Thirteen and a Half Things Writers Need to Know

I watched a good Indy film this weekend- The Magic of Belle Isle- directed by Rob Reiner, starring Morgan Freeman as a writer who has stopped writing. As Freeman's character, an award winning Western writer named Monte tells his nephew, "drinking is my full time job now, and I can't work two jobs."

I like films where a hollowed out character regains his voice from unexpected sources. In this case, it begins with a nine year old girl named Finn who yearns to write. She is one of three neighbor girls of a single mom who live in the house adjacent to Monte’s. Finn finds out he is a writer, and she stops by to she ask Monte to teach her to create stories. By helping a child discover her inspiration, Monte gradually rekindles his own, which serves to remind me Inspiration cannot be forced. It’s intrinsic.

Incorporate your own life experiences.

This s not the same as the old write what you know. We write to deepen what we already know, yet discover new knowledge as well. " Monte tells Finn to “tell me a story and make me interested.  He instructs her to look outside and tell him a story of what she sees. “I don’t see anything,” she says. “Keep looking. What don't you see? See with your mind’s eye. Look for what you don't see.” Finn looks again, and narrates an imaginary tale of intrigue, but uses details she knows from the island.

Writing takes us outside ourselves

Monte has spent most of his adult life in a wheelchair after a car accident. He tells Finn, "All the things I couldn't do in the real world, Jubal let me do on the page."

Write slowly

National Novel Writing Month is coming up, where the goal is to write 50,000 words in thirty days. I’ve done this several times, and the “books” I created were all terrible. Only one, a mere skeleton of a tale, is salvageable.

In the film, Finn wonders why Monte uses a Typewriter rather than a computer.

“I like that you write a bit slower ,” he says.”I like that letters bite into the paper.”

Writers must connect to their work

At dinner one evening with Finn’s family, Monte narrates a treacherous event about his recurring character,  Jubal McClaws, to the girls. As he describes a part which might give Finn’s 7 year old  sister Flora, nightmares, their mother interjects, " Remember , it's just a story. It didn't really happen."

"It happened to Jubal" "Monte says

The subject finds you

Finn has fallen in love with  Jubal McClaws., and she gets angry at Monte when he writes new stories about an elephant named Tony and a family of mice for her younger sister instead of penning another Jubal McClaws tale.

"But Jubal hasn't come calling in years," Monte tells Finn.

 We can't force inspiration. If the writing is true, and yes, fiction IS true, the story comes from a real place inside the writer. Our characters are real.

Monte says, “Real life doesn't always ensure up to what's in our heads, but every once in awhile it comes close.”

Use the right words

In a scene in belle, Finn parrots something offensive Monte had said, and her mother admonishes by requiring the girl to learn three new words. She learns her words, inspiration,

Read work out loud

The girls’ mother, Cassie O’Neil, with whom Monte harbors a secret crush, reads the Tony stories out loud to Flora, and later to herself. As she reads,  she hears Monte’s voice.

Stories originated in the oral tradition, written work is relatively recent, and all writing has a cadence. Reading one’s work out loud allows a writer to see where syntax might drag, or lines of poetry need to be broken.

Freeman’s character is in a wheelchair, and he tells Finn “Writing gives you legs.”

Stories, essays  and poems take us places  otherwise impossible

 Revision is part of the writing process, and it’s never too late to re-vise a work.

When Finn tells Monte she bought an old copy of his most celebrated book, but the last page is missing, he says “You didn't miss much. I always meant to change that anyway.”

Don't write in order to get a house with a pool

Most writers will never own a house with a pool like the one above. But that does not stop me from imagining  myself sitting poolside, sipping a glass of lemonade, reading the blazing hot reviews of my latest novel. Later, I will be getting dressed for my appearance as an Oscar nominated writer of an Oscar nominated film. starring Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford….but I digress..

Don't give up. In Belle Isle, Morgan Freeman's Monte believes his writing career is over, and Virginia Madsen’s Cassie O’Neil has given up on love.

Always have a deadline Monte tells Finn

There are no guarantees

Writing is a gift, unwrap it wisely.

Happy Writing.

Spying on the World from the Inside Out

Today I bought another book on sentences (see previous blog post), a craft book,  and yet another thesaurus. Does that render me a nerd? Yeah. No doubt. But the thesaurus (The Concise Roget’s International Thesaurus) is divided into Categories and has a section on phrases. How cool is that? A steal at $7.99.

 

As my friend (and fellow nerd) Amy Gibson points out, “Nerds are the new COOL.”

I teach writing, so books on sentences are imperative. This one, How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One, by Howard Fish, is a slim volume that feels good in my hands, and contains poem excerpts in the epigraph. I have only read Chapter One, but already I am a fan. Fish quotes good sentences from books and movies, and even one from a child’s essay. “I was already on the second floor when I heard about the bat.” What a great opening sentence. It contains location, mystery, and a hint of danger. The reader wants to know what happens next.

 

Fish’s premise is that by analyzing good sentences one can learn to write well. At the end of the first chapter he provides a formula for analyzing, writing and reading sentences:

 

Sentence craft equals sentence comprehension equals sentence appreciation.

 

He e equates sentence analysis s with analyzing works of art. When one becomes closer to art, and analyzes it, one appreciates art at a deeper level.

 

“The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.”

