Category Archives: craft

THE ACTOR CAN TEACH THE WRITER…

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I just finished taking an introduction to acting class at The Theatre Lab on Eighth Street near Gallery Place.  The instructor’s lessons in how an actor approaches a script also serve as good advice for someone writing fiction–perhaps more applicable to plays, but definitely applicable to novels and short stories as well.  Here is his advice for acting:

1. examine the “given circumstances;” that is, the conditions that exist and events that occur before the play begins, and the conditions and events that will presumably occur after the play’s end (as well, of course, as examining the events occurring in the story (ie., on stage);

2. determine the various characters’ super-objectives (what is the large thing they want all through the play?);

3.  determine each character’s immediate objective in each scene.  (The principle is that in any given scene, each person wants something from the other, something that he or she wants the other to do.  The something must be tangible, although it may be very small, and may represent something intangible.  In a play, it must be something the audience can see.  And, of course, one does not necessarily get what they are after–that’s what presents the conflict necessary to drama );

4.  determine each character’s tactics or strategy (the small actions we take to try to obtain the objective; eg., flattery, bullying, bargaining, etc.); and

5. for each line, ask not how one says the line, but why one is saying it.  (The how will ultimately arrive from an examination of that question.)

Although these precepts are meant for an actor’s interpretation of a script, I think they can also, with small adjustments, serve the novel and story writer well, most especially in revision.  Items #1 and #2 are a given.  But novice writers can get lost in a scene, lose the sense of what a character most immediately wants from the other character, and how that relates to the character’s super-objective and fits into the whole of the story.  Keeping items #3, #4, and #5 in mind can help the writer sharpen such scenes.

 

BOO!

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When I was a child, I NEVER liked to watch horror movies or read horror stories.  (And yes, I am treating film on an equal footing with written stories here.  After all, film is also, in part, a written art-form.)  I did not like to be scared, or be kept awake at night in fear of things that I knew were imaginary but that gave me the willies nevertheless.  Fairly recently, however, I discovered the pleasure of watching horror movies on television where, now that I am well into adulthood, they do not scare, but amuse or interest me.

I much prefer the horror stories based on the idea of the supernatural since I don’t really believe in them.  I generally dislike the ones about mad killers or stalkers because their existence in the world is more plausible.  Even worse are the so-called slasher films apparently based only on a celebration of sadistic gore, which might encourage such in the real world.  Yick and eek.  That said, a couple of years ago, I finally watched Psycho and was fascinated to find it as much a crime/mystery story as a horror film, with an almost O’Henry-like twist when the Janet Leigh character is killed only after she decides to do the right thing (return the money).  And the shower scene was much less frightening to me than it had been when shown alone in clips or trailers.  This year, I even allowed myself to catch the tail end of Halloween, and most of The Nightmare on Elm Street (on T.V.), without ill effect.

Every year now, as a run-up to Halloween (one of my two favorite holidays, the other being St. Patrick’s Day–non sequitur: did you know that Halloween is also Samhain, the Celtic New Year?), I spend October watching whatever classic horror films I can find, usually on Turner Classic Movies.  [Another aside:  the first year that I did so, I was tickled to find that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had, in its very first year, toyed very playfully and creatively with almost all of them.]

In honor of today (October 31st), I shall briefly list some tropes and devices, natural and supernatural with which writers of the horror genre play:

1. “A basket full of kisses for a basket full of hugs”:  variations on The Bad Seed (the sociopath who is charming and takes people in, but will kill to get what he or she wants; often presented, as in Poison Ivy or some of the Babysitter films, as the outsider who inveigles his or her way into a family in order to replace one of its members);

2. “Enquiring minds want to know”:   variations on Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or Frankenstein or The Fly (the  scientist who becomes obsessed unto madness by his pursuit of experiments that the scientific community does not accept as valid, or whose experiments go awry, endangering himself and everyone else);

3. “Curiosity killed the cat”:  variations on Pandora’s box (someone uncovers a long lost artifact or totem with dangerous properties attached to it–could be a poison; could be a curse; could be a spirit let loose);

