On Dialogue, On

Exercise Your InkTank
That’s What You Say

There’s a specific and ripe power in dialogue that can’t be matched by other levels of discourse in storytelling. In short, it’s sublime. Its delivery is pure and immediate, or at least it can be. When dialogue is working well, the barriers between our readers and our characters can seem to vanish. The marks on the page fall away and readers believe they’re witnessing people using their voices in the world—they hear the words spoken. It’s a powerful tool we’re dealing with here.

Readers look to dialogue to gain an unfiltered understanding of who characters are. Rather than trusting a narrator’s or another character’s estimation of a character, readers can see for themselves how that character responds in conversation. When readers sense the writer behind the dialogue, it fails. And it can fail massively. We’re going to work on ways to avoid that today.

Every direct utterance in a story is an opportunity to do at least two jobs. Dialogue should always work on the level of character development. (After all, the things people say and the way they phrase them can tell you a lot about them.) But it can also raise and lower tension, move the plot, and add significantly to the verisimilitude of the storytelling. Although dialogue can be used to reveal information successfully, informational dialogue is the kiss of death. Please oh please do not use dialogue to establish the setting or the detailed histories between characters—it’s so embarrassing. And try to get out of the way of your dialogue. Use tags that disappear, like “he said” and “she said.” Interrupt when you need to create pauses in conversation or to move someone around, but not because you want to explain how the reader should interpret something.

My sense is that dialogue should be used sparingly. It should come in when it can do more than one job and it should come in when it can do those jobs better than any other kinds of discourse in the story. Cut out words and phrases that aren’t absolutely necessary to create the tone and timbre of the exchanges you’re aiming to create. Think about the way people actually talk and then try to concentrate and streamline the speech. The first step in learning to write good dialogue is learning to listen. Remember, though, that dialogue isn’t transcribed speech; it’s storytelling that works to render the illusion of direct discourse. We’ll make this craftshop topic a two part deal. Here’s part one:

Listen to Me
Let’s partner up. I’ll give you simple directives with which to stage a conversation. This isn’t acting, exactly. (Try to restrain your inner hams.) It’s an experiment in real speech. After you have your conversation, write it down to the best of your memory. From there, try to create dialogue.

The Deal with POV

Exercise Your InkTank

Perspective is an issue we’ve returned to fairly often in this group. And I think one of the reasons it keeps coming up, is because we’re so tempted by the siren song of the mobile third-person perspective. How nice, it seems, to be able to shift in and out of character’s minds and stories. And what’s stopping us from doing that if that’s what we want to do? Here’s where the conversation went the last time it was raised:

1. RULES: There is no rule against the use of an omniscient narrator—of course there isn’t—but it is true today that many stories written in the third-person perspective, are written in the third-person limited perspective. This means that the story resides near one character, though it may shift to another between chapters or sections or even paragraphs. You’ll find that stories that are written from an omniscient perspective generally have something in common: a very strong narrative voice that is the controlling force of the story. Think of One Hundred Years of Solitude. We follow that story from character to character because the narrator leads us there carefully. Each move that the narrator makes in that novel, is made for a reason that is clear to the reader. The voice is thick and big and easily identifiable and consistent.

2. READERS: Frequent shifts between characters in the third person that take place without an apparent system of logic irritate readers. They can become lost, they can feel violated, and worst of all, they can lose faith in the writer. Frequent shifts between characters in the third person can also prevent readers from fully entering the world of the story. Readers would rather understand the story from one character’s perspective, than know what everyone in the book is thinking about everything that happens, if it means that they can spend a little quality time getting to know that one character. In other words, rather than opening the story, frequent POV shifts often close the story to readers, restricting them to an unsatisfying surface level.

3. TRAPS: Many writers fall into the POV shift trap early on because they simply don’t know the stakes. But others fall in because (in truth) it is easier to tell readers what characters are thinking or hiding than finding ways to show it. For many readers and editors alike, shifts in the third-person are signs of laziness or sloppiness. Even if you’re making a deliberate choice, that choice may be interpreted in that way. You should know that before you decide to take the risk.

4. PREROGATIVE: It’s yours. But a little time spent deciding exactly why you’ve made the choice you’ve made in terms of perspective is a gift you should give yourself. You deserve it and so do your readers.

I wanted to revisit these ideas tonight because they bear repeating and because it’s time to move the conversation past them now. Let’s start looking at the issue of perspective in a more holistic way. Like choosing the genre in which to place your story, choosing a narrative perspective requires a bit of contemplation and meditation. While it’s true that sometimes the choice is instinctive and immediate—we know exactly how to tell the story as it comes to us—investigation can only enrich our choices. In other words, it pays to know precisely why a particular story fits a particular perspective. It’s information we can use to take the story to a new level of consistency and artistry and it’s information we can carry to the next story we write.

Different choices result in different effects, tonal and otherwise. The selection of the narrative perspective should have its roots in the needs and desires of the story itself, (which you must investigate in order to determine) and the selection should be an informed process. It helps to know the advantages and disadvantages common to each perspective first-hand, but we can summarize for you here because we’re so damn nice.

GROUP GENERATED LIST
1st person perspective:
2nd person perspective:
3rd person limited perspective:
3rd person omniscient perspective:

Let’s write a passage together, using the same story, but different perspectives and see how it all falls out.

