Writing Violence

Exercise Your InkTank
Extreme Violence

The conversation about violence in storytelling is often one about the writer’s intent. If the writer’s intent is to shock the audience with extreme violence for the purpose of mere entertainment, we tend to categorize the violence differently than we might other kinds of violence in writing—we call it gratuitous. But violence that is sneakily used for the purpose of teaching readers a lesson might also be accurately called gratuitous. In both cases, readers have cause to resist and cause to dismiss; in both cases the reader’s sensitivity to violence is subject to the writer’s designs.

That said, I do think there is a place in literature for crazy gonzo blood splat gratuitous violence, as well as preachy politico tearjerk baby bye-bye violence. But what I’m more interested in talking about tonight is storytelling. The fact is that violence happens in the world. And the fact that it isn’t pretty or pleasant shouldn’t keep us from writing about it, though it may make the task more challenging.

If you slow down the pacing of the story around the violence, embellishing it with lots of details, the word gratuitous may stick to you—you may even be accused of glorifying violence. But if you speed it up and race right past it, you may be justly deemed a scardey cat. If the violence in your stories always happens off screen, it may be that you are mistaking your own fear, for the desires and needs of the story.

Here’s some advice from Chris Offutt, a writer who knows a good deal about it. I’ve summarized things he has said on the subject in workshop and out: write violence if you must, because you must, but write about it with the same care you’d take with anything. Your prose should be energized, not hyper. If you decide to take a clinical distance, don’t make it so cold you disappear. Be there.

A writer who does this well, I think, is Denis Johnson. This is an excerpt from “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” from the short story collection Jesus’s Son:
And later, as I’ve said, I slept in the back seat while the Oldsmobile—the family from Marshalltown—splashed along through the rain. And yet I dreamt that I was looking right through my eyelids, and my pulse marked off the seconds of time. The Interstate through western Missouri was, in that era, nothing more than a two-way road, most of it. When a semi truck came toward us and passed going the other way, we were lost in a blinding spray and a warfare of noises such as you get being towed through an automatic car wash. The wipers stood up and lay down across the windshield without much effect. I was exhausted, and after an hour I slept more deeply. I’d known all along exactly what was going to happen. But the man and his wife woke me up later, denying it viciously.
“Oh-no!”
“NO!” In a minute the driver, who’d been slumped over the wheel, sat up and peered at us. His face was smashed and dark with blood. It made my teeth hurt to look at him—but when he spoke, it didn’t sound as if any of his teeth were broken.
“What happened?”
“We had a wreck,” he said.

A literary writer who is known for his extreme violence is Cormac McCarthy. No conversation about violence in the literary world would be complete without him. Here’s an excerpt from the novel Blood Meridian:
And now the horses of the dead came pounding out of the smoke and the killing ground and clattered from sight again. Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair below their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodslaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming.

And now a little challenge:

In order that there be some correspondences between our work tonight, I’ll ask that we all write about the same scenario and that’s the scenario presented in the excerpt from “Car Crash.” In other words, let’s write about a car crash. Why didn’t I just say that? Write against the impulse to glorify violence and against the impulse to hide from it.

Salon Writers Write

The following submissions are the happy results of our various craftshop exercises. We thank our Salon members for sharing their work with us and welcome others to do the same. Submit work for publication on the Salon blog by sending it violettuce@juno.com or via the Salon's yahoo group.

VIOLENCE, WORKSHOP
By Sujata Naik

There she was. weaving, for the past twenty minutes, ahead of me. Then gone. Tumbling down the left curb. I found myself speeding up to the spot. Then scrambling down. Where the steering wheel had met the driver, blood and some innards splattered man and machine. His neck seemed to have cracked. The head lay limp, hanging lose to one side. A toy. No groans, no moans. No moans, no groans. Looking back, it makes me sick. Then, then I only took what was given.
My thought was more to immediate myself than the driver. It could have been me. Thank God he's dead, I don't have to make the effort to extricate the mess. I remember being angry with the dead man. Angry that he had been weaving. Angry, like some religious fanatic, that he had been drinking. No, I had no time to feel sick. Or grieve for the stupid. Then, only then, did I call 911


THE CITY
by Sujata Naik

The city
is alive and kicking well , thank you.
Just discharged,
minor stitches.
Thankful that
its innards are not derelict,
desolate
crime-sneaking
(unlike Buffalo).
Here, it's
the very propah
who sneak in,
on the Washingtonparkers.
A glass of beer
camouflaged in a
coffee mug.
Everything
has a chamillion quality.
Even corruption.
Not cops shaking
you down for a fiver
But schools and providers
Kids is education
Kids is big bucks
Tomorrow sneaks in on the city
Tomorrow, robbed
even of its shadow.


FOUND POEM
by Sujata Naik

This world...

Mythical walk
down
The syntax street.
This world,
an instruction
in
my own devices.
Fractured, found
fractured.