4.. ..But why will you say that I am mad?”:  variations on The Tell Tale Heart or The Turn of the Screw (stories that turn, ultimately, on whether the protagonist is the victim of supernatural happenings or losing their mind.  Eg. In Theodore Dreiser’s The Hand, a murderer is certain he is being threatened with vengeance by the man he killed while doctors explain it as physical illness.  Is it physical illness brought on by his guilty conscience or truly the hand of his victim?);

5.   “That’s the thing about prophecies–they’re tricky…”:  A prophecy is usually subject to misinterpretation.  Greek myths about the oracles, and even Shakespearean plays (eg. Macbeth) are rife with prophecies misinterpreted or misunderstood by those who hear them.  This prophecy problem is plainly referenced in the first season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy goes below to meet the Master because of a prophecy that she will do so.  But, he informs her that prophecies are tricky–if she had not come down, he could not go up into our world.  Also, though the prophecy also states that, in the encounter, she will die, Xander revives her with CPR, and she then confronts and defeats the Master–who, apparently, has also not taken account of the trickiness of prophecies;

6. Vampires, zombies, cat people, werewolves:  Zombies seem to me to be rather one-dimensional entities with not so much room for character development.  Admittedly, my viewing or reading of this genre has been minimal.  But the definition of a zombie–“a will-less and speechless human capable only of automatic movement who is held to have died and been supernaturally re-animated”–would support my view.  Vampires and zombies  are very popular these days.  Though vampires have been somewhat more interesting than zombies, in my opinion both have—or should have–reached a point of over-saturation and subside for other tropes.  Ditto the werewolves (except for Oz, of course!)  But mine seems to be an opinion of one.

As presented on film, Vampires, cat people, and werewolves have a psycho-sexual context–the animal within us–that keeps them somewhat interesting.  Though it would be more so if those that used them created some new interesting play with them rather than repeating over and over the same basic story.

There are many other tropes–the haunted house (or apartment, or old hotel); the spirit that calls one; spiritual possession requiring exorcism  etc.  The most interesting of these, I think, are those that are somewhat ambiguous, applying a psychological or philosophical underlay.  (I found the Exorcist interesting not because of the horror but because of the priest’s struggle concerning his faith.  Of course, I first saw it in black and white on a six by eight inch t.v. screen.)

Those that I find the least interesting are the attackers–be it Michael Myers or Freddy, who, like the Terminator, are machine or machine-like in that no matter how many times you do something that should kill them, they just won’t die and keep on coming.  It may work in the moment to scare, but it is a cheap way to do so, without much more than that visceral fright to make it interesting.

There is much more that could be said or analyzed, but I have been tippling as I wrote the last part of this—my own unusual but pleasant and quiet Halloween celebration–along with much consumption of dark chocolate.  And so I will end my post here and go off to watch the remainder of horror movies at my disposal this evening.

Happy Halloween.

p.s.  Alfred Hitchcok (whose horror has extensive psychological undertones) and Stephen King (whose works have extensive sociological undertones) would require entirely separate and extended posts for which, at the moment, I have neither time nor sufficient sobriety to address… .   😉

 

 

PLAY

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For those writers who may, at the moment, feel bogged down by their work or by the heavy intrusions of life and the wide world, I highly recommend a book entitled Steal Like an Artist, 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, by Austin Kleon.  Along with good advice, Kleon’s book has about it a cheerful creative abandon.  His feeling of freedom is contagious–the ultimate in the sense of play necessary for creative work.

Amongst Kleon’s words of wisdom, culled from others, is that nothing is completely original.  Creative work always builds on what came before.  (I’d add that that is true whether the creator realizes it or not.)  He notes that we learn by copying (not to be confused with plagiarism–read the book! ) You begin by copying those writers/artists you like, and end up unable to do so adequately, but in the process, find something else original to you.  (Who wants to be a mere imitator anyway?)

The Kleon book has much advice that we writers may already be aware of, but forget when we feel weighed under–advice like:  “The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself,” or “write what you like” (rather than what you “know.” –something that I strongly advocated in the very first  post of this blog).  However, my favorite advice from Steal Like an Artist is:  “If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room.”  –meaning, of course, that if you are the most talented person in the room, you’re not being intellectually challenged in a way that will make you grow and expand.

