Introductions.

I have a thing with introductions. Generally I very much dislike them. Dislike receiving them, dislike being introduced. It’s not because I’m shy, it’s because of the typical icebreakers people use.

For example, if a mutual friend is performing the introduction — and more often than not, a performance is just how I view it — it will go something like this: “Jane, this is Sally. Sally, Jane. Jane’s an interior decorator. Jane, Sally’s a circus acrobat.”

DIY introductions are even worse. It usually takes under a minute for the other person to ask what’s guaranteed to give my eyes a roll: “so… what do you do?”

They mean as a job of course, but I take issue with that association. What do I do? Hell, I do lots of things. I spend too much time sitting in traffic. I read and try to write. I eat a lot of burritos. I work out and go to the movies. I say mean things about strangers. All these things are more interesting than my job, a part of my life I never want to discuss outside of work. Most people, I’m sure you know, hate their jobs. Why do we think that learning about them helps us understand people better?

So, let’s not talk about real life introductions. Let’s discuss instead character introductions, though the two are quite similar.

There are three basic questions to keep in mind when introducing your reader to one of your characters: what, how and when.

First, let’s look at what. What are you going to show them? What’s important for the reader to know about your character? I’ll give you a hint: it probably isn’t their job. Stephen King has some great advice about this.

I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing (I find wardrobe inventory particularly irritating; if I want to read descriptions of clothes, I can always get a J. Crew catalogue). I can’t remember many cases where I felt I had to describe what the people in a story of mine looked like — I’d rather let the reader supply the faces, the builds, and the clothing as well. If I tell you that Carrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I think you can do the rest, can’t you?

I think locale and texture are much more important to the reader’s sense of actually being in the story than any physical description of the players. Nor do I think that physical description should be a shortcut to character. So spare me, if you please, the hero’s sharply intelligent blue eyes and out-thrust determined chin; likewise the heroine’s arrogant cheekbones. This sort of thing is bad technique and lazy writing, the equivalent of all those tiresome adverbs.

I disagree a little bit here. I think that offering some physical traits are okay, but stick to one, maybe two defining characteristics. King is right in that the reader doesn’t need a feature rundown like you’d give a police sketch artist. Plant the visual seeds the reader needs to bring the character to life in his mind, then let it go.

So now, let’s look at how. I’ll offer up a couple examples here for you to consider. First, let’s look at Hemingway.

“The marvelous thing is that it’s painless,” he said. “That’s how you know when it starts.”
“Is it really?”
“Absolutely. I’m awfully sorry about the odor, though. That must bother you.”
“Don’t! Please don’t.”
“Look at them,” he said. “Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that?”
The cot the man lay on as in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out past the shade onto the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds squatted obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick-moving shadows as they passed.
-Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”

Hemingway, you can see, would have agreed in full with King’s views on character descriptions. Not one article of clothing or body part  mentioned here; you learn about the characters through their dialogue.

Also, consider this: just how important is the character you’re introducing? Should the introduction for a side character be similar to your main antagonist’s? Probably not, and your intuition is correct: you should do less with side characters.

Cora rings me in the nurses’ lounge, room 143 next to the Coke and ice machines, and tells me the two o’clock is here. “Good thing you blocked a lot of time,” Cora says. “She’s a real code red, if you know what I mean. Cora is seventeen and last weekend, drunk on Zima, had her belly button pierced; I’m thirty-one, a dead husband not a year in the ground, and barely able to make my mortgage payment. I rarely know what she means.
- Erin Flanagan, “The Usual Mistakes”

Cora’s just a minor character in the story, more a plot device than anything else. Look at what Flanagan says, though. We learn about Cora through an incident, not a physical description. And we learn a little about the main character too, through contrast.

So now let’s look at when, which is to me the most interesting. When should we make introductions? The guideline to follow here is the same you’d use in real life: as soon as possible. Just like in a real setting, the longer a stranger goes standing about without any guess as to why they’re there, the more awkward it becomes.

That’s not to say you should drop everything you’re doing and make immediate introductions every single time you mention someone new. As in real life, you should consider when it would be most appropriate. Here’s a great example from the guest editor of the Colorado Review‘s 2007 fiction edition:

We both worked nights. I volunteered for the swing and graveyard shifts. My friend Clam (not his real name), who had got me on at the U-Totem, advised in favor of these hours. “More time to study,” he explained. Clam was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona.
- Robert Boswell

That’s the first time we hear about Clam, but Boswell doesn’t properly introduce us yet. Though Clam is an important character, we’re not ready for him. First, Boswell has to finish his job of explaining the setting: he outlines where other characters are in their life and a little of the surroundings before we get back to Clam.

Shortly afterward, Clam showed up at the door bearing a plastic garbage bag filled with his possessions. He had run into some trouble in a business arrangement of questionable legality (he was selling pot and the deal went sour), and he required a hideout.
Clam claimed the remaining bedroom, and for a long time he neither left the house nor stepped in front of an open window. It was hard to measure the actual threat he was under from either unhappy associates or vice detectives. It was his habit to exaggerate his emotional responses in the most conventional manner possible. He threw his arms up in alarm. His knees wobbled with anxiety. He slapped his thigh when he laughed. He ducked under windows when hiding from the law. My wife and I had different ideas about this trait. I thought it embodied his idea of humor – the expected inflated comically by its own predictability. My wife believed it was how he compensated for shallow feelings, simultaneously his apology and his excuse for being a man.
We both liked him. He gave us a topic.

You should know that in between the two scenes, Clam isn’t ever mentioned in the narrator’s discussion. Clam’s put on the back burner until it’s his time, so the wait isn’t an awkward one.

How, what, when. Just some things to consider, but don’t obsess. Keep the introductions simple and always remember to let the reader do most of the work. The Robert Langdon you met in your imagination is not the same Robert Langdon Dan Brown is acquainted with; readers need to be allowed to make characters come alive with their own imagination, and this happens through judicious description.

 

Poe: The Philosophy of Composition

I am not as maniacal an Egdar Allen Poe fan as some, but it’s hard not to acknowledge his talent. Since you can’t enjoy short stories without stumbling across his name at least a few dozen times, I’ve decided to give him his due.

Poe was an amazing linguist. He performed nothing short of literary wizardry in works like The Raven and Annabel Lee, and his prose familiarized us all with detective fiction and darker spec fic.

Have you ever wondered why his works were so melancholy? Critics claim the loss of his mother and wife weighed heavily on him, which I’m sure is true. But in his essay, The Philosophy of Composition, he explains that sadness and romantic longing were very deliberate choices for his themes. To him, a lugubrious portrayal of beauty is the highest purpose for which a poet should strive.

The essay evoked a variety of responses. Poe goes into such great detail about his writing process when creating The Raven that some folks at the time thought it was a joke. Nobody can be that methodical and scientific about writing, some said. He couldn’t have written the essay in earnest.

Joke or not, the essay reveals some interesting beliefs Poe held regarding writing and literature. I don’t agree with him on some issues, but I enjoyed hearing his opinions, which I believe were indeed heartfelt and passionate. First, Poe discusses what he perceives to be central to a story, the seed for which the rest of the composition must offer support.

Effect comes first

For Poe, the essence of a story resides in its conflict resolution. He also places heavy emphasis on prewriting and plot development, stating that:

Nothing is more clear that that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.

This is an interesting opinion to hold for a writer in Poe’s time, when inspiration, serendipity and spontaneity were so highly favored. (More on that in a moment.) After expressing his views on denouement, Poe shares his opinions on story construction that are just as surprising.

There is a radical error, I think in the usual mode of constructing a story. Either history affords a thesis – or one is suggested by an incident of the day – or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the combination of striking events to form merely the basis of his narrative-designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue, or autorial comment, whatever crevices of fact, or action, may, from page to page, render themselves apparent.

