From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #527 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, November 26 2001 Volume 01 : Number 527 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:00:25 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] EVANS, _Christmas Box_ (In Japan) Christmas Box Aoyama Theater, Tokyo, Nov. 14 - Dec.2 Imagine my surprise when I opened to the arts section of my morning newspater, the Daily Yomiuri (the English version of one of the major national newspapers), and found a review of a piece of Mormon literature. It is a musical version of Richard Evans' _The Christmas Box_, staged in Tokyo. Of course Eric Samuelsen wrote a version which played at BYU (and which Eric "repented of" here on AML-List, he hated it), and for a second I thought it might of been his, but it isn't. It is a new adaption by Japanese artists. He are some quotes from the review, by Yukiko Kishinami. "Christmas in Japan is more an excuse to party and eat cake than a religious holiday, but every now and then it might not be a bad idea to reflect upon what it really stands for--loving and givng. The musical Christmas Box, curently on its premiere run at Aoyama Theater in Tokyo, may lack the glitzy flair that we've come to expect from a seasonal theatrical offering, but it conveys a sincere message--that love prevails over all--in an earnest and profound way. Yet the question remains open as to whether this first theatrical production has done justice to the best-selling novel of the same title by U.S. author Richard Evans. Directed by Tamiya Kuriyama, the musical is blessed with a fine cast led by pop idol Noriyuki Higashiyama and popular film and stage actress Hitomi Kuroki. It also has a team of experienced writers: Makoto Horikoshi (script), Machiko Ryu (lyrics), and Hideya Yamaguchi (music)." (She then reviews the storyline for several paragraphs) "The production is not an all-song musical, like Les Miserables, or the sort of musical that mixes spoken dialogues and songs, like the works of Webber or Rodgers and Hammerstein. Instead songs by the minstrel and the ensemble are inserted in between dialogue scenes. There is some singing in these scenes, but it is limited to the charactes singing Christmas carols or other "real" songs. Director Kuriyama handles the dialogue scenes best, particularly the serious ones, such as the scene where David reveals his guilty feelings and fear that he didn't save Andrea because he was not his real child. No music is heard during these rather long and intense conversations. Although the messages they offer are powerful, one cannot help but suspect that, without Higashiyama on sage, the tension might not have been sustainable. However, all was well, as the audience, mostly women i their 20s, 30s, and 40s, hung on every word. Having said that, there are some memorable tunes, though perhaps not terribly origional ones, such as the melody that comes from the Christmas box, a symbol of love and goodwill." (A cople more paragraps about the actors and set). end Tokyo is quite far from Fukuoka, I won't be going to see it. Andrew Hall Fukuoka, Japan _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:39:02 US/Eastern From: djdick@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu Subject: Re: [AML] Eternal Feminine in Lit > I have heard this used as an explanation for why women don't hold the > priesthood: because men NEED the priesthood in order to be kind, charitable, > obedient, willing to serve . . . all that. Before you turn red and fly to > pieces, note that this reasoning was given by a very high-up GA in a regional > conference a few years ago. . .I nearly exploded out of my Marriott Center > folding chair when I heard it but my kids strapped me down :). > > Cathy Wilson > > Not the first nor the only similar reference. I heard LeGrande Richards (in a Stake Conference not a general one-- back in olden times when every Stake _Quarterly_ Conference had a general authority and I'm pretty sure it was LeGrande Richards because it brought about a discussion in our family at the time, and my mother quoted LeGrande Richards about this subject for years) say essentially that Women don't have the priesthood because if they did, the men wouldn't do anything but sit back and let the sisters do it all. (Implication, as I heard it, had less to do with the spirituality than with concientiousness (sp?). He followed it up with the question "How many of the homes in this stake would consistently hold family home evenings if the sisters didn't organize and get it together-- even though it is a priesthood responsibility?" Richard Johnson - --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using GSWeb Mail Services. http://www.gasou.edu/gsumail - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:19:12 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] You and Me and POV (was: Character Preferences) William Morris wrote: > > Do you find yourself attracted to > writing/reading about certain types of characters? What specific > demographics