No Olympics for Writers
The Games of the 30th Olympiad in London, United Kingdom are underway. It has been a tradition in my family to watch the Games since before I was born. Despite NBC’s generally poor coverage, that tradition continues. (As I write this, I have a live broadcast of cross country equestrian on the TV next to me.)
The stories can of course be quite inspiring. Even for those who do not medal. (Especially, sometimes, for those who do not medal. Thanks for not covering that very much, NBC. But I digress.)
Yet despite the uplifting nature of the Games and the individual stories that make up same, I can’t help but feel a bit let down when I watch them, when I consider my own life.
No, we are not supposed to compare our lives to that of other people. But we all do it, and when bloggers do so, they write about it.
I don’t mean to suggest I could have ever been a competitive athlete. Even if I had been doing things such as riding horses, or archery from the time I was a child, I have serious doubts as to my ability to have reached Olympic status. Anything is possible, of course, but evidence suggested I would not have ever been in the Parade of Nations in any nearby parallel universe.
And this doesn’t hurt me much. Like just about anyone I at times wish I knew what it was like to represent my homeland at the Games. It is after all a unique position in all of humanity. (As I have said, the Olympics, despite their problems, are the biggest human undertaking that doesn’t involve killing people.) Yet most of the time, I accept my non-Olympic status.
What is more difficult to get over at times is what I lack off of the field of competition as compared to Olympians. What do I mean?
To begin with, support. I have friends and family members who want me to succeed in the life I have chosen. That of a writer and sometime actor. That support is appreciated. Yet when compared to the support you hear in the countless stories of individuals at the Olympics, it isn’t sufficient much of the time. The stories I hear from London, (and from the other Games before it) about those who wouldn’t let the athlete quit, and refused to let the athlete lose faith…I am not familiar with that sort of constant, demonstrative support. When things get hard, (and they almost always are for me, who still hasn’t reached the level of success he needs to), I envy such vocal support.
Outside of my family I attribute some of that to the mysterious X-Factor, present my entire life, that discourages people from investing in me emotionally. I simply don’t inspire too many people to cheer me on. It’s depressing and frustrating, but true. People in my life may wish me well, but by and large don’t believe enough in me or what I do (am trying to do) to go out of their way to express that.
Some of it I am sure is due to the nature of the life I have chosen. Writing is a solitary endeavor in many ways. And it is not flashy. One cannot sit in a stadium and cheer for someone as they write. In the very least it would not be at all practical to do so. Therefore the lack of sexiness in what I do may be a fraction of the reason it doesn’t inspire people. Yet I would counter that not every Olympic event is “sexy”, and yet competitors in every event share almost the same story of unyielding vocal support from someone or another. A story with which, by and large, I am unfamiliar.
The solitary nature of the work, (at least until an editor gets hold of it) can also be thanked for the lack of training/coaching I get. True, I can taking writing classes, and hire individuals to improve any given aspect of my writing or career, one aspect at a time. (In theory.) But unlike Olympic sports, training, support, and coaching are not built into what I do. If I wanted to be an Olympic fencer, I could not simply buy the equipment, and whip myself into shape, and hope to compete. I would need in the very least a coach. It would not be an option I could avail myself of, but a requirement in order to be allowed into the sport.
Writing has no such built-in coaching structure. I do not have the advantage of someone to review what I have done each day, make suggestions for corrections, and praise what I am doing well. I am in a writers group which supplies some of that sort of advice about twice a month. And I greatly appreciate them. But it can hardly take the place of coaching.
When you write, you have to be your own encouragement. (Especially when, as I said, you have so little “out loud, in-your-face” emotional support from others.)
Another example of this distance between what I do and what Olympians do; a great deal of credit is given to athletes simply for being at the Games. Smaller countries with little Olympic budgets that field five athletes tend to treat those athletes like heroes when they come home after the games. This is true even if the athletes bring home no medals.
Actually this is true even for larger countries. Most Americans on the Olympic team this year have no shot at a medal, and yet are thrilled to just be on the team. (Again, as are their families and friends.) When you are a writer, you don’t get such esteem merely for trying.
Partly because there is no one centralized internationally renowned stage upon which we can execute our craft. And partly because in the writing world you are essentially stamped an amateur or a wannabe until/if you are published. The Olympic equivalent of being told you are worthless unless you bring home the gold medal in every event you are in, in every Olympics you are in. A ridiculous standard that writers tend to be held to all of the time.