I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view – for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest – I say to myself, in the first place, “of the innumerable effects, or impression, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?”

Poe’s talking about cause and effect. Usually, a writer’s imagination places them near the early events of a conflict: an interesting conundrum, perhaps, or curious situation in which a person must struggle through or experience. Poe claims that he instead starts with an effect, a resolution to a conflict that he uses the rest of his creativity to flesh out. If true, this is a pretty interesting way of exploring an idea, but I wouldn’t place any special emphasis on either Poe’s method or those more traditional. Both should have their place since there are many perspectives one may use to view an event.

Next, he cites some narrative bells and whistles and how he chooses to employ them.

Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone – whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone – aftreward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect

Yes indeed, “incident” and “tone” are two concepts one may use to analyze a story. But there are other abstract labels you could use to further compartmentalize a story’s components, these two aren’t the only ones. As for this talk of either being ordinary or peculiar, well, there are many more possibilities than that, wouldn’t you say? He makes a good point, however. The shape and character of any story feature can be a conscious choice made by the writer. Just make sure you can support your decision with sound evidence; don’t use unconventional elements for the sake of their novelty.

Poe then returns to his hypothesis that intuition and inspiration are over-rated sources for a story’s development.

Most writers – poets in especial – prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy – an ecstatic intuition – and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacilliating crudities of thought – at the true purposes seized only at the last moment – at the fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable – at the cautious selections and rejections – at the painful erasures and interpolations – in a word, at the wheels and pinions – the tackle for sceneshifting – the step-ladders, and demon-traps – the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.

For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analysed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some of my own works was put together.

The ideal length

The next part of the essay describes Poe’s first consideration when beginning composition: story length. I find this interesting, since I never allow my mind to suggest the length of a story. Instead, I allow the story to unfold in a natural manner, and discover the length after I’ve completed it, much like a reader would. Further, Poe is bold enough to suggest which lengths are optimal for achieving a story’s purpose. His answer is not surprising, considering his work, but nonetheless it conflicts with the habits of typical American readership.

If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression – for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with anything that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. …

It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art – the limit of a single sitting – and that, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as “Robinson Crusoe” (demanding no unity), this limit may advantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem.

Beauty, Truth and Passion

After considering a work’s length, Poe explains that he next decides upon its effect, or “impression.” For Poe, there is only one effect potent enough to be worthy of poetic expression.

Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. … That pleasure which is at the once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect – they refer in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul – not of intellect or of heart – upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating the “beautiful.”

For Poe, beauty is not an object or classification, but rather an effect of being touched by a “beautiful” experience. Poetry, then, is the clearest, most encompassing means by which we can communicate this “elevation of the soul.” Well, I disagree. Poetry is but one of many tools of self-expression. Using different tools produces different results, the relative values of which cannot be quantified. A breathtaking painting can elevate the soul with the same intensity a poem would, but of course in different ways.

But what of the elevation of the intellect? The heart? Poe goes on to elaborate on these.

Now the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable to a certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion, a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me), which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement or pleasurable elevation of the soul.

Truth, then, is intellect, accurately expressed. Passion is the elevation of the heart, rather than the soul. Poe says that these effects are different from Beauty, and require different methods when showcasing them. I would agree with Poe on this, but he considers poetry better suited for some of these methods, and prose for others, which suggests that certain writing styles are stronger in expressing certain effects. This seems inaccurate to me, since limiting artistic mediums to communicate a finite list of ideas places frivolous constraints on those mediums, which further confines expression.

Melancholy

Poe continues with his explanation of his prewriting process by discussing tone. Just as Beauty is the most ideal effect for poetry writing, Poe considers melancholy the most optimal tone to convey it.

Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the tone of its highest manifestation – and all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

Again, his opinions are too singular for my tastes. My reasons for disagreement are similar enough to my reaction to his choice of effect, so I won’t risk being redundant.

The rest of the essay gets into the nitty gritty of Poe’s poetry writing, using The Raven as the sole model for his explanations. It’s a great read if you’re interested either in his process or the poem. But I thought I would at least share the first section, since it’s an interesting take on the writing process.

 

Narrative Modes Revisited.

After looking back at my prior discussion of narrative modes, I felt pretty unhappy with my explanations. Also, I just finished reading a wonderful book that’s rich with examples, so I wanted to have another go at it.

I quite enjoyed the book. I’d not heard of Charles de Lint before but a friend of mine suggested that I give him a try, and I’ve been very much surprised. He uses the fantastic elements in his stories to supplement the plot, not provide a cheap replacement. If you’re looking for quality magic realism, I’d recommend any of his books over that other series any day of the week.

The Onion Girl is divided into sections, each named after a character it follows. In those sections, the chapters featuring that character are written in a first person perspective. In other chapters, third person is used instead.

As I said, the difference between third person and first person narration goes far beyond pronoun usage. You can’t just swap a “he” for and “I” and call that first person.

One of the characters in the book is called “the Tattersnake.” De Lint provides descriptions of him through different eyes, depending on the chapter. First, let’s look at Jilly Coppercorn’s first impression:

The man sitting there watches me approach, but he doesn’t say a word. He has a glass filled with a blue liquid in front of him on the table. There are wet blue rings on the wood around the glass. The man is handsome, in a rough sort of way. Bad-boy handsome, Wendy’d say. The kind you see outside of pool halls, but not so much a loser as a bit of a romantic loner. He’d have a motorcycle and he’d smoke, but he’d probably have a paperback of Rimbaud in his back pocket. Or at least something by one of the Beats. Dark hair pushed back from his brow and clean-shaven. Blue-eyed with long dark lashes that most women would kill for. Lean, dressed all in black. The hand resting on the table beside his drink is slender and well formed, but it’s not a weak hand.

Okay, now let’s see Raylene Carter’s response to their first meeting:

Then one night this handsome guy comes in, the kind of guy thinks he owns any place he’s in. He’s got him the dark hair pushed back from his forehead, the deep blue eyes with the longest lashes I seen on a man. Clean-shaven and dressed all in black. He orders himself a drink from the bar, then turns around and gives the room a good look-see, kinda smiling to himself until his gaze hits me where I’m sitting in my corner, minding my own business.

They both mention similar details in their physical descriptions, but what’s different? Well, Jilly has a tendency to romanticize her experiences. She’s typecasted the Tattersnake as a romantic loner, a misunderstood bad-boy. Raylene has a similar, although more matter-of-fact impression.

Taking it a step further, what can we say about Jilly and Raylene from these two passages? Jilly seems to be more educated, and uses a more formal manner of speaking. But Raylene’s perceptive shows she has a keener eye for sizing people up.

Here’s another example. This time Jilly and Raylene are meeting a spirit of unknown origin. Here’s the first passage:

She’s like on of them New Age earth mamas, you know, a big–I mean big–woman, wearing the sack dress, got her a face as round as the full moon with a mess of curly dark hair just clouding up around it. I know her type. She’s got that air ’bout her of somebody who’s been meditating too long, or just smoked her a nice fat spliff–way mellow. The eyes are kinda spooky, though. Deep and dark and they have them a glow back in behind of them that almost seems familiar, though I know I never seen her before.

And the second:

The woman who spoke stands where Joe had been only a heartbeat before. She reminds me of Nokomis, the White Buffalo Woman I saw that one time in the Greatwood. I’m sure it’s her, even though I never saw her with a human face such as the one this stranger has. There’s just this familiarity about her and there’s no one else remotely similar to her in my experience. The stranger’s face is round as the full moon, surrounded by a cloud of dark, curling hair, thick as the forest. Her complexion is a coppery brown while her eyes are old beyond measure, distant and mysterious, deep and warm at the same time.

And so the question is, which description came from which character? Do you know? Of course you do. What evidence would you give to support your case? Those are the kind of qualities that make first person narration unique.

