing. Our hope is that, by posting only When We Have Something To Actually Say, the posts will be worth reading, helpful and thought-provoking.
So that's the new world order here at the Literary Lab, at least for the time being while Domey, Michelle and I are knocking ourselves senseless with new projects. We've agreed that there will be a new post a couple of times each week, from at least one of us, so don't stop following the blog! I forbid that! Take your hand off your mouse, you.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Two Best Books
So, given what we've been talking about this week, I'm curious:
What book have you read that displays the best writing technique?
What book have you read that displays the most emotion?
For me, the best technique can be found in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I haven't read the entire novel, but I've read the first volume of it, and Proust just blows me away by how many new things he invents and executes well. His characters are all strong. His details are all deep. He captures a time and teaches me about very well.
The book with the most emotion for me is probably Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (although Foer's Everything is Illuminated is a close second). As I write this, I realize that the reason these books were so moving probably has a lot to do with my own personal situation when I was reading these books. So maybe for me the emotional connection is much more fluid.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Trying Too Hard or Not Trying Hard Enough
In a comment to Domey's post yesterday, McKenzie McCann talked about how much she dislikes it when seemingly every story element is symbolic. A coffee pot, as McKenzie said, is never just a coffee pot. I answered something like, "I'd rather an author tried too hard than didn't try hard enough." That was yesterday.
Today I am not so sure. Since writing my reply to McKenzie, I have read the first chapter of Paula McLain's The Paris Wife and the first couple of chapters of Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings. I'm going to read the Bernieres book and I might read the McLain book, but both of these novels begin with a lot lot lot of the author displaying their research. The Paris Wife is a fictional first-person account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage as told by the wife, Hadley Richardson. The first chapter is essentially an essay about Hemingway. His eyes, his hair, his dancing, his every nickname, etc etc etc and I just wanted to shake Ms McLain by the collar and tell her "I get it; this is about Ernest Hemingway." The trouble is, the scene was allegedly about Hadley Richardson dancing for the first time with Hemingway at a party, and there was almost no Hadley Richardson in there. It was all McLain's researched details about Hemingway. Ms McLain is trying too hard.
Birds Without Wings is a tragic love story set in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, as it is becoming Turkey. Nationalism, racism, the Gallipoli campaign during WW I and love all intertwine in the novel, all with tragic consequences. Sounds nifty. Except, the first few thousand words are all set dressing. It's nice to know that an imam is one who leads prayers and that a hodji is someone who's been on the haj and that people in Turkey spoke Turkish but wrote using Greek script and that Christian and Muslim traditions were mashed up in rural areas, but after a while I just wanted to meet some characters and see some action. I'm in a history lesson right now. Mr de Bernieres is trying too hard.
This reminds me of when Mighty Reader read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Every time Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya ("Kitty") comes into the story, Tolstoy must describe the beauty of Kitty's clothing and person. Mighty Reader was more than once heard to exclaim, "Okay, Leo, we get it. Kitty's pretty and dresses well. Is that all you've got to say about her?" I said to Mighty Reader, "Well, the book is like 6,000 pages long. Don't you need to be reminded about the characters?" Mighty Reader looked at me like I'd grown soft in the head.
This is something I wonder about in my own books, which so far have tended to be set in the historical past. How much do I tell my reader about the setting? Where do you draw the line between giving enough explanation so that the story makes sense and the story just being a textbook? I'm not one of those people who read historical fiction in order to learn about the past. I just like a good story told well. I also don't think that writers owe any fidelity to the past and I've read enough interviews with writers of historical fiction to be aware that they'll serve the story at the expense of the facts and I'm fine with that. So I don't need to hear how the horsemen of Mongolia were more fierce than were the horsemen of Kurdistan or whatever, especially when that's just filler in the middle of a paragraph. At some point, the story gets lost for me and I'm just wading through the writer's notes.