You Are Not Me Are You

Exercise Your InkTank

The debate over whether or not we are entitled to write about experiences that are not our own is one that occurs often in workshops. It arises more often when men write from the perspective of women than it does when women write from the perspective of men. And it arises even more often when white men write from the perspective of people (men and women) of color. “What is the deal?” those of you who are white men among us might be thinking. Others of you might be thinking, “What is their deal” of the white men among us. Before we get too carried away with all of this thinking, here is the deal:

As writers (and particularly those writing from a traditionally dominant perspective) we should be aware and respectful of the history that problematizes stories that may appear to intend to voice the authentic and true experiences of a traditionally marginalized people as authentic and true. As the story. When a story tries to be about what it’s really like, for example, to be a black woman, the identity of the writer may justly come into play. If the writer is not a black woman, readers are often inclined to ask questions: What makes you think you know what it’s like? What makes you think you have the right to tell (or take ownership of) that story? These are good questions insofar as they engage us in a discussion about the politics of identity and their stakes in storytelling. But when they’re compelled first by a certain cloying tension present in the storytelling and second by the fact of the identity of the writer, they’re even better questions.

We’ve all read stories wherein we begin to feel the lining of the perspective pull from the storytelling surface and fray. The story suddenly feels less “real” because the details aren’t quite right or because the voice is off or because the storytelling is trying too hard to prove a point. We’re pulled out of the world of the story long enough to wonder about the writer behind the storytelling and sometimes that’s all it takes to devastate the experience for us or to call it into question. It isn’t wrong to write about experiences that are not your own, but it is sometimes hard. Most failures that occur in this regard occur on the level of imagination and investment. The worst of these failures occur as a result of a lack of respect or consideration for the perspective assumed and those are the stories that get everyone upset.

For those with concerns about how “real” the story can be when the gender, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, or class of the writer does not match the character’s, consider the challenges facing the fantasy writer. Can people who aren’t hobbits or dragons or aliens write from those perspectives? Of course they can. Just as you can write from any perspective you choose. But the choice should be INFORMED and CONSIDERED and the execution must be INVESTED. We can learn a good deal about others by writing from their perspectives. We learn about them just as we learn about those characters that are like us. To inhabit the world of the story wholly is our responsibility as writers, as well as our aim. If we can’t maintain that focus in our work, how can we expect our readers to do so?

The Old Switcheroo
Choose a perspective that is vastly different from your own. Imagine a character that inhabits that perspective. But instead of writing from that character’s perspective, write from the perspective of a character (very much like yourself) who is observing that (very different) character from a distance.

Salon Writers Write Conflict

Joe's Approach-Avoidance Conflict
by Roger

The smell of freshly popped popcorn drifted from the basement up to the second floor. Joe's mouth watered and his stomach cramped. His mouth watering was real – he was hungry, especially for buttered popcorn. His stomach cramp might have been real, his diveriticulitis acting up. Or it might have been his imagination, a conditioned response, his gut reminding him how it ached after he ate popcorn.

But Joe couldn't close his nose; he couldn't avoid that fresh popcorn aroma. Maybe he'd eat just a little this time. Or eat it slowly, monitor his stomach's response, stop before it cramped up on him.

He got up and tiptoed downstairs, approaching the basement like a thief – a petty thief. A petty thief wondering if he'd get away with it this time.

Conflicted

Exercise Your InkTank

All of the handbooks and guides and professors and writers will tell you that conflict is important. Without it, the story is an anecdote without a turn. It’s as flat and as compelling as a paper moon held to a cardboard sky. But the blunt instrument isn’t the only tool in our storytelling arsenal. Conflict can be rendered with surgical precision. A mere tonal shift can be as compelling as a catfight in an alley, if not more so. The problem may be that the word conflict has some dicey connotations: battle, clash, combat, fracas, struggle, war, rivalry, brawl, fight, rancor, animosity. If we’re not interested in writing about those kinds of things, we may feel like we don’t need conflict in our stories. On the other hand, we may mistakenly think that inserting a fracas or two should fulfill the conflict requirement on our storytelling checklist. In order for the occasion of the story to be apparent to our readers, though, they must be able to sense (though not necessarily pinpoint) a certain pressure in the storytelling. They have to feel that there are stakes and the stakes have to be interior to the story—they can’t feel like they’re being imposed on the story from the outside.

The reason I resist the word conflict a little is because it tends to reduce all of the many pressures and forces possible in a story to the level of plot. It isn’t enough to say that a thing did or did not happen between some people. And it isn’t enough to say that the thing was or was not important. The storytelling must be expressive, perhaps even performative. The storytelling is what makes verisimilitude a possibility, not the events of the plot. The problem editors and teachers see most frequently in manuscripts is a failure to artfully manage and synthesize the tensions and pressures that result from the events and relationships at play in the story. Here’s a list of common problems in order of their prevalence:

1. The Poorly Selected Entry Point.
The story begins either before or after the true occasion of the storytelling. We leave the story before the impact of an event is felt (leaving us feeling high and dry) or we enter the story after the event of interest has passed (leaving us feeling like we’ve missed all of the action). The view needs to shift a little.
2. The Anecdote That Passes Itself off As a Story
If I told you what happened to me at the dog park the other day, you might listen because you’re nice. The exchange between reader and writer is different. Folks often mistake the interesting anecdote for a good story and attempt to write it as they’ve told it. The problem with the interesting anecdote it isn’t a compelling story. Invest in character and voice and let the plot evolve organically from there.
3. The Case of the Missing Occasion
If the reader must ask of your story, “Why is the narrator telling this story of all the stories in all the world?” you are in for trouble. There may be more than one answer to this question available in a good story, but if a reader has to struggle (or worse, extrapolate) to find it, your storytelling has missed the mark.
4. Bring It to A Head
Tension and pressure in a story must culminate somehow. If the characters in the story don’t respond appropriately or don’t respond at all to conflict, the impact of the story won’t be heard. (I’ll concede here that a non-response can be an appropriate and natural response if done well, but I’ll also say that confrontation is always more interesting than avoidance.) On the other hand, high drama doesn’t always fly either. Try to stay away from language that forces meaning on the reader.