To reiterate my previous point, you are not telling the story when using first person narration, your character is. When deciding which narrative mode to use, it’s often a good idea to ask yourself whether the reader would benefit more from you telling a part of the story, or one of your characters. Remember, there are some situations where your main character, point-of-view character and narrator might be three different people.

Let’s see one more character interact with the Tattersnake, shall we? First, let’s get a feel for Toby’s personality through some dialogue. The first excerpt is from a conversation he has with Jilly, told through her perspective.

“How long were you hiding in there?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I don’t remember. Days. Weeks. How long were you gone?”
“Hardly weeks.”
“Did you miss me?”
“Actually,” I say. “I did.”
“Me too. I promise to be a good friend from now on.”

“So what do you want to do now?” he asks.
I point upward.
“No, no,” he says. “We don’t have to do that anymore. I told you. I’m going to be a good friend. Not someone who just wants you to do things for him.”
“But that’s what I want to do,” I tell him. “It’s why I’m here.”
“You need magic now?”
“Everybody needs magic,” I say.
“Everything already is magic,” Toby says. “Just most people don’t see it. Maybe what we need is miracles.”

And so, here’s Toby’s confrontation with the Tattersnake from a later part in the book.

It was always this way with The Tattersnake. He would appear out of nowhere–as he had in the factory world–and bully Toby with cruel words and threats and impossible questions, until eventually he got bored. Sometimes he’d cuff Toby before he walked away. Sometimes he’d knock him down and give him a kick or two as well. There was no telling how it would go. It could be long and Toby was never brave enough to stand up to him. But today he had to. Today he had no time for the Tattersnake’s petty cruelties.

Does the description match up with the language Toby uses during his meeting with Jilly? Not really. Toby uses short sentences and simplified, boiled down language. The description is too flowery, too well-structured. And that’s because Toby isn’t relaying the scene to us, de Lint himself is. Since it’s written in third person, he uses his own words, not Toby’s, to tell us what’s going on.

 

Word Dancers.

Recently, people who are called “clever” adorn themselves with superficial wisdom and only deceive others. For this reason they are inferior to dull-wilted folk. A dull- wilted person is direct. If one looks deeply into his heart with the above phrase, there will be no hidden places. It is a good examiner. One should be of the mind that, meeting this examiner, he will not be embarrassed.
- Hagakure

Oh, oh, oh dancing with myself
Oh, oh, oh dancing with myself
Well there’s nothing to lose
And there’s nothing to prove
And I’m dancing with myself…

- Billy Idol

Let’s talk about writing as a process. We all have our own fantasies about this and I’d bet that most of them are similar. Oh, how wondrous it would be if we could all just get away for a few months at that cabin by the lake, free from our responsibilities and daily distractions and just write. Wake up with the dawn, brew some coffee, open up the windows and knock out a few chapters before lunchtime.

A lot of writing workshops love to portray themselves as providers of such ideal settings but you and I both know that the vast majority of writing doesn’t happen like that. Hell, when I go to the lake, what I want to do is swim around, hike and fish. The last thing I want to do is keep myself cooped up inside with my thoughts as my only company.

We all have our own process, and that’s fine. Please don’t interpret this description as my telling you that “this is the Way to Write.” Your Way is not my own, nor is my Way yours. But there are some general concepts I’d like to share that I think we should all keep in mind.

A few authors have told me that you can’t teach anyone how to write. And you know what, it’s true. Fear not, however, it’s not as elitist as it sounds.

Here, try this: go into your room when no one else is around and close the door. Walk over to your computer and turn on your favorite song. Turn the volume way up. Now get up and dance to it. C’mon, just do it, I know you know how. Just get up and dance.

There you go.

Everybody knows how to dance. But not everybody can salsa, right? So what if you want to learn? Perhaps you’d take a class. In the class I’m sure the instructor would go over some of the common steps, rhythms and movements involved.

But mind you, the instructor is teaching you the steps. She is not teaching you how to dance. You know how to do that already. “Dancing” is not some mechanical process where you raise your right arm to about here, swing your hips slightly and turn halfway, etc. The class exists to help you incorporate new knowledge and forms into your self expression.

Same thing with writing. You can study up on the various styles, themes and genres but nobody can teach you how to “write,” you just sit down and do it. Does your writing get better with practice and education? Of course. Your tools get sharper and more versatile the more they’re used but you already have them on hand. If you can form complete sentences and carry on a conversation, you have the basics covered. You just need to refine them.

So then, how do I write? Well, it ain’t in some cabin in the woods. It often starts when I’m standing on the metro, riding home from work, sweaty and surrounded by strangers. My brain is tired from the day’s monotony, so I’ll close my eyes and let my imagination run around and play for awhile. In that hour-long ride, ideas will come. (I love this part of the process, by the way. Getting hit with a good idea feels like my imagination walked over and gave me a big, wet sloppy kiss on the mouth.)

I’ll try to unearth that idea as best I can but I don’t use my brain, I use my feelings. What feels right for the story? I write down jumbled phrases and ideas in a notebook I keep with me and when I can’t think of anything else, I set it aside. I let the idea brew for a little while, usually a couple of days. Then, at that right moment when the idea is developed but not yet stale, that’s when I start to write.

I either write at work or while I’m at home. They are both familiar, cozy enough places for me where I can relax and focus on the job at hand. I’m sure you have similar environs you like to use. Some people like to write on their laptops in coffee shops and bakeries, but I’d caution you against that. (It’s my suspicion that these people aren’t as interested in writing as they are having people watch them write, but I can’t substantiate that claim. It’s just a feeling.)

When you’re taking an idea and putting it down on paper, you need to have the right mindset. What’s the right mindset? Well, how did you feel when you got up to dance? Pretty comfortable with yourself, right? Happy, having a good time? Also focused on the music, aware and alert?

When you sit down to write, you better be ready to dance with your imagination. Throw out any and all distractions and leave your self doubt at the door. You need to be confident and comfortable with yourself and what you’re doing. That’s a big one. Don’t forget to check that. Also, have fun but take it seriously. Write honestly, write openly, write well.

I usually knock out a page or so before I go back and read what I’ve written. I don’t obsess about every minute detail of the story or my word choice, but I do try to iron things out as best I can before I get too far in. Once my first draft is done, I let the story sit for a day. I let it dissipate from my mind so that when I pick it up the next day, it’s more fresh and new to me.

When I read my first draft over for draft two, I polish it up as much as possible. Those little extras get buffed in, and I try to expose as much magic from the story as I can. Once I think it’s ready, I send it to one of three or four people I’ve chosen to read over my stuff.

This is an important part of the process that I think gets neglected. If you take your writing seriously, you need third party input. You need fresh eyes. You’re never going to see the story as someone else would, no matter how much you work at it.

Make sure you pick the right person for this job. You need to find someone who:

1. Would get what it is you’re trying to do. If you like to write slice-of-life lit stories, don’t hand your work over to a Hemingway-hating Manga reader, no matter what he got in creative writing.
2. Is not going to blow smoke up your ass. You’re not giving this person your story so you can feel good about yourself, you’re giving it to them because it has flaws (yes it does, no story is perfect), and you want their help in finding them.
3. Is able to articulate the issues they find with it. “I didn’t much like it” is not a helpful criticism. If they can at least say, “the dialogue sounded weird to me” or “it got boring here at this part,” that might be enough to get you started.

When you do find a suitable reader, however, I would caution you. You are no longer in your room, dancing with yourself. You’re back in that salsa class, listening to the instructor. Sure you know how to dance already, but now you’re looking to improve your steps. Be objective. This can be a very difficult thing to do but third party input is worthless without it. Do your best to take their suggestions at face value. For every criticism they offer, say to yourself, “what is this? Is this true or not true? What is the evidence?” Then decide for yourself what you’re going to do with their opinions. And then revise the story accordingly in draft three.

