Art and Life in Novel Writing
Writer takeaways on craft learned from the best books utilized in the AAC novel writing program including "Write Away" by Elizabeth George, "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner, "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass, and "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard. More art-and-life links below:
Cara's Cabinet and Audrey's Corner.
Writing and the Disquiet of Self Doubt
Red Rising - A Study in Trilogy Arcs
Are You Ready to Get Published Part I
Blake "Save the Cat" Snyder
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Books on Fiction Writing Utilized in the Algonkian Novel Writing Program "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program) "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass (another good primer) "Write Away" by Elizabeth George (a no nonsense primer, and humorous) "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard (a look at the struggle) ________________________________________________________________________________ As you've noted on the novel writing program website, the above books are listed as must reads for this program. Therefore, the purpose of this forum is to nudge you into taking what you've learned from these …
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BOOK REPORTS "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? It reinforced for me some vital components that must permeate the book throughout. For example, the story development must continuously cast forwards, drawing the reader from paragraph to paragraph, from scene to scene. Any let up and the reader can stop caring where the story will go next, at which point the writer has failed, and the reader stops reading. This was particularly important for me to get in my head in the early scenes when I move from place to place, character to character. I had initially focuse…
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"The Art of Fiction" by John Gardener 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? I found this book to be quite valuable. Although Gardener mentions a number of concepts I already agreed with, it was helpful to have them spelled out in a clear and rational way. Gardener spends much of the book focusing on the concept that a fictional story is a kind of dream in which the reader is temporarily transported out of their world. The goal of a fiction writer is to keep his reader completely submerged in this fictional world or else risk losing the reader's interest. With only a few words a writer can easily sell his…
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Book Reports The Art of Fiction, John Gardner The Art of Fiction introduced me to the concept of a "fictional dream." Whatever the story medium, the author strives to create a "vivid and continuous dream." All elements of craft must support that dream. Other lessons from the book include grounding yourself in the great literature of the past, maintaining artistic integrity and truth, and lending a novel "profluence." That is, causality, one scene launching the next, but also building synergistically, so that at the climax and resolution, the reader envisions the confluence of images. The story resonates. Lastly, I love the vignette about psychic…
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The Writing Life 1. I hated Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, when I first read it. I love The Writing Life and need to go back and read Pilgrim again and see what I was blind to I hated the lists of vegetation that seemed to substitute for something else, in my mind—lyricism, or description. I love the Writing Life, and how it enters through specifics the most abstract regions of resistance, and ego, and fear. This book is the most delicate kind of Judo that is designed to forward writing as alive, not me the writer. It makes me fear for every being able to not have myself in the way. 2. Lessons: Alarming patience, almost geologic time. I struggle with dee…
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The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner 1. One of the major lessons I learned from Gardner’s work was that all questions I raise within a text, I must answer. Otherwise, it leaves the reader feeling dissatisfied. Upon reflection, I discovered that all of my favorite works follow this guideline.They wrap up every individual character’s storyline and identify any unknowns/solve any mysteries by the end of the story. For example, in Les Miz Hugo wraps up the storyline for not only Valjean, but for Cossette, Marius, Javert, Eponene, Gavroche, and even the Master and his wife. They don’t all have happy ends, but they all have definitive conclusions to their stories. …
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The Art of Fiction While rewriting my manuscript (from basically a clean slate), I've been more mindful of making my current draft publishable. The learning curve in doing so has been necessary and useful, yet my progress on this draft (as opposed to my original) has unfortunately been much slower. John Gardner's advice not to sacrifice your writing's "delight" was helpful, as that's one of my motivating factors when writing (and one that is sometimes lost when I feel overwhelmed about strategically perfecting something as opposed to simply writing it). Gardner reiterated that good writing should shift in and out of various POV's, as opposed to limiting the na…
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Ben Chewey Reaction to Algonkian Novel Writing Program Readings The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? The Art of Fiction helped me as a writer by introducing me to the concept of aesthetic interest. Since the start of my writing career I was aware of the importance of a story having a cast and setting that stands out. John Gardner made it clear why it's important for every aspect of one's story to be organic, or at least as organic as possible from something that does not actually exist. 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book …
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"The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program) "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass (another good primer) "Write Away" by Elizabeth George (a no nonsense primer, and humorous) "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard (a look at the struggle) The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? What spoke to me the most regarding this book was the focus on the authenticity of a story. As well as the focus on "feeling" giving rhythm to sentences. It caused me to go back and look at my sentence variation. Was I using fragment…
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THE ART OF FICTION by John Gardner 1. This book is startlingly basic in both its description of what fiction is and what the writer needs to do. It makes me want to write, to use the power within me to reach out to others, expressing what really matters to me, and hopefully to them also. 2. The primary lessons I learned: structure is paramount - be aware of each word chosen, each sentence structured, each paragraph and scene, as elemental building blocks of character and plot, therefore of the story. Above all else, plausibility: make the fiction so real that the reader lives and breathes within it. My novel, THE BRAID, being a serious (living, breathing) matter …
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The Art of Fiction 1. How did it help me as a writer? Throw away details that are not necessary. Even as a writer who dislikes excessively long books, it's easy at times when writing our own stuff to have fun "playing" with details in the story that might bore others. 2. Two or three major lessons I learned from it? Writing is like any other art form, break the old, traditional rules if you can do it in a way that makes the art more beautiful. And the idea of not overexplaining what a character is thinking. THAT is something that's very easy to do when writing in the third person, and it's a good reminder to show, not tell, even in third person POV. 3. Anyt…
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Book Review - Part 2 - Module 8 The Writing Life by Annie Dillard This book plus some of the assignments within The Art of the Novel gave me permission to be more descriptive in my novel. I fear that it also led me to start too many chapters with exposition. My excuse is wanting to assure that readers know when they pick up the book each time the place and the point of view. The chapters of Dillard's book that I hope to keep in mind are the last two, Chapters 6 and 7, with her analogies of writing and Ferrar Burn's struggle to bring in the log from the sea and then Dave Rahm, the stunt pilot. The first tale is about the writer's struggle against and with th…
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The Writing Life 1. Dillard's perspective of the writing life provides insight into the reality of writing for a living, rather than the romantic notions that my brain tends to fixate upon. I love how she gives permission for it to take years to write a book. I often berate myself for being so slow, but Dillard gives me permission to take my time. I also needed the reminder to create a schedule. It is all too easy to not get around to writing without one. 2. On the practical end she had some motivating comments about revision. Two that particularly struck me were, "I hope you will toss it all and not look back," and "You can waste a year worrying about it, or y…
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Art of Fiction 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? I don’t honestly know if this helped with my writing, though I did like a few of the concepts that he addressed (see #2). I had a hard time reading this, since it was so dense, and I don’t feel that I retained much of it. The “Write Awayâ€� book dealt with many of the same concepts, but in a much more accessible style. 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing and/or your novel? I did like his point about writers benefitting from learning and applying technique, rather than “rulesâ€�. I liked the …
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The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. John Gardner is very smart and talented, but also extremely condescending and pompous. As such, I often found myself sort of chuckling reading this book, as he called certain types of would-be writings insulting names, but when I look past the tone, I know there's good advice here. Gardner's emphasis on the importance of reading and engaging in deep, meaningful exploration and study of writing craft is well taken, but I do feel this book is for undergrads and as such was basic for me. I've been teaching English for 16 years. For me, the book had good reminders but no new information. 2. Gardner's advice about clarity and the…
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The Writing Life - Annie Dillard 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? This is the journal entry I wrote directly after finishing the book: In reading this book I find myself wishing I had read it in my early teens, so as to have clearer expectations for the life of a writer, though by now, I largely have learned the same lessons on my own. Enough time in any craft allows a person to bump into tricks of the trade in the dark, and in this way of bumping into them in the dark, the artist happens upon the secrets. In this way this book felt...validating, like a sigh of relief, "Thank God, it's that way for me too.…
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Book Report 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing and/or your novel? 3. Was there anything in the books that obviously conflicted with lessons and readings in our novel writing program. If so, what were they? The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner 1. It taught me that the rules of writing a novel have roughly been the same ever since the beginning. It also taught me that all rules to writing are breakable and many of the early authors broke these rules to some degree or another. Therefore,…
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The Art of Fiction 1. This book was helpful in giving insights regarding what to write. It gave perspective regarding the liberties a writer should embrace and the risks he should be aware of. The section regarding basic skills convinced me to develop the habit of writing and then proof reading what I wrote to develop the innate skill to write good sentences. Writing sloppily from the outset creates a huge task to pore over tens of thousands of words correcting multitudes of bad structure. 2. a. Part 1 is good in helping to formulate personal styles and approaches to a story and how to test those styles whether they are functional for a reader to follow. b. …
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Book Reports Connie Whitmer WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL Donald Maass I found Donald Maass’s book empowering, and invaluable as a writing craft reference, in general, and for my project in particular. “If I write an amazing story, well – they will come!â€� His advice improved every paragraph, page and chapter, knowing what to cut, and what to leave in. And affirmed the passion I feel for the importance of my story, and my need to tell it. And, most exciting, he reaffirmed exactly what I am trying to do. “To write a Break out Novel is to run free of the pack – To go beyond what has been done before - delve deeper, more original, unexplored realm…