Cage Fight
Conflict doesn’t happen on the level of the plot alone. In fact, if the storytelling is working well, it happens everywhere, from the level of the language up. Together, we’ll generate a list of word pairs. Then we’ll write a passage that stages one word in the pair against the other. The goal is to create an effective sense of pressure and tension without relying upon an event to direct the storytelling. Put these two words in the ring and let them duke it out.

Three Things Above All

Exercise Your InkTank
Storytelling Structure

We all know a good story when we hear one. We’ve been hearing them all our lives, which makes us experts. When a storyteller takes a false step, we sense it immediately, instinctually, deeply. Writer Italo Calvino draws a comparison between storytelling and telling jokes—when the teller’s timing is off, the joke fails. Jokes have to be exact and precise to succeed and so do stories. Calvino says that, to his mind, exactitude means three things above all: “(1) a well-defined and well-calculated plan for the work in question; (2) an evocation of clear, incisive, memorable images; (3) a language as precise as possible both in choice of words and in expression of the subtleties of thought and imagination.” Our topic of interest for this evening is the plan, but the plan can’t stand alone, as we will soon discover.

Some writers allow the story to evolve organically as they work. That means that they follow the words themselves, rather than a map they’ve conceived beforehand. But even those stories must follow a system of logic if they’re to be successful. The writer is always revising, pulling things into line. It doesn’t matter when the plan is formed, but how well-defined and well-calculated it is. It’s important to acknowledge here that the plan is ultimately for the reader—not the writer. Like you, your readers are expert listeners. If they sense you’ve made a false step, they won’t give you the laugh when you most want it.

What is a well-defined and well-calculated plan? This is the question that causes all (or most) of the drama. The idea that there is a sure-fire plan that fits any storytelling model is attractive because it’s easy. It turns a delicate art into a clunky equation: see graph on handout. You’ve probably seen this thing or things like it in the past. Many stories fit this model: they have discernable beginnings, middles, and ends; they have rising tension and conflicts; and they take place over a discrete unit of time. Not all successful stories fit this model, though, and having all the parts that make the whole does not ensure success. A lot of people find this out the hard way—after they’ve invested in novel writing software, for instance, or a course on manuscript marketing. A well-defined and well-calculated plan is one that guides the reader through the storytelling, using the structural patterns and storytelling conventions with which we’re all familiar. The reader senses the punch-line as he or she reads, senses the parts of the joke merging together. Part of the satisfaction for the reader is in using the story to imagine the punch-line (that engagement is probably more important than the punch-line itself) and part of the satisfaction is in the storytelling itself (meaning the quality of the language and the images invoked) and part of the satisfaction is in recognizing structural patterns. Success is contingent upon these things above all. The reason the graph doesn’t work is because it doesn’t take the complexity of the art into account. It tries and fails to stand alone.

What structural patterns do readers expect? This is a question any writer can answer just by reading. Open almost any novel and you’ll notice space breaks and chapter breaks—these are signs of an operating structure or plan. There is always a system of logic behind the breaks—a pattern—and the pattern leads the reader through the story. Chapters don’t need to be a specific length in terms of the number of pages, but they do need to be a specific length in terms of the advancement that occurs within them. Breaks within chapters don’t need to occur at specific intervals, but they do need to occur at regular intervals. Readers get nervous when the structure of the novel seems to determine the shape of the content, rather than the other way around. Structure evolves, it isn’t imposed. Let’s take a look at some novels and see if we can recognize any structural patterns.

Drama
In order to accommodate those who yearn every week for a writing exercise, we’ll use the pool of novels to conduct an experiment in tone. Select a passage with an apparent context and identify the tone of the writing with an adjective or two. Re-write that same passage (in your own words) so that the tone shifts dramatically.

Grit Nature Dirt Self

Exercise Your InkTank
Nature

Writer Mary Gaitskill argues that the primary difficulty with sex in literature is our tendency to confuse and conflate reverence and politeness. It strikes me that if there is a problem with nature in literature, it’s probably similar: our tendency is to conflate respect and reverence. Nature writer David Gessner writes in “Sick of Nature,” “Too often when I flip through the pages of contemporary nature books the tone is awed, hushed, reverential. The same things that drove me away from Sunday School. And the same thing that drove me, unable to resist my own buffoonery, to fart loudly against the pews.” He reminds us that Thoreau’s book Walden has its share of bad puns and fart jokes too, including “references to Pythagrians and their love of beans.”

In attempt to convey the respect we feel is due the natural world, we’ve set it (and Thoreau as its writer-hero) above (ordinary, real, concrete) life. And by setting it above, we’ve set it beyond life in a sexless, humorless place, where (as Gessner phrases it) “nature becomes a kind of bland church.” We’ve inadvertently made it exactly what it’s not: untouchable and uninteresting. The point is, we need not treat nature with the stilted language of reverence and worship in order to demonstrate or evoke respect for it. In fact, we might better demonstrate our respect for nature by writing about its presence in and as ordinary life. Let’s write about it with the true grit and dirt of, well, true grit and dirt. Let’s bring it out of the exalted sky and back into our lives. Perhaps we can care better for it here.

Early Birds
Writers have long argued that the language we habitually use to talk about nature is problematic. Exhibit A: the word wilderness. It refers to untouched, uninhabited, uncultivated land. But the truth is that we’ve had our hands on nearly everything. Less than 5% of old growth forests remain in North America—we destroy 10,000 square km of ancient forests every year. We think of wilderness as other. We have to get away to get into it and once we’re there, we’re supposed to re-connect with it. But why can’t it be with us all of the time? Why can’t we stay connected? If we change the way we talk about nature, perhaps we can change the way we conceive of it and if we change the way we conceive of it, perhaps we can change its value and meaning on a larger cultural scale. In a very real way, many writers now see themselves as the most powerful (and necessary) tool in the environmental movement’s current arsenal. But whether or not you view your work as an instrument of change, you’re a person living in this world. We all have a history with nature. Think about your earliest experiences with it. I’m not necessarily talking about the first time you went camping. I’m asking you to look inside your everyday life. Write about it as you would any early experience, using the language of the personal narrative. Keep the inflated and elevated language of reverence out and aim for the true dirt and grit of ordinary life. Do your small part to change the lexicon.