This is not an argument against detail, though. Proust goes into minutia for half a million words but that's just the way his mind works in the pursuit of his themes. He's not trying to show you how well he's observed his hotel suite or the shoes worn at the artistocratic parties he attends. His work is about the details and it's pretty fine stuff.
Anyway, I realize that this is all very much down to personal taste and individual reading history, but I don't think that's any reason not to discuss it. How much do you want/need to be told about setting/history (real or made up by the author) before you're willing to lose yourself in a story? What are your minimum requirements? How close to the beginning of the story do you want this stuff to appear? (Last night I was talking about backstory with Mighty Reader, re my current novel. She asked if I was going to give my MC's Big Personal Question in the first chapter or so. "What?" I said. "And leave nothing for Act Two?")
Today I am not so sure. Since writing my reply to McKenzie, I have read the first chapter of Paula McLain's The Paris Wife and the first couple of chapters of Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings. I'm going to read the Bernieres book and I might read the McLain book, but both of these novels begin with a lot lot lot of the author displaying their research. The Paris Wife is a fictional first-person account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage as told by the wife, Hadley Richardson. The first chapter is essentially an essay about Hemingway. His eyes, his hair, his dancing, his every nickname, etc etc etc and I just wanted to shake Ms McLain by the collar and tell her "I get it; this is about Ernest Hemingway." The trouble is, the scene was allegedly about Hadley Richardson dancing for the first time with Hemingway at a party, and there was almost no Hadley Richardson in there. It was all McLain's researched details about Hemingway. Ms McLain is trying too hard.
Birds Without Wings is a tragic love story set in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, as it is becoming Turkey. Nationalism, racism, the Gallipoli campaign during WW I and love all intertwine in the novel, all with tragic consequences. Sounds nifty. Except, the first few thousand words are all set dressing. It's nice to know that an imam is one who leads prayers and that a hodji is someone who's been on the haj and that people in Turkey spoke Turkish but wrote using Greek script and that Christian and Muslim traditions were mashed up in rural areas, but after a while I just wanted to meet some characters and see some action. I'm in a history lesson right now. Mr de Bernieres is trying too hard.
This reminds me of when Mighty Reader read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Every time Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya ("Kitty") comes into the story, Tolstoy must describe the beauty of Kitty's clothing and person. Mighty Reader was more than once heard to exclaim, "Okay, Leo, we get it. Kitty's pretty and dresses well. Is that all you've got to say about her?" I said to Mighty Reader, "Well, the book is like 6,000 pages long. Don't you need to be reminded about the characters?" Mighty Reader looked at me like I'd grown soft in the head.
This is something I wonder about in my own books, which so far have tended to be set in the historical past. How much do I tell my reader about the setting? Where do you draw the line between giving enough explanation so that the story makes sense and the story just being a textbook? I'm not one of those people who read historical fiction in order to learn about the past. I just like a good story told well. I also don't think that writers owe any fidelity to the past and I've read enough interviews with writers of historical fiction to be aware that they'll serve the story at the expense of the facts and I'm fine with that. So I don't need to hear how the horsemen of Mongolia were more fierce than were the horsemen of Kurdistan or whatever, especially when that's just filler in the middle of a paragraph. At some point, the story gets lost for me and I'm just wading through the writer's notes.
This is not an argument against detail, though. Proust goes into minutia for half a million words but that's just the way his mind works in the pursuit of his themes. He's not trying to show you how well he's observed his hotel suite or the shoes worn at the artistocratic parties he attends. His work is about the details and it's pretty fine stuff.
Anyway, I realize that this is all very much down to personal taste and individual reading history, but I don't think that's any reason not to discuss it. How much do you want/need to be told about setting/history (real or made up by the author) before you're willing to lose yourself in a story? What are your minimum requirements? How close to the beginning of the story do you want this stuff to appear? (Last night I was talking about backstory with Mighty Reader, re my current novel. She asked if I was going to give my MC's Big Personal Question in the first chapter or so. "What?" I said. "And leave nothing for Act Two?")
