BIBLIOGRIND
Adventures in Writing, Reading & Book Culture
August 27, 2012 at 5:15 pm · Filed under THE LETTERS OF MARK BEYER :: reading & writing & book culture
Lots of jokes start something like this — “So a guy walks into a bar …” — and away you go, into the story, often 3 sentences, and then the punchline. Ha-ha … hee-hee … guffaw-guffaw.
So why are jokes written in the present tense? Two thoughts on that, and shorter than any joke: Action — Immediacy.
Now for the big question: How many novels or short stories have you read (notice the tense) that were written in Present Tense Prose? Not many, I’d venture to guess. Most “stories” have already taken place, and the narrator is recalling the events, complete with insight, self-argument, the long-look-ahead-while-death/love/birth-suddenly-happens-in-the-past-of-the-story. Pheew! Take for example this sentence: “I didn’t know it then, as John dug the ring out of the thick shag, but twenty years later I realized he had known who I was all along.” That’s saying a lot, past, present, and future.
Stories told in the present tense have a certain immediacy to them that gives writers lots to work with, and also allows them to leave things out that cannot be known; may never be known (unless there’s a sequel). Likewise, the use of verbs in present tense manages to convey strong imagery: “A man pushes through the waiting crowd, climbs the stairs two at a time, and walks into the bar…” We readers see this vividly because of the activeness of “pushes” and “climbs” and “walks.”
We writers see the vividness of present-tense verbs all the time, as we write, because we invent the story as we see it happen(ing) in our minds. So why do we take that active moment and change its tense when we get to the page? Perhaps this is tradition. Perhaps the story is a reminiscence and therefore requires past tense. Or perhaps there are a half dozen or a dozen more reasons. Ask the writer. He or she may know, or may not know exactly. It’s often a feeling.
Which is to say, then, how you feel the story takes hold of you might be the impetus behind trying a narrative form you haven’t tried before. See what happens between what you see in your mind and what happens on the page. Feel for the verbs that work and those that don’t work as well. This is always a battle anyway, so if you’ve been on the battered side once more often than you’d like, try a different strategy.
In my present Work-in-Progress, I am writing the “present” story in present tense, while for two stories-within-the-story that give the two protagonists time to reflect, to tell the story of their lives together, I’m writing in the past tense (these are stand-alone pieces that follow a meandering chronology). This structure is how I am able to keep the many balls in the air for this particular juggling act. And the narrative forms allow me to shape the story in a way that the reader will know what’s happened in the past, but not know exactly what’s happening in the present (thought they’ll have teasing guesses). The characters experience this same riddle, which mirrors life far more than we often give it credit for: Do you know what’s in store for your life tomorrow? Do you understand all that is happening to you right now? Are all your memories “correct,” “right,” and “true”?
These are the questions that authors struggle with on a daily basis. The WHEN of the tale is integral to the HOW.
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
July 23, 2012 at 8:12 pm · Filed under THE LETTERS OF MARK BEYER :: reading & writing & book culture
Once upon a time, I got into a pretty heated discussion with my MFA thesis adviser — my writing mentor at the time — about the use of product names in an early novel. I had a character in a scene take a Heineken beer from the fridge and, using a bottle opener, pop the top. My mentor said “Why have him drinking that kind of beer? It’s just a beer, so say it, ‘He grabbed a beer.’ ”
The comment made no sense to me, so I asked my own question. “What kind of beer do you drink?” He said, “Whatever’s on tap at the tavern.” “Okay, but what kind of beer do you buy at the store to take home for that ‘Sunday-in-front-of-the-tv’ drink?” “Whatever’s on sale at the liquor store,” he told me. I realized I could be knocking my head against the wall for awhile here, but there was an opening that I saw.
“Listen,” I said, “you buy discount beer, and that’s fine. But this guy drinks a high-cost foreign brew, with a different taste than ‘what’s on sale.’ The character is a discriminating drinker, and Strohs or Budweiser or LaBatt’s is not his brand of beer. And what kind of beer you drink, or don’t drink, or shy away from, or have a taste for, or even puke on from one sip, always says something about you. This is about character, and taste, having taste in beer that is different from the corner tavern or the hole-in-the-wall liquor store.”
“My tavern has Heineken for sale,” the mentor claimed. “It’s in the cooler, behind glass. You just have to ask for it.”
