Adventures in MFA Land

Kindlegraph

2011-08-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

My commercial alter-ego, Isabelle Drake, is pretty excited about the new Kindlegraph feature for Kindle ebooks. With this feature, readers can request a personalized "Kindlegraph" of any of the Isabelle Drake books available on Kindle.

This Kindle function does, in a way, give Kindles an interesting advantage over paper books. But is it enough to have an electronic signature? After all, the author doesn't touch the book and the reader doesn't have to meet the author to get the "signature."

So what matters most? Meeting the author? Having a personalized copy?

Maybe it isn't a matter of one, a paper book signed, being better than another, a Kindle edition kindlegraphed. Maybe it's just a matter of different. ?

The Motif of “Hats” in Madame Bovary

2011-05-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome back guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student.

In this second of two parts, Carol continues her exploration of hats in Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

***
Flaubert’s motif of ‘hats’ in Madame Bovary contributes to a nonjudgmental theme resonating throughout the novel that “Each of us is different.” As a symbol of this truth, Flaubert describes a variety of ‘hats.’ He also describes a variety of individuals who populate his novel, each symbolized by the ‘hat’ each wears, i.e., an adulterous woman in veils, a group of nuns in hoods, an ethical husband in a leather hat, two men who seduce a married woman, one man in a jaunty straw hat and another bareheaded, a druggist in a skullcap, a young daughter in a bonnet. The image of each ‘hat’ contributes to the difference between each character’s profession, age, personality or behavior.

Flaubert’s motif of ‘hats’ also contributes a curious challenge to a theme of “There’s a Heart vs. Head dilemma when it comes to love.” In the debate between heart vs. head, the “head” represents a person’s logic when it comes to “love” that leads to vows, boundaries, and the propriety of courtship and marriage. The “heart” represents uncontrollable, delirious passion. Flaubert’s motif of ‘hats’ pays homage to both sides of the argument of “heart/passion” versus “head/logic” for his novel addresses passion fulfilled and logic ignored. His novel is also a cautionary tale for both sides.

One of the functions of a ‘hat’ is to cover one’s head. Therefore, if one’s head is covered literally in the heart vs. head dichotomy, the heart, unfettered by logic, would win the contest. Follow one’s heart would lead to freedom to do whatever one’s “heart” led one to do. After all, “logic” would be covered up and one’s passion could flourish without boundaries.

If, on the other hand, one’s head is literally not covered allowing logic to figuratively prevail, then individuals would be more circumspect in their choice of a mate and more thoughtful in their loving relationships.

Flaubert’s deliberate positioning of ‘hats’ in his narrative as well as his deliberate choice not to mention ‘hats’ at all for twelve pages in the middle of the novel ultimately serve to diffuse the “heart vs. head” argument. He does this by allowing those wearing ‘hats’ to feel passion and champion logic and the lovers who are bareheaded for twelve pages (125-137) to give in to their passion while the logic of consequences prevails in their knowledge. Flaubert, in his nonjudgmental way, acknowledges that passion and logic both have consequences and it is vital to a thriving love for both passion and logic to be integral parts working in harmony.

Emma Bovary’s choice of passion over logic cost the most prized possession she owned: “her life.” Charles Bovary’s choice of logic over passion cost the most prized possession he owned: “his wife’s love for him.”

Flaubert gave them the opportunity to know this. Yet even though Emma was a doctor’s wife and Charles was a doctor, neither of them understood that one’s “heart” and one’s “head” are not just parts of one’s body operating separately. Instead they are integral parts of one’s body and soul, both vital to a thriving love of logic and passion working in harmony together.

‘Hats’ as a motif in Flaubert's Madame Bovary...Effective?

2011-05-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student.

In this first of two parts, Carol explores hats as a motif in Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

A “hat,” i.e., cap, hat, hood, or veil, is a recurrent image in Madame Bovary There are ninety-seven descriptions of ‘hats’ and over a hundred mentions of ‘hats’ in the 247 page novel. Examples include: “We were in the habit of throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands more free” (1); “It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton nightcap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face.” (1, 2); “He trampled on horses’ dung with them, one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his straw hat on one side.” (97)

Flaubert further highlights the importance of ‘hats’ in his story by noting their absence. There are more than a dozen mentions of characters whose heads are not covered by a ‘hat,’ i.e., a bald head or unfettered, flowing hair or strands of hair. Examples include: “little bareheaded children” (43), “He read aloud, bareheaded, sitting on a footstool of dry sticks;” (87), “in his hand was a long tress of black hair.” (247)

‘Hats’ qualify as a motif for they are unifying objects throughout the novel. ‘Hats’ also may be elaborated into a general theme.

On the first page of the novel, Charles Bovary’s cap is an essential detail, i.e., “the new fellow was still holding his cap on his knees even after prayers were over.” (1) Bovary’s worry that his cap will be stolen, “casting troubled looks round him,” (2) offers a premonition of the general theme of Bovary’s life, i.e. that he will have a prized possession, his wife’s love and fidelity, stolen from him.

The loss of a cap foreshadows the loss of his wife’s affection during her affairs with Rodolphe and Leon. Furthermore, the cap is the object of Bovary’s worry and a catalyst for the bully behavior of his classmates. Later, his wife Emma is the object of Bovary’s worry and the catalyst for the bully behavior of a merchant, a tax collector, his mother and others.

The hat-imagery unifies characters and events in the entire literary work, with the exception of a curious twelve-page absence of the motif (from pages 125 to 137), until the final pages conclude with these passages: “A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of his fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil.” (236), and “The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down hoods” (239)

Are ‘Hats’ effective as a motif in Madame Bovary?

The emphasis Flaubert places on ‘hats’ serves a dual purpose. One purpose includes a ‘hat’ in the literal description of a character’s outward appearance, i.e., “He (the druggist) had on a frock-coat, nankeen trousers, beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a hat with a low crown.” (93) or “The councilor pressing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated his bows” (99).

Another purpose is symbolic. Flaubert crafts a ‘hat’ to symbolize a character’s feelings. In the scene at the masked ball, Emma Bovary is described as follows: “She wore velvet breeches, red stockings, a club wig and three-cornered cocked hat on one side.” (205) Emma’s outfit of breeches and red stockings indicate rebellion, given the mores of the time, however, her “three-cornered cocked hat” points to her feelings of cocky, arrogant, brash confidence to “dance(d) all night to the wild tones of the trombones.” (205) Her feelings of wild abandon are symbolized by the cock of her hat. The irony is that her abandonment by Leon is the catalyst for her behavior that night.

In another scene, Emma and Leon consummate their passion behind curtained windows in a carriage dashing through the countryside and streets of Rouen. As she leaves the carriage, the veil of Emma’s hat symbolizes the curtained windows and the secrecy with which she feels she must keep her love affair with Leon. “At about six o’clock the carriage stopped in a back street of the Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked with her veil down, and without turning her head.” (173)

Earlier, in Leon’s seduction of Emma, he alludes to a dream in which the motif appears. “In an engraver’s shop on the boulevard there is an Italian print of one of the Muses. She is draped in a tunic, and she is looking at the moon, with forget-me-nots in her flowing hair. She resembled you a little.” (165) His wish for Emma not to forget him after he moved to Rouen is symbolized in the flowers in the hair of a Muse.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of craft in fiction depends on a reader’s appreciation and understanding of the author’s technique. In the following examples of Flaubert’s choice of a ‘hat’ as a motif to symbolize feelings of characters, I offer my views:

“From that moment her (Emma’s) existence was but one long tissue of lies, in which she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it.” (191) The choice of a veil is a perfect image to me. Not only does a veil evoke a soft covering of netting or fabric to conceal one’s face, it also evokes a wedding veil and a nun’s headdress, alluding to vows Emma once cherished. Now she cherishes Leon’s love and needs to protect it. Flaubert’s motif of multiple veils hiding her lies also evokes the image of lying, when layers of untruths build and multiply.

“She would have liked to be once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked off here and there by the stiff black hoods of the good sisters bending over their prie-Dieu.” (78) The choice to insert “white veils” into Emma’s memories is effective as it literally recalls her days in the convent. However, it also symbolizes her wish for childhood days of innocence, a universal feeling to which most adult readers can relate, and the memory of “good sisters” in “stiff black hoods” that offer her solace as well.

“You were downstairs in the anteroom, ready to go out, standing on the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with small blue flowers;” (166) In this passage, Leon proves to Emma that she is an “incomprehensible force that took captive my life” (166). His devotion to detail in his description of Emma’s bonnet symbolizes his devotion to her. His attention to her, his memory of her to the most exacting degree, his vision of her months before still remembered as if frozen in time, evokes his charm, his youth, his besotted feelings, his passion. Flaubert exposes the power of how “paying attention” to another person is not only flattering but also seductive.

Another example of Flaubert’s insight into the effectiveness of his ‘hat’ motif can be found in the introductory scene of the book. Bovary’s cap is so unusual (2), it symbolizes how different Charles Bovary is from the other students. The effect of Charles Bovary’s oddity evokes my concern for him as a sympathetic character. The ‘hat’ motif not only heightens my feelings of tension, it also compels me to pay attention to the behavior and choices of this young, vulnerable boy.

Through Glass

2011-04-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome back guest blogger. Thoughts this time on Dave McKean's His Story from Pictures That Tick.

I thought I was in love with the way McKean combines abstraction and representationalism. But if that's love, then love isn't a good enough word for how I feel about the metaphor he just created for artistic vision. And it's gruesome, yes, but fabulous. In 'His Story,' the story told to the narrator by his father is represented by a piece of broken glass.

When confronted with the shard as a child, he mishandles it, or misunderstands it, and is injured by it. He cuts his hand. He puts away the glass for several years. Older, he views the glass again. “It was still clear and cold. / But I was sure there was / more to it than that. / I had to get inside it. / Or let it get inside of me. / I had to look at it / in a different way” (172). And then he takes the shard, and he shoves it into his eye.

The narrator, through the simple metaphor of a piece of broken glass, illustrates the idea that an artist's creativity comes from looking at the world through the lens of pain and prior experience.

It is no accident that the central image of this short piece is a human form with a shard in his eye. It is a grotesque image. It elicits a visceral reaction. We like to protect our eyes from harm. The thought of piercing our eyes on purpose, obscuring our vision intentionally, is nearly unthinkable. And that gives this image a great deal of power. It gives the concept of an artist as a bit of a masochist a sense of literalness. The first person narration combined with the illustrations depicting what happens to 'I' suggest that there is a kinship between the writer/artist and the narrator. The sense of ars poetica makes it personal. The artist must suffer for his or her art.

It is also no accident that McKean relies on primary colors in this story to convey a sense of rightness. Prior to the narrator altering his vision, the illustrations are shown in shades of yellow or blue. With the entrance of the shard of glass and its piercing of the narrator, red – blood, pain – completes the trinity of colors. It is only with the metaphorical acceptance of red blood, the suffering of others, the stories of the past, that the images and the overarching plot become balanced and acquire a sense of completion. “Later,” the narrator says immediately after red becomes predominant in the imagery, “I thought I had made a / mistake. There was some pain. / And the way I saw everything / seemed to have changed. / But I had taken an / important step. / I could not go back now” (173).

The heightened balance of color and form in the imagery supports the idea that the pain shown is not gratuitous self-mutilation, but rather that it is a necessary part of the narrator's life progression. The text concurs.

As the written story progresses, the shard of glass through which the narrator views the world works its way through the narrator's head until it is no longer a part of his vision, but is instead behind him. The prism that gave color and depth to the narrator's life – the story that his father told him – has been forgotten piece by piece. At one point that narrator realizes that he is seeing the world, “through my own eyes entirely” (177). He looks for his father's presence again, searching in mirrors and microscopes. His father's story has fallen out of focus. His “memories all seemed frozen, / and cold, and hard” (179). With the lens of the broken glass missing from the narrator's vision, McKean's illustrations lose their color balance again. As in the beginning, the images of the narrator without the memories of his father are shown in muted shades of blue and yellow. Without the piece of glass to draw blood and show the world in a prism or clarity, the narrator is left in a dreamlike state of disbelief and monotony.

Stephen Koch's The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction

2011-04-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

In this second of two installments, Carol considers perspective as discussed in the popular fiction writers reference book: The Modern Library Writer's Workshop.

***

In Koch’s extraordinary book, he commands, “Whatever feeling you ask the reader to join, let it be strong. If your talent is connected to your passion, it will all find expression in a thousand signs, in turns that will be too multiple in meaning for one simple value judgment. The real issue isn’t whether you love or hate your characters. The real issue, whatever the bond, is the vitality and force of what you do feel.” (111)

With almost every sentence highlighted in my copy of Koch’s book, I find his perspective profound. I relish my discoveries about inventing and re-inventing myself as a writer. I also find Koch’s personal stories poignant.

When Koch shares the anecdote of informing his student, three weeks from her graduation deadline that her work is a mess, that she must toss it and start over (163-165), I froze, then panicked. Through Koch’s capable storytelling, however, I calmed and understood the merit of his counsel.

I read Koch’s personal story at the conclusion of the book and wish, as he had, that a book like “this one” had been available to him. I also wish that The Scene Book by Sandra Scofield had been published before 2003 so that Koch could have referenced it in his fifteen pages of “Notes,” in his twelve-page index, and in his text.

Finally, as I read Koch’s perspective and reverence for W. Somerset Maugham “whose notebook is one of the most instructive ever to have gotten out of the desk drawer and into print” and whose “notes on places (Maugham visited) are models of how to capture a setting and the atmosphere of place and time” (214), I reflected on all I had learned.
I appreciate Sandra Scofield’s suggestion to read Koch’s book. I value the voices of writers through the years sharing their own perspectives with me. At times I wish Koch had not bounced from one writer to another so quickly for I felt I was at a tennis tournament with my thoughts going back and forth, again and again, to grasp the insight of Hemingway then the perspective of Kerouac, the brilliance of Austen then the humor of Lamott. Nevertheless, I celebrate Koch’s applause of those writers for whom I am their ideal Reader, including W. Somerset Maugham whose literary work, The Moon and Sixpence, is one of my favorite books.

Ultimately, I cherish this book. I plan to reference Koch’s words and ideas often as I find my way on the path to discover the story I most want to tell. I also cherish my stroll through the history of lawn tennis, particularly my final discovery.

Upon reading that Dwight Davis, a student at Harvard, chose the lawns of the Longwood Cricket Club as the site of the first Davis Cup tennis tournament played between the United States and Britain in 1900, I was stunned. After all, the Longwood Cricket Club is on Hammond Street in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, across from the CVS Pharmacy, on the street that intersects with Heath, mere walking distance from Pine Manor College, the place where I first learned of Stephen Koch.

This serendipity reminds me to thank Sandra Scofield for recommending this book. It also thrills me that Koch is hitting the ball into my court as he reminds me with a rallying cheer: “Your business is spinning the dusty straw of your uncertainty and fear into the pure gold of clarity and conviction. It is the task of a lifetime.” (29)

The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, Stephen Koch, 2003, Modern Library, an imprint of Random House Publishers

Stephen Koch's The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction

2011-04-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

In this first of two installments, Carol considers a popular fiction writers reference book: The Modern Library Writer's Workshop.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club merits acclaim in the pantheon of sports as the place where Major Walter Clopton Wingfield invented the game of lawn tennis. Now known as “Wimbledon,” it hosts the only Grand Slam tennis tournament in the world still played on grass. It is also where the term “Centre Court” originated.

The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch merits acclaim in the pantheon of books about the craft of writing for within this book Koch assembles a lawn full of stellar writers to encourage those just beginning. Now known in this annotation as “TMLWW,” it is where Koch’s words play out on pages bound by a cover of vibrant green, the color of summer grass and the color most associated with “beginning.” This book is also where the word “invent” serves as a writer’s central focus.

A Writer’s Central Focus: To Invent

Wingfield honored the Greek heritage of the game of lawn tennis by calling it “Sphairistike” (Greek for “skill at playing at ball.” Source: Wimbledon official website, “About Wimbledon”). In TMLWW, Stephen Koch quotes Paul Johnson who addresses a writer’s skill. “In writing, as in all art, confidence is the beginning of skill.” (203)

Koch also honors the heritage of the word, invent. “The Latin root of the word invent means to discover.” (58) Koch supports a writer who wants to tell a good story by urging the novice to “Begin. Begin right now. Begin with whatever gives you the impetus to begin – anything at all that arouses your imagination. The rightness of things is generally revealed in retrospect.” (3, 4)

Koch is persuasive in his argument that a story must be discovered as a writer writes it. A story, he insists, is not something a writer-storyteller knows in advance. Rather it is through the discovery process that a writer “invents” the story s/he most wants to tell. “Let’s get one basic thought into play right now. You can make up a story only by finding it, and you can find a story only by making it up.” (14)

Quoting scores of famous writers, Koch joins their chorus urging a writer to invent characters, story, plot, style, voice, conflict, structure, and, in a revelation to this writer, one’s Reader. “This mute attention, this imagined experience of someone else hearing and grasping what you have to say, inevitably guides any writer’s work. Your prose must be shaped in part by your understanding of how the Reader is listening to it. And this – all of it – is something you must also invent.” (182)

Other treasures of wisdom to be discovered in this book include:

“A bad novel is better than an unwritten novel, because a bad novel can be improved; an unwritten novel is defeat without a battle.” Paul Johnson (43, 44)

“Sometimes – many times – the muse appears wearing the mask of a deadline.” Stephen Koch (44)

“You will recognize her or him (your protagonist) by the way you care.” Stephen Koch (93)

“First drafts, even pretty good ones, can be excruciatingly hard for anyone but their authors to read. The primary issue, line by line, is not their higher meaning. It is their basic meaning.” Stephen Koch (173)

To Score or Not to Score

Major Walter Clopton Wingfield proceeded to give meaning to the sport of lawn tennis in 1873 by creating a scoring system that includes the terms, “love, deuce, match.”

One hundred and thirty years later, in 2003, Stephen Koch offers what this Reader considers a “scoring system for writers” that could employ these same designations.

Love reflects a writer’s passion, obsession, and desire to write. In TMLWW, Graham Greene is quoted: “Talent, even of a very high order, cannot sustain an achievement, whereas a ruling passion gives to a shelf of novels the unity of a system.” (31)

Koch agrees. “Your talent will go to waste unless it is sustained and strengthened by the nagging, jagged, elusive thing called obsession, that stone in the shoe of your being known as a calling, a vocation. Call it dumb persistence. Call it passion. Call it fire in the belly or the madness of art. It is less the ability to write than the insistence upon writing.” (31)

“Katherine Anne Porter said, ‘This thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had – stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work I’ve ever done.’ ” (31)

“Betsy Lerner observes, ‘If the voices keep calling, if the itch remains, no matter how punishing the work or inhospitable the world, then you must take a long hard look at all the writing you’ve been attempting to do all your life and commit to it.’ ” (32)

Koch states, “If you are lucky, writing will be and will remain your greatest pleasure; intense, surprising, a kind of lifelong love story.” (53)

Deuce refers to the distinction between two near synonyms, “story” and “plot.” In a tour de force explanation of the distinguishing characteristics of these two often-batted-about terms, Koch states: “A story is an account of any real or fictitious sequence of linked events. Yet in order to be fully told, every story must have a plot. The plot will consist of whatever makes the story move.” (65) He then references the story summary and plot movements of “Hamlet” proving the brilliance of Shakespeare and also the acumen of Koch, the former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program.

“Feeling the story,” Koch writes, “followed by figuring the story – can start working together in a dynamic reciprocity from which the real shape of the story can emerge in an alternating shimmer of certainty and surprise.” (67)

Of course, another example of “story” and “plot,” that Koch cites is more succinct. “The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story but ‘The cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is.” John LeCarre (74).