are you engaged by more than others? > > I, much to my chagrin, recently realized that out of the 5 short stories I > have written or have in the works, 3 of them feature main characters that > are old men. What's that all about? > Thoughts? Confessions? Here's my confession: all my main characters are me. Not that the things they all do or think or say are things I've done. But they represent me in the situations I place them in. Often when I get an idea for a story, I'm asking myself, "What would it be like if I were placed in such and such circumstances?" Then I write the story to try and figure that out. Now because I don't want all my characters to actually be me, nor to be the same as each other, I try very hard to disguise the Me-ness in them. I try to develop them into individuals in their own right. But there's no getting around the fact that they started out as Me. If it's a woman, then it's what Me might be like if I were female. If it's a boy, then it's Me as a boy. If it's an old man, it's what Me might be like as an old man. There's a simple reason for this. Nobody in the entire universe is as interesting as Me. (Didn't Rodgers and Hammerstein write a song about that?) Now I don't mean that of all the human beings everywhere, I am the one who is more interesting to other people than anybody else. I mean that, when I'm writing or reading a story, I am most interested in comparing how Me would deal with the situations the protagonist deals with. I want to put Me in the place of the protagonist. I want to relate to the main character. I don't care what Thom or Eric or Jonathan or Sharlee or Marilyn or anybody else would do if faced with the situations a protagonist is faced with. I care what Me would do. That's why I'm reading. To get insights into Me. To allow Me to experience things Me normally can't, so I can gain experience and wisdom I otherwise couldn't. And I think everybody else reads that way also, to one degree or another. That's why being able to relate to the main character is so important. Because we want to learn about Me. If we can't relate, we can't "liken the character unto ourselves." We don't get into the story and we don't like the book. Some of you have been saying that you can do whatever you want with POV as long as you don't confuse the reader. I think it goes much deeper than that. POV jumping can be confusing; it can be jarring; and these are not good things to put a reader through. But more importantly, if you jump around with POV, you decrease the ability of the reader to relate, to put Me in place of the POV character. One of the most common statements readers make when commenting on a POV violation is, "It threw me out of the story," or in my terminology, "It threw Me out of the story." This is the price you pay for POV jumping. Jarring and confusing are just mundane results of poor writing. But even a deliberate jumping around of POV, no matter how well handled, will decrease the ability of Me to stay in the story. So, as I've said multiple times before, you'd better make sure your story is offering the reader something else to make the story worth reading, like Tom Clancy or Stephen King, because you're diluting the ability of the reader to relate to the main character(s). There are trade-offs to everything. Know the rules (and the consequuences of breaking them) before you break them. Know the price you are paying for breaking a rule, and decide carefully if it's worth it. If your readers are complaining about POV violations, that's a strong hint that maybe it wasn't worth it. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 03:36:02 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Point of View Richard Hopkins wrote: > I write screenplays as well as novels and I find that a cinematic POV > occasionally gets into my novels simply because it is more convenient to > describe a scene cinematically than to get into a specific character's POV. > On those occasions when I've used this method, it is because I feel the > story is better told from a cinematic perspective. Is this wrong? Should I > strain the story to put the scene into some character's POV? It's not "wrong." It's just a question of trade-offs. I find it interesting that you use the word "strain" to get into a POV character's head. It sounds like you're not writing novels, but novelizations, just of movies in your head, not on the screen. But as Orson Scott Card has said, why make a cinematic book when movies do it so much better? Movies have the power of the image and the soundtrack right there in front of the audience. The written word can never compete with that (as the economics of the film and publishing industries attest). So books ought to do what books do best and that movies can't compete with because of the limits of their format: get into a character's head. The price you pay for cinematic POV is a much less intimate book that does no more than a movie would do, and much more poorly. But if you are trading that off for an equal or superior benefit, it may be worth