I know why Stephen Dedalus wrote a Villanelle

September 13th, 2010%

While reading K. Marie Criddle’s blog post making fun of genre rules for Steampunk, I was reminded that I once wrote a Villanelle.

I wanted some structure to help express what I felt was a complex idea. At this point, I was a writer without a medium. My finished work was something between Flash Fiction and philosophical greeting cards, pieced together with characters to create short stories. An enjoyable mess, that only I understood.

Once I got started, the Villanelle felt like a machine. The structure of a Villanelle forces you to be specific. It is so impersonal, you can’t even argue with yourself. The perfect word may not exist, but the right word can be found. I remember searching through my vocabulary, extended slightly with a thesaurus, to successfully find the right word.

Form and genre are meant for experimentation, not judgment. Ann VanderMeer, speaking about being “punk” in an interview with SteamPunk Magazine put it this way:

“Let anybody give it a try, but be true to yourself.”

Comments are closed   Form & Structure   , ,  

What can high heels teach us about writing?

August 17th, 2010%

Certain women look like they are walking barefoot on gravel while wearing heels.

Every risk has consequences, but awkwardness makes us ask questions. Something isn’t right. We become distracted. We look for ways to make sense of the situation with limited information.

We think: Walking is hard to learn, but not hard to do well under normal circumstances. Why those shoes? Why today?

Awkward writing occurs when the writer hasn’t given the reader enough information. The reader is expected to believe that this woman would actually wear these shoes on this day and expect to walk without issues. The writer must convince the reader to see it and believe it.

Like the poor woman in heels who must walk a few more blocks, the writer must ensure the reader is convinced that something actually happened before they can finish the story.

Comments are closed   Form & Structure    

Complexity can limit access to the reader’s imagination

July 28th, 2010%

Our goal is to bring the reader into the story, not to confuse them. Readers need stability. Writers have concrete details. Then, things get a little crazy when we start to write.

For example, how would a writer move the reader through this scene from Roma, a film by Frederico Fellini, while retaining pace and energy?

Dialogue, observations, thoughts, and actions can be the source of order or unpredictability as we seek to recreate the scene. Tension can be created, but we need to manage it using all the tricks of craft.

As writers, our budget for special effects is unbounded, but our ability to handle complexity limits our access to the reader’s imagination. Film directors have their boundaries. We have ours.

Comments are closed   Character Development, Dialogue, Editing Process, Form & Structure, Point-of-View, Setting & Atmosphere, Writing Process   , , , , , , , , ,  

When you find the beginning, you know the end

July 26th, 2010%

During the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop with Charles D’Ambrosio, we discussed beginnings and endings:

  • The story ends when all possibilities are eliminated.
  • The story’s end is in the beginning.

Many of our stories didn’t start when we thought they did. One story began on page six. A few started somewhere on the first page. Another had the beginning sentence stranded somewhere on page three.

As writers, we want to pack the reader a lunch and drive them to school. We fuss over them and try to answer all their questions before they ask. Sometimes we forget what we were going to tell them because we get so interested in the details, clues, and characters.

We think they need to know what we want them to know, but they know something we don’t know–where our stories actually begin.

Comments are closed   Editing Process, Form & Structure, Writing Process   , , , ,  
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