Match refers to the Writer and Reader relationship. “You create the Reader with your style,” Koch states. (118) “This invention of ‘the Reader,’ the secret sharer of your every syllable, is a defining element of style. It ends up as a relationship. As a writer, you have a great deal to say about what this relationship is to be. But it is not entirely in your hands. It is ultimately a collaboration, an exchange. Whatever the relationship, it should offer the real person reading your prose the gift of some larger, richer consciousness.” (119)

The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, Stephen Koch, 2003, Modern Library, an imprint of Random House Publishers.

Rabid Dwarves and Misplaced Senses

2011-04-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome back guest blogger Laura Jones. This musing written to her MFA mentor, on Margaret Peterson Haddix's Just Ella.

I must begin by admitting that I never intended to read this book. It's not on my reading list, it probably shouldn't be on my reading list, and I should probably be writing about Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales which I enjoyed greatly and which is probably overdue because I had it out from the Boston Public Library and forgot it was in my school bag when I left Boston for Central New York. Maybe even I should be writing about The Sandman Papers, edited by Joe Sanders, which is a compilation of critical essays about a very well known graphic novel that was freakishly influential to me. At least The Sandman Papers feigns to be academic. Just Ella does no such thing, which is, in fact, probably part of why I read it.

I mentioned in my last missive that I intended to reread books I had enjoyed as a child or teenager, with an eye for what drew me to them. As a self-exploratory exercise, it appeals to me. It's also an excuse for me to buy up books I don't need; I found a copy of Just Ella at a Salvation Army Store. I paid somewhere around 39 cents for it. I remembered reading it as a kid; I remembered that it was about a princess that fell in love with her tutor. What I didn't remember until I started rereading it was that it was a retelling of Cinderella (specifically a delving into of what happens when a self-sufficient young lady is forced into proper royal behavior and realizes that what she thought was love was just infatuation, and must deal with the consequences).

If Just Ella hadn't ended up being shockingly relevant to my current academic and creative interests, I would have written it up on my annotated bibliography and otherwise ignored it. I mean, it's a children's book. I powered through it in an afternoon after having accidentally sedated myself by mixing a tranquilizer with an allergy pill. It was that accessible. But as I said: it's relevant. Two or three years ago I took a class where I was expected to read Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. That was an awesome educational moment: I was required to read something that I ended up loving instead of something that I was merely required to have read. It was also at that moment that I realized that I'm fiendishly attached to retellings of fairy tales. I should stop ignoring it.

Another book I grabbed at the same time I got Just Ella was a hardcover copy of fairy tales ($1.23); of course I've read them all, but not quite with this wording, and certainly not with these illustrations. My god, it occurs to me that I'm ignoring something major when it comes to my creativity. I mean- the desktop background on my laptop is a really tweaked out illustration of Snow White (she looks possessed and the dwarfs (who are on rope leashes) look rabid).

And the funny thing is, it wasn't so much reading Just Ella that forced me to consider my love affair with reworked fairy tales as the fact that I was going over all of the books I've read in the past few weeks, trying to figure out what I had interest in writing about, and it occurred to me that yet again I passed up books I probably should have been reading in favor of a rewritten fairy tale that made me happy and was downright effortless to consume. As simple as breathing, reading stories based on long tradition and tried-and-true themes delights me.

I'm not really sure right now why I'm not writing fairy tales. I wonder if it's because I have a [perhaps misplaced] sense that contemporary fiction should be realistic. I wrote last about how delighted I am by fantasy that is portrayed as realism. The thing is, I'm also over the moon about fairy tales that aren't pretending to be anything but fairy tales. It may also, of course, be in my [perhaps misplaced] sense that if I write fantasy, I'm delving into the realm of Children's/YA. Of course that's foolish and I should know better. Just because many of the reworked fairy tales I've read are classified as YA doesn't mean they all must be, and – and this is probably more important – even if I am writing YA, I shouldn't be concerned about it. It is, perhaps, because I have a [certainly understandable] sense that poets are all a bit strange, nonfiction writers are all a bit too normal, and YA writers are all a bit too damned happy all the time. Mind you, that sense is probably also misplaced, but it's there. I stereotype other writers. So sue me.
But to get more to my point, once I justified having read Just Ella, and once I decided that it wouldn't be the end of the world if I wrote about it instead of writing about Dracula (main nit-pick: its format as a collection of letters and diary entries and the like kill suspense by way of ensuring that a reader knows at least one person survives long enough to write about the events), it occurred to me that one of the things I really actually like about Just Ella is that Haddix used the word 'automaton.'
No big deal, right? Well, I wrote with a group of people for a few years starting when I was about fifteen, and they were more or less obsessive compulsive about using language that was appropriate to the content and type of story. So a story taking place in a locale that is very Middle English shouldn't use latinate language, it should use germanic language. A sci-fi story that's heavily technology-oriented probably shouldn't feature a lot of thees and thous unless there's good reason for it. I had it drilled into me that the language the a writer uses should reflect the realities and truisms of the world s/he is trying to create.

And Haddix used the word 'automaton' in a story about glass slippers and dungeons. That's about as understandable to me as having Queen Elizabeth I talk at great length about robots and microchips.

But the thing is... I'm not at all certain that there's anything particularly wrong with using whatever language springs to mind. It didn't hurt the story any that Ella felt like she was expected to be as obedient as something synthetic. It just stood out to me as something that I wouldn't do. I notice it more in YA novels than I do in general literature: almost as if the authors don't notice their word choice, or as if they don't care, or as if they don't expect their readership to notice it. As somebody who loves Poe's short stories because of the poeticism of his word choice, it really catches my attention that you can just go out and write a story and not be all that concerned about the appropriateness of your word choice.

It's almost reassuring, in a way. Stories can be considered both clever and enjoyable without necessarily needing to be endlessly edited for linguistic merit. Of course linguistic merit is important too, but reading Just Ella brought a few really key things to mind:

There's nothing inherently wrong with writing fun and flippant stories.
I don't always have to show off my honed vocabulary when I'm writing.
I really need to get my shit together and stop ignoring the things that make me feel both happy and creative.
And so I finish thusly, with a meek apology that I wrote about a book that I wasn't really supposed to be reading.

The Inclusion of the Magical in the Mundane

2011-03-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome guest blogger Laura Jones, MFA student at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing Program. Laura is currently combining her talents for writing and art in a graphic novel.

The fascination for me in a lot of writing lies within the balance between the artist and the artistry than in any certainty of what really happened. It delights me more to guess which aspects of the story are invented and which are mined from the writer’s daily life than to know it’s all factual or to assume it’s all fake. It’s a game I like playing, and Neil Gaiman lets me do it.

Gaiman takes easily to this, writing “The Price” in first person, using the voice of his narrator to pull you in, promising that, yes, it really happened. Of stray cats, he writes, “We pay for them to get their shots, and, indignity upon indignity, we have them neutered or spayed” (51). The narrator names the cats, describes them. “We never seem to have more than eight,” Gaiman writes, “rarely have less than three” (51). The narrator goes away in the story to finish writing a book (much like the author might), and comes back home to find a recent addition, the Black Cat (it has no other name), injured. The narrator takes the sick cat to the vet, brings it home, keeps it in the basement to heal, cleans up its diarrhea, gives it antibiotics. The story reads like a personal essay about a man whose family informally adopts cats.

The first hint the reader receives that this is more than a well-recorded memory is when the indoor convalescence of the cat coincides with several terrible things happening to the family. The family, which had been happy, experiences several everyday hardships: a car accident, a fight with a friend, problems at work, an awful summer camp experience. This still would have all come across as nonfiction, or at least determined realism and naturalism, but for the order in which events are so concisely and effectively shown:

Everybody is happy and the cat, free to roam, is injured nightly.

The cat, after being taken to the vet, is locked in the basement to convalesce.

Bad things happen on the days that cat is locked indoors.

As soon as the cat goes back outside and gets hurt again, all the bad things more or less fix themselves.
It is not conveyed that the family is struggling and the cat, as a side note, happens to be there; it is conveyed that the family’s amount of happiness and safety has a direct relationship with the cat’s freedom to fight outside at night. It’s not a correlative relationship, it’s a causal one.

I should mention that this story has more the feel of magical realism than fantasy, which may be what makes it so special to me. Fantasy tends toward a feeling of self-consciousness, perhaps symptomatic of the difficulty of creating an entire believable world that isn’t like ours. In Gaiman’s work, often we’re thoroughly grounded in our own sense of reality, but then we’re confronted by the less-than-rational, which seems to wait for us around the corner, smirking over the fact that we’re not expecting it. It’s not so much that we’re thrown from our sense of realism, either, particularly because Gaiman’s prose style is so often matter-of-fact.

In ‘The Price,’ for instance, when the Devil arrives and the cat attacks to keep the Devil out of the narrator’s home, I wasn’t pulled from my sense of reality. Gaiman had already prepared me for something like this by earlier showing me that the cat’s wounds were inextricably connected to the family’s state of well-being. When the cause of injuries turned out to be a chaotic morphing Devil with red eyes, it was really not much of a surprise. We already knew the cat was special. Now was just finding out what on earth it was fighting every single night. If there was shock, it was more along the lines of “Why didn’t I see the Devil coming?” as opposed to, “A Devil? Really? Yeah right…”

Because of Gaiman’s naturalistic style of storytelling, particularly in ‘The Price,’ even the most wondrous and questionable events seem like they really actually probably – hypothetically – could have happened, if you just happened to be at the right place at the right time to witness it. Because ‘The Price’ reads like a personal essay that explores the balance between caring for other lives and in turn being cared for, it’s almost possible to forget the fact that the cat, if it ever really existed in Gaiman’s reality, almost certainly never battled the Devil in the middle of the night, by the front porch, in complete deadly silence, while Neil watched through night-vision goggles from inside.

Having easily reached the understanding that I like magical realism – both reading it and writing it – the question becomes how to write it so that other people are willing to go along for the ride and reach the end of the tale without rolling their eyes at anything beyond an obvious joke.

Gaiman got it: leave clues. Don’t play coy with your reader. If he’d just talked about how this cat, this black cat, fought all the time, and then one night the narrator watched the cat fight off the Devil, it would have seemed contrived and awkward. Instead, because we learned so early that there was a causal relationship – even if we didn’t quite understand its nature – between the cat’s well-being and the family’s, it wasn’t as far of a stretch to suddenly realize that the cat was protecting the family from something downright evil and tangible. It’s not a shock to find out a cat is having magical or surreal experiences when you already know that the cat seems rather magical or surreal. If you leave clues early enough in the story, you can guide a reader into accepting just about anything.

Adults, I suspect, want to believe. Imagination is fun. It’s just getting jaded adults to the point where they can keep their logic at bay for the duration of a story that’s the tough part: if you don’t have a causal buildup and you spring a sudden moment of magic on them, they get quite upset about it.

Note to self: writing is quite a bit like laying out a scavenger hunt: the clues need to lead to prizes, and the prizes need to be cool enough for the players to bother working out the next clue.

Letter to a student...

2010-12-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Write like academic you--avoiding writing like you think you should write, like your grandmother is leaning over your shoulder. Present in your essays is nice organization, solid thinking and analysis. However, the puffed up, wordy and vague sentences mess everything up. I'm making a big deal out of this because it seems to me if you could get a handle on this your writing will really improve. Hiding among the wordiness is some strong writing and clear thinking.

Get closer to your topic. Stand nose to nose with it.

"In the world we live in" doesn't really mean much. There is no other place for us to live, it's like saying "Here, on Earth..." What do you really mean - in 2010? In the world of Lansing teenagers? Michigan? "It is my understanding..." "I think" "I believe" - You don't need these because reader knows it is your essay, ergo, those are your thoughts and beliefs. Using this wording is technically called authorial intrusion. You are creating a distance between you and the reader. I suggest you not do that. It's like you are standing at a window telling me what you see. Please get out of the way and let me look for myself.

Have you read the section in the S King book, On Writing, about his experience with the newspaper article he wrote about the sports team? That is an illustration of what I'm talking about.

Think about this - what if you wrote a whole essay on the genre you mentioned: screamo. What is it? What are the distinct characteristics that make it different from other genres? Why did it show up? How does it impact the local scene? Who likes it and why? What musical value does it have or why is it so bad? Show - describe with details.

This essay tries to cover too much ground. It's a tour bus going 55 through the city. The tourists don't really get a good look at things because you're zipping through too fast.

Pick one stop. Get out. Totally stare at it, think about it, analyze it, and make it matter.

Final thoughts on swearing

2010-10-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

Although my original hypothesis was not fully supported by my research, I did establish a connection among taboo word use, age, and emotion.

The use of taboo words is linked to social and personal development. As children mature into adolescence they become increasingly concerned with social context; indeed, language use becomes significant in negotiating social relationships around age eleven. Jørgensen stated in regard to his research on code switching in middle school age students that young people perceive their language as something that enables them to have fun in social settings and that language use can in fact “be a power tool in conflicts or as a face-saving measure” . Taboo word use can lead to both fun and social acceptance, two very important considerations for young people.

Adjusting to the emotional changes of moving from childhood to adulthood is another important consideration for young people. As established in Section III, taboo word use is significantly correlated to speaker emotion. It follows then, that the decrease in taboo word use can be linked to the establishment of a wider array of personal tools for dealing with emotion. As an individual becomes more capable of expressing their emotion through productive outlets, such as conversation, their need for taboo word use declines. This analysis would explain the increase in emotionally based narrative content in both older males and females.

My findings are a reflection of the assertion that language serves a unique, highly complex purpose. If one believes that “…language exists as a tool for communication, and rules—old or new—are “good” or “bad” only insofar as they make it an effective or ineffective tool” concerns over taboo word use might be something to reconsider as these words clearly serve a irreplaceable communicative purpose.

Work Cited

George, Alexander. 1990. “Whose Language is it Anyway? Some Notes on Idiolects.” The Philosophical Quarterly 40:160: 275-298.

Jay, Timothy. 2009. Perspectives on Psychological Science 4:2:153-161.

Jørgensen, Norman J. 2003. “Gender differences in the development of language choice patterns in the Køge Project.” International Journal of Bilingualism 7:4:353-377.

Lucken, Melissa. 2009. “Chick’s and Dudes—What’s Your Story?” Survey Data.
Lucken, Melissa. 2009. “Chick’s and Dudes—What’s Your Story?” Personal Interviews.

Schmidt, Stanley. 2002. “To Describe or Prescribe.” Analog Science Fiction & Fact 122:11:4-7.

Data analysis of very, very small study on swearing

2010-10-06T06:27:00.000-07:00

The data I gathered correlated with the literature I reviewed. Fortunately, I was able to adjust my research to allow the three sources to influence each other. This allowed me to slightly alter the focus of my research as I discovered the connection I sought.

With the exception of 1 55-75 year-old male and 1 15-35 year-old female, the responses of the individuals I interviewed matched the data I collected from the self surveys.

The responses of the personal interviews tightly correlated to the assertion that taboo word use peaks during the teen years with a gradual decline following. Additionally, the responses of the personal interviews correlated with Jay’s work which states that taboo word use if linked with speaker emotion.

With the exception of the fact that one of my female age groups has a higher taboo word use number than the corresponding male group, each prong of my data supports the other two prongs (the literature correlates to both the self surveys and personal interviews, as does the personal interview correlate to both the literature and self-survey, for example.)

Very, very small study on swearing, emotion, gender and age

2010-10-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

My research consisted of the two parts 1) self-analysis surveys of 15 minute, informal conversations and 2) face-to-face personal interviews.

Self-analysis surveys

The self-analysis surveys were completed by 23 participants. Because my research goal was to focus on spoken language in same gender/same generation groups and because younger generations codeswitch around older generations, and because younger people, both males and females, are less likely to use taboo words in front of those they perceive to be adults , I controlled the self-surveys by requiring participants to indicate their age group and gender. As the attached form indicates, data was collected on taboo word use as well as narrative content. This approach enabled me to analyze both points simultaneously and to seek a connection between the two.

Face-to-face personal interviews

The face-to-face interviews consisted of 12 individual 10-15 minute interviews—2 interviews with each identified group (2 15-35 males, 2 15-35 females, 2 35-55 males, etc).

The data gathered from personal interviews was not numerically substantial enough to be quantified or used for generalization. Instead of tabulating the data, I used it as a point of reference for my analysis and reflection; I compared it to the data from the self-surveys and information gathered from the literature review to arrive at my conclusions.

Very Brief Literature Review/Swearing and emotion

2010-09-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

The topic of lexicon variation is well covered in scholarly research. It appears there is a continuing debate in regard to the reasons for lexical variations and the level of significance in these variations. There is also a continuing debate as to which framework is most appropriate for analyzing those differences.

My hypothesis required a review of available literature on the topic of the use of spoken language by males and females and how the spoken language of males and females differs. Research and data on these differences frequently focus on issues of power and relationships and on how theories for analysis have changed in recent years. Jørgensen states, “In the past decade or so, a constructionist-inspired perspective has come to the fore in sociolinguistics in general, according to which the differences in language use are less an effect of language use than a means of creating social relations.” This is characteristic of the ongoing debate which focuses on how males and females acquire and use language and is relevant to my research in that it reflects the idea that spoken communication is more than a one person-one person interaction. Spoken language is a complex task which varies and evolves over time—even minute to minute—and those changes are a response to many variables.

At the outset of my research, I was pleased to locate data that supported my hypothesis that taboo word decreased by age. Jay’s data shows that taboo word use rates peak in the teenage years and decline thereafter. Jay’s data did support the common assertion that males use taboo words with higher frequency than females; however, the gap between male and female public swearing has decreased from males accounting for 67% of public swearing in 1986 to males accounting for 55% of public swearing in 2006.

To explore the other main point of my hypothesis, I searched for data on narrative content broken down by age and gender. I was unable to locate any current research on this topic; however, I did find research that supported the connection of speaker emotion to the use of taboo words. “The primary use of swearing is for emotional connotation…two-thirds of swearing data are linked to personal and interpersonal expressions of anger and frustration which seem to be the main reason for swearing…Taboo words persist because they intensify emotional communication to a degree that nontaboo words cannot.”

It was from this analysis that I framed the remainder of my research.

Work Cited

George, Alexander. 1990. “Whose Language is it Anyway? Some Notes on Idiolects.” The Philosophical Quarterly 40:160: 275-298.

Jay, Timothy. 2009. Perspectives on Psychological Science 4:2:153-161.

Jørgensen, Norman J. 2003. “Gender differences in the development of language choice patterns in the Køge Project.” International Journal of Bilingualism 7:4:353-377.

Schmidt, Stanley. 2002. “To Describe or Prescribe.” Analog Science Fiction & Fact 122:11:4-7.

What's the deal with swearing...my hypothesis

2010-09-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Significant gender differences persist in regard to lexicon, especially attitudes towards taboo words, and in choice of narrative content; gender differences are more pronounced with older generations.

Main Points of Hypothesis:

1. Generational factors play a larger role in the use of taboo words than gender factor in spoken English.

2. Generational factors play a larger role in narrative content than gender factor in spoken English.

What the hell...swearing in the classroom

2010-09-19T05:57:00.000-07:00

I recently had a student comment on swearing in the classroom. I generally don't make an issue of it; it typically doesn't happen too often. However, the classroom can be a stressful place. So_students may occasionally swear. Especially if they feel pressured. And_pressuring them is part of my job. So_students do occasionally swear.

As with most topics of interest to me, I have written about it. Forthcoming will be that paper, orginally titled:

Chicks and Dudes—What’s Your Story?: Generational Differences in Regard to Lexicon and Narrative Content

If this were a commercial work, I'd say here's a blurb. But it's not. It's academic. Ergo we have the

Abstract

The differences between male and female taboo word use in regard to frequency and purpose have, in recent years, been revisited in terms of new ideology and frameworks. The differences between male and female narrative content, in regard to emotional and/or non-emotional content, has been of longstanding linguistic interest. However, research has neglected to seek a understanding of how age of speaker relates to both taboo word use and narrative content.

This study shows a possible link among taboo word use, speaker age, and speaker emotion revealing that purpose—expression of emotion—is a factor in both taboo word use and selection of narrative content.

