Maybe, I Just Need To Listen

I listen to This American Life pretty regularly. I have the podcast handy for the days at work when I just want to escape the mundane. Such was the case this afternoon. I was listening to an older episode titled, "Saves The Day" about people who do something that well... envokes the title. I'm always completely drawn into the program, listening to each story with rapt attention, sometimes so much so that I react to it, forgetting that I'm at work. Today, as I'm listening I couldn't help but think about how I want to give non-fiction another go.

I think to myself, I can do this.

The thing is, non-fiction and I have had, like, a really bad history. Non-fiction has been that really lame boyfriend that never listens or does what I want, for once. It's always been rocky and every time I've decided to give it a second or third or fourth chance, I just get really pissed off... 3-year-old style.

Non-fiction is for bitches, anyway! I'll proclaim even though I'm not sure what, exactly, that's supposed to mean. I'll throw my pen to the ground and my notebook, too. Then I'll tell everyone who will listen, which is usually either my boyfriend or the cat, that I'm a fiction writer. Non-fiction just isn't my thing. This is me totally justifying the fact that something was hard and I gave up.

As I listen, I obviously literally hear their voice but I also hear their voice in the phrasing they chose, how they express a conversation, etc. It's more conversational and yes, it's mostly because they are speaking to someone else but essentially, that's the idea. Written or verbal, I think non-fiction tries to convey a more concise message within the story. I feel that what the author is trying to say is pretty clear cut. No speculation like with fiction. I mean, I certainly could be wrong on this. I haven't read every piece of non-fiction that ever existed but from what I have read and more often, heard, this seems to be the case.

The biggest problem I seem to face is that I doubt myself in non-fiction. I think that there's something amiss when I write because I'm forced to be me. With fiction, I am these other characters. I can make them do whatever I want but when the story is directly about me in some way... I feel restricted and the writing suffers. I want to get over this hurdle so badly and when I'm listening to this podcast, it seems to click with me. Like, YES that's it, do you get it now? And I DO get it. It's just a matter of giving non-fiction another shot, of really trying and understanding that it's going to take a little more work than usual.

So, as the lights fade and REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" begins to play. I'm holding my hand out to you, Non-Fiction and asking if maybe, we can give us just one more chance...

Invisible Bridge

So I just finished The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer and to say it blew my mind is a total understatement; it’s pretty much solving every problem I’m having with my own goddamn book. At least, I think it is—what I did was turn over the bottom corner of the pages I want to come back to and figure out how the hell she crafted that thing she just crafted, and then I read forward ‘cause I was so in to the story that I didn’t want to stop. Later, I’ll go back (although I’m sort of worried about that, ‘cause the bottom corners of like half the pages are turned over, and this is a six hundred page book, so to really study it will take a feat much greater than reading it, although reading it was pretty hard, too, not because it’s long but because the shit that happened to these characters made me want to kick down the wall). I bought the book last Saturday and finished it in a week. I read at night, on the train in the mornings, during Caleb’s naptime. I invented a stomachache so I could hide out and read it.

Like I said, I was too busy reading to really analyze how the stuff got on the page—that’ll come later—but just off the surface:

How she’s handling place and character description while simultaneously moving the story forward, which is my biggest pain in the ass in my own stuff. Here’s how she’s doing it: giving you quick sights of place from lots of different characters' vantage points, so you see Paris in different ways, through the eyes of how different people who would notice different things. Like, the architecture student sees the buildings and height and design, the immigrant sees the newness and amazing-ness and culture, the exile sees everything as ugly 'cause she doesn't want to be there, blah blah. And then—this is so badass—as those same characters grow and change and learn, the way they see the place does as well. The architecture student still see buildings, but now can describe place using the names of designers and techniques. The immigrant has adapted to Paris, so what he sees is now normal. The exile has a chance to go home, so now she sees Paris as though for the last time.

It’s just totally badass.

