Tag: fiction

Favorite Passage in Literature

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“There are books that are so alive that you’re always afraid that while you weren’t reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?” —Marina Tsvetaeva

I’m going to go ahead and let my nerd flag fly as I share my favorite passage in all of literature.

Backstory that you may feel free to skip over

In high school, I became a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan. Not so die-hard that I could speak Elvish fluently, but enough that I could beat the pants off anyone playing LOTR Trivial Pursuit. As I left for college to become a literature and writing major, I was overwhelmed with assigned reading. For the first time in years, I didn’t read the Lord of the Rings trilogy that summer (It gets better with every reading, I’ll have you know. I know the first run can be a bit rough—plenty of exposition that Tolkien fellow writes). I also didn’t want to be defined by my hard core geekiness. College was a new start, and a way for me to leave behind the high school angst and discover who I really was.

Over the last few years, I’d still cry at the credit music of The Return of the King, and the trailers for the movies still gave me goosebumps, but I haven’t picked up the books in nearly a decade. The literature major lasted only a couple of semesters before I despised my assigned reading. I soon dropped the Lit major and focused on writing. Sure, I still had stacks of reading material, but I was reading Billy Collins and Li-Young Lee and Aristotle instead of the monotonous feminist drivel that I had previously been beaten over the head with. You’ve read one feminist awakening novel, you’ve read them all. Trust me. (I much prefer feminist characters or themes in a book that isn’t just about feminism. Any book with rounded, realistic female characters is a feminist novel, IMHO.)

Now I’m the one writing too much expository. Anyway, since I’ve graduated, I’ve been able to coddle my love for reading and nurse it back to health. Yesterday I finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and read his Newbery Award acceptance speech, in which he wrote about the unadulterated love for books that he had as a youth. Today, I stumbled upon some Tolkien quotes, and as I was rereading the passage below—many years ago underlined and circled and starred in my first, now tattered paperback copy—I realized what a profound impact these words had on me as a teenager.

The novel version

(Frodo) “I don’t like anything here at all, step or stone, breath or bone. Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid.”
(Sam) “Yes, that’s so. And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say.
“But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?” [Book IV, chapter 8]

The movie version

“I can’t do this, Sam.”
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”
“What are we holding onto, Sam?”
“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”

Reflection

The scene in the movie is a tender one, but even though it is rendered verbatim, as far as I can remember, it doesn’t come close to the impact I get from reading the dialogue. Reading lets my mind absorb the words and mull over them in a way that listening doesn’t. When I read these words today, I realized that this passage had—pardon the cliche—changed my life, or at least reflected the change that was already taking place. Like most American teenagers, I was moody and hard-hearted and pessimistic about the future. As I matured, I became more of an optimistic realist. Sure, things might be crappy, but they aren’t all that bad. Could be worse. Now I try to see the positive in everything. I hold on to the promise that things will get better if I just keep fighting. This belief has gotten me through many shadows—heartaches, losses, failures. Did this passage in The Two Towers eloquently state what I was already understanding, or did Tolkien’s words play a part in my transformation? I can’t say for certain which was the cause and which was the effect, but what I do know is that art is truth, and though fiction is made up, the best fiction is truthful.

As an adult, we can read the same book we treasured as a child and come to a completely different understanding of the novel. That’s why I love books. That’s also why I’ve started a book club of adults rereading (or reading for the first time) Newbery Medal and Carnegie Medal winners for juvenile fiction. Newbery is the US award, and Carnegie is the UK equivalent. This month is The Graveyard Book, which is the first book to ever win both medals and was a fairly appropriate choice for the month of October. If you are interested in following along with us, I will post the next few months’ of books on my blog as we come to them. I’ll also post my review of the books the following month.

Today’s post was a lengthy one! And I’m even posting it a day early. Two rarities on this blog. And to be even stranger, today I’m going to ask YOU a personal question.

Respond: Is there a fictional passage that impacted you in a profound way? Is there a book you read as a child and reread as an adult? Share your experiences below.

Motivation for NaNoWriMo

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NaNoWriMo begins in just 17 days. Not sure of what NaNoWriMo is? Well, it stands for “National Novel Writing Month.” But NaNoWriMo is more than just the title for November…it’s also an event. Hundreds of thousands of writers sign up at NaNoWriMo.org to write a novel in just 30 days. Well, write 50,000 words of a novel. Most novels ought to be longer than that, if you want to be published. (See “Length” in “The Difference between Novels and Short Fiction,” here.)

There are some NaNoWriMo rules, like not working on a work-in-progress. Obviously I have a work in progress, even if it isn’t currently progressing (see word count, right column). But, I’m sort of going to use NaNoWriMo to motivate my writing anyway. Besides, all I’ve really written so far is the prologue, and how many people skip over that, anyway?

So I am spending the next 17 days doing an unhealthy amount of research, outlining, planning, plotting, and taking notes so that by the time November 1st hits, I’ll be ready to write with “literary abandon!”

Will you be participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What do you want to know about writing a novel? Ask your questions in the comments, tweet me anytime, or comment on my Facebook page. That’s right—I just added a link to Facebook so I can connect with you lovely people in another arena. For links to my Twitter, Facebook Page, and RSS feed, check out the icons in the top of the right column.

