JOURNAL ENTRY #60March 1, 2010
Maureen and I spent the weekend at the Crossroads Writers’ Conference in Macon, GA, sponsored by Mercer University and Macon State College. The lesson that inevitably comes out of events like this seems to be the need for any aspiring writer to learn to trust himself. To believe in himself. Until he, or she, can do that, success is difficult to attain. And of course it’s hard to create a pile of self-confidence until you get something past the editor’s desk.
One point about fiction is absolutely critical. Usually, when I ask a group at a workshop or other event what a writer is trying to do, the answer inevitably is that he tells a story. The reality is considerably different: The writer is trying to create an experience. He wants the reader to forget that he’s sitting in a chair with a book in his hand. Rather we want the reader to be transferred to that rocky shore where the tide’s coming in and the young woman we (the viewpoint character and the reader) both love, is walking out. And anything we do to remind him that he’s safely at home in that chair damages the effort. Or destroys it altogether.
How do we do that? Use wooden language. Use words that the reader has to look up in the dictionary. Get the research wrong. There are a thousand ways. One of the more common is breaking in to explain things to the reader. Tell him, for example, that the protagonist’s heart is broken. Or that he’s reluctant to act because he’s afraid he’ll fail. Or that he’s afraid of heights.
Imagine going to a theater to watch, say, The Green Pastures. God is on the bridge of the ark and Gabriel has just arrived. Abruptly the action stops, everyone frozen in place, and the director comes out and begins explaining to the audience that God is having second thoughts. That He wonders whether He might have acted hastily. That’s what a writer does when he breaks into the narrative to describe someone’s mood, or to tell us about the family problems that led up to the current confrontation. Or whatever. The tactic for the writer is to think in theatrical terms. Put the action on stage and stay out of the way. If we do our job properly, the reader will be able to figure out for himself what’s going on.
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Last week we went to see Chicago City Limits perform Wikiphobia. It was improv, and I’ll confess I’d always thought improv was a routine managed by one or two standup comedians. This was handled by a group of four actors, who, prompted by the audience, seemed able to make up routines and songs on the run. At the end of the performance, I felt much the same way I had when, as a seven-year-old, my father took me to see Blackstone the Magician, and I came out of the theater convinced that magic actually happened.
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Stephen Antczak is preparing a volume of essays on 20th century SF. Working title: Heart and Soul of Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century. I’ve agreed to do comments on three books: The Best of Damon Knight, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol I, and The Martian Chronicles. I’ve started rereading The Hall of Fame, which is edited by Robert Silverberg, and of course I’m having a good time. So far I’ve read the first four stories, “A Martian Odyssey,” “Twilight,” “Helen O’Loy,” and “The Roads Must Roll.” It reminds me why I fell in love with this stuff in the first place, and never escaped.
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Speaking of good stuff, I recently finished a collection by Sheila Finch, The Guild of Xenolinguists, which details the problems we might have communicating if we actually do run into aliens one day. If you haven’t picked up on Sheila’s work, you might try it. I don’t think you can go wrong.
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Off to Tuscaloosa this weekend for A Space Oddity at the University of Alabama. If you’re in the area, come by and say hello.