I’m not generally one for motivational books of any kind, but this one replenishes my spirit every time I read it!

(For a full dose of Austin Kleon’s playfulness, see his website at www.austinkleon.com.)

“To Ruffle Feathers”–An Etymological Lesson at the Zoo

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To “ruffle someone’s feathers” is defined as “to do something to cause confusion, agitation, irritation, or annoyance in that person.”  Being a city girl, I never gave the etymology of the phrase any thought until I was visiting the National Zoo yesterday and found the flamingos in an uproar.  Two human engineers had entered their enclosure to deal with some problem in the enclosure’s little artificial stream, and every time one of the humans came in or out, flamingos fled towards a far corner, flamingos made very loud noises and pecked at each other, and flamingos raised their wings as if to shepherd the rest away from the perceived danger.  Each time their agitation began, the flamingos’ very neat feathers rose like heads of hair vigorously rumpled until they stand messily on end and in need of a good combing.  As the engineers worked in their one spot and the flamingos calmed, their feathers settled neatly against their bodies, only to ruffle again when the engineers moved. Thus, the engineers literally ruffled the flamingos’ feathers.

Irrelevant but interesting addendum:  there were also a large number of pintail ducks treading in the enclosure’s stream.  Unlike the flamingos, they were unflappable.  As the engineers worked, the ducks simply swam, en masse, to the side of the stream.  They then waddled calmly out and stood in the grass facing the stream, attentively, but quietly waiting for the engineers to complete their work, at which time, the ducks reentered the water.

Add this as a random occurrence that can at some time inform one’s writing.

 

VERMONT STUDIO CENTER

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Red Mill, on Gihon River at VSC in Johnson, Vt.

Red Mill, on Gihon River at VSC in Johnson, Vt.

Observed on April 8, 2014:  A few days ago, although a low rapid gushed on the far side of the bridge, the Gihon river was mostly covered with ice.  You knew water must be flowing under it, but except for a thin stream along the shorelines, the surface was white, cold, and still.  Yesterday, the ice began breaking up a bit and, today, the river is suddenly flowing fast in a snake-like curve around the remaining broken ice beneath the bridge, a swirl of tiny ice-shards roiling down the middle, as the water comes.  The sudden power, after the days of seeming stillness, invigorates, instilling a sense of anticipation, excitement, even danger—power now exposed, not hidden.

A green-headed wild duck darts from the sky straight at the water, but somehow ends its dive on its belly, treading water in the middle of the river, paddling against the current, moving a little upstream, and then paddling towards the shore.  A piece of ice about the duck’s own size crosses its path, but just misses hitting it.  My studio window gives me a good view of the flowing river.

I spent the first two weeks of April at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC), in Johnson, Vermont.  VSC offers residencies for visual artists and writers and, when you get the right combination of people at a residency, the quiet little town of Johnson provides, daily, an inner excitement and sense of anticipation.  It is a wonderful, renewing experience that stays with you after you go home, and  leaves you wanting to find ways to keep the spirit you found there alive.

In my short time at VSC, the resident writers (no more than sixteen of us) and artists (the balance of approximately 50 people) had a wonderful spirit of playfulness and curiosity as well as an appreciation for and encouragement of each other’s work.  This was true not only within disciplines, but between them.  When the writers got together for their informal readings, artists were welcome to come and listen, but also to participate if they had something written they wanted to try out.  Some were fascinated to see the writer’s process–how we develop our work and analyze what we have done.  Writers (at least this writer) were welcomed into studios where the visual artists were happy to take time out to talk about what they were working on and their process.  I was fascinated by the visual artists’ experimentation with the tools of their various media.  Just as I might play with writing devices, many of them experiment to see how one medium will affect another (eg. the effect created by spilling cleaning fluid on a color magazine photo).

Meals are communal there, and conversation at lunch or dinner, when not happily silly, often was a time when you might be asked what you were working on or how the work was going and thus given an entrée to talk out a problem you had with your work, or bounce an idea off of someone, or become inspired by an idea or problem they were working out.