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Robert Pfaff, Shrunken Heads, Book Reports Book Reports: The Art of Fiction (Gardener) 1. I have loved John Gardener since I read Grendel in high school. He validated my instincts. For example, I like to break the rules but have always believed that you have to master the rules before you can break them well. Learning a musical instrument or a foreign language teaches you the same idea. You must understand and appreciate structure before you can manipulate it. 11. 1) He debunks certain myths like “Write what you know.â€� It’s a good departure point for a first book, and my first book is a memoir. But I prefer to write about topics that inspire me to learn…
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BOOK REPORTS THE ART OF FICTION by John Gardner How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? I have to say when I started to read it, for a moment I was not liking John Gardner's tone. For me, a little too pompous. But, I agree with what him in that a writer needs to work on his craft to get even better, even if you are born with the talent. The book helped me have a better understanding on the overall craft of writing and the dedication one must put to really become one of the bests. I also learned by his examples proper way of tackling different ways of expressing oneself as a writer. …
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BOOK REPORTS: 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing and/or your novel? 3. Was there anything in the books that obviously conflicted with lessons and readings in our novel writing program. If so, what were they? THE ART OF FICTION - JOHN GARDNER This book challenged me on two levels: an abstract/theoretical level and a more concrete “craftâ€� level. As difficult as it is to apply theory sometimes, it is good to pull yourself away from your work and try to look at it from afar. The “common errorsâ€� section …
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The art of fiction This book does a great job of inspiring the creative spark with its built in lessons, and its a perfect starting place for new writers for this reason. John Gardner's respect for writing as an art form is appreciated, because he stresses the importance of writing not being clearly defined by "do's" and "do not's", or complex mathematical equations. I like the reminder that every subtle detail must be relevant in the story, and that unimportant facts need to become so or simply discarded. This is an easy mistake to make, and the book helps to teach how destructive it can be. It is certainly something I keep a keen eye out for in my revisions. The…
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"The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program)
 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? “ The first and last important rule for the creative writer, then I stat though there may be rules (formulas) for ordinary, easily publishable fiction - imitation fiction - there are no rules for real fiction, any more than there are rules for serious visual art or musical composition. Pg. 158. That line made me question a lot of things. With that said Gardner does later imply that you have to be a master to learn how to break those rules correctly. It was good reminder that Im still gree…
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Writing the Breakout Novel: 1. Writing the Breakout Novel was my favorite craft book of this series. This book taught me a lot about what makes specific novels fall into the “breakoutâ€� category, such as how to create a good conflict, how to make theme memorable and relatable, and how to create larger-than-life characters. Overall, Maass gave very specific examples to allow me to not only learn but also see what makes breakout fiction and how to re-create those techniques in my own writing. It also helped me as a writer because it planted all these seeds about what I should be thinking about while I’m working, which was very helpful. 2. I think the biggest less…
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Arcane: A Successful Video Game Adaptation (For Once)
Respect the craft and you can get away with anything! That's right, I'm mixing it up a bit today to talk about Netflix's latest hit show, a 9-episode animated series created by League of Legends to promote their new game. Even writing that, I can imagine the eye-rolls. A video game adaptation? Really? How good could it possibly be? Reader, let me tell you: really f-ing good. Arcane's story centers around the tragic tale of two sisters from the rough, poor Undercity split up and then reunited years later as adults. The sisters are the (apparently) iconic League characters, Vi and Jinx. There are multiple other plots about magic, technology, politics, and rival gangs, but the double-helix spine of the story is the relationship between these two important characters and the trauma they share. And here is where Arcane stands out from other video game adaptations, because I, coming into the show with next to no knowledge about the game its based on, was completely absorbed. There was no feeling of having to know backstory or that the show was leaning on pre-existing lore that only game fans would know about. Vi and Jinx/Powder were fully fleshed out characters with their own motivations, characteristics, and unique, sympathetic backstories. I fell in love with both of them (and many of the minor characters) because of the strength of the writing, not because of whatever cool powers they have or game references the writers made. They were people first and game characters second, allowing the uninitiated (like me) into this dense, complex world through the strength of the show's plot. In short, the show writers respected the craft of storytelling and took no shortcuts, even though they absolutely could have. They were working with a huge and rabid fanbase who was guaranteed to watch the show. They could have phoned it in. But they didn't, and their work has gone viral because of that choice. What can we, who don't have massive, hungry fanbases, learn from Arcane? Well first of all, I'd recommend watching it as a storyteller, because the show has so much going for it in that department. There are evocative character arcs, incredible relationship complexity, cool fight scenes with actual weight and drama, and heartbreaking choices. The show pulls you in from the first beautifully animated panorama and doesn't ever loosen its grip, including its final cliffhanger moment. However, there's a lesson to be learned here even if you choose not to binge-watch this latest phenomenon of nerd culture. It is, as always, the value of good craft. You can have the best (or worst!) idea in the world and so much of its success boils down to proper execution. It's obviously better to have a killer high concept idea to work with. But even if you don't, even if you're wading into some muddy mess of lore or backstory (as most video game adaptations are), Arcane shows that almost any story can be excellently told with the proper balance of skill and training. Hone your writing muscles and, from what I've seen, you can do just about anything with them. Have you watched Arcane? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comments! -
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How My Pup Taught Me a Few Things About Writing
In November, with the first snowstorm of the year about to descend and despite considerable trepidation, the ToolMaster and I set off for a two-hour drive into the Canadian countryside. Our mission? After too many years of felt canine absence, we hoped to adopt a dog found on an internet sales ad. Before you chastise me about feeding into puppy mills and their attendant risks, trust me, I’m aware. All our cats and but one of our past dogs have been rescues. I wrestled with a metric tonne of pre-emptive guilt. But I’d already spent months watching local shelters for a pup that would be a good fit for our home and courtesy of the pandemic, the competition was fierce. Suitable candidates were adopted before we could wrangle an appointment. I’d also spent weeks learning to read subtext in online ads and felt I had a good handle on determining the conscientiousness of amateur breeders. I’d finally found one who said all the right things. Even better, they seemed poised to refuse adoption should we fail their screening process. And so, having successfully battled a malfunctioning GPS and just as the first snowflakes swirled, we turned down a farmyard lane. We’d agreed that if something didn’t feel right about the puppy or her owners, either one of us could exert a veto, no questions asked. Then the pup emerged from the garage. She gave my husband one look before trotting up with a “YaY! NeW peOples!” attitude. She also permitted us to pick her up and roll her on her back and scratch her belly. Despite her attractive mixture of confidence and pliability, we continued with our research. We met her parents, who lived onsite. Saw the tidy and well-kept garage workshop in which she’d been raised. The legit vet record. The good quality kibble she’d been fed. We observed her interactions with the farmyard cats—important since we have two feline overlords—and the family, including their three very active children. Everything on their end screamed of professionalism and caring, right down to the preprinted contract awaiting our signatures. As you no doubt have guessed, we had found our new companion. (If you’d like to meet her, scroll to the end of this post for a brief introduction.) The weeks since Betty’s arrival have passed in a blur. But when I’m not taking her out to the bathroom or working on training or snuggling with her before the TV, I’ve done some reflecting. This process has changed me, and it’s already altered how I approach my writing journey. Before I share exactly how and why, let me disclose my relative ignorance about dogs and dog training. Past successes as an owner were largely due to sweet natures of the animals we adopted rather than my skill set. Take anything you read here with a blood-pressure-threatening dose of sea salt. That said, what I’ve learned from Betty is to… 1. Begin by matching the raw materials to the job. My daughter and son-in-law own a Belgian Malinois/German Shepherd cross. There’s a reason they are often used as police dogs and known as land sharks or maligators in their puppyhood. Raya’s prey drive means my daughter has worked hard to train the nippiness out of her. She cohabits well with their cats, yet I’d never trust her around mine. I love her, admire her smarts and athleticism, and find her occasionally intimidating—exactly as befits her breed. I would not recommend you buy a stove with this design if your home shelters large dogs or small people. Nippiness isn’t Betty’s issue. Her grandfather was a champion bird dog. On the rare occasion she confuses your hand for a toy, she has a soft mouth. But her back legs are comprised of springs, meaning that her instinctive greeting manners are atrocious. We’re already dealing with counter-surfing. In fact, if we hadn’t grown wise to her proclivities and locked the burner dials on the front of stove—seriously, what were you thinking, oh foolish design engineer?—she’d have already burned down my house. This illustrates that to a certain extent you can shape nature, but it’s far easier to begin with a dog whose breeding matches your desires. I wouldn’t expect Raya to greet a mail carrier with a butt wiggle and leaps of joy. Nor would I expect Betty to function as a guard dog. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them, and we’d all be doomed to frustration and disappointment. Similarly, it’s unlikely I’ll ever write a work of towering literary fiction. My voice is too snarky, my sensibilities too pragmatic, my story interests too commercial. That doesn’t mean I can’t experiment and learn and grow and perhaps stumble into success in that lane of fiction, but seriously, what are the chances? And at what cost, especially when I can write in genres that reflect my natural strengths? While I’m at it, why not be picky about the writing projects I choose to develop? Better to begin with a higher-concept idea than attempt to turn a quiet book about quiet people doing quiet things into a commercial success. 2. Hire experts if you can afford it. Both the ToolMaster and I tend to have a DIY mentality. We enjoy the process of learning and like wrestling with novel problems. Given enough time and effort and the online resources available, I’d like to think we’d have found eventual success with Betty. But training a puppy is similar to raising a child in that it can expose hidden values conflicts. Soon, not only are you dealing with a puddle of piddle, but you’re navigating heated disagreements on how to prevent them. Happily, we weren’t too proud to seek a qualified arbiter. My daughter recommended a local trainer with impressive credentials and we were comfortable with her philosophy and methods. She was expensive, but worth every penny if only for one single nugget she imparted: in order to get Betty to sleep in past 6 a.m., we were to shift her feeding times to noon, 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. After three weeks of exhaustion, peeps—three solid weeks!—Kristen’s advice worked the first time. Similarly, if you’re not making progress with your writing, consider borrowing the smartest and most educated brain you can access. Depending upon the issue, this might mean hiring a book coach, a developmental editor, cover artist, etc. If you’re on a modest budget, perhaps you can bolster your skills with a book or course tailored to your specific problem. If you aren’t in a position to pay outright, perhaps you can make a material trade. A critique for a critique, or similar. Whatever the case, don’t let pride prevent you from accessing the resources to move forward. 