Three Portraits of a Reader

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

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He reads Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses. Seeking to understand the literary qualities of the Hebrew––a language he studied for three weeks of a nine-week course at the Jewish Community Center in Indianapolis in 2002.

He reads Billy Collins’ The Art of Drowning in order to infuse his prose with poetic sensibilities. He believes this is working. He also believes Billy was a stronger poet then than he is now.

He reads Anthony Doerr’s early short story collection, The Shell Collector, which includes the “The Hunter’s Wife.” These stories, tinged with magical realism and masterful depth of setting––it’s instructive to look from here to All the Light We Cannot See.

Three Portraits of a Writer

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

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He writes as if composing a letter to a friend. Head bowed over his laptop, words drop like spring rain, silence but for the soft click of keys and the tick of the wall clock.

He appears to be a middle-aged man who’s forgotten his task. Pencil in hand hovers over the paper, his head is lifted, he stares off into middle space, listening, the story not yet in words, but coming, from that mysterious fold where ideas, inventions, and, imaginations are born.

The typed, printed manuscript lies before him. He attempts the impossible––to read the story as if he’s encountering it for the first time, to see it as a reader. He pencils edits––move this sentence to the top of the paragraph, delete that phrase, build the tension of this scene––working the draft, he hopes, to the benefit of a reader he’ll never meet.

Quote and Comment, Bradbury

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Quote and Comment, Ray Bradbury, Reading as a Writer

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Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. 

Ray Bradbury

Over ten years ago I read my first book by Billy Collins, Ballistics. Since then, I’ve consistently had a book of poetry in my reading stack. While I don’t think Bradbury was necessarily aiming his comment at writers, reading poetry has impacted me creatively in a variety of ways. More specifically, I believe it’s had a positive impact on my prose––especially my novel in progress.

As Bradbury states, it builds muscles that might ordinarily get little or no attention. 

So exactly what does poetry bring?

Reading poetry brings new perspective to sentence length, word choice, and euphony––the music or rhythm in poetry. It brings awareness of how the prose looks on the page and how it reads aloud. It reinforces the importance of ending a paragraph with the penultimate phrase, or starting a paragraph with an image that demands the reader’s attention. Good narrative poetry provides insight into how to tell a story, when to be a minimalist, when to be an impressionist, and how concrete details––the right concrete details––can bring an unmatched realism.

Perhaps you don’t have any poetry on your shelf and don’t know where to start. Consider picking up a copy of Mark Lilley’s debut, Lucky Boy. Or start where I did, with Ballistics. Perhaps read through the Psalms in the Bible––a collection of ancient Hebrew poetry. Follow Bradbury’s advice. You’ll be glad you did.

Writing at Papa’s House and Yours

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Ernest Hemingway, Writing Life

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Monday morning, instead of logging on to my computer in my home office and dialing in for my first meeting of the day, I made my way to Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Florida. 

While I’m not not greatest among Hemingway fans, it was on my bucket list to roam through the house where he lived while he composed such American literary masterpieces as The Green Hills of Africa, and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

The highlight was poking my head into his writing studio on the second floor of a building behind the house. While much of the house is minimally furnished, feeling much more like a museum than a home, his studio seemed like a space that remains fully his, the only room he might walk into and find functional and intact.

I was reminded again of the importance of having a place set aside for writing, or your creative work of choice. Having a space set up and purposely furnished is just as important as a garage for a mechanic, a wood shop for a carpenter, or an operating room for a surgeon. It need not be a large space or an elaborate one, but productivity comes of place. And judging from the work that Hemingway produced at his Florida home, he understood this as well.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Technicalities

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[This is the sixth and final part in a series of posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

You’re several drafts in and your story is starting to pop. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, while also creating tension for your reader. You’ve got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working and a ticking clock has been put in place.

So why hold back? Why not give your reader everything at once?

In the opening pages of Burden of Proof by DiAnn Mills, a female FBI agent stands in line at a store when a woman, also in line, her tells the agent she can’t care for her baby anymore and thrusts the child into her arms before walking out. A beat later a man approaches the agent and tells the agent that he’s the father. The child responds to her father’s voice. The father proceeds to ask the agent why she kidnapped his daughter.

There is a lot of information withheld from us as we read that scene. But this doesn’t stall the momentum. Instead it draws us in. Makes us turn the page.

Such withholding of information and delaying the gratification of a reveal can be done on a grand scale, such as when the solve comes at the end of a 300-page gauntlet, or on a scene-by-scene level as details are held back to drive up the reader’s wonder.

