Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail for 04-02-13

Who said, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative”?
Answer: Oscar Wilde , Author of The Picture of Dorian Gray

Tuesday at the B&N . . .
Fourteen of us gathered round three tables to share a number of critiques.

Amber started us off by reading from chapter ten of her YA novel, Noble. Jen had a question about POV. Pat questioned writing about a head being removed from its shoulders, as in where else would it be removed from? Rebecca was confused by how one character was on their hands and knees but also holding their head at the same time. Andy and Millie didn’t know where the sword came from and Andy didn’t think it unnerved the main character enough. Lisa questioned Zephyr’s vocabulary and whether he would know a lot of English. Alicia wondered if one character would actually have a heart attack and thinks the protagonist is too much of a girl scout; she wants more of a reaction. Clayton was okay with the protagonist’s reaction. (P.S. Lisa can take over this whole note taking business anytime.)

Pat shares the poem Just Words with the group. She starts off by telling us she knows it needs work. Lisa thinks she should add more sadness. Andy saw it as in-your-face. Lisa thought it was in-your-face depressing and she liked it that way. Alicia looks for some redemptive quality at the end. Clayton sees the name-calling as recognition; the author sees these things and wants to fix them. Michelle wonders if the author can open the front door and leave. Amber agrees with Clayton, maybe the recognition is the happy ending. Alicia thinks of the old movie Sybil and wonders if Pat could bring the poem full circle in a similar way. Lisa and Aaron like the title. Aaron suggests adding something about sticks and stones at the end.

Andy shares a couple of poems. Jen liked the first poem, Perfect, saying it had a nice rhythm in some parts but was lacking in others. To Amber it felt like a laundry list of items. Rebecca wondered what we learn from the poem. Lisa found an inappropriate line or two. Rhyming is hard, Pat tells us. Michelle had difficulty with the voice changing from the beginning to the end. Andy’s second poem, Forecast, is about the weather we had in Wisconsin last year. Some of us read it as a metaphor for a relationship thought the last two stanzas don’t fit with that idea; Andy was surprised by this and may consider revenging. Clayton expected the poem to take off but then it didn’t, leaving him disappointed.

Michelle shares a chapter from her book with the group recounting her own rape at the age of fifteen. Pat thought the rape scene was really well written but the beginning and end were not as well done. Clayton wants to know how this topic or chapter will relate to the rest of the book. Jerry has questions about the time line and when night falls and curfew. Rebecca asked if she might include her hopes for what might have happened. Jen looks for a better word choice in one instance.

Clayton reads from chapter eighteen of Fishing Derby. Jerry and Andy both wonder how the cop knows where one character’s car is parked. Pat thought Clayton did a good job tightening up the pizza parlor scene, but she wonders why the protagonist has to lead us back to the car. Rebecca has an edit about ending sentences with the same word. Jerry points out that a character asks a question, another one looks it up, but then never reveals the answer.

Alicia reads from the beginning of chapter three of Lincoln’s Other War. Clayton wonders about Lincoln’s commute to the oval office and wonders what he might be thinking about on his way. Michelle wonders why the jostling would help with Lincoln’s editing. Pat suggests just putting the date at the beginning of each chapter, but Alicia doesn’t want to lock herself into anything because the work is fiction. Michelle wonders if she could break the events into months. Pat was surprised there was no argument about the replacement of a general; it just seems too simplified for her. Jerry wonders of we’re following a character out to Minnesota and questions the title of the piece.

Jerry skips reading from Chapter six of Last Good Man but gives us the setup. Pat thought it was a great example of regionalisms for the names of car parts. She wondered why no character was unknowledgeable enough to ask about where the jack was though. Clayton wanted to see more of a particular relationship between two characters. Michelle likes cars and car repair but even she found those parts a bit long and suggested editing. Clayton wonders if what happens to the truck will be a model of what happens in the story. Alicia thought the college humor was very good.

Who’s Up Next . . .
April 9th: Terry Hoffman (The Great Tome); Bill Eisigner, (short story); Jack Frieburger, (Jesus at the IHOP); David Mayer, (Time Traveler’s Definitive Guide, Vol 2); Rebecca Rettenmund, (The Cheese Logue – Black Friday); Jen Wilcher (The Hogoshiro Chronicles).

April 16: Lisa McDougal (chapter 12, Follow the Yellow), Amber Boudreau (chapter 11, Noble), Millie Mader (chapter 43, Life on Hold), Pat Edwards (???), Andy Pfeiffer (???), and Aaron Boehm (film script/part 5, “Whole Again”)

April 23rd: Carol Hornung (Ghost of Heffron College); Andy Pfeiffer (People) (room for 4
more).

