From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #346 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, June 4 2001 Volume 01 : Number 346 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 19:39:12 -0600 From: Steve Subject: [AML] Sharing Experience Convincingly (was: "Female Writer Wanted") on 6/1/01 3:56 PM, Cathy Wilson at cgileadi@emerytelcom.net wrote: > I know that sometimes I sound like the > New Age Mama on the list, yet my experience with creation (and observation > of others) is that in the midst of the hard work, there can be transcendent > moments that take us far out of our own literal understanding and > experiences. We can somehow enter into another's reality, such as a > character's reality or the reality of a character we're acting in a play, > and render it as if we knew it firsthand. Would some of you other artists > agree? And if that happens, then the important things are skill, focus, > hard work and plain old stick-to-it-iveness till the rendering is right. > Literal experience then may not always be absolutely necessary for powerful > work. Cathy, You are my favorite New Age Mama bar none. Make any observations you'd care to, ma'am. You have reminded me that as artists we can never really give someone an experience at all, they have to have the experience themselves. Here's what I mean... The best writers seem to give just enough clues about their subject that we as readers can fill in the blanks of the emotion or experience. It's like they sketch a blueprint and we build the house. It's the same blueprint for every reader, but everyone who reads builds a slightly different house. So, whether I've experienced giving birth, giving blessings, living off the land, making first contact with alien species, or discovered the secret meeting place of the Latter-day Danites or not, I might, with some skill, be able to sketch the outline of those experiences well enough for someone to read and recreate them in their own minds in an extremely satisfy way. Steve ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Steven Kapp Perry, songwriter and playwright http://www.stevenkappperry.com http://www.playwrightscircle.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 22:50:33 -0500 From: "REWIGHT" Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Fiction Tough questions, but this is what it seems to me. And before I say anything else, this is not directed at anyone, but just a general statement of what I've observed. Part of the temple endowment is keeping it's sacredness. We are not to talk about specifics anywhere outside of the temple, even in temple preperation classes. For me, that covenant should not be broken just because I want to write a story. Artists tend to start believing that they are above rules. As long as it's artistic it's deemed acceptable. But lets face it, artists, in the great scheme of things, are not as important personages as they like to think. Doctors, nurses, teachers, parents and policeman, contribute more substantially to society. They teach, heal and protect. Artists on the other hand, have the chief purpose of entertaining. Sometimes they might uplift and inspire but essentially they are there to entertain and beautify. Nothing wrong with this. God wants artists in the world too. But no matter how noble we may think our work is, it is still there for the entertainment of others. Certainly not a good enough reason to break covenants for. Anna Wight - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 23:58:58 -0500 From: "REWIGHT" Subject: Re: [AML] Influencing Mormon Culture > > Maybe it's not a universal Mormon taboo. My family is a very hugging > family. My wife hugs her sons-in-law, I hug my son's girlfriends, my > kinds all hug their friends. > Maybe. I just know that here in the wards I've been in Canada, I've rarely recieved any physical touch from men other than my family. Of course that could just be me. My husband had an experience where he was walking down a church hallway with another sister in the ward. People made insinuating comments to them. Sad really. It kind of reminds me of a line in City Slickers. Billy Crystal is at the cattle ranch, a woman comes up to him, says hi, and introduces himself. His first reaction was "I'm married." So now I have to ask a question and I'd like honest responses. Do men really think that when a woman says Hi, it's always a come on? See that's where the fear comes in. If I touch a member of the opposite sex, will he think of it as a come on? Will his wife beat me up? Will my husband leave me taking the children with him? Will I live out my days in the church in shame and infamy? Anna Wight > -- > Thom Duncan > Playwrights Circle > an organization of professionals > > -------------------------- Shameless Plug > ------------------------------- > Don't miss the Playwrights Circle Summer Festival at UVSC! > > *J. Golden* - a one-man play by James Arrington, starring Marvin > Payne > *SFX5* - 5 original short science fiction plays > *Peculiarities* - a new full-length play by Eric Samuelsen > > For more information about the Playwrights Circle and our summer > festival: > http://www.playwrightscircle.com > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > - > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 01:24:51 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] MN Merger of LDS Publishers Dissolves: Kent Larsen 31May01 B4 > BOUNTIFUL, UTAH -- The purchase of longtime LDS publisher Horizon > Publishing and Distribution by newcomer Cornerstone Books announced > last Fall has fallen apart, the victim of financial woes. Last August > Cornerstone owner Richard Hopkins agreed to purchase Horizon, where > he once worked, from its only owner, Duane Crowther, who was going on > an LDS mission. But Hopkins says that when financing fell through > unexpectedly, the combined firm was left without enough capital. > He says he had a verbal commitment for > the financing from Zions Bank, but that after the purchase agreement > had been signed, Zions cancelled the commitment. I told my elders quorum president about this turn of events. He's been in the banking industry for some time. His reaction was, "Ah, yes, cut-and-run Zion's Bank." Apparently this is not an uncommon occurrence. Borrower beware. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 10:29:18 -0600 From: "Scott Tarbet" Subject: RE: [AML] Hale Theater > It must be nice to live in an area where theatre is so abundant > and so clean. I have had enormous troubles where I live getting > involved in the theater and when I do, more often than not the > material is something that I could not in good conscience do. > So count your blessings. > > Anna Wight I'm a recent import to Utah Valley and definitely do count my blessings. I came from being heavily involved in an award-winning theatre in rural Utah that had the same calculus as we do here, with the addition that we had to worry about casting the stake president's son as Joe Cable in a high school production of South Pacific because Joe doffs his shirt. The SP went ballistic and the show was almost closed. Yes, having clean theatre is a blessing. There are also knee-jerk reactions that make it a two-edged sword. - -- Scott Tarbet - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 07:40:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Ed Snow Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Fiction One of the funniest moments in Mormonism happened to one of my friends in the Temple at BYU. I'd love to write about it, and, as I recall, I tried to write about it once in a column under Benson's "moderation" of AML-List, but he thought even with all of the muting I was doing to the piece, it was still too much, and he was probably right. I don't think it's possible to do anything about the Temple featuring characters while they're inside the Temple doing Temple activities without offending someone, unless it's a scene that could take place equally as effectively outside of the Temple, like, say, at the mall. Aspects of the Temple would have to be just plain old background. Otherwise, it's pretty risky. Ed ===== Read free excerpts from _Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon_, a Signature Books Bestseller at http://www.signaturebooks.com/bestsell.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 12:17:25 -0600 From: Gerald G Enos Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Fiction I have a story that I have been working on that has a scene in it that is a temple recommend interview but I do not put the actuall recommend questions in it, mostly because I didn't trust my memory but also because I don't think that is important to the story. What was important was the fact that the couple in question had desided to get married. On the other hand I don't think the questions used in an interview are all that scared, they are in fact just questions. As for the temple it self another story I am working on ends in the temple. The scene I have worked on is the young mother with her mother-in-law in the brides dressing room getting ready for her to be sealed to her husband. There is another young women there getting ready for her marriage and the two brides and mother's start to talk. In short order they find out that the young mother is the long missing cousin of the other groom. The young mother and her cousin have no other living relatives. I intend to mention the fact that they met in the room couples and new missionaries are taken to before an endowment session and that they have a chance to catch up both there and in the Celestial room. I also will mention that they wittness each others marriage. I just haven't worked on those scenes yet. So I am in the temple, and may discribe some of the beauty of it, but I do not give any detail about the endowment session or even the marriage and sealling. To me it is intirely possible to do a scene in the middle of the endowment session. If you are focasing on the thoughts and feelings of your main character rather then the endowment it self. As long as you do not give any of the details of those scared ordinances then it would be o.k. After all even non-members can see the inside of a temple before it is dedicated. Konnie Enos ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 