After draft three, I set my story aside for over a month. I forget about it and move on to other projects. I pick it up after I no longer recognize the work as my own, and I read it a final time. After I make the final revisions in draft four, I send it out.

That’s about all there is to it. You might have a very similar system, you might be in the process of developing your own or you might even be one of those jerks who write on laptops in coffee shops. It’s all up to you but remember, dancing isn’t about a series of mechanical steps, it’s about expressing yourself. Writing isn’t about using correct grammar and diction, it’s about magic. Respect that part of the process and the rest will take care of itself.

 

Packing Potent Provisions.

I remember with little fondness my Trips Into Town with my parents when I was a kid. The maps say we lived about nine miles away, but don’t you dare believe it, those maps are liars. By my childhood estimations, we lived roughly two thirds of an eternity away from town. When car rides exhibit the exact same scenery day in and out, using the worst soft rock radio station ever to get its license to provide the soundtrack, yes, I can tell you that these short hops to the store were never short of excruciating.

On the other hand, I once took a night train from London to St. Andrews to visit a college buddy of mine. Markedly shorter, this trip, although by objective measurements the ride took about eight hours. So why was it shorter? Well, it was fun. I was with two friends of mine, each of us more than willing to help distract one another. Plus, there were plenty of provisions. We had food, we had booze, we had books, we had cards, we had magazines and music. Hell, with such a setup, we could have handled a trip to Fiji using only the local lanes.

The point of storywriting is, first and foremost, to advance your story. You need to be taking your reader somewhere. But just like a road trip, the journey you put your readers on shouldn’t be boring. Remember, the reader’s bringing nothing with him on this ride of yours; he’s coming as-is. It’s up to you to provide him with provisions to keep him occupied during his travels.

I’m talking about what you choose to divulge to your reader as the story expands. What are some things you could use? Well, you could provide him with a window, and let him see the scenery outside.

The sun, climbing toward midmorning, stretched Galad’s shadow and those of his three armored companions ahead of them as they trotted their mounts down the road that ran straight through the forest, dense with oak and leatherleaf, pine and sourgum, most showing the red of spring growth.

-         from The Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan

Or maybe offer up some discussion for him to consider.

“You need not trouble about the knives. We shall not do it.”

“Why not?” I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me.

“Because,” he said sternly, “it is too late, or too early. See!” Here he held up the little golden crucifix.

“This was stolen in the night.”

“How stolen,” I asked in wonder, “since you have it now?”

-         from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Or maybe offer more insight into one of the characters you’re having him follow.

It wis oot ay order bad-mouthin Sick Boy like that. Ah jist hate it when the cunt gits oaf scot-free and ah’m painted as the big villain ay the piece. Ah suppose that’s jist ma perception ay things. Sick Boy hus his anxieties, his personal pain. He also probably hus mair enemies thin me. He undoubtedly does. Still, what the fuck.

-         from Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Okay then, we’ve covered the basics: identifying your provisions. Dialogue (internal and external), description, etc… all this stuff is pretty elementary. What I’d really like to explore is how these things work in relationship to one another.

I’d like to offer up Thomas Grattan’s I am a Souvenir as an example of this. This story won the 2007 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction and make no mistake, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t read it.

I was watching television when my father got home. He had on new glasses. He lifted them off his face to show me their intricate marble pattern, the durable lenses.

“These are from Italy,” he said.

My father was an optometrist. When my mother lived with us, he got new glasses once a year, talking about them like a geography lesson. The owlish pair was from Paris. The ones before from Cologne. The Italian pair was the second he’d gotten in the last four months.

“I like the color,” I said.

In this passage, we have a little bit of dialogue, and some internal observation thrown in between.

So then, consider what’s being said here. This boy’s father is an optometrist. He’s changed his eyewear buying habits at a time that roughly coincides with his wife leaving them. Grattan didn’t say, “this boy’s mother left him and his father, and his father’s buying glasses more frequently, possibly as a way of getting more into his work to distract himself from the situation,” but that’s the point of the passage, isn’t it?

And notice the dialogue. It has nothing to do with the real issue; it’s on the boy’s mind but it’s not something they’re talking about, and we could safely assume that trend will continue. Guys don’t talk about their feelings typically, and it appears these two are no different. Again, we weren’t told this, but it was shown to us through the discrepancy between the boy’s inner thoughts and the short dialogue between him and his father.

Basically what I’m getting at here is that you need to step back from the trees and see the forest. How a story’s components look when placed beside one another is a very potent way of filtering how the reader receives information. Not only do you need to pick solid provisions for your reader’s journey, but turn it up a notch and consider how those provisions interact. If you want your reader to know something, always consider how you want him to figure that out. That’s the fun part that’s going to keep him entertained as you transport him to the story’s destination.

 

Themes.

Meaning if found in relationship. In other words, meaning is nothing more than the relationship of the foreground figure to the background.
-Bruce Lee

“Using lies to expose the truth” is a cute description of a writer’s purpose, but since it’s pretty spot-on, I’m going to try to elaborate on it.

Here’s one of my favorite of Aesop’s Fables: The Rose and the Amaranth.

An amaranth planted in a garden near a Rose-Tree, thus addressed it:  “What a lovely flower is the Rose, a favorite alike with Gods and with men.  I envy you your beauty and your perfume.”  The Rose replied, “I indeed, dear Amaranth, flourish but for a brief season! If no cruel hand pluck me from my stem, yet I must perish by an early doom.  But thou art immortal and dost never fade, but bloomest for ever in renewed youth.”

So, what’s this fable about? On the surface, two talking flowers. It’s pretty short as stories go, isn’t it? Also, there’s no conflict resolution here, no stunning conclusion, no climax. So what’s the point?

Well, a handful of morals could apply here. Greatness has its penalties, perhaps. Or that which shines twice as bright will extinguish twice as fast. The grass is always greener, etc.

The story has very little foreground, none of which is meant to be taken literally. How about the story’s morals, the background? Can’t get any more real in my opinion.

Story writing begins with imagination. Your mind finds an interesting idea and runs with it. Characters are created, scenes are painted, and before you know it you have yourself a story.

Before you pat yourself on the back, however, ask yourself: what’s the point of your story? What are you trying to say here? What might a reader infer from the story’s action and consequences?

Developing a story’s lies is the easy part of composition, once practiced. The theme is another matter. Many stories are weak in this area, either because they’re underdeveloped, they’re cliché or the writer has no sense of subtlety. Please, consider your theme. Don’t settle for one so overdone or as watered down as “revenge for its own sake isn’t good,” “broken hearts are sad things” or “pirates are nasty, but strangely likeable people.”

How does one pick a potent theme? Well, that comes with time well spent: reading a lot, and living a lot. Become familiar with the themes of various stories, from shorts to novels, and try to extract meaning from the events of your own life. What are the underlying principles and philosophies you believe in? Which do you understand but disagree with? Keep them in mind when you write, and when it comes time for revision, try to see which one applies to your story. Then, try to further extract it using your words, as thoughtfully and as elegantly as possible. This is the hard part of story-writing, but remember, without a theme, your writing is at best a sequence of events. It becomes a story when the foreground takes the reader not only to the plot’s conclusion, but to one of life’s understandings as interpreted by the writer.

 

Persontense.

Since what I’m about to discuss may become complicated, let’s open things up with a little English 101, eh? Actually, let’s get even more basic. Let’s go back to summer school English.

There are three basic verb tenses in the English language, each used to communicate three different times in which moments take place:

Past tense is for stuff that’s already happened.
Present tense is for stuff that’s going on now.
Future tense is for stuff that’s going to happen.

Seems straightforward enough. In addition to tenses, there are three narrative modes, or “persons” our language uses to describe who’s doin’ the speakin’.