it. The only problem is, I'm not sure what that compensating benefit would be. About the only possibility I can think of is an adventure story of some type where characterization is minimally important and a straightforward transition from one scene of action to another is paramount. In this case, spending time getting deeply into a character's head may only get in the way of the real reason for the story's existence. (Who cares what James Bond's deep thoughts and emotions are? If he even has any.) I used to write pretty cinematically: I was basically a frustrated filmmaker writing novelizations of the movies in my head. Then my writers group forced me to actually attempt characterization--to get into the character's head and let my books do what books do best. It was a painful (strained?) process for me, but in the end, my writing improved manyfold as a result. I still find characterization difficult. I also find it very much worth the strain. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 11:20:21 -0700 From: "K.D. Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Character Preferences I realized, not long ago that all the stories I am currently working on have a petite beautiful young woman with very long hair. She is also strong willed sensitive and kind. And two of them have green eyes ( haven't figured out the third one's eye color). I found myself wondering what that said about me. (I am far from petite, though I am short, and I no longer have long hair. But my eyes green.) Konnie Enos - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 09:47:15 -0700 From: "Paris Anderson" Subject: [AML] Paris ANDERSON, _Recollection of Private Seth Jackson_ This is to announce--finally--the publication of my book, "The = Recollection of Private Seth Jackson, Mormon Battalion, Company D." = This is a chapter book intended for middle readers (about 8-14 years = old). It measures 5.5" x 4.25" and is 185 pages long. It is illustrated = with twelve woodcuts by Richard White.=20 With the help of list member Craig Huls I was able to make this book = availible on-line. It can be seen and purchased at: = http://ldsfiction.net . Paris Anderson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 21:32:47 -0600 From: Ronn Blankenship Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff At 07:46 PM 11/6/01, Scott Parkin wrote: >If one attempted to eat nothing but cotton candy, one= would >soon become malnourished and their health would suffer. [snip] > >At the same time, a diet of nothing but steak is equally dangerous. ... As will a diet limited only to feta cheese or spinach or rice or >apples or any other single food. Though as many who have tried to make a living off their writing have=20 found, peanut butter comes pretty close to a sustainable single-food diet .= =20 . . - -- Ronn! :) God bless America, Land that I love! Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam=85 God bless America! My home, sweet home. - -- Irving Berlin (1888-1989) - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 00:58:11 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] FALES, "Confessions of a Mormon Boy" (Salt Lake Tribune) In 'Mormon Boy,' A Fond Farewell To the Faith BY BRANDON GRIGGS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Steven Fales could have been a poster boy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The sixth-generation Mormon became an Eagle Scout, completed an LDS mission in Portugal, graduated from Brigham Young University and married his college sweetheart in the Salt Lake Temple. But Fales was living a lie. Attracted to men since adolescence, he tried to suppress his homosexual urges through extensive LDS Church-sponsored therapy. Six years of marriage and two children later, he gave up. "I did everything in my power [to live a straight lifestyle]," says the 31-year-old actor. "I white-knuckled it, and I slowly stopped smiling. And I don't believe people can smile unless they're being authentic." Now divorced and living openly as a gay man in New York City, Fales returns to Utah this week with "Confessions of a Mormon Boy," a one-man play inspired by his former life. Fales wrote, directed, produced and stars in the 90-minute show, which opens Friday at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City. Performances run through Dec. 2. In a telephone interview from New York, Fales describes "Confessions of a Mormon Boy" as an affectionate, comedic look at one man's futile struggle to "overcome" his homosexuality. The show opens with Fales arriving at the gates of heaven, where he encounters a nightclub-style white velvet rope and a guest list without his name on it. Hoping to persuade St. Peter to let him in, he spends the rest of the play recounting his life story -- failed therapy and all. "This show is done with a lot of warmth and humor," says Fales, an experienced stage performer with more than two dozen productions on his resum=8E, including roles at Pioneer Theatre Company, Sundance Theatre and the Utah Shakespearean Festival. "It was very important