Monday, April 11, 2011
Literary Fiction Is Not Literary Fiction
Last night I went to a reading of short stories from Stacey Levine's The Girl With Brown Fur. I was very impressed with the writing. Over and over again, Levine's stories caught me by surprise with unusual details and insights that made me think more deeply about life. The stories fell into what I consider to be literary writing.
I heard six stories in all, and by the time the third one started, I was still impressed with the writing, but I suddenly became aware that the stories were fairly plotless. From what I heard all of the stories did have plots, but they were thin, serving more as a carrier for the writing, which I personally still find satisfying.
But, it made me wonder. Are plot and this type of literary writing incompatible? I tried to imagine a book that had both a heavy plot and the insightful details that Levine had, and I got the impression that the two would clash somehow. As I think about it now, I wonder if maybe what makes that insight powerful is the fact that it comes from nothing. Like in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, it is the mundane aspect of the story that makes the insight powerful. Maybe Woolf ushered in this new type of fiction that is now called literary fiction--I haven't read enough to be able to know that for sure. John Updike does a similar thing in his Rabbit books. Over and over again I'm captivated by the insight of his details, the little moments. Meanwhile, the overall plots are far less interesting (though more substantial than some other books).
Then, I think about the classics. Many of those seem much more plot heavy as well as being heavy on character. I think of Moby Dick or The Iliad or Kreutzer Sonata. I would definitely call these books literary as well, but I realize all of a sudden that the qualities that make these books literary to me are not the same qualities that make The Girl With Brown Fur or Olive Kittridge or Unaccustomed Earth literary to me. Hardly any of the characters in Unaccustomed Earth are memorable to me. That's not Lahiri's focus, at least in my opinion. The skills of the classic literary writing revolved around developing so many other things besides the insightful detail.
I think what was literary yesterday is not the same style of writing as what's considered literary today. They're two different genres.
I suppose in all art there are different movements. In music and painting and sculpture and writing, new writers change the value and standards of old writing and so the transformation of literary writing can be seen as this same sort of evolution. But, somehow I think this isn't the case. I think classic literary and contemporary literary are not the same thing at all. They haven't emerged from the same branch. I'd say Scott G. F. Bailey's novels fall more into the classical literary style while what I was writing up until last year fell more into contemporary literary. (My recent stories are more plot driven and I've been missing something in them and I realize that it is this thing I talk about here.)
So...what does this mean? It's sort of a weird realization for me. I feel a bit lost. I feel like the elements I've been focusing on, this sort of platform based on insightful detail, is perhaps a completely bad direction to have gone in because it cuts off so many other possibilities of story. It's almost like contemporary literary writing is a genre that I don't feel like pursuing anymore, like maybe it's too narrow, even though I still enjoy reading it. I've been confused a bit of late because all literary writing was starting to feel similar to me. I thought maybe I was just becoming more attracted to other genres of fiction. But, I think it's actually still literary I'm after, but a different literary style than what's currently en vogue. Maybe from here I go somewhere new. Or, maybe from here I go somewhere old.
I hope it's new.
Does this make any sense at all? Am I crazy?
Friday, April 8, 2011
Friday Filler! Archaeology on the Bookshelf
On this day in 1828 on the island of Melos in the Mediterranean Sea, the sculpture we know as the Venus de Milo was unearthed. There's an 'armless joke in there somewhere, but I just can't find it.
Also:
Last night I was in the living room, crouched on the rug and petting the cat, Madame Gradka. From this low vantage point I had a rare view of the bottom shelf of one of our many bookshelves, so I was able to see books usually hidden behind an old maple piano bench we use to prop up a television set. A particularly fine book cover--or the spine of one, that is--caught my eye. It was the 50th anniversary edition of To Kill a Mockingbird that Mighty Reader got me for Christmas in 2009. I'd forgotten all about that book. It's a classic and I am now reminded that I want to read it again soon.
I'm always stumbling across books I'd quite forgotten about that are sitting in plain sight on our bookshelves (like Poe's purloined letter). We have a copy of Tom Jones I want to get to as well as all that Stendhal.