Some compelling nature writers to investigate, should you feel compelled to do so: Joy Williams, Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, Gary Snyder, Rachel Carson, William Cronon, Rick Bass.

Finding the Turn

Exercise Your InkTank
What A Character

The language we use to talk about character often has to do with movement and shape. We like characters to be dynamic rather than static and round instead of flat. We also talk about development, complexity, and psychological believability, but those might just be different ways of talking about the same thing. Some argue that plot is merely a way of talking about character. If we look at it through that lens, the character has to move in order to be. And if the character lacks depth, the events of the plot seem like facts narrated by newscasters. Put another way, the vertical elements of the story (character) and the horizontal elements of the story (plot) combine to create a believable being. But making an interesting shape that moves isn’t quite enough, is it? In order to be compelling, the character/plot has to take us somewhere, from one point to another; it has to take us to (or through) the turn. Understanding the turn is one big step. Executing it is another. Let’s start with one and see if we can talk our way to the other.

Does this story have a turn?

“Housewife” from Tumble Home by Amy Hempel

She would always sleep with her husband and with another man in the course of the same day, and then the rest of the day, for whatever was left to her of that day, she would exploit by incanting, “French film, French film.”

How about this one?

“A Man from her Past” from Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis

I think Mother is flirting with a man from her past who is not Father. I say to myself: Mother ought not to have improper relations with this man “Franz”! “Franz” is a European. I say she should not see this man improperly while Father is away! But I am confusing an old reality with a new reality: Father will not be returning home. He will be staying on at Vernon Hall. As for Mother, she is ninety-four years old. How can there be improper relations with a woman of ninety-four? Yet my confusion must be this: though her body is old, her capacity for betrayal is still young and fresh.

This one?

Untitled by Ernest Hemingway

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Turn
Try to take us from one point (vertically and horizontally) to another point with just a few words. Hemingway gave it a shot at six words. But he was a badass. Shoot for a few stanzas or a few paragraphs or a short scene. Take us to a turn.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Untitled
by Lynda Crane

We sat together on the stone wall we'd passed nearly daily those years-out-of-mind, quietly, without words, and knew that our lives had moved now onto rare earth.


A Valentine For Al
by Lynda Crane

Friends have told you
How I feel
Their impressions
Their projections
They are sure they know

This, my attempt to speak for myself, is for you:

Warm summer days
Suffused with energy and light
We are on the bike
The wind in our faces
A river, a park, sitting on curbs

Pretty words, a gentle touch
someone close, someone near
Ideas, disappointments
Bodies and music
Sharing—a beautiful word

The feeling of OHM when the chanter
Is one with the Universe
Our karma moves on
Ceaselessly—inevitably
Other places, other lovers, other dreams
My Soul is richer, my world is brighter.
Your's has been shared with me.


Irish Coffee and Sex on Valentine's Day
submitted by Kalman Kivkovich

An Irish woman of advanced age visited her physician before Valentine's Day, to ask his help in reviving her husband's libido.
"What about trying Viagra?" the doctor said.
"Not a chance, he won't even take an aspirin."
"Not a problem, give him an Irish Viagra."
"Irish Viagra . . . ?"
"Yes. Put it in his coffee. There is no scent and it's flavorless."
"But---"
"Give it a try . . . call me and let me know how things went."

A week after Valentine's Day the woman was back to see her physician. " 'T'was horrid. Just plain awful, doctor!"
"Really? What happened?"
"Well . . . I did as you advised . . . I slipped it in his coffee---the effect was instant. He jumped straight up---a twinkle in his eye . . ."
"Yes, go on . . ."
"His pants . . ."
"Yes . . ."
"They were bulging! Then . . . with one swoop he sent the cups and tablecloth flying. He ripped my clothes to tatters and took me right then and there . . ."
"And . . ." The doctor was amused.
"He made wild, passionate love to me on the tabletop! It was a nightmare, I tell you, an absolute nightmare!"
"Why so terrible? The sex wasn't good?"
"Oh, no, Doctor, the sex was great! 'Twas the best I've had in thirty years! The problem is that I'll never be able to show my face in Starbucks again!"

The Salon Reading Series Begins with A Bang

Join as we welcome our first writer in our Salon reading series on final Friday (2/23) at InkTank headquarters:

Raised in Export, PA, Eric Schwerer attended The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. After working as a carpenter in Southeastern Kentucky, Louisiana, and Ohio, he earned a PhD in Creative Writing from Ohio University. He has taught poetry to people recovering from mental illness and now teaches in the Creative Writing department at Johnstown's University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of two books of poetry, Whittling Lessons (a chapbook, Finishing Line Press) and The Saint of Withdrawal (CustomWords, 2006). His poems have been published in numerous literary journals."Eric Schwerer is a young poet with a great ear (oh so rare!), an intense 'thought-felt' intelligence, and the ability to make his poems' mysteries lucid (oh rarer still!). /The Saint of Withdrawal/ is a stunning debut." _Thomas Lux

The Saint of Withdrawal
by Eric Schwerer

It bats four times, soars,
changes course—scrapes black on the milkish air
joined by three more.

Ascending over the trees the other side of Monro Muffler Brake,
hurled claws,
sooty tissues tossed in the dirty white.