to tell it in a humorous way. The last thing people want to see onstage is a victim." Considering the LDS Church excommunicated him for homosexuality two years ago -- "it's like excommunicating a starving man for eating," he says -- Fales is surprisingly magnanimous in his onstage treatment of his former religion. "I see this piece as a Valentine to Mormonism and my kids," he says. "That's the irony. You're going to expect this guy to get onstage and be bitter. But that's not me. I think fondly of some wonderful people in the church." Closeted Mormon men cloaked in the respectability of marriage are not uncommon in Utah. But Fales' story has an unusual wrinkle. His ex-wife's mother is Carol Lynn Pearson, the LDS poet and author best known for her 1986 memoir, Goodbye, I Love You, about her own doomed marriage to a gay man who died of AIDS. She also wrote the libretto for the Mormon musical, "My Turn on Earth." Contacted at her home in Walnut Creek, Calif., Pearson says she is familiar with "Confessions" and wishes her former son-in-law well. Although she declined to comment specifically on Fales' theater project, Pearson says homosexuality within the LDS Church is an issue that deserves attention. "We need to be more aware of the realities," says Pearson, who, like her daughter, knew of her husband's same-sex attractions before they married but believed he could overcome them. "Because every day there are marriages being contracted in the Mormon Temple that are doomed to failure." Fales remains on good terms with his former wife and their children, ages 6 and 4, who live in Utah. He gave a well-received reading of "Confessions" in August at a Salt Lake City symposium sponsored by Sunstone, the Mormon intellectual group, and looks forward to premiering the show in Utah, where he believes knowing audiences will most appreciate his religious references. Assuming the show succeeds here, Fales hopes to stage it next year in New York, probably at an Off Broadway theater. While autobiographical plays by gay writers are nothing new, Fales believes his tale, with its elements of Mormonism, anti-gay "therapy" and religious exile, is different enough to stand out. "It's not just for gay men and women," he says."I think everyone can relate to this story." Steven Fales' "Confessions of a Mormon Boy" opens with a preview Friday at 8 p.m. at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South in Salt Lake City. Performances continue Saturday at 8 p.m., Nov. 25 at 3 p.m., Nov. 29-Dec. 1 at 8 p.m., and Dec. 2 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15; $10 for students, and are available through ArtTix (355-ARTS). =A9 Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 13:02:04 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Point of View What's interesting about this discussion is how it's caused me to notice = POV in my reading, and also how it's caused me to reflect on some very = interesting issues regarding fiction itself. I just finished reading the Dave Eggers book, A Heartbreaking Work of = Staggering Genius, which was just recommended by someone on the list who's = name I'm too stupid to remember, but who liked it extravagantly (and so = did I), and also re-reading a very favorite novel of mine, David Foster = Wallace's Infinite Jest. Eggers book is ostensibly a memoir and non-fictio= n, while Wallace's novel is definitely fiction. But Eggers book does all = sorts of fun little po-mo games with narrative, just as Wallace's novel = does similarly fun things with fictional narrative, the result of which is = to turn narratives into metanarratives, stories into deconstructions of = story conventions. To name just a few: Eggers book has, like many books nowadays, a blurb, an excerpt from the = novel printed on the left inside dust jacket. The difference is that the = excerpt in Eggers book appears nowhere in the actual book. On the right = inside dust cover is a photo with Eggers with a dog, along with a note = saying that that's not his dog. Wallace loves long footnotes. In a novel. He'll have footnotes that go = on for pages, lengthy discourses on, for example, the scholarly significanc= e of The Brady Bunch as a proto-text. Eggers begins his book with six suggestions for how you're to read the = book, most of which involve warnings about parts of the book you might = want to miss. Wallace's book jumps from third person limited to first person to third = person unlimited all the time, sometimes within a single chapter. Or = he'll do something with first person unlimited omniscient, in which the = first person narrator will tell you stuff he couldn't possibly know, and = acknowledge that he couldn't possibly know what he just told you.