Brian Yansky's Blog, page 26
March 5, 2011
Serious Nature of Comic Fiction
I believe a novel can be funny and serious. My work usually is (to the best of my ability) funny and serious. My latest novel, ALIEN INVASION & OTHER INCONVENIENCES, begins with this line "It takes less time for them to conquer the world than it takes me to brush my teeth." It's about what happens after the aliens take over and kill most of the inhabitants of our world. It's about slavery and imperialism and ecology. There's a lot of death in it. And, yet, if I've been successful at all, there's also a lot of humor in it. You can write funny & serious and they can both even exist on the same page. It's not easy. It's walking a tightrope of tone. But it can be done.
Why is it so surprising to people that the comic and the serious can exist in a novel? Aren't we humans this way in life? Don't we cry at weddings and laugh at funerals? Sometimes in the saddest moments, even when we've lost someone, we're reminded of some quirk of that person or something they did and we laugh even as tears fall from our eyes. Sometimes, as at weddings or intensely joyful moments, we're so happy we cry.
Great comedians make us laugh at tragic things sometimes. Through their vision of a situation or verbal constructions they can make something sad funny. And it is a sad observation that many of the funniest people have a deep melancholy in them that allows them to be funny. Mark Twain said something like the secret source of humor is not joy, but sorrow. He should know.
Most of us are some mix of funny and sad and funny and serious and comic and tragic. I love fiction that mixes the two. Some examples of variations of these qualities are the following: STONER & SPAZ, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND, HUCK FINN, FEED, ELSEWHERE, GODLESS, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, and THE TRUE STORY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN to name only a few.
In my opinion there are many, many stories, both realistic and speculative, that mix comedy and serious intent. They're the ones I'm most likely to fall in love with.
Why is it so surprising to people that the comic and the serious can exist in a novel? Aren't we humans this way in life? Don't we cry at weddings and laugh at funerals? Sometimes in the saddest moments, even when we've lost someone, we're reminded of some quirk of that person or something they did and we laugh even as tears fall from our eyes. Sometimes, as at weddings or intensely joyful moments, we're so happy we cry.
Great comedians make us laugh at tragic things sometimes. Through their vision of a situation or verbal constructions they can make something sad funny. And it is a sad observation that many of the funniest people have a deep melancholy in them that allows them to be funny. Mark Twain said something like the secret source of humor is not joy, but sorrow. He should know.
Most of us are some mix of funny and sad and funny and serious and comic and tragic. I love fiction that mixes the two. Some examples of variations of these qualities are the following: STONER & SPAZ, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND, HUCK FINN, FEED, ELSEWHERE, GODLESS, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, and THE TRUE STORY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN to name only a few.
In my opinion there are many, many stories, both realistic and speculative, that mix comedy and serious intent. They're the ones I'm most likely to fall in love with.
February 27, 2011
selling out or not
Let me say first off, forgive the rant. But I am tired of hearing people say this writer or that writer sold out. I heard someone say it about Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame the other day. Look, in order to sell out you have to be writing something far below what you could write and doing it for fame and fortune. Isn't that what "selling out" means? But many writers who people say are selling-out aren't selling-out at all. They're writing what they can write. A lot of them feel passionate about what they write. How is that selling out?
You and I might not think what they write is very good. Or it might not appeal to you or me for other reasons. Of course, all of that is subjective. You might love something that I don't and I might love something that you don't, but the only writers that I consider sell-outs are those who are only writing what they write for money, career etc… That's it. They have no real love for their writing, or the craft and art, no desire to write the best they can, and so on. Those are sell-outs. Someone who sells a lot of books writing in a popular genre usually isn't a sell-out. They're just writing what they can write--like the rest of us.
Or so I think today.
You and I might not think what they write is very good. Or it might not appeal to you or me for other reasons. Of course, all of that is subjective. You might love something that I don't and I might love something that you don't, but the only writers that I consider sell-outs are those who are only writing what they write for money, career etc… That's it. They have no real love for their writing, or the craft and art, no desire to write the best they can, and so on. Those are sell-outs. Someone who sells a lot of books writing in a popular genre usually isn't a sell-out. They're just writing what they can write--like the rest of us.
Or so I think today.