These are not
those birds you’ve seen in the moving distance
inside a daydream, slightly rising left to right,

inspiring your real eye with real flight. No. These
four have been in the dark, wet woods all night
perched in a rotten pine, standing on needles,

wings outstretched, lifted like
stooped old men in overcoats who frighten
pigeons from the park. In the weak light

two tiny dots slide on the ice of the western sky
while down on the floor these guys begin to walk,
sway and stalk, throwing forth one claw, criminal,

yoked, lurching in the quiet cold to gawk
or cock a head, moving where nothing else does
in the fog.

When Waste Management’s fleet shudders
over the township blacktop, one takes flight.
It takes it

like the sick take time, taking all the air it can
each flap, coasting until it needs again, making
dashes, strikes on the sky, hooks,

burnt matches, whatever can’t be taken back.




To learn more about the writer and to read more of his poems, visit these websites:
http://www.pitt.edu/~schwerer/Poetry.htm
http://www.custom-words.com/Schwerer.html

I Heart You

Exercise Your InkTank
Against Sentiment

In some literary traditions, emotional effusiveness and a big emphasis on the essential goodness of humanity are celebrated. In ours, they’re largely considered schmaltz. Sentimentalism is viewed with suspicion (and often derision) because its objectives are tainted: It aspires to sway our tender hearts by aiming low. We resist sentimentalism because we’re sensitive people, who are protective of our soft parts; because our taste in literature is just more complex; and because we simply don’t want to be told how to feel. We having no trouble telling you why our stomachs turn and our eyes roll when yet another heart starts soaring like an eagle on the wings of love. The problem arises when we begin actively struggling against sentimentalism in our writing. It can create an acrid psychology that infects our storytelling and inhibits our treatment of emotionally intense moments.

The struggle against writing scenes like this:
As the sun tilted over the horizon like a heart spilling its love-light in the valley, he leaned to her and whispered in her tiny ear. “I always knew I would marry you,” he said. “But I wasn’t always sure you would have me.”
“Forever, Charlie,” she said. “Forever and ever and ever.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
They went into an embrace that assured all those who witnessed it that there would always be love in the world and it would always be there for the taking. The trick was knowing when to fight for it.

May result in scenes like this:
He moved his hand across the table, near hers but not touching.
“Charlie,” she said.
They looked at the sun on the wall.

The language in our first scene over-directs. It talks about emotional bigness without actually delivering. The language in the second scene is subtle to the point of opacity. It’s impossible for us to know what is passing between these characters. We can guess, but we can’t know. Frank Conroy used to say this: “Good narrative puts the reader and writer in a position of equality. The text forms a bridge between two imaginations.” As writers struggling against sentimentalism, how do we control the language of emotion without strangling it? How do we build bridges between imaginations? Let’s begin with a conversation about words.

I Heart Love Stories:
We’ll generate a list of effusive words and phrases that circle around one emotion: Love. As many as we can. Half of us will write a passage using as many of these words as possible. The other half will write a passage that communicates love without usually any of the words or expressions generally associated with that word. Then (as though we’ll have time!) we’ll share our work and talk about the differences we see between our passages. With any luck, the pitfalls of each approach will become abundantly clear and we’ll catch a glimpse of a way across to our readers.

Salon Writers Revise

Revision
by Jason Gallagher

Seven years ago things were different. At least to Maria. He had wrapped his existence up in her and all she wanted to do was fly. She wanted nothing to do with his Euclidian geometric musings, his symbolism, and his love of “nature’s own mysteruim.” Those were his words, not hers. She had lost her words. For all his talk of essence and truth she had lost her agency. When she was set adrift of her own will she felt like dandelion pollen, mushroom spores or some other mold caught listlessly in the wind. Caught in a wind but in reality not actually moving. This was his doing. It had only been three, four dates if you counted the day trip to Santa Monica pier, yet her answering machine light would still blink three times weekly. She remembered the gulls cawing at the sewage in the Venice canals as they walked toward the pier. She dare not touch his hand. He had been talking pop philosophy with a soothsayer near one the granite seahorses. Even the surfers couldn’t understand a word. The fortuneteller would roll her eyes, sigh, and murmur something about him being a Gemini. It was the look of the surfers that solidified their failure.

Musing

Exercise Your InkTank

It has always seemed to me that muses are more useful as subject of blame, than they are as guiding forces behind the writing. We can curse them when we’re stuck, hung up, or lost, and avoid the shame of knowing only we are to blame for the lack of inspiration in our work. Creative blocks stall many writers and even the psychologists agree that it’s a sticky matter. No one can confirm or deny the existence of writers block as a specific diagnosable condition and recently The New Yorker ran a piece suggesting our culture is at least in part to blame for its prevalence; it seems writers block is a modern invention, first appearing in the literary lexicon in the early 19th century. Once you have a word for a thing it become a real thing, doesn’t it? But surely this is a struggle as old as language, as old as old. And while we here at InkTank won’t offer you a quick fix or an herbal remedy, there is an entire industry out there ready to exploit you. For only $119 you can order unblocking software that will unlock your creative energies forever. You’ll never not write again.

When I’m stuck it’s usually because I’m not sure what I want to say, or because I’m worried that I don’t have anything to say. Writers like Elizabeth Bishop have cited their students’ lack of experience in the world as the cause of a certain frailty in their work (the Paris Review Interviews) and I can believe it. I try not to feel as though I need to trek through the Amazon in order to have something important or interesting to say, but I do value the experiences I have had—I don’t know where my writing would be without them.

We’ve talked about our writing wells, how we conceive of them and how to expand them. So far, the only advice I feel solid about giving is this: read more and write more. Most of the writers I’ve talked to say the same thing or something similar. Of course, there are things we can try right here. One is to memorize a Berryman or Bishop poem and then write from our memories on it. Another is to write about the very first moment we remember wanting to tell a story, and then write about what we’ve written. I’ll give you all the option. Pick one and run with it.

