Do you read to escape…or for something else?
Author David Shields got his new book How Literature Saved My Life written up last month in the New York Times Book Review. It’s a memoir that discusses the reading and writing life of a distinguished man considered to be a genre-breaking author (see http://davidshields.com/).
If interested, you can read the review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/books/review/how-literature-saved-my-life-by-david-shields.html?_r=0.
The reviewer, Mark O’Connell, quotes this passage from the book (It’s a passage I can’t stop thinking about):
“Acutely aware of our mortal condition, I find books that simply allow us to escape existence a staggering waste of time (literature matters so much to me I can hardly stand it).”
At first, I dismissed this comment, thinking that many a time I pick up a book to escape my worries and concerns, i.e., I unabashedly use books as therapy. In fact, especially the books I read at night tend to be lighter, funnier, and more reality-escaping than what I read at other times because I enjoy sleeping instead of staying up worrying about my problems (and everyone else’s).
But this phrase kept coming back to me. Is there something wrong with me? Do I not try to eek out all the traces of life lessons, self-revelations, and insights about the human condition that books contain? Am I reading the wrong books–maybe I need ones with more despair and existential crisis that end badly and in much pain. (Okay, just kidding, but I couldn’t resist poking a little fun at literary fiction.)
Well, maybe I do eek out traces of life lessons of books–all the time. Actually, maybe we all do, just not to the urgent and intellectual extent Mr. Shields seems to. Maybe it actually happens as we enjoy the story.
We read for connection to other human beings–do you think? What are they always telling us in writing workshops–make your characters relatable. Give them a complex array of traits and flaws so that your reader immediately identifies with them. Take the reader on the journey as your character faces her worst fears, challenges her world view, and changes–works to overcome obstacles in her life that make her a better person.
This is why I read, especially romance. I love the journey. I love the hope that we can change our faults, can learn to see that our weaknesses and flaws aren’t boulders that can never be moved, and I love that love–connection with other people–is the one thing that matters in our very mortal existence.
So this ain’t highbrow, but I truly believe that no book we truly enjoy is ever a means of just blanking out our existence. We’re searching for something–connection, encouragement, reassurance that this journey we’re all on does mean something–that our life means something–and we’re searching for wisdom to make it the most we can.
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| Image of Bluebells from FreeFoto.com http://www.freefoto.com/imagelink/?ffid=12-36-1&s=s“ |
Starting a New Story: Thoughts from Michaelangelo
Note to my dear characters: Yes, alas, it’s time to say goodbye. I created you, amid much sweat and blood, and I know you now like I know my own children (except that you’re both far more predictable than they are!).
My hero, you were such a good guy, a real gentleman. And my heroine, so brave to take on what you did and make the best of it.
I know you both so well–your senses of humor, the way you laugh. I know your deepest flaws and inner fears, and how you worked so hard to overcome them to become the best people you can be…and find love in the process. I know where you live and the quirky things you keep in your houses. I know your dreams and hopes for the future. I know how much you both love one another.
But now, just when I’m so sure of who exactly you are, I have to let you go. Turn over a new page, begin again the tormented process of discovering new people, create a new story out of these twinklings and shards of ideas that float about precariously in the swirl of my mind.
My fingers freeze over the keyboard. A thousand characteristics, flaws, hopes, dreams, and wishes appear. Which ones to pick? How to make this mess of emotions, memories, yearnings, gel into new characters, a new story? A coherent, good story that tells a message about strength, resilience, and courage.
I don’t know how it happens, how this aimless blob of ideas takes shape and becomes an undertandable story. It’s like what Michaelangelo said: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
Supposedly, Michaleangelo carved as if he were “witnessing the revelation of a submerged object.” He would put a stone model into a container and slowly dip water out of it, and this would help him visualize how to carve the stone (see http://www.stoneproject.org/2-reductive-thinking-skills.html).
Same with writing. We visualize, we struggle, and slowly, the path is revealed. A new story takes shape.
As Michaelangelo said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
But don’t think for a minute that came easy, even to the greatest artists. Because he also said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
There is hope in hard work and struggle!
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| Image from FreeFot.com, “Aubretia,” #12-43-1 |
Donald Maass: Tension, Tension Everywhere
I heard famed writing craft author and literary agent Donald Maass speak at a one-day workshop back in January. It was revelatory.
So I went back to my copy of Maass’s The Fire in Fiction and reread Chapter 8, Tension All the Time.
How do you create the type of tension that keeps a reader reading every blessed page of your novel?
A page-turner. Can’t put it down. Kept me up all night.
How? How? Well, Maass says, it’s not by creating a big plot with a big question that will keep the reader turning the pages to find out who-done-it. Even if it’s high-stakes. Really high stakes.
It’s not setting each scene up carefully with a goal your character goes after, as we are taught to do.
It’s not incessant action, snappy dialogue, or reading about what is going on deep in your point-of-view character’s mind.
Not saying that any of that stuff is not important. IT’S JUST NOT ENOUGH.
Maass says that an instinct for tension is the best predictability he has for which writers will go on to become career novelists.
This tension has nothing to do with the set-up of the book and all the other things I’ve just mentioned.
Rather it is about permeating your novel with constant tension that arises from CONFLICTING EMOTIONS, not from outer action going on but from your character’s INNER CONFLICT.