Critical thinking in the composition classroom

2010-09-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

By describing the four major pedagogical approaches to teaching composition, Berlin suggests that not all composition classrooms are—or ever will be—the same. His analysis, by outlining the objectives of the writer and noting the corresponding pedagogical approaches employed to facilitate those objectives, reveals which theory places emphasis on independent, creative, and critical thought. Student writers working within the first three models are tasked primarily with the organization of existing truth, rather than with the challenge of uncovering truth.

The Neo-Platonist/Expressionists provide slightly more space for writer discovery; however, they believe truth to be external and unalterable by the writer. By contrast, the New Rhetoric model relies upon the critical thinking of the writer. In this model, truth is relativistic and shaped by the individual; therefore, the application of the theory requires original—critical—thought on part of the writer.

Source:
Berlin, James. "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories." College English 44.8 (December 1982): 765-777.

Composition theories as identified by James Berlin, second 2 of 4

2010-08-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

Neo-Platonist/Expressionist

In this model, which has its roots in Plato and arose as a reaction to the positivist/current traditionalist model, truth is always in flux. Truth arises from the individual's interaction with the world. The writers task is personal; the writer uses language to convey their own individual truth. Because this model views writing as a personal expression, pedagogical approaches place emphasize critical thinking to generate exploration and discovery.

New Rhetoric

In this model, also referred to as Epistemic Rhetoric, truth is ever-changing. Truth evolves from the interaction of opposing elements. The writer's task is to use language, necessary for the expression of truth, to create truth. Pedagogical approaches emphasize the interaction of the writer, language, reality, and the audience. Critical thinking is valued in this process as it is necessary to analyze both the opposing elements of an idea and o perform the synthesis of writer, reality, language, and audience.

Composition theories as identified by James Berlin, first 2 of 4

2010-08-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Neo-Aristotelian/ClassicistBerlin, James. "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories." College English 44.8 (December 1982): 765-777.

In this model, rarely used in current composition classrooms, truth is believed to exist independent of the observer and cab known only trough the senses. Truth is not certain; therefore, the student is not engaged in a quest for individual truth, but rather truth as it can be proven through rational method. As a result, the pedagogical emphasis is on logic and the development of ideas with little emphasis on the analysis or critical thinking of the writer.

Positivist/Current-Traditionalist

In this model, popular up until the early 1980's, truth is discovered through induction alone. Truth is created by the interplay of sensory impressions and the interpretation of those impressions. The writers task is to shape thought for the reader. Therefore, pedagogical approach is one that focuses on arrangement and style. As invention, either that of thought or design, is not specifically desired, the analysis or critical thought of the student is not emphasized.

Critical thinking in the composition classroom

2010-08-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

This is a follow up on earlier composition theory posts in which I summarized and discussed the Lindemann v Tate debate over whether or not literature should or should not be used in the college composition classroom.

One of the key discussion points of Lindemann's statements is that there is no single, widely accepted concept of what a college composition, specifically the freshman composition, course should accomplish. Neither Tate nor the others who followed in the discussion on the use of literature in the composition classroom address her question, what is a composition course meant to do? Consequently, that point is not sufficiently explored in the conversation about whether or not literature belongs in the composition classroom. This absence is a flaw in the discussion, one that could have been corrected had Lindemann's question been addressed.

Although the purpose of and philosophy behind college composition courses was not explored fully in the literature discussion of the 1990's, it was addressed by other academics. James Berlin, in his well-known article, "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories" outlines what have come to be accepted as the four main pedagogical theories of composition instruction and their corresponding models.

As part of outlining the four theories, he states:

The differences in these teaching approaches [is] located in diverging definitions of the composing process itself--that is, in the way the elements that make up the process--writer, reality, audience, and language--are envisioned. Pedagogical theories in writing courses are grounded in rhetorical theories, and rhetorical theories do not differ in the simple undue emphasis of writer or audience or reality or language or some combination of these. Rhetorical theories differ from each other in the way writer, reality, audience, and language are conceived--both as separate units and in the way the units relate to each other. In the case of distinct pedagogical approaches, these four elements are likewise defined and related so as to describe a different composing process, which is to say a different worlds with different rules about what can be known, how it can be known, and how it can be communicated.(Berlin, p765-66)

At the heart of his analysis of pedagogical theories is the question, Where is truth found? It is here, with this question, that the need or desire for critical thinking on the part of the student writer can be assessed.

Source:
Berlin, James. "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories." College English 44.8 (December 1982): 765-777.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

2010-08-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

The first part of July I spent in Boston at the residency week of my MFA program. The second part of July I spent in Orlando at the Romance Writers of America annual conference. Literary then commercial. What's the difference?

Here's what I've come up with so far.

Literary authors, when asked "What do you write?" don't always have a short, handy answer. They might even blink at you and say, "Fiction."
Commercial authors, when asked, "What do you write?" will respond with something concise: "Short contemporary romance under 75,000 words" or "YA steampunk with romantic elements."

It makes sense that commercial writers are more in tune with exactly what they are writing and what they are going to do with it.

Literary authors ask, "What is the dramatic question?"
Commercial authors ask, "What is my hook?"

After much stewing, I have come to conclude that both questions are the same. Plot is plot. Characters are characters. Nobody needs me to remind them of how many books that are currently considered classics started out (were originally published) as commercial works.

Literary events have readings. The author reads from their work and books are for sale afterward.
Commercial events have signings. Readers buy the book and take it home and read it themself.

This is a difference. No getting around it. Do I like hearing authors read? Sure. But sometimes I really would just have the book to cuddle up with. Just me. And the story. No author there to remind me they wrote it.

For two days small town Mason, Michigan hosted Hollywood

2010-07-19T16:37:00.001-07:00

Roberta M. Gubbins

from the Ingham County Legal News

For two days,

Ingham County, Michigan was in Texas as evidenced by the state flag of Texas flown from the flagpole in front of the courthouse in Mason, the freshly planted white, yellow, and blue flowers at the base of the flagpole, reflecting the white and blue of the Texan flag, and the Texas seal hanging prominently in the third floor courtroom of the courthouse.

time was at a standstill in Mason, the courthouse clock stopped at 7:15 so that the bells marking the half hour and the hour would not chime at the wrong moment.

the citizens of Mason and outlying communities gathered on the streets around the courthouse square watching cameras on booms recording scenes, huge cherry pickers moving large shades, directors directing, actors moving about incomprehensibly, all the while hoping and anxiously waiting to see Hugh Jackman.

For two days, July 1^st and 2^nd, Dream Works and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures brought excitement and entertainment to Mason, filming Real Steel, a science fiction movie staring Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring.

Jackman, known for his role as Wolverine, rumored set for a sequel in 2012, rewarded those waiting, coming over to shake hands and give autographs. He thanked one such crowd, asked by the crew to stop talking during an outdoor shoot, for being “so quiet” while he was rehearsing the scene.

The community was abuzz with comments such as “He said hello to me. I had my picture taken with him, he thanked me for telling him about one of our staffers whose hat he signed and who is fighting cancer, or he shook my hand.” Jackman’s efforts helped ease the communities concerns about the possible disruption caused by the presence of film stars and crew.

Crewmembers, who were equally friendly, were everywhere, easily identified by their black T-shirts, khaki shorts—earplugs in ear, cell phones or walkie-talkies in hand, clip boards at the ready. They were the folks listed at the end of the movie with unusual names such as gaffer (in charge of electrical), best boy (in charge of any group—term used for both sexes), boom operator who operated the boom microphones, dolly grip, the grip in charge of positioning the dolly, a small truck that rolls along carrying the camera and its operator and the camera loader who operates the clapboard signaling beginning of a shot and is responsible for loading the film.

The courthouse was the beneficiary of some improvements. The windows in the courtroom now have lovely wooden blinds, replacing the plastic variety, and the jury room has a new coat of paint—a deep sage green.

While the offices of the courthouse were open, “the public stayed away,” said Curtis Hertel, Register of Deeds. “I think they thought we were closed.” During filming of the scenes in the courtroom and around the courthouse, public and staff were asked to close doors quietly and speak in soft tones. Everyone was hushed as they went about the business of the court.

On Thursday, work did stop temporarily while a scene in the rotunda was being filmed, complete with fog. “I think the fog was to filter the light coming through the windows at the top of the stairs when Jackman and his lawyer came down from the courtroom,” said Kyle Cobe, Assistant Register of Deeds. “Even though we didn’t have much traffic that day, every item that came in was recorded before the day was out,” she said.

For two days, the citizens of Mason were able to forget about oil spills in the Gulf, spies on American soil, loss of jobs, and foreclosures.

For two days, the citizens of Mason were part of the make-believe and glamorous world of Hollywood, an experience they will share with family, friends, casual acquaintances, and complete strangers willing to listen for years to come.

No pilfering of my work, please

2010-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

By Roberta M. Gubbins

Authors of original works are passionate about their creations. Each word, brush stroke, or angle of camera lens is considered and re-considered before put in use. For that reason, since the first writers carved on a clay tablet, they don’t appreciate others making copies, claiming the work as their own, and selling it for a profit.

Society, on the other hand, has not always agreed with the authors. Before the printing press, manuscripts were laboriously copied by scriveners to be bought and sold without any thought to paying the author. In those days, how would the author know his work had been copied unless he happened upon it in a church library or in royal’s home?

The invention of the printing press didn’t help authors much at all. Printers would petition their governments for exclusive monopolies to print and sell manuscripts—in 1469 the Italian government granted such monopoly to a Johannes of Speyer, conceding a five-year exclusive right to print in Venice and its dominions. The author’s rights were barely considered.

Albrecht Dürer claimed his own form of copyright, not the simple © resting quietly on the corner of his work, stating, when he discovered copies of his original works being sold, “Hold! You crafty ones, strangers to work, and pilferers of other men’s brains. Beware! Know you not that I have a grant from the most glorious Emperor Maximillian that not one throughout the imperial dominion shall be allowed to print or sell fictitious imitations of these engravings.”

Therein lay the problem--each creator had to petition the government for the exclusive right to his own work—a time consuming and expensive process. The quandary for the authors of those times was ‘Do I want my work published for all the world to read and by so doing give my rights to it to the printer or publisher who will benefit far more than I or do I petition my government?’ And because the creative folks wanted that recognition they grudgingly signed over their rights or took the time to petition for a license to publish their own words.

This was the situation for centuries until the first copyright act in the world, the Statute of Anne, passed in the United Kingdom in 1710. The preamble to the “Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the author,” set forth the problem—printers were printing books and selling them without the receiving permission from the authors. The British parliament saw this as “a notorious invasion of the property of rightful proprietors of such books and writings, to their great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families.”

This was indeed a serious situation. The statute conferred exclusive rights upon the author for 14 years and “for a further 14 years if the author was still alive at the end of the first period.” Lives were shorter then. The US has its own version of a copyright act, which grants the rights to authors for their lifetime plus 70 years. We live longer now.

Moving forward 300 years, we find authors in a new predicament, or maybe a repeat of an old problem. Now we have digital printing and the Internet. On the one hand, authors can now print and distribute their own works, free from the constraints of the printer/publisher. On the other hand, it is quite easy to cut and paste someone’s words and claim them as your own.

When does the cutting and pasting fall into the realm of plagiarism and a violation of the author’s rights? Or is it just fair use? Fair use is a term found in the US copyright law that allows anyone to quote or reproduce parts of another’s work without permission if done for the purposes of commentary, or news reporting or education.

The difference between fair use and stealing another’s work is not clear. There is no bright line that distinguishes how many words, lines, notes, or images can be taken without permission. An author may say, like Dürer, that taking of another’s work is pilfering and is deserved of punishment for “not only will your goods be confiscated, but your bodies also placed in mortal danger.” Dürer was serious about protecting his work.

While I suspect that modern authors don’t generally put pilferers in mortal danger, they do, however, bring lawsuits or send cease and desist letters. And I suspect that over time, the distinction between fair use and stealing will become clearer until, of course, the next generation of technology comes along causing creatives to take on a new challenge to the security of their work.

Intentions: the why behind the what

2010-06-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

Let's say its a sunny day, 90 degrees hot and humid. And you see a guy walking around in a rain coat and he's sweating so much he's getting wet. You say to him, "That coat isn't working, its not going to keep you dry, its actually making you get wet. The best way for you to dry off is to take off the coat." He looks at you like you're crazy and says, "I'm not trying to be dry, I'm trying to sweat off five pounds."

Once you know the guy is trying to lose weight, then you could suggest better ways to do it. But if you assume you know what he is trying to do, you could give him advice that will be unrelated to what he was trying to do. Sure, it might be great advice--the best--but if it doesn't help him toward his goal then it isn't the best advice for him at that time. Also, it could ignore his goal altogether, which invalidates his intentions.

I'm just thinking, sometimes you have to ask someone why they are doing what they are doing to determine if what they are doing is successful.

Current final thoughts on the literature debate

2010-06-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Given that the purpose of the freshman composition course varies greatly from one institution to another, a one size fits all approach to what is appropriate reading for the composition classroom is not reasonable or desirable. The selection of literature may be appropriate. But does the reading of fiction have advantages over non-fiction? Louise Rosenblatt, author of Literature as Exploration, believes so. She pointed out that it is easy to think about complex human problems when emotions are not involved. This ease is a disservice to students as this type of setting, a non-emotional one, is not realistic. Students need the challenge that is supplied by emotion; fiction supplies that challenge as “literature offers an opportunity to develop the ability to think rationally within an emotionally colored context” (p217).

Rosenblatt notes that fiction provides students the opportunity to identify their emotions, test their assumptions, and consequently reject or revise their original reactions. (p215) She states, “It seems reasonable to suggest…that in building up the habit of mind essential to the attainment of sound literary judgment, the student will also be acquiring mental habit valuable for the development of sound insight into ordinary human experience.” (p215-216) In short, thinking generates more thinking and high level critical thinking generates more high level critical thinking. And isn’t the generation of high level critical thinking an excellent reason to select literature for the composition classroom?

Exposing assumptions and moving beyond the original debate

2010-06-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

Throughout her discussion, Lindemann refers to teaching literature. This phrase is revealing and reflects Lindemann’s limited perception of literature, its uses, and its impact on the reader. Although she does briefly touch upon critical theory, she does not explore it with any great depth. Tate also examined literature as a source for analysis, something to be taken apart and examined and then subsequently written about.

Steinberg’s addition to the conversation is a historical perspective; Gamer’s begins to explore the differences between fiction and non-fiction. Salvatori’s analysis goes a step further in that it explores the relationship of reader to text, acknowledging that readers engage differently with fiction than they do with non-fiction. It appears that the conversation stagnated and, for the most part, ended at that point. The stagnation occurred at the time when the question, why do readers engage differently with fiction than non-fiction, should have been raised. The connection between how literature affects readers and how fiction is crafted was not explored. Had it been, the conversation might have continued.

Additional entrants in the Lindemann v Tate conversation

2010-06-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Although the debate between Lindemann and Tate took center stage, others entered the conversation. Erwin Steinberg and Michael Gamer both had articles in the March 1995 issue of College English, the issue that featured Lindemann’s and Tate’s second installments mentioned above. Steinberg, in his article, “Imaginative Literature in Composition Classrooms?” focuses on the history of the use of literature in the composition classroom. He rejects Tate’s assertion that literature has recently been ejected from composition classrooms. Using Albert Kitzhaber’s 1963 report, “Themes, Theories, and Therapy,” he states that there is no typical composition classroom because the content of the courses varies so greatly from one institution to the next. Gamer, in his article, “Fictionalizing the Disciplines: Literature and the Boundaries of Knowledge,” rethinks Tate’s dilemma by replacing the concept of writing beyond the disciplines, writing from inside of the academy to outside, with his own alternative which focuses on writing that moves from outside the disciplines to inside the academy. He suggests that because academic discipline’s boundaries, as do the real world ones, overlap that students would be well served by reading, such as literature, that reflects that overlap.

Later, in 1996, Mariolina Salvatori, enters the conversation with her article, “Conversations with the Texts: Reading in the Teaching of Composition.” She moves away from focusing on the presence of literature in the classroom to the actual reading of the literature. To support her claim that that reading and writing are interconnected, she details theories such as that put forth by John Clifford and John Schilb in their 1985 essay, “Composition Theory and Literary Theory.” She offers discussion on her approach to teaching which stems from the assumption that reading and writing—literature and composition—are interconnected.

Gary Tate: For using literature in the composition classroom

2010-05-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

Gary Tate’s 1993 article “A Place for Literature in Freshman Composition,” published as a companion piece to Lindemann’s “No Place,” takes the opposing stance—literature in the composition classroom is appropriate and educationally valuable. He offers the suggestion that limitations are not necessary and that all texts should be included as resources. However, he notes, instructors have moved away from literature as a resource. He provides a historical backdrop for the current views and attitudes toward literature, stating the reasons literature had been removed from classrooms include: poor teaching practices of the past and the revival of rhetoric. He and Lindemann do seem to agree on one point: the need to explore and clarify the purpose of freshman composition.

In his follow-up article, “Notes on a Dying Conversation,” published two years later, Tate revisits the idea that literature had been driven from freshman composition classrooms. He adjusts his statement to reflect his new understanding that literature had not been driven from the classroom, only from the discussion. The silence of those using literature in the classroom was part of the reason for the lack of development of arguments for using literature.

Tate responds to Lindemann’s underlying message of what freshman composition courses ought to do by expressing his concern that a freshman composition course, because it serves all freshman, cannot be designed to prepare students for specific majors. There are simply too many majors for one course to sufficiently accommodate them all. Additionally, he adds, “The ‘conversations’ I want to help my students join are not the conversations going on in the academy…I much prefer to think of them and treat them as people whose most important conversations will take place outside the academy…” (p320). Clearly, he is removed from Lindemann’s position that the primary purpose of the course is to engage students in the dialogue and conversation of the academy.

Erika Lindemann: Against using literature in the composition classroom

2010-05-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

In her 1993 article, “Freshman Composition: No Place for Literature,” Erika Lindemann explores the role of literature in a first-year writing course and takes the position that literature ought to be excluded from such a course. Her primary reason for this exclusion is a lingering unanswered question, “What is the purpose of freshman composition?” Lindemann’s stance is that until this question is answered in such a way that literature is called for it should remain excluded. She includes additional reasons for this exclusion: 1) literature-based courses are focused on reading texts rather than producing them 2) literature is not necessary 3) studying literature does not teach academic style 4) teaching literature does not prepare students for graduate programs by providing teaching training.

In her follow-up article, “Three Views of English 101,” published two years later and after others entered the conversation, Lindemann again raises her primary concern, the lack of a unified, clearly defined, purpose for freshman composition course. She then turns to a simplified description of three writing pedagogies, proposing the pedagogical differences lie in whether the instructor views writing as a product, process, or system of social actions (p288-89). She describes the differences between these models, concluding that the use of literature is not necessary in any of them.

A significant message running through both of these articles is Lindemann’s own perception of what the freshman composition course ought to do. She sees the course as an opportunity for the students to enter into academic conversation, to prepare themselves for the type of discourse found in the academy. There is another significant point running through both articles; it is Lindemann’s perception that the only use for literature is for analysis—that all writing that stems from literature is about the literature.

Moving Beyond Lindemann v Tate: Situating literature in the composition classroom

2010-05-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

Recent work using literature in the composition classroom refreshed my interest in three questions:

why does an emotional novel help students think analytically?
how could the reading and analysis of literature be used to generate critical thinking?
what work has already been done in this area?