Casabianca
By Elizabeth Bishop

Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite ‘The boy stood on
the burning deck.’ Love’s the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love’s the burning boy.


Dream Song One: Huffy Henry Hid the Day
By John Berryman

Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed

A List of Useful Texts in No Particular Order:

You asked for a list of books and I've delivered. These texts are not required reading for the Writers Salon. But they are good books to have as a writer. Look for updates in the future. And please send recommendations if you have them.

The Story and Its Writer, Edited by Ann Charters, Bedford/St. Martin's.
I’d say any edition of this book would do, but I don’t know anything about the compact version. It’s always available used because it’s often a required text in college courses. I like it because it’s a good anthology, a good introduction to literary writers for those who are new to the genre and a good reference for those who are old hands. I recommend it because it includes a number of interviews and essays that expand the experience of the writing, some of which can’t be found elsewhere, and because it includes a useful list of literary terms, a solid history of the story, and interesting biographical notes.

Poems, Poets, Poetry, Edited by Helen Vendler, Bedford.
I like this anthology as an anthology, but I also like its plainspoken approach to matters of craft. Vendler explains what she means, which is nice as long as you agree with her meaning.

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E.B. White, Longman.
Any edition of this book will do. You can pick it up used for under $10. Go here for the basic principles of composition, grammar, word usage and misusage, and writing style.

The Best American (Insert Genre Here), Houghton Mifflin, Any Year.
Of late, this series has been expanding exponentially. I can’t attest to the quality of all of them, but I can say that these books will give you a good sense of what’s going on in any given genre. The best work is selected from the top literary magazines and published every year in an affordable collection. If you can’t get around to buying many journals, this may be the way to go. By the way 2000 was a great year for the short story edition. I’m also a fan of The Best American Short Stories of the Century.

The Paris Review Interviews, Picador.
There are several volumes of interviews; I’ve got volume one and can attest to its usefulness. It’s great. Use it to learn what the writers you admire (and the writers who have escaped your attention) have to say about writing, about craft, about living.

On Moral Fiction, John Gardner, Basic Books.
If you’ve ever wondered about the source of this continuous dream business, here it is. I recommend this book because it engages us in a useful conversation about what art does and what it means. It informs much of my thinking about the teaching of writing and it’s a book many people know, which means it’s an easy reference.

Habitations of the Word, William Gass, Cornell.
I recommend this book as a way to continue the conversation that I begin with Gardner. If you’re upset by the notion that all art is obligated to mean, this book of essays is for you. It’s also a good place to begin a conversation about language.

Ariadne’s Thread: Story Lines, J. Hillis Miller, Yale U Press.
This is a tough book. It may kick your ass. But you will be ten times smarter after reading it. It begins with a story that becomes a metaphor for storytelling: the story of Theseus and his journey out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

Poets & Writers
This is the leading magazine for literary writers. I am not often impressed by the writing or the reportage, but it does list all of the contests, calls for submissions, and conferences. Of course, you can always look at those for free online: http://www.pw.org/mag/grantsawards.htm

Revising the Sky of Mold

Exercise Your InkTank
It’s Really Revision

Is it because you’re lazy that you don’t revise—because you’re okay enough with what you’ve written not to care if your readers must struggle through the weak spots? Or is it because you’re afraid it’s too hard to revise, too dangerous, or too time-consuming? Is it because you yourself have not carefully read what you’ve written that you don’t revise? Or is it because you’ve formed an unhealthy relationship with the words as you’ve placed them on the page that you don’t revise—because you think they’re so precious, far too precious to disrupt? Is it because you believe that writing is a mystical magical process and that revision is clinical and evil process that you don’t revise? Or because you believe yourself to be a writing deity, a genius for whom revision is synonymous with weakness? Perhaps you’ve made the mistake of conflating proofreading with revision. They’re not the same, you know. Perhaps you don’t trust in your own facility with the language enough to revise, or perhaps you’ve never revised simply because you’re not sure what revision is. If I sound upset, it’s because I’m being theatrical. Oh, there’s a point: you must revise. None of your excuses are good enough not to revise.

If you’re having trouble, it might be helpful to think of revision as re-seeing or re-imagining. It’s about clarity and it’s about an awareness of the reader as a meaningful presence. Of course, grammar and mechanics are a part of it—you’ve got to keep the page clean. But beyond that, revision is about ensuring that the reader is never disrupted from the continuous dream of the story without a damn good reason. Disruptions can occur every level—the sentence, perspective, character, plot, voice, or even time—and they cause the reader to leave us. Once we lose them, they may never come back. We’ll be alone and unhappy and our writing won’t be getting any better any time soon.

Workshops can give you what your own eyes often can’t: a view from outside the storytelling. But you have to be prepared to lose much (sometimes almost all) of what you have on the page in order to move forward with your writing. Writing is a recursive process, after all. You learn more as you go along and you employ what you’ve learned. It’s hard work that will get you there—not magic, not luck, not even booze.

Please Re-see Me
In order that we might put a spotlight on revision, let’s think about workshopping the following excerpt and determining its strengths and weaknesses. Based on our conversation, we’ll then revise it on our own as individuals. Take the good and lose the not so good, even if the good is only a single word or an image.

