Pam Johnson - novelist, poet and fiction tutor on the MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths -
offers author interviews, reviews, literary news, plus images and quotes to keep the words flowing
I'm at that stage with my current
work-in-progress where I need to pull together fragments of a life into a
story, from page one to The End. I ask myself: How would you tell this story if
you were sitting in the pub, trying to entertain a friend?
Oh, too simple, another part of my
brain says, and wants to get all analytical and tricksy.
Mulling on this dilemma I decided
to clear the piles stacked on my desk. I was pleased to come across an
article that I'd cut from The Guardian in January - Rachel Cusk on the teaching
of creative writing.
My eye fell on a paragraph I’d
marked:
“The natural grasp of form,
structure, style and dialogue can be witnessed everywhere … The smallest child
can tell the story of what he did that day, can work out how to make
people laugh or how to make them anxious: by repeating his tale he can start to
refine it based on the reactions he gets, learn to emphasise some parts and
leave out others. The rules of writing are
mostly indistinguishable from the rules of living, but this tends to be
the last place people look …”
It was like finding a message in a bottle. Anyone free for a drink?
Show don’t tell. How many times is that command repeated in writing
workshops? It’s not without its truth, but I’m wondering if it’s become an
easily repeated shorthand for something that needs to be teased out.
Show don’t tell suggests that all telling equals bad writing and all
showing equals good. Tell that to Paul Auster, master storyteller, whose substantial body of work explores the power
of story itself.
October is turning out to be Paul
Auster month for me. I’ve seen him speak twice about his work – at the BFI
after a screening of his 1995 film Smoke,
and at The Shaw Theatre, talking about his new memoir, Winter Journal. I’ve read Winter Journal and re-read The Red Notebook - Auster's thoughts on writing. All of
which set me thinking about that familiar workshop mantra.
Smoke
Smoke is a film that every aspiring fiction writer needs to see. It grew from Auster’s short story,
‘Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story.’ Auster wrote the screenplay and collaborated
with director, Wayne Wang on making the film.
Why is it so important that you see
it? It’s a film that shows how to tell
stories and shows why we need to tell stories. It’s a masterpiece. If I had my way, it would be on the
syllabus of every fiction-writing course.
Smoke is a story about stories; how they intersect and
overlap; how chance encounter and co-incidence precipitate change. At the start of the film a young man,
Rashid, intervenes in the life of Paul Benjamin [played by William Hurt – the
film is worth seeing for Hurt’s performance alone], a grieving writer unable to
finish his novel. From then on their two lives become entwined in unexpected
ways. A web of connections begins to spin, circling around the hub of a
corner-store smoke shop, The Brooklyn Cigar Company, manned by Auggie [played
by Harvey Keitel, another amazing performance].
This video clip, from the
opening minutes, announces the film’s story theme with the telling of how to weigh smoke.
On stage after the screening of Smoke [BFI, 6 October], Auster explained how Wang had read
the Auggie Wren story in The New York Times and knew it would make a film. Auster gave Wang his
blessing but wasn’t at first involved in the project. Eventually he did get drawn into writing the screenplay.
Auster was generous in acknowledging the contributions made by his wife, the
writer Siri Hustvedt, who helped him brainstorm a first draft, and friend, the
director Robert Altman, who cast his eyes on the final draft. He recalled how
he’d showed Altman what he, Auster, believed to be the finished goods. Altman
suggested it needed another character which Auster duly added, though he wouldn’t
say which one. ‘I’m too embarrassed,’ he claimed but insisted Altman’s
contribution was crucial.
The debt to his collaborators
aside, what is striking about the film is how much Auster’s narrative voice and
preoccupation with storytelling have transferred from page to screen. Watching Smoke is an experience that is not unlike reading, say, Brooklyn
Follies.
The film manages to stay true to
Auster’s founding influence, as discussed in The Red Notebook, ‘… the
greatest influence on my work has been fairy tales, the oral tradition of
story-telling.’ Auster’s work
privileges the speaking teller of
the tale. Of Ghosts from The
New York Trilogy, Auster says, ‘The
storyteller is part of the story, even though he never uses the word I.’
Smoke is a love-song to oral story telling. It’s an urban folk tale, a point
emphasised in the penultimate scene when Auggie recounts a story to Paul
Benjamin. In film terms the scene is static – two men sit talking – but the
camera plays on Auggie’s face picking up the nuances of his expressions, his
pauses. As Auggie’s story reaches its conclusion the camera moves in to a
close-up of just his – telling – mouth.
We guess there’s a grain of truth
in Auggie’s story but suspect some of it is fabricated. When Auggie has
finished his tale, Paul Benjamin leans back, takes a long drag on his small
cigar, exhales, smiles and says:
‘Bullshit takes
real talent, Auggie … To make up a good story you have to know how to push all
the right buttons. I’d say you were up there with the masters.’