=20 Eggers has conversations with his brother in which, with no warning, the = brother suddenly begins deconstructing their relationship, and you realize = that this nice little first person conversation between two characters has = become an extended internal monologue questioning the value of everything = you've read up to that point. =20 Wallace starts very interesting story threads that he never finishes, and = jumps into the middle of other story threads without any preparation, and = ends his book with a hundred and fifty page scene involving characters who = haven't appeared previously and who we don't know at all, while not = resolving anything that has appeared previously. Eggers does some of this too, giving you a long scene involving a suicide = intervention with some guy named John who you can't even remember having = heard of before suddenly Our Hero intervenes on his behalf. Wallace loves obscure pop culture allusions which you feel like a real = dork if you don't get. Eggers doesn't do that so much, but he does like using a metaphor to = explain something, then say, 'that's not a very good metaphor,' and then = say, 'but I'm working on it.' And then the metaphor recurs, and it's = wonderfully rich and interesting and even sort of profound. For both of these writers, the harshest profanities are clearly just = words, which sprinkle conversational narratives without being seen, by the = authors clearly and also, it's assumed, readers if they're cool at all, as = in any way offensive or troublesome or profane. =20 Here's what's interesting; both these guys also have some real heart and = strongly honed moral sense and also commitment to something beyond and = better than they are. Wallace has written a wonderful essay on this = subject; how po-mo deconstructions of narrative are likely to become = exercizes in the most pointless and smarmy and solipsistic self-referential= ity unless, and this is key, unless they can connect to some reality = beyond themselves, some sense of moral purpose or perhaps even Higher = Being. =20 For Wallace, this sense of moral purpose can be found in, for example, = Alcoholics Anonymous. For Eggers, the sense of moral purpose can be found = in his genuine, utter commitment to and love for his younger brother. = Both of these utterly hip, with it, funny, brilliant, cool, incandescently = talented guys are, at the heart of things, sort of square. Both of them = believe in things, and that belief doesn't just inform their work, it = defines it. =20 And here's the point; their experiments with narrative, with point of = view, with conversation, with footnotes and pop allusion, their funky = rejection of traditional structure and form, all that fancy po-mo stuff, = it ends up reinforcing the belief structure that's at the heart of what = they're trying to say. It's as though they went through Derrida towards = Emmanuel Levinas, and back through Levinas to Joseph Smith and on to the = atonement. And that circular path, they would argue (or I'm prepared to = argue for them) is necessary, because let's face it, we live in the = post-modern moment. We really do. =20 So why don't we try it ourselves? Why doesn't somebody? Why don't we see = if we can pull something like this off? Why don't I? (I think I'm going = to try. I got an idea for something last night, and spent half the night = making notes.) I teach at BYU. My students are very very bright, and with it, and cool. = I really adore them. And when I talk to them, and I ask, 'why are you at = BYU?' they usually respond, 'I have no idea.' It's a good film school. = We get access to really great equipment. It's pretty cheap. Those are = the answers I get. But these kids are all of them deeply committed to the = gospel. They're RM's, temple married many of them, moral and responsible = and in every way terrific. And yet mainstream LDS culture strikes them as = square and boring and in very fundamental ways, irrelevant. (Not the = gospel, of course. They love the gospel.) So I say to them, "read good = stuff written by Mormons." And they respond, "there isn't any." So I = make 'em read Margaret Young's short story, Jesus on Donahue. And they go = 'hmmmm.' And then I turn 'em on to the good stuff, a lot of the stuff = we've talked about here on the List. It's eye opening for 'em. But let's = face it, we're still pretty square. Point is: we've got some great stuff our people have written. But where's = the Mormon David Foster Wallace or Dave Eggers? Because there's a market = for it. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 13:21:50 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff Okay, so all right, well, I'm a crusty old toothless pregnant hag. Marilyn Brown - ----- Original Message ----- From: margaret young To: Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 9:35 AM Subject: Re: [AML] Fluff > Marilyn--that probably means you're pregnant. > > Brown wrote: > > > I cry at the Hallmark commercials. Marilyn Brown > > > > -- > > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > > > > > > > > -- > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > > - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 17:01:20 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Point of View At 01:26 PM 11/21/01, you wrote: >I think the more you stay out of the characters' heads the better. >Show me the characters' actions and let