3. Value incremental change, mindset, and persistence. In the writing life, how do you talk to yourself about fallow periods or times of relatively low productivity? Do you call yourself lazy or unmotivated? Compare yourself to others? I need look no further than my own psyche or the comment section in Therese Walsh’s recent impassioned post to know how cruel we writers can be to ourselves. But there’s nothing like working with a puppy to see how unnecessary and unproductive those impulses are. Kristen explained her training paradigm this way: When you combine ability + motivation + clear communication, you can expect to see the desired behavior. If the result is what you asked for, you immediately mark the behavior to let the pup know they are on the right track, using a clicker or word like “yes.” Then you administer a positive reward. (In behavior training, “positive” means an assertive action whereas “negative” means a lack of action.) For most dogs that will mean they get a treat reward, but it’s basically access to whatever they value. For ones not motivated by food, for instance, they might get to play with a desired toy. For another, it might be a trip to the neighborhood pee tree. If the result isn’t what you asked for, you don’t administer positive punishment, like a rebuke or scold or dragging the dog to their kennel. The response is negative punishment, which she describes as “no cookie/try again.” (“Negative”, in this case, isn’t as bad as it sounds! It’s essentially an absent response.) In short, the philosophy is that you’re either providing a positive reward (good job, here’s the cookie) or negative punishment (no cookie, try again.) Does that make sense? As an example, when Betty greets people with “four on the floor,” she gets a “yes” and is rewarded with pets and treats. When she jumps, the visitors ignore her or even leave repeatedly until she’s had a successful greeting. Then she gets smothered with pets. Time and again, by making small asks of Betty and following with consistent feedback, I’ve seen how remarkably effective these methods are. I mean, I should have trusted Kristen, who routinely trains dogs for TV commercials and shows. Still, to see its application to disparate tasks like nail clipping and harness wearing and the “touch” command is nothing less than inspiring. How does this apply to writing? Well, when I’m in a fallow period, I’ve already discovered the limits of self-shame and castigation in getting myself to return to the page. Of all the many riches Betty has brought to my life—among them, puppy kisses and dog park walks and winter air when I might have chosen to cocoon indoors, not to mention a warm, wiggling body whenever I need a hug—this lesson might be the biggest reward of all. I’m permanently ditching the scolds, peeps, as being unhelpful or counterproductive. Since pee trees hold no value for me, I’m going for the cookie. Care to join me? What have you learned from your furry companions and how might that apply to your writing journey? About Jan O'HaraA former family physician and academic, Jan O'Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer's Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh. Web | Twitter | Facebook | More Posts http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?i=S_AduGX6hyM:p7tF7jd9cz0:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?i=S_AduGX6hyM:p7tF7jd9cz0:D7DqB2pKExk [url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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In Pursuit of Conflict
In my personal and even professional life, I tend to be a little conflict-averse. You won't exactly find me running into the open arms of conflict with my heart wide open. I don't seek it, look for it, and find ways to generate it. However, when it comes to my own writing, I look for it constantly. As I have shared recently, I recently found a new way to revise my stories and I found a hitch in the giddy-up of the story I'm working on as a result. You see, there's not enough conflict. The problem I haven't figured out what my character really wants quite yet. I've explored areas that could reveal what her wants might possibly be, but none so far have felt right. This has left me wondering what could that want be and what could get in the way of her having it. In most books that talk about writing, they usually talk about a character needing a want or motivation or a goal of some kind, and then something gets in the way of that want or motivation to complicate it, thus generating some conflict. I know this, and yet, I haven't quite nailed down my character enough to find out what's her biggest want, goal, or motivation. I love examples, and to help myself resolve them, I've thought of some conflict that has come up in my favorite movies. Here are a couple of conflict examples: Take Office Space for example. Peter's want? Well, he doesn't like his job and he doesn't want to work there anymore. What complicates it? Well, he gets hypnotized into not caring whether he loses his job or not. That's all well and good until his friends who LIKE that job might end up losing theirs, and he ends up keeping his (and even being promoted) despite all his efforts otherwise. If you've seen the movie, you know it gets even more complicated after that. You wonder to yourself as the viewer, how will he get out of his job? How will he help his friends? And so on. Another movie that's one of my favorites is Beauty and the Beast (I'm thinking of the Disney version). Belle's want? To get out of her small French village and have romance and adventure with someone's that isn't a total jerk. What complicates this? Well, her father gets lost in the woods, and then ends up trapped in a castle. Then she goes to find him and then becomes trapped in the castle herself. So now she isn't even stuck in a small village, she's stuck in a castle with an angry beast. You wonder: How will she get out of the castle? What will happen to her? The thing is about conflict is that it isn't just about what happens to the character, I'm realizing that you need to believe that it matters to the character what is happening. It isn't enough that the character is passively experiencing this moment. Like in Office Space, you know that Peter wants to get out of his job but he also wants to help out his friends. The reader has to accept that what is happening to the character has just made it worse for them. Whatever is happening is making it harder for that character to get what they want.So, I'm not any further along than when I started this post, but maybe as I pursue different conflict scenarios for my character, I'll figure out just the right one to help fit my story. How do you figure out the right conflict and complications for your story? (C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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10 New Books Coming Out This Week
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Nick Petrie, The Runaway (Putnam) “Nail-biting …Shifting points of view serve to heighten the suspense. This adrenaline-fueled ride will keep readers turning the pages.” Publishers Weekly Lisa Gardner, One Step Too Far (Dutton) “It’s not often that a thriller so deeply casts us into the darkness of both nature and the human heart…Terrifying, primal, and very, very tense. Read it with your heart in your throat—but read it.” Kirkus Reviews, starred review Marie Rutkoski, Real Easy (Henry Holt) “This is a story about flawed people just doing the best they can to live their lives and find love. Vulnerable yet steely, this thriller rises above the rest.” Kirkus Reviews, starred review Lars Keplar, The Mirror Man (Knopf) “The ability of Kepler (the pen name of Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril) to ratchet up the tension en route to a stunning reveal and an eminently fair solution is remarkable. This merits comparisons with the best of Thomas Harris.” Publishers Weekly, starred review Jessica Fellowes, The Mitford Vanishing (Minotaur) “Fellowes’s cleverly plotted fifth mystery featuring the real life Mitford family deepens the personality of series lead Louise Cannon. Fellowes has plausibly transformed Louisa from amateur to professional sleuth. Maisie Dobbs fans will be pleased.” Publishers Weekly Kaira Rouda, Somebody’s Home (Thomas and Mercer) “Whatever the opposite of family values is, Rouda seems intent on perfecting a genre that enshrines it.” Kirkus Reviews Evan Hughes, The Hard Sell (Doubleday) “Anyone who picks up this title will be left reflecting on how the U.S. medical system and drug companies have recklessly destroyed countless lives. A book readers will not soon forget.” Library Journal, starred review Mitzi Szerato, The Best New True Crime Stories: Partners in Crime (Mango) “If you like true crime with something extra, The Best New True Crime Stories: Partners in Crime delivers. The crimes and criminals are compelling enough, but what sets these tales apart is the attention to setting and social milieu.” Stephanie Kane Jacqueline Mitchard, The Good Son (MIRA) “An engaging journey through redemption, forgiveness, and a mother’s devotion.” Library Journal Karen Hamilton, The Ex-Husband (Graydon House) “Amid the glitzy, wealthy, sun-kissed, at-sea lifestyle in this twisted thriller, we find con artists, threats and lies, and the cold certainty that no matter how far out you sail, you’ll never escape your past.” Tara Laskowski View the full article -
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Getting off the Hamster Wheel
Please welcome author and mentor Katey Schultz to WU today! Katey is the author of Flashes of War, which the Daily Beast praised as an “ambitious and fearless” collection, and Still Come Home, a novel, both published by Loyola University Maryland. Honors for her work include North Carolina’s Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, the Linda Flowers Literary Award, Doris Betts Fiction Prize, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year award, gold and silver medals from the Military Writers Society of America, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year award, five Pushcart nominations, a nomination to Best American Short Stories, National Indies Excellence recognition, and writing fellowships in eight states. Katie is the founder of Maximum Impact, a transformative mentoring service for creative writers that has been recognized by both CNBC and the What Works Network. Learn more at KateySchultz.com. Getting off the Hamster Wheel When I was in grad school, I had the luxury of communicating with my advisors every month about craft concerns. When I hit the road for writing residencies and fellowships following graduation, the majority of my support came from mature authors, also in residence. If questions about deep revision or the creative process arose, I usually found an answer just one studio over, and often from someone with the word bestseller in their bio. Depending on others for advice about my next move on the page was good for me, at the time. I had so many other craft issues to deal with that I had to relinquish some of the biggies to the experts. But this dependency wasn’t sustainable and, furthermore, it wasn’t teaching me to be a better writer on my own. Sure, I could sign up for a workshop or attend a conference, but at the end of the day, I still had to face my own drafts and know what to do and how to do it. At a certain point, other people’s suggestions started to suffocate my sense of joy and turned writing into a checklist of feedback applied, and tools used. I’d “made changes” and “fixed stuff” but my writing also felt…well…dead. Where was the sense of discovery? That feeling that what I had to say, mattered? I needed a way to get off the hamster wheel of leaning on others for feedback and find confidence and discernment in my own process. And I needed to be able to do this not just for one story, one essay, or one manuscript…but for the rest of my writing life. Name it Learning how to coach myself is what finally got me off that hamster wheel, and it took almost a decade for me to leap. Where did I land? In a place of confidence and discernment as a writer, with a deep creative practice that could contain both generative bursts and literary restlessness, all while meeting my goals. How? By identifying the invisible, decision-making moments of my creative processes and applying a unique set of reflections and craft skills to help me determine my own, best, next move. You might be wondering: If it’s invisible, how did I fix it? The answer is something every writer can relate to. We can fix something only after we’ve named it. Naming things, after all, is what we do. But it’s not just for our stories and essays, it’s for our internal creative processes, too. When we start to apply thinking to language and apply reflection exercises to our own creativity, we can more expediently discern what to do next on the page, and why. We know how and why stories come to us, and we understand our blind spots. Rather than messing with the muse, we work with what it gives us (knowing our handicaps) and thrive on revising with real stakes and authenticity. All of this translates immediately into confidence, and when you put confidence and discernment together, what do you get? Momentum. Be your own best editor Now, when I sit down to write, it’s just me (imperfect), my motivation (inconsistent), and my foundation (unshakable). When I run into craft concerns, rather than shoot an email to a friend or give