00:55:25 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Critique of Writing On Fri, 01 Jun 2001 13:05:00 Melissa Proffitt writes: > Harlow has already gone into this in his usual effervescent fashion. :) Just me and Mr Kaseltzer. After an interesting discussion of symbolism Melissa turns to a new question, how people respond to criticism, and whether criticism is always negative. Sometime around 1978, after Pageant when the 5 steak presleydents in the New York Rochester mission met with the new mission prez, Marvin Curtis (Uncle Marvin to my cousins, whose mother's sister had died of cancer while married to him--he had then married a former nun ("She still loves the Church? That's like saying, 'Mom, Dad, I got a divorce, but I still love him," a Catholic woman told me--yes it'll find some place in my missionary stories)) and told him Rochester was the only mission where the missionaries got a two week summer vacation with 200 (2000?) girls brought in, and he needed to get the missionaries out of pageant, our mission pres. said, referring to some kind of negative publicity, "All publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right." More recently, at Tim Slover's Christmas party, 1999, a (relatively) young critic told Eugene England that a presenter at RMMLA in Santa Fe had praised him as a critic and said, "It is a pleasure to honor him by disagreeing." (The look on Gene's face was--in the word of a horrible series of credebt card kumurshuls--priceless.) And it _is_ a pleasure to take someone's ideas seriously enough that you want to honor that person through reasoned disagreement. I've mentioned Leslie Fiedler's _No In Thunder_ a few times (and Fiedler's name is forever bound up with Richard Cracroft's comment, "He's a from-the-hipper, and his wonderful example of how Fiedler shoots from the hip. Seems he was at a conference once and said, "Anti-Mormonism is the Anti-Semitism of the American west." "Some of us stood and cheered," Richard said.) It's about as caustic a rejection (the title essay anyway) as I've read. (Of course, there are Pauline Kael's comments on movies and other critics, especially in _I Lost it at the Movies_ and _Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang_. I read a poignant comment about that in a book of Wilfred Sheed's essays, "We all are, or were, friends.") But despite Fiedler's thunderous rejection of a lot of mid-century writing (including _Bang the Drum Slowly_, which reminds us of how much we Americans "love the privelege of being lied to"), he also says (close paraphrase), "I have not said no to anything it didn't cost me something to say no to." He's read the books and they mean something to him. > But when I pressed her on this, it turned out that the "rejection" > letter ACTUALLY ASKED HER TO SUBMIT FUTURE > BOOKS FOR REVIEW. I couldn't believe she'd taken this as > a personal affront! To her, it meant she'd failed. Reminds me of a very nice scene in Erica Glenn's Dancing Shoes where Rachel goes with Dulcie to a theatre producer's office for an audition. Dulcie is a fine dancer but can't read Shaxbeard worth beans (or pease porridge hot). Rachel is a lousy dancer, but starts reciting the passage Dulcie is trying to read. The producer (director?) hires her, and Dulcie gets angry and has a tantrum because Rachel has ruined her career. The producer (director?) says something like, "What's wrong with you?" It is the sponsitility of a critic (whether book reviewer or academic) to talk about both the strengths and weaknesses of a work, to give an accurate account of both. I decided, when I started reviewing books (courtesy of AML-List), that if I was going to say negative things about books I wanted the review to reflect that I had read carefully for both instruction and delight. I keep remembering that lovely quote from Edward Dahlberg's preface to _Bottom Dogs, From Flushing to Calvary, Those Who Perish, And Hitherto Unpublished and Uncollected Works_ (I haven't read): "I have committed sundry moldy solecisms; yet I was not born to desecrate literature." Nor was I, nor were the people I review, so I hope when I call attention to someone's moldy solecisms I do so graciously. (As my father once said, "When I write I can create a persona who is more intelligent, humane, kinder and wiser than I am." (Or something close to that.) I didn't intend to write something this long. I really should have been working on some posts in my drafts folder. Good knight. Harlow S. Clark ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 13:07:12 -0600 (MDT) From: katie@aros.net Subject: Re: [AML] WEYLAND, _Ashley and Jen_ (Review) Quoting LuAnnStaheli : > Valarie can probably answer this best if she's reading the messages, but > when I > used to read for Covenant I was told they weren't planning to buy YA > books because > the market wasn't big enough to warrant the time/money needed to publish > them. I > know that my 8th/9th grade students all read Anita Stansfield and Rachel > Nunes > like there were no other authors (even the boys). A couple of years ago > I couldn't > keep Chris Heimerdinger on the shelf, but now his series