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

The above quote comes from the third book I bought today (recommended by Maria Popova of www.brainpickings.org, which if you are not following her on twitter and Facebook, you should be.) It is called How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. The book is placed in the arts section of the bookstore, yet many of the suggested explorations are easily transmitted into writing assignments, for example exploration # 2, Experience collection. Smith suggests keeping a log of things you notice on your travels and experiences.  As a writer and teacher, this gives me an idea to have students take brief filed notes during a set time period. What one notices creates “telling details” usable in writing.

 

Your exercise today is from Smith’s book: Sit in a chair and quickly, without censoring, write down ten things you notice around  you hadn’t seen when you first sat down. Use those ten things in a poem or story.

 

Happy Writing.

If I had Any Sense I’d have Scriptophobia

I felt disappointed and adrift without a Scintilla prompt. It’s like crack for writers. Then I saw a twitter feed for a bonus prompt to write about the time you left home. My family moved a lot, so leaving home was not a new experience for me. I looked forward to new adventures, locations and people. I was a fairly easy going kid, and usually made friends quickly with each move.

One summer I flew to London, England to spend a few weeks in England and Kenya with a British family Caroline, a Brit, was in my class at school, and her mother, a college professor, was journeying to Kenya for some anthropological research. Caroline and her brother each invited a friend to go along for summer. Caroline chose me because I’d had overseas travel experience and we were good enough friends to spend long stretches of time together. We’d be staying three weeks in England before jetting off to Nairobi.

This trip occurred only a few months after my mother passed away, and I had not yet exhibited residual effects of this trauma. Within a week of her dying, my brother Paul and I moved across the country to live with our dad, who had just started a new job. My oldest brother stayed behind because he was in college. When kids at my new asked where my mother was, I lied and said my parents were divorced and she stayed on the west coast. I couldn’t say the words, “my mother died.” My brother appeared to adjust well to the move, attending school each day, making new friends. With Mom gone, I cooked diner each night and the rest of us shared in housekeeping. We all kept busy and never talked about my mother.

A few weeks before the England trip, Memorial Day weekend, my father and I went boating on Lake Erie with some friends. I’d enjoyed boating since I was a kid, but as soon as we pulled away from shore I experienced ineffable dread. I clung to the side of the sailboat and did not want to keep my father out of my sight.

A few weeks later I flew over to England with another friend (who was going on to Germany after the rest of us left for Africa.) The three of us bunked together in Caroline’s room, and there were others in the flat; but the first night, after the lights went out and we settled down to sleep, I was engulfed in deep sadness.

I stood at the window, rain pelting on the window, and felt tears on my own face. I had been away from home countless times: summer camp, and sleepovers. By the time I was thirteen I’d been around the world twice. But never this far from my now fractured family before.

I think this is the first time I realized the weight of the past few months. My mother was always eager to hear stories from my adventures. She would not be hearing about this trip.

Teenagers resemble adults physically, but they lack the skill and development to process life changing events without consequences. This trip ignited seeds for phobias I developed in the ensuing years. I didn’t seek therapy because, other than my new fears of flying, boating and riding in a car, I was highly functional. (When I got my driver’s license I was afraid to drive on freeways.) The things that scare normal people like public speaking, snakes and heights have never bothered me.

Oddly enough, I credit Cosmopolitan magazine with helping me a few years later manage my irrational behavior. I read an article about fears and phobias and using behavior modification to get over tem. It took me forever to get to school and work because I refused to drive the freeways, so as a way to cure myself of this, I got in the car and drove to Oregon from Ohio to see my brother. Those first few miles I screamed and cried. By the time I reached Dayton the rhythm of the road calmed me down, and spent the next five days driving alone to Portland, Oregon.

I still have lurches of fear when friends and family go on journeys, either flying or driving. But these days that concern is rational; the world has gotten scarier. And reasons to hate flying go beyond fear.

I don’t like this prompt. It’s hard to “go there.” And remember that freakishly phobic girl. I didn’t HAVE to write this, but real writing comes from those dark corners we don’t want to visit.

So here is your prompt: What are you afraid to revisit? Go back there. Write about it.



Happy Writing.

Don’t Forget the Moment of Truth

I was cleaning out my file cabinet the other day and came across a note I scribbled on a single page. It ended up in a “Misc. Writing Stuff” file. The note, in my hieroglyphic scrawl said, “Don’t forget the moment of truth.” I don’t remember writing this, nor do I recall the occasion under which prompted me to scribble it down. But this simple statement is good advice for all writers.

Every story or poem we write should contain a’ moment of truth’. Something is at stake, and underlying these stakes a tale’s hero, or a poem’s speaker legitimacy is based on universal fact. In popular fiction, the reality is often overtly expressed, sometimes articulated as a cliché.(To my own self be true, love conquers all, The grass is not always greener on the other side, etc..) In literary fiction and poetry, the veracity lies in the subtext, and the reader has to dig for it. Often this excavation requires a level of maturity. And the moment of truth may not be the author’s intent; Mark Twain asked his readers not to look for symbols or morals in his work. Yet writers inadvertently reveal the common human experience. The reader and his or her life knowledge is half of the equation in responding to literature.

As a writer I don’t consciously tell the truth; my characters or my poems unsheathe it on their own. I merely channel it.

Exercise: If you have a story or poem that isn’t working, perhaps it lacks a universal ‘moment of truth.’ Ask yourself what is at stake here? WHY should the reader care? Is there an important idea simmering under the surface?


Happy Writing.