In addition, during each two-week period (most artists stay for one month), there is at least one writer or poet who comes for some days as a visiting writer, gives a reading, a craft talk, and meets with those who want critique of their work.  (In my two-week period, the writer was Rikki Ducornet.)  Likewise, there are painters and sculptors who come to give a talk and slide show of their work and visit with visual artists who want a critique.  (in my time, these were Kyle Staver and Kim Jones).  The resident writers (who wish to) have an opportunity to give formal readings once per week, and the resident artists (who wish to) likewise have the opportunity to give slide shows of their work.  Other than these events, we made our own fun:  bonfires, roasting marshmallows, Karaoke at the local Italian bar/restaurant on a Saturday night, a Friday night dance party in the Red Mill dining hall’s downstairs lounge (organized informally), even a makeshift séance.  One poet was working on a series inspired by Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and so, with her, one night, a small group of us watched a dvd of Rear Window together.  And through it all, the beer, and wine, and chocolate flowed.  (And coffee and tea and marshmallows and chips, too.)

The creative impulse and comradeship we found together in this month of April was far more free-spirited than I have experienced at any previous residency.  I think I can speak for many of us when I say that our greatest desire is to find ways to sustain that spirit and those supportive friendships now that we have come home and back to our everyday lives.

Some pointers for Composing Personal Essay

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This advice is not given from my personal experience, as I am essentially a fiction writer.  However, last week, I attended a panel for freelance writers, sponsored by the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists.  (No–I am not thinking of defecting to a career in journalism, but it is interesting to learn about everything.)  This particular panel was on what magazine and newspaper editors look for from freelancers and much of the process seemed more or less similar to what editors and agents say at these kinds of forums about fiction.  However, one of the panelists, Jenny Rough, suggested a number of pointers for writing good personal essays (presumably for mainstream consumption) that I think worth sharing:

1. Use a conversational style;

2. begin with a good lead (an obvious point; but she noted some examples: (a) an anecdote; (b) dialogue; (c) beginning in the middle (in medias res (?), and circling back to the beginning;

3.  in the body of the essay, alternate between scenes and narration;  and

4. take an experience that is personal and make it universal so that the reader gains an insight from it.  (There should be moments of insight as the essay moves along.)

I think number (4), in particular, is good advice for writing fiction, too.

 

 

Interrogation-Girl

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One semester, when I was working towards a master of arts in writing at Johns Hopkins,  I turned in three very different stories that each happened to contain an interrogation scene.  One was the first chapter of a novel about an Irish Traveler who had stabbed a barman; one was in a spy novel, and one was in a surrealistic short story.  After the third one, I remember my instructor saying to me, humorously:  “What are you?  Turning into interrogation-girl?”   I laughed then.  But now, some years later, I find myself writing another  couple of stories in which interrogations figure prominently.  And though they are central to the stories I’m writing, not gratuitously injected, I do find myself wondering why interrogations are turning up again in what I write.

Perhaps the subject matters I choose as my themes have made such scenes inevitable:  a suspected criminal interrogated by a policeman; a suspected spy interrogated by his or her captors.  But these are not the only circumstances in which an interrogation could take place.  One could have a husband interrogate a wife (or vice versa), or a boss interrogate an employee, etc.

Interrogation scenes, when evolving organically from the story, are useful vehicles for bringing arguments out in the open, advancing conflict, and leading the story toward its climax.  I think that’s one reason why I gravitate towards them–they’re a good way to allow characters to argue.  A form of action.

But I suspect that I am also drawn to them because they bring to the fore a contest of wills and the issue of power:  who actually has it?  (Between spouses, who has power will vary according to the relationship established between the characters.  Is the husband a bully and the wife afraid of him?  Is the wife the stronger character and the husband’s interrogation an act of desperation?  Are they equally matched, like George and Martha, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

Where power is unequal–where the interrogator appears to control the environment, hold all the cards–how will the person at a disadvantage deal with it?  Does he cave and crumble?  Does he betray?  Does she stand up to it?  Does she find a creative way out of the situation?  Does he or she have the strength or the bitterness or the stubbornness to stand on principle and refuse to give in?  And if they do, what are the consequences?  Does the power shift?  Who ultimately will win a battle of wills?  By putting a character under stress, an interrogation tests the character’s mettle and, in so doing, can quickly and effectively reveal his or her essential nature.