“So why don’t you ask for it?”
He said, “Because I don’t like Heineken. It tastes and smells like skunk piss.”
“Exactly!” I exclaimed.
If you have a character walk into a store and ask the cashier, “I’ll have a sixer of Schlitz, that party bag of Lay’s chips … and, oh yeah, how about a copy of Hustler, too?” … you kind of know you’re not dealing with a Yaley from Newport Beach. Not that a refined taste can be found in every Yaley, or that Schlitz and Lay’s can’t be considered refined in and of themselves (when compared to, I suppose, an Old Milwaukee from the can and a bag of month-old Funions).
Taste matters to character, and to story. Lilly Bart, in Wharton’s “The House of Mirth”, grew up with refined tastes. Perhaps too refined — in clothes, holiday hot-spots, wine and food, and men — all to her own devastation, in the end. Jay Gatsby threw lavish parties featuring gourmet meals, champagne by the fountainful, and everyone wore evening jackets or dresses (he would not have drawn Daisy’s attention without such ostentatious displays of wealth). In S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders”, the boys were happy when they got soda and chips, and they smelled their clothes before deciding which emitted the least B.O. before putting them on for the day.
Style and taste represent choices by the characters that tell who they are, and go far in determining what their motivation might be. These were also carefully planned by the authors who drew them. We writers make choices — to our success or perdition — every time we place a bottle of something in a character’s hand, put her in a particular car, travel to a destination, sleep with another man’s wife. Without careful consideration to its result, and its effect on the reader, the story and/or character lack focus.
A writer must also see the big picture here. Understanding who all his characters are helps him see patterns in the dramatis personae, and through them, then too the arc of the story, and how that can unfold in such a way as to make the impact of the drama that much more powerful. This is because how a person acts, and what a person acts with, makes an effect on the reader, often so deeply that readers come to know this “character” as a real person; perhaps someone they would like to meet, or someone they would never want to meet, or someone whom they already know in the real world.
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
June 20, 2012 at 8:43 pm · Filed under THE LETTERS OF MARK BEYER :: reading & writing & book culture
One of the edifying aspects of writing is that you discover things about yourself — hidden emotions, bursting attitudes, a-sometimes-sullenness towards your craft — that don’t necessarily come out in public (including your day job). I shan’t focus on the negative, however; rather, there’s one great positive part of this discovery when you allow yourself to be taken by it.
What I’m talking about is writing while you’re not in the mood to write. Had a bad day at work? Just crashed the car? Been dumped (again)? Are you hungry, and I mean really hungry? What about that thing called sleep … are you too tired to write? Yes, these are just some of the reasons we use to get away from the page. But if you’ve never used such emotional slaps as the gateway to sitting down at your computer, I suggest you try it. The results may astound you.
For the sake of brevity here, I’ll focus on one mood-changer: TIREDNESS (sometimes called “It’s time for bed.”)
Sit down at the computer when you’re tired, think for a moment about your character, or story, or a problem scene, or that nagging bit of dialogue you’ve been playing with, and you’ll find something incredible happening — your mind loosens up. You see, all that clutter from the day is back with “the day.” You’ve passed it up and you hadn’t even known it. This is night, moreover, and no one is here to tell you what to do, ask you another stupid question, or call you for help. And your mind knows this.
The mind is a funny thing: it can do many things at once; and when so many of those things have settled, it can really hone in on one thing. Let it find your story.
With this unfettered notion of focus in front of your eyes, story begins to happen. Let the story happen. Give your main character a line, a gesture, an entrance into a room to which you hadn’t yet opened the door. Or maybe, give the line to a secondary or tertiary character. Get characters together and see what happens; make something happen. Inside of three minutes, you’ll find that your fingers are indeed moving atop the keys. Five minutes later, you’ll find the storyline. Ten minutes later, you’ll not be missing your bed or sleep or that bullshit TV program that usually sends you to Nod inside of five blinks.
Inspiration is great when it strikes you, and when it does, get to work. But sometimes inspiration must be cultivated. The tired mind likes a tease. Why do you think we all grew up with the notion of, “Can you read me a story before bed, Mommy?”
(note: I wrote this after a 14-hr day, when my eyes felt like they were about to pour out of my head; the first sentence was a bit rough, then it came together in a redraft, and off I went. Now … I’m ready for that late-late coffee!)
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