Making it worse, that standard is not objective. There are unfair moments for athletes to be sure, but by and large if a sprinter crosses the finish line first, he wins. A writer doesn’t win unless his manuscript happens to land in the lap of the exact right person on the exact right day. Or unless their ideas happen impress many magazines over the course of a year. One cannot even train for that. One can’t be coached into knowing how Agent X is going to feel any given day, or what Editor Y is going to want for their issue 8 months from now.
In short, what I have dedicated my time to is a solitary, unsexy, misunderstood endeavor with a steep metric for esteem and success, dictated by 100% subjective officials. Coupled with my personal unpopularity, it is a lonely life at times which requires me to be not only the athlete, but my own coach, my own counselor, my own judge and my own publicist. I too have to play through the pain, but the pain is invisible. I accomplish impressive things that nobody cares about or understands because they are not the grand prize.
I want to quit often, but have nobody there but myself to prevent me from doing so. There is nobody there to make sure I get out of bed and do this stuff when I don’t see the point. My story will never be told on television if I fail. I will receive no heroes welcome from anyone when I return home, and in fact, do not often leave home anyway, because I am trying to write myself into a life.
It can get old, I assure you. Especially when I see so many stories from London, and indeed other places outside of the Olympic Games.
Look, I am not suggesting that people should find the process of writing interesting to watch. It isn’t. Writing is not a spectator event. When writing excites people, it isn’t until years after the event is concluded. (Talk about a tape delay!)I am merely expressing frustration at the fact that writers need just as much, if not more applause, outward appreciation for efforts, and admiration for just making the attempt as your average world-class athlete does. Some of them, with more vocal friends that live a less lonely life than I do get some of that. But only some.
There is a little hope, I suppose. J.K. Rowling, a writer, had a short but significant role in the opening ceremonies of these games. Her personal creation, the character of Voldemort, had an even larger role in same. She is not an Olympian, but was a part of the Olympics. And while her situation is unique, I suppose it does suggest that with a lot of luck, (something Olympians would not deny belief in) a writer can one day get the sort of Olympic, vocal appreciation and attention and encouragement of which I speak.
Book Review: Susan Cain’s “Quiet”
Last night I finished reading Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. As I mentioned in my review on Goodreads, I think this book has value, and I applaud Cain for writing it. However, I felt somewhat disappointed in my experience with same.
The title of the book, and indeed the publicity I have heard about it from others throughout the course of the year it has been released led me to believe that it would be mainly a treatise on the significance of introverts, what they have contributed, and most importantly, how introverts like myself can make use of what their natural tendencies are in order to succeed in an extrovert-oriented society. While there was some of that, especially pertaining to children near the end of the book, most of it was far more scientific than I was prepared for.
I understand that research citation is important, and I don’t fault the author for doing so. Yet it seemed that no sooner had I finished reading about one experiment, then I turned the page to read about yet another. I’m sure all of the experiments and studies and surveys that Cain cites are quite important to the field of personality psychology, but there is only so much of, “They brought 250 college students into a room, and showed half of them this, while the other half were showed that. After an hour each group was instructed to write down so and so, but were not told thus and such.” After a time, it felt more like a text book, and I glazed a bit here and there with the seemingly endless accounts of studies.
In other words, I get it. My brain as an introvert works differently. My cerebral cortex shows different activity under an MRI scan during certain stimuli than that of an extrovert. But I kept asking myself, sometimes to the point of anxious excitement, “but what can I do with this information that will make my life a bit easier? Where is the talk of this ‘power of introverts’ promised in title?”
In the end, this book would be ideal for those of either a highly scientific mind, (I am not, really), or those that have no previous knowledge of the fact that there is a biological component to their introversion. For such readers this could serve as a marvelous point of realization. But for me, it addressed the peripheral (the biology) and skirted around the practical. (What can I do each day to harness my power as an introvert?)
I did appreciate the subtle skewering Cain provides in some cases when describing the extrovert ideal. She would probably not agree that she is skewering it as a concept, but I feel that she is. At least skewering its place as a universal that some would bestow upon it. Her experiences at a Tony Robbins lecture display this absurdity beautifully, and I think perhaps this insider account is my favorite part of the book.
When not citing specific studies, experiments, or theories the book visits with real people. During these segments I felt somewhat more at home as a reader. I could indeed identify with the plight of any given introvert Cain interviewed for the chapter. Particularly when she covered the nature of fights within a marriage between opposite personalities. Even more so when describing the experiences of introverted children as they described their struggles in the extrovert factory known as school on our society.