Fifth Tuesday: April 30th
We have a challenge for Fifth Tuesday, coming up on April 30! We are still looking for a location. Anyone have any ideas?
The challenge is:
Poorly Translated Cliché
Pick a cliché. Make a poorly translated version of it. Build a story around this translation. Perhaps a foreigner or alien writes home about the cliché and you translate the letter back to English? 250 words or less.

The Alchemy of Writing — More Tips from a Pro
This interview on the creative process is part II in an interview with award-winning author Fred Waitzkin. Part I can be found here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/03/24/the-alchemy-of-writing-tips-from-a-non-fiction-and-fiction-pro/.
TF: But what about “inspiration”? Does it exist for you?
For me, inspiration is primarily energy. If I feel energy for a paragraph or a description I can almost always get to the essence of it. If I feel dead to myself, I don’t have a chance. I am always looking for energy. Where can I find it? What or who can give it to me? How can I amp up what I have?
A story can help us here. An older friend of mine was once depressed about his advancing years. He lacked zest or motivation for his regular gym workouts. He couldn’t concentrate on his career. One evening this man found himself in an elevator with a woman, a housekeeper who had worked for him in the past. But she was wearing outside clothes, a tight fitting sweater. She was young and beautiful. They talked a little. There was chemistry. She got off the elevator at his floor. They chatted in the hall. She said that she found him attractive. But he could feel this even before she said the words. She embraced him. And that was it. Nothing more happened between them. He was married and not looking for an affair. But he felt a big surge of life. He felt renewed, deeply so. There was a bounce to his step. He returned to the gym feeling ten years younger… There are many ways to experience the girl in the elevator.
If I’m beginning an important new project I try to get away for a few days to feel a different spirit–islands work for me. My mother was a great painter. She spent much of her life on Martha’s Vineyard because the tree line outside her house felt ominous and that spurred her work along with the sound and smell of the ocean.
I look for energy all over the place. Often just riding my bike along the river for three miles from my house to the office heightens my mood. Then I make a cup of green tea and look at my work from the previous evening. I always read back several pages before I try to write anything new. Moving back through interesting material seems to give me momentum to push ahead…
But what if there is no energy? I read the paper. I switch on sports talk radio. I look at my watch. I pace. I am eyeing the lunch hour. It’s getting closer to lunch. One hour before I meet my friend Jeff for turkey burgers. Forty-five minutes. Now I’m getting nervous. Thirty-five minutes before I have to leave my office! Suddenly I feel an urgency. I CAN’T leave for lunch without writing one good paragraph. I’m sweating, feeling the time pressure… and the words pour out. Sometimes a writer can do more in a fervent half hour than in a dreary eight-hour day. I’ve often played this game with myself. There are many energy tricks. Sometimes in the afternoon when I’m groggy I wander over to Starbuck’s for a coffee. But it’s not just caffeine. I know all the women who work there. They know me. We chat. I love these talks–okay, innocent flirtations. Sometimes I even get a free latte. When I get back to my office I usually feel fired up.
Here is a story about deep mining for inspiration. Early on in the composition of The Dream Merchant I had an impression of the woman whom I wanted to be the great love of my central character’s life. She would be something like the girlfriend of Eddie the pool hustler, played by Paul Newman, in the great movie, The Hustler. She would be beautiful but a little worn from love and tough living. But her accessibility made her all the more desirable. The actress who played that part, by the way, was Piper Laurie although when I thought about what my character looked like, she was more voluptuous like Marilyn Monroe. This character would be hugely important in my book. She would have to be Jim’s match—she would love Jim and ruin him. Only problem was, I had never known someone like this.
I talked about the problem with Josh [his son, the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer] and one day he proposed an idea. “There is someone I want you to meet,” he said. He arranged lunch for me with a young actress, Maya, a girlfriend of a friend of his. We met in a restaurant. Maya was sensual, the right body type, and gorgeous. I spent more than an hour describing the character I wanted to write—her name was Ava. Maya listened but said virtually nothing. She was a sweet girl—NOT Ava. This great idea was beginning to feel like a failure. But then when we were leaving the restaurant she turned to me and her entire being had darkened, she had become sultry and damaged. It was thrilling. She was becoming Ava. She was Ava. It gave me chills.
Read the entire post here:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/03/25/the-dream-merchant-waitzkin/

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Thanks for reading – See you on a Tuesday.
— Amber Boudreau