First person is used when the narrator himself is performing the action. I ate the apple. I kicked Dick and Jane’s dog, Spot. That sort of thing.

Second person – do you know already? – is used when giving commands. Technical writers who work on manuals and how-to guides know this mode quite well. Traditionally, second person writing employs a lot of “you”s and “thou art”s. For example, “you can’t go around kicking dogs like that” is written in second person.

Third person is used when the narrator acts as middle man between the reader and those performing the action. He ate the apple. He also kicked Dick and Jane’s dog, Spot. He’s a cretin!

Three narrative tenses and three narrative modes. That gives us nine total possibilities in choosing which ones to use in a story, right?

Not really. Two, maybe three or four. The rest don’t make much sense for fiction writing. I won’t explore the more obscure combinations here – you can yourself if interested – but I am going to try to talk about the differences between the two most popular.

First, let’s look at third person, past tense. The majority of fiction today is written in this mode and tense. By using the narrator as a degree of separation between the reader and the action, the writer achieves a lot of flexibility in presenting his material.

Take note, however. Third person, past tense is not restricted to “Dick did this Jane did that” statements. In fact, sticking with such a rigid scheme will bore the crap out of your reader. Make sure your narrator has personality.

I will often incorporate my own thoughts into a third person narrative to offer more perspective into a scene. Other times I’ll implant a character’s opinions and let them pass for fact. I am not a successful novelist, but Richard K. Morgan is, and his book, The Steel Remains, has much better examples of these two tricks than anything I could conjure up. Here’s an excerpt:

From his one or two previous encounters with these creatures, Ringil also knew that they could be very—
The corpsemite flexed its body free of the encaging ribs, leapt straight at him.
—fast.
He hacked sideways, rather inelegantly, and succeeded in batting the thing away to the left. It hit a headstone and dropped to the ground writhing, sliced almost in half by the stroke. Ringil brought the sword down again and finished the job, mouth pursed with distaste. The two severed halves of the creature twisted and trembled and then lay still.
Demons and the souls of the evil dead were not, it seemed, up to repairing that kind of damage.

See that? Third person narrative shouldn’t be boring.

Now then, let’s look at first person, past tense, the second most popular narrative scheme. Obviously it’s more constrained since the reader is experiencing the story through the senses of just one person. But again, don’t constrict yourself. Beginning writers often confuse first person writing to mean just changing the pronouns. If this is third person writing…

Tendrils had touched him on the chest and back— later he would find the weals. Now he snatched up the Ravensfriend and stalked after his jerkin, eyes and ears open for any remaining members of the group.

…this is not necessarily first person writing:

Tendrils had touched me on the chest and back— later I would find the weals. Now I snatched up the Ravensfriend and stalked after my jerkin, eyes and ears open for any remaining members of the group.

That’s not what first person means. Remember, the reader is experiencing the action through the senses of another character. Forget how you would describe a scene, you’re not the narrator here. One of your characters is. How would he describe what he’s seeing? What else does he notice? What are his biases? The grammatical rules that govern first person writing are just the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is how the information passed on to the reader gets changed when a different filter is applied.

What of past and present tense then? Well as you might expect – and as even the shoddiest writing workshops will tell you – present tense adds immediacy to your action. What you don’t hear a lot about, however, is how the verb tense will lead to minor changes in your writing. Just like above, when comparing first to third person, the difference between past and present tense writing shouldn’t be just about grammar. Writing in either tense should remain fluid and engaging.

The vast majority of fiction is written using these two tense/person combinations but are there exceptions? Of course. High Fidelity and Fight Club are great examples of first person, present-tense narrative. Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver is great because the novel shifts between third person present and third person past, depending on which century the action takes place. Heck, you want a good second person, present tense novel, pick up Murakami’s After Dark.

Of course there are exceptions, but don’t get cute. Try to familiarize yourself with the various styles and understand their strengths and weaknesses before you start branching out yourself.

Be conscious of which tense and person you choose for your story. If you think you found a combination that fits your story best, you should be able to explain why, if asked.

 

A Recipe for Description

1/2 c Milk
3 Eggs
1 tb Water
12 oz Evaporated milk
2 ts Vanilla
1/8 ts Almond extract
1/4 c Frozen orange juice concentr
1/2 c Sugar

Preheat your trusty oven to 300.
Mix 1/4 c sugar with water in heavy small saucepan.
Cook over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves, stirring frequently.
Increase heat & cover & boil without stirring until sugar turns deep golden brown.
As soon as possible, pour caramel into six 6-oz custard c.
Whisk eggs, orange juice concentrate & remaining 1/4 c sugar in large bowl.
Slowly whisk in both milks & extracts.
Divide custard among prepared c.
Place c in large baking pan & add enough hot water to pan to come halfway up sides of c.
Bake this until custards are set, about 1 hr 20 mins.
Remove c from water and put in the fridge.
Invert c when ready to serve.

Above is a recipe for some mighty tasty orange caramel fudge. If you have any kind of a sweet tooth, please try it out! I guarantee it will not disappoint.

Why did I post it here? Well, look at the recipe. Heck, look at any recipe. What do all recipes have in common? They come in two parts: ingredients and directions. Or, a “how much” section, followed by a “how”; the exact same components you need to consider when writing description. Says Stephen King:

Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to.

I know I’ve talked a little bit about description already, but I’d like to further elaborate on these two principles.

First, let me just make this clear: don’t get carried away with your description. If you’re good at it, fine, but if you engage too much in self-indulgent picture-painting, you’re going to bore your audience. Story writing is about the story. The action, not its setting. Always keep the story in mind.

That being said, let’s first address the “how much” principle. How much is enough? Well, let’s look at a few examples.

We spent a wretched night in our bunks, faintly lit by the dancing glow of the stove – which the timid man (unable or relucant to sleep with the restless mass of Katz bowing the slats just above his head) diligently kept stoked – and wrapped in a breathy, communal symphony of nighttime noises – sighs, weary exhaltations, dredging snores, a steady dying moan from the man who had eaten the Philly chese steak sandwich, the monotone hiss of the stove, like the soundtrack of an old movie. We woke, stiff and unrested, to a gloomy dawn of falling snow and the dispiriting prospect of a long, long day with nothing to do but hang out at the camp store or lie on a bunkbed reading old Readers Digests, which filled a small shelf by the door.

– from A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

On the ride up to Aurora, Jack sat against the window, his head flying up and then thumping against the glass every time we hit a pothole. He was holding long, muttery conversations with folks we couldn’t see. Once we were out of town, me and Johnnie had to roll down our windows. The small was just too bad otherwise. Jack was rotting from the inside out, but he wouldn’t die. I’ve heard it said that life is fagile and fleeting, but I don’t believe it. It would be better if it was.

- from The Death of Jack Hamilton by Stephen King

Rand narrowed his eyes, watching the dust-tail that rose ahead, three or four bends of the road away. Mat was already headed toward the wild hedgerow alongside the roadway. Its evergreen leaves and densely intermeshed branches would hide them as well as a stone wall, if they could find a way through to the other side. THe other side of the road was marked by the sparse brown skeletons of head-high bushes, and beyond was an open field for half a mile to the woods. It might have been part of a farm not too long abandoned, but it offered no quick hiding place. He tried to judge the speed of the dust-tail, and the wind.

A sudden gust swirled road dust up around him, obscuring everything. He blinked and adjusted the plain, dark scarf across his nose and mouth. None too clean now, it made his face itch, but it kep him from inhaling dust in every breath. A farmer had given it to him, a long-faced man with grooves in his cheeks from worry.

- from The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

In the first example, we’re sitting with the author in some hiking shack on the Appalachain Trail. What do we know about his situation from this passage?