These stories hit home with me, and I appreciated their inclusion. But I don’t think the book spends enough time on such things. And it doesn’t go far enough to relate those subjects’ experience to what the reader can do. Cain mentions provides some perspective on what the subjects could do, and by indirect extension what the reader could do. Yet as I said, other than the final chapter aimed specifically at parents of introverted kids, the book lacks specific guidance in most cases.
Perhaps the book is designed that way. Perhaps its target audience is in fact extroverts who love and work with introverts, and have no clue what to do. If so, while the book is still light on practical advice, it may serve a larger purpose as an introductory text. It may help those who are gregarious and extroverted understand that we introverts are not weird, anti-social or necessarily shy. So educated by Cain, perhaps they can start treating and viewing people like myself differently. If that happens, the book will end up being a much appreciated work. Just not in the way I initially expected it to be.
Character Counts
Before Friday evening’s rehearsal for Richard III, our director talked to us for a few minutes. She is pleased with our progress and is excited about how the show is already coming together in places. Many of us feel the same way. Yet she shared with us her belief that for the last few days we may have been over-thinking what we were doing. (She graciously included herself in this concern.)
Thinking and analysis are good, she reminded us. However she expressed that perhaps in all of the thinking we were doing lately we were starting to get a little too far away from feeling the play, and our characters in particular. To that end, she sent each of us off for a few minutes to contemplate in silence what our characters, as we are playing them, are all about.
“The are great characters,” she said.
And they are. The time spent considering that did make my performance better that night. (It probably didn’t hurt that after the exercise, one of my monologues was the first thing we did to open rehearsal.)
Though of course they are not the same thing, writing fiction and portraying characters on the stage have many things in common. Both here and on Always Off Book I have talked about the similarities. Perhaps no similarity between the two is stronger than that of characters. In both cases to have an optimum product you must present interesting, memorable characters that feel real to the reader or audience.
Yes, the playwright does much of this. But it is the actor that must do something with what is written, and no plot, be it ever so clever, is going to save a show if the actor has no clue as to the nature of his character.
When we write fiction, some of us love our descriptions. Or we want to create a unique, intricate plot, and become a master of twists and turns. Every one of these things, when used well, can make for excellent fiction. Yet they all tend to fade into irrelevance if the characters in our stories make no impressions on our readers.
When I write fiction I am not a pantser. That is to say, I don’t wing it 100%. I do outline plot points and sequences, and write brief descriptions of characters. Not as detailed as some of my colleagues, but I do have an idea of who my characters are when I start.
I am saying nothing at all new here, of course. You’ve heard all of this before. But just as even Major League Baseball players still take batting practice everyday before a game, the fundamentals of good fiction are worth repeating.
So I thought I would share with you how I think the exercise before our rehearsal on Friday can help you get into touch and recognize characters in your fiction.
-To begin with, I thought of the lines spoken by my character during my brief meditation. What someone says may not always be an exact match of what they are feeling, but nonetheless what they say and how the choose to say it reveals a great deal about the character. Based on this, I tried to determine what my character might say in a situation not presented within the script.
Expanding his words beyond those provided by Shakespeare helped remind me that there is a universe more to him than what is seen on the pages or on the stage when I play him. I can’t consider 100% of it in detail, natrually. But if I ponder just how much there is to someone, that informs what of the character I present to others. We can and should do those for the characters we write as well.
-Then I considered how Buckingham (my character in the play) feels about the other characters. Who does he like and dislike, and why. How can I express these feelings in Buckingham, without adding more words? (Which I cannot in a script.) I think of facial expressions I can use, stances I can stand in, and how he may walk into one room vs another. I practice those things. I try them out. I see what fits. What feels authentic to my performance, I keep in. If it feels insincere or forced, no matter how popular the choice may be, I throw it out. If you can’t experiment with fiction, even with the nature of your characters, you may not be ready to write much of it.
Plus, our characters are revealed in fiction as much through what they do and how they react, as they are through description.
-“What’s my motivation,” is a stereotypical actor’s question. Yet it’s not without merit, because everything a character does on stage should have some kind of purpose. That isn’t to say that one must be trying to obtain something every second. Some people feel this is necessary, but I do not. I do however believe that a character should always desire something, and that the actor should use such desires as guideposts for how to proceed. Even if all they want is water.
In fiction we know how important motivation can be. Again, I don’t like it when I read about a character who is plotting constantly. I like characters to have down time, as well, so they feel like actual people. I just want them to always be up to something, even if that something is thinking.
-At the same time, sometimes a cigar is a cigar. If I allow myself to assign meaning to every thing my character does on stage, my performance would not only be exhausting, but stiff. Fake-looking even. Though I have worked with directors who insist that every sip of tea your character takes on stage must have its own meaning and motivation, I don’t enjoy doing so. Because when taken too far, symbolism weakens story and character. It should be a salt, lightly applied here and there, and not the meal itself.