When's the last time you discovered a book you already own that you'd forgotten about and now you absolutely must read it (or read it again)? What's the book? Don't be shy: a few months ago I stumbled across 84 Charing Cross Road and Smith of Wooten Major and stopped whatever I was doing to read them. It's not like I quit my job to read Proust or anything.
Also:
Last night I was in the living room, crouched on the rug and petting the cat, Madame Gradka. From this low vantage point I had a rare view of the bottom shelf of one of our many bookshelves, so I was able to see books usually hidden behind an old maple piano bench we use to prop up a television set. A particularly fine book cover--or the spine of one, that is--caught my eye. It was the 50th anniversary edition of To Kill a Mockingbird that Mighty Reader got me for Christmas in 2009. I'd forgotten all about that book. It's a classic and I am now reminded that I want to read it again soon.
I'm always stumbling across books I'd quite forgotten about that are sitting in plain sight on our bookshelves (like Poe's purloined letter). We have a copy of Tom Jones I want to get to as well as all that Stendhal.
When's the last time you discovered a book you already own that you'd forgotten about and now you absolutely must read it (or read it again)? What's the book? Don't be shy: a few months ago I stumbled across 84 Charing Cross Road and Smith of Wooten Major and stopped whatever I was doing to read them. It's not like I quit my job to read Proust or anything.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
I'd Like to Know
I'm just a bit burned out. Just a bit. Today I'd like to keep things super-simple because I get the feeling that everyone else is burned out, too. We have a lot on our plates, so today it's question time! Just two. You can answer one or both.
Q: What do/did your parents do for a living?
Q: What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
I look forward to your answers!
Q: What do/did your parents do for a living?
Q: What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
I look forward to your answers!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Don't Look Directly At The Drama Or You'll Go Blind
You know how you're not supposed to look directly at some types of eclipses because the light might damage your eyes?
I wonder if you're not supposed to write directly about some dramatic points in your story because it'll end up being a let down for the reader.
I recently finished two novellas that were more plot heavy that most of my other stories. They were fairly linear, building up to climactic moments that involved murder and the like. As I was writing up to the dramatic scene, I was feeling the excitement of the story. But, when I got to the actual scene, there was always a bit of a let down. At least for me. Like other activities, it seemed like the build up to the climax is better than the climax.
It's not a surprise that readers have expectations when they're moving through a story. If you are leading them somewhere, and building the tension, they're probably preparing themselves for some big climactic moment. But, will the actual writing ever match up with what a reader hopes to read?
My guess is no.
In my experience, rarely has anything in reality been better than the vague expectations I prepared myself for. My unopened Christmas presents are always much cooler than my opened ones. And, it has nothing to do with quality, in my experience. It has to do with expectations. If you're expecting a mouthful of chocolate, a grapefruit is going to taste funny no matter how good it is.
I thought of Light In August by William Faulkner. In that book, the climactic scene isn't told to us directly. Readers are led up close the climax, and then, POOF, we're on the other side, and hearing about the event secondhand. Faulkner's reasons for doing that always puzzled me, but as I was writing my novellas I realized that that little F-ster might have actually been on to something. (If he were alive, I'd tussle his hair.) By leaving the climax unwritten, the reader is allowed to insert his or her imaginary expectations into the gap. They're creating their own climax, or at least supplementing the climax.
I'm going back to Cyberlama after taking my little novella-cation, and I'm excited to play with this idea of the hidden or implied climax.
What do you think?
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
At Sixes and Sevens (or, Accepting Bad Writing)
I've begun work on a new book while my lovely and charming agent shops my novels around. I'm told that this will keep the insanity away. Also, I'm a writer, or so I tell people, and that means I should be writing. So I am. Writing, that is. Or at least that's what I pretend to be doing.
In truth, I started the new book about two weeks ago and have made very little progress with the narrative. I've made any number of outlines and drafted notes to myself about scenes in the middle of the book and have read some of my research materials but as to actual writing as in putting words on the page? Not so much. Oh, a few thousand words, maybe even the first half of Chapter One. But mostly I've been stalling and decidedly not writing.