P.S. I’m mostly kidding about that research link. I have far more reliable resources than the kind editors at Wikipedia. If anybody is interested, I’ll post reviews on some of the more general sources I’ll be using. I assume you aren’t all writing about 12th century England, so I’ll leave the specific ones to myself.

P.P.S. Please, don’t write about 12th century England.

The Simplest Story Structure

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Wednesday I reviewed Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald. In it, he mentions the The Seven Easy Steps to a Better Story.

I’ve already written a series on plot, but I do want to mention these seven steps for two reasons. One, because I have heard them before, but not explained to the extent that McDonald does. Two, because this system works for stories of any length. He heard the steps from a writer named Matt Smith (no, not the Doctor), who heard it from Joe Guppy. And now I’m sharing it with you.

  1. Once upon a time, ________________
  2. And every day, ________________
  3. Until one day, ________________
  4. And because of that, ________________
  5. And because of that, ________________
  6. Until finally, ________________
  7. And ever since, ________________

The story people at Pixar use this method, probably because McDonald uses this method and is a consultant to Pixar. I’ve seen these seven steps written a bit differently. Some change #7 to “And the morale of the story is ________________.” Personally, I don’t like that method. If your story has a point—a morale, theme, or big idea—that point needs to be introduced in the beginning and dramatized throughout the story. If it comes as an afterthought, you may as well leave it out completely, because it will sound preachy if slapped at the end.

Compared to other plotting techniques

“Once upon a time” and “And every day” are Act One, the beginning.

“Until one day” is the inciting incident.

Then there is a series of cause-and-effects that make up Act Two, the middle.

“Until finally” is the climax.

“And ever since that day” is the dénouement or resolution. These last two are the ending.

Compared to the 8 C’s of Plotting a Novel

“Once upon a time” is C1, the captivation.

“And every day” is the opening.

“Until one day” is C2, the change.

“And because of that” is everything between C2 to C5, the Collapse.

“And because of that” is everything between C5 to C8.

“Until finally” is C8, the culmination.

“And ever since that day” is the resolution.

Want more instruction on The Seven Easy Steps to a Better Story? Be sure to check out Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald.

Until next week!

Writing without Words

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Wait a minute here. Writing is using words, isn’t it? Yes, but it’s also more than that.

Often when I listen to how people evaluate stories, I hear them talk about dialogue. When they talk about the script for a film, they are often talking about the dialogue. Or when they mention how well a book is written, they most often mean the way the words are put together—the beauty of a sentence.

When people speak of Shakespeare’s work, they almost always talk about the beauty of the language.

These are all forms of visible ink. This term refers to writing that is readily seen by the reader or viewer, who often mistakes these words on the page as the only writing the storyteller is doing.

But how events in a story are ordered is also writing. What events should occur in a story to make the tellers point is also writing. Why a character behaves in a particular way is also writing.

These are all forms of invisible ink, so called because they are not easily spotted by a reader, viewer, or listener of a story. Invisible ink does, however, have a profound impact on a story. More to the point, it is the story. Invisible ink is the writing below the surface of the words. Most people will never see or notice it, but they will feel it.

—Brian McDonald, Invisible Ink, Chapter One. All quoted text is copyright original author. Emphasis mine.

Yesterday I started reading Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald. It was incredibly difficult to put down, and if I hadn’t had house guests that afternoon, I would have finished it in one sitting. Today I finished it.

I’ve read A LOT of books on writing. I own a bookcase—not just one or two shelves—filled with books on the subject, and I have read dozens more. Most books repeat what others have said before them. Never have I read a book on storytelling that has so much original content as Invisible Ink. There were several subjects from the book of which I had not heard before, or had not seen explained well until reading the book.

Here’s a quick summary of some of the wisdom McDonald, who often consults for Pixar, offers in Invisible Ink:

  • Writing is more than just the words on the page.
  • The Seven Easy Steps to a Better Story
  • Establish the story’s reality at the beginning.
  • The idea of your story (sometimes referred to as “theme”) is the armature of your story.
  • Every moment in the story should illustrate the idea—otherwise it is superfluous. “Every decision you make should be based on the idea of dramatizing your armature idea.” (Chapter 3)
  • “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.” (Chapter 3)
  • Jokes can teach you a thing or two about structure and set up.
  • The use of “clones” is a tool that master writers use to show, not tell, their idea.
  • Each character needs to serve a purpose in the story. Comic relief is not a purpose.
  • Have characters experience their own personal hell. It will make them better people.
  • Speak the truth, not the facts.
  • The best stories have “masculine” and “feminine” parts. Physical action and plot (“masculine”) as well as emotional truth (“feminine”).
  • The best stories transcend genre—anyone can enjoy them.
  • Don’t write subplots. Write supporting plots.
  • “You are a slave to your story, not a master.” (Ch. 5)
  • Think of the audience (Address and Dismiss, Address and Explain, Superior Position), but don’t bring attention to yourself as writer.
  • Once you pay attention to theme, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t in other stories.

This is an outstanding book and fast read. Grab a copy and read it. Highlight the head-scratchers. McDonald gives really great examples of his points using movies and books. Think theme isn’t important? Think morals in books are preachy? Check out Invisible Ink, and chances are McDonald will show you why your favorite stories have made such an impression on you.

Until Friday, dear readers.