the actions reveal mood. So often, however, what a character does and says fails to reveal his true thoughts, feelings, and motivations. People wear masks all the time. We think, "I'll never get over this hurt," and we say, "I don't care." barbara hume - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 17:12:06 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Point of View At 01:21 PM 11/21/01, you wrote: >Here's a suggestion which I have seen used effectively. Tell the scene >from the POV of one character and then retell the same scene from the POV >of the second character. I once read a pair of related novels, each about a twin. At one point in each book, the same scene appeared. It was quite interesting to see the same event through the eyes of one character and later on through the eyes of another. Because their needs and motivations were so different, events had different meanings and implications. barbara hume - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 17:31:24 -0700 From: "Annette Lyon" Subject: Re: [AML] Point of View Richard Hopkins wrote: "What I'd like to know is any advice writers have in this group about how to tell the difference and when to use the more cinematic style, if at all, while not damaging the story." I recently a book that, in part, addressed this very thing. The general rule was this: after a break in the text (such as actual space indicating a scene/time break or a chapter), it is "legal" to go omniscient, universal or whatever you want to call it (one example given was when something in the setting must be shown that no character could possibly know, such as an oncoming storm). This is because a break signals change and distance to reader, so the reader is more likely to accept a distant POV and is more willing to not be so closely in contact with a character for the moment. It also said that the universal POV section should be brief, going into a specific character's head ASAP, and once there, the author should remain there until the next break. The advice seemed reasonable to me, although I haven't tried applying it to see how well it works. Opinions? Annette Lyon - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 17:42:39 -0700 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: [AML] Writer's Lament (pt. 1) [MOD: This is Part 1 of a 2-part post.] This post is not so much a rant as a lament, the frustrations of one writer stuck at particular point in his writing career by a sort of creative paralysis brought about (at least in part) by our very own Mormon writing community. I don't know whether I can recommend that anyone actually read this post, but I do know that I could not fail to write it--it's part of the mania to write, to express, that I love/hate so much. ===== Background - -------------- I've been writing seriously for about 15 years, and dabbled for a few years before that for a total of about 19 years of trying to write for a paying audience. I've had three generations of evolution in my writerly approach to things during that time. I'm desperately hoping for a fourth. 1982-1987: Dabbler This is when I thought it would be cool to write stories, and I approached that with a certain arrogant energy. I had just seen the film _The Dark Crystal_ and was quite disappointed with how much story Henson suggested, but how little he actually delivered. I was a pretty good expository writer and could ace any essay for any college class without working very hard. Fiction would be a snap, right? Fiction was just argument with some physical detailing and dialog thrown in. Easy. Turned out I was wrong, that fiction was a great deal harder than just spewing your ideas out on paper and moving the argument from dialog to narrative to internal monolog and back. Getting feedback for the first time (quite negative as it turned out) forced me to some serious introspection about whether I really wanted to write for an audience. It was the first time I had ever failed to succeed with writing, the first time that I didn't get an A grade just for trying. It suddenly occurred to me that writing for a paying audience might involve actual work, and that was not something I had ever considered--I mean, stories were fun, right? So writing them should be too. I had tried to drop writing as a waste of time, as something that had value only in terms of classwork and personal journals. But I found that the people I liked to spend time with were writers, and the time I spent writing was the time I most enjoyed. My literature classes were the ones I looked forward to the most (even though I was an electrical engineering/opera student at the time). I went weeks or months without writing fiction, but the itch was always there, the desire to realize the thoughts of my head in narrative. This forced me to rethink a lot of things, especially my desire to write. Not so much a crisis as an inflection point, a simple decision about whether to start on the path. Did I want to be a writer, a real writer who made a living from the thing, even if it meant turning writing