• It’s night
• The author and some others are in bunks
• The place is faintly lit by stovelight
• Plenty of nighttime noises going on
• It was snowing by morning
• There’s a camp store nearby
• The camp has a lot of old Reader’s Digests sitting on a small shelf by the door

We know a couple other minor details, but just a few sparks here and there to give the scene a bit more life. Bryson’s a humor writer, and usually the more specific descriptions are funnier.

But look at what was left out. How many bunks are in this place? What is the color of the walls? What does everyone look like? The answer is: it doesn’t matter. You’re the reader, so decide for yourself until you’re told otherwise.

The key is to provide a setting framework. Give your reader enough information so that he gets the basics of the scene down, and then (this is the important part) he is left to fill in the details by himself. By allowing him to do so, you relinquish ownership of the story to your reader. Again, Stephen King articulates this idea far better than I could:

If I tell you that Carrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I thikn you can do the rest, can’t you? I don’t need to give you a pimple-bypimple, skirt-by-skirt rundown. We all remember one or more high school losers, after all; if I describe mine, it freezes out yours, and I lose a little bit of the bond of understanding I want to forge between us. Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.
…
For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind.

That’s basically all there is to it: provide the reader with the framework, and let him do the rest while you get on with your story. As a kind of mental exercise, read the other two excerpts above, then consider the details you saw that were not told to you by the writer. Those are your details, the ones you brought to the table to complete the scene after the writer provided the framework.

But how do you write the framework? Like King said, this requires a great deal of practice. In essence, you’re going to want to approach description sideways. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s go back to the Walk in the Woods excerpt:

We spent a wretched night in our bunks, faintly lit by the dancing glow of the stove – which the timid man (unable or relucant to sleep with the restless mass of Katz bowing the slats just above his head) diligently kept stoked – and wrapped in a breathy, communal symphony of nighttime noises – sighs, weary exhaltations, dredging snores, a steady dying moan from the man who had eaten the Philly chese steak sandwich, the monotone hiss of the stove, like the soundtrack of an old movie.

What does the stove’s light look like? A dancing glow of course. How is Katz characterized? As a restless mass bowing the slats of the bunk above the narrator. What do the nighttime noises sound like? a breathy, communal symphony. Is the man who ate the Philly sandwich really dying? No, but his moan befits a man with one foot in the coffin. And we end with a similie.

Bryson didn’t tell you these things in literal terms. He had fun with it. He used a handful of devices that give you a description of the scene through indirect means. In this respect, “how” is about as difficult to understand as “how much” because you want a happy medium that makes your reader think, but not too hard. Have fun, but don’t get carried away and remember your story. And practice, practice, practice. Look around you; there are plenty of circumstances we find ourselves in each day that provide a great chance to hone our description skills. Give it a shot, and see what you come up with.

 

Stevenson: A Gossip on Romance

Today I’m going to look at Robert Louis Stevenson’s essay, “A Gossip on Romance.” It was first published in Longman’s Magazine, a monthly fiction publication that was produced during the bulk of the 19th century. Andrew Lang, of the famous lectures, was one of its editors.

Before I start, I should admit that I have a strong affection for Stevenson’s stories. I remember reading Markheim on a random Thursday afternoon and becoming obsessed with the story instead of getting my work done. As I’ve said before, Olalla is a fine read as vampire stories go, and let’s not forget Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The essay concerns itself with the most serious of topics: where literature gets its magic. Either it’s because my views on story-writing mimic so closely that of Stevenson’s or because he was so much smarter than I could ever hope to be about this stuff, I really didn’t find anything in his essay that I disagreed with. That’s not to say, however, that his insights don’t bear repeating.

When going over what he considered more than usually important material, my Calculus professor would often stop mid-sentence, wrap his chalk loudly on the blackboard in front of him and proclaim, “people, look, I’m giving you pearls, here!” Had he been more interested in teaching us prose writing instead of polynomials, I guarantee he’d say the same about this essay.

What makes a story good?

In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thence-forward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye.

This is the very first part of the essay; Sevenson jumps right into what he thinks a good story does to us. When we’re enjoying a good story, we’re thoroughly engrossed. Intently following its action, we forget who we are and what we’re really doing. We read the text and experience the action of the words. Our mind, as well as our emotions, are held captive by the author’s writing.

So just how does a story do that? Well, he gets to that. First, a distinction between two separate story characteristics: drama and romance.

Drama and Romance

Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. The pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts – the active and the passive. … It would be hard to say which of these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is surely the more constant.

To Stevenson, drama concerns itself with the actions of the individual against his environment; the opposite is true of romance. It’s Stevenson’s belief that the two are equally satisfying in terms of artistic expression, but life has a tendency to place an influence over us much more often than we over it. I definitely agree with that.

So where does romance, the poetry of circumstance, find its place?

There is a vast deal in life and letters both which is not immoral, but simply amoral; which either does not regard the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the practical intelligence; in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of arms or the diplomacy of life. With such material as this it is impossible to build a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on moral grounds, and is a standing proof of the dissemination of the human conscience. But it is possible to build, upon this ground, the most joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful and buoyant tales.

There is often times no rational explanation for the circumstances in which life places us. These moments “are what they are,” and are wholly separate from our reactions to them. To Stevenson, play-acting does not provide appropriate accommodations for stories of romance, of circumstance, because theatre concerns itself with drama, “the poetry of conduct.” In a play, circumstance takes a back seat to a character’s reactions to it. You can see evidence of this in any stage production. Characters find themselves in “enchanted forests” scattered with painted cardboard trees and smog machine eeriness. The props are never as elaborate as an actor’s performance because that’s not where you’re supposed to be focusing your attention.

So what of stories, then? How does circumstance fit into a good story? Before discussing the heart of the matter, Stevenson discusses a fascinating feature of the world in which we live: the magical power of connection and relationship.

One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our minds to sit there. One lace suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, or lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it.

Everyone has experienced this at some point. We find ourselves overlooking a crowded hotel lobby, or lonely city street, or a particularly dense patch of forest; suddenly we’re struck with a sudden sense of awe and wonderment, and our heart aches for an unrealized fulfillment we cannot articulate. This, Stevenson explains, is “romance.”

Sometimes, nothing blossoms from these feelings.

How many of these romances have we not seen determine at their birth; how many people have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, with express intimations – “here my destiny awaits me” – and we have but dined there and passed on!

The Role of Romance in Literature

Literature, Stevenson explains, has a responsibility to draw upon this “poetry of circumstance.” Literature can place us back into these situations, and after seating us there, it can appease our romantic unrest.

Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost added the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand for fit and striking incident.

As Stevenson explains, when this “demand for fit and striking incident” is fulfilled, you get the stuff of legends. This next passage is the driving point of the entire essay.

Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running with his fingers in his ears, these are each culminating moments in the legend, and each has been printed on the mind’s eye forever. Other things we may forget; we may forget the words, although they are beautiful; we may forget the author’s comment, although perhaps it was ingenious and true, but these epoch-making scenes, which put the last mark of truth upon a story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for sympathetic pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind that neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. This, then is the plastic part of literature: to embody character, thought or emotion in some act or attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the mind’s eye. This is the highest and hardest thing to do in words; the thing which; once accomplished equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in its own right, the quality of epics. Compared with this, all other purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical or the purely philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and feeble in result.

Forget character development. Forget conflict resolution. Forget rising action, climax and falling action. Experiencing the fulfillment of romantic longing, not merely knowing but participating in whatever truths the story has exposed to us, this is the reason for a story’s existence.

For a story to do this correctly, it’s obvious that romantic attachment is required, but of equal importance is the incorporation of the dramatic. In his essay, Stevenson doesn’t really explain much about drama, its passions and its moral dilemmas, probably because people are already familiar with those ideas. Though he focuses the first part of his essay on romance, he makes it clear that no story can do without equal parts of poetry of conduct, and poetry of circumstance.

