Category: Writing Workshop

Lynch (One)

The Landscape of Alan Moore, which we discussed yesterday, awoke in me the interest to see another documentary on one of our scarce mad geniuses alive, the ever original David Lynch.

Lynch (One) covers a period of about two years (2005-2006) and witnesses the recording of some videos for DavidLynch.com affiliates, the creation of some of his pictorial works and the shooting of scenes for his most recent feature film Inland Empire. Unfortunately, the selection of rather unsignificant moments tells us very little about the character or his creative force.

Forget being the best of anything. That’s the fruit of the action, and you do the work -they say- for the doing, not the fruit. You can never really know how it’s gonna turn out in the world but you know if you enjoy doing it. And ideas start flowing and you start, you know, getting excited about stuff. Then you’re having a great time in the doing and that’s what it’s all about. If you don’t enjoy the doing, then do something else.

Lynch praises the virtues of meditation, as he did in Catching the Big Fish -which we can discuss some other day-, and invites all artists to medidate in order to -according to his words- reach a state of pure creativity. He then refutes the theory that the artist must suffer in order to create, and claims that artists will be more creative the happier they are. Beyond these claims, the apprentice genius -or even the Lynch fan- will get very little out of this boring documentary.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore

I finally watched “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” last night. In a few words, this documentary offers an exclusive interview with the author over a background of phychedelic images.

I didn’t know what to expect of this piece, and even after watching it I’m not very sure what to think of it. The images are mostly irrelevant and merely decorate -rather than illustrate- the words of the author. The same content could have been translated -perhaps more faithfully- as a podcast or a radio interview, but I guess the potential audience -Alan Moore fans and consequently comic readers- will appreciate the audiovisual component.

Contents dwell briefly upon a variety of subjects. Moore introduces himself with some brief autobiographical stories, goes on to review the evolution of some of his works and finally focuses on the main topic: his thoughts on our society and culture, touching upon themes such as art, sexuality or religion. Perhaps the greatest fault of this documentary is that it covers so many important topics in such a short time that each of them lacks depth. Though I can say that at least I finally came to understand what Moore means when he refers to himself as a “magician” -though I’ll leave the explanation to those who take the time to see the video.

Viewers searching “The Mindscape…” for analysis of his works or writing methods will be disappointed, as these topics are only superficially mentioned. Still, I found myself taking notes and copying quotes for future use in the workshop.

On the other hand, admirers of the issues explored in Moore’s comics will find many ideas on which to dwell. Personally, in spite of my usual despise for modern prophets, I found Moore has a very clear, unique view of the world we live in that deserves being explored. “The Mindscape…” has awakened my hunger not for writing, but for learning, and this is always good for any writer.

It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience – they would be the artist. It is the job of the artists to give the audience what they need.

Three in one

Time for reader’s questions again. Perhaps some other day we’ll continue with the “Eccentrics” series, if you like it.

Freddy Orea Lanz writes from Venezuela to ask:

I’mwriting my first novel. Everything is define, I know where I’m going to and where I want to get, but I start by narrating three initially unrelated events (whose significance becomes apparent later) that take place in different locations. I need to make these changes of location clear without the need to use commonplaces such as “Meanwhile”, “In the meantime”…

OK, let me get in a replying mood.

Now I’m ready. As usual, dear listener, the question can only be answered by the author himself, but let’s do some brainstorming.

The first idea that comes to mind is simple: you can write three independent chapters, with their header or their line break or both. Sometimes these psysical separations are the simplest of solutions.

[…] text text text about Character A in Location X.

New paragraph with text text text that ends Event 1.

[rest of the page is blank. Next page:]

II

Beginning of Event 2 with Character B in Location Y, and text text text […]

If the events are so brief that they do not justify a whole chapter each, the separation can be as simple as a double line break. You only need to leave a little space between the final paragraph of one scene and the first paragraph of the next scene.

[…] text text text about Character A in Location X.

New paragraph with text text text that ends Event 1.

Beginning of Event 2 with Character B in Location Y, and text text text […]

If these structural ideas don’t work for you, then we have to enter the text itself.

The rest of options that come to mind would have to deal with the content of the text itself. Ask yourself questions. Do I really need all three scenes at the beginning, or can they be told later, as the become relevant? May I connect the three scenes somehow, or the two most interesting ones, leaving the third for later? These events are the beginning of my novel, are they a good start? All three of them? When I have trapped the attention of the reader, will I lose it by switching character and location? Should I tell them in the shortest possible way, as some kind of introductory anecdotes? Could they form together a preface in three parts? Or could I come up with a narrative voice who, as in Amèlie, connects the events not through the facts themselves but through the eyes that filter them?

You may need to fully write some of these variations to find out how well they work. the final answer, my writer friend, only you can find.