just sits. I > think they > have already read them by the time the students come to me. Those who > have > discovered Brent Rowley REALLY like his books (so much that I've had TWO > copies of > My Body Fell Off S T O L E N from my shelf!) > > I was told the same thing when I submitted a YA manuscript to Covenant a couple of years ago--they don't publish much YA unless it's a universal-type of book, like Heimerdinger's books, which are read by all ages. They also have Cheri Crane's "Kate" series, which I haven't seen mentioned yet. Stansfield, Nunes, etc. are not actually targeted at youth, although I am not surprised to see that youth are reading them. But I wouldn't count them as YA. - --Katie Parker - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 08:42:27 +1000 From: "Helena Chester" Subject: Re: [AML] Negative Reactions to Writing I watched the video of "Angela's Ashes" and love it because I could relate to the RC.humour. The same applies to "The Nostradamus Kid". It was a flop on general ratings, but I found it hilarious because of my previous experience in Adventism. I would say we would appreciate Mormon humour more than the general public too. [Helena Chester] - ----- Original Message ----- From: "REWIGHT" > > > >I tried to read Angela's Ashes, > >a best seller that was made into a movie. I couldn't get passed the first > >chapter. Why? Because I couldn't stand the way it was written. No > >conversations, all telling, no showing. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 19:20:12 -0500 From: Ronn Blankenship Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Fiction For some people, vot is verboten includes not only anything at all from the temple ceremony itself, but anything at all that even makes one think of something in the temple ceremony. Unfortunately, nobody can predict how an individual member of their audience will react, and after having or witnessing a few incidents in which someone took offense at a very minor oblique reference to the temple ceremony, most of us conclude that the only safe thing to say about the temple is nothing at all. - -- Ronn! :) - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2001 18:01:33 -0700 (PDT) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: [AML] Card on "Basketball Doctrines" While surfing the net I came upon this amazing rant by Orson Scott Card on the cult of basketball in the church. It's from his "Vigor" newsletter, September 1998 (many of you have probably read it but it's new to me.) Card furiously denounces the trend of subsuming every cultural activity in the church to athletics and systematically dismantles every "organized sport is good for you" cliche you have ever encountered. His description of the tyranny of basketball over full-time missionaries EXACTLY depicts my own mission experience, one that I could never find the words to express because of misplaced, unjustified (I now realize) guilt. This piece left me flabbergasted and all I can say is "right on, bro!" It can be found online at http://www.nauvoo.com/vigor/16.html ===== R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 12:11:25 +0900 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] LUND, _Fishers of Men_ (Review) Title: Fishers of Men: The Kingdom and the Crown, Volume One. Author: Gerald N. Lund Shadow Mountain, 2000, 642p., $26.95. Fishers of Men is the first of a multi-volume series of novels set in Palestine during Christ's ministry. While Lund is not a subtle or nuanced writer, he has quite competently produced an educational, exciting, and occasionally inspiring tale based on the greatest story every told. The novel follows the changes that occur in two fictional Jewish families as they come in contact with Jesus and his teachings during the first year of His ministry. The first is the family of Capernaum merchant David ben Joseph, half of whom are dedicated to the zealot cause. The other is the family of Jerusalem Sanhedrin leader Mordechai ben Uzziel. There are two main plot directions in the work. One is the impact Christ's ministry has on the characters, some converting, and some not. Although Christ's actions and teachings are a major motivating factor in the plot, Jesus himself only appears in a few of the scenes. The other major direction is the three-cornered scheming between the Jewish Zealots in Galilee, the Jewish Sanhedrin (which is itself divided between Sadducees and Pharisees, united in their opposition to both Christ and the zealots), and the Romans. The story begins in AD 29, just before Christ's ministry begins. David, the Capernaum merchant, was one of the witnesses of the nativity (he was visiting his shepherd friends near Bethlehem as a young man), and is awaiting the Messiah's appearance as an adult. He is a friend of Simon Peter, which connection quickly brings him to Jesus after Simon is called as a disciple. His wife, Deborah, is a survivor of a leading Zealot family that was almost completely wiped out by the Romans when she was a young woman. They have four children, the second of which is Simeon, a leader in the Zealot cause, and the main protagonist in this ensemble cast. Deborah and Simeon are the most reluctant members of David's family to join the Jesus movement, because of His non-violent teachings. David's brother-in-law Aaron is a Pharisee. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Mordechai represents the Jewish political elite, opposed to both the Galiliean zealots and Jesus. His daughter, Miriam, is caught between her loyalty to her father and her respect for the Galilieans. She is also charmed by the Roman tribune Marcus, who is in charge of a plot to destroy the zealots. So, a very tangled web of characters and loyalties. Let's start with the good things. First of all, the book is about Christ and the impact he had in the Holy Land. What better source material could you hope for? I loved these kind of historical toga novels about people discovering Christ and his Apostles when I was young. I must have read Lloyd Douglas' The Robe fifteen times. Also Quo Vadis, and (the movie) Ben Hur. Ben Hur and The Robe were among the best selling books of their day (the 1880s and the 1940s). The power of the real stories behind the fiction often raised them above the level of writing skill the authors brought to the projects. Lund fits into that category. Here are people coming across Christ, witnessing his miracles, and grappling with his surprising doctrine. The discussions the characters have with each other trying to figure out what it was they saw are among the best parts of the book. Lund teaches the reader a lot about the New Testament world over the course of this huge book. The book flap says that Lund did graduate work in New Testament studies at Pepperdine University and Hebrew at the University of Judaism in Los Angles (not a degree, just "studies"). He has worked as a tour director and lecturer in the Holy Land more than a dozen times, and has been an educator in the CES for more than 35 years, with a hand in developing some of the Church's curriculum materials. Throughout the book Lund takes breaks in the action to describe aspects of Jewish religion and culture. For example when Miriam gives the Roman tribune a tour of the Temple's outer courts and explains the architecture and ceremonies of the Temple. Or a whole chapter describing a betrothal ceremony. Or details on the differences and tensions between the Zealots, Pharisees, and Sadducees. Sometimes it is the same information found in Talmage's Jesus the Christ (usually taken from Farrar's Life of Christ), and therefore we have read or heard it before. But often the information is taken from recent biblical scholarship (Lund provides the sources for his information in the notes at the end of each chapter). Sure, this breaks up the action, but you didn't come to a historical fiction book about Christ just for the plot anyway, did you? Especially since it is Lund, who is more of an educator than a novelist anyway. I found the informational sections fascinating, I didn't know a good deal of the stuff he introduces before reading the book. And Mellvile did the same thing in Moby Dick, taking whole chapters to explain how a whale is gutted, etc. I thought Lund handled the balance between the plot advancing scenes, the spiritual experience scenes, and the educational scenes quite well. On the down side, Lund really is just a competent novelist. The dialouge is occasionally stilted, and the characters are all pretty monochromatic. One would think that with the size of this book, he could spend a little time giving them some depth. This is especially true of the "bad guys". The Gadiaton robber-type guy is basically a moustache-twirling melodrama villain. Pilate and Mordechai aren't much better. Perhaps Lund draws them that way because that is part of his world-view, people do bad things because they are bad people, simple. If you can get through the first third or half of the book, however, you finally get to the part where the characters start becoming more involved in the Jesus movement, and the Zealot/Sanhedrin/Roman battle starts to get exciting. Then my concerns about the somewhat clunky writing started to dissipate, and the book began to grab my attention. I enjoyed the experience, and I think it will appeal to a wide range of readers. I have only glanced through Lund's Work and the Glory series, and was not very impressed. But now if I see someone reading one of these books, I will not inwardly sneer, but be glad that they are having a good educational experience, and not a bad literary experience. And then I would direct them towards the superior historical fiction of Dean Hughes, Orson Scott Card, and Margaret Young/Darius Gray. It is not that the writing is bad, it just isn't noteworthy at all. The authors I mentioned before know how to turn a phrase beautifully, and they have taken me to unexpected places. Lund doesn't try to do either of those things. The cover is pretty ugly. It features a soft focus painting of Christ calling the fishermen as disciples. Deseret has done some nice cover art lately, but not this time. One interesting thing about the book, there is nothing specifically Mormon about it. Lund does set the birth of Christ in the spring, but explains it in his notes using