Yesterday I finished reading Ted Morgan's biography of W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham goes in and out of literary fashion (currently out) but he is one of my favorite writers. I have read three of his Big Four, but not CAKES AND ALE. (The others are OF HUMAN BONDAGE, THE RAZOR'S EDGE, and the short story "Rain.") So yesterday I picked up CAKES AND ALE at a bookstore and started it. Since it is a satire about writers, I'm enjoying it on several levels.
Maugham is a cynic, and he has a merciless eye. Here is his account of a successful writer having dinner with a less successful writer and playwright (clearly Maugham himself), long after both began their careers at the same time:
"You feel ill at ease when your friend tells you that his books don't sell and that he can't place his short stories; the managers won't even read his plays, and when he compares them with some of the stuff that's put on (here he fixes you with an accusing eye) it really does seem a bit hard. You are embarrassed and you look away. You exaggerate the failures you have had in order that he may realize that life has its hardships for you too. You refer to your work in the most disparaging way you can and are a trifle taken aback to find that your host's opinion is the same as yours. You speak of the fickleness of the public so that he may comfort himself by thinking that your own popularity cannot last.... 'I haven't read your last book,' he says, 'but I read the one before. I've forgotten its name.' "
You tell him.
'I was rather disappointed in it. I don't think it was quite as good as some of the things you've done. Of course you know which my favorite is.'
And you, having suffered at more hands than his answer at once with the name of the first book you ever wrote."
This is very funny, and exaggerated for effect -- but not untrue. I have been on both sides of this conversation, as the more successful and the less successful writer (although I promise I was never as bitchy as that dialogue). Science fiction writers are, I think, relatively generous in their acceptance of different positions among our ranks: differing sales figures, amount of advances, number of awards, popularity with fans, but we're not saints (I name no names). Maugham, in this as in so much else, sees through the polite veneer to the underlying dynamics. He's a superb satirist, and I love CAKES AND ALE so far. Recommended.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Writerly Crankiness
A student has sent me a rewrite in the mail, and I have re-critiqued it. Despite its merits (which were actually many), it contained one of my pet peeves of English prose, which got me thinking about the rest of them. Here they are:
"... he thought to himself." Unless you are a telepath, there is no other possibility.
"An expression of .... on his face." Where else would an expression be? Omit "on his face."
".... asked James." If there are more than two people in the scene, this is fine. Otherwise, I probably know it's James's turn to talk, and if his speech ends with a question mark, I already know he's asking something.
"Jumping up, he answered the door." Unless your guy is an amazing acrobat, he's not jumping up at the same time he's answering the door. They're sequential actions. Write "He jumped up and answered the door" or "He jumped to answer the door."
"Distraught, I ran my hand through my short red curls." This is first person. Not even a narcissist thinks of his short red curls while distraught; this is a blatant attempt to shoe-horn in description where it does not belong. Even in close third person, this is a point-of-view shift, from inside to outside, that jars. In fact, the whole sentence is bad. Show me he's distraught.
"He was born in Paris, France." This only works in the dialogue or thoughts of a character you wish us to perceive as either dim or pedantic. In narrative, don't tell readers that Paris is in France -- it's insulting that you assume they don't know that already. If you're writing about Paris, Texas, however, that's a different matter.
"She was five-foot-seven, one hundred thirty pounds, with long brown hair and blue eyes." Again, unless you're trying to convey something about the character making this observation -- that he is or was a cop, that he is incapable of seeing other than prosaically -- this description is not only boring but irrelevant. Tell me something about her with more juicy relevance to her character: she's five-foot-seven and weighs eighty-eight pounds, or her long hair is pink with green stripes, or one of those blue eyes is black from having been slugged hard.
"If I was an acrobat..." If I were an acrobat. The subjunctive tense is not yet obsolete.
And please forgive the crankiness of this post.
"... he thought to himself." Unless you are a telepath, there is no other possibility.
"An expression of .... on his face." Where else would an expression be? Omit "on his face."
".... asked James." If there are more than two people in the scene, this is fine. Otherwise, I probably know it's James's turn to talk, and if his speech ends with a question mark, I already know he's asking something.
"Jumping up, he answered the door." Unless your guy is an amazing acrobat, he's not jumping up at the same time he's answering the door. They're sequential actions. Write "He jumped up and answered the door" or "He jumped to answer the door."
"Distraught, I ran my hand through my short red curls." This is first person. Not even a narcissist thinks of his short red curls while distraught; this is a blatant attempt to shoe-horn in description where it does not belong. Even in close third person, this is a point-of-view shift, from inside to outside, that jars. In fact, the whole sentence is bad. Show me he's distraught.
"He was born in Paris, France." This only works in the dialogue or thoughts of a character you wish us to perceive as either dim or pedantic. In narrative, don't tell readers that Paris is in France -- it's insulting that you assume they don't know that already. If you're writing about Paris, Texas, however, that's a different matter.
