It’s slightly dated, but this New York Review of Books essay offers brief introductions to several popular books on John Smith and Jamestown. Written by Edmund S. Morgan and Marie Morgan, the title is “Our Shaky Beginnings.”
Also interesting is Jill Lepore’s “Our Town” from the April 2, 2007 New Yorker.
I want to mention two ideas about creative writing from two essays. Both can influence characters and their relationships.
The first is “Counterpointed Characterization” an essay by Charles Baxter in his book Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction.
With counterpointed characterization, certain kinds of people are pushed together, people who bring out a crucial response to each other. A latent energy rises to the surface, the desire or secret previously forced down into psychic obscurity.
Baxter downplays conflict and contests in these encounters, focusing instead on what they can reveal to readers about each character. The characters contrast sharply with each other and that leads to revelation.
He describes this revelation musically:
I keep thinking of music: character as melody and countermelody, the melody of the voices on the lawn, the sound of the frantic trumpet tangled around the slow and placid violins in Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question.
Some of his examples include Maggie, Dee and the narrating mother in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Ruth, Lucille and Sylvie from Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, A Streetcar Named Desire, King Lear, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” and especially Gabriel, Gretta, and Michael Furey in James Joyce’s “The Dead.” So, what can you show about characters through other contrasting or counterpointing characters and their interactions? How can you use contrasting characters to create scenes that engage readers, whatever else the scene might do?
The second idea comes from Susan Neville’s “Where’s Iago?” in Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life.
My first thought is to think of Iago as a catalyst character. Iago slithers through the Garden of Eden because without him it’s a dull, stagnant story; nothing would ever change. Human history in time begins with Iago. . . . the function of evil, in the best of conditions, is tension and imbalance, the eventual creation, through suffering and misfortune, of wisdom. Suffering, misfortune, and, I should add, honesty . . .
She also talks about Iago as a tool for writers, “as much a victim, often, of his own evil as anyone,” as a force or event in a story, as “not conscious of his role,” even as a milieu. So, how useful might an Iago be in what you’re working on? Can you identify an Iago specifically? What can you say about it and how will you use it?
Virginia Woolf said “The creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in the beginning . . . quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keeps one at it more than anything.”
If you’re in the situation Woolf describes, consider Write or Die. I’ve found it an incredibly effective way to get words drafted and highly recommend it.
I’m really enjoying Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson. There are endless lessons to learn as a writer from the book. Here are four:
which demonstrates the virtues of a tight focus, Cryptonomicon
explores widely and wildly. For example, I imagine a simple comparison like “The Vickers cut through the roadblock like a bandsaw cuts cheap wood” in a rough draft. Stephenson seems to have revised by expanding both the tenor and vehicle of the comparison into long detailed paragraphs. The vehicle (a bandsaw) becomes a several page flashback from the narrating character’s past and the tenor (the Vickers) becomes a several page scene in the character’s present.
(a composition textbook) suggests what it calls the “Old/New Contract.” Old information, information readers either have already been told or can reasonably be expected to know, is presented before new information. The effectiveness of this for some forms of writing is obvious. But Stephenson builds many of the sections within his chapters (and the chapters themselves) in a “New/Old/New” pattern. This pattern seems likely to increase reader engagement because it offers at least some degree of surprise consistently. For example, characters often begin sections in new, relatively unexplained situations. The next paragraphs in the section explain some backstory, explain how the character got into that situation. Then the section or chapter ends with more new information, usually shown in a scene, pushing the narrative forward. This new information creates a new hook or “cliff hanger” to varying degrees, but always propelling readers on.Next year I’m going to try to shave more often.
Also, develop ambition.
Welcome to Metaphor by Metaphor by Stephen D. Gibson.
They say it’s not the best time to start a blog (see Paul Boutin’s “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004,” for example), but I get the feeling I’m leading the English department at Utah Valley University in the number of copies made each semester. If nothing else, I’ll use this blog to post documents for students. Accessing documents here could be faster than the school’s Blackboard/UVlink system, I think.
This blog is about reading, creative writing, and teaching. And anything else that seems interesting.
Metaphor by Metaphor 