biblical scholarship, not Latter-day scripture. It appears to be written so that it could be marketed to general Christian audiences. I called some Christian book stores near us, and they said they had it in their computer, but not in stock. I wonder if Shadow Mountain/Deseret has been able to get it into some of those stores. Andrew Hall Pittsburgh, PA _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 08:37:28 -0600 From: "Scott Tarbet" Subject: RE: [AML] Temple in Fiction > Is the temple a part of our culture that is forever beyond the > reach of our fiction? If not, how detailed do we dare get? How ? > much would offend our fellow Saints? More importantly, how much > would offend God? > > -- > D. Michael Martindale > dmichael@wwno.com How truthful (even if not factual) could it possibly be when the only writers qualified to write it are bound by solemn oath to keep it sacred and counseled over and over not to talk outside about what goes on inside? As far as I'm concerned well-intentioned writers who need the the temple experience in their narrative ought to handle it the way well-intentioned writers have long handled sex -- yes it's there, yes, it's vital, yes, our heros are getting ready to go there...now cut away to waves crashing on beach. - -- Scott Tarbet - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 09:12:44 -0600 From: "Scott Tarbet" Subject: [AML] Sharing Experience Convincingly (was: "Female Writer Wanted") > in the midst of the hard work, there can be > transcendent moments that take us far out of our own literal understanding > and experiences. We can somehow enter into another's reality, such as a > character's reality or the reality of a character we're acting in a play, > and render it as if we knew it firsthand. Would some of you other artists > agree? And if that happens, then the important things are skill, focus, > hard work and plain old stick-to-it-iveness till the rendering is right. > Literal experience then may not always be absolutely necessary for powerful > work. > > Cathy (Gileadi) Wilson ;-) Ah, the primal mystery of performing art! Actors even have a name for that transcendant moment you refer to: we call it "finding the character's backbone"...among other terms for it, I guess. Literally hundreds of volumes have been written trying to define it and make it usable, but it is plain and simply transcendant -- that moment when all the character study and the application of on-stage technique and the careful, inspired, and talented choices all come together with an epiphonal thunderclap to show the actor not simply the character's motivation, but who he is in his essential being. Having said all that, despite the hackneyed mumbo jumbo one sometimes hears, no actor truly becomes the person he is portraying. If I'm doing a living (or historical) person then the "character" whose backbone I have found is a third party -- it's not the living person, it's not me, neither thesis nor antithesis -- it's a synthesis. If I'm portraying a fictional character I again find a synthesis, this time between me, the author or playwright's vision, and even the portrayals that have come before. Several times I have been fascinated to see the rewrites that happen after the first performances of a new set of characters; inevitably the author's world view has been shaped by the perspectives of the actors who have "created" the roles, and the work will never again be uncolored by those performances. - -- Scott Tarbet - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 16:01:24 -0600 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] Female Writer Wanted REWIGHT wrote: > There's a whole lot of emotions involved in childbirth, > which men feel to some extent, but for a woman it > takes up her entire being at that time. Let's turn this around for a minute. I'd like to focus on that phrase, "which men feel to some extent." On it's surface it seems pretty dismissive, but I'm sure it wasn't meant to be. However, for me, it forms the crux of this entire discussion. If we determine that childbirth from a female POV is forever unknowable to a man, and therefore off limits artistically, should we not declare the opposite as well? And if we do this, why should we stop at childbirth? Are not all female experiences unique from male experiences simply by virtue of the fact that they are female and not male? My wife and I both saw "A Knight's Tale" (together even) and both quite enjoyed it, for similar reasons, but also for many different reasons; chief among them she has a crush on Heath Ledger, and I don't. I'll testify right now that my experience of childbirth was not a portion ("some extent") of what my wife experienced. I didn't dip into her well and see it from a limited point of her view. I had my own experience and it was pretty amazing. In fact, it took up my entire being for a time. For at least twenty minutes I couldn't utter a sound. Dare I say that my experience was unknowable to any woman? When I say that I couldn't utter a sound for twenty minutes what goes through your mind? You (meaning everybody -- male and female) have to try to guess why I couldn't