(suddenly industrious Sujata
Suddenly
industrious
I)


HELL ON I-71
by Kalman Kivkovich

"Papa," I said, "I'll miss you." My throat was burning. Will I see you again? I thought. This thought had hit me many times lately. He was not doing so well since mother's departure---something to do with his heart.
"You'll see me again," he said with a soft smile, as if he read my mind. "Israel is just a flight away . . ."
"Sure," I said. I kissed his cheek just before he boarded the plane to New York. Would it be for the last time? The thought kept gnawing my mind as I was driving back to Cincinnati.
It was early afternoon, a pleasant spring day. I was sad to see Dad leave, but I was happy that at least he managed to visit me in Cincinnati. My parents always had promised to do that. At least he did.
My eyes darted from the road ahead to the empty seat beside me. He was just there . . .

I-71. North bound. Traffic is light. I am trailing on the slow lane. I guess thinking has something to do with my pressing on the gas peddle. The seat beside me is still empty.

BOOOM*** I was startled to my core. "What the . . ." BOOOM*** The explosive sounds came from my left side. A FORTY-FIVE footer obstructed my view. My hands were on the steering wheel, but my Monte Carlo was flying on an autopilot controlled by the fucking truck driver. My white vehicle was dancing on the highway. Don't ask me how, but after several zig zags, and I mean ZIG ZAGS, I found my car positioned perpendicular to the freeway. My hands at that point were off the steering wheel. I was helpless and hopeless for the ride. The front passenger seat was still empty, except all the glittering glass fragments that littered the maroon velvet upholstery. There was no window left intact. The GIANT was still obstructing my left view. This time it was the front of the MONSTER. I could have reached and grabbed the grill. The fucker-trucker was pressing on, pushing me forward . . . I grabbed the shiny chrome grill . . . "STOP!!!!"
For a freaking short second it seemed as if my adversary driver or God had listened to my plea. Somehow a gap of a few feet opened between us. I am still alive . . . maybe---
BOOOM*** The gap was gone. He was coming for the kill. I closed my eyes . . . I must have been praying. I could hear the screeching of the tires below; they were turning fast but taking me nowhere. Burned-rubber smell seared my nostrils. Is it over? Is it Heaven . . . it feels more like Hell . . .
BOOOM*** No, it wasn't over. My deformed car and I were airborne. My eyes were still closed, but I could feel the flight. It must be my last---
TAHHH*** It was a short ride that ended with a thunderous blast of metal-concrete collision. We hit the median. One tire exploded. We bounced off back to the center lane.
SILENCE. Am I alive? I got out of the wreckage. It wasn't a car. I don't remember opening any door or climbing though a window opening. All I remember was staggering away from a smoking thing and dropping to the asphalt.
"Are you okay? The ambulance is on its way. I'm a nurse . . ."
"What?"
"Don't move . . . you'll be fine," she said, gently wiping the blood off my face. "What's your name?"
"What?"
"Your name?"
"Papa . . . Papa, are you okay? Papa . . ."
"You were alone in your car," she said. "Your Papa must be okay. Relax. Oh, I can here the sirens."
"What happened?" I asked, trying to focus on her face.
"You were hit by a semi. You were so lucky."
"Where is he?"
"There," she said, pointing. The Devil was parking about one hundred yards ahead.
Traffic was lined up for who knows how far. The paramedics had arrived, trailed by the police and fire trucks.
I was on my way to Bethesda North. They wanted to clean me up and make sure that there was no trace of concussion. By that time I felt more alive, far more than I had felt a little while ago. I quivered at the thought that my father could have been sitting in that seat beside me. Oh God, thank you . . .

"I'm sorry, but I have to write you a ticket," the officer said, standing by my hospital bed.
"What?"
"There were witnesses."
"What witnesses? He just hit me . . ."
"I'm sorry," he said, handing me the orange paper. "You can fight it in court if you wish. Sign here please."
"Okay . . ."
"By the way, were you wearing a seatbelt?"
"I . . ."
"Never mind . . . you must have been."

"I-71 has reopened after Thursday afternoon crashes near Hyde Park.
A police dispatcher with the Ohio State Highway Patrol told 9News that two separate collisions involving semi-trailers occurred almost simultaneously on both North and South bound. Emergency crews took two people to the hospital. No names or conditions have been released. 9News, Hagit Limor reporting."
"More news after this . . ."


VIOLENCE
by Dick Mashburn

Basic facts: Loaded cement truck approaching intersection at bottom of steep hill. The traffic light for traffic coming down the hill is red. The truck driver apparently disregards the signal and crashes into the mid-section of the auto, killing driver and passenger in the car.

Our job is to figure out why truck ran red light.

The accident investigator later said that the truck could have stopped. Testing showed that the brakes were fully functional. That left intent as the only plausible reason for the wreck, but there was no motive, unless the truck driver had a reason or no reason at all, if worthiness of motive counts, for running the red light and vaporizing the sedan that was filled with a young man and young woman just a moment ago and is now filled with bloody body parts.

