Journal Entry #55
December 16, 2009
There is no Christmas icon, save probably Bethlehem and its star, more visible than Ebenezer Scrooge. During this season, he‘s on TV in a half dozen different films. He shows up in advertising across the nation. And here in Brunswick, the local amateur theater is staging A Christmas Carol.
There’s a famous scene that depicts one of the most critical elements of good writing, one that aspiring writers often get wrong. Scrooge and the Spirit of Christmas Present are standing outside the Cratchett house, peering through the window while the family gathers around the fire place. Scrooge sees Tim hobbling around, picks up the tone of the conversation. Finally, he turns to his guide. “Spirit,” he says, “will Tiny Tim live?”
Had Dickens been less accomplished, he would have mishandled the scene. He’d have had the Spirit say nope, this time next year Tim will be dead. Sorry.
But writers know that they are doing more than telling a story. They’re creating an experience. And the way to do that is to put everything on stage, and appeal to the senses whenever possible. When the chaplain at Moonbase, facing an extinction event from an incoming asteroid, gets a ticket on the next bus headed away from the disaster, he knows everyone will not get off. He also knows that Jesus would not clear out and leave others to die in his place. So what does he really believe? It’s his obligation to call Operations and tell them to send someone else. But he’s terrified. He’s still young and he does not want to die. But how does the writer communicate this to the reader. More significantly, how does the writer frame things so that fear creeps up on the reader as well as the chaplain?
Common sense tells us that merely informing the reader that the chaplain is scared out of his wits won’t accomplish much. If we’re to have even a chance to make it happen, we have to put the reader in the chaplain’s place. How do we do that? First off, the writer becomes as invisible as possible. The reader sees through the chaplain’s eyes. Part of the method is to go back to that aold high school artifact, the symbol. We find something for our chaplain to lock into, something that will represent his state of mind, something that the reader will also pick up. It might be a photo of his father, a man of impeccable courage, who would be ashamed if he knew how frightened his son was. It might be a basketball, stashed under a desk. Symbolic of his longtime effort to keep looking good, to have a chance with a lost love (described in an earlier chapter) when he gets back home.
The most obvious device, though, is to focus on the phone. All he has to do is pick up the phone and call Ops. Get me off the flight. And he tries. He stares at the instrument, picks it up, puts it down. His heart pounds. And finally he makes his call.
When Scrooge asks whether Tim will live, Dickens himself has to get out of the way of the answer. The way to do that is to put it on stage. To give us an answer we can see and feel. The Spirit’s reply, of course, is: ’I see an empty chair by the fire, and a crutch without an owner….”
Aspiring writers should be reading Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wouk, and the other masters. And watch how they keep out of the way.