Literary fiction does of course have a great deal of symbolism. Yet even literary works that expect to not choke the reader in prose must at times simply allow a character to walk into a room and sit down. If you try to infuse each and every action of your character with special meaning or hidden significance, your writing becomes tedious, and your meaning lost.
-I also like to prepare for rehearsal each night, and not just during last nights special exercises, by strolling around the performance space. Getting familiar with it again. Warming my senses up to it. I walk through the entrance and exists I have. And I recite to myself some speeches and lines for my character, standing where he will be standing in the show when he delivers them. I do this to become ultra-familiar with as much of the role as possible. When I do this, it can become almost second nature eventually. That way when the more difficult things arise, I have a better foundation upon which to build.
When you write fiction, think about your character in his most familiar settings. Even better, write about him there. These parts don’t have to go into your story, but write sometimes about the things you already know about your character and his story. Write a scene you are happy with three more times in different ways. Think of the part of your manuscript that gave you the least trouble, the one with which you are most satisfied, and read it over and over again. Immerse yourself into the familiar aspects of your writing, and let them guide you when you get to segments of your narrative about which you are not as certain.
-I like my characters to seem real. But I must also remember that because it is a play and they are in fact characters, they cannot be 100% in tune with our world. Any play, even a “realistic” one is full of characters who behave and speak, even think in ways slightly elevated from those in the “real” world. That is because to be economic and to hold attention, we cannot, in a play, include all the daily tedium of a person’s life.
The same is true with fiction. We must remind ourselves as writers that when we write a story, what is happening is ever so slightly elevated above, or enhanced beyond our world. It can be a near-perfect reflection of our world, but there are fewer rough edges in effective realistic fiction than there are in the world.
-Finally, I try to step into the character as I meditate at such times. See things as he might. Feel what he feels. Sympathize with his plight. Because so long as he is my character, I must sympathize with some aspect of him. If I loath him 100%, I cannot play him.
I maintain that if as an author you cannot see anything redeeming in your characters, even the evil ones, you cannot write them fully. Your readers may never know where you sympathize with one of your characters, but you will, and you will be better for it.
If you can, even try talking like one of your characters sometime, and see what sort of great dialogue you might end up with!
So, acting and writing fiction. Not twins, but cousins at least. Or friends with a lot in common. You don’t have to go on stage to make use of the suggestions I present here, though. You just need to commit yourself to the task of making characters alive. Because it is characters that keep people coming back to your story, and it is your characters they will miss when they have completed it.
Simpatico?
I sometimes worry about how little I seem to relate to other writers.
I’m in a writing group now that I quite enjoy. I like those folks as people. I tweet things about writing fiction and naturally here on the blog I discuss the same thing. Much of what I say, if not read by a large audience is nonetheless usually well received when it comes to my thoughts and plans regarding writing. Those things notwithstanding, I have to say that I have yet to feel that I have been fully simpatico with other writers. Nor do I think they are simpatico with me.
Is this a requirement to be a writer? I suppose not. Famous writers are often lonely, isolated sorts, I realize. Yet in most cases they wanted no sympathetic ear as they went on their writing journeys, I dare say. In my case, I sometimes wish I didn’t feel so distant from the fellowship of writers.
This distance of which I speak may be all my own fault. I am so eccentric and against the grain for so many things in life, I would not be at all surprised to learn that the way I approach writing, and am effected by same is so different that there will always be a sense of not connecting with other writers. Of not feeling what other writers feel. I should be okay with this, I know. Yet questions arise.
Do I not lose myself in my writing enough? Am I not sufficiently obsessed with my plots and characters? Do I spend too little time writing? Too much time thinking about same? Is it possible that I have not explored what writing is to me in a fashion that is emotional enough to enter the ranks of other fiction writers? Am I afraid to do so, or do I simply find such an exploration unnecessary?
Maybe despite my intellectual skill in writing, I have not yet allowed my own heart to delve into the true nature of writing stories, and hence feel less connected with other writers. If that is true, what has prevented me? If that is not true, what’s the deal?
Then there is the possibility that I am over-thinking this entire issue. (I am prone to over-thinking.) True, perhaps I don’t feel as though my characters and plots grab me by the throat and drag me everyday into their universe, as I have heard happens to other writers. It could be that for me an idea for a story or novel doesn’t keep me up most nights. Beyond a certain point, I can’t relate to those writers that do experience these things.