Your reader, whether they realize it or not, doesn’t really want to know what happens next––yet. This is the joy of story, the desire to discover. Discovering what’s next isn’t the joy; the joy is the desire to discover what’s next.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Ticking Clock

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Qualities of Good Fiction, Role of the Writer, Technicalities

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[This is the fifth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Ticking Clock

Your story is really starting to come together. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, and creating tension for your reader. You’ve also got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working as well.

Your main character is already fully motivated. What will adding a ticking clock do for your story?

It will bring to the forefront that reality with which we all live––there is only so much time. The narrative goal, if not accomplished in time, will result in even greater angst for your protagonist. Perhaps this ticking clock is driven by some aspect of place or setting, perhaps it’s driven by an ever-closer approaching antagonist, or even by some simmering character trait of the protagonist himself.  

A ticking clock will get your reader’s heart racing, it’ll pull your reader down into the story like little else can. Time is an element you must manage in your story, regardless. Why not manage it in a way that will cause your reader to––quick––hurry––turn the page?!

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Lower-Order Goals

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction

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[This is the fourth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Lower-Order Goals

So, you have the narrative goal and a protagonist with the unwavering urgency to pursue that over-arching goal. You have laid out the obstacles that will hinder this character all along the way and create tension. The next concern is building the scenes that will form the overall story. 

Scenes can be thought of as mini-stories. Each scene moves the protagonist along in their quest. The best scenes have a goal, what Percy calls a lower-order goal, that propels that particular scene forward under the overall arc of the story. Just as the human urgency speaks to the DNA of the protagonist, these lower-order goals should as well. These goals should not only provide momentum but also develop the character, be integrated with what they say and do, and deepen the setting as well. Of course, the primary concern in this is your reader. Bring your reader along with pace and tone that creates the certainty––the certainty they will turn the page.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

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[This is the third in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

So, you have the narrative goal and a character with the unwavering urgency to pursue that goal. If the character pursues and achieves their goal unhindered, there is no story. There is no action. There is no change in the character and there’s nothing to draw a reader in. 

Instead, what must happen as the character unwaveringly pursues his/her goal? Bad things. And a lot of them. The more bad things and the worse they are, the better. We don’t want to simply pile on tragedy. This will create pity. Instead, with each obstacle, the character is shocked, processes, and regroups—renewing their resolve in the pursuit of the narrative goal.

This is why novels are set in wars—All the Light We Cannot See—or amidst deep societal and familial ideals and decorum—Blessings—or on the edge of apocalyptic events—Station Eleven. In these scenarios there are plenty of narrative goals, human urgency, and assured obstacles which create conflict and result in tension. Story will occur. The reader will be thrilled.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Human Urgency

16 Wednesday Dec 2020

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[This is the second in a series of six posts that started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Human Urgency

Motivation that demands prompt action. This must be coupled with the narrative goal. Neither can stand alone. There must be a character who wants to achieve the goal and there must be some urgent reason for doing so. This reason is at the character’s core, it’s intertwined with who they are.

Ideally there are layers of urgency, multiple internal and external reasons why the character must accomplish the goal. These are called stakes. The stakes may be outcomes that are material as well as metaphysical—relationship, money, recognition, revenge, desire. The urgency is tied to who the character is, their needs, and he or she is willing to sacrifice to achieve these stakes—to sacrifice comfort, possessions, the stability of home.

Human urgency is the force that propels action.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Establish A Clear Narrative Goal

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Starting a Novel, Technicalities

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I am reading Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. In the second chapter, Percy lays out his list of the foundational elements of story. Revisiting a list like this now and again is important. It keeps writers grounded in our craft, it keeps us from getting carried away on the crests of the sentences and missing the rising tide of the story.

Over the next six posts, we’ll ruminate on each of them. 

Establish a Clear Narrative Goal

In Moby Dick it’s “kill the whale.” In Frankenstein it’s “define the true monster.” In Mrs. Bridge it’s “find purpose and meaning in the mundane.”

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It’s why there is ink on pulp. This is the story’s purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. 

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It's why there is ink on pulp. This is the story's purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. Click To Tweet

From a writer’s perspective this is the foundation, the starting point. Until it is known, work cannot begin. This is the story’s destination. Like a road trip, we know where we’re going, even as how we’ll get there and what we’ll encounter along the way remain mysteries. The narrative goal is first in Percy’s list, and for good reason. Without it we don’t have a story.