up, if I can coach myself by naming the challenge, then reflecting on the decisions I made that brought me to that point. If I can name the decisions, I can then question them, which allows a space for a different decision–perhaps a more effective one–to arise. From there, I can write my way forward and see how this slight pivot feels. If I still don’t feel clear, I know how to leave cues for myself on the page and write past the trouble spot, trusting that I have tools for returning to it later. I don’t have to solve the challenge or make every word perfect before moving on, because I’ve learned to trust that clarity comes in waves. But if we stop writing, or if we think we can’t solve problems without a workshop or a conference, we’ll never experience that deeply private, deeply impactful, sense of momentum. We’ll never coach ourselves. This kind of work is invisible to our readers and publishers, and that’s fine. They read for entertainment and discovery, which is what we want. They don’t need to be able to see the micro-decisions we make along the way. But we need to be able to see them. That’s why being coached in how to coach ourselves is an absolute must when it comes to successfully writing for the long haul. It empowers us to become better writers on our own…not just for one project, but for every project. In more concrete terms, that looks like this: How much backstory is too much? Problem: As a writer, I wonder, how much backstory is too much? Maybe I need to stop what I’m writing now and figure this out. But how do I figure it out? Solution: I have taught myself to pause and take a deep breath in these moments, leaning into the question by asking more questions. This is difficult–we’re not conditioned to get close to the unknown and very few writing workshops teach writers what they actually need to be asking of themselves during these critical, all-too-elusive moments. For instance, I ask myself, What does my character desire, in this moment? How do I know that? Does the reader know that? If not, what object, obstacle, action, or reaction can I add to the page that will make this known? Sometimes, privately reflecting on these questions or freewriting answers to them in a notebook constitutes the end of the writing session for that day and I move on (to do dishes, pick up kids, clock in at work, mow the lawn). Other times, it is the beginning of five new pages. Or, How do I keep my reader from getting disoriented? Problem: As a writer, I wonder, how far afield can I go from my present narrative before the reader gets disoriented? And how long can a flashback be, anyway? Maybe I’ve gone too far. Some of this page isn’t even in a specific bracket of time. Am I allowed to do that? Solution: I make a map of my own story, tracing the narrative and its undercurrents, flashbacks, flash-forwards, and eddies. Sometimes I simply stare at my structure map, consider how it looks and feels, contemplate the balance of scene and summary, then…go to bed. But the next time I open that document, I have the answer to my question about how far afield I can go. I’ll either adjust a structural component, or I’ll keep going forward through time. In either case, I’ve coached myself through this challenge and can skip the workshop hamster wheel and meet my own goals, with confidence. Show up and do the work I’ll always have and need my good writing friends. I’ll always study the work of others to see what I can learn. And at some point in every manuscript, I’ll want to hand it over to a trusted reader for their response. But I’ll also always have to be able to write alone and coach myself from one page to the next. Finally, after a good bit of training, I can really say that I am my own best coach and guide through this process. Above all else, I’m able to write. Simply. Without excuse or obstruction. The only requirement is that I show up and do the work. What do I wake up eager to do most mornings? Exactly that. How are you your own best coach and your own best editor? Where do you still need help? We’d love to hear from you in comments. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?i=vybr1oGq1_Y:5oyGnIQagNk:gIN9vFwOqvQ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/WriterUnboxed?i=vybr1oGq1_Y:5oyGnIQagNk:D7DqB2pKExk [url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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Idea Generation: The Rules and Regs for Collecting Ideas
My last post was about Setting Goals in 2022, and one of the things that I wrote about was the Storystorm idea generation challenge. I have since had a question about how Storystorm works. Are the ideas fairly complete? Or are they something I will have to flesh out later? In all reality, I try not to set too many rules. I look for challenges like Storystorm that are fairly open to interpretation. Some of my ideas are outlines with a character, setting, story problem, and multiple attempts to solve that problem. The science fiction novel for which I am currently writing Act 3 came to me that way. I knew how the story opened. I had my setting and my story problem. I just had to get to know my characters to know how they would attack that problem. Other times I come up with a title. This often happens when I misread something. Since I’m dyslexic, a preview scrolling by can throw me. So can fancy fonts which may be beautiful but can also be tricky to read. I’ll do a double take and realize that it says The Apostle Paul and not The Opossum Paul. That isn’t even close to a complete idea but I still think The Opossum Paul could be a hilarious story. In Melanie Faith’s Graphic Novel Creation class, we are working on characters. My notion has blossomed into an idea for single panel comics. The ideas for these tend to be one line long. Since I know who the primary character is, I only need this one line of text to bring to mind a panel. Other times my idea revolves around a place or person. I write a lot of nonfiction so a simple note to find out about Pickle Springs or Zerubbabel is enough to start my research. So what do you need? Complete ideas or fragments? I don’t know. You’re going to have to tell me. It is all going to depend on how you work and what you are comfortable with. One of my writing friends admitted to me that she works with one idea at a time. She finishes a novel and then goes after her next idea, weaving together bits of this and that before she has a functioning whole. For her to declare something an idea, it has to be fairly complete. I have so many ideas! Way too many to pursue them all. When I don’t write them down, I catch myself running through that day’s ideas. “I need to remember that awesome abandoned church photo, the idea about the Muse, and . . . and . . . what was the guy’s name who invented—" It is just a lot easier if I write them down. Then I can let go and move on to what I’m supposed to be working on that day. And, if this catch and release program doesn’t work and an idea keeps popping into my head, I know it is one that I need to work on as soon as possible. Writing down messy bits and pieces works for me. You may need to wait until you’ve fleshed something out before you feel honest about calling it an idea. As always, the important thing is to find a method that works for you. --SueBE Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 30 books for young readers. To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey. The next session of her new course, Pitching, Querying and Submitting Your Work will begin on February 6, 2022). Coping with rejection is one of the topics she will cover in this course. Sue is also the instructor for Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins February 6, 2022) and Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins February 6, 2022). (C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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Novel Writing Program Syllabus
Best and most daunting syllabus out there! -
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New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
Story Statement A prank-loving teen with serious athletic talent realizes the passage of Title IX in 1978 is her ticket to gain admission into Stanford's pre-medical curriculum and cure her mother's mysterious illness. Antagonistic Forces J.J. faces several antagonists in this story. Temporary antagonists include her high school ex-boyfriend Stephen, who wants J.J. to go to U. C. Davis with him so that they can marry in a few years. Privileged blonde-haired, blue-eyed Christine questions J.J.'s muscular body, sexuality, haircut, and playing style for much of the first season, forcing newbie J.J. to shut up and put up. The highly-ranked UOP team taunts lowly Stanford by wearing grapefruits under their game uniforms during warm-ups, which establishes a heated rivalry for years. J.J.'s own Mama Jo turns against her during her first summer home from college. Mama Jo's elusive auto-immune issues are a constant force in J.J.'s story, and provide many frustrating situations for both mother and daughter. During her sophomore season, new assistant coach Don thinks J.J. is overrated and benches her after she is hit by a car on her bike. J.J.'s post-concussion syndrome returns, and her body suffers from other accidental injuries, forcing her to lie about the extent of her pain in order to retain her scholarship and keep playing. J.J. observes the male docs at Stanford Hospital as they verbally and sexually abuse the female doctors during her summer internship. The glamorous UCLA team defeats Stanford in the first Women's NCAA Volleyball tournament in 1981, her junior season. This loss provides a catalyst that will energize J.J.'s recovery from a potential career-ending injury during that match in the hopes of a rematch with UCLA her senior year. Breakout Titles Chasing Kairos Holding Court: How the Inception of Title IX Gave Me Stanford Rally On: Finding New Dreams When First Dreams Fail Comparables Pat Conroy's My Losing Season (2002) was one inspiration for this book. He looks back on his senior season as the point guard for the Citadel's men's basketball team and uses basketball as a frame for interrogating family, friends, and the bonds forged between men coming of age in a military academy. Conroy's memoir provides a realistic view of college athletics, since most teams fail to win championships. My book has a similar Bildungsroman, strong team bonding, and cultural commentary, but includes a positive parent-child relationship and covers the transition years from a losing team to a winning legacy that continues today. Instead of a father-son conflict that results in disappointment, my secondary story of a mother's daily struggle to conquer her body's decay results in a fierce attachment between a mother and a daughter. Perdita Felicien's My Mother's Daughter (2021) is similar in plot to my story: a young woman begins to discover her athletic gifts and is edged onward by her mother's love, grit, and faith. When Perdita stumbles while pursuing Olympic dreams, her mother picks her up, illustrating the power of a parent's love to transform her child's life. My book differs in that it occurs twenty years earlier, includes gendered power struggles without the systemic obstacles of race, and centers around the illness of a beloved mother who might not live long enough for her daughter to save her. Logline A young woman who loves practical jokes but suffers from memory issues earns a volleyball scholarship to Stanford, where she hopes to conquer the pre-medical curriculum so that she can cure her mother's life-threatening illness. Conflicts - triggers and reactions Primary conflict/wound: Once J.J. earns a C+ on her first College Chemistry exam, she is gripped with fear that she will fail to save her mother. Her affinity for math disappears as she struggles to remember Calculus and Chemistry formulas and test anxiety makes her performance worse. The headaches from a serious concussion at sixteen return, along with nightmares of her mother's funeral. Secondary conflict: J.J. wonders about her playing time until she sees the new assistant coach laughing with Christine as she emerges topless from the jacuzzi on a road trip. J.J. hears about players sleeping with coaches at other schools, but has a hard time believing what appears to be sex for court time. She becomes overwhelmed as her bad grades and inconsistent play coincide with her mother's hospitalization. Social/team conflict: When junior Christine deliberately hits the new player Kari in the face with the volleyball, J.J. struggles between protecting Kari, who's competing for J.J.'s starting position, or ignoring the hazing in favor of her own playing time. She and the other younger players vow to be welcoming when they are in the upper classes. They establish a separate, collective culture through dancing to the New Wave and Punk music that irritates the older players. Love conflict: J.J. cannot let go of her unrequited love for the pre-med boy she met at ORGY, once he disappears after a few successful dates. Settings The story contrasts the palm-treed country club ambience of 1980's Stanford University in sunny Palo Alto, CA, with hostile and famous gyms throughout California, Hawaii, and Alabama. Many volleyball players live in Kairos, a popular coed housing co-operative on the envied avenue of historical fraternity row houses. With an open kitchen and a reputation for wildly inventive parties on its sundecks and midnight basketball games with neighboring fraternities on its basketball court, Kairos is also the favored housing of several Structured Liberal Education students. They are the adored intellectuals of the campus. Manzanita Trailer Park, the cheapest and dingiest living arrangement on campus, is on the opposite side of Stanford and houses another group of SLE students. UGLY Undergraduate Library's occult section on the third floor and Green Graduate Library's basement stacks provide spaces for study and stress-reducing pranks. Matches and practices are held at Maples Pavilion, and the lovely old Roble Gym is the site of the Viennese Ball. Memorial Church, survivor of the 1906 earthquake and centerpiece of the original Quad, welcomes the supplicant's pleas. Antonio's Nut House provides Tuesday happy hours for the Stegner Fellows and undergraduate writers. The mausoleum of Leland Stanford, Jr., is the site of strange initiation rites, but is not the site of ORGY, a location that remains a secret today. -