In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure.

Stevenson then explains what is in his estimation the single most important element of a good story scene.

While we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, not merely clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to take an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at being the hero, the scene is a good scene.

In any good piece of literature, we supplant the hero’s consciousness with our own. It’s not enough to simply say we empathize with Peter Pan or that we understand the plight of Edmond Dantès. No, if the story did its job then we are Peter Pan when he’s fighting Captain Hook, and feel the triumph of watching him fall into the crocodile’s mouth. We become Edmond Dantès, and endure his misery during his horrible incarceration in Château d’If.

So how does a story writer go about performing this magic trick? ‘Tis not the characters that draw us in, dear reader. ‘Tis that poetry of circumstance.

It is not character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realized in the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and only, do we say we have been reading a romance.

I’ll finish my response with Stevenson’s reminder that not all desires and fancies are happy ones. Romance does not restrict itself to positive relationships between characters and circumstance. Any personal connection to the incidental can be enough to draw a reader in, if it be honest enough to resonate with his soul.

It is not only pleasurable things that we imagine in our deaydreams; there are lights in which we are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded or calumniated. It is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in which every incident, detail and trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the reader’s thoughts.

 

Tolkien: On Fairy-Stories

As an adequate warning, I am going to do something in this post that may enrage some of the more hysterical fantasy fans: I aim to criticize Tolkien a little. If you’re not okay with that, then I’d suggest skipping this one and maybe play some 3D Ping-Pong instead. (If you do, tell me your score. I used to be pretty good but I’ve fallen out of practice since such sites have been blocked on my work computer.)

In 1939, about three years after Tolkien published The Hobbit, he gave the Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews and presented this essay:

On Fairy-Stories

In it, he attempted to answer three fundamental questions about fantasy and fairy tales:

• What are fairy-stories?
• What is their origin?
• What is the use of them?

Credible questions in my opinion, and worthy of discussion. I won’t get into every aspect of the essay here but I will hit on what I believe to be the major points. But first, some background.

J.R.R. Tolkien was an English writer and linguist who, among many other things, taught English language and literature at Oxford from 1925 to 1959. He is the author of The Lord of the Rings, perhaps the most highly regarded fantasy story of all-time.

Tolkien was not, however, an over-evolved superhuman born before his time. And his books, solid as they may be, are not my favorite fantasy stories. It should be possible to admit this in polite company without increasing anyone’s blood pressure but, well, some folks just can’t seem to help themselves. (When this happens, I feel compelled to suggest that they place Tolkien on such a high pedestal because they have had a limited exposure to quality Fantasy, but it’s never my aim to further piss them off.)

Nor did Tolkien invent the Fantasy genre. Those who suggest as much have either completely forgotten about Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and The Iliad, or they’ve not heard of them. The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur are all Fantasy literature pieces that precede The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien may have brought the genre to the forefront in our society, but popularizing a genre does not creation make.

The English author provides a very clear insight into fantasy and fairy tales with his essay, but I’m afraid I can’t meet him all the way with some of his conclusions. Hopefully my attempt at explaining myself below is successful enough that I don’t come off sounding arrogant, but I suppose that is up to you to decide. I strongly encourage you to read the essay for yourself and formulate your own responses.

What Are Fairy Stories?

The first part of the essay deals with the definition of a fairy-story.

What is a fairy-story? In this case you will turn to the Oxford English Dictionary in vain. It contains no reference to the combination fairy-story, and is unhelpful on the subject of fairies generally. In the Supplement, fairy-tale is recorded since the year 1750, and its leading sense is said to be (a) a tale about fairies, or generally a fairy legend; with developed senses, (b) an unreal or incredible story, and (c) a falsehood.

This is more or less true. That Tolkien admits the OED is unhelpful in providing a definition is particularly funny to me because that used to be his job. Some time after World War I, Tolkien got a job with OED studying the etymologies and histories of German words. He’d know better than most what the book’s limitations were.

I am not a literary historian by any means, but based on my limited knowledge, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy was the first person to use the term “fairy tale.” Her stories – which included Babiole, The Dolphin and Goldilocks – she called “contes de fées,” and “fairy tales” I would say provides a decent enough translation. Note, however, that there are plenty of stories written before her time that would fall into this category. Back then, however, people did not perceive story genres as we view them now; stories were just, well, stories, and there existed no subcategories in which one would file them.

I said the sense “stories about fairies” was too narrow. It is too narrow, even if we reject the diminutive size, for fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faerie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being. Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.

For the most part I agree. It would be more accurate to believe that fairy tales and stories concern themselves with a whole other world, one that does not confine itself to just curious creatures. A fairy tale is a story about this other world, and in its telling invites us in. But it does not have to concern itself with just “the earth and all the things that are in it.” The “location” of such a place is intangible, and only imagination is required if one wishes to visit.

Stories that are actually concerned primarily with “fairies,” that is with creatures that might also in modern English be called “elves,” are relatively rare, and as a rule not very interesting. Most good “fairy-stories” are about the adventures of men in the Perilous Realm or upon its shadowy marshes. Naturally so; for if elves are true, and really exist independently of our tales about them, then this also is certainly true: elves are not primarily concerned with us, nor we with them. Our fates have sundered, and our paths seldom meet. Even upon the borders of Faerie we encounter them only at some chance crossing of the ways.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this paragraph for the first time. I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around it. Have you read The Children of Hurin? It’s a Tolkien novel, it’s a Fantasy story, and yeah, it’s about elves. Apparently, Tolkien changed his mind some time after giving this lecture, he thinks his writing is strong enough to make such an uninteresting idea work, or he didn’t care and wrote it anyway.

I understand what he’s trying to say: the realm of Fantasy is not our own. The story invites us in as guests but never as permanent residents. We have a natural affection toward other humans whom we meet in this land because we can relate to them and share in their experiences. This is easier for us to do with humans, than with individuals of another race, whose essence and emotions may be more foreign to us. But to say that we have no curiosity for other intelligent creatures is ridiculous. If humans really thought that way, there would be no SETI, Cyprus would not have been the happening place it was two thousand years ago and I guarantee Tolkien’s books wouldn’t have reached the acclaim they currently enjoy.

Tolkien then goes on to explain the role of magic in a fairy story:

Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic – but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician. There is one proviso: if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of: the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away.

When discussing religion, a friend of mine used to say that taking something a little too seriously – which he defined as a thing being untouched by laughter or criticism – is always a bad thing. I think that’s true here, too. Tolkien reveals his distaste for Sci-Fi in this passage, as well as his all-too-serious devotion to the realm of Fantasy. By all means, make fun of magic if the situation calls for it. Of the crappy fairy tales I’ve read in my time, none are worse than those who take themselves too seriously; at least the crappy ones that part-take in self-deprecating humor are more honest.

Here, Tolkien explains why other stories, such as adventure or sci-fi stories, don’t really qualify for the Fantasy genre:

The tales of Gulliver have no more right of entry than the yarns of Baron Munchausen; or than, say, The First men in the Moon or The Time Machine. Indeed, for the Eloi and the Morlocks there would be a better claim than for the Lilliputians. Lilliputians are merely men peered down at, sardonically, from just above the house tops. Eloi and Morlocks live far away in an abyss of time so deep as to work an enchantment upon them; and if they are descended from ourselves, it may be remembered that an ancient English thinker once derived the ylfe, the very elves, through Cain from Adam. This enchantment of distance, especially of distant time, is weakened only by the preposterous and incredible Time Machine.

I agree with the basic premise of this argument but I don’t see any reason for the nastiness at the end. Sci-Fi or adventure stories are not Fantasy stories. They’re not supposed to be, and they treat their unreal elements in different manners.