‘Wadd’ya mean?’
asks Auggie.
‘It’s a good story.’ Benjamin replies and the two agree life
wouldn’t be worth living if friends didn’t share stories.
So why has the show don’t tell mantra taken such a hold? I think it’s because in early drafts – the stuff of most
workshops – the weakest writing is a kind of outline telling, not fully voiced.
It’s as if at such moments the writer is still telling herself the story. I
tend to mark up these passages as notes-to-self. It’s not a matter of simply
deleting such passages but working out what it is you are trying to tell
yourself. At such moments it’s too
easy to say show don’t tell.
A more nuanced feedback might
include a few probing questions: what is it you are telling yourself? Do you
need a dramatised moment here? Do
you need to tell? If so, who is the teller? Is the teller fully part of the
story, strongly voiced, engaging? Might the teller have a miss-hit a few
buttons here?
Auster’s work is a reminder that
not all telling is bad, but that to achieve the oral-tradition- effect-on-the-page for a contemporary reader you do have to know how to push the buttons. It a matter of voice and pace that can’t afford to slip.
Auster makes telling an art. He
gets the voice – tone and pace – pitch-perfect, drawing the reader in as would a storyteller round a
campfire.
On the way home from the BFI event
I had a Paul Austerish encounter. I was sitting on the bus reading my new copy of
Winter Journal when a young woman leaned over:
‘Is
that any good? I’m taking my boyfriend to see him next Tuesday...It’s his
birthday.’
‘I’ve
only read ten pages,’ I replied but I talked eagerly about Smoke and Auster’s
insight into the making of it. She
hadn’t heard of the film – being under 25 I guess she must have been at primary
school when it was first released. She was excited to be able to get the DVD
for her boyfriend’s birthday; equally, I was delighted to discover Auster would
be talking about the writing of Winter Journal at a separate event. As soon as
I got home I booked a ticket online.
More of that book/event in another
post. It’s looking as if Winter Journal will turn out to be my Book of The
Month.
To the South Bank this evening to see Richard Ford reading
from his new novel Canada, and in Q and A with James Runcie.
Interesting to hear that this big book grew from 20 pages
Ford had written in 1989, about a boy escaping to live in Canada. When he came
across the pages again he wondered what the boy was doing in Canada, ‘Where
were his parents?’ Ah, he thought, they’d robbed a bank. Okay. And off he went.
The book opens with the
narrator declaring: ‘First, I’ll tell about the
robbery our parents committed.’ The narrator's parents, however, are not natural bank robbers, but having made that the start Ford
told himself ‘This is gonna have to work.’ And so the novel grew as he explored
‘how to make that plausible.’ What had driven these ordinary people to rob a bank?
Why Canada? Ford loves the word, the sound of it, ‘It’s a
dactyl,’ and the way it looks on the page.
Several times Ford referred to his dyslexia which means that
his process is slow, carefully considered - writing as an act of ‘super
patience.’ Once a draft is complete the editing begins with him reading the
work aloud to his wife Katrina, until it sounds right. Writing, for him, an
aural process. Hence all those rhythmic, flowing sentences.
Apparently he keeps his
work-in-progress in the freezer because once, while at lunch, a
reading lamp fell on his manuscript and set it alight. ‘I still have the burn
mark on my desk.’
He reckons that the wide
recognition that came with The Sportswriter was due to the fact that he’d
decided on a 'draconian method' of working. Why? Because he felt his earlier novels weren’t complete, he hadn’t expressed all that he had wished to.
Since The Sportswriter he has followed this method, which consists of typing up
everything from his notebook and filing it in a loose-leaf folder – character
notes, themes/ideas, places. Everything he thinks is relevant to the book must
be caught in this way until he has several hundred pages. 'I read it once
a week, until it is in me.’ Then
he can write the book. It's tough, a kind of ‘clerical hell’ but it works for him.
I'm only up to chapter 10 but it certainly seems to be working with Canada.
“At his best, he [Murakami] ... has a compulsive storyteller’s ability to hustle the reader over the threshold of assent and create a feeling of being led into a coherent inner landscape.”
He's describing the literary equivalent of ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.’ Of course we’re all far too literary and worldly to respond to the nursery question. And yet isn’t that what a global bestseller such as Murakmi is tapping into? Our instatiable desire for a story?
So, as you re-draft your first chapter, that’s what you’re aiming for - to hustle the reader over the threshold and have them believe in your fictional world. You probably have less than a page in which to achieve it.
On getting back into writing after the festive season ...
I’ve been absent from Words Unlimited these last few months for the best of reasons - I'm writing a new novel and it’s taken me over. It seems to be writing me!