Yet in the end it may not matter. Perhaps there are others who like me take a more casual approach to bringing stories to life. Those who proceed more like a scientist making a slow, deliberate discovery when they have a story to write, as opposed to a wizard bringing spells into colorful, sense-overloading life.
It seems that as a writer I know there is something hidden deep in the jungle, but must hack my way through the foliage, avoiding creatures and sweating profusely in order to get to it. Before embarking on any given story, therefore, I must consider one question above all others; is what lies at the heart of this jungle worth getting to it in the first place? I may not always get the right answer at first, but unlike some, I have to ask this question, so solemn a struggle can writing be for me. There may be others that feel this way. Yet I wonder where they are.
What does this mean? I can think of many possibilities, none of which are 100% satisfying. I could be unsuited for writing fiction. I may not have allowed my own writing to touch me in the way I want it to touch other people. I could have some sort of mental imbalance, present in my entire life that also effects how I feel about writing, and other writers. Perhaps I could relate to other writers on a deeper level about their work, but subconsciously have refused to do so, in order to protect my own experience. Then of course there is the possibility that none of it is as much of an issue as I fear right now.
Still, the end result is the same…I don’t quite feel the fellowship with other writers of fiction that I long for at times. Maybe that is not my lot, or maybe one day it will come after all. Whichever happens, am I as much of a writer of fiction as my colleagues? I imagine time will tell.
Where in the World Are Ty’s Characters?
A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with another writer. The topic turned to settings for our stories. My novel came up and I mentioned that I had started out with the intention to set the story in a real town near where I live. I mentioned however that soon after I started writing, I abandoned the idea. It turns out my friend had gone through the same thing with one of his works. He had even began to check maps and such to determine street positions, but grew tired of that and wanted to get on with the story. So he set his fiction in a generic town in the same region as the actual city he started in.
It turns out that he and I rarely set our fiction in actual locations. There are of course people who always do so, and I can’t promise that I never will. Yet by default I prefer to keep my settings either non-specific or fictitious. Here are a few reasons why.
1) Greater Control. When my stories take place in an imagined location, I can place buildings any where I please, of course. A store can be within walking distance of a character’s house if that will make a chapter more efficient. If I think the mood of a piece can be improved by having a river nearby, I simply write one in. I’m not constricted by the actual geography of a town, city, or area.
2) Less research. I think research can be great for certain types of fiction. It can even be fun for the writer. I have done some research for some of my stories in the past. Some writers love to do months of it before they put down a single word, and that’s fine. Yet if I have a story idea I want to get out, I’m most anxious to introduce the world to the characters and what they have encountered and will do about it. If in order to tell that story I have to download maps of a city and lay out where my characters can and cannot walk to as the plot unfolds, I am losing momentum. When I create the setting, I can jump into the story much faster.
3) Keeping (some) nitpickers at bay. “I grew up in Stockdon Delaware, and I can assure you that there is no way in hell that a normal person in the dead of winter could walk from McPheely’s Bar to the public library branch in less than 30 minutes. Especially if the Snowflake Festival is on, because that takes all week, and the streets are packed.” I don’t want to deal with this jackass. Do you?
4) The focus remains on the story. Let’s say you don’t need research. Let’s say you’re intimately familiar with a real-life setting you choose to set your novel in. Your hometown, perhaps. I could do this if I wanted, and again I have thought about it. I know enough of Frederick, Maryland to convince locals that my characters are walking around in same. But that is just the point. If I set my stories in Frederick, Maryland only locals or former locals are going to appreciate the references.
The vast majority of readers won’t know or care that Brewer’s Alley is on Market Street or whether you can see the Baker Park Carrilon from the steps of the old armory. Perhaps I could weave an intriguing plot out of those specific facts, but I’d have to write more exposition, I dare say. And even if I didn’t, those things only hold special significance to Fredericktonians, who likely would be taken out of my story by the familiarity. They’d think of Frederick and not my story. I prefer to direct the imaginations of readers to characters and their situation, with the setting usually as background. Not to reminding them of a real place they may or may not have heard of.
5) It’s more fun for me. Simple enough, right?
There are of course many counters to each of my five reasons listed here. For some having a story set in a real place gives it greater depth. For others the real-life setting is a character in and of itself, the effects of which can not be replicated by a fictitious city. I understand all of that, and like I said, I may myself make use of real locations someday.
But for now I am content to create characters, plot, and settings all on my own, and hopefully those that read my fiction will be content with that as well.
Do you create locations in your fiction, or rely on real places? Why or why not?
Ty Unglebower 