I’m also drinking in how she’s handling the use of actual dates and situations: how to get that stuff in without feeling like a history lesson. It’s an easy enough idea: you give it through the characters, so it’s how they react and/or are involved in such situations. I need to look a lot closer at how she’s doing this, ‘cause there are a lot of different ways (character reading the newspaper, character being told about it in dialogue… simple things… but also some really big, world-rocking stuff. Like, during World War II, countries revoked VISAS of Jewish students, expats, workers, etc. So, for the first half of the book we’re with Andras in Paris as he studies, but halfway through the war has escalated enough that his VISA is revoked, so now the second half of the book is in Budapest. What are the bigger picture things that would utterly change the direction of a character’s life? I looked at a timeline of world events, and found a lot of things happening that would change everyone’s directions: the stock market crash. The Exxon Valdeez spill. Velvet Revoltion. Clinton’s definition of “sexual relations.” Blah blah).

Here’s the thing about reading: sometimes, I’m reading a book and it gives me ideas and I go back to my writing armed with these ideas. But, on the flip end, I’ll be writing and will hit some kind of roadblock, and then I need to actively pursue that roadblock in my reading.

For example: I’m writing about a woman who’s really beautiful, but doesn’t know she’s beautiful? How to get that on the page? I went, first, to chapter one in The Princess Bride (f’ing genius. And hilarious), and then the Remedios the Beauty stuff in One Hundred Years of Solitude, which, like totally blew my mind because she’s the most beautiful woman in a hundred years and not once does Marquez actually describe her. He describes everyone else’s reaction to her.

I’m also having a bitch of a time with third person, multiple vantage point, in part because I’ve spent so many years working solely on 2nd Story personal narrative material, but also because I wasn’t sure how often I could switch the primary vantage point. One character, two, twenty? And does it always have to be the primary character experiencing it? Which, for the record, are questions I already know the answers to, because I’ve studied this shit for like a thousand years, but I still need to figure out how it applies to this particular project. I was thumbing through White Teeth while Caleb played on the slides, and the second vantage point we get (dude who runs the butcher shop) is a least likely character type guy who never shows up again. First chapter alone there are like twenty of ‘em. Lesson: do whatever. Sigh.

Now what will I read? Got to have something new, as well as going back to the old. I’ve had Lorrie Moore’s new one, Gate at the Stairs, on my shelf for six months. Also, Dave Egger’s Zeitoun. But those are both in FIRST PERSON. I need third, third, third, multiple vantage point third!

Experiments in Editing

I've definitely seen an evolution in my editing and by evolution, I mean my editing no longer consists of a simple comma addition here or a word change there. Nowadays, a piece can have at least five editing sessions before it's on its way to the next phase, the submission process.

I'm forever fascinated with how other authors edit. The quirkier the better. I like sampling other people's techniques in the hopes of being able to add it to my own Authorly Arsenal.

Recently, I stumbled upon something almost by accident. When I edit, I do so with a hard copy and a set of colorful pens. Round one of editing consists of taking one of said colorful pens and going through to take out any redundancies. After each pen and paper editing round, I'll make the corrections on the computer copy.

So, it was during one of my computer corrections that I happened to glance down and see my word count dwindling. It stopped at 3,967. I thought to myself, "I wonder if I can get that down to an even 3K?"

The challenge began! I took the hard copy of the manuscript and really forced myself to look over it (keep in mind, this was already my fourth or fifth time scouring the piece). I would go line by line word by word and ask myself if it REALLY had to be there, if it lent anything to the story. 967 words is nothing to scoff at and when you've already done some significant editing, it's no walk in the park.

Although the goal was 3,000 words, I didn't quite make it. The final word count was something like, 3,039. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. As much as I tried, I couldn't get rid of those last 39 words. In not being able to do that, I realized that I had made the piece as concise as I could. I could say with confidence that every word was necessary for the story I was trying to tell.