utter a sound. Your biases about gender, for one thing, will determine how you fill in the blanks I leave in my description of how I experienced my first child's birth. What if I add that I couldn't utter a sound because every time I tried I came perilously close to a complete and utter breakdown of emotion. I knew that if I started crying, I wouldn't stop for an hour. Now what's your opinion of me? Do your biases force you to determine that I was just buying into the whole macho thing and couldn't let anybody see me cry in public? What if I say that I didn't give into the emotions because I didn't want to miss any moment of the event. I wanted to see it all. Feel the movement of the air in the room, hear every whimper that the baby made, and every coo and murmur from my wife, and see every move the doctor made and the nurses made and the expressions on the baby and my wife (the only people in the room not wearing masks) -- I wanted to memorize everything. Could you have guessed all that so that you could write the scene convincingly from my point of view? Maybe. Possibly. Possibly even probably. Or you could have asked me and I could have told you and you could have written it convincingly I'm convinced. Like D. Michael says in another post, we choose the details we will include and let the reader fill in the blanks with their own experience. I'm sure that my childbirth experience doesn't even speak for all men let alone any women. Given all that, I have made the (apparently) audacious attempt to write of things female from a female POV on occasion. Here is a small snippet. Susan is pregnant but worried that she is well past the time when she should have felt the baby's presence: For six days Susan was a quivering sack of emotions. Until the night, lying next to Marcus--who slept deeply and loudly while she soaked her pillow with tears--sure that she was carrying a dead fetus, she felt butterfly wings fluttering below her heart. Instantly the tears of anguish became one loud sob of relief. Marcus stopped snoring for a few seconds but he didn't wake up. Then Susan thought something--something for which she would be guilt-ridden for years to come. In fact, she still felt guilty for it to this very moment. Instead of telling the child within her that she was happy to know that he was alive and well, and that she was glad to finally make his acquaintance, she upbraided him. She cried out in her mind, "What took you so long? Where have you been? Why have you treated me this way?" I didn't even make the attempt to describe the emotions, just what they did to her. Then, I imply Marcus's insensitivity. Hopefully, though, some readers will realize (through this scene and many others throughout the story) that Susan's just really good at not letting Marcus hear her cry so that she can play the martyr ... but for no one but herself. Susan is as complex a character as I have ever created, and hopefully a believable one to males and females alike. I came to her through observation, informal interview, imagination and possibly a little inspiration. When I wrote my play, "Stones," I got to the part where Christ begins to describe to his mother the Atonement that he will suffer in the garden and she stops him, saying that no man could do that, that it would kill him. He says, "It won't kill me. And it's not going to happen today." To which she responds, "Yes it is. If you tell me today ... it happens today. And every day until I die." That seemed to me a uniquely female or motherly reaction. It wasn't something that I have ever felt or even imagined. Not until the moment that I wrote it. And I still have no idea where the idea came from. Writing across gender lines is either allowable or it's not. If it is allowable, then there can be no restrictions. "All right, you can describe any experience from a male/female point of view except childbirth and sex; those you will never understand. Oh, and harassment in the workplace ... and of course, being a professional. Well, and a mother/father. You'll never figure that out. And a missionary too. You'll never know what it is to be a Sister/Elder." Which, of course, brings us back to the impetus for all this gender talk. "God's Army" from the male POV was all about a few individual Elders working out their personal salvations. The same story from the Sister POV, it seems obvious to me (whether you're male or female), will have to include among it's many themes the travail of all Sisters in the field: That is that they are more mature and effective as missionaries than the Elders, but completely under appreciated and undervalued as to the potential for their contributions to the work. I think that whoever gets the gig needs to make a prime focus of the story the fact that Sister Fronk finally figures out that the Elders are not in the mission field to get converts, but to get converted. And I think any good female, or male writer could write that story ... convincingly. J. Scott Bronson Member of Playwrights Circle "An Organization of Professionals" www.playwrightscircle.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #346 ******************************