into a job? I decided I did, and as a result, I started doing some things differently in my life. 1987-1995: Apprentice/Acolyte So I started reading books on writing and doing all the exercises. I joined the staff of a local magazine and started hanging out in the Humanities Publication Center at BYU. I took writing classes in and around my Music and EE classes. My personal interest was in writing speculative fiction, but I also worked on the student literary magazine and read all of its archives. I joined a local writing group, then started several others. I attended writing conferences and workshops. I surrounded myself with things writerly and with people who I thought could teach me how to succeed at this thing that had engaged my whole attention. In the meantime, I backed into a career as a technical writer and soon established myself as a very good one. Technical writing and fiction writing complemented each other for me, and reinforced the idea of writing as a nearly magical/mystical act, because so much of it seemed to come so naturally. Yes, I was working very hard to become a better fiction writer, but I seemed to be improving rapidly, inevitably toward professional publication. Sure, I was receiving rejections left and right (about 200 of them by 1995), but even those were progressing from photocopies to personalized notes. Combined with the validation I was receiving as a tech writer (rapid career development, professional recognition, etc.), my eventual success as a fiction writer seemed assured. As a tech writer I learned that I could put a lot of words on paper very quickly, and that most of those words were readable and made sense. I learned to rewrite without feeling that the first draft was bad; it was just a refinement of the original. The idea of rewriting was so inherent in my concept of how to succeed that I never had to worry much about reimagining the plot in light of new research or recasting scenes with new narrative goals in mind--I'd been doing that as a tech writer for years. I couldn't claim to be a great writer, but I was a very good rewriter. Most importantly, though, I learned to just write, baby. Ideas were easy, word counts were easier, and my excitement levels about future success were enormous. It was a heady time, and arguably the most fun I've ever had writing. It's when I wrote probably 110 of the 150 short stories that I've completed to date (not to mention the 50+ false starts and incomplete efforts). I could see progress monthly (if not daily) and I took pride in my growing ability to critique both my own and other peoples' fiction. But some doubts were also starting to rise in my mind. In surrounding myself with talented people, I had also set a very high bar by which to gauge my own success. I attended a writing group with folks like Dave Wolverton, Shayne Bell, Russell Asplund, Virginia Baker, Lee Allred, Susan Kroupa, and Scott Bronson. I saw them all develop from promising talents to pros selling in the national market. I saw the creative and stylistic and philosophical depth of their work and I wanted to be like them. I also knew that I didn't have a powerful vision for my fiction like they seemed to have, only a desire to tell and sell stories. I began to feel like a hack surrounded by Artists. Part of that was that my friends and colleagues were selling and I wasn't. Yes, I could sell to small or regional magazines, but I wasn't hitting yet at the national level like they were. There was obviously something inherent in my fiction that made it unsellable at that level. Worse, my fear was that there was something inherent in myself that made my fiction unsellable to the national market, a limitation of vision or voice or viewpoint that caused editors to praise my work, but never buy it. The shine was off, and I was facing the first large crisis of my writing life. What if I was an imposter? What if I didn't have what it took to do this thing that had engaged almost my entire focus for over a decade? 1995-2001: Foundering/The Wall, Part I (1995-97) In 1994-95 an odd thing happened--I sold a bunch of short stories (ten sales, I think) to a lot of different markets (local, regional, small, national, internet, anthology) over a period of about 18 months. Maybe I wasn't failing. Maybe my fiction had value after all. Of course most of those venues folded soon after publishing my stories, and two-and-a-half folded before doing so. Maybe I was Typhoid Scott, Destroyer of Publishers. Maybe I just got lucky when a couple of failing venues fished the least stinky piece out of their depleted slushpiles and took one last shot as staying alive despite their inability to pick winners before. Still, I thought I had arrived. I was writing quickly and with a good baseline of quality. I knew I wasn't telling the most important stories you'd ever seen, but I *was* telling complete stories that could fill in the gaps around the literature. I could accept being a second-tier author as long as I was publishing. Not everyone could be a superstar and I was content