I’ve been tossing and turning an idea around in my head, one that I can’t put my finger on.
Last night, I watched an HBO movie, Hemingway and Gellhorn. There is a scene when Ernest is standing in a hotel room at his typewriter placed upon a high dresser. He types manically. Gellhorn is watching him and she begins in on how she doesn’t know how to do this, how to write, and he tells her that she just has to do it. He does not say this kindly. She knows the writing of which he is capable, and she is amidst the war in Italy and all she wants to write about are the people, the small stories, the way the war is effecting these people’s lives.
Something hit home for me. For the purposes of this discussion, indulge me in listing some writers I love: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Franzen, George Eliot, Michael Chabon, Salman Rushdie, Louise Erdrich, Margaret Atwood, Colm Toibin, Barbara Kingsolver, Zadie Smith, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Russo, Jeffrey Eugenides, David Foster Wallace, Nabokov, Jane Smiley.
Not by any means an exhaustive list although it may seem like it, but just the first that spring to mind. I’ve been thinking lately about honest writing, but I’ve also been looking for other connections. What is it that they do, that is lacking from my own work?
When I take everything else away, what is it? It isn’t magic (well, they do create magic, but that’s another story), a moment when the muse struck for them and they jotted it all down. What I adore is the ability they each have to take the world and import it into the lives of their characters.
That sounds so dull. What I mean to say is, they aren’t didactic. They have issues, social concerns that I think about long after the book, but the reason I do is because of the characters that had to deal with very specific, small problems. They don’t preach about global warming. A character’s life may have complications because of it.
They know how to create a microcosm, where a war may be going on but it is secondary to the character and very real, tangible things that the character is dealing with. Their feet are grounded in this very specific place and time, but it is because of the small, minute specificity.
They deal in worlds, not necessarily fast-paced plot, but entire worlds that are illuminated by the character being an honestly, real, fallible human being that gets screwed. These characters are being run through the mill, as whatever socio-economic battle, war zone, poverty, drought, you-name-it is going on in the background.
That is where my love is. It is also where my book is lacking. My book is not grounded, it is a bunch of characters floating around in the ether. I haven’t come up with the goods to put them where they need to be in time and space, so they are just acting/reacting to each other in the ether.
A good thing to find out, but not one I know how to fix. Nuts. I think they are as honest as I can make them at this point, but not as honest as they need to be. There is a greater truth missing, a deeper, richer world yet to be uncovered.
Knowing this now, feeling it, makes me wonder if I should ditch them, if this story has gone as far as I can take it, or if I should chase them down and then figure out what the hell is also going on behind the scenes, grounding them, stifling them, freeing them, trapping them.
I haven’t decided which way I should take it, but it feels good to see it in a different light, to see what I want, even if I don’t know how to get it there.
Write on, my friends.
“He tells her that she just has to do it”
Yup. And thanks.
Good enough forr Martha Gellhorn, good enough for me.
Small stories are the important ones, I think. . .
I have a character who is a hostage at one point. It occurred to me that I don’t know how she reacted afterward. It seems like a good thing for me to know, even if the other characters don’t . . .
I’ve done so much switching around of characters, combining some and separating others, that I am so with you. We need to know exactly how they’d react to anything thrown at them whether or not it is ever used, I think. Great point, Sarah.
Spend a little time chasing them down. You’ve breathed the beginnings of life into these characters by getting them onto the page with your pen, all while riding that train. Let them percolate in your mind for awhile and maybe, just maybe, you’ll wake up in the middle of night and know exactly where they need to be.
I used to this this writing business was like a marathon. Now I think it’s more like an Iron Man competition and we have to fight through the swim, the bike, AND the marathon.
I always wanted to do an IronMan. I just didn’t want to do it with these freeloading characters on my back…
“My book is not grounded, it is a bunch of characters floating around in the ether.”
Yes, but it’s a draft, so this is normal! At least how I work, I end up with with a first draft that is a disaster in so many ways, including some of these big ways that seem hearbreakingly impossible. But then I start revising and slowly, layer by layer, it starts to come together. Even the big stuff. That’s probably why I’m a little nervous to start my next novel: I know what a long haul it’s going to be to even get it to where I can look it in the eye.
Or maybe I shouldn’t be giving advice, considering that all the novels I’ve so far attempted have not exactly ended up anywhere…
“heartbreakingly impossible”. Lauura, this is the best description of novel writing I’ve ever seen.
And you should absolutely be giving advice. It is in the attempt that gives you the right, not the success or failure.
I agree with Laura. It’s completely normal to have everyone floating around in the ether, that’s part of drafting. (I should know; my first draft was not so much a train wreck as a sad clown horn: wah-waaah. . .) That’s fine. Once you know what the story is about, and this is the hard part, you can carve away what doesn’t belong and start adding material that reinforces the story. But you have to know with real clarity what you were trying to say in the first place.
I know just what I am trying to say. The problem is that it changes each time I go back. Waaa-ahhh (the clown car horn is my new favorite sound).
Yes, I’m back.
1. There are no small lives. Ever.
2. Are these characters really freeloaders, or just not ready to carry their own weight yet? Like a kid looking for direction.
3. The good thing about having a first draft, shitty or not, is the chance to let it percolate. I’m waiting for the post where you wake up, literally, in the middle of the night and know exactly what these people are about.
4. I’ve always been wary of and confused by the following terms: “the muse” and “writers block.” Very skeptical, I am.
5. All that said, you’re still on the train 2x a day right? Start a new story and see what happens??? Sometimes working on something new will make your first story so painfully jealous it will fight like mad for your attentions.
3. I would love for this to happen. Is there a plot dance I should be doing before bed?? I await further instructions.
5. I’m fearful of starting something new and losing the too-many threads of the WIP. I don’t know I havve the brain power needed for simulataneous stories.
I agree with Teri – especially on point 4. What the hell is a muse? The muse lives in your fingers, and likes contact with the keys or a pen…
Helen,
You’re absolutely right. My fingers, however, are either on strike or perhaps have subscribed to the european idea of “holiday”…
I like Teri’s idea of the old stuff and the new fighting your attention. Let them all bubble away and go off and do something with your hands. I’m also sceptical about the placement of the muse. I think what you are expressing Lyra is exactly what writing about: the shifting waters of the first draft, its unreliability and piecemeal structure. It’s not meant to be perfect first time around. And like Laura says, we should be daunted by the steep road of this task. Hard damned work. Much isolation. But how intoxicating!
This is exactly the issue I tend to have in my writing. Exactly.
Carry on. Keep rewriting and rewriting some more. I finally got there in my last book, and I think I’m there in this one now. You’ll get there, too. No doubt at all.