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New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
FIRST ASSIGNMENT: Survival in a series of unimaginably foreign circumstances, while deciphering the higher purpose behind this bizarre predicament. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: With several different (temporally, geographically, and circumstantially) storylines, which eventually converge, this story features more than one antagonist. In some, the protagonist’s main adversarial challenge is simply survival in unfamiliar situations. These occur in wilderness settings and, while some of the conflicts are actual individuals and pose real danger, these are generally in the form of animal threats and therefore, the antagonist (if you will) is not always complex in character, or motive. The more engaging antagonistic forces are the fear, anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, and loneliness experienced by the main character during these portions of his journey. From the sections that do not occur in the wild, there is also more than one antagonist – a childhood bully from the streets of Bayonne, during the years of the Great Depression, an ex-employee who conspires to steal a family business, built and nurtured over many years, as well as inanimate antagonistic forces, such as post-war trauma and tragic illness. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: Traversing the Circle Spell Within the Circle Views from the Circle FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: The book’s genre: Magical Realism (Literary Fiction) 1) As with “Life of Pi” (Yann Martel), Traversing the Circle is the thought-provoking journey of a stranded character’s struggles with himself and a variety of external adversities. There are numerous non-human characters – endearing, troubling, fearful, but always recognizable. Facing unfathomable challenges, the main characters of both novels demand the reader’s empathy and support. Reflecting on events from the past, the meaning for their odyssey is incrementally revealed. 2) Readers of Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” will doubtless enjoy another entertaining vision of afterlife engagements and lessons. This too is a multi-textured tale that continues to intrigue and hint at purpose, as it builds to its thoughtful conclusions. FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: Traversing the Circle by Eric Aerts · Inexplicably caught in a cycle of reincarnation, an unprecedented vision of life is afforded a man returning in animal form. Struggling to survive and recall his human past, the profound meaning for his strange journey is revealed. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: While embodying the form of various animals, the protagonist is well aware of the fact that his mind is that of a human being – possessing all the knowledge of an adult man, less the memories of his own human existence. Though survival in the wild is a constant struggle – as he discovers the absence of instinct is an enormous disadvantage – it is the lack of memory and the gnawing sense that there is an important meaning to his struggles that both haunt him and prevent him from giving up. Flashbacks of his former, human life begin to return, but more in the form of visions, than as personal memories. Discovering he was once an engineer and inventor; he starts to understand his own fascination and appreciation for the genius and ingenuity he sees in the natural world. This only serves to strengthen his suspicion that there is deeper truth to be uncovered. The/a secondary conflict – which has served to be entertaining as well as useful in building tension, are the main character’s attempts (with greater and lesser success) to understand and blend in with his various animal family/troupe members. For example, as the young offspring of a solitary margay (an arboreal wild cat from Central and South America), our hero is frustratingly inept – and an obvious disappointment to his feline mother – in his initial lessons in stalking and catching prey. As a Japanese macaque (old world monkey that lives in troupes) he must partake in the most prevalent communal activity – grooming. However, disgusted by the consuming of removed insects and parasites, the main character discreetly flicks these away when he feels no one is watching. There are many such hurdles and tribulations he faces throughout. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: Amongst the decidedly crowded field of fiction choices, readers generally seek one of two directions: 1) those that focus on the familiar – often to reinforce already held beliefs (such as social commentary), and 2) those that are unfamiliar (to varying degrees) and aim towards imparting/inspiring reflection and/or revelation. Traversing the Circle falls soundly in the latter of these two categories and – in an age of reality overdose – it is a timely and refreshing escape to a vantage that is both entirely new and still accessible. There are three main settings for this story, each a driving force for different aspects of the plot – two of these with various sub-settings. As well, the contrasts between these locales/situations have been helpful in highlighting the specific flavor of each. In brief, these setting are: 1) The various wilderness locations inhabited while the protagonist is occupying animal forms. These include Antarctica and the adjacent Ross Sea, the jungles of Central America, and the mountains of northwest Japan. Each of these (and the behaviors/habits of the specific wildlife) were extensively researched for accuracy and allowed for lush descriptions, as well as unique exchanges for a human made privy to a genuinely novel perspective. Certainly, there is no shortage of fiction that imports humans into wildlife settings, or close relationships with wild animals. Many of these tend towards fantasy and the fantastical and are targeted at a youth/young adult audience (Jungle Book, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.). Generally, they attribute human characteristics and language to the animal characters for ease of interaction with the human characters. Conversely, once taking the initial leap of faith – that the mind of a human being can be reincarnated into the form of another creature – this tale becomes a very realistic and adult story of discovery, adventure, adversity, curiosity, and unique relationships which unfold on Nature’s terms. This perspective offered so many quirky, fun, and often exciting scenes/situations, that would never have been possible without the novelty of this foundational premise. An admittedly different, but worthwhile comparison (although a film, not a novel) would be Castaway (starring Tom Hanks), in that the main character finds himself stranded in a wilderness setting and having to rely on his ingenuity to resolve numerous completely unfamiliar challenges (some life-threatening). Similarly, our character must face these while also struggling (at times) with crushing loneliness. 2) The flashbacks to the main character’s human life occur at different, crucial moments and at various locations – not always in chronological order. Among these are France (during and immediately after the second world war, where he is stationed as an infantry soldier), New Jersey (where he grew up in Bayonne during the depression, and then at the Jersey shore, where he builds a business, raises a family, and retires in the late 20th century), as well as the deserts of New Mexico (after the war, he flees to the desert and lives as a hobo/drifter to avoid family and to deal with battle-related emotional scars. He eventually winds up near the Zuni Indian Nation, where he meets – and works for – his future wife). Offset by the wilderness chapters, these are brief episodes that incrementally give the reader insight to the life events and relationships that form and define protagonist’s character. Throughout these more familiar (to us) portions of the book, there are a variety of struggles and relationships that provide a view into the protagonist’s personality and drives the reader to empathize with his strange afterlife predicament(s). 3) The Waiting Room. Between animal reincarnations, the main character finds himself – or at least his mind – transported to what he dubs “the waiting room.” This is a space where he is alone and without physical form, but in which his senses are still receiving some manner of gentle, shifting, but generally unfamiliar (scents, tastes, etc.) feedback. It is a quiet space of comfort that he finds inspires, almost demands, reflection. His episodes in this space are not very lengthy, but are productive in his gradual comprehension of the events that take place in the other key settings. One last point regarding the settings: numbers 1 and 3 (reincarnations and waiting room) are written in present tense, while number 2 (flashbacks) are the only chapters in past tense. I wanted to add an element of having the reader share many of the experiences, discoveries, and conclusions with the main character in real time, and found this a useful vehicle to accomplish that. -
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Three Aspects of Revision: Reworking, Rewriting and Revisioning
My last post was my take on revision, but what's the difference between revising and editing, exactly? "Self-editing" is a term used to describe the process of revising. When you sit down to review your first draft, you will make a list of the things you would like to modify. This is referred to as the revision process. Editing is the process of hiring someone to provide a professional viewpoint to a piece of writing and ensure that it is clear and accessible to others. You must understand the distinction in order to know what to do and in what sequence to do it. Initially, you revise (work on it yourself until you've made it as excellent as you possibly can), and then you edit your work (bring in a professional to make it better than you can). Realizing the distinction allows you to focus your attention on the most important parts of the paper and ensure that it contains all you meant to express. In this article, Barbara Linn Probst goes into the three aspects of revision. It’s a keeper! https://algonkianconferences.com/authorconnect/index.php?/topic/20322-three-aspects-of-“revision”-reworking-refining-and-revisioning/#comment-28594 -
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You Pose a Problem: A Conversation with Sara Ahmed
Photo of Sara Ahmed by Sarah Franklin. Who hasn’t had a boss, supervisor, or mentor worthy of complaint? The first person I worked for, who was white, was in the habit of calling me “weak.” Her boss’s boss, also white, one day gave a company-wide address during which he called someone, a childhood friend, by an ugly racial epithet. When I complained about his speech, I was told there was no recourse. That’s simply how my boss’s boss’s boss was. No one felt the need to specify exactly what this meant. They just invoked some vague idiosyncrasy to explain away his bad behavior, which might otherwise be confused for something sinister—heavy and historical and violent—something that could, if it were named, prove to be a liability. I repeated my complaint twice: first at a mandatory “diversity and inclusion workshop,” during which employees were encouraged to share grievances, and then again after I had decided to quit, during my exit interview with HR. Both times, my complaint, once spoken, seemed to disappear. But complaints, according to the feminist scholar Sara Ahmed, never really go away. If you are the complainer, they tend, as she puts it in her newest book, Complaint!, to “follow you home.” Sara Ahmed was born in Britain in 1969 to a Pakistani father and an English mother. Soon after, the family moved to Australia, where Ahmed grew up before returning to the UK to complete her doctorate. She is the author of eleven works of nonfiction, the earliest of which are totems of feminist postmodernism, affect theory, and queer phenomenology. Her most celebrated contribution has been the figure of the Feminist Killjoy, who shares a name with Ahmed’s popular blog, which she began writing alongside her 2017 work, Living a Feminist Life. “When you expose a problem,” she writes in that book, “you pose a problem.” Being a Feminist Killjoy is a matter of identification; it is also, as Ahmed describes on the blog, what she does and how she thinks, “my philosophy and my politics.” In Complaint!, Ahmed collects oral and written testimony from dozens of people who have experienced sexual abuse, racist harassment, or bullying within universities, and have chosen either to go through the institutions’ formal grievance procedures or to challenge those procedures altogether. Though all her interlocutors work in academia, I felt throughout that I could be reading about any other scene from institutional