Why? It occured to me today that the first chapter of this book is a bit of a mess. It's going to need some work when I get around to revisions and it's just rougher than I like my writing to be, so I've sort of been avoiding it because I have my standards, you know, and I'm not living up to them with this draft, or what I've got of a draft just now.
My choices are to either write miraculously shining prose on the first go-round or to just put my head down and write badly, just to get the shape of the story on the page and have something written that I can revise. My belief is that most of the art actually happens in the revisions and not in the drafting anyway, not that I really see a lot of difference between writing and rewriting but that's a different topic.
No, I need to just accept that this first chapter--maybe even the first couple of chapters of the new book--are going to be a lot of bad writing, and just get on with my bad writing so that possibly I can eventually get to the good writing.
Which gets to the real issue: I took some time off after my last book and got out of the habit of writing prose almost every day. Now my normal routine doesn't make any room for regular prose writing and I have to change things around to accommodate it again. The first thing that has to happen is to get excited (or at least grudgingly willing) to commit to the sustained effort it will take to write a book-length story. For me, this has always meant just being hard enough on myself that I start in on it and accept that, for the next six months, I'll give over my lunches and evening commutes to the new book, and I won't be reading much or thinking about much except the novel. Basically I engage in psychic arm-twisting.
I know that a lot of people start new projects while the idea is fresh and magical and use the energy gained from learning about the ideas while writing them out as a way to get hooked into the effort. But for those of us who do a lot of pre-production work, outlining and research, that is, it might sometimes be harder to get the ball rolling and gather the necessary momentum to jump in and get a good start on a new project. I'd be interested to hear from that group, the planners and outliners, about how it goes with you when you start in on the actual writing of a new project. Does it seem like a big effort is required? Do you drag your feet before starting in earnest? Or do you just happily jump in and start racking up words?
In truth, I started the new book about two weeks ago and have made very little progress with the narrative. I've made any number of outlines and drafted notes to myself about scenes in the middle of the book and have read some of my research materials but as to actual writing as in putting words on the page? Not so much. Oh, a few thousand words, maybe even the first half of Chapter One. But mostly I've been stalling and decidedly not writing.
Why? It occured to me today that the first chapter of this book is a bit of a mess. It's going to need some work when I get around to revisions and it's just rougher than I like my writing to be, so I've sort of been avoiding it because I have my standards, you know, and I'm not living up to them with this draft, or what I've got of a draft just now.
My choices are to either write miraculously shining prose on the first go-round or to just put my head down and write badly, just to get the shape of the story on the page and have something written that I can revise. My belief is that most of the art actually happens in the revisions and not in the drafting anyway, not that I really see a lot of difference between writing and rewriting but that's a different topic.
No, I need to just accept that this first chapter--maybe even the first couple of chapters of the new book--are going to be a lot of bad writing, and just get on with my bad writing so that possibly I can eventually get to the good writing.
Which gets to the real issue: I took some time off after my last book and got out of the habit of writing prose almost every day. Now my normal routine doesn't make any room for regular prose writing and I have to change things around to accommodate it again. The first thing that has to happen is to get excited (or at least grudgingly willing) to commit to the sustained effort it will take to write a book-length story. For me, this has always meant just being hard enough on myself that I start in on it and accept that, for the next six months, I'll give over my lunches and evening commutes to the new book, and I won't be reading much or thinking about much except the novel. Basically I engage in psychic arm-twisting.
I know that a lot of people start new projects while the idea is fresh and magical and use the energy gained from learning about the ideas while writing them out as a way to get hooked into the effort. But for those of us who do a lot of pre-production work, outlining and research, that is, it might sometimes be harder to get the ball rolling and gather the necessary momentum to jump in and get a good start on a new project. I'd be interested to hear from that group, the planners and outliners, about how it goes with you when you start in on the actual writing of a new project. Does it seem like a big effort is required? Do you drag your feet before starting in earnest? Or do you just happily jump in and start racking up words?