In the 1990’s, Erika Lindemann and Gary Tate began a conversation regarding the use of literature in the composition classroom; the conversation dominated and defined much of the dialogue on the subject. While the ongoing debate drew attention to and interest in the use of literature in the English classroom, the debate also bifurcated the topic thus inhibiting conversation and ultimately causing stagnation. As a result of the stagnation, essential areas were not explored. One area not touched upon was an analysis of how fiction differs from non-fiction, especially in how it impacts the reader. Underlying this untouched area is the assumption that all literature “works” the same way. This assumption is incorrect. Another significant flaw, related to the one above, is that the only use for fiction is critical analysis, that all writing generated by fiction is critical discussion of the work. This assumption is also incorrect. These assumptions created significant flaws in the 1990’s literature debate. However, identifying these flaws creates an opportunity to explore beyond the original conversation points and move in a direction that may encourage instructors to reconsider the uses of literature in the composition classroom.

fab five questions for fresh fiction students

2010-05-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was thinking, if I'm ever a MFA mentor or creative writing teacher working with a student over an extended period of time, I might find it useful to get to know the student a bit. Here are some things I think I'll ask.

1. Why are you pursuing an MFA? or What do you hope to gain from this course?

2. What are your long term fiction writing goals? Your fiction writing goals for this semester?

3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in the past? Is there anything you have not accomplish that you would like to work on this semester?

4. Have you published fiction? If so, what type? And, how does that work fit into your long term and short term fiction writing goals? Is publishing fiction one of your goals?

5. What are your fiction writing strengths? Weaknesses? Why do you believe these are your strengths and weaknesses?

Just a thought.

Cultural Issues in Writing Instruction: Purpose, Style, Product

2010-04-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

Did you know:

the dominant style of academic writing in US universities is based on beliefs and assumptions that are derived from western—US—culture?
the common method of thinking & writing is considered the most sophisticated and intelligent by only a small percentage of the world’s people?
difficulties in producing ‘acceptable’ writing can stem from cultural variation?

Factors that impact the way people express themselves include:

social relations.
identity.
negotiation of social roles.

Possible indicators that cultural differences may be involved include:

persistent writing difficulties despite continual and/or repeated instructions from instructor.
a mismatch between the extent of difficulty with a writing task and the student’s educational and experiential level.

Cultural differences may include:

attitudes towards and value on directness vs. indirectness.
attitudes towards and value on connectedness and individuality.
attitudes towards and value on ‘analysis’ and ‘originality.’
perceptions of politeness.
ways of demonstrating respect.
ways of offering criticism.

When working with students outside mainstream academic culture consider:

avoiding making assumptions about what writing ‘does.’
assuring a common understanding of the goal of writing assignment.
working towards a common understanding of ‘analysis.’
working towards a common understanding of ‘original.’
supplying examples of ‘A’ level writing assignments.
clarifying view of audience (reader) needs.
understanding the writer’s frustrations.

From Helen Fox’s Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing. NCTE, 1994.

Copyright and Fair Use for Creative artists Presented by SBM ACES Law section

2010-04-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

By Roberta M. Gubbins

On April 3rd, the Saturday before Easter, a group of lawyers, students, creatives, and the curious met for a day of discussion around the issue of copyright and fair use of original works of authorship. The event, sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan Arts, Communication, Entertainment & Sports Law Section, was held at Grand Valley State University, Devos Campus, in Grand Rapids, MI.

Jeffrey Nelson, attorney with Warner, Norcros, Judd LLP, kicked off the event with a general discussion of copyright. Copyright law is found in the US Code, Title 17, Sec. 102.

Looking at the elements of the law, Nelson said, “An original work of authorship includes literary works, dramatic works, choreographic works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and architectural works. For a work to be original, it must be an independent creation, and contain a modest amount of creativity. For example, factual material is not copyrightable, however, the manner in which it is presented may be. And, finally, the work must be fixed in some medium or form capable of identification. Electronic files are a medium that are capable of copyright protection.”

“The Internet has created a lot of issues, he said. “It gives you access to millions of copyrighted items that you would not have had access to before. Access to the item does not necessarily give you the right to use it. The website may allow the viewer to use the material for personal use but not for commercial use. The absence of specific restrictions on the use doesn’t allow you to use it for whatever you want.”

“We litigate copyright cases, representing the creative types,” said Julie Ahrens, attorney with the Stanford Fair Use Project. “We also advise film-makers who are using copyrighted material in their films about how they can use that material and help them get affordable insurance for their protection.”

The fair use doctrine allows creatives to use portions of copyrighted work without permission for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. “You have the First amendment right to free speech and you have the copyright law that in some ways controls free speech. There has to be a balance between what is copyrighted and what is someone else’s free expression.”

When reviewing fair use issues, courts consider factors such as the purpose and character of the new use, the nature of the original work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of the use on the market. For example, Aherns said, “if you would buy the second work as opposed to buying the original work, that has a detrimental effect on the value of the original work.”

Following lunch, Julie Aherns, Roger Rappaport and Matthew Bower presented a discussion of the case involving Steve Vander Arks proposed publication of a reference work, the Lexicon, based on the Harry Potter Lexicon website. The book is an A to Z encyclopedia of the characters, spells, creatures, places, events and magical items in the Harry Potter series.

Rappaport, publisher, RDR Books stated he knew there was a problem when he received a letter asking him not to publish the book. Rappaport did not give up, he sought help and fought back. Eventually, US District Court Judge Robert Patterson ruled that the book infringed J.D. Rowling’s copyright but with also ruled that, with editing of passages that were taken verbatim from the original work, the fair use claims were valid and the book could be published.

The Right to Write Fund (The Fund), along with others assisted Rappaport with his defense against J.K Rawlings and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. The Fund was created to be an educational repository for the 21st –century freedom of expression and Fair Use issues writers and publishers encounter. For more information, visit www.righttowrite.org.

Photos by rmg, shows Julie Aherns, Matt Bower and Jeff Nelson, relaxing before speaking at the Copyright and Fair Use for Creative artists workshop presented by the State Bar of Michigan ACES Law section.

Reflections on Kelly Ritter's Before Shaughnessy

2010-04-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

I am confused by Ritter’s reluctance to use the term “college level.” After demonstrating that the definitions of basic and “college level” vary from one intuition to another, she states in her suggestion that the word basic be replaced with the word introductory because that category, “would encompass all versions of first-year writing at the college level.” Here she has implied that there is such as thing as first-year, college level writing. Furthermore, by indicating that her Writing 1-3 sequence would encompass all versions of first-year writing, she is implying that college curriculum should, in a sense, reach down to include those who had previously been labeled basic. I am not meaning to explore that point of whether colleges should or should not reach down to capture all students, only to indicate that Ritter herself acknowledges that there is such a thing as college level, despite its undefinability.
Another point I found troubling, was the suggestion—which is supplied to support the Writing 1-3 sequence—that those students who need basic writing coursework might be pushed out of an academic system that is being stretched to its limits due to increased enrollment and budget issues. She asks, “Will basic writers be the first to be sacrificed because they are so easily segregated?” (p141) This is seemingly inconsistent, considering she had stated earlier that colleges added basic writing courses as a result of increased enrollment which was brought on by budget issues.*

Additionally, Ritter argues for the elimination of the label basic to be replaced by the label introductory. This category “would encompass all versions of first-year writing at the college level, not just the first or lowest course in the sequence, thus eliminating the designation of remedial/basic/”precollege” courses within the curriculum.” Her rationale: “Such a leveling of terms, rather than a standardizing of values or expectations, would serve as a symbolic step toward addressing the warring conceptions of “college-level” designations in first-year writing curricula today.” (p140)

While breaking apart the initial writing courses of undergraduate writing work is an intriguing idea, I am confused by the notion of removing the term basic from a course catalogue and merging the formerly “basic” students with the “regular” students in order to resolve the writing needs of students. Simply removing the term will not simply remove their need; the needs will still have to be met. Ritter seems to imply that the writing needs, the missing skills, will somehow just appear once the term basic has been removed. Or, that those who have “basic” needs will have them well met in the “regular” class. Perhaps there is research that shows such an implication is true; if so her argument would have been stronger had she mentioned it.

While I did find the above points conflicting and confusing, they are not questions that lingered long after closing the book. There was one, however, that did linger. Ritter declares, “By making limited, ahistorical assertions about the places in which basic writers have existed, we ignore the rich models—and powerful lessons—we can take to our classrooms and programs in search of equal institutional status and opportunity for all writing students. In order for research in basic writing to truly contextualize its origins, we must consider all sites of instruction when assembling a social history of the basic writer or student whose writing is outside what is considered standard/acceptable to the institution at hand and the culture in which it operates.” Ritter has done a thorough job of establishing this point; however, her assertions brought to mind a question that, for me, lingers. Given that basic writing programs are institutionally defined and serve primarily to acquaint the student with the values of their chosen institution, do basic writing programs work? Perhaps the next step is to merge Ritter’s observations and assertions with that lingering question.

Ritter, Kelly. Before Shaughnessy: basic writing at Yale and Harvard, 1920-1960. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009)

* On page 75 Ritter notes; “…the face of the first-year program was changing nationwide, evolving to meet the needs of the student—and the financial solvency of the institution.” She continues on to add that enrollments were rising, due to a “mass-culture shift [which] occurred between 1915 and 1940.

Before Shaughnessy by Kelly Ritter

2010-03-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Before Shaughnessy: basic writing at Yale and Harvard, 1920-1960

by Kelly Ritter

Introduction

“Imagine, if you will, a first-year program at Equitable University that looks like this: A first-year writing curriculum with a menu of course options for incoming (and transfer) students, each with equal course credit, each with a small course capacity (of twelve to fifteen students), and each with a simple, objective name. One course is called “Writing 1.” The next is called “Writing 2.” The next is called “Writing 3.” Each course is regarded publicly—in all marketing for the institution as well as in communication with prospective students and their parents—as college-level, and incoming students are encouraged to choose, through a process of guided self-placement, which course along the sequence meets their initial needs. No student is called remedial or basic and certainly not precollege.”[i]

In Before Shaughnessy: basic writing at Yale and Harvard, 1920-1960 Kelly Ritter proposes this “broad, utopian vision” [ii] as a replacement for what she states is a disjointed and stigmatized undergraduate writing curriculum; a writing curriculum that unsuccessfully sorts out basic writers and places them in separate, “special” classes. The above model, she asserts, would remove the stigma and rigidity of current basic writing courses and resolve system flaws that have “effectively kept underprepared students at a disadvantage for resources and funding given to other, “regular” students—as these underprepared students represent to legislators an uncomfortable and frustrating result of the always-present weakening of secondary and postsecondary educational outcomes. We need to level the playing field,” Ritter states, “and we need to do so now.” This is her call to action.

Purpose

Before Shaughnessy is an exploration of the definitions and limitations of basic writing courses, historical account, critical analysis and call to action. Ritter, a fifteen year veteran of teaching first-year college writing, uses the analysis of the basic writing programs at Yale and Harvard during the years 1920-1960 to support her potentially controversial call to action—the elimination of basic writing programs.

Ritter’s discussion of the location and development of basic writing courses adds new layers to previous discussions of the location and development of first-year writing courses. She explores the differences and similarities of basic and first-year writing courses across time and across institutions. One well developed point is the idea that despite the fact that they share the same labels (basic, first-year) at the majority of colleges, they do not share the same content. Both basic and first-year writing courses are institutionally defined. Interestingly, although content of the courses vary, the purpose remains consistent—to acculturate the student into the college’s rhetorical and cultural values.

She moves from those concepts to present a historical overview and analysis of the basic writing programs of Yale and Harvard during the earlier half of the 1900’s. She uses her analysis of these programs to support these points as well as to provide an new look at what a basic writer has been, is now or could be in the future. Her research shows that basic writers have been found and served at elite institutions in the early part of the 1990’s. This fact complicates the typical view of basic writing, one that begins to take shape after the publication of Shaughnessy’s canonical work.

Audience

This well focused handling of a specific topic would be of great interest to administrators, including WPAs and those “above” them and instructors at both the secondary and post secondary institutions. These individuals would find that Ritter’s analysis and call to change provides a rich collection of facts and ideas. These facts and ideas will generate reflection, assessment, and future planning. This holds true regardless of whether the reader agrees, disagrees, or is undecided on Ritter’s ultimate suggestion. Additionally, educators from or historians of elite educational institutions would find her research of the basic writing programs at Yale and Harvard illuminating and fascinating. For these individuals, the text might serve as a starting point for future historical compilation or interpretation.

[1] Ritter, Kelly. Before Shaughnessy: basic writing at Yale and Harvard, 1920-1960. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), p140-141.

[1] Ibid., p 141.

Fight Club the Ultimate Abstraction

2010-03-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is one of those books that people like to talk about, argue over even. I asked five people what Fight Club is “about,” you want to hear what they said?

• 19 year-old male: “consumerism and the destruction of the human spirit.”
• 41-year old female: “good and bad of a person, person confronting their own reality.”
• 49-year-old male: “gay cruising.”
• 21-year-old female: “dude who had insomnia and that was how he fell asleep.”
• 32-year-old male: “what happens when people go to support groups.”

Actually, I asked six. The sixth person, my 16-year-old son. His response, “I don’t know, is there anything to eat? When’s dinner?” Ironic when you consider one of the things people say Fight Club is about is the emasculating effect mothers, who smother their sons by providing too much for them and not allowing them to get tough, have on their sons in post-modern US.

Who’s right, you want to know. What do I think the book is about, you ask. Here’s what it’s about. Whatever you want it to be. Just like that. You read it one way and you get nothing. Because you didn’t try. You didn’t want it bad enough. You read it another way, and it’ll blow your mind.

But making a book like that, a book of possibilities for everyone who wants it bad enough, isn’t easy. There are three things: One, don’t waste time with fancy narration. Talk right to the reader. You’re the one I want to talk to right now, so I’m talking to you. See? It’s just you and me. No time-wasting physic distance between us.

Two, even though you’re talking right to the reader, don’t spoon feed. That’s depressing. And it takes away the reader’s chance to fill in the blanks, make the words their own. Check this:

“The second rule about fight club,” Tyler yells, “is you don’t talk about fight club.”
Me I knew my dad for about six years, but I don’t remember anything. My dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every six years. This isn’t so much like a family as it’s like he sets up a franchise.
“What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.”
Tyler standing under the one light in the after-midnight blackness of a basement full of men.(i)

You get what’s going on with Tyler, that’s concrete. You get that something went on with the narrator’s dad, that concrete too. But see how not being concrete about the relationship between the event from the present and the event from the past leaves the thread untied? You feel me. The reader ties them how they want. The reader makes the connection. Not sure it’ll work? Check rule six.

Three, pick one big thing, something key that a lot of people think about, maybe care about, maybe love, maybe hate, and drop it into whatever’s going on in a bunch of different ways. Inconsistent. Juxtaposed. Mix it up. The reader will work it out, make the abstract concrete. Maybe use God.

Bob’s big arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed in the dark between Bob’s new sweating tits that hang enormous, the way we think of God’s as big.(ii)

A real doctor grabbed my bare foot and hefted it into the face of the other real doctors. The three turned it and poked it and took Polaroid pictures of the foot, and it was as if the rest of the person, half dressed with God’s gift half-frozen, didn’t exist.(iii)

If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ... The lower you fall, the higher you fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back.(iv)

And don’t.
Stop.
Please.
Oh.
God.
Help.
Me.(v)

If you’re male, and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And sometimes you find your father in your career.(vi)

Our maybe point your finger right at the stuff in people’s lives:

IKEA furniture
Air Mattress beds
Dear Abby columns
National Geographic magazines
Prince Charmings
Xanax tablets

What’s the big deal about stuff, you ask. Why does naming names matter? It isn’t the name that matters, its what the reader thinks about the name. That’s the variable, the thing that makes a concrete object abstract. Listen. What do you think about when I say the word Xanax? That’s not what I’m thinking. Reader’s Digest? We’re not thinking the same thing. See, when you mention a particular thing, something so specific that the reader has experience with it and that experience means the reader attaches some idea or belief to it, you don’t get a specific response—you get a custom made one. Custom made by the reader.

See rule five. It’s all real. Readers know what they know. It’s their truth and their truth is what matters to them.

See rule six. Reader will decide what that truth means and—because rule six, like all the others, can’t be broken—whatever the reader decides the meaning is, that’s what it is.
And since you are the writer—who writes the words—not the reader—who reads them—you don’t get to interfere with the truth. It won’t be tolerated.

___

i Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996, p50.

ii Ibid., p16

iii Ibid., p104

iv Ibid., p141

v Ibid., p165-166.

vi Ibid., p186.

These are the rules for write club.

2010-03-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

1. The writer writes the words.

2. The writer writes the words.

3. The reader reads the words.

4. There are no excuses for not writing.

5. There are no lies in fiction.

6. Trust the reader.

These are the rules for write club.

Write club isn’t for everyone. Not everyone can understand what it’s like to put yourself out there, get beat down, and get back up. Every time you get up, someone will be there, ready to take you down. Whether or not you keep getting up, keep fighting, is up to you—but no matter what you have to follow the rules because there is no other way. No other choice. It isn’t publishing that matters, its writing. Writing is everything. It is everything and other people, people who don’t have the courage to write, try to publish, will try to stop you. Because they can’t stand that you are doing it. Getting back up and swinging. But interference won’t be tolerated.

How do I know this? Chuck Palahniuk. He wrote Fight Club, the ultimate metaphor of writing.

Who’s Listening?: Audience in Fiction, Wolf Hall

2010-03-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

I recently read Walter J. Ong’s essay, “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction,” in which he analyzes the concept of audience and the relationship of writer to audience. This essay caught my attention because he applies fiction techniques and concepts to essay writing. While this practice is now common, especially within the genre of creative non-fiction, this article was written thirty-five years ago. Perhaps Ong was among the first wave of academics to introduce fiction techniques into non-fiction writing. As I considered his essay, I wondered, though, if his blending was intentional. The reason I was not convinced that he did indeed mean to bring fiction concepts into non-fiction writing is because he backed his analysis of audience in essay with poetry and fiction examples without later coming back to clarify how or why those examples, from fiction, are reasonably applicable to non-fiction. Even though he did not clarify the connection, it was a meaningful one to me. In particular, his discussion of the tradition of fictionalizing audiences, and his assertion that, “A history of the ways audiences have been called on to fictionalize(i) themselves would be a correlative of the history of literary genres and literary works, and indeed of the culture itself.”(ii)

This statement reminded me of John Gardner’s analysis of point of view in contemporary novels. In The Art of Fiction Gardner states that contemporary writers may do anything they like—as long as it works. The writer, for example, my make sudden shifts without alerting the reader to the presence of the shifts; contemporary readers are accustomed to such uniqueness. In support he offers, “That is part of the built-in expectation and pleasure of ‘contemporary’ or at-once-recognizably-innovative art. But in every age, including our own, some literature…uses traditional methods, and here a certain correctness is beyond dismissal.”(iii) Gardner then continues to give an overview of point of view as it relates to audience and asserts that third-person-subjective has limitations and depends too greatly on irony for meaning. He also comments on its additional limitations.