Sci-Fi stories have “fantastic” elements but they’re explained through plausible scientific theory and rational explanations. We accept the world of the story solely on the terms of our own.

In a Fantasy story, the magic and mysticism we find there isn’t explained away by the terms and ideals of our own world. We simply accept these fantastic elements as an integral part of that other place. These elements have their own rules of conduct and do not follow those of our world, but we’re okay with that, so long as they remain true to themselves.

I refuse to believe, however, that the “enchantment” of Gulliver’s Travels or The Time Machine is somehow weakened because it’s partially explained. Explanation from the perspective of our home reality is merely the difference between Sci-Fi/Adventure and Fantasy. It’s a different approach is all, and one isn’t any more or less credible than the other. Tolkien needs to get off his high fantasy horse on this one.

So what constitutes a fairy story, according to Tolkien?

It is at any rate essential to a genuine fairy-story, as distinct from the employment of this form for lesser or debased purposes, that it should be presented as “true.” The meaning of “true” in this connexion I will consider in a moment. But since the fairy-story deals with “marvels,” it cannot tolerate any frame or machinery suggesting that the whole story in which they occur is figment or illusion.

He’s basically saying two things here. He’s saying that all the elements in a fairy story must be “true,” which I interpret to mean that they remain loyal to the world in which they reside, and that we accept them on their own terms, as we do with all things truthful. This I agree with, but he’s also summarizing some previous passages in the essay that deal with dreams and illusion. He dismisses stories that employ these devices as Fantasy stories because that is in some way an explanation of or excuse for the fantastic elements. This I also disagree with. A story can exist in a dream world but that makes it no less “true.” Dreams exist in places just as credible as Tolkien’s Faerie-land, and I do not clearly see a distinction between the two. Tolkien appears to be closed to any and all debate regarding the nature of the world in which fantasy stories reside. This goes back to my contention that he takes this stuff a little too seriously sometimes.

Children

This is kind of a side issue in the essay but to me it’s one of the more important. Fairy stories get a bad rap for being “kids’ stuff literature,” second-rate stories for toddlers. Not so. I’m not going to debate Tolkien on his points here, but I will cite some of them for consideration.

Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker’s art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called “willing suspension of disbelief.” But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful ‘sub-creator.” He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.

A very important point came out of that paragraph. Fantasy stories don’t concern themselves with pulling a fast one on the reader. The characters in the story aren’t affixed on some elaborate stage with intricate props and effects that create the illusion of the fantastic. Writing a fantasy story has to do with world-building.

If fairy-story as a kind is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults. They will, of course, put more in and get more out than children can. Then, as a branch of a genuine art, children may hope to get fairy stories fit for them to read and yet within their measure; as they may hope to get suitable introductions to poetry, history and the sciences. Though it may be better for them to read some things, especially fairy-stories, that are beyond their measure rather than short of it. Their books like their clothes should allow for growth, and their books at any rate should encourage it.

I like his last point there because I think that’s exactly what his Lord of the Rings does. Children can read the stories and get something out of it, but when they revisit them later in life, my oh my how that Secondary World opens up. How vast it is indeed.

Definitions

Tolkien then begins to define several key components of fairy-stories. First he starts with Imagination and Art.

The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in kind. The achievement of the expression, which gives (or seems to give) “the inner consistency of reality,” is indeed another thing, or aspect, needing another name: Art, the operative link between Imagination and the final result, Sub-creation.

To Tolkien, Imagination is our ability to see images in our mind that our eyes cannot. Sounds fair enough to me. Art, then, is successfully using those images to create a sustaining Second World that we experience through our Imaginations. Again, a fair definition. Now we move on to the F-word: Fantasy.

I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-creative Art in itself and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose…

…That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that indeed is possible) is a virtue, nota vice. Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.

Fantasy, to Tolkien, involves both the Art of Sub-creation and “strangeness and wonder in the Expression.” I think that’s a fair assessment. But I disagree with his belief that Fantasy, being the most free form of Art, is the most potent.

For one, I surely hope he’s talking about the literary Arts, because I see no plausible way to set up an argument that the written word is any more or less potent than a painting or a song. They employ different senses and to my mind, that makes them different enough to be devoid of any quantitative hierarchy.

But even so, I would disagree. Art, to me, is using a restrictive means of expression to represent something greater than the tools used to express it. For example, when I ask you what THIS is, you might say “that’s the Mona Lisa,” or “it’s a woman smiling in a portrait.” It does not occur to most people to say, “that’s a collection of oil-based colors smeared across a poplar panel.” Of course in the literal sense, that’s all the painting is, but what makes it Art is that our Imagination can go beyond the physical and perceive a smiling woman with perfectly balanced features.

So to me, the more successful you are at imitating reality using a more restrictive method of expression, the greater the artistic achievement. Fantasy’s problem is kind of the opposite: it’s almost too free, since the only steadfast rule a Fantasy writer has to abide by is to remain true to the world he develops. The challenge in these circumstances is to make the reader relate on a personal level to a world not his own. A difficult challenge sometimes, but if a story is successful in doing so, I don’t see why it should be considered the most potent form of expression.

In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature. In painting, for instance, the visible presentation of the fantastic image is technically too easy; the hand tends to outrun the mind, even to overthrow it. Silliness or morbidity are frequent results.

Again, Tolkien shows his bias. What does he have against Fantasy paintings? Here are two of my favorites, from Jasper Francis Cropsey.

The Spirit of Peace

The Spirit of War

If you ask me, the paintings do a perfectly fine job of creating a Secondary World, complete with wonderment and strangeness in the expression, but are neither silly nor morbid. To each their own perhaps, but what’s silly to me is assuming that literature is the only means by which one can express such ideas.

The Functions of Fantasy

Finally, Tolkien discusses three basic functions of a fairy story: Recovery, Escape and Consolation. First, we look at Recovery:

Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining – regaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them” – as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity – from possessiveness.

An interesting thing happens when you enter into a Secondary Fantasy World: since you can only enter such a world by accepting its terms as they are given, you must free yourself of your own beliefs, bias and prejudices. The willing suspension of disbelief causes you to become open-minded and exclude judgment, much like a child. If this fantasy world features blue grass, pixies and purple moons, you say, “okay, that looks pretty,” and give no thought to the impractical nature of these things as if they were viewed in our world. They are simply accepted.

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories.

Tolkien harps on this one a lot, so I won’t go into much of that here. The point I want to make is that I only agree with Tolkien on this if I’m allowed to be more precise. Escape is indeed a function of fairy-stories, but not escape from reality. Sure you’re visiting a secondary world but the story does not completely pull you in. While taking the Greenway with Strider in Lord of the Rings or fighting off the Whitecloaks with Perrin in the Wheel of Time, your body is still lying in whatever bed or sitting on whatever parkbench you found yourself on before you started reading. No, escape in fairy stories involves your escape from your perception of the world. Recovering your childlike acceptance allows you to take a break from your judgments and perceptions.

And now, we get to the big one, Consolation:

But the “consolation” of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of a fairy-story.

I have no idea what the hell the old man was on when he wrote this. Tolkien goes on to explain why the Happy Ending is so wonderful but he never explains why ultimate tragedy is inadequate; to him, it appears that Good’s ultimate triumph in a fairy story simply must be so.

No way do I agree with this. Emotion is the ultimate result of any good fairy-story; feeling of any kind. Crafting a secondary world believable enough to invite you in, full of mysticism and wonder, is the beginning of the journey. As you enter the world, you drop your preconceived notions and reservations and openly accept your new surroundings; you escape from yourself. It is then, when your reaction to the story is true and honest, that the story should elicit in you some potent feeling, whether it be anger, determination, jealousy, doubt, faith, etc. It doesn’t matter what you feel while you’re objectively experiencing this other world, so long as the writer makes you feel something. Happy endings are great but they’re by no means required.