life. The stories Ahmed tells will be familiar to anyone who has attempted to seek redress (or merely recognition) from an institution trained against them. Over and over, complaints are either discouraged before they’re made, or welcomed in the abstract but deemed not credible in practice. Meanwhile, the ugly qualities of the incidents complained about often attach themselves to those complaining. They are both diminished and demonized. On the one hand, their concerns are deemed inconsequential—they’re trying to make something out of nothing—and on the other, they’re presented as malicious and threatening, as if they have the power to singlehandedly take the whole institution down. Complaint! is among Ahmed’s most personal works. In tandem with On Being Included, her 2012 study of diversity initiatives, it mounts a compelling case against the long-term viability of institutional life as it’s currently configured. For over twenty years, Ahmed was employed as an academic, first as professor of women’s studies at Lancaster University and then as professor of race and cultural studies and director of the Center for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths, from which she resigned at the end of 2016. Her resignation was an act of protest against the institution’s culture of sexual harassment and thus, as Ahmed wrote on her blog, a “feminist issue.” She had begun the research that comprises Complaint! before resigning, but doing so allowed the work to find new life, traveling beyond the closed doors and brick walls of the university, into the wide-open field of public discourse. INTERVIEWER There was a lot of media coverage of your departure from academia, but I’m curious to know more about your early relationship to it. What promise did the university hold for you as a young person? AHMED Being brought up in a middle-class environment, I was always told the university was where I would go. I was, originally, very interested in fine arts. I painted a lot of macabre, expressionist paintings, and I got into art school, but my father said it wouldn’t lead to a proper career, so I wasn’t allowed to go. I was also a philosophical child, so it then seemed obvious to choose the humanities. I came to academia with a lot of hope, interest, and enjoyment. I still remember the sense of wonder—that it was possible to stay a student, to stay in a place of learning, to be surrounded by learning. I didn’t really know what an academic job was, but I loved writing essays, doing research, and going to the library. While I was doing my Ph.D., I realized that being a lecturer was something that was possible for me. It just so happened that there was a job opening in women’s studies at Lancaster. I didn’t have any publications, but they interviewed me, and they hired me, partly, I think, because I was so enthusiastic. I was very lucky. It was a permanent job in one of the largest women’s studies programs in Europe, and I was in an incredibly supportive feminist environment. I was so moved to be part of that. It wasn’t that I didn’t experience the other side of academia—the narrowing of what counts as knowledge, the ways in which what appears to be an open and inclusive environment can actually be a hostile and difficult one for people who don’t fit. I became aware really early on of the gap between what appears to be the case and what is the case. But it was still the promise and interest in learning that took me there, and that stayed with me. It was a lot to give up, when I did resign. INTERVIEWER So many people seem to go into academia with the idea that it will be a kind of refuge for their wonder. I’m curious how hopeful you feel that scholars can continue to find intellectual nourishment there. AHMED I don’t really use the language of refuge. I don’t know that universities can be places where you can go to have breathing space, given the kinds of pressures academics are under, and given the extent to which these institutions rely on precarious staff. All that makes it much, much harder to fight for alternatives. At the same time, the most inventive academic work comes from those who occupy precarious positions. A lot of the really important work—in Black studies, in gender studies, in women’s studies—comes out of a battle with institutions for something. When people become more secure and better resourced institutionally, they also tend to become more conservative and more willing to do, as I call it, the work of institutional polishing—play by the rules, make the institution look good—because there are benefits attached. INTERVIEWER In the early years of your academic career—when you focused on postmodernism, postcolonialism, queer phenomenology, affect theory—you were, essentially, producing theory. But with On Being Included and Living a Feminist Life, your research and methods shifted. They began to resemble something like sociology. And those books weren’t purely descriptive or analytical—they also formed part of the real-life work you were doing to try to change the institution you inhabited. What occasioned that shift? AHMED For a while, I had been doing work on race and strangers—who gets seen as a body out of place within neighborhoods—but eventually I turned my attention to the university itself. Lancaster was an incredibly white institution, and I’d already been aware of that, obviously, as one of the very few academics of color employed there. But I began to hear the justifications of that whiteness in faculty meetings. My ears were filling with the sounds of institutional machinery. I became director of women’s studies, and we were precarious—we were fighting to keep our autonomy, and I could begin to feel the withdrawal of the institution’s support. I could tell we weren’t going to have a future. So I was getting a little desperate. By chance, a colleague in the management school, Elaine Swann, had gotten funding to do research on diversity in further education. She asked if I wanted to work on the project with her, and I said yes, primarily because it was a way of bringing money into the Institute. It was pragmatic, really, but then once I began the research, it changed everything. I ended up being involved with this group that was writing a race equality policy. Writing that policy was my first hard institutional lesson. We brought what I thought of as a critical language into it, but the university was able to use the policy—which was about articulating racism in the institution—as evidence of how good it was at race equality. What I learned from that was how easily we can end up being interpellated. It’s not only that there’s a gap between statements about inclusivity and diversity and what actually happens. It’s also that we end up working to create the appearance of what isn’t the case. INTERVIEWER I was so compelled by your point, in On Being Included, that the term diversity “can be used as a description or affirmation of anything”—that it’s often seen “as a ‘good’ word precisely because it can be used in diverse ways.” AHMED I like to call diversity practitioners institutional plumbers. You have to work out where something gets stuck, and how to get it unstuck. And in working that out, you have to become quite inventive. There’s a way in which “diversity” can be emptied of its more antagonistic content—i.e., the entire point of it—but that emptying can also be used strategically. I was very conscious of how administrators in charge of diversity initiatives would try to maximize the distance between themselves and the complainers. They were not going to be using the language of racism, those so-called negative words that are about rendering the institution accountable for reproducing violence. Sometimes people use words like “diversity”—friendlier, happier words—because they’re just trying to get things unstuck. They think that word might enable certain people to be at the table with them. When I was researching Complaint!, I became more aware of the limits of that strategy. If we have to give up so much of our language—and ourselves—to get people to the table, then it might be that the table keeps its place. A lot of people talked to me about how when they tried to make complaints, it was often the diversity agenda that would be used against them—as if they weren’t doing this the right way, as if they weren’t being appealing enough, as if by even using certain words they were trying to make life difficult for other people, including other minoritized staff. Still, it’s not always clear, in the context of people’s actual lives, how to complain effectively. It might be, for instance, that you have a complaint to make about how racism enables your white peers to get more research time. But you’re already the only person of color in the department, and so in order to give yourself any chance of getting what you need, you might try not to appear like a troublemaker. That kind of institutional passing isn’t about identifying with whiteness or with power, and it’s certainly not about using happy language in order to get somewhere. It’s just about trying to be safe. So, we can move between the registers. We can sometimes refuse to be positive because it takes too much out of us, and we can decide not to be negative, because that takes too much out of us, as well. INTERVIEWER In Complaint!, you write, using Audre Lorde’s famous phrase, that “complaints procedures could … be understood as ‘the master’s tools.’ ” At the same time, as you point out, making a formal complaint can be politicizing, since it shows the complainant how the institution systematically devalues her grievances. Do you think that trying to change things at a university by complying with the procedures they’ve laid down is always likely to be a losing game? AHMED Formal complaints can sound just like the master’s tools—bureaucratic, dry, tedious—but they’re also where you actually come to hear and learn about institutional mechanics, how institutions reproduce themselves. To use the Lordeian formulation, the effort to rebuild the master’s house so that it can accommodate those for whom it was not intended cannot be understood purely as a reformist project. It is, potentially, revolutionary. Much of the work of revolution comes from what you learn by trying to build more just worlds alongside other people. It’s the sociability of complaint that leads it in a direction similar to a protest. You find your co-complainers, the people who get it, who have been there, your comrades. Some people cannot survive these institutions. Some people do not survive them. It is a fundamentally life-affirming task to build institutions that are not dependent on the diminishment of the life-capacities of others. At my former university, a group of students put together a collective complaint, anonymously, about sexual harassment and misconduct. The fact that people need to work collectively is often a measure of what we’re up against. I could hear how these students were being talked about by others in the institution, I could hear how complainers were pathologized, accused of moaning about minor matters, and of being unwilling to let the institution recover from—that is, cover over—the problems they were trying to address. When you make a complaint about harassment that’s endemic to a university, you’re pitting yourself against people who don’t want that problem to be recognized. People are put under so much pressure to stop their complaints. They’re told it will end their careers, that it will end the careers of the people they should be in allegiance with and depend upon, that it will end everything. There’s some truth in those dire predictions. When bullying and harassment are institutionalized, it’s really hard to challenge them without challenging everything. And so, everything can begin to fall apart. Through the collective, you can assemble and laugh and eat and drink, and remind yourself that the institution isn’t everything. The collective is what enables you to keep going. I am so grateful to Leila Whitley, Tiffany Page, Alice Corble—with support from Heidi Hasbrouck, Chryssa Sdrolia, and others—for writing one of conclusions of Complaint! about the work they began when they were students. I am grateful that their collective became ours. INTERVIEWER I was so compelled by that story of the students in the anonymous collective, how once they recognized that their formal complaints against a particular professor would go unaddressed, they decided to inscribe all the library copies of his books with an acknowledgement that the author had been accused of sexual abuse. It made me wonder when complaint needs to cross over into sabotage. Is it possible to actually change an institution without stealing from it, disfiguring it, or vandalizing it? AHMED There are a few different instances of what we might call sabotage in the book, which come from people’s often quite inventive approach to getting information out. When complaints pass through a formal inquiry, the information is usually contained. Universities will use the language of confidentiality—the need to protect the identities of those who make complaints—to justify that containment, and there is some truth to that. But confidentiality is also misused. It becomes a way of keeping secrets. In my research, a lot of people talked about ending up in a file. The file is put away in a cabinet, and the cabinet is in a room, and the door to the room is locked, and that’s that. It might be that you’re at an event surrounded by peers, and maybe you signed a confidentiality agreement, or the institution that’s hosting the event is the institution in which the thing happened—there’s a restriction on what you can say about what went on. So the file isn’t just the papers locked up somewhere in the institution—the file becomes you. You have to keep it closed. And that weighs you down, it holds you back. It can be incredibly painful to know what happened, to know what you went through, but still you can’t say it, you can’t get it out. And so, a lot of the instances of vandalism and sabotage are about what you have to do to get the story out. The institution has ways of handling these histories of violence to make them disappear, just like the family can contain the violence that’s happened inside it as a skeleton in the closet. A lot of the work of complaint is releasing the story of that violence into a wider world and seeing what happens to it. INTERVIEWER There’s often a kind of onomatopoeia at work in the language you use to describe the circuitous processes people have to go through to complain. In both Complaint! and On Being Included, you sometimes seem to mimic, stylistically, that sense of claustrophobia. Your sentences can feel like a closed loop, in which the same phrases keep iterating—but then they shift such that a new possibility is illuminated. In other words, they model a way out. I wonder if your prose style has shifted as your ideas have been taken up—through Feminist Killjoys and your recent books—by readers outside academia? AHMED I think my writing began to change before that. It kind of changed when I wrote Queer Phenomenology, which in a way is, of all my works, the most located in a philosophical tradition. I became interested in “the table” in Husserl’s philosophy, which was only a passing reference for him. I was supposed to pass over it, because the point of the table was to point elsewhere. But I became totally fascinated by it. I got a tape recorder, and I started reading out what I was thinking about the table. I picked up the table, I felt the table, and my thoughts weren’t words so much as sounds. My writing became more and more about sound, and then, as I was writing the blog and Living a Feminist Life, it just got looser. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but once it happened, I became more interested in writing itself and in what I was doing with it. With the blog, you’re reaching people in a different way. You’re not dependent on the infrastructure of the university—the classroom or the seminar. We’re so used to it now, but back then it was still relatively new to me, the idea that I could write something and it would be out there, and I could get a response from someone straight away. There was some connection between the loosening of my writing style—trying to get at the affect and the sound of the thing I was describing—and feeling more directly connected to readers. INTERVIEWER Are there other people who have influenced you as you made that transition, loosening your attachment to the genre of academic writing? AHMED I’m working on The Feminist Killjoy Handbook right now, in which I have a chapter about the feminist killjoy as a poet. I use a very simple expression, “to let loose.” To let loose is to express yourself. It can even be about losing your temper. But it can also just mean to loosen one’s hold. Lauren Berlant taught me a lot about loosening a hold on things. They had an incredible way of creating room in the description of an attachment to something, which I think is really hard to do. And my aunt, Gulzar Bano, who is a feminist poet, taught me something, too. She wrote poems that were angry, on one level, but also very, very loving. When I think about both Gulzar and Lauren, I think about how the tightness or narrowness of words—of pronouns, say—can be experienced as giving you no room. You have to experiment with combination. There’s a connection between moving words around and opening lives up. There’s one line in Audre Lorde’s “Power,” a very difficult and painful poem, about power lying loose and limp as an unconnected wire. I’m interested in the idea of language as a connected wire. You keep it going so that something can pass through. It could be electricity. When I think of electricity, I think of snap, snap, snap, sizzle. You have to let the violence in to get it out, to express it. In an interview with Adrienne Rich, Lorde talked about writing that poem after stopping the car because she heard about the acquittal of a white police officer for the murder of a Black child. She had to stop the car, she said, otherwise she was going to have an accident. She had to stop the car, and a poem came out. She had to stop the car to get the poem out. That’s the connection, I think, between my auntie, and Lauren, and Audre—the absolute willingness to register the impact of violence, so that that registering is also the creation of a possibility for being otherwise. INTERVIEWER Practically everyone I know who earns their living within an institutional setting has considered leaving it. Most don’t. The idea of escape becomes difficult to separate from the hardships it might bring—reduced access to funds, community, and so on. But it seems as though your resignation acted as one of those possibilities for being otherwise. You’ve written that it enabled you to find a role that institutional life had inhibited, to act for others as a “feminist ear.” Could say more about that, the communities or modes of communicating that opened themselves up to you once you made your exit? AHMED [Laughs] INTERVIEWER Or maybe they haven’t! AHMED Maybe they haven’t. It’s a good question! I wouldn’t ever want to under-describe how difficult it is to leave. But for me, it didn’t feel like a decision. It was something I had to do. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I had this idea that I could become a writer and work independently. It would be very difficult for me, now, to get a job in the UK. I don’t think I quite understood that when I left. But resigning changed how I could do the work. I didn’t realize at first how much it really mattered to people that I had resigned. It led people to me, and it led them to feel that speaking to me wasn’t speaking to the institution. I was somewhere else, in my little cottage in the middle of Cambridgeshire, and being out meant all the stories could come out with me. I don’t think I could have written Complaint! if I’d stayed in the institution. There’s a lot I miss about being part of the university. We created solidarity in the Center for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths, and I really miss that. That space had a sense of urgency. We weren’t sitting around talking about, I don’t know, affect theory—which is not to say it’s not interesting to sit around and talk about affect theory! But it was a different set of conversations that together felt like an emergency. We were trying to change the conditions of our own material possibilities. I miss my course on race, which I’d taught every year since I became an academic in 1994. I miss the students. But wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you’re missing something. You just have to decide what you’re willing to miss. And missing all that has given me so many other opportunities to share, to communicate, and to think with people outside of those institutional spaces. So I’m willing to miss it. Maya Binyam is a contributing editor at The Paris Review. View the full article -
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One Step Too Far
The three men came stumbling into town shortly after ten a.m., babbling of dark shapes and eerie screams and their missing buddy Scott and other missing buddy Tim. Yesterday, the five of them had headed into the woods for a bachelor party weekend. All friends since college, four of them wouldn’t have minded a golf weekend or quality time at a casino/resort. But for future groom Tim, the woods were his happy place, so into the mountains they’d gone. Fully equipped, packs, tents, sleeping bags, , cans of beans and franks, and yeah, as much beer and Maker’s Mark as five fit young men could carry. Which was to say, a lot. But they weren’t total idiots. As an experienced backcountry hiker, Tim knew his shit and oversaw their packing himself. Until the middle of the night. Noises. Screams. A disturbance. Realizing Scott was no longer in his tent. Tim setting off to get help. Except now he was gone, too. “Bear, bear, bear,” first guy moaned. “Mountain lion!” second guy insisted. Third guy vomitted. Maybe, maybe not, the locals thought. *** The first eight hours of the search turned up Scott, wandering blindly along the rocky banks of the river. Still clad in his long underwear, face covered in scratches, fingernails caked with dirt. Clearly disoriented and shell-shocked. And with no idea of what had happened to him, or his buddy Tim. Search efforts slowed, grew more methodical, no longer hoping for an easy victory, but now settling in to scour the wildnerness foot by foot, trail by trail, grid by grid. Choppers scanned with infrared. Air scenting dogs tracked areas of interest. Couple of psychics called in with hot tips, most involving flowing rivers or dark caves. Until twenty three long, arduous, exhausting days later, as the temperatures plummeted and snow blanketed the upper elevations… The searchers faded back to their real lives. The canine teams went home. The choppers were redirected to new missions. And only family and friends remained. Martin O’Day fought the good fight the longest. He searched for his son. Then he searched for signs of his son. And then, he searched for his son’s body. As seasons turned into years and Timothy O’Day became one more missing hiker, vanished without a trace. *** This is where I come in. My name is Frankie Elkin and finding missing people is what I do. When the police have given up, with the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking. For no money, no recognition, and most of the time, no help. Why do I what I do? If only I knew. *** The town of Ramsey, Wyoming, looks like an Old West movie set transported to the dusty foothills of very real mountains. The picturesque Main Street is lined on both sides by wooden storefronts whose jutting rooflines appear like puzzle pieces against the deep-blue sky. I spot a yellow-painted general store nestled shoulder to shoulder with a deep-green five-and-dime and a faded red saloon. Coffee shop, feed store, touristy T-shirt depot, leather goods, and of course a storefront advertising all things cowboy. On a bright, sunny August afternoon, the sidewalks are jammed with people. Some clearly tourists, families in shorts and flip-flops. Some probably locals, given their denim and cowboy boots. Mostly all white, many strolling hand in hand, smiling and carefree. I feel as self-conscious here as I do in a Haitian community in Boston or a predominantly Black housing project in Memphis. These people with their shiny lives and fashion-forward clothes and FOMO vacations . . . I don’t know how to identify with them. I wonder sometimes if there’s anyplace that would feel like home to me. I started out playing the outsider. Now I simply am one. I’ve reached the far edge of town, where the pretty buildings end and the more commercial structures begin. A squat budget motel. A huge outdoor gear and apparel shop. And across from the motel, a diner. The diner, I realize. Where Tim O’Day’s groomsmen arrived that first morning five years ago, babbling about bears and mountain lions and things that go bump in the night. No time for hesitating. I head through the doors. *** The diner smells of coffee, bacon grease, and grilled hamburgers. Immediately my stomach growls. I had a stale Danish for breakfast, a chocolate bar for lunch. I could use food. As well as hiking gear, a night’s lodging, and a fountain of youth. It’s nearly three p.m. now. According to the sign, that’s fifteen minutes before closing, which would explain the nearly empty interior and the lone white-aproned fry cook scraping at the griddle. At the rear of the diner, however, I spy a group of eight people sprawled across two booths, deep in conversation over an open map, with a collection of dirty lunch plates pushed to the side. Martin O’Day and his assembled search party. Has to be. They’re all outfitted in serious outdoor wear, scuffed hiking boots, cargo pants, and flannel. On first glance they look rugged, healthy, and ready to go. I glance down at my decidedly non-mountaineering ensemble of tennis shoes, faded jeans, and a threadbare T-shirt. At least I’m covered in a film of travel dust and sweat. It gives me an air of authenticity as I roll my suitcase toward the group. The man sitting in the middle is doing most of the talking. He looks to be mid-fifties, with the whip- lean build of a person always on the move. Across from him sits an older gentleman with steelgray hair and equally weathered features. A bushy-bearded redheaded male and a dark-haired female are to their left, four younger men to the right. Up close, I spy a ninth member of the party: a yellow Lab mix wearing a bright orange scarf, sprawled under the table, head on paws. The dog looks up at my approach. Thumps its tail. I have a sense of déjà vu. Three years ago, different woods: a missing six-year-old boy who’d been playing tag with his eight-year-old brother around their campsite before he disappeared. Me, tramping through those woods with fellow volunteers day after day. Still searching, weeks later, long after all hope of recovering the child alive was gone. Because having started the hunt, we couldn’t give it up. We had to seek. We had to find. A family has to know. I remember the mom’s scream when news of the discovery reached her. I remember the father, a guy in his twenties, face ashen, voice thick as he shook the hands of all the volunteers and thanked us for bringing his little