When the fiction is judgmental, and for some reason much third-person subjective fiction is, the writer commits himself to nothing except by irony; he merely exposes the stupidities of mankind; and except insofar as he misses the point, the reader stands apart from the action of the story, watching it critically, like a grumpy old man at a party. …even when the fiction is benevolent, the third-person-subjective point of view can achieve little grandeur. It thrives on intimacy and something like gossip. It peeks through the keyhole, never walk through an open field.(iv)

I disagree with Gardner’s point that third-person-subjective relies too often on irony, achieves little grandeur, and depends upon sentimentality.(v) Perhaps my disagreement stems from the fact that I am one of the many Ong refers to; I am one of the audience members who has unknowingly fictionalized myself and therefore intuitively understand what is expected of me as a reader. Perhaps because third-person-subjective is so common in contemporary fiction, a point Gardner would agree with(vi), I have “grown-up” with it and therefore accept it, understand my role as a reader within it.(vii)

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is an example of a book that is a reflection of its time. While the setting—Henry VIII’s England, a time period rich in political, spiritual, and human conflict, a long-standing favorite of readers—is not unique, Mantel’s casting of the audience is. Her approach is intimate but not dependent on sentimentality; indeed the very success Mantel’s reversal of Cromwell’s long-standing negative reputation is dependent upon the reader’s emotional connection with him. The intent of writing a novel that will draw readers in and challenge their perceptions of a historical figure is not singularly contemporary but the way in which Mantel has crafted it is. Mantel crafts the story so that the reader is walking side by side with Thomas Cromwell, experiencing his life in real time and accepting whatever is said as truth(viii). For example, after being beat by his father Cromwell has left home, then left the home of his sister, and left Dover:

He adds up what he’s got and what he’s spent. Deduct a small sum for a brief grabble with a lady of the night. Not the sort of thing you could do in Putney, Wimbleton or Mortlake. Not without the Williams family getting to know, and talking about you in Welsh.(ix)

The choice to use a grammatically inconsistent sentence fragment and the use of the word “you” are significant. Both of these choices assume that the reader as audience will 1) accept the non-traditional language use and 2) accept being spoken to directly. Mantel’s successful fictionalization of the audience depends on the acceptance of these factors; she maintains the role of the audience by continuing using both grammatically inconsistent sentence fragments and the word “you” to speak directly to the reader. Consider this reference to the queen’s daughter:

Her own pain-racked little daughter. She may smile, but she doesn’t yield an inch. Julius Cesar would have had more compunction. Hannibal.(x)

And later, very near the end of the novel, following the outburst during court:

The jury had not liked it: you never know what a jury will like.(xi)
The use of grammatically inconsistent sentence fragments and the use of the word “you” run throughout Wolf . These are only two pieces of the whole approach Mantel uses to connect with the audience.

It seems reasonable to me that the dynamics of writer, as person who tells the story, and reader, as the person who accepts the story, do not change, yet the audience as a fictionalized entity does. To me it isn’t a matter of any one approach to reaching the audience being better or of greater value than another; it is simply a matter of difference and change. The selection of point of view and the roles the reader is cast into are examples of such change. If Hilary Mantel had written Wolf Hall in early the 1900’s instead of the early 2000’s, would it have been published? If it were, would it have been prized?
___

According to Ong, two things are required for the audience to fictionalize itself. One, the writer must cast in his mind a role for the reader, entertainment seeks, for example, and two, the reader must be willing to play the role the writer has cast for him.
Ong, Walter J. “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction.” Modern Language Association: PMLA 90.1 (January 1975): p14.
Gardener, John. The Art of Fiction. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p155.
Ibid., pp156-157.
Sentimentality in the sense that the work depends upon emotion to deliver the desired effect rather than on real depth. I believe that is what Gardner means when he writes that third-person-subjective thrives on intimacy; it thrives on the close emotional contact between the character and reader, thus is thrives on unanalyzed emotion.
Gardener, John. The Art of Fiction. New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p156.
This statement is based on Gardner’s literary references in Art of Fiction and in On Becoming a Novelist.
Perhaps this automatic is what Gardner is referring to when he says third-person-subjective, “peeks through the keyhole.”
Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall. New York: Henry Holt, 2009, p13.
Ibid., p 372.
Ibid., p 525

All Girl’s Souls

2010-02-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

A poor little rich girl, alternately neglected and abused by her uncaring father; an awkward “fat girl,” mostly disliked by classmates and shunned from the “better” lunch tables; a lonely, bored teenager experimenting with lesbianism with a lonely, bored teacher; a competitive Asian; a diversity-minded African; and a delicate, beautiful dancer who inspires all around her; these are the characters a reader is likely to expect to find in a book about an exclusive—expensive—private high school in New York’s Manhattan and these indeed are the characters that characters the pages of Christine Schutt’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize Fiction finalist All Souls.

The characters of Souls orbit Astra Dell, the dancer at the center of this senior-year story, defining themselves in relation to both Astra’s illness and mid-year recovery. At the opening of the story, early September, Astra is hospitalized with cancer; by the end, graduation in May, she is in remission and back in school. Even by the end of the novel very little, other than the fact that she was Dance Club President, had lost her mother to accident several years earlier, and possessed a thick, bright red head of hair, is revealed about Astra. She remains undeveloped and static. Her unchanging character emphasizes the personalities, thoughts, and actions of the other characters.

In one particular area the contrast is most sharp: the contrast between Astra’s very possible death and the worries that others assume accompany it and the typical trials that go along with a senior year of high school and the worries that those characters express. Schutt draws attention to this contrast, for example, in the reflections of, Kitty Johnson a mother of one of the students; Car Foresstal, Astra’s best friend, and Lisa Van de Ven, a fellow senior at Siddons School:

What other conversations were there? Was there still talk of the Dells, Astra Dell especially? Was the subject of her cancer old, or simply avoided because it diminished all the other griefs a healthy person felt? Here was a body dangerously sick: Astra Dell, that pale girl from the senior class, the dancer with all the hair, the red hair, knotted or braided or let to fall to her waist, a fever, and she consumed.(i)
Astra occurred to her and how weird it was that she, Car, who smoked and drank, was healthy while her best friend was sick. Good could be wrung from dwelling on Astra. Comparatives were meaningful. (ii)
Lisa remembered the numbers and was pretty sure her mother had the news as well; her mother had been in school in the morning giving a parent tour. Her mother knew all about the top 2 percent, which explained her mother sending flowers to Astra Dell—a sick girl was less a disappointment probably. (iii)

Although Astra’s illness is the defining line for the events of the story, the intent of the novel extends beyond the complex concerns of death and the mundane concerns of everyday teenage life. Schutt also explores the possibilities of personal change and how that change can occur in unexpected ways. The contrast between Astra and the other characters is effective, particularly in regard to Marlene, the character who changes the most. In the beginning Marlene is awkward, unkempt. Consider:

Marlene picked her nose and sent what she found in it flying across her room. She was a dirty girl, she knew that much, and whatever the girls in school suspected her of—stealing, farting, lying—was true…Look at her messy room, the unresolved of such disorder. She had no ambition but to dizzy herself into absence. (iv)

Marlene, more than anyone else, visits the hospital and devotes time and energy to the sick girl. She reads to Astra and brings her her homework, making sure the sick girl is able to stay caught up with assignments. As a result of her time with Astra, Marlene changes; she begins to do better in school, “Marlene had reviewed for exams with Astra and done well. Marlene was not dumb after all; she had only been lazy as some of the teachers had always suspected.” (v) and becomes concerned with her appearance, “Marlene would walk down the aisle of the church wearing a white A-line satin dress—not exactly summery, but a white dress that might serve a couple of occasions was hard to find—and a seed pearl necklace. And her hair? She pinned her hopes on a hairstylist…” (vi) It is clear that her time with Astra is the reason for the change, “…Marlene nevertheless felt like she was Astra, growing ever more like Astra. Astra had faith; miracles were possible.” (vii)

The contrast between Astra’s simple days in the hospital and the complicated lives of the other characters and the development of the characters, particularly Marlene, is compelling and unique; however, the distant, non-emotional voice and distracting figurative language counteract the interesting contrast of characters and life issues. The distant, non-emotional voice, which can be seen in all the examples included above, is consistent throughout the novel. It is not the voice of a teenage girl. The voice must have been an intentional choice for Schutt. Perhaps Schutt meant for this voice to establish clear psychic distance between the narration and the reader and thus give the reader more of a bird’s eye view of the events rather than the opportunity to experience living life as a teen. It is more difficult to determine a reason for the distracting figurative language. On several occasions the similes and metaphors seem out of place. For example, “Even the language behind her silence was worn and uninspired and whapped the way balloons did without surprise or weight.” (viii) The image behind that language is confusing. Perhaps that is the point? Yet, if that is intent, other examples cannot be resolved with the same logic. Consider, “The little girls had hands as small as starfish.” (ix) Beside the fact that not all starfish are small, the reference to them has no relation to the character, the scene, or even the story. Overall, the voice and figurative language were problematic.

I was curious about the publishing history of All Souls, so I looked it up on Publisher’s Marketplace. The book deal for All Souls is not listed, but the film option sale is. The option rights were sold this past May to Anabel Graff, who said, “My screenwriting is super commercial and teeny-bop…All Souls is like a literary Gossip Girl.” (x) Given that Souls is peopled with many of the same teenage archetypes as Gossip Girls that statement is right on. I will look forward to the release of the film adaptation of All Souls, as a project that started out as a possible Pulitzer prize winner and is later refashioned into something as highly commercial as The Gossip Girls is of great interest to me.

[i] Schutt, Christine. All Souls. (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2009), 11.

[ii] Ibid., 33.

[iii] Ibid., 45.

[iv] Ibid., 12.

[v] Ibid., 149.

[vi] Ibid., 212.

[vii] Ibid., 151.

[viii] Ibid., 19.

[ix] Ibid., 204.

[x] Fisher, Wally. The Miscellany News. “Artist of the Week: Graff Rewrites Limits of Authorship.” http://www.miscellanynews.com/2.1579/artist-of-the-week-graff-rewrites-limits-of-authorship-1.1738604.

Media Literacy: Taking advantage of critical moments to give students voice

2010-02-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

As an instructor I have found that using pieces of popular culture, particularly ones my students immediately relate to, always generate student engagement. YouTube Clips, discussions of current FaceBook posting trends, and conversations of topics such as, ‘How musicians embody or subvert cultural values,’ are examples of such pop culture topics. As do many composition instructors I have spoken with about this practice, I move from the topic, to analysis, to asking ‘what observations can we make,’ to explorations of ways in which the observation could be structured into an essay. I recently attended a Liberal Arts Network Development Conference (Port Huron, 2010) presentation and discovered that there is a name for this practice: Spectacle Pedagogy. Underlying assumptions of this pedagogy are that the impact of our mass-media environment is constant and unavoidable. It makes sense then, as our student’s identities are embedded in this inescapable, ever-present culture, to embrace that culture and make it work toward classroom goals.

Also at the LAND conference was an ongoing discussion of the changing make-up of our students. Many seasoned instructors stated their belief that in the past five years the student population has changed radically—not just in terms of social or economic class, but also in terms of learning style, educational goals, and attitudes towards and preparation for college. While the new ever-evolving media is part of the reason for this change, there are additional factors. These factors include both internal, cultural, and external, institutional, barriers. Mike Rose’s book, Lives on the Boundary, is a vivid illustration of one man’s successful educational journey through these barriers. After describing how he overcame his own educational obstacles, Rose applies the lessons he learned about education and learning to his own work as a teacher. One of the dilemmas he encountered as a teacher is a dilemma that spectacle pedagogy seeks to address, that of connecting the curriculum to the student and the student to the curriculum. Specifically, he mentions that the curriculum was self enclosed. “While it did not prohibit the children from drawing on their interests and the events in their own lives, it failed to elicit creatively the tales and folklore and genres that were part of their various families and cultures.” (p 108-109) I believe that creativity he mentions is, or is directly related to, the type of critical thinking spectacle pedagogy seeks to generate.

The need to teach critical thinking in a relevant context is constant, while the type, nature, and needs of students today is changing. Despite the flexing of the student makeup, there are some commonalities that are useful to explore. Keith Gilyard, in analyzing James Berlin’s 1993 discussion of the post-Fordist economy, points out that the job market is shifting to place a greater emphasis on successful, collaborative creative thinking and excellent written communication. These needs spring not only from the new, global economy but also from the new—ever-changing—mass media. In order to participate and have a voice, students must connect with the world in a thinking, coherent way. If they cannot do so, they will be disenfranchised—silenced, and Gilyard suggests, underemployed. The mass media that influences students and is constant in their culture is the same mass media that requires them to think critically and write with purpose. These skills can be developed in composition classrooms by encouraging students to connect with content. Locating critical moments is one way to foster that connection.

In his discussion of identifying and making use of critical moments, Gilyard expresses the belief that social issue discussions need not be excluded to large events such as 9-11. Instructors who seek to introduce social issues into the classroom should do so. He proposes that, “Tentative yet rigorous examination and dialogic engagement are key forms of discourse despite the specific political concepts being addressed.” (Bloom, p 235). And later, “…embracing dialogic exchange and interrogating language are parts of a long tradition, a critical tradition, in the liberal arts.” (Bloom, p 235) As composition is part of the liberal arts, this encouragement and validation speaks to the need for composition instructors to embrace the opportunity to engage students with their own truths. According to the underlying assumptions of Spectacle Pedagogy, pieces of our student’s truth can be found in the components of our multimedia environment.

In their article, “Toward Critical Media Literacy,” Douglas Kellner and Jeff Shane present a definition for media literacy and put forth the idea that to be relevant education must include media literacy. They state that in our multimedia environment such literacy is more important than ever. Additionally, this literacy requires unique skills. “People need to critically scrutinize and scroll tremendous amounts of information, putting new emphasis on developing reading and writing abilities.” (p370) I would add in addition to reading and writing, media literacy requires critical thinking. Kellner and Shane do more than offer an awareness of media literacy issues, they call the educators to action, stating that it would be irresponsible to ignore the need for media literacy because students may be unaware of how they are being “taught” by forces such as the Internet and popular films. (p 370-372)

Media literacy has a natural tie with Spectacle Pedagogy in that it fosters the connection of student and curriculum while addressing the needs of today’s ever-changing student body. Spectacle Pedagogy takes advantage of that connection by utilizing critical moments to bring students into the larger educational community, thus validating that they are in fact part of that community. That validation in turn encourages students to develop and maintain their own voice.
*****
Burdette, Curtis. “Utilizing Spectacle Pedagogy.” LAND: Port Huron, 2010.

Bloom, Lynn; Daiker, Donald; and White, Edward, eds. Composition Studies in the New Millennium: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.

Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America’s Underprepared. New York: The Free Press, 1989.

Kellner, David and Share, Jeff. “Toward Critical Media Literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy.” Discourse: studies in the cultural politic of education. Vol. 26, No. 3, September 2005, pp. 369-386.

Fiction Fun in Writing Class

2010-02-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

This semester I am using Kazuo Ishiguro’s speculative memoir Never Let Me Go (2005).
About the novel:

“The novel describes the life of Kathy H., a young woman of 31, focusing at first on her childhood at an unusual boarding school and eventually her adult life. The story takes place in a dystopian Britain, in which human beings are cloned to provide donor organs for transplants. Kathy and her classmates have been created to be donors, though the adult Kathy is temporarily working as a "carer," someone who supports and comforts donors as they are made to give up their organs and, eventually, submit to death. As in Ishiguro’s other works, the truth of the matter is made clear only gradually, via veiled but suggestive language and situations.” (wikkipedia)

I selected this novel because it:
• has an accessible first person narrative
• has only three main characters
• has a focused plotline
• deals with cutting edge issues in a familiar setting

Sample essay prompts:

How do you define family? What are the characteristics and responsibilities of family members? How does your definition relate to your community and/or cultural identity?

Is there a difference between bullying and teasing? If so, what are those differences? Explore aspects of each, such as: Is one or the other or both acceptable? Who has the responsibility to stop excessive bullying or teasing—the individual or members of society? Do you know someone who was bullied or teased and suffered as a result? What were the consequences?

What is creativity? Is everyone creative? Who benefits more from creativity, the individual or the culture in which that individual lives? Explore different types of creativity; consider different types of creativity and how society responds to them.

Consider what, if anything, a person’s prized possessions reveal about that person. Do the possessions tell you what that person values or do the possessions tell you more about the life that person has lived? Consider how which possessions are considered to be prized possessions change over time.

The Devil’s in the Details

2010-02-04T16:15:00.000-08:00

“Specific, definite, concrete details—these are the life of fiction. Details (as every good liar knows) are the stuff of persuasiveness.”(i)

Details and Psychic Distance in Fiction
In Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway makes a point of emphasizing that details in fiction must be both sensual and significant.(ii) Additionally, she points out that the reader is dependent on the details for story meaning and ownership of understanding. Details are essential to engaging and involving the reader. A higher level of significant and specific detail brings the reader into the story—the sharper and more sensual the detail, the less psychic distance, ergo the greater the intimacy. This relationship of detail and intimacy can be seen clearly in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a story not only built on details but dependent on them.

Reader Intimacy in The Handmaid’s Tale

It is clear that Atwood aims to engage the reader intimately in Offred’s, the main character of Tale, story. This can be determined by the use of first person narrative and the immediate density of sensory detail. Take, for example, the first three sentences; sentences which clearly intend to provide the reader with a complete sensory immersion:

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in one place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in mini-skirts, then pants, then one earring, spiky green-streaked hair.(iii)

This vivid use of description is coaxes the reader into the story, and the continual use of detail, particularly to regard to places and things that evoke olfactory or kinesthetic responses, holds the reader firmly in the fictive dream. That the intimate connection with the reader is intentional is further made clear when the character addresses the issue of audience.

I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.
If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
It isn’t a story I’m telling.
It’s also a story I’m telling, in my head, as I go along.
…But if it’s a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don’t tell a story only to yourself. There’s always someone else.
Even when there is no one.
A story is like a letter. Dear You, I’ll say.
You can mean thousands.
I’m not in any immediate danger, I’ll say to you.
I’ll pretend you can hear me.
But it’s no good, because I know you can’t. (iv)

While it is later revealed that the story is a pieced together recording of Offred’s tale, when the reader encounters this passage it works as a direct link between Offred and the reader. This intimacy forces reader involvement.

Details in The Handmaid’s Tale the Link to the Reader’s Intellect

It is apparent that the details in Tale constantly engage the senses, but with close reading it can be seen that Atwood does more than tap into the senses; she intentionally juxtaposes the senses and intellect by contrasting images and ideas. The result of these frequent contrasts is a reality that is as clear and understandable as it is unreal and disturbing. This impossible contrast of truths is achieved through well crafted and carefully selected details and a circular narrative that works through the time the story action is taking place, shifts to the past, then comes back to the time of the story action. This unusual narrative is necessary for the intent of the novel to be fully realized.

As an idea driven story, it is essential for Atwood to engage the reader’s intellect, something that can only be accomplished through the skillful use of details. Speaking as a reader, Burroway states, “…if you (the writer) let us use our senses and form our own interpretations, we will be involved as participants in a real way.”(v) This type of response-based participation is Atwood’s intent. The beginning of Chapter 16 is one of many examples that show Atwood’s:

• continual use of sensory details to engage the reader.
• dependence on reader intellect to achieve full intent.
• use of a circular narrative that takes the reader through the unreal and disturbing, to the real and known, and then back to the unreal and disturbing.

The ceremony goes as usual.
I lie on my back, fully clothed except for the healthy white cotton underdrawers. What I could see, if I were to open my eyes, would be the large white canopy of Serena Joy’s outsized colonial-style four-poster bed, suspended like a sagging cloud above us, a cloud sprigged with tiny drops of silver rain, which, if you looked at them closely, would turn out to be four-petaled flowers. I would not see the carpet, which is white, or the sprigged curtains and skirted dressing table with its silver-backed brush and mirror set; only the canopy, which manages to suggest at one and the same time, by the gauziness of its fabric and its heavy downward curve, both ethereality and matter.
Or the sail of a ship. Big-bellied sails, they used to say, in poems. Bellying. Propelled forward by a swollen belly.
A mist of Lily of the Valley surrounds us, chilly, crisp almost. It’s not warm in this room.
Above me, towards the head of the bed, Serena Joy is arranged, outspread. Her legs are apart, I lie between them, my head on her stomach, her pubic bone under the base of my skull, her thighs on either side of me. She too is fully clothed.(vi)

The impact of this scene in which the Offred is taking part in a bizarre sexual ceremony is dependent the very specific details which pull the reader into the fictive dream and force intellectual engagement. Then, as in many other such passages throughout the novel, the narrative contrasts the disturbing new world with the “before world” by moving from the action, into the past, and then back into the action. The resulting juxtaposition delivers the intent of the novel.

Conclusion

There is very little action that takes place during the events of the book; much of the story has actually already occurred before Offred’s telling of the tale. As a result, the success of The Handmaid’s Tale relies on evoking an emotional response from the reader. That emotional response, made possible by the full immersion into the fiction dream, is dependent on the details—details in this instance that are truly eerie and disturbing. In the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, the devil is in definitely in the details.