Existing is about being unique. Existence, reality, essence, cause, or truth is uniqueness. The geometric point in the center of the sphere is nature’s symbol of the immeasurable uniqueness within its measurable effect. A center is always unique; otherwise it would not be a center. Because uniqueness is reality, or that which makes a thing what it is, everything that is real is based on a centralization. Seven years ago, I was about to become centralized. I couldn’t have known where it would take me, but I could have guessed that it would take me to the center. To her. To Maria. Her hair was the kind of hair that moved without actually moving. Her eyes were the kind of eyes that saw without looking. We came together in nature’s own mysterium and our essences became a reality. I’d never experienced anything like that before. When she left, it was as though the sky were eaten through with mold. Now she’s the center of another’s existence and the sky mold is eating through me.

Workshop Schedule & Sign-Up

Sign up for a slot you’d like to take and plan to submit work at least one week in advance of that date, if not two weeks in advance. You may exchange slots, if you change your mind or something comes up, but this must happen at about three weeks before the workshop date—otherwise, it may go to waste. If you miss your own workshop date without prior arrangements, you will lose your right to workshop in the future. Forever! Or at least until we forgive you. Choose wisely. This list will also be distributed on the yahoo group, where you can always find it by searching through the archives.

Jan 4 - Sujata

Jan 18 - Tom

Feb 1 - Jason

Feb 15 - Pierre

March 1 - Tom

March 15 - Elisa

March 29 - Kalman

April 12 - Sujata

April 26 - Lynda

May 24 - Marie

June 7 - Kalman

June 21 - Roger

July 5 - Sujata

July 19 - Alan

August 1 - Howard

Seeing and Believing and Acting

Exercise Your InkTank

Last night's craftshop exercise was one of those had-to-be-there things. (There was some acting involved, a foam bear claw, a dead plant, and a box of kleenex.) But for those of you (and you know who you are) who might be curious about what you missed, you'll find the gist of it below.


Because our talk about formatting and submitting manuscripts is (let’s face it) never very exciting, I thought we’d do something with a little zip in it tonight. Experiments in perspective—and by that I mean the writer’s way of seeing, not the character’s or speaker's—are always interesting because they remind us of ourselves as unique seers. As artists we have a responsibility to see—and record—the news of the world. Sometimes we forget this because we’re worried about POV shifts and space breaks and all of those criminally irritating mechanical concerns. It’s time to be reminded.

I’ll need a few randy volunteers for this experiment—let’s say three—who are willing to sacrifice a little on-the-spot writing time. We’ll concoct a moment, which we’ll then present to the group. The group’s task will be to record the scene as though witnessing it in the “real” world and to imagine the world around the scene. Write a poem, a story, follow the event where you like. We’ll share our work and see a little more clearly (perhaps) how we see. Use the space below to record as many details as you can as the action is taking place or directly thereafter. We’ll share these notes too.

InkTank Writers’ Salon Guidelines

Workshop Guidelines
Manuscripts must be submitted at least one week in advance of the assigned workshop slot. Otherwise, we’re all in trouble. Use our yahoo group and/or distribute copies by hand. Submit work that has been edited to the best of your abilities. Unedited work embarrasses everybody. We’re adopting (almost) professional formatting standards because it makes sense to learn them and work with them. We understand that e-mailing your work may disrupt your formatting—do the best that you can.

Titles: Pick one. Don’t italicize it, underline it, enlarge it, or type it in a wacky font. (It’s tempting, we know, but resist.)

For Prose: Submit no more than 25 double-spaced pages. Use 1-inch-or-so margins and a 12pt-or-so inoffensive font. (Most folks agree that Times and Courier are the standard.) Include your name and the date in a header and page numbers in the upper right corner. Your unadorned title should be centered above your first paragraph of text.

For Poetry: Submit no more than 10 pages. If the size or look of the font are somehow involved in your meaning making, they may vary to your little heart’s desire. Otherwise, keep it simple. Include your name and the date in a header and page numbers in the upper right corner. Your unadorned title should appear directly above your first lines of text.

For Everything Else: Use common sense.

Response Guidelines
Comment directly on the manuscripts up for workshop. Be nice, but don’t be so nice as to render your comments useless. Don’t ever be mean. Be critical, yet sensitive to the writer. If talking isn’t your style, make sure you offer more written commentary. If writing on the manuscript isn’t your style, make sure you give good verbal commentary. We’ll roll around the room and give everyone a chance to talk. Don’t use this as an opportunity to soapbox—keep it brief. It isn’t a bad idea to start with a positive. If you haven’t read the work, don’t comment—we won’t be offended if you leave at the break, but we will be offended if you huff off mid-workshop, or snooze.

Craftshop Guidelines
Craftshop topics are generated by group members. Speak up if you have an idea. The exercises give us a basis for a little technical or philosophical discussion and a chance to do some writing on the spot. If you’d like to share your craftshop results during the Salon, speak up. A little conversation about your work may transpire—nothing too serious. If you’d like to share your craftshop results later, send them to the yahoo group and they’ll be published on the blog. Anyone (even those who miss the meetings) is welcome to submit craftshop exercises for publication. Exercise sheets will appear on the blog after the Salon meets.

Salon Ethics
It’s simple: You’ve got to give at least as much as you receive. If everyone abides by this simple notion, the life of the Salon will be a dream. But if you don’t offer good commentary, don’t expect it in return. If you can’t abide by our guidelines, don’t expect us to be happy about it. Expect us to be sad. Expect us to think things about you. Remember that the Salon is free—it costs you nothing to be a member—but that does not mean it’s yours for the taking. It belongs to all of us and none of us; it is what it is. Please don’t try to make it something else and please don’t abuse it.

Salon Writers Write "Bad"

Untitled by Jason Gallagher

George. His name was George. With a name like George how could he have such a throbbing piece of man meat? It was juicy, huge in its girth but with the right amount of length. Not too much, just enough. It would fit comfortably inside my tight box. Try not to think about your own pussy while it is taking in that glorious member. I remember the pinch as it entered but I didn’t turn my head, I didn’t grimace. It was differently not something to cry over. I knew it would be over soon. There was no reason to not let him go through the motions. The thrusting would be deep; there was no better word for it then penetration. Teeth grinding with the intensity of each pound. Yet gentle. Each movement was forceful and gentle. That is how the whole thing can be deceiving. You think that it will be more then it is.


