I recently was a juror judging student submissions for the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards. To read more about that experience and how you might do the same, read my post on the Awards on Potomac Review’s Blog!
No. 1: “Mira was hiding in the ladies’ room.”
The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
The second sentence of this novel reads: “She called it that, even though someone had scratched out the word ladies in the sign on the door, and written women’s underneath.” Between the first two sentences, the novel starts us out with some suspense (why is Mira hiding? From whom is she hiding? And why in the ladies’ room?), a strong dose of character (Mira is not a feminist–or, at minimum, not the kind who would correct the labeling of bathroom doors), and a strong sense of what the novel’s theme may be. It makes one curious about Mira and wanting to know more about her predicament, whatever it may turn out to be.
No. 2: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
That a man facing a firing squad should be thinking about his father taking him to discover ice rather than his imminent death is immediately intriguing. Farther along in that first paragraph, Marquez writes: “The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.” Marquez is creating a place so isolated that they only learn of the world’s inventions through gypsies that come through once a year. Farther along in the chapter, he tells one of a villager who, based only on the items he obtains from the gypsies, takes both the scientific steps and missteps that the outside world took centuries to perform. (Eg. using a telescope to make astronomical discoveries, but also trying to turn lead into gold.)
No. 3: “I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.”
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
The conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia? The idea that a mirror and an encyclopedia together result in a discovery suggests an unusual juxtaposition of ideas and a narrator (and a writer) with an unusual way of looking at the world. And Uqbar? What is Uqbar? What was discovered?
No. 4: “I am an invisible man.”
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (prologue)
Ellison’s paragraph goes on to explain the kind of invisible he is: “…I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids–and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Before one knows anything more about the story, the idea of someone being invisible not through accident or by choice or even because people simply overlook him, but because they positively refuse to see him gives the character a sympathy, and the start of this novel an interest and a power.
No. 5: “Amoebae leave no fossils. They haven’t any bones. (No teeth, no belt buckles, no wedding rings.)”
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Okay. So I cheated with this one. Two short sentences and a parenthetical phrase. But, one has to admit, it is an intriguing, tongue-in-cheek beginning. Robbins is making a connection by contrast between amoebae and people, and one has to wonder, where is he going with this? To Wonder sufficiently to be amused and keep reading.
WHAT ALL THESE BEGINNINGS HAVE IN COMMON, perhaps the most important thing they have in common (beyond a quick and sure introduction of compelling characters and/or situations), is an intriguing idea. Something that suggests this writer’s way of looking at the world is different from what one commonly encounters, and that, if one reads on, that difference is going to make the work intellectually exciting.
According to my father, Robert Louis Stevenson taught himself to write by copying other writers. And that was how I got started. I figured that what was good enough for RLS was good enough for me. If I had stopped to think whether I could do it, I expect my courage would have failed me. But, as it happened, I dove right in, with a sense of joy and adventure, playing with styles, with words, with ideas. I wrote a story in the style of Louis Carroll, following his lead in playing with the logic of language to absurd effect. I wrote a dialogue in the style of Tom Stoppard, in which two actors argue about whether they should take bows for acting in his play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and in which I echoed Stoppard’s rhythms while discussing the philosophies expressed in his play. Borrowing a device used by Hendrik Willem van Loon in Van Loon’s Lives, I wrote a story in which Oscar Wilde’s entrance into heaven depends upon the literary assessment of his works by a jury of quarrelsome fellow writers. I have gone on, in the many years since, to play merrily with many other aspects of writing, and not as a study of anyone else’s work.
But how is this learning by studying, or “copying” other writers done? How did I do it?
Some might attempt it through a purely analytic approach, breaking down components of style, language, phraseology, subjects, plot structure, etc. But although that will teach one how someone else did it, it seems to me that a pure application of that technique alone would render a rather wooden replica.
What I tended to do was a variation of Professor Harold Hill’s “think” system. In The Music Man, the con man, Hill, pretends to teach the children of River City to play instruments by having them think the Minuet in G. Absurd. But, it works! And at the end of the film, they save him from being tarred and feathered by, lo and behold, playing the Minuet in G. So what did I do? I read the works of an author I liked until I heard his or her voice in my head, even as I went about my day, even as I talked to other people. Probably the writer’s manner of speech did not actually come out of my mouth, but I felt the flavor of it on my tongue, the rhythm. A form of osmosis. It gave me my own sense of the author’s heart, not just an intellectual understanding of his or her skill. And what I heard in my head came out on the page. It was not, of course, precisely the style of the author I emulated, but his or her style as filtered through my brain–which also permitted it to be something other than just a mere copy.
What advice would I give to writers who want to learn from other writers? First, read everything you can by an author you like. Read it for pleasure. Submerge yourself in his or her world. Absorb it. Then, perhaps, add some analysis of his or her techniques. And then, go and play. Try it out for yourselves. Apply it to your own themes. What have you got to lose?
Posted by Jessie Seigel on August 28th at 11:59 p.m.
Today, I went, with a friend, to Barbara Kruger’s exhibit at the Hirshhorn Musuem here in D.C. It is located at the bottom of the museum’s escalators and fills the entire lower lobby. The exhibit is comprised solely of words and phrases: “MONEY MAKES MONEY,” “WHOSE POWER?” “WHOSE VALUES?” “WHOSE BELIEFS?,” etc., plastered on the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and the sides and undersides of the up and down escalators. The print is very clear, but some of it is so large that you must walk along it, reading slowly, concentrating on each letter as you go, sounding out the words in order to comprehend the phrase. Much of it is clever, but even where the phrases reflect well-worn thoughts, for example, about our consumer society (eg. “you want it, you buy it, you forget it”), the manner of display forces you to take it in slowly, focus, concentrate and think about the meaning rather than quickly pass it off as slogan and move on. Some, like “BELIEF + DOUBT = SANITY,” seem particularly appropriate for this time of extreme views and little tolerance. Clearly, the exhibit is political, or at least, consisting of social commentary. But is this print a visual art? Or prose? Or both?
Whatever it is, it is impressive, and I encourage any who find themselves in my city to take a look. And if you do, let me know what you think, and why.
Posted by Jessie Seigel at 10:07 p.m.
For the adventurous writer, no subject is forbidden, no device or technique off-limits. The only constraints are those of one’s imagination and, of course, whatever devices ultimately work to tell a particular story well. There are some who will try to narrow a writer’s world to one set of subjects, one genre, one style, one story structure or form, and/or one small group of devices. But while there are standard ideas about traditional story structure that generally work, there is no recipe for the telling of a good story.
The devices and techniques that many writers call the tools with which they work, I call the toys with which we play. Admittedly, for a story to be successful, it must hang together; must keep the reader’s interest; and, ultimately, express something that satisfies the reader’s expectations. But there is no one way to do that, and the adventurous writer will play with all the toys in the toy chest with a sense of freedom and abandon, stretching their limits to see what they can do.
I propose, in this blog, to write about different ways one can play with those toys, along with bits and pieces of my own philosophy about writing, thoughts about what I happen to be reading (reading always helps to provide one with new toys), a bit about the adventure of marketing one’s work, and a bit about writer’s rights, too.
All those writers who like to play–and all those readers who have been curious about how a writer does what he or she does, the writer’s life, inner and outer–Welcome. Come on in. Let’s Play!
posted by Jessie Seigel at 8:30 p.m.