Eccentrics II

We saw yesterday what some widows do with the legacy of their venerable husbands. Salinger had declared that he wouldn’t sell the movie rights to Catcher in the Rye in order to leave that possibility to his family as inheritance – but selling his toilet and signing an authenticity letter sounds a bit excessive.

But then, the world is full of eccentric people. Today we present mancunian Jonathan Callan, who has decided that wedging a book under a table’s leg is too old a joke and has found new uses for his library. He now devotes his patience and screws to construct these pieces of, ahem, art. Sorry, I got a cough there.

No, really, I think it’s really creative – but a tad ugly too, right?

What’s the strangest thing you’ve done with a book?

Eccentrics I

Don’t be misled by the title. Even though I talked of empathy yesterday, I don’t intend to write today about the opposite, curiosity. I’m going to tell you about real-life eccentrics that have nothing to do with creative writing but they do with books – and we have a laugh, what the heck, after all it’s summer, at least in this hemisphere – if you can call that thing outside my German window “summer”.

The point is, eBay offers the possibility to bid on J. D. Salinger’s toilet. Seriously. Beware mysophobics: this article is intended for real mythomaniacs, as it comes -quote- “uncleaned” -unqoute-. So if you have a million dollars and you don’t know what to do with it, you can donate it to the workshop or -almost literally- throw it down the toilet, whatever you see fit.

But while you think about what to do with your money, others have already decided what to do with their books – though I’ll tell you that tomorrow.

And you, what memorabilia from selected authors do you treasure? Personally, the weirdest thing I remember doing was after the death of Frank McCourt, whom I had not read yet. As soon as I read about his demise, I decided to buy Angela’s Ashes, and it turned out that a seller on Amazon was selling an autographed copy for very little, so I got it before it revalued. By the way, I loved the book. But apart from a few signed copies, I don’t think I own anything too strange. Do you?

Empathy and resemblance

Un libro es un espejo
A book is a mirror?

On sesion 17 of our Spanish-language podcast we discussed how resemblance generates empathy, while difference creates curiosity: two opposite poles that we can use to attract the attention of readers. Today I’d like to emphasize the first idea with several examples.

For example romantic novels have a mainly female readership, and indeed their protagonist is most frequently a woman. Of course there’s also always a male main character to complete the couple, but the true heroin is, in 99,9% of the cases, the girl.

Similarly, tipically masculine genres like trial or spy novels are always populated by cops, lawyers and soldiers – of the masculine gender.

But we find the most evident examples in cinemas. Aren’t the protagonists in children’ movies always children? Aren’t teenagers, in horror flicks? Or women, in romantic movies? There are exceptions -as with everyhing else in life- but the standard is clear, right?

I am aware that most of my readers don’t write genre fiction or with a specific audience in mind, but rather follow literary fiction and write for themselves. That’s why I won’t advice anyone to “think about your objective audience and try to bring your protagonist as close to them as possible”, even though I could say it – in fact I just have. Instead we can also apply the rule backwards: from your main character you may infer the main body of your potential audience. Such information can be quite useful, for example when deciding what contests or publishing houses to send the work to, or who among your friends and contacts can give you an appropriate opinion, similar to your potential real readers.

As often, just a topic to think about.

Which book should I buy?

Wood or Lodge?

Time for listener’s questions:

I’ve read a couple good books on writing and I’d like to find others that study fiction in further depth. I’ve seen two available online and I’d like to know your opinion on them:

I’m afraid they might be critical articles on classical authors -when I’m not interested in literary criticism- or they may be too general or superficial.

Unfortunately I don’t know any of them. I see on Amazon that Lodge’s is a compilation of articles previously published on The Independent on sunday. Each chapter deals with one topic and illustrates it with quotes from clasics, which is probably a good idea for a structure and might waken up your appetite for further reading.  According to the back cover, Wood is not an author but a critic, and according to the table of contents, two chapters are devoted to Flaubert, which is probably a waste of pages unless you know his work. Both volumes receive generally good reviews, though Lodge’s sem to be slightly better. If I had to choose among those two, I think I’d go for Lodge, but you see it’s only a first impression. If you’re really interested? Get both.

Don’t fool yourself, though: there are hardly any “advanced” manuals for writers. I still haven’t found one that takes for granted that I know the difference between first- and third-person narration and takes on from there. They all stop to explain -and frankly, one gets sick of it. The reason why they all appeal to beginners is because by doing so they expect to reach a wider audience and sell more copies. If you know a book “for experts”, please share it in the comments!

On the other hand, one learns something from every book. Sometimes it’s a detail on structure, or perhaps a new trick for writing dialogue, or a new perspective on things we thought we already knew. As we can’t possibly learn everything from one book, the more we read, the more we’ll know.

But remember: we learn writing through reading, but mainly through writing.