to be a journeyman, a solid if unremarkable pro. Then I stopped selling and all the old questions and doubts came back stronger than before. I could blame the markets for their inconsistency, but in the end I believed I should be able to overcome any obstacle. The hint of success actually made the sudden cessation of it that much worse. * A Digression on Authorial Validation * - --------------------------------------------- In and of itself not selling was not a problem. I understood the vagaries of the markets and knew that even successful authors sometimes went through dry periods. It would work out and I'd start selling again. All I had to do was keep writing and keep submitting. If I was good enough to sell fifteen stories, I was good enough to sell more. Eventually. Besides, I was getting better as a writer every day. Whether you're selling or not, though, most authors need some sort of validation that what they're doing makes sense, that it has some value be it as entertainment or literature. Of course the best validation is a contract and a check, followed closely by the published product with your name on the contents page. Then there's critical notice. Or professional notice--the respect of your peers; a writing group can offer this when the sales aren't happening. Yes, writing is a solitary act, but it's also an act of exhibitionism, of public performance--albeit one step removed from the audience. When you perform on a stage there's applause (or silence) at the end. You have an immediate feedback. But when you write--especially short fiction--there's precious little of that. Your applause, like your performance, is abstracted one level unless you happen to do a public reading. There comes a point where you feel like you're writing at a pro level, but without the sales you can't be sure. Maybe you're just deluding yourself; maybe your work isn't really any good at all. Maybe it's just well-wrought junk, empty soup cans arranged interestingly but providing neither artistic value nor sustenance. This is where philosophy comes in, and the belief that what you are doing *with* your fiction is as important as what you're doing *in* your fiction. If you believe that your fiction has a purpose, a higher value than just the pleasing arrangement of words or entertaining sequence of events, you can ignore the markets that are ignoring you and keep plowing on. You write because either you want positive feedback or you want to accomplish some metagoal of which the story itself is only a part, a work of social or political or philosophical engineering. So whether your success be to an audience or a vision, it's all the same: as an author you seek validation that what you're doing has some sort of intrinsic value, whether that validation be internal or external. - --------------------------------------------- * ...end of digression... * When I stopped selling, my small sense of validation also vanished and I was left feeling like a complete and utter failure. Especially when my peers continued to sell. Especially when I couldn't see a big qualitative difference between my stuff and theirs--either in terms of craft or of philosophical depth. But the editors saw something different, and so chose to buy their work but not mine. I had been thinking about my reasons for writing fiction for quite a while at that point. Up until then I wrote merely to sell, merely to be published. I didn't have any long-term writing goals other than to keep selling and being published. My approach had been changing slowly from a sort of left-brain subconscious creative dump to a more considered, planned approach that attempted to explicitly instill the elements of form, structure, and symbol of the works that I most admired. I thought more about character and plot and POV, relevance and audience and literary philosophy than ever before. Maybe I was fixing something that wasn't broken. Maybe it was the natural evolution of me as an individual writer. Maybe it was the biggest mistake of my creative life, a crushing of the muse under too much thought, too much structure (the worst part being that once started, it's hard to stop thinking in structuralist terms). In any case, that change in methodology came at about the same time as my sudden inability to sell. The cognitive spiral had begun; I'm still trying to find bottom so I can turn back up again. The weird part is that I think the last five stories I wrote are five of the seven best stories I've ever written. At the same time, those same stories haven't received even a sniff from the markets I submit to. Maybe it's because I'm slowly changing from an sf genre writer into something else (don't ask me what; sort of mainstream-y or pseudo-absurdist-y or light literary-y or something that allows for fantastic elements but that still focuses on issues of personal evolution--if I could identify a specific marketing category I'd start submitting there tomorrow). But there was more... Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #527 ******************************