In which we reveal our literary scars

Scar Face
Can you match the scar with the fictional character marked by it?
Answers at bottom of page.
A) His livid white scar runs from head to toe and looks like the mark which a bolt of lightning leaves in the bark of a tree.
B) Half his face is mottled by an acid burn.
C) His white scar "divides his brow."
D) His face was striped by ritual scarring.
E) His lightning-bolt-shaped scar aches at his nemesis's notice.

1) Harry Potter (Harry Potter books)
2) Anatole Ngemba (Poisonwood Bible)
3) Sir Bors, King of Gannes, (The Arthur Legends)
4) Captain Ahab (Moby Dick)
5) Two-Face (DC Comics)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
"How-to-write" books often suggest we give our fictional folks a scar. And it's not bad advice. Scars can mark a character as sinister, like Scar in The Lion King, or sympathetic, like Octavia Butler's Dana in Kindred--and they always indicate a history of conflict, struggle, or pain. Which makes for great story-telling.

Scarry, Scarry night
But we homo sapiens may not always have formed scars--or made up stories to tell about them. In fact, our ability to create both scar tissue and narrative may have developed together. According to a theory in Psychology Today,

"Human scarring evolved alongside human intelligence. As we started relying on our brains instead of our instincts to get us out of risky situations, scars developed to act as constant reminders of our previous mistakes." (Which, if true, makes scars repositories for stories we tell ourselves . . . )

Scar tissue
Whether pre-history or post-modern, scars are a "what if," an "almost." They're a swerve from the path of a rushing train--or mastedon. Branding, ritual scarring, keloids, self-cutting, surgery, burns, breaks, bruises, battle wounds: for eons, life's marked itself indelibly on our all-too human skin. And we've lived to tell the tale.

What do you think?
How did you (or your fictional character) get that handsome/gruesome scar? C'mon. Stretch the truth as wide as you like. Fiction is wayyyyy more elastic than skin.

Characters/scars quiz answers: A=4, B=5, C=3, D=2, E=1

In which we invite you to put a Book-Chop on the grill

We had a hungry week! Here's everything we ate, in review:

Starters: Short Fiction
Best American Short Stories, 2007, Stephen King, editor
Short story fans, order this anthology from the menu! Even if you don't relish all these hors d’ oeuvres, they'll educate your palate.

Entrees: Two Novels
Bodies, Jed Mercurio
The city hospital:As grueling as it is to be a patient here, Mercurio convinces us--in tough-as-pizza-crust prose--it's worse to be an intern. Patients, after all, either die or get to go home.
Tell No Lies, Julie Compton
Yeah, yeah, Julie's one of ours, but, honest-as-applesauce, this is a great read! Kirkus gives Tell No Lies a starred review, saying, "Compton's debut is a taut, tense cautionary tale complete with courtroom drama and a surprise ending." See. It's not just us.

Side Dish: The Writing Business
2008 Guide to Literary Agents, Chuck Sambuchino, editor
Yup. It's a business. This annual listing of those who'll put down the pen and pick up the phone on our behalves also offers appetizing articles for those just wading into the publishing soup.

Just Desserts: Poetry
The Best American Poetry, 2004, Lyn Hejinian, guest editor
We didn't love all they served. But it was on sale at Borders--and it's good for us! Eat what you like. Leave the rest on your plate.
Loose Women, Sandra Cisneros
Yeah baby! This Chicano girl tells us just how it is, poem after poem hurtling us along a righteous chocolate fountain of a ride.

What do you think?
What can you add to this for your summer reading list? Have fun, get smart, ride the wave.

In which we sweep out the corners of our prose with a Chametz feather

Northern lights
In Boston, Bebe sweeps the corners of her cupboards with a feather. She's gathering Chametz, crumbs of leavened bread she must burn before Passover begins. Bebe sweeps the Chametz with a feather so as not to damage anything else she might brush in passing.

Arrogant bread
Each year at Passover, Jewish homes are cleared of every bit of Chametz, that swollen, leavened, dough which has risen up so boastfully. In it's place, we honor her humble cousin, the unassuming Matzoh, laid so thin, so flat, so meek upon our table.