boy home. As if anyone could be grateful to have their child back for a proper burial. And yet, you can be. You absolutely can be. Why do I do what I do? Searching for the missing long after hope is lost. Town to town. Heartbreak to heartbreak. For me, the question isn’t why have I dedicated my life to this. The question is why hasn’t everyone. So many of our children, who deserve to come home. Loved ones who need to know what happened to their family member. Communities forever haunted by what might have happened paired with what could’ve been. I know who I am. I know why I do what I do. It’s the rest of the world that’s confusing to me. Now I approach. The man leading the discussion finally looks up. He has hazel eyes to go with his thinning dark hair. “Martin O’Day?” I ask, plopping down on the closest counter stool. This is it. I am both excited and nervous. Determined and fearful. It’s always like this. I stick out my hand. “My name is Frankie Elkin,” I state. “I specialize in working missing persons cold cases. And I’d like to help to bring your son home.” *** No one in the group speaks right away. Martin O’Day, the clear leader, glances at my travel garb, rolly luggage. He scowls. “I’m not taking questions at this time,” he says. “I’m not a reporter.” “I’m still not taking questions.” The older man with the cap of thick silver hair has twisted around to regard me. Gotta be Nemeth, the legendary local guide. He gives me an assessing glance. “We’re good,” he says. I notice the four younger men remain disconnected from the entire exchange—present but distant. They must be the bachelor party buddies, given the palpable weight of their collective guilt. That left the dog handler and the massive, redbearded male for me to sort out. I peg Bushy Beard as the North American Sasquatch hunter, though I’m cheating a little. Add body hair, and Bushy Beard could be the Sasquatch. An interesting example of owners matching their pets. So this is the dream team. An experienced local, a grieving father, four guilt-stricken friends, a search-dog handler, and a Bigfoot hunter. Interesting combination. “I have experience in woodland searches,” I volunteer now. “No, thank you.” Martin O’Day returns his focus to the map, tapping the tabletop pointedly. Just like that, I’ve been dismissed. Not the first time. I’m an unknown variable. People don’t care for unknown variables. *** Want to know a trick for dealing with unfriendly alphas such as Martin O’Day? Don’t deal with them. Ignore them completely. Ultimate power play. “You’re from the North American Bigfoot Society,” I address Bushy Beard. “Bob,” he provides cheerfully, ignoring Martin O’Day’s warning grumble. It clicks then, what I’d been trying to remember earlier: “Your organization has the most complete picture of missing persons on national public lands,” I burst out. “You guys know more about what’s going on in the woods than even the authorities do.” I’m not making this up. If your loved one goes missing in the wilderness, the best data on potentially related cases comes from Bigfoot hunters, not the federal government. The world works in mysterious ways. Then the second piece of the puzzle falls into place. “Hang on. You’re BFBob, aren’t you? In the missing persons forums. Bigfoot Bob. You’re working on the North American Project, mapping all the disappearances in this hemisphere. So nice to meet you!” I rise to standing as Bigfoot Bob’s eyes widen in recognition. “Wait. Frankie Elkin? As in FElkinFinds?” I nod vigorously, pleased to meet a fellow amateur searcher in person. “We need to get back to work,” Martin interjects sharply. “Just a sec, Marty.” Bob turns to the team leader. “Frankie here is the real deal. We know each other from online. She doesn’t just work cold cases; she solves them. Like dozens of them.” Closer to sixteen, but who am I to argue? Martin doesn’t seem to know what to make of that statement. He has his plan, probably months in the making. Viewing it as a series of steps and logistics, versus a mission to bring home his son’s body, is how he’s getting the job done. Now here I am, messing with his tenuous hold on sanity. I understand. All of my missions start with this moment—coming out of nowhere, ripping the Band-Aid off a family’s wound and hoping it doesn’t lead to arterial spray. At the other end of the table, Tim’s college friends continue to ignore the interaction, which I find fascinating. They are a group within the group. A separate pod of agitation and grief. One of them, a pale blond, is downing copious amounts of coffee, his hand trembling so hard he can barely bring the mug to his mouth. The friend closest to him whispers something in the guy’s ear. “Easy, now,” would be my guess. “You have search and rescue experience?” Nemeth speaks up for the first time. His tone is doubtful as he takes in my appearance. I don’t blame him. “I’ve assisted with line searches. And I’ve worked with dog teams.” Daisy has returned to her place under the table, leaning her square head against her handler’s knees and sighing blissfully as her human scratches her neck. “Got a pack? Camping gear?” Nemeth gestures to my luggage. “This is a backcountry expedition. You need to be experienced, know what you’re doing.” “I can rent equipment.” Assuming it doesn’t cost more than a hundred and twelve bucks. “Why?” Martin this time. He sounds less belligerent, more tired. “We don’t know you. You’re clearly not prepared. We don’t have time for this. We’re headed out first thing tomorrow.” “I’m here to help,” I repeat. “I have experience. I’m good at what I do.” “She’s good at what she does,” Bob repeats. “Sorry.” Nemeth this time, clearly not convinced of my bona fides. “Gotta have permission for these kinds of expeditions, and our permit only covers eight.” “You’ll still be a party of eight,” I say. Martin looks around. “There’s eight here, which makes you number nine.” “He’s not going to make it.” I jerk my head toward the shaky blond. “Josh,” one of the bachelor buddies exclaims sharply, as Josh’s hand jerks violently and dumps coffee on the table. “Shit. Josh.” Three men, leaping up as hot brew hits their laps. “What’s wrong? Man, you’re burning up!” Josh remains sitting, staring at the spilled coffee as if he can’t get it to compute. His face is flushed, covered in sweat. His whole body is trembling. “He’s sick,” one of his friends says. “I think he has the flu.” “He doesn’t have the flu.” I don’t have to be a recovering alcoholic to recognize the DTs. Martin sighs heavily, exchanges a look with Nemeth. So they both knew about Josh’s drinking. Which he must have recently sworn off in order to assist with the final attempt to bring his friend home. Except Josh hadn’t been drinking a little heavily before this. By the looks of things, he’d been a hard-core drunk, now entering the first stage of detox. “I can help,” I repeat to Marty. “I can use Josh’s gear. I won’t slow you down. I promise.” “Shit!” Fresh exclamation as Josh now slumps to the side, then slowly slides onto the floor. Martin doesn’t say a word. Just closes his eyes. Nemeth does the honors. He turns toward me, “Guess you’re in. Goddammit.” *** From ONE STEP TOO FAR by Lisa Gardner. Copyright ©2022 by Lisa Gardner. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Dutton Books. View the full article -
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THE RUINS OF CONTRACOEUR AND OTHER PRESENCES by Joyce Carol Oates (BOOK REVIEW)
“What is interesting here, from a disinterested/objective perspective, is how the unimaginable improbable will become, within a surprisingly short period of time, the imagined probable. How the lurid-freakish becomes, within that period of time, particularly if experienced on a daily, hourly basis, in a familiar and delimited space like a family household, normal. What was accepted as the old normal is soon overcome by the new normal. Eventually then, simply the normal. For all things shift, as if tugged by gravity, to the normal.” Those who are familiar with the work of Joyce Carol Oates will know that she is as much a master of the Weird fiction short story as she is a multi-award-winning literary icon. The Ruins of Contracoeur (2021), her latest collection of short fiction, features longish short stories published between 1999 and 2020 in venues as diverse as Playboy and Red Shift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction (2001). It confirms her as a writer whose engagement with the Weird only grows stronger each year. The six stories in the collection show Oates’ mastery of the form, across grisly body horror, experimental reflection, deep character study and sharp revenge fantasy. Across widely varying tone, from black comedy to utterly chilling, Oates is a writer utterly in command of her voice. Published by the Swan River Press with lush cover art by Meggan Kehrli and a thoughtful and incisive introduction by fellow master of the Weird short story Lisa Tuttle, The Ruins of Contracoeur is essential reading for fans of Oates’ work and a great introduction for the curious. Collection opener ‘Mr. Stickum’ sets the dark and disturbing tone perfectly. The story is told from the point of view of a gang of schoolgirls who discover a child sex trafficking ring operating in their area, and decide to get revenge for all the exploited children by building a trap, the heart of which is the eponymous Mr. Stickum. The story immediately establishes Oates’ incredible command of voice, her ability to place the reader inside her characters’ perspectives. She captures the thrill of these intelligent young woman who, upon learning of the unpleasant reality, work together to solve their problem, a visceral response to the loss of innocence. The story unflinchingly explores the dark secrets hidden away by families and communities, as the girls recognise many of their victims from school or their own relatives. It also displays something that will become a recurring theme throughout the collection – the strength of Oates’ approach to the Weird is the way that she acknowledges the uncanny’s relationship to the mundane. These stories are disturbing because the transgressive and the strange cause a disruption in the characters’ lives, but their lives must continue around this traumatic event, creating a new normality that is unrecognisable compared to their lives before. Oates explores the fallout from trauma in intense, close first person in ‘The Cold’, which explores a woman suffering from the aftermath of a miscarriage who is losing her grip on reality. The story is a powerful exploration of suffocating grief, brave and unflinching. Oates uses the motif of being haunted by a coldness, which echoes H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘Cool Air’ (1928), but where Lovecraft’s story is about defying death, Oates repurposes it to explore the abjection of failed pregnancy. ‘Monstersister’ is a gruesome tale of body horror, in which a girl who absorbed her twin in the womb births her through a growth on the back of her head. Again abjection looms large, with the monstrous sister being literally ejected from the older sister’s body, but then twisted family dynamics lead to the monstrous sister being welcomed into the body of the family whilst the older sister is rejected. It is a visceral and disturbing exploration of the family unit and what it means to not belong, to be cast out. ‘Commencement’ is a slice of pure dark humour in which the self-important pompous rituals of academia hide rituals of a darker, bloodier nature. Oates takes satirical aim at the petty internal politics that shape academia and its obsession with initiations and graduations. The tedium of the graduation ceremony, the self-congratulatory attitude of the honoured guests and the in-fighting amongst the faculty make the whole thing instantly recognisable, and makes the horror interrupting from this familiar setting all the more striking. ‘Redwoods’ is the collection’s most daring and experimental narrative. It tells the tale of a man who, following his death, is left navigating the various possible outcomes of a seemingly trivial encounter with strangers in the redwood forests that winds up being the central hub of his entire life. Oates expertly weaves a tale of lives not lived, regrets and mistakes in an ambitious, non-linear narrative that hops across timelines and contingencies. The story demonstrates Oates’ ability to experiment with narrative form in order to provide a detailed and poignant character study. The longest story in the collection, and the oldest, ‘The Ruins of Contracoeur’ is Oates at her unparalleled best. Like the novels in her classic Gothic Quintet, the story focuses on a troubled family saga, which shades in and out of the fantastic and the horrific until classifying it becomes a futile endeavour. It is the story of a family forced to leave the city in disgrace to take up residence in the ruined country house Cross Hill. As the children slowly become aware of the historical disgrace of their ancestor who originally built the house and the truth about their father’s fall from grace, it becomes clear that Cross Hill is haunted by the family’s history and by more physical apparitions. A taught and beautifully written chronicle of the family’s collective decent into madness and worse, it’s exactly the kind of story that no one else can do as well as Oates. It is a fitting conclusion to the collection, which as a whole serves as a reminder of Oates’ talents and her key place in the worlds of literary and Weird fiction. The post THE RUINS OF CONTRACOEUR AND OTHER PRESENCES by Joyce Carol Oates (BOOK REVIEW) appeared first on The Fantasy Hive. View the full article
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