Monday, April 4, 2011
Time
These days, the world moves at such a fast pace. That's really nice in some ways. But, it also makes us forget that some things take time.
February Grace has a great post on the potential long term effects of our writing. Check it out if you haven't already.
I got some direct evidence of this on Saturday when I went to celebrate my nephew's 8th birthday party. We were playing punchball, and he casually mentioned to me that the novella I wrote for him two years ago--the novella that terrified him and got him pretty mad at me two years ago--was currently being enjoyed by his entire class, as his teacher decided to read it out loud to them. That was an amazing feeling.
Recently, too, the angry mob of us attacked a fellow frustrated and angry writer when she responded strongly to a bad review she received. Natalie Whipple wrote an excellent post responding to the responses of the response.
I'm keeping this short because apparently the A to Z thing is flooding the blog-o-sphere, so not many people will read this anyway. But, thank you to the people who do stop by, even though this posting isn't focused on the letter C. Check out the posts I linked to. And, for those of you who have been following along, the magical dryer was magical again this weekend after being quite ordinary for two weeks. Next time I do the laundry, I'm going to crawl inside. I'm pretty sure it will transport me to another dimension.
Friday, April 1, 2011
My New iPad Haz Kewl Appz
I have been resisting the lure of the shiny new iPad thingie, because the last thing I want is another expensive toy to drag around all day and I don't really write on a computer; I tend to work longhand. But last night I was at the Apple Store and the salesperson showed me a bunch of iPad-only applications that might make my life as a writer a lot easier. For example:
iKnowWhatYouMean is a really cool add on to the iPad version of MS Word that uses predictive technology to change what you've written into what you actually meant to say. For $49 more you get the Limited Edition software version that can edit similes into metaphors, which is really really amazing.
iVeSeenThatBefore is a program that lets you enter the bare-bones plot of your story (in 3-act or 5-act structure), asks you what the genre is (comedy, tragedy, sf/f, etc) and then searches an online database to tell you if you've stolen the idea from a recent book or if you've stolen the idea from one of the classics.
iKnowYoureOutThere is one of those "force you to write" programs that you enter your normal schedule into including a regular block of time in which you should be writing, and when the clock comes around to that scheduled writing time, if you aren't actually using the iPad's writing software, it closes all other applications and opens MS Word and gives you a threatening message about being such a slacker. The message is customizable. If you aren't using the iPad at all during that writing time, it turns itself on and flashes lights and makes noise to attract your attention. Totally brilliant.
There are some more apps for writers but I didn't get those, because I'm not made out of money, you know. Anyway, the new iPad rawks and I think it's going to change the way I work. I'm very excited to start using it.
Happy Friday everyone! What's new with you?
iKnowWhatYouMean is a really cool add on to the iPad version of MS Word that uses predictive technology to change what you've written into what you actually meant to say. For $49 more you get the Limited Edition software version that can edit similes into metaphors, which is really really amazing.
iVeSeenThatBefore is a program that lets you enter the bare-bones plot of your story (in 3-act or 5-act structure), asks you what the genre is (comedy, tragedy, sf/f, etc) and then searches an online database to tell you if you've stolen the idea from a recent book or if you've stolen the idea from one of the classics.
iKnowYoureOutThere is one of those "force you to write" programs that you enter your normal schedule into including a regular block of time in which you should be writing, and when the clock comes around to that scheduled writing time, if you aren't actually using the iPad's writing software, it closes all other applications and opens MS Word and gives you a threatening message about being such a slacker. The message is customizable. If you aren't using the iPad at all during that writing time, it turns itself on and flashes lights and makes noise to attract your attention. Totally brilliant.
There are some more apps for writers but I didn't get those, because I'm not made out of money, you know. Anyway, the new iPad rawks and I think it's going to change the way I work. I'm very excited to start using it.
Happy Friday everyone! What's new with you?
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