When Bebe sweeps the leavened Chametz crumbs, she commemorates her Jewish ancestors who fled Egypt too quickly for their own bread to rise. But too, with the crumbs, she sweeps from herself her own personal Chametz--her arrogance and pride.

Under the same full moon
A thousand miles to the south, I sweep the corners of my prose. Dragging a gentle cursor, I gather my leavened words: Expensive words puffed full of over-weening boastfulness. Too-clever words that obscure the sense they're trying to make. Extravagant words that overwhelm the others, causing them to turn away in shame.

Each, I examine carefully--then, tapping the delete key, I sweep the Chametz from the page.

What do you think?
What does the ritual removal of Chametz suggest about the editing of your own work? Do you use a feather? Or a knife?

In which we smell the smoke of a writer's pants that have somehow, inadvertantly, caught on fire

School dazed
Sarah, a novelist who's currently at work on her third book, visited her son Aaron's 4th grade class for "career day." She brought copies of her first two books to show as examples, then told the room full of ten-year olds about her creative process. Sort of.

Mrs. Gregg, Aaron's teacher, asked, "How do you begin your books?" "First," Sarah replied, "I decide exactly what is going to happen in my story. Then I make an outline." And, to a class of eager, maybe-someday-writers, Sarah turned to the white board to demonstrate--in blue and red markers--how to outline fiction.

Neverland
But Sarah doesn't outline! She doodles, hoping to coax a character from the ethers. When one appears, Sarah lets him drag her through the briars and thickets of his fictional world until, finally, they arrive at the end of a draft. No outline. Never.

So why tell 27 ten-year olds that writing a novel is more like plotting a road trip than like clutching at the mane of an appaloosa stallion who's carting you head-long across an unmarked plain?

Sympathetic fallacy
Deep in her artist's heart, Sarah believes she's supposed to know what she's doing: she should be able to measure her process, weigh it, report its progress scientifically. After all, that's what the famous novelist that visited Sarah's 4th grade class told her.

It's Sarah's own crazy courage, though, no outline, that drives her into unknowable inner territory, urging her to follow a single quavering note through impossible canyons of emptiness into the sudden fragrant spaces where her stories, singing softly, await.

The hundred thousand dollar question
"And exactly how do you tell that to a classroom of ten-year olds?" Sarah asks us. We're not sure, Sarah. But how do you not?

What do you think?
What's the truth about how you make art? Do you doodle first? Are you led blindfolded by forces beyond you? Do you wish there was a formula? Or have you found one?

In which we list some reasons to create lists in your fiction

A million to one
In fiction, lists can influence a reader's experience in a million ways. Here are five to get you started.

1) A list of items can lend specific flavor to a scene:

·       On the table, a bowl of fruit--a mango, three ripe papayas, two tiny pineapples, a bright starfruit, and the kiwis

·       On the table, a bowl of fruit--two fading apples, one bruised pear, one shriveled tangerine

2) A list of possessions can distinguish one character from another and provide insight into their habits, faults, aspirations:

·       In Jen's purse: one bottle "I'm Not Really a Waitress" crimson nail polish, an eyelash curler, two Trojan Extra Pleasure condoms, eighty-six cents, a baby's teething ring.

·       In Wendy's purse: a commuter rail ticket stub, an empty, wadded sandwich bag, dental floss, a pack of Virginia Slims, a matchbook with "Sam--227-3629" scribbled on it.

3) A list of verbs can create action in a scene:

·       Chasing a lizard, the cat leapt from the kitchen counter, galloped over the sofa, banged against the window, ricocheted into the antique vase, and crashed with it to the floor.

4) A list can provide motivation for a character:

·       Jim's hunger prods him. It aches his bones, creaks his stomach around its empty core. Jim's hunger gurgles at Lori, munching a Beefy King, just a foot, a quick leap, a single grab away.

5) A list can also create a history for a character:

·       High school, John boxed pumps, loafers at the shoe factory. College, he delivered clogs to the outlet malls. Senior year, he measured feet. Grad school, he sketched for Jimmy Choo.

What do you think?
What other narrative heavy lifting do lists perform?

In which we recommend a book that reveals your fictional character's archetypal journey

Campbell's Soup
Joseph Campbell studied myths and other archetypal stories looking for patterns useful to modern lives. Our lives. And he found 'em. Archetypes are archetypal 'cause they apply universally.