"She was five-foot-seven, one hundred thirty pounds, with long brown hair and blue eyes." Again, unless you're trying to convey something about the character making this observation -- that he is or was a cop, that he is incapable of seeing other than prosaically -- this description is not only boring but irrelevant. Tell me something about her with more juicy relevance to her character: she's five-foot-seven and weighs eighty-eight pounds, or her long hair is pink with green stripes, or one of those blue eyes is black from having been slugged hard.
"If I was an acrobat..." If I were an acrobat. The subjunctive tense is not yet obsolete.
And please forgive the crankiness of this post.
Monday, June 29, 2009
LOCUS Awards Weekend
Saturday combined the annual LOCUS Awards with the annual induction of Science Fiction Hall of Fame honorees. It was a very full day, starting with panels and ending fourteen hours later with drinks in the bar of Seattle's Courtyard Marriott. Some highlights:
During my interview of Connie Willis, she explained the importance of ironing as a means of calming Writers' Nerves. AND you get wrinkle-free clothes!
Michael Whelan's interview, conducted by Todd Lockwood, contained a moving account of how he "painted my way out of depression" with a picture, which he still has, of a stairway leading out of darkness into light.
On the short-fiction panel, Gardner Dozois explained the "sure-fire, guaranteed formula for becoming a famous SF writer. This is it: Write five or six wonderful stories, save them up till you have all six, then send them to a single periodical in short bursts so that they all appear within a year and a half. This creates enormous buzz among fans, reviewers, and book editors." Gardner allowed as how the first step is the hard one. Reactions by Gordon Van Gelder, Gary Wolfe, and Ellen Datlow were less than serious:
The traditional Hawaiian Shirt and Trivia Contest, conducted with aplomb by Connie Willis, and won by Greg Bear. Connie with daughter Cordelia:
Paolo Bacigalupi's acceptance speech for his LOCUS award for his short story "Pump Six." He did something I have never seen before: He thanked the editor who rejected the story (Gordon Van Gelder), because after it was rejected, he worked on it more and "finally got it right."
Connie Willis's moving speech when she was inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with Michael Whelan, Ed Ferman, and Frank R. Paul. Connie said there are things you fantasize about and things so wonderful you never even think to fantasize about them, and this was the latter. Afterwards emcee Christopher Moore said, "Look, guys -- you made her cry." Here are Connie, Charles N. Brown, John Kessel, and Michael Whelan at the Hall of Fame:
Dinner with Karen Joy Fowler, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ted Chiang, John Kessel, Jack Skillingstead, and Gary Wolfe, during which there ensued a discussion of "hilarious ways to die." The winner was being crushed by a rising piano while having sex on top of it (see http://www.aintnowaytogo.com/pianoSex.htm for verification). There was no reason this should have been a hilarious discussion -- but it was.
Sitting around the bar listening to Ken Scholes play the guitar and Amelia Beamer sing:
Altogether, a lovely occasion. Even if I lost the award.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Clarion party
Last night was the first of the weekly Clarion parties for the out-going instructors, this one for John Kessel. Each week the old instructor, drained of all he knows, is hauled away like an empty suitcase and a fresh instructor is installed. Last night's party was particularly full because, in addition to students and local writers and fans, there are several visiting firemen in Seattle for tomorrow's Locus awards. Here is Gardner Dozois, grimacing at the 1,806th picture taken of him:
Ellen Datlow and Ken Scholes were more cooperative:
Jack Skillingstead, with me, is drifting along on a tide of literature and beer:
I did not get photos of so many more: Connie Willis, Karen Joy Fowler, Christopher Moore. I will do better tomorrow. Moore, the emcee for the Hall of Fame inductions (also tomorrow) gave a very funny speech about writing. Two key points: (1) You really don't need to lose ten years to an alcoholic haze no matter how much you admire Hemingway, and (2) since Raymond Carver died nobody can make a living writing short stories, so all the Clarion students had better learn to write novels.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Clarion Reading
Last night was the first of the Clarion Reading Series at the University Bookstore, in which each week's instructor at Clarion West reads from his or her work . John Kessel read from a story that will appear in Gardner Dozois's anthology THE NEW SPACE OPERA 2. John, usually a literary writer, said he had always wanted to write at least one SF story of the kind he enjoyed as a kid, "full of battles and heroes and derring-do." So he did. The story was great fun, and when it was finished, I'm sure there's not one of us in the audience who didn't want a secret nine-dimensional pouch with a fold-up soldier of our very own. Afterwards some of us had dinner at a Greek restaurant. Here are (left to right) John Kessel, playwright Jeanne Beckwith, and Ted Chiang:
As a sidelight, the reading illustrated a common problem writers have: What if you want to read a piece too long for the allotted time? John's solution was to edit ahead of time, marking those places he would read verbatim and those places he would summarize ("And then a bunch of exciting stuff happens"). For very long pieces, this may be the only way to go. I'll consider it the next time I want to read "The Erdmann Nexus" or "Act One" in public.