No one will give a rat’s arse about your beautiful passages of description, your careful backstory hidden in dialogue, your contemplative sequel where your character mulls over what just happened, your carefully choreographed sex scene, or ANY emotion your character feels UNLESS you infuse every single bit of it with MICROTENSION, which Maass defines as “the moment-by-moment tension that keeps the reader in a constant state of suspense over what will happen, not in the story but IN THE NEXT FEW SECONDS.” (Boldface mine.)
I am going to sticky-note that last part to the corner of my computer screen.
As Lori Wilde has said in her writing classes, it’s all about EMOTION. That’s why readers read.
Maass says tension comes from INNER CONFLICT, FEELINGS IN CONFLICT WITH ONE ANOTHER, not from the outer actions we put on the page.
If you are intrigued, read Maass’s book. This chapter that I’m talking about has tons of examples and “Practical Tools” section that helps you workshop your own trouble spots so you can up the tension stakes in your own writing and create your own best-selling, page-turning blockbuster of a novel.
Perfectionism vs. Product in Writing (or, Just Turn the Damn Thing In!)
Do you struggle with trying to make your writing perfect? Gosh, I do, and it is the bane of my existence.
It’s what makes me a good writer and what makes me a terrible writer.
The older I get, the more I realize that what makes you good also makes you crazy and bad. The same exact thing! WHY IS THAT???
If only it were easy to know when your own writing is good. If only we didn’t get numb to our own work, that after so many passes through, that we lose all judgment, good and bad.
How do you combat this problem? Please tell me!
Throughout the marathon of writing a book, mental endurance takes on many forms.
–You have to sustain the story. It has to be a story, with plot points, twists, turns, and classic dramatic moments.
–The characters have to act like real people, in all their challenges, quirks, relationships, etc., and they have to act like the same people–your heroine can’t be calm and laid back in chapter one then Type A everywhere else. They must grow and fight against change and ultimately take the leap of faith that transforms them into their best selves.
–You have to sustain your reader’s interest.
–And you have to sustain the quality of writing.
The point is, it takes many interwoven threads to make a book, and as the author, you not only have to keep track of each one, you have to perfect each one so they all blend together seamlessly.
A Herculean task. A true mental marathon.
It would be so simple if it weren’t for one small problem: the fact that our own brains trick us.
The big problem for me is that my brain is fickle. One day, I can read a paragraph and think, did I write this? It’s actually good. But just wait a week, make another pass. Then I spot all kinds of really awful things–stilted dialogue, really sucky metaphors, flat ending hooks that I once thought were clever–and am inclined to say, this writing really sucks.
The result is a viscious cycle of not having a clue if anything’s any good or not.
Yes, I have people critique me. I have people read my stuff. But sooner or later, you have to stop reworking a story and say I”M DONE.
But how do you know when that is? How do you know when to just say–that’s it. Nada mas. When do you stop fiddling with the dialogue to make it more natural, when do you quite searching for just that certain perfect metaphor/word/sentence/ending line that makes the scene perfect?
When do you ever let it go?
Can anyone relate to this, or am I way off the bell curve in the realm of people who enjoy tormenting themselves to death?!
What’s in YOUR Reading Pile?
What does your reading pile say about your personality? I had a few days of sickness (like the rest of America) this week where I had some time to stare at my bedside stash of books and contemplate why I read what I read. I don’t know if I came up with any profound answers, but it was fun!
Here’s a peek:
Saw the movie, loved it! Read the author’s story, how he quite his job as a high school English teacher to write. Can’t wait to read this! Very nuanced, very emotional, and a love story!!! My perfect kind of book!
I’ve been studying the Harlequin Special Edition line and loving the heartwarming stories about home, love, and family. I loved this book by Helen Lacey! It takes place in a unique setting–Australia, and is a romance between a responsible, no-nonsense bed-and-breakfast owner who lost her husband and a handsome firefighter…who happens to be nine years younger. It’s an RT Reviewers’ Choice nominee for best Harlequin Special Edition of 2012, and I can see why. Lacey’s latest book was released in January, called His-and-Hers Family. I’ve got that one, too!
Okay, I heard so much about this book last year, I had to see what the buzz was about. I’m wondering if I can get through it before someone accidentally tells me the answer to the driving question, is her husband guilty or not?!
This isn’t any old edition of Emma…it’s annotated…meaning in this case that the original text is on each left page, and explanations, pictures, paintings, etc. of all sorts of interesting period things are on each right page. I’ve always prided myself at being pretty good at understanding older language without too much help…but trust me, I am completely humbled by this type of reading experience. Also, it weighs in at almost 900 pages!
I’ve read one or two books by Rachel Gibson before and loved them. This looks cute and fun!
I’ve been “saving” this book for a time when no one interrupts me , as I do with all of Kleypas’s books(probably the reason I haven’t read it yet–there is no such time!!). I’m dying to read it but I’d better hurry because Lisa’s next book in this series is out next month.
So there you have it. I haven’t even got to e-books, but doing this did make me realize I tend to buy paper when I want to study a book carefully or when it is textbook-like (the Emma edition). Now, if only there was time to read all these wonderful books!!
So…what’s in YOUR pile?