Heroic act
Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces reveals the structure underlying a million myths: "The hero, introduced in her ordinary world, is called to adventure. Reluctant, she's encouraged by a wise person across a threshold where she finds both tests and helpers.

"In the innermost cave, she endures a supreme ordeal, seizes a sword (or treasure), and is pursued on her way back to her world. Resurrected (or transformed) by her experience, she returns to her ordinary life with a treasure or elixir to benefit the world."

If it ain't broke, don't . . .
Contemporary writers often follow this "hero story"--sometimes unconsciously. Their readers hunger for it. A pattern etched into our DNA, we recognize it even if it's cloaked in non-heroic garb. Ditch the sword and cave, we'll still see the hero struggling to prevail.

Once upon a 21st century time
In The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler points out the hero's journey underlying a hundred modern films. Once you see it, Vogler helps you apply the hero's archetypal power to your own work.

What do you think?
In which films or books do you find the mythic structure hiding?

In which we ask, "when is a house more than a house?"

Character Actors
Monday night, Arianna created a Midwestern farm for her characters May and Richard. A unanimous workshop said, "Farm as character."

Really? Surely farms--barns, silos, rows of corn--are distinct from the folks working them. How do "characters" earn the name?

Job description:

1.   Characters offer emotional touchstones, express feelings readers can identify with or react against.

2.   Characters act. They move the story along.

3.   Characters rub up against one another, sparking conflict.

4.   They make judgments about other characters.

5.   They conceptualize, add layers of meaning to their worlds.

Survey says . . .
Crawford Kilian: " . . . the setting really is a kind of character in the story. . . shap[ing] the other characters, making some actions inevitable and others impossible."
Susan Meisner: "I like to make my setting a character, to endow it with character-like qualities that give my tale dimension."
Patrick A. Velardi: "Setting can be the primary motivational factor . . . forcing characters to do and say whatever is said and done."

What do you think?
When is a cigar factory just a cigar factory, and when does it take on a life of its own?

In which we learn it's not how many syllables you have, it's what you do with them that counts

Hi, u cutie!
Haiku, that most diminutive of poetic forms, wraps itself tight enough to fit onto the tiny candy message heart a second-grader gives his Valentine.

Brick house
Built of just seventeen syllables, these Japanese-style poems celebrate the commonplace, the natural, the plain-Jane everyday with a subtle shift of perception that gives the mortal moment a luminous immortality, past . . .

You rice-field maidens!
The only things not muddy
Are the songs you sing."
--Raizan

. . . and present

Deserted steel-mill.
Along the Ohio River,
Chromatic butterfly."
--John

The Cider House Rules
Aside from syllable count, and the conventional three-line, 5-7-5 metric pattern (neither of which is an absolute imperative when writing haiku in English), the "rules of the road" for haiku are more philosophical than structural:

The Haiku for People website tells us,
1) Be brief. The tighter the better.
2) Focus on a single moment. Present tense preferred.
3) Evoke a season. Snow can indicate winter, but the seasonal reference need not be obvious to create the quality desired.
4) A "cutting" slices each haiku in two, allowing an imaginative distance, a creative tension, to pull between the sections.

All of which makes Lynnie-Lou say,

Haiku,
the ghost of a riddle
in a slip of poem."

Freestylin'
Big moon quarter rising,
black sky oily with white.
White cat slinking,
rimmed with black of night.
(Oy! 20 syllables--and confusing! But it's a start. At least I've got the basic images.)

Big moon quarter rising
black sky oiled with its white--
White cat slinking,
rimmed with night.
(19 syllables--is this one clearer? It seems tighter than the loss of just one syllable should make it.)

Half moon rising
oils black sky white.
White cat slinking
rimmed dark with night.
(16 syllables--but not worth it to lose the "big quarter.")

Big moon quarter, rising,
oils black sky white.
White cat slinking,
rimmed with night.
(17! Is it a coincidence that I like this one best? Maybe. Even though, strictly speaking, this is not a haiku. Still, I learned a lot about brevity—if not wit—in the writing of it.)

What do you think?
Say it loud! Say it proud! What can you report in just seventeen syllables?