A research trip in November took me away from my desk with a chance to gather information about my main character's location, and much else. Back from the trip I let it all sit in a heap on the shelf. Trawling through it, as I get back to writing this first week of the New Year, I find I’m buzzing with new scenes and ways to develop my character.
It reminds me, yet again, [why is it that so much of writing is about re-inventing the wheel?] that research always leads somewhere. If you’re wondering how to get back to a project after the holidays is it because you need to do some research?
The thing to remember is that you’re not researching as if for a PhD, you need only to find nuggets that trigger the imagination and help you to grow authentic scenes. Instead of sitting there staring at a blank screen why not visit your location – actually or virtually [Googlemaps/Earth?].
Is there one tiny detail you didn’t see before? How might your character respond to that?
On my trip, I was able to photocopy a detailed street map from the Thirties which now means I have an accurate sense of my main character's world - the streets I need for my book were demolished in the 1960s.
This old school photo was a gem of a find. It helps re-build a crucial six months in my character’s past. I couldn’t copy it but I did photograph it in sections on my mobile phone – the phone camera is fast becoming a ‘notebook’ for me. It's from 1930. Looking at it today, what interests me is the teacher, second from left, with her asymmetrical jacket and those square buttons. Also, the girl in the centre of the photo – she is the only one in about 500 girls with ringlets – I’d swear her hair is red … with just these few details I’m eager to get them into my story, to see these details through the eyes of my character.
Looks as if Ross Raisin has done it again! His second novel, Waterline, has attracted rave reviews. It's currently being serialised for Book At Bedtime - but after hearing a couple of episodes I've stopped listening and ordered the book. I want my first experience of it to be on the page. More on this in a later post. Meawhile, it's interesting to look back at the interview I did with Ross Raisin in 2009 when he was still writing Waterline.
PJ: You are in the process of finishing the second book - was that harder or easier to write?
RR: It has been harder, no doubt. Why? Hmm. I like to tell myself that it has nothing to do with the first book, and have done quite a good job of convincing myself. There are a number of reasons, I think. For one, this is a harder book, set in a place I had no previous knowledge of, in a style that is quite restrictive and hard to manage. I have a deadline now. And, whatever the external pressure that comes from being a published writer, there is also an internal pressure, partly to get it right, but also, and this is quite significant, a pressure to enjoy it. To be excited and inspired by the work that you are sitting down to each day. This is probably due to a realisation that now, however long it lasts, this is your career, this is what you do.
"When you're in the middle of writing a novel there is no greater feeling - such a sensation when it's going well - but for everyday cheeriness I'd rather write non-fiction"
Zadie Smith
This comes from this clip of a discussion between Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon on fiction v non fiction. It's sort of reassuring to hear from one of our most successful novelists! I couldn't agree more. Writing fiction is a roller coaster - the highs, the lows. The satisfaction, when things start knitting together is unique. I guess that's why we work on through the lows, the doubts etc.
A novel gets written by accumulating thousands of tiny incements to build a scene and then another scene and so on ... shaping and revising ... seeing more with each draft. Perhaps not seeing the story in any logical order intially, simply following what tugs, what seems to want to get written
The best words come when you don't so much think of the words but instead write what you see on the 'film' that runs in your mind's eye.
'Fiction involves so many thousands of subtle and delicate exchanges between reader and writer,' says Helen Dunmore in her Guardian Book Club article on the writing of The Seige.
Dunmore's piece takes you inside that process of writing the images that flicker in the mind - a fiction masterclass. Read it, here.
I'm with Paul Auster. We can't get enough stories, yes, we love film and tv but we like to make films in our heads, for that you need words on the page.
I was out of the country
when Beryl Bainbridge's death was announced, so I'm only just catching up with
the sad news that fiction has lost such a unique voice.
Around the time I was
working on the final edit of my first novel - I guess that makes it 1998 - I
recall listening to Bainbridge being interviewed on the radio.I had a month to make changes before my
manuscript went into production; I hoped some pearl of Bainbridge wisdom might
guide me.I wasn't disappointed.
She
described how she'd 'talk' her way into her characters. Drafting a scene, she
said, was as much acting as writing - she started out with a career on the
stage.
Editing and revising, she said, involved sitting up late in bed and
reading aloud until it sounded right. She summed up the whole business up by
saying:
"writing fiction amounts to talking on the page
and knowing what
to leave out."
I scribbled the words down. For the next month, as I revised
my book, it became a kind of mantra.I read every word of my manuscript out loud. It made it so much easier
to see where the cuts had to be.
Not long after my book was published I was
introduced to her at some literary party, as a first-time novelist.
'Oh,'
she said, 'welcome, there are a lot of us around.'
Always a feet-on-the-ground realist about what writing fiction entails, yet she gave us such eccentric and
surprising novels.
Recent Comments