End Notes

[i] Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction. (New York: Longman, 2003), p75.

[ii] Ibid., p 76.

[iii] Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’sTale. (New York: Random House), p3.

[iv] Ibid., pp39-40.

[v] Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction. (New York: Longman, 2003), p76.

[vi] Ibid., pp93-94.

Feel the Thinking

2009-12-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

My recent reading of Lisa See’s SHANGHAI GIRLS rekindled my interest in exploring the possibilities of using fiction in the college classroom to promote critical thinking. I say “rekindled” because I have previously used fiction in the classroom; a couple years ago I asked my class to read THE COLOR PURPLE (Harcourt, 1982) by Alice Walker. I selected that particular novel because I wanted a book that was complex yet accessible and thus THE COLOR PURPLE was a perfect choice. Prior to our reading, I did not tell the students to look for anything in particular; I passed out the books and said, “Let’s read.” About a week and a half later, we started discussing the book. It was obvious the students connected with the book, especially in regard to the family issues. Our discussions were lively and detailed; I recently started wondering why our reading of THE COLOR PURPLE was so successful. Why did a highly emotional story help my students think analytically? With these questions in mind, I reread THE COLOR PURPLE and continued my reading of academic articles on using fiction to encourage critical thinking.

Rereading the novel reminded me of how emotional the story is and that the turmoil is connected to the most basic human structure—the family. I’d also forgotten that THE COLOR PURPLE is written in a series of letters and that the letters are written in simple language with non-standard spellings and grammatical use. For example, from one of Nettie’s letters: “Dear God, I ast Shug Avery what she want for breakfast. She say, What yall got?...White women in it laughing, holding they beads out on one finger, dancing on top of motorcars.” (COLOR, p51). Using letters to tell the story allows the reader to be close to the characters and yet distant as the same time. I can see now that it is Nettie’s simple language and constant presence through her voice that intensifies the emotional impact of the novel. Having reaffirmed that the novel is indeed written to tap into the reader’s emotion, and with a new understanding of why that is so, I asked myself again, why did an emotional novel help my students think analytically?

As a developmental instructor, one of my primary goals is to help students pull their emotion and intellect apart. Louise Rosenblatt, in her book LITERATURE AS EXPLORATION, notes that fiction provides students the opportunity to identify their emotions, test their assumptions, and consequently reject or revise their original reactions. (LITERATURE, p215) She continues on to state that, “It seems reasonable to suggest, therefore, that in building up the habit of mind essential to the attainment of sound literary judgment, the student will also be acquiring mental habit valuable for the development of sound insight into ordinary human experience.” (LITERATURE, p215-216) In short, thinking generates more thinking and high level critical thinking generates more high level critical thinking.

But does the reading of fiction have advantages over non-fiction? Rosenblatt believes so. She pointed out that it is easy to think about complex human problems when emotions are not involved. This ease is a disservice to students as this type of setting, a non-emotional one, is not realistic. Students need the challenge that is supplied by emotion; fiction supplies that challenge as “literature offers an opportunity to develop the ability to think rationally within an emotionally colored context” (LITERATURE, p217).

As a result of my rekindled interest, I asked the leader of the writing faculty “team” if I could incorporate a novel in my composition course next semester. She requested that I make my request of the entire team at our next meeting. I did and received the go-ahead from the writing team to do a pilot using fiction as part of my composition course next semester. I’m excited about moving ahead, even though I am a bit anxious due to the fact that my team required convincing. I’ll be putting Rosenblatt’s theories to the test as I continue looking into this practice.

The Character of Ilhéus

2009-12-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

Janet Burroway starts off her chapter in Writing Fiction (Longman, 2003) on setting with Elizabeth Bowen’s maxim that “nothing happens nowhere” and reminds readers of Jerome Stern’s statement that a scene that happens nowhere often seems not to happen at all. (Writing, p198) While setting in some novels is more significant than in others, setting is an essential aspect of all stories. And, like other key aspects such as character and theme, it must be carefully woven in and dimensional. “Like dialogue, setting must do more than one thing at once, from illuminating the story’s symbolic underpinnings to such practical kinds of ‘showing’ as reflecting emotion or revealing subtle aspects of a character’s life.” (Writing, p 198)

The city of Ilhéus is the primary setting for the romance of Nacib Saad and Gabriela in Jorge Amado’s GABRIELA, CLOVE, AND CINNAMON (Vintage, 2006). The struggle taking place there between the old established cacao growers and the new growers seeking to modernize is more than a vibrant backdrop; the city itself is a character with desires, ideas, and conflicts. Throughout the novel, Amado weaves in these desires and ideas, sometimes by pulling together the characteristics of individual characters. By doing so, he accomplishes at three things at once: 1) individual characterization 2) collective characterization of the city of Ilhéus, and 3) the development of the conflict of the old and new cacao growers which echoes the conflicts Nacib and Gabriela face. The passages detailing the citizen’s of Ilhéus’s response to Nacib’s murder of his wife and her lover are an excellent example of a passage which accomplishes this.

The impact on the town was tremendous, for the shooting stimulated emotions associated with the old days. For the moment, Nacib forgot his terrible problem, the Captain and the Doctor forgot their political concerns, and Colonel Ramiro Bastos even forgot his hatred for Mundinho Falcão. The news, spreading like wildfire, increased the respect and admiration that already surrounded the planter’s thin and somewhat somber figure. For this was how it was in Ilhéus: the honor of a deceived husband could be cleansed by blood. (p104)

The tragedy of Sinházinha and the dentist was passionately discussed. Opinions varied as to exactly what had happened, there were conflicting details, but on one thing all were agreed: the colonel had done the right thing and deserved praise for performance of his duty as a husband and as a man. (p105)

This dimensional approach is consistent throughout the novel and impacts all characters to varying degrees. The more closely a character is tied to the city, the more the city affects them. This can be seen in Gabriela’s storyline.

The relationship of Gabriela and the city of Ilhéus shows how significantly the city functions as a character. In the beginning of the story she was less impacted by the city’s desires and ideas, yet as she becomes part of Nacib’s life she becomes more influenced and challenged by Ilhéus. The resulting conflict between Gabriela and the city of Ilhéus can be seen in the passage when she realizes that with Nacib’s sister in town Nacib will not agree to her dressing as a shepherdess in the pageant of The Three Kings.

Now it was all over, impossible. With his sister in town, eager to see him ashamed of Gabriela, Nacib would never consent to her parading through the streets, bearing the standard with the Baby Jesus on it. And he was right. To displease him that much, hurt him that much, she just couldn’t. (p350)

What would the people of Ilhéus say, especially his friends at the bar, the ladies of good family, and Colonel Ramiro, who had distinguished her so? Impossible, Gabriela; he never heard of anything so absurd. Bié must realize that she is no longer a poor servant girl with no family, no name, no date of birth. Can you imagine Mrs. Nacib Saad leading a street pageant, with a crown of gilt cardboard on her head? Can you imagine a woman of social distinction swinging her hips and dancing along the street, dressed in blue and red satin, carrying a banner and followed by twenty-two other shepherdesses carrying lanterns? Impossible. (p351)

Although Gabriela doesn’t seem to realize the change in her relationship to the city, it is there, guiding her actions, shaping her identity and emotions. Her response to the city’s desires and ideas is realistic because as we are all shaped by places we are a part of. “Our relation to place, time, and weather, like our relation to clothes and other objects, is charged with emotion more or less subtle, more or less profound. It is filled with judgment mellow or harsh. And it alters what happens to us.” (Writing, p202)

The city of Ilhéus not only challenges the characters in the novel to change, the city itself, like all complex characters, changes as well. This change can be seen in the final page when the trial of Colonel Jesuíno Mendonça is recounted. Here the story is brought full circle by showing that instead of embracing the murder of an adulterous wife the city of Ilhéus condemns the act.

The Uncertainty of Truth

2009-12-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

The title of Gabriel García Márquez’s CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD (Vintage, 1982) is true to the nature of the novel; it embodies two of the novel’s key characteristics. Notably, these two distinct characteristics—its straightforward writing and its indirect, nonlinear narrative—create an ongoing juxtaposition that enhances the aspects of each and consequently provide depth to the novel. Márquez’s ability to achieve this seemingly awkward marriage stems from his practice of telling/showing several things at once and from his exploration of the contrasts and inconsistencies inherent in trying to reconstruct an event that happened decades in the past.

Early in the story the narrator, a friend of the murdered Santiago Nasar, summarizes some of the accounts he received from the many witnesses of the murder as such:

Furthermore: all the many people he ran into after leaving the house at five minutes past six and until he was carved up like a pig an hour later remembered him as being a little sleepy but in a good mood, and he remarked to all of them in a casual way that it was a very beautiful day. No one was certain if he was referring to the state of the weather. Many people coincided in recalling that it was a radiant morning with a sea breeze coming in through the banana groves, as was to be expected in a fine February of that period. But most agreed that the weather was funereal, with a cloudy low sky and the thick smell of still waters, and that at that moment of the misfortune a thin drizzle was falling like the one Santiago Nasar had seen in his grove dream.

(p4)

This particular passage is characteristic of many in the novel as it demonstrates how Marquez effectively achieves the odd combination of certainty and uncertainty.

· Straightforward writing: It conveys basic information in a seemingly clear way, yet manages while being straightforward to also reveal the actual lack of consistency on basic points. Here the inconsistencies include characteristics of the weather and whether or not Santiago’s comments referred to the weather or some other quality of the day.

· Indirect narrative (voice of the narrator): Concrete details are woven together with inconsistent details. In this section the concrete include the time of Santiago’s death, the matter of death, that Santiago was in a good mood, and that he spoke to many people between 6:05 and 7:05.

· Revealing much in a few words: This short passage includes elements of the plot—when and how Santiago was murdered, that there were many witnesses—characterization—Santiago, as a wealthy successful citizen, was someone others paid attention to, Santiago was casual and “friendly” and, setting—the town was near the sea, with a nearby banana grove, the month was February, and that there was a thin drizzle of rain.

Toward the end of the novel, the straightforward writing begins to overshadow the indirect narrative as the narrator gradually sets aside contradictions and a truth begins to emerge.

On the morning of his death, in fact, Santiago Nasar hadn’t had a moment of doubt, in spite of the fact that he knew very well what the price of the insult imputed to him was. He was aware of the prudish disposition of his world, and he must have understood that the twins’ simple nature was incapable of resisting an insult. No one knew Bayardo San Román very well, but Santiago Nasar knew him well enough to know that underneath his worldly airs he was as subject as anyone else to his native prejudices. So the murdered man’s refusal to worry could have been suicide. Besides…his reaction (at impending death) was not panic, as so often been said, but rather the bewilderment of innocence. (p101)

In this passage, the narrator’s voice is stronger, more assured. Because this shift in voice from surreal, questioning, and uncertain, as it is in the beginning, to analytical and journalistic, as it is toward the end, occurs gradually it is convincing. Also, the contrast from the beginning to the end adds emphasis and power to the conclusion of the story; it adds a sense of finality that would not be as well achieved without the gradual shift.

Despite the power of the ending, the conclusion of the novel, while convincing, may or may not be satisfying to the reader. The narrator does achieve closure and the perspectives of witnesses regarding Santiago are provided and explained, but the reader is made aware of the narrator’s perception that Santiago, “died without understanding his death.” Santiago’s lack of understanding is problematic. The reader is left wondering that in life there is no certainty and pondering which matters more the quest for truth or the actual truth itself.

NEVER LET ME GO movie update

2009-11-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

The film version of NEVER LET ME GO is being made as you read this. Go Keira.

Theme in Sue Miller’s THE GOOD MOTHER

2009-11-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

From the first page, Sue Miller’s novel, THE GOOD MOTHER, which explores the boundaries of love, is a great example of a work that uses each aspect of story to convey theme and in doing so lets theme rise to the surface and create its own truth. Early in the story a reflection combined with foreshadowing is tied to the theme. In Chapter Two, Anna is remembering her family’s move to Chicago from the East as it related to her relationship with her mother. “My mother set about decorating it with a passion which finally seemed to obliterate me from her consciousness.” (p49)

This single line not only relays character information, that Anna felt distant from her mother after moving to a new city, but also foreshadows Anna’s own behavior of distancing herself from her own daughter after moving to Cambridge, as well as reinforcing theme. The explorations of love’s boundaries continue, often woven into Anna’s back story. Later in Chapter Two, Anna returns to thoughts of love, this time comparing the expressions of love she learned from her mother and her mother’s extended family to that of her father’s family.

But as I lay in my lumpy narrow bed...I realized I was dreading leaving my grandparents’ farm to go home, to the East, where I was surrounded by love, by protestations of love; but conditional on so much: on being good, whatever that meant; on doing well; on making the family proud. The demands themselves, I realized, were often the clearest expression of the love. (p60)

The reflection continues as Anna ponders a song she frequently played for her grandparents while staying with them one summer, “O Love, That Will Not Let Me Go.” The title of the song provides both a confirmation of theme and an anchor for Anna’s subsequent thoughts: “That was the trouble with my mother’s family…” meaning that that they did not let go of those they loved.

Much of the early part of the novel is spent pulling together such memories, reflections, and judgments of love. In Chapter Five, about one third into the novel, Anna begins to understand that she herself has the power to create and explore love’s boundaries and Miller continues to use story elements to support theme. In Chapter Nine Anna begin to understand how her choices regarding who and how to love set boundaries. At this point in the story she is at a crossroads; she has recognized that her old life no longer exists and that she alone is responsible for her new one.

This opening of the chapter uses metaphor to convey a sense of journey and reinforce theme. As she drives Anna is moving forward, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t know where she is going. The edges of the road are boundaries and Anna’s maneuvering between those edges is a reflection her ability to define herself within those boundaries.

I couldn’t remember where the road had once needed, but at some point I crossed the line and was driving in new territory. Though it looked the same—the brown clayey dirt deeply rutted…I was aware that I could no longer anticipate the curves, the sudden blind rises where earlier, I’d known reflexively to tap my horn for an oncoming car…

I circled close to a swampy inlet, thick with water lilies, that I remembered once or twice trying to row through. The long stems of the lilies had tentacle around the oars, and the lily pads made a hissing sound against the wooden boat bottom at my lurching glide through them. Then I was back in woods again, the cleared road a stripe of sunlight across them.

I’d been on this part of the road before only once or twice as an adult—it had been cut through the woods during the early years of my marriage to Brian, and we had come up together a few times. But I didn’t remember it, and it seemed to me I’d been on the new part much too long. (p185)

In the pages that follow, Anna continues to work though issues and strives to establish the limitations of her own brands of love—both passionate and maternal. The results of her struggles can be seen later in the novel, very near the end:

But that isn’t what I have, nor what I can offer Molly. I’ve made do with a different set of circumstances—with our distance, our brief times together, with all that’s truncated, too little, too small in what we have. And I take a certain pride in how well I’ve done this, in thinking perhaps I’m suited to it in some way, as other, more passionate people might not be. (p309)

Also, Anna returns to her thoughts of love from page 60, when she clarified the difference between a love that holds and a love that lets go. Her preference for a love that let’s go is clearly expressed in the last two lines when she visits her daughter, Molly.

I held her tight for a long moment in out unseeing embrace. It seemed the same, her smell, her touch, the wiry density of her limbs. Then I set her down, let her go. And she turned away ahead of me to lead me to her new life, to show me everything. Her dress was rucked up in back, her hair wispy and wild from our embrace. Everything was familiar, and also unknown.

“Ah yes,” I remember thinking, as though hearing a kind of music in my head. “This is how it begins.” (p309)

While the end of the novel is not a happy one, it is satisfying. It brings the reader to a point in Anna’s life where Anna has begun to see that she boundaries of love and taken ownership of her actions.

A Toy Barn or Theme in Fiction?

2009-10-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

Eighteen years ago, when my son, Walt, was one he received a plastic barn for his birthday. The barn came with a farmer, a tractor, and some brightly colored shaped pieces: a blue triangle, an orange square, and a yellow circle. The red roof had cutouts matched to the shapes, a convenient tool for learning. Once my son figured out which shapes went in which holes, the pieces stayed in the bottom of the toy box, but thanks to the sturdy white handle on the top of the barn, it moved all around the house.

Over the next several weeks, Walt spent hours assessing nearly every toy in the house — using not only the cutout holes in the roof but also the barn doors that slid apart, a roof that lifted like a lid, and an open-topped silo. To complete each assessment he would try to fit the toy through each shape hole, inside the barn doors (and allow the doors to close), under the roof and then down the silo. On some occasions a toy would get stuck; sometimes he could shake it out and sometimes he’d seek help.

The image of his toy assessments has remained in my memory, and my husband’s and mother’s, all these years. For me it is the image of the basic elements of story theme. The barn is the theme, the constant being tested, the toys aspects of plot and characterization that explore and reveal the flexibilities and limitations of theme, and the stuck toys, conflicts to be resolved. John Gardner’s definition of theme echoes my image.

By theme…we mean not “message”—a word no good writer like applied to his work—but the general subject. Given his choice of theme…the writer sharpens and clarifies his ideas, or finds out exactly what it is that he must say, testing his beliefs against reality as the story represents it, by examining every element in the story for its possible implications with regard to his theme. (p70, The Art of Fiction)

Janet Burroway indicates that theme runs throughout every aspect of a novel: actions, characters, setting, dialogue, objects, pace, metaphors and symbols, viewpoint, atmosphere, style, even syntax and punctuation, and even in some cases typography. (p17, Writing Fiction) She continues to note that theme is not “truth” but a point of reference for possible truth.

"The value of the literary experience is that it allows us to judge an idea at two levels of consciousness, the rational and the emotional, simultaneously. The kind of ‘truth’ that can be told through thematic resonance is many-faceted and can acknowledge the competing of many truths, exploring paradox and contradictions."(pp358-359)

Thirty Days and Nights...

2009-10-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Waiting for a reason to get started writing? Want to be part of something bigger than yourself?

Me? I think I just need some external motivation...maybe I'll try National Novel Writing Month.

Fiction as a Springboard for Expository Writing

2009-10-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

“Literature offers feeling for which we do not have to pay. It allows us to love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and hate without any of the risks those feelings ordinarily involve, for even good feelings—intimacy, power, speed, drunkenness, passion—have consequences, and powerful feelings may risk powerful consequences.” (Burroway, Writing Fiction) For many readers this is the draw of fiction—the vicarious emotional experience. Yet fiction does more than allow a reader to feel; it allows the reader to connect with others and to search for an understanding of life and life’s events. In John Gardner’s classic, The Art of Fiction, he states that "the value of great fiction…is not just that it broadens our knowledge of people and places, but also that it helps us to know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are noblest in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations.” The key to filling the human need to explore life and connect with others is by tapping into reader emotion and then in turn to the intellect.

That meeting place of creativity and intellect is unique to fiction. It is the creative nature of fiction that makes reading novels evoke an “afferent” process—meaning students put themselves in the work. (Rosenblatt, Theoretical Models and Processes, pp. 1057-1092, 1994) Once the student is immersed in the story, fiction’s distinct capacity to illuminate the human condition by fostering the interconnection of mind and spirit provides the opportunity to pull readers through explorations of universal themes while also speaking culturally, offering glimpses into different values, traditions, and life issues. This combination of characteristics invites discussion and critical thinking, two elements essential for successful expository writing.

Using fiction in expository writing courses gives students a way to reflect on previous perceptions and gain new perspectives. Josh Boyd, in his article, A Different Kind of [Text]Book: Using Fiction in the Classroom, notes,“ Novels…provide a different reading experience than do typical textbooks, a reading experience that can lead to student critical engagement with high-order questions.” (Communication Education v. 53 n. 4). Many social issues can be explored through novels. For example, works like THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Diaz and THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker touch on the universal themes of struggling for personal identity and self acceptance while dealing with external conflicts such as racism and political. Such works provide a springboard for reflection, discussion, analysis, and writing.