As a sidelight, the reading illustrated a common problem writers have: What if you want to read a piece too long for the allotted time? John's solution was to edit ahead of time, marking those places he would read verbatim and those places he would summarize ("And then a bunch of exciting stuff happens"). For very long pieces, this may be the only way to go. I'll consider it the next time I want to read "The Erdmann Nexus" or "Act One" in public.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Rejection
Last night I saw the heart-breaking documentary EVERY LITTLE STEP, about dancers auditioning for roles in a revival of A CHORUS LINE, itself a play about dance auditions. The movie was terrific. The reason it's heart-breaking is that all these young dancers want the part so badly, and most will not get it. You see the pain of rejection on their faces, even as they bravely prepare for the next audition.
Writers, too, take rejection regularly (although we do have the advantage of not usually getting it in person, or as the result of one off day when your jete collapses you onto the floor). Rejection of a short story, rejection of a novel, rejection of an asked-for synopsis, rejection by reviewers who hated your work, sometimes even rejection by one's established publisher. And it always hurts. Over the years of teaching, I have had students, some of them quite good writers, who are so afraid of rejection that they never submit anything to editors at all.
I think what's called for in handling rejection is the same skill that's called for in successful revision. You have to become two people at once. With revision, you have to simultaneously be the writer making changes and the reader encountering the story for the first time, so that you can see what changes need to be made: Have I provided enough information here for anyone to understand why my character is behaving like that? Will the reader understand that this scene directly follow the previous one but in another location? And so forth.
With rejection, the mental pas de deux is even trickier. You must be both the person who believes in your talent enough to think "I can write, and this is a good story" AND the person who thinks "This editor/reviewer/instructor is, after all, knowledgeable -- is there anything to this criticism that I can use, either for further revision or for the next story?" It's not an easy balancing act, especially when it is your lifeblood you've invested in this story. But unless you can manage this balancing act, at least roughly, you risk becoming (pick one): (1) someone who loses faith in his ability and gives up, or (2) someone who cannot grow as a writer because you think you have nothing more to learn.
In EVERY LITTLE STEP, there is a painful interview with a dancer who did not get the part of Cassie. She ends by saying, "Maybe next time will be my big break." It's the only productive attitude for writers, too. You don't need to "grow a thick hide," as some advocate -- even if you could. You just need to patch up the bruised hide you have, and keep on dancing.
Writers, too, take rejection regularly (although we do have the advantage of not usually getting it in person, or as the result of one off day when your jete collapses you onto the floor). Rejection of a short story, rejection of a novel, rejection of an asked-for synopsis, rejection by reviewers who hated your work, sometimes even rejection by one's established publisher. And it always hurts. Over the years of teaching, I have had students, some of them quite good writers, who are so afraid of rejection that they never submit anything to editors at all.
I think what's called for in handling rejection is the same skill that's called for in successful revision. You have to become two people at once. With revision, you have to simultaneously be the writer making changes and the reader encountering the story for the first time, so that you can see what changes need to be made: Have I provided enough information here for anyone to understand why my character is behaving like that? Will the reader understand that this scene directly follow the previous one but in another location? And so forth.
With rejection, the mental pas de deux is even trickier. You must be both the person who believes in your talent enough to think "I can write, and this is a good story" AND the person who thinks "This editor/reviewer/instructor is, after all, knowledgeable -- is there anything to this criticism that I can use, either for further revision or for the next story?" It's not an easy balancing act, especially when it is your lifeblood you've invested in this story. But unless you can manage this balancing act, at least roughly, you risk becoming (pick one): (1) someone who loses faith in his ability and gives up, or (2) someone who cannot grow as a writer because you think you have nothing more to learn.
In EVERY LITTLE STEP, there is a painful interview with a dancer who did not get the part of Cassie. She ends by saying, "Maybe next time will be my big break." It's the only productive attitude for writers, too. You don't need to "grow a thick hide," as some advocate -- even if you could. You just need to patch up the bruised hide you have, and keep on dancing.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Summer Solstice
Many places observe the summer solstice, which was yesterday, with (depending on the group) newspaper editorials or crop-planting blessings or coven celebrations. Seattle holds a parade. The Fremont Summer Solstice parade is famous for its 200 naked cyclists, who exuberantly greet summer wearing nothing but fanciful body paint. Fortunately, yeaterday's weather was warm. Here are a pack of naked cyclists, photographed at a discreet distance (also, I haven't yet figured out the zoom on my camera):
There were also naked skateboarders. The parade has three rules: no animals allowed, no words allowed, no motorized vehicles allowed. Otherwise, anything goes. Being Seattle, there was a strong emphasis on Going Green. Favorite floats included Sustainable Bullfighting, with a papier mache bull, and Save Your Rainwater. Since no words or banners are allowed, announcers along the parade route introduced each new group or float. My personal favorite was the belly dancers:
This is Phoenix Rising from the ashes of winter:
There is nothing like this in Rochester, NY, where I live. Most of us usually just say, "Oh, is it the summer solstice? Almost forgot!" But not in Seattle. Welcome, summer.
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