Monday, September 1, 2014

On Weaving a Yarn.

This is what I know about telling a story:

To tell a story, you must first create a world.

Worlds are comprised of objects, people (called characters) and circumstances.

When we read a story filled with characters who manipulate objects, and who both manipulate and are manipulated by circumstances, we sit up. We take notice. We might identify. If it is well written, we might create a connection with the characters. We might see them differently than they see themselves. We might develop X-ray vision and see through the bullshit they clothe themselves in. And we might see them as complicated people with foibles, strengths and weaknesses, hurts, fears and desires all of us share to some degree. If all those things jell what we get as readers is the sense that these characters are people. As readers, we might identify with them as we do with real people. That doesn't mean we always like them. We might sympathize with them even while they repel us or even terrify us. Skillful writers can bring us to sympathize with monsters. We might also sympathize with innocents, yet still believe they are fools for being innocent, given their circumstances and past experiences. We might pity fools and innocents in the end because they protect themselves from seeing the world as it actually is.

How we feel as readers about all these characters, their objects and the circumstances they face: It's a little like rifling through our own closet for something to wear. We try on how we feel about the characters in the story. We might travel back in our memories of people we have known. If we find something to wonder at and identify and connect with in our character clothes closet, we have become (what they call in the publishing industry) hooked.

Getting-hooked: This is when we sense we are in the hands of a gifted writer. We know we are powerless to resist. We, the readers become willing, but possibly, at the same time, unwilling riders on a roller coaster car being dragged up a very steep hill. As this happens, we might have vague impressions and premonitions. We fantasize bad outcomes. We fear for our characters. (By this point they are our characters.) We cannot turn off the fear. We're hooked and worse: We're obsessed. We cannot bear to stop reading because if we did, we would not know what happens when this set of characters, with this set of objects are forced to deal with these circumstances.

Circumstances don't stay the same. They change. They often change as the story progresses. Like some dreaded disease, as soon as they make themselves known, they may mutate. They often get worse. They always get worse. Much worse. Chaos is a talented writer's best friend.

Neither do people stay the same. (In fact, one reliable rule of thumb I often use to determine if I have a story: If your character or characters don't change during the course of a story, you don't have a story. You have a profile, a portrait or a character sketch, but not a story.) A skillful writer might not let you know right away that your principal character is changing right before your eyes. She might take you down a path that lets you believe in your character's goodness and strength to overcome all odds, until suddenly she might reveal how totally outclassed your character is by the circumstances, given the objects the character has at his disposal to deal with the circumstances. Only then will you know the truth and be swept away by the awesome realization of how far your character has fallen from the position she once occupied.

The climax of the story is analogous to the rush of the rollercoaster racing down the other side of the hill at breakneck speed. There will be blood. After all, this is no country for old men. The ending is sad, indeed. Or bittersweet. It could entail enlightenment, great happiness or horrible tragedy. The roller coaster pulls into the station and everybody gets out of their car changed in some small way, remarking and agreeing a great ride was had by all.

So, there it is: What I know about telling a story. I was reminded of this as I read Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, one of the most important novels in the literary history of South Africa. It was originally published in 1948. In the late 40s and early 50s, it was an international best seller. I grew up with a copy of that book in my home, although I never read it.

Cry, the Beloved Country tells the story of what happened in South Africa when the land was unable to support the people and their tribal way of life, when people were forced to leave the land and move to Johannesburg where everything went wrong for them. (In that way the story is identical to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath)

Here are a few things I learned about writing stories by reading Alan Paton's novel:

Don't waste words on character's thoughts (interior monologue). Only imagine what they do. Report to the reader what they do. It is a little like what a magician might recommend if he wanted us to figure out how he does tricks. Of course no magician would ever want us to figure out his tricks. But if Alan Paton were that magician, he might tell us: Watch my characters hands and feet. Focus on my characters behaviors. Focus on what happens. Put what happens into simple words.

This gives Cry, the Beloved Country restraint that has the affect of drawing the reader into the work rather than distancing the reader.

Don't waste words on backstory and exposition. Let the story happen between the people it's happening to. There are so many scenes, wonderful scenes, where Alan Paton lets the main character (who plays the role of a detective in a mystery) question other characters about why certain things happened when they left the land and arrived in Johannesburg, and why nothing went right for them. We find out the answers to the main character's questions at the same time as the main character does. Tremendous immediacy, authenticity, poignancy and reader-interest is generated. We as readers feel as though we are witness to real and important events. Drama results.

You want to create characters that readers fall in love with, identify with and are obsessed about? Leave out more than you put in. Call it spare prose, if you like, but, please spare us the details. Why? Because we the readers will supply the details. By not supplying us with all the details you help us to enjoy the writing all the more because we, as your faithful readers, fill in what you, the writer, chooses not to. In so doing, we become more involved, not less. The work becomes partly the creation of your readers. What happens in the novel happens in the readers' minds even more than it happens in the writer's mind.

More next month…