Fiction related course assignments can include ongoing reflective journals, identifying universal themes and issues within the novel and using them to analyze current events, and student-led discussions exploring “what ifs” in regard to character decisions.

The benefits of assigning novels in expository writing courses are many. They include not only more lively course discussions, accompanied by deeper thinking, but also the fostering of student writers who are emotionally connected to their topics and intellectually invested in their writing.

Author Intent: A Comparison of WHITE TEETH and OLIVE KITTERIDGE

2009-10-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

Jerome Stern has suggested that self-conscious writers, “often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories.” He adds that the distance created by their insecurity can prevent the reader from fully engaging in the story—from becoming transported. (p289, Writing) I would add that there are instances when the author consciously chooses to hold the reader at arm’s length thus narrowing psychic distance and preventing full immersion into the fictive dream.

Did Smith consciously do so in TEETH? In 2005, five years after TEETH was released, Smith responded to a similar question with, "As I get older," Smith reflected, "I think I'll be clearer about what it is I'm trying to do. At the moment, I just sort of stumble through." Did Strout consciously seek to connect emotionally with the reader?

In a 2006 interview, Strout was asked what book most influenced her writing. She responded with The Journals of John Cheever and added, “…there was something about the honesty found in Cheever's journals that gave me courage as a writer. And his ability to turn a phrase, to describe in a breath the beauty of a rainstorm or the fog rising off the river... all this arrived in my life as a writer at a time when I seemed ready to absorb his examples of what a sentence can do when written with the integrity of emotion and felicity of language.” (p18, Olive)

The relationship between the fictive dream and the degree of intellectuality or emotionality of a novel as shaped by the lack of or use of sensory detail is inevitable. An effective writer may make a conscious choice to not engage or engage the reader in the fictive dream; on the other hand, the decision may be made de facto. But does it matter if the writer made a conscious decision? Perhaps not.

Psychic Distance: A Comparison WHITE TEETH and OLIVE KITTERIDGE

2009-10-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

While it is obvious that novels are written by people, the presence of the author may or may not be “felt” by the reader. Burroway describes this distance, is “the degree to which we as readers feel on the one hand intimacy and identification with, or on the other hand detachment and alienation from, the characters in a story.”1 It is the writer’s task to, based on the needs of the story, choose and control psychic distance.

There is a relationship between the degree of intellectuality and emotionality of a novel and the psychic distance found in the novel. In novels with a higher degree of intellectuality, there is a shorter psychic distance; in novels with a higher degree of emotionality, there is greater psychic distance.

In TEETH the author’s presence is keenly felt by the reader. This is due to the constant intellectualism and frequent author judgments of characters and situations. By contrast, in OLIVE, the author is farther away from the reader. This distance is the result of frequent and various sensory details which encourage the reader to feel, experience, rather than intellectualize.

In TEETH, Smith intentionally inhibits the emotional response of the reader and thus inhibits total immersion into the fictive dream. By withholding the emotional connection she forces the reader to be dependent on her. Smith’s characterization and detail selection demonstrate this. The following is a turning point passage in which the author is making a judgment about character, Samad, who is striving to get meaning out of life. As a result of the details, which require thought rather than emotion, the reader is not fully transported into the fictive dream and psychic distance limited.

"Samad has decided to “cement his friendship with Archie. Often this is done by passing on a singular piece of information: some sexual peccadillo, some emotional secret or obscure hidden passion that the reticence of new acquaintance has prevented being spoken. But for Samad, nothing was closer or meant more to him that his blood. It was natural then, as they sat on holy ground, that he should speak of what was holy to him.” (pp83-84)

Samad’s subsequent realization is the result of thinking and having knowledge which is brought on by “white dust” (morphine) that could be found like, “…hidden eggs on an addictive Easter trail.”

"Then every nerve in his body would be alive, and the information, all the information contained in the universe, all the information on walls, would pop its cork and flow through him like electricity through a ground wire. Then his head would open out like a deckchair. And he would sit in it a while and watch his world go by. Tonight, after just more than enough, Samad felt particularly lucid. Like his tongue was buttered and like the world was a polished marble egg. And he felt a kinship with the dead dissenters…he wished he could speak with them about the mark they made on the world. Had it been enough? When death came, was it really enough? Were they satisfied with the thousand words they left behind?" (pp85-86)

While there is a simile that engages the sense of taste, again the majority of the details require thought rather than emotion and again limit psychic distance.

On the other hand, in OLIVE, Strout intentionally encourages the emotional connection through use characterization and detail selection. The following is a turning point passage in which the author invites the reader to make a judgment of the character who is striving to get meaning out of life. To accomplish this, Strout has included sensory details that promote an emotional response from the reader. As a result of the sensory detail, the reader is further into the fictive dream; there is greater psychic distance.

“…smaller rocks could be heard moving as the water shifted them. Also there was the twanging sound of the cables hitting the masts of the sailboats moored. A few seagulls gave squawking cries as they dove down to pick up the fish heads and tails and shining insides that the boy was tossing from the dock as he cleaned the mackerel. All this Kevin saw as he sat in his car with the window partly open…He was as much a stranger up here now as any tourist might be, and yet gazing back at the sun-sliced bay, he noted how familiar it felt; he had not expected that. The salt air filled his nose, the wild rugosa bushes with their white blossoms brought him a vague confusion; a sense of sad ignorance seemed cloaked in their benign petals.” (p31)

Kevin’s subsequent realization is the result of a conversation with Olive.

“What he began to want was to see his childhood house—a house he believed, even as he sat in his car now, that he had never once been happy in….That house where the sweat-shirts and woolen jackets stank like moist salt and musty wood—the smell made him sick, as did the smell of a wood fire, which his father sometimes had I the fireplace, poking at it in a distracted way. Kevin thought he must be the only person in the country who hated the smell of a wood fire. But the house, the trees tangled with woodbine, the surprise of a lady’s slipper in the midst of pine needles, the open leaves of the wild lilies of the valley—he missed it.” (p44)

As in the previous OLIVE passage, the majority of the details are sensory and again widen psychic distance.

In both TEETH and OLIVE the psychic distance has been carefully controlled throughout. This deliberate control is emphasized by the running heads of the novels. Although both TEETH and OLIVE are a collection of stories linked to tell one story, the running head layouts are not the same. In TEETH, “ZADIE SMITH” appears on the verso page and “WHITE TEETH” on the recto page. In OLIVE, “OLIVE KITTERIDGE” appears on the verso page and the title to the individual story on the recto page. Since putting the book title on the verso page is no longer common practice and putting the author’s name is2, it is reasonable to conclude that not placing the author’s name on the verso page of OLIVE was a conscious decision done in support of the intent of the novel.

1-p287, Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction

2-1.81, Chicago Manual of Style

Chocolate Cake is Always the Right Thing

2009-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple requests for the chocolate cake receipe from my Let Them Eat Cake post back in August.

Chocolate Farm Cake

Ingredients for cake:

1 cup flour

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons soft butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup milk

Prepare:

Preheat oven to 350’

Grease bottom of 8 x 8 pan, line with wax paper, grease and flour.

Steps:

In medium bowl, stir together dry ingredients and set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until well combined.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one, then beat in vanilla.

Alternately add dry ingredients and milk, beating until just combined after each.

Beat on medium to high for twenty seconds more.

Ingredients for frosting:

3 ounces unsweetened bakers chocolate

4 ounces soft cream cheese

2 tablespoons soft butter

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 to 2 tablespoons milk

Steps:

Coarsely chop bakers chocolate, melt, and cool to room temperature. Set aside.

Beat cream cheese and butter until well combined.

Beat in powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time.

Add cooled chocolate until smooth.

Beat in milk, as needed, to create desired texture.

Do not overbeat.

Beyond Times Roman and Courier New

2009-10-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

While doing some research for my next piece of literary analysis I came across this awesome website. For the Love of Type features great pictures and odd pieces of info on type setting.

Intellect and Emotion: A Comparison of WHITE TEETH by Zadie Smith and OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout

2009-10-02T11:15:00.006-07:00

It is the nature of humans to experience emotion first and then respond intellectuallyA , therefore, tapping into reader emotion, as far away from intellect as possible, will make the fictive dream more effective. It is my opinion that sensory detail is particularly effective because it taps into the non-logical part of the brain—that part that was first to develop, that part that does not question as much as it accepts. Therefore, if a writer aims to reach the reader emotionally, it is essential that sufficient sensory detail be provided. This theory of mine came to mind while reading Zadie Smith’s WHITE TEETH. I was not particularly engaged with the story or characters and began to wonder why. Upon closer reading, I realized that the large majority of the details are factual or visualB . Take, for example, the opening passage of TEETH; a place it would seem the author would most want to engage the reader emotionally:

"Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. At 0627 hours on January 1, 1975, Alfred Archibald Jones was dressed in corduroy and sat in a fume-filled Cavalier Musketeer Estate facedown on the steering wheel, hoping the judgment would not be too heavy upon him. He lay in a prostrate cross, jaw slack, arms splayed on either side like some fallen angel; scrunched up in each fist he held his army service medals (left) and his marriage license (right), for he had decided to take his mistakes with him. A little green light flashed in his eye, signaling a right turn he had resolved never to make. He was resigned to it. He was prepared for it. He had flipped a coin and stood staunchly by the results. This was a decided-upon suicide. In fact, it was a New Year’s resolution." (p3)

The reader sees the fumes, the character’s body position, and the items in his hands. While there is opportunity for the author to provide details that would allow the reader to hear, smell, touch, or even taste Archie’s demise, these details are not provided. As I continued to read, and found that the opening was not an exception but a rule, I determined this lack of sensory detail had a significant impact on the novel. While I did find the novel intriguing on an intellectual level, and was interested, I did not feel emotionally connected to the characters. I was not experiencing the story with them; I was not empathetic; I was not transported.

The opening of Elizabeth Strout’s OLIVE KITTERIDGE, is quite different in regard to reader engagement as a result of sensory detail.

"For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summer-time roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy. Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold." (p3)

Here the reader is provided with less factual detail and a wider variety of sensory detail. For example, the reader can hear and feel the car tires. I believe the sense of smell is especially important to engage; because it the first of the human senses to develop it is the sense farthest from our logical thinking.

Relying heavily on sight and factual details prevents the reader from engaging emotionally with the story and its characters. This statement is not meant to imply that such writing is ineffective or undesirable. In fact, it may be the writer’s intention to limit the reader’s emotional response because by doing so the writer is compelling the reader to engage with the text primarily on an intellectual level; I believe this is the case with Smith’s WHITE TEETH. By contrast, Strout desires that emotional connection and relies on it to deliver the promise of the novel OLIVE KITTERIDGE.

End Notes:
A To be realistic, fiction should imitate reality. (p54, Techniques)

B In my opinion, visual detail is close to factual detail. Vision is the last of the senses to fully develop; it is the one humans rely on most. For those two reasons it is the sense most closely linked to the logical, critical, area of the brain.

The Fictive Dream

2009-09-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Draw of Fiction: Emotional Human Connection

“Literature offers feeling for which we do not have to pay. It allows us to love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and hate without any of the risks those feelings ordinarily involve, for even good feelings—intimacy, power, speed, drunkenness, passion—have consequences, and powerful feelings may risk powerful consequences.”1 For many readers this is the draw of fiction—the vicarious emotional experience. Not only does fiction offer the reader the opportunity to select, via book selection, which emotion to feel—love, hate, fear, courage, jealousy—as Burroway points out fiction offers the reader the opportunity to feel intensely without doing any more than turning a page. Yet fiction does more than allow a reader to feel; it allows the reader to connect, to search for an understanding or meaning from life and life’s events. “…the value of great fiction …is not just that it broadens our knowledge of people and places, but also that it helps us to know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are noblest in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations.”2 The key to filling the human need to explore life and connect with others is by tapping into reader intellect and emotion.

The Importance of Details on Reader Response: Intellect vs. Emotion

As any magician knows, details draw attention. Details aid in the illusion. And as a magician controls the audience’s attention by way of carefully placed details, the writer can also use detail to direct reader attention and control reader response. The audience member, as does the reader, goes along with the illusion knowingly, asking in return the delivery of a promise. The magician uses sleight of hand to deliver that promise; the writer uses description.

Description is accomplished by providing details; however, to be effective details must be carefully selected and effectively placed. The writer must focus on the goal of the detail and determine the best details accordingly. Intellectuality is one concern. A detail is “…significant if it also conveys an idea or a judgment or both.”3 This is not to say that the writer should use details to insert their own judgment but to offer details in such a way as to allow the reader the opportunity to make a judgment. Burroway clarifies for writers how to effectively weave intellect and emotion. “Much of what you (the writer) mean will be an abstraction or a judgment—love requires trust, children can be cruel. But if you write in abstractions or judgments, you are writing an essay, whereas if you let us use our senses and form our own interpretations, we will be involved as participants in a real way.” Emotionality is another concern when selecting and placing details. “A detail is ‘definite’ and ‘concrete’ when it appeals to the senses. It should seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.”4 Consequently, if the writer wants the reader to be engaged both intellectually and emotionally, sensory details are essential.

The Fictive Dream: More Than Descriptive Detail

“Fiction does its work by creating a dream in the reader’s mind.”5 Detail is the basis of that dream. “…in good fiction, it’s physical detail that pulls us into the story, makes us believe or forget not to believe or accept the lie even as we laugh at it.”6 This total immersion is the result of a response that takes place within the reader as a result of effective detail “that…creates for us a kind of dream, a rich and vivid play in the mind…In great fiction, the dream engages us heart and soul; we not only respond to imaginary things—sights, sounds, smells—as though they were real, we respond to fictional problems as though they were real.”7 Details alone are not enough to accomplish this; James Frey takes the concept of the fictive dream a step further than a singular focus on details. “As a fiction writer, you’re expected to transport a reader. Readers are said to be transported when, while they are reading, they feel that they are actually living in the story world and the real world around them evaporates.”8 When in this transported state the reader’s subconscious—the area where sensory input is processed and decoded—has been engaged and is the primary source of response. Tapping into the reader’s subconscious requires more than carefully placed details; it requires a delicate linking of details to story components.

Frey noted three stages that enable the writer to reach the subconscious and thus fully transport the reader into the fiction dream:

Sympathy: “Sympathy it is the doorway through which the reader gains emotional access to a story.”9 It requires that a character be placed in a situation which will evoke an emotion so intense—loneliness, repression, danger, embarrassment—that the reader will feel sympathy for the character.

Identification: “Identification occurs when the reader is not only in sympathy with the character’s plight, but also supports his or her goals and aspirations and has a strong desire that the character achieve them.”10 In order for the reader to support those goals and aspirations the writer must make clear what the character does or does not want to happen.

Empathy: A writer can “…win empathy for a character by detailing the sensuous details in the environment: the sights, sounds, pains, smells, and so on that the character is feeling—the feelings that trigger emotion.”11 Empathy is a much stronger emotion than sympathy, and it is through empathy that the reader will feel what the character is feeling. This is achieved by using sensuous and emotion-provoking details that suggest to the reader what it is like to be the character and to experience what the character is experiencing.

1-p74, Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction
2-p31, Gardener, John. The Art of Fiction.
3-p76, Writing
4-p75, Writing
5-p32, Art
6-p30, Art
7-pp30, 31, Art
8-p6, Frey, James. How to Write a Damn Good Novel II: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling
9-p8, How
10-p10, How
11-p13, How

Island of the Lost Girls: Lyrically Lost

2009-09-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Childhood is typically filled with stories; among them are adventure tales from books, family histories adults pass down to children, and fantasy stories children make up themselves. Each of these stories serves a different purpose; stories from books fuel the imagination and spirit, family stories passed down connect the child to those who came before, and stories children make up themselves provide an outlet for individual expression. The ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS by Jennifer McMahon intertwines these three types of stories, playing the present against the past, in order to bring a series of events full circle.

The defining plotline of the story, which is told through a series of flashbacks which eventually fold into the present, is the main character’s, Rhonda, discovery of the abuse of her childhood friend, Lizzy, and the cause and perpetrators of the unsolved murder of Daniel, Lizzy’s abuser. The supporting plotline is the kidnapping of a very young girl which Rhonda witnesses. Although the resolution of the novels connects the two plotlines; the story events alone are not intended to give the book its full impact.

The significance of the book comes from the reader’s interpretation of and reflection on story events rather than from observing character growth. While it is evident that as a result of the story events, Rhonda has answers to questions that lingered from her childhood, she changes little from the beginning to the end; there is modest, if any, “actualization of the potential that exists in character and situation.” (p185, Art of Fiction by John Gardner). For example, one event that would have been highly likely to produce character transformation was the loss of Rhonda’s virginity. When Rhonda makes love for the first time, there is no real change in her; she does not reflect on how the experience has impacted her as a person or, more specifically, as a woman. Later, when she learns that the man she made love to accidentally killed the little girl he was paid money to kidnap, she does not experience any significant sense of regret, loss, or confusion.

Although Rhonda does suffer self-imposed guilt for not interrupting the kidnapping when she observed it, she did not suffer any consequence that increased as story events unfolded. Whether the lost girl is found or not has no real, long-lasting, consequence to Rhonda. Furthermore, none of her loved ones are threatened by the kidnapping of the girl either. The same holds true for the events revealed from the past. The discoveries she makes, learning that her father had been previously married to a family friend, for example, involve events that occurred to others.

These observations are not given to imply that LOST is lacking, but to indicate the actualization of character is not the goal of the novel. In fact, having the character remain fundamentally static strengthens the book’s intent; it encourages, requires, the reader to respond emotionally. Consider if the novel had been written differently and Rhonda’s emotional reactions were the focus. If that were the case, then the emotional impact would have been diluted as the reader would have been experiencing them through Rhonda rather than directly.

LOST is what John Gardner refers to as a “lyrical novel”, one in which “What carries the reader forward is not plot,,,but some form of rhythmic repetition: a key…cluster of images (and) group of events, to which the writer returns repeatedly, then leaves for material that increasingly deepens and redefines the meaning of the events.” (p185, Art) Gardener observes that, “Such a story can be interesting, even brilliant, but it can never achieve the power of an energeic action because the control of action is intellectual, it does not rise out of the essence of things…It does not capture process.” (p166, Art) While I believe it is up to the reader to determine whether or not LOST compares positively to energeic fiction, I would agree that LOST does not capture process. It defers to the impact of outcome; it reveals and invites examination. The outcomes of the characters’ discoveries are the responsibility of the reader to determine. To accomplish this, McMahon employs the use of allusionary themes.

As the title, and backstory involving Rhonda, Lizzy, and other characters performing a play of Peter Pan, suggests, LOST relies heavily on an understanding and consideration of the story Peter Pan for overall impact. LOST is not simply about how a woman learns of the sexual abuse of a childhood friend; it is an examination of the effect of the premature loss of childhood, how as one learns the truth of the world, one loses innocence, and when that innocence is pulled away too soon a person will continue to feel that loss as an adult. This theme is echoed in the use of allusions and direct references to the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Rhonda, Lizzy, and their childhood friend Peter, are each cast into a world beyond logic and reason, a world where they do not belong. Additionally, each of these characters have experiences with a white rabbit that cause them to wonder if they are in fact the same person they were just before the rabbit crossed their path.

By tucking the past into the present, McMahon creates a lyrical novel that does more than simply tell a story of one girl’s lost childhood. ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS artfully steers away from victim exploitation as it explores the tricky territories of sexual childhood abuse and the burden of secrets between friends and family. As a result of careful crafting, the reader is not weighted down by sentiment but instead lifted up with understanding and appreciation for the importance of childhood.

The Irishman, Book to Movie Interview with Author and Agent

2009-09-05T03:36:00.000-07:00

By Roberta M. Gubbins, Ingham County Legal News

Lawyers write. They write briefs, opinion letters, memos, contracts of all sorts and sizes, wills, trusts—I could go on forever. Many write fictionalized stories based on events that happened during the course of their careers. Some of those stories are published and some are made into movies. How does that happen?