MOANS IN THE NEIGHBORS' SHED by Kalman Kivkovich

I hear the groans coming from the neighbors' shed.
The heavy breathing sounds like something out of my dreams.
I'm fifteen and dreams I have---flood of wet dreams . . .
I glue my eye to a crack in the wooden wall.
My gaze pierces the soft skin that blocks my view.
The moans fill the enclosed space beyond.
What the hell is it? My mind gears in full speed.
I close my eyes.
Something is bulging inside my trousers,
Thrusting against the already dilapidated partition.


WET DREAM by Kalman Kivkovich

I submit to a deep sleep,
Or do I?
Millions of thoughts, fragments of unidentified reflections,
Rushing through my resting head,
Thumping inside my skull,
Like giant waves on shore, beating against the boulders.
My mind struggles to focus into the hazy twister,
To grasp the indistinguishable.
And there she is,
Slowly advancing, floating toward me,
Like a mirror image out of the Greek mythology.
A spark in my brain turns my body over---once, twice.
I feel warm throughout,
My tongue searches for moisture off my lips,
I utter from within.
The lids of my closed-eyes tighten evermore.
My breath turns heavy,
My blood pulsates in an unrestrained rhythm.
My body stretches and again turns over.
I am being transferred away.
Where am I?
Now I feel my bare feet, resting on smooth pebbles,
I am standing on a still, dry riverbed.
I hear something,
A faint but rising sound.
It's coming closer,
Now it is roaring,
Oh God . . . the water!
I am going to drown,
I am on top---I am under.
I am wet,
My eyes open.



SEX WRITING WORKSHOP by Marie O'nan

We always had to kick the dog out of our bedroom before being intimate.
We always had to call it being intimate because Sylvia didn't want to say
fuck and she didn't want to sound like an easy listening song. All she
could say was weiner. "Oh Richard," she'd say, "I love your weiner." Or,
"Oh, your beautiful weiner."
"Sylvia," I'd say, "It's your weiner too. We share it like how siamese
twins share whatever it is that connects them."
Last night, we started to get intimate. The windows were open a little
because it was warm outside. You could smell the rain. Virgil howled
outside our door. He must've heard thunder. "Richard," she said, "Give me
your weiner."
"Sylvia," I said, "Fuck me hard." I don't know why I said it. I was
scared she would slap me, but she didn't. She just kept going the same as
before. I heard the rain and the dog crying and Sylvia's breathing and I
felt lucky.

Dirty Bird

Exercise Your Inktank
Bad Sex

I will confess I was dreading the prospect of writing bad literary sex scenes as examples for discussion. Thankfully, the Literary Review’s 2006 Bad Sex Award winner was announced yesterday. The judges say the award’s mandate is “to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” Here are their criteria for bad sexiness: “unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant sex scene in an otherwise sound literary novel.” Pretty vague, if you ask me, but otherwise maybe fairly sound. If you already know the winner, hold your tongue. Otherwise, read through these selections and see if you can pick it. A disclaimer: the following excerpts contain seriously graphic sexual content that may not be appropriate for some readers and may completely ruin our chances of ever having a grown-up conversation about the topic.

David Mitchell from Black Swan Green
“Now she made a noise like a tortured Moomintroll.”
Irvine Walsh from Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs:
“Skinner took his thick green slime and spread it like a chef might glaze some pastry…A ludicrously distended clitoris popped out from nowhere like a jack-in-the-box.”

Thomas Pynchon from Against the Day
“Ruperta had trained her toy spaniel to provide intimate ‘French’ caresses of the tongue for the pleasure of its mistress. …Reef followed, taking out his penis, breathing heavily through his mouth. 'Here Mouffie, nice big dog bone for you right here.’”

Julia Glass from The Whole World Over:
“And then before her inner eye, a tide of words leaped high and free, a chaotic joy like frothing rapids: truncate, adjudicate, fornicate, frivolous, rivulet, violet, oriole, orifice, conifer, aquifer, allegiance, alacrity…all the words this time not a crowding but a heavenly chain, an ostrich fan, a vision as much as an orgasm, a release of something deep in the core of her altered brain, words she thought she'd lost for good.”

Mark Haddon from A Spot of Bother:
“And it swept over her like surf sweeping over sand then falling back and sweeping up over the sand again and falling back. Images went off in her head like little fireworks. The smell of coconut. Brass firedogs.”

Will Self from The Book of Dave
“The confusion of their bodies—his hairy shanks, her sweaty thighs, his bow-taut cock, her engorged basketry of cowl and lip.”

Tim Willocks from The Religion
“He bent her across the cold steel face of the anvil...she called out to God and convulsed with each slow stroke, her head thrown back and her eyelids aflutter, and her cries filled the forge…until she squeezed him from inside and he exploded to a prayer of his own within her body.”

Iain Hollingshead from Twentysomething
“And then I’m inside her, and everything is pure white as we're lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles…I can feel her breasts against her chest. I cup my hands round her face and start to kiss her properly. She slides one of her slender legs in between mine. ‘Oh Jack,’ she was moaning now, her curves pushed up against me, her crotch taut against my bulging trousers, her hands gripping fistfuls of my hair. She reaches for my belt. I groan too, in expectation. And then I'm inside her, and everything is pure white as we’re lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles.”

The Challenge:
Write some bad literary sex. Attempting the worst can be as instructive as attempting the best. Use any of the above passages as a model, or create your own scenario.