Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story

June 1, 2021

The first word…

“I have written somewhere that there is only one story, but there are many stories in the one, and I like that idea.”

– N. Scott Momaday

Tuesday evening at Jack Frieburger’s place…

Eight writers attended, including Jerry and Kashmira via Zoom link. Five writers presented work. Jamie’s brother, visiting from the Washington D.C. area, sat in on the group.

Jaime Nelson Noven

Outsleep, Ch. 14 part 1

This week, we looked at the disorienting effect of telling a story out of its chronology, the shifting of the tone, and sugar highs. I will be looking at characterizing the security guard more as being small in stature, as I now see that him being wrestled by the doctor is a weird image if it’s assumed he’s intimidating in size. Thanks, all. It was so nice to see so many of you in person.

Jack Frieburger

Three poems

I withdrew the third poem as the last stanza seemed inadequate, near spoken word, or worse yet, sentimental. Not sure that April Snow was recognized as a dream poem while Memorial Day was straight forward.

Bob Kralapp

A short story, Rialto

Larry felt that this version was a bit smoother than the last one and more focused. Mike said that the protagonist needed to have a few more internal monologues. Both Jack and Larry suggested that the opening paragraph contained several narrative elements that lead nowhere and should either be developed or dropped.

Amber Boudreau

The Dragoneer 2, Chapters 15-17

Amber read from chapter 15 of The Dragoneer. John wondered why one character would compare wyverns to such characters as trolls and if that was supposed to tell us something about how that character felt about wyverns. If that was the idea, Jamie kind of liked it. Amber may toy with this moving forward. Jack, Jamie, and John want to see one character get their nose broke. They think it would stop the character in his tracks, the bloodthirsty lot, which is kind of the point. Larry wondered how the young woman who turned on Urion could have known he was half-fae, but Amber explained.

Kashmira Sheth

Nina Soni, Snow Spy, Ch. 8

Kashmira submitted chapter 8 of her novel Nina Soni, Snow Spy. There was a discussion of the toboggan and how it works. Larry and Jack had some good suggestions regarding the tobogganing scene. John liked the friendship angle. Jamie wanted to see examples of words and Amber wanted Nina to learn a new word from Priya.

June 15, here’s who’s up…

Jerry Peterson – Escape to the Conch Republic, Chapter 9

John Schneller –Precious Daughter, Chapter 14

Mike Austin – A short story, Dumpster Fire (working title)

Amber Boudreau –The Dragoneer 2, Chapters 18-20

Our June 15 meeting will be at Larry and Jo Sommer’s home in Madison. Those who can’t make it can join via Zoom, as usual.

June’s Fifth Tuesday

Ah, we have a writing challenge: Cemetery rules.

What can you do with that? Whatever you do, do it in no more than 500 words.

Where we will meet on June 29, that has not been decided. Stay tuned.

In defense of the novel

Sterling North, author of Rascal and a number of other books—he grew up in Edgerton and worked most of his life as the literary editor for the New York World-Telegram and the Washington Post—wrote this for the back cover of Francis Parkinson Keyes’ volume of two novels Lady Blanche Farm and Queen Anne’s Lace back in 1952:

Because it is my happy profession to review new books, I have seen some twenty thousand novels pass over my desk in the past twenty years.

If you would like my candid and dissenting opinion, the novel is not dead. In fact, it will never die. Novelists will be about their fascinating business while civilization endures. Here are some of the reasons why:

The novelist furnishes us a magic carpet. As Emily Dickinson said, “There is no frigate like a book to take us (to) lands away.”

We can explore Paris with Balzac, London with Dickens, or a happier Russia with Tolstoy. We can roister with Fielding, sip tea with Jane Austin, or raft down the Mississippi with Mark Twain.

The novelist can share with us his time machine. We may view the uncertain future with prophetic storytellers. Or we may live in the more verifiable eras of Moses or Christ or Leonardo. We may sail the seven seas in the days of Defoe or Melville or Conrad.

The novelist deepens our enjoyment. He purifies us with the fire of tragedy, refreshes us with humor, re-awakens our dormant love and pity, and increases our understanding and sympathy for men and women everywhere.

The novelist helps us to live vicariously many lives and thus aids us in living our own life more fully and gracefully.

The novelist gives pattern and meaning to our adventure in living. He or she helps us to see poetry in simple things, order in complex things, and significance in everything. He or she is the extension of our five senses, a witty companion, a faithful friend waiting on the shelf.

I would not wish to live in a civilization so boorish that it had not stretched its imagination nor polished its rough edges with the philosophers stone of great fiction.

Do not let the easy pessimists fool you. We are living today during a minor rebirth of the art of fiction. Only a few of the great novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can equal or surpass the best of our modern writers. Compared to the first and fourth decades of this century, we are actually enjoying an actual renaissance of the novel.

*Note: That renaissance continues today, seventy-one years after North wrote his defense of the novel.

The last word…

“I write a lot of material that I know I’ll throw away. It’s part of the process. I have to write hundreds of pages before I get to page one.

-Barbara Kingsolver