Recently I met with Rick Porrello, author of “To Kill the Irishman, the War that Crippled the Mafia” and his agent, Peter Miller, of PMA Literary & Film Management, Inc. They were in Detroit to assist with the filming of the action movie based on Porrello’s book, the true story of mobster, Danny Greene, a violent Irish-American gangster who competed with the Italian mob in 1970’s Cleveland--a competition that provoked a country-wide turf war.

Code Entertainment is producing the movie, which stars Ray Stevenson as Danny Greene, Christopher Walken as loan shark and nightclub owner, Shondor Birns, and Val Kilmer as the Cleveland police detective who befriends Greene. Jonathan Hensleigh directs the film. “They plan to release it by St. Patrick’s Day,” said Porrello.

Porrello, now Chief of Police in Cleveland, wrote his first book, “Superthief,” about his mobster grandfather and uncles who were killed in the early 1930s by opposing factions of the mob. “I started “The Irishman” immediately after my first book. My wife and I opened a bottle of champagne when we got the author’s copies, and I said I would never, ever do this again. But once I got those books in my hands, I thought ‘I’ve got to do this again, very soon.’

I self published “The Irishman.” I couldn’t come to terms on a deal with my original publisher so I decided to self-publish the book.” When it came out, two movie companies got in touch with Porrello, wanting exclusive movie rights. “I had no idea how to decide between them. I contacted Peter (Miller). He read the contracts, negotiated for me, and advised me which deal was best.” Code Entertainment bought the movie rights. “That was eleven years ago.”

“Where we are now,” said Miller, joining us after one of his many phone calls, “with the movie in production, and the book going to be published by Simon and Schuster, and I’m now going to auction it off in England and Ireland, is where we want to be.”

“It is not easy getting a movie produced. It has gotten much more complicated. There are two ways to make movie deals. One is you work with a studio, sign a contract with them, and you are at their complete mercy. On those deals, I get a fee as an executive producer and they buy the movie rights. That is plan A.”

“Plan B is an independent deal. Code Entertainment has five investors. We wanted to do it as a bigger movie, but the actors wanted a bonus package to be able to bring their entourage. You would not believe what these actors bring to the table—‘an extra non-accountable one million dollars for their chef and their barber and their baby sitter and on and on.”

“This is very important to Rick, I am proud that we worked for a long time to accomplish this. And the script is dynamite. This has been a long road for Rick, but it is a good road, and it will give him gravitas in his world. He will sell more books.”

“My first edition of the “Irishman” had lots of errors in it,” said Porrello, laughing. “I didn’t have a professional editor or proof reader, but the book was selling so well that after the third printing, I got almost all of the errors sorted out. It still needs work but we never got to that point. Now we will, because the book is being published by Pocketbooks and they will work with me to polish it.”

“I promoted it by starting a web site called AmericanMafia.com. It is the biggest and most comprehensive organized crime history on the net. We are eleven years old, and we get several thousand hits per day. And everything is archived—we have many original feature stories. Several authors who have written books about organized crime started with AmericanMafia.com.”

Miller and Porrello are executive producers of the film. After our meeting, they were off to the film set to watch as Porrello’s book was made into a movie. With luck, we will see the final result next spring.

Cutline for photo: Peter Miller, PMA Literary & Film Management, Inc. and Rick Perrollo, author of “To Kill the Irishman,” celebrate the filming of a movie based on Perrollo’s book.

Article and Photo by Roberta Gubbins, Ingham County Legal News

Comfortable Seats at the Theatre

2009-08-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

...are what you may be needing if the script writers aren't up to the task. When I found out NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro (see previous post about re: literary analysis) was going to be made into a movie, starring Keira Knightly, my first thought was cool - second thought - what will the characters be doing the whole time?

I did what any intelligent person would do, zipped off to google, did a search, and checked out what other intelligent people thought about this. I found someone who agrees; the success of the movie will have a lot to do with the script.

The success of the uncanniness I wrote about in my analysis (previous post) depends greatly on reader, in this case audience, patience. What do we know about movie going audiences today? Not so patient. Perhaps things are different in England, where the film will be released in April...

And the lack of ending? Now there is a whole 'nother problem.

**spoiler alert**

In addition to the fact that there are no kick ass moments when Kathy, the main character, does something awesome, the end is a bit of a downer. And its not like the audience can be set up for NEVER LET ME GO 2 - because everybody dies. And they don't die trying to get away for the bad thing that's going to happen, they die because its what they were meant to do.

Hmmm...have fun, script writers, making that sympathic.

Human Clones: The Ultimate Uncanny

2009-08-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Understanding the theories and concepts of the uncanny can be extremely beneficial to the writer. By knowing what causes humans to be emotionally distressed, a writer can craft a story that will trigger anxiety at strategic times and in ways that support the intent of the work, heighten the fictive dream, and enhance the overall story experience. Ernst Jentsch, credited with being the first to identify the state of the uncanny in a 1906 essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” defines the state as a person’s “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might be, in fact, animate.” He was quick to note that awareness and understanding of such a state is important to the writer.
“In telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately.”

Sigmund Freud, in his essay, “The Uncanny” later expanded this concept of the uncanny state being linked to the relationship between the animate and the innate. Additionally, he examined concepts of human development in regard to maturation as having a key relationship to a person’s perception of what is uncanny. For example, in childhood humans enjoy repetition. This appreciation begins before the child is old enough to desire, or even understand, control. As the child matures, and begins to understand the advantage of control and thus desires it, the child takes less pleasure in repetition. Therefore, continued, undesired, and uncontrollable repetition is disturbing because it represents a lack of control and thus regression and is therefore potentially alarming. Freud asserted that the state of the uncanny is linked to the subconscious in additional way. He stated that a person experiences something as uncanny because it reminds the individual of the conflict between their repressed desires, desires which the individual presumably struggles to control, and feared punishment for deviating from societal norms.

The clone characters in NEVER LET ME GO by Kazou Ishiguro are human and yet not; this juxtaposition of truths makes them particularly uncanny. They are human in that they contain human genetic material, yet they do not possess several key qualities often considered to be distinctly human characteristics or rights. The most concrete example of this is that characters (clones) in NEVER are unable to reproduce. While it is true that not all humans are biologically capable of reproduction, much of human culture, the structure of family for example, is centered on the ability and innate desire to reproduce. Ishiguro draws attention this aspect of the uncanny in chapter six when Madame (the woman who appears to be in charge of the school where the clones are housed during childhood) comes across Kathy, the main character, clutching a pillow to her chest and singing to it as though it were a baby.

“Madame…was out in the corridor, standing very still, her head angled to one side to give her a better view of what I might be doing…and the odd thing was she was crying. She just went on standing there, sobbing and sobbing, staring at me through the doorway with that same look in her eyes she always had when she looked at us, like she was seeing something that gave her the creeps.” (p 72, all page numbers paperback)

When Kathy mentions that moment to a friend, Tommy, a couple years later, the friend responds, “Madame’s probably not a bad person, even though she’s creepy. So when she saw you dancing like that, holding your baby, she thought it was really tragic, how you couldn’t have babies. That’s why she started crying.” (p 73) There are very few passages as direct as these; Ishiguro is more subtle throughout the majority of the book. This subtly, as Jentsch suggested, is even more effective as the reader’s uncertainty lingers in an almost unconscious way, heightening the tension of the story.

The exchanges above, first between Kathy and Madame and then later between Kathy and Tommy, are an example of Freud’s expanded analysis of the uncanny. It is apparent that Madame is repulsed by those she is charged with caring for; she finds the clones uncanny. Seeing the clones in person reminds her of the conflict between her repressed or uncontrollable desires, her motivation for doing what she is even though she is repulsed by it, and her fear of societal reproach for deviating from the accepted norms. More simply put, because Madame desires something for herself she is taking part in something the knows is wrong; when she sees the clones she is reminded of that conflict and projects the “uncanniness” onto the clones thus being repulsed by them rather than by her own actions.

As with Madame, the reader is forced to accept the existence of the clones. Ishiguro ensures this by using uses a very intimate first person point of view; the narrator, Kathy, directly addresses the reader, using “you” to refer to the reader several times in the beginning and then again several times throughout novel. For example, “If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful—about my bedsit, my car…” (p 4) and then again, “I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we…” (p 13) These passages serve two purposes. One, disallowing the reader the opportunity to deny the clones’ existence and two, forcing a comparison between the reader, a true human, and the character, a human-like non-human. This forced comparison reinforces the sense of the uncanny.

Ishiguro’s exploration of the uncanny in NEVER is directly acknowledged. One passage in particular seems specifically crafted to capture the idea expressed by both Jentsch and Freud. “We could see hills in the distance that reminded us of the ones in the distance at Hailsham, but they seemed to us oddly crooked, like when you draw a picture of a friend and it’s almost right but not quite, and the face on the sheet of paper gives you the creeps.” (p 119) Another passage, less direct occurs later in the novel when Tommy is showing Kathy some animals he drew. “…and he showed me three separate sketches of a kind of frog—except with a long tail as though part of it had stayed a tadpole. At least, that’s what it looked like when you held it away from you. Close up, each sketch was a mass of minute detail…” (p 214). Although this passage is less direct, the focus on a creature that almost is what it is expected to be is evident and serves the same purpose.

Ishiguro’s exploration of the that hazy area between what is human and what is not human is more than an exploration of the physical but also of the spiritual, moral, and ethical. NEVER LET ME GO places a spotlight on the uncanny and challenges the reader to not look away.

Know About YA Trends? Amy Alessio Does

2009-08-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

I recently met Amy Alessio when she joined the still forming YA Chapter of Romance Writers of America. When I found out that she is both a YA writer and YA librarian I knew I had to hit her up for an interview.

As a librarian who works with young adults, you must talk with teens a lot. What is most surprising about young adults as people and/or as readers?

I help run monthly clubs at the library including a Teen Corps volunteer group, a Gamers Group, writing and drawing groups and more. We also have three to five programs a week in the summer including swordfighting, CSI, scavenger hunts, after hours, video game tournaments and art classes. I also had the pleasure this summer of bringing five teens to the American Library Association conference, where they spoke with me at a Young Adult Library Services Association preconference.

So I do indeed have the pleasure of talking with teens a great deal. What surprises me is that anyone would want to work with any other age group! Honestly, I love my work. Teens today are extremely sophisticated about their activities and their future, and they are passionate about helping improve the world. I can barely keep up with my volunteer group's ideas about helping the community. Also they are very technological, but that's no surprise. A big surprise came when we realized that the library book circulation of teen materials went up 70% each year after we started getting their input about all services for their own age group. Taking their advice continuously brought in more teens in droves.

Do you see a strong relationship between teen trends in say, clothes and music, and teen trends in reading?

The public library is an equalizer. All types of teens come in. So I may not see trends in clothing and music as much as someone who works in retail or food which may appeal to markets within teens. As downloadable music became so popular in the last ten years, though, I notice teens do like more action packed books. Their attention needs to be grabbed from page one to hold them. They are used to everything instantly, from chatting to getting their music and more. And they are more interested in the larger world and cultures than perhaps before, as they are so connected to the entire world online.

While these trends are more immediate and prevalent in teens, I think both of these things resonate with adults also. I see adults with more interest in Indian/Asian or African American authors with books like The Kite Runner staying in book clubs years after publication. Also, adults want their action sooner now too; why else would we see so many Prologues in books?

How long will vampires be *hot*?

(grin) I see no end in sight with the vampires. I have 40 copies of each of the Twilight series which still circulate constantly, plus many more of The Vampire Diaries and more. The Vampire Diaries will be a new show on the CW this fall, too, heightening the genre. Really, Vampires have been around for several years, with Anne Rice, Buffy and Laurel K. Hamilton changing the faces of the genre. Charlaine Harris certainly kept momentum going and is more popular than ever with her TV show, too. An interesting vampire book will always find teen readers.

Predictions about upcoming trends?

Definitely I see more types of paranormal. I have to review some Zombie books; that seems to be the new creature du jour. I have also seen werewolves aplenty in adult books lately, which means they will hit teen soon too.

Steampunk is hitting teen now too. Kenneth Oppel really started the trend for teens, and now I'm seeing lots more variations with time travel into Victorian and Regency periods, too.

To my delight, I am finding many more teen mysteriers and thrillers, though still only a few teen traditional amateur sleuth series. Mysteries are my passion, and I review teen ones for Crimespree magazine. (I review all types of teen books for Teenreads.com too.) It used to be hard to find teen mysteries. Now I'm seeing a lot more. It's the CSI effect - many teens watch those shows, too. How could they not, with the series being on every night in some form?

Amy has an awesome blog that covers vintage cookbooks. Here's what she had to say about where that interest came from.

Good question. My mother had great unusual cookbooks, though she was not a huge fan of cooking. Both Grandmothers were, and I have recipes from one. The other wrote nothing down. When I was younger I was fascinated with the crazy Jello recipes in an old Jello cookbook and made several of them. I took Square Meals by the Sterns from Mom and read it like a novel. That one discusses vintage cookbooks and funny trends in them.

My husband and I have always been into antique malls, and usually spend birthdays and anniversaries touring several. I was drawn to the vintage cookbooks over and over, and before I knew it, I had over 100. They are inexpensive and fun, from the Pillsbury Bake-Off collections to the Betty Crocker cooking/lifestyle guides. By the time I had 200 I was learning new technologies for my work at the library. It's not easy trying to keep up with teens technologically, but I do try. I wanted to teach myself blogging three years ago, and needed a topic. I started writing about the cookbooks, and my attempts to make some of those recipes.

In January of this year, I took an online class on blog book tours, and got serious about it, blogging much more often, inviting guests, promoting the blog on food sites. The traffic has grown exponentially and I've been invited to nine libraries this fall to talk to people about holiday traditions in the vintage cookbooks. I have publications planned from it too for folks who attend the programs. I use all this as an excuse to get more cookbooks, of course!

Amy is the author of "Missing Andy" a story in the MISSING anthology. Here's what she had to say about that:

The Missing Anthology was created when I asked Echelon Press CEO Karen Syed if she could publish an anthology benefiting missing persons organizations. There were several high profile ones in Chicago especially two years ago, and I wanted to do something. Karen agreed if I would edit it. I was happy to do so, and the stories in there are amazing. No one made a dime from that project; all monies were donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I do have a story in there as well, "Missing Andy", about an antiques store owner who collects cookbooks and tracks down a missing teen...

Amy Alessio is a regular speaker at BEA, ALA, and Boucheron.

And you can follow Amy on Twitter.

Do you write YA?

2009-08-15T09:01:00.001-07:00

inkpop will launch in mid-September, but here's the scoop as of now...

inkpop is the new voice in teen publishing.
You’ve heard the horror stories. When they were just getting started, even some of the world’s most successful authors weren’t immune to the pains of getting published. Navigating the traditional publishing system can be like shooting in the dark. The manuscript submission process is often a lengthy, intimidating uphill battle, and there’s no guarantee that publishers will actually read your work.

inkpop will change the old way of doing things. By asking, “What does the community think?” inkpop marks a new approach to identifying and developing talent. inkpop is an online network that connects up-and-coming authors with talent spotters and publishing professionals in the teen market. Writers are invited to post their books, short stories, essays, and poetry for the whole world to see. inkpop members identify and rank their favorite works and post their feedback and constructive criticism.

We’re all about the reader. Our social networking forum shines just as much light on authors as on the readers who provide the positive springboard for feedback. After all, inkpop members play a critical role in deciding whose projects rise to inkpop’s Top Picks.

inkpop pays careful attention to what the community thinks. Each month we compile a list of the top five projects of all time, handing over the work for our Editorial Board to read. Consisting of HarperCollins editors, the Editorial Board provides the final critique in the review process. The ultimate goal is to find the Next Big Thing in teen lit, and the ultimate prize is every aspiring author’s dream: A publishing contract.

Ready to make your mark?

If you are, contact Amy Schroeder
inkpop Site Manager
amybschroeder@gmail.com

Let Them Eat Cake

2009-08-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

In the prefaces of both books on writing, On Becoming a Novelist and The Art of Fiction, John Gardener states that he has written his books for a specific group of writers. “I write for those who desire, not publication at any cost, but publication one can be proud of—serious, honest fiction, the kind of novel that readers will enjoy reading more than once, the kind of fiction that will survive.” (p xxiii, Becoming) He aims, not to provide insight for “…the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi…” but “for the elite; that is, for serious literary artists.” (p x, Art) Throughout both books he makes clear his disdain for works produced by the non-elite, what he calls “junk fiction” (p x, Art); the type of books “one finds in drugstores, supermarkets, and even small-town public libraries.” Gardner states that these books are, “…not well written at all; a smart chimp with a good creative–writing teacher and a real love of sitting around banging a typewriter could have written books vastly more interesting and elegant.” (p ix, Art) Given his constant declarations that intelligent worthwhile people read and write intelligent and worthwhile fiction, fiction that is art and not “junk”, is it difficult to reconcile the creation of many of his characters. One possibility for reconciliation is that his characters such as Henry Soames and Callie Wells of Nickel Mountain, the roadside vendor, Pigtoe, and the stripper, Fanny, Gardner uses in his plotting examples (p 172, 175, Art)—characters who are apt to acquire their books, which in all likelihood would be “junk” fiction, at drugstores, supermarkets, or even small public libraries—are worth writing about but not worth writing for.

Gardner devotes time to in both books to addressing the importance of reader satisfaction; he clearly values the fictive dream and its ability to move the emotions of the reader. He makes a point of reminding the writer that, “The writer who does not accept the metaphysic can never write a novel; he can only play off it…We are not profoundly moved by Homer, Shakespeare, or Melville because we would like to believe the metaphysical assumptions their fictions embody…but because we do believe those assumptions.” (pps 184-185, Art) Furthermore, he reminds the writer of the responsibility to carry the reader completely through the story. Novels, he explains, must offer symphonic-like endings in which the “…closing movement echoes and resounds with all that has gone before.” If this goal is not met, the reader will, “…shut the book with feelings of dissatisfaction, as if cheated.” (p184, Art) It cannot be doubted that Gardner values and respects readers of fiction he would classify as art; it does not appear, though, despite the fact that in his own fictive work he embraces, accepts, and uses characters who—if they were in fact actual people—would not be likely to read literary art, that he values readers of what he would classify as non-art. In short, he writes about characters who he would not truly value or respect were they to be actual, living humans.

For me, writing fiction is much like making a dish to take to a potluck dinner. I create the best possible product, using all the skills I’ve acquired to date, with the intent of bringing pleasure and satisfaction—from start to finish—to whoever wants what I’ve produced. My potluck dish is usually a cake because cakes are what I make best. Chocolate cakes with homemade chocolate cream cheese frosting are what I get asked for most, so I often make those. I bake mine in a simple, disposable foil pan. I know that there will be other cakes at the potluck, maybe a fancy one with fresh fruit across the top or a delicate five layer torte served on a glass plate. That doesn’t matter to me. At the potluck, I set my cake on the table alongside the others and leave it unattended. Not everyone will reach for mine; some will take a piece of the one covered in fruit or a slice of the torte. Their preferences are okay with me; different people like different things. When it comes to mine, I don’t care who eats it; I only care that they enjoy it, that it satisfies, that it is what they wanted it to be. It seems to me that Gardner has a similar approach—making the best product and delivering it—only he adds additional steps. He determines what should and should not be made, and once the product is on the table he stands close at hand, ensuring that only the right people take a slice.

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Media Literacy: Taking advantage of critical moments to give students voice

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The Devil’s in the Details

Feel the Thinking

The Character of Ilhéus

The Uncertainty of Truth

NEVER LET ME GO movie update

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A Toy Barn or Theme in Fiction?

Thirty Days and Nights...

Fiction as a Springboard for Expository Writing

Author Intent: A Comparison of WHITE TEETH and OLIVE KITTERIDGE

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Human Clones: The Ultimate Uncanny

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Let Them Eat Cake