Wasn't the truck driver Rodney Smerling?, thought Officer Albertson

Didn't he graduate from high school in the same class as Bart and Molly, who only seconds ago were probably on their way to a class picnic? If I weren't working, I'd be on the way myself.

But I have no clue as to any motive involving the three of them.

Rodney and Bart and I played on the same high school football team, did't we? wondered Officer Albertson. Was there ever tension between him and me?

And what about Molly? Could Bart have intended to put her in the path of the truck? What if she was pregnant? What if she was carrying Rodney's child?

At Long Last

Electric Queen City Boogalou
an InkTank Collaboration

Sitting in the Westin on the corner of Fifth and Vine, I am thinking about the old Sheraton Gibson that used to be in the same area. The Tyler Davidson Fountain, our famous piece of public art from the 1880s, has just returned from its brief trip to the Art Museum. While sitting here I realize all the things we only know about because we’re from Cincinnati. First off don’t tell a guest to go to Jack Ruby’s when they want to go to The Maisonette. Jeff not Jack, you’re acting like a tourist. All this talk of restaurants is making me hungry; my recommendations to a P&G exec would be Tucker’s anyway. Take them to Over-the-Rhine, show them how we survive, when most Cincinnatians are living meal to meal in the nation’s eighth poorest city. Then take them to an empty Great American Ball Park (GABP) and see how fair weather the suburban fans of the world’s oldest professional baseball team can be. So they haven’t won a championship since 1990; Wrigley packs them in with a team that hasn’t won since 1908. How about some flying pigs? What, you say pigs don’t fly? You have a better chance of seeing an avian heifer then a Democrat being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from around here. But then, it isn’t that people don’t try. They do. And it isn’t that people don’t care. They do. But when the Fountain returns to a square and there isn’t a damn thing different than the location, you have to wonder who picked her up and moved her. Was it us? Was it you? Is it that we don’t try? Is it that we don’t care? They’re putting an ice skating rink in soon, filling it with young professionals. But there is something that Cincinnati can be good for: chili, ribs, ice cream, unbelievable views of hills, hills and more hills. Come with me my honored guest and we’ll pass the Embassy, lavish in exterior and cold as a January Cincinnati midnight, bright day though it is. So much life on these city streets, electric energy aplenty to light this square and more like it. Because we are more than a square or a fountain we are every Margaret Garner, Pete Rose, Jerry Springer, Charles Mason, Carson Palmer and Andy Traves. We are the good and the bad of America. We are, have been, and still will be THE QUEEN CITY!

Paula Rego

These are some of the Dog Woman paintings done by artist Paula Rego. I mentioned them and mentioned I'd post them. Learn about Rego here:

Paula's Playground

Against Reportage

Exercise Your InkTank
Politic Politics Political Poetry

We’re living in a city that is (reportedly) one of the most violent in the country. So far this year there have (reportedly) been 68 murders; 273 rapes; 1,761 robberies; 879 aggravated assaults; 4, 475 burglaries; and 2, 248 auto thefts. We’re living in a state that is (reportedly) one of the most important in the upcoming elections. Over $170 million has (reportedly) been spent on campaign ads, the large majority of them negative. We’re a people who are (reportedly) fed up with politics. When we cast our votes, many of them will (reportedly) fail to be counted.

Reportage has its place in the world. As does political propaganda. But what place does poetry have in our politics? How do we contribute to the conversation without becoming lost in the white noise of political punditry? I asked Melissa Tuckey, a friend deeply involved in both political and writing communities in D.C., to help us to approach these kinds of questions and she very graciously agreed. Here’s what she said:

One problem with political poetry is when the writers are not open to the complexity of the problem they are writing about—or the complexity of language. It's easy with politics to reduce everything to sound bites and partisan thinking, but this is not poetry.

The poet should be open to discovering something new about whatever subject they are writing about. Sometimes it helps to come at it from a completely illogical point of view, or angle, to see something new again.

I also think its important not to fall into false dichotomies, “us versus them, self versus other” thinking. To recognize your own complicity in whatever evil you most abhor. To write from your conscience—to wrestle with it. CK Williams does this well.

Ultimately I think all poetry is political in that it causes the reader to recognize and appreciate the complexity of the world. It frees us from the world of slogans and invites us to think for ourselves. That’s political.

Many of the political poems I write end up in the trash, but it makes me feel better to write them.

I think poets should write about things that matter.

It’s helpful to look at poetry by poets who write successfully about such matters: some of my favorites are Whitman, CK Williams, Adrienne Rich.


Against Reportage:
For all that is said about us, we’re a very informed and aware people. And our knowing extends well beyond what the reports about us say. Whatever your politics, you’re a person with a voice. Like Melissa says, It's easy with politics to reduce everything to sound bites and partisan thinking, but this is not poetry. Let’s do the hard thing. Together, we’ll compile the reports about us. Individually, we’ll struggle to remain open to the complexity of the problem we are writing about—or the complexity of language. We’ll make an effort to see something new about the subject, or see it from a different angle. Even if it ends up in the trash, it might make us feel better to write it.