February 20, 2011
be there out there
One big advancement for me as a writer was being able to BE THERE (wherever that might be) with my characters, so that my reader could be THERE with my characters experiencing the story in what Robert Olen Butler calls a "moment-to-moment" way. But there was something else I had to do to get to this place. I had to let go and allow myself to make my stories as weird as they could be. I had to go with the WEIRD TALES. That's just who I am as a writer. I write strange comic stories about ridiculous and serious things. Every time I tried to tell my stories in a conventional way or pull back from the absurdist path my story was taking,it died or became the walking dead. And not in any interesting zombie way either. What I had to do was to go "out there" and just let my stories be what they had to be. So, in my case, I had to BE THERE OUT THERE to BE THERE.
February 13, 2011
Details
Nothing wrong with the general. We spend a lot of time living in a general world. But it's the specific that makes writing come alive. There will be summary in novels of course, telling that will often be general in nature. We need it. It moves the reader from one place to another in the novel, keeping the focus on what's important instead of loading the reader down with pointless detail. We need the general, but what makes a novel come alive is specifics. If you have details, the right ones, the work will seem real.
From the writers POV, I think you arrive at the right choices in fiction, at the right details, by getting in the zone. That is, you get yourself to that subconscious place where you are living the world of your characters. Then in revision you look for those places where you've given way to the general—used the wrong word or failed to make a scene seem specific. It's a constant battle to make every sentence and scene significant. I think this struggle is where a lot of our success or failure as writers occur. Genuine writing comes out of the specific.
From the writers POV, I think you arrive at the right choices in fiction, at the right details, by getting in the zone. That is, you get yourself to that subconscious place where you are living the world of your characters. Then in revision you look for those places where you've given way to the general—used the wrong word or failed to make a scene seem specific. It's a constant battle to make every sentence and scene significant. I think this struggle is where a lot of our success or failure as writers occur. Genuine writing comes out of the specific.
February 5, 2011
Ideas 2
This is a continuation of my earlier post about ideas. It's also posted over at my agent's, Sara Crowe's, blog.
Where do your ideas come from?
When asked this question, I sometimes like to appropriate and regionalize a line from Kurt Vonnegut and say I get them in a little store out in West Texas near Marfa.
I wish.
So where do they come from?
Don't have a clue, but I do know every writer has many, many ideas. They come when you're in the shower, walking the dog, on the drive to work. They fall out of the sky when you least expect them. Sometimes you see a hint of one disappear around a corner and you have to chase it down. Regardless of whether they come easy or hard, the little buggers are everywhere. So when someone says they have A GREAT IDEA FOR ME, A SURE MILLION SELLER IDEA FOR ME, and all they want for their brilliant idea is 50% of the profits when I write the book, I get a little dismissive. Ideas are the easy part.
Easy. Getting them, that is. Actually making them work? Not so easy. Most ideas aren't enough to carry a novel. The novelist Patrick Ness says he waits to write a novel until he has an idea that is strong enough to attract other ideas. I like this notion that you start with one idea and others are attracted to it. Another way to think of it is you begin with an idea and other ideas grow out of that one. If they don't, then the novel will wither and die. Usually this happens around page thirty-three for me.
There are lots of different kinds of ideas. There are the big ideas behind a novel that create theme and there are the more focused ideas that drive scenes and characters. Sometimes the ideas will change as the writer moves through his story. For example, you think you want to write a novel about loss. Your main character's girlfriend dies and it's a novel about how he copes with this terrible and difficult situation, but halfway through the novel, he meets another girl and he starts to fall for her (Where did she come from? One day she just appeared on the page, but that's another post) and his grief begins to fade and he feels amazement and gratitude and guilt, so then the novel becomes about this experience. Maybe the novel then becomes about this whole journey to a new life.
I read this article in a writer's magazine not long ago about the subject of ideas. One writer said that he started his novel based on a single word. I don't remember the word but I remember it wasn't one of the big ones. Not one like freedom or liberty or sex or greed. It could have been kumquat for all I remember. I could never write a novel starting with one word. How could anyone start a novel with the word kumquat?
"One morning Henry woke to find he was a kumquat."
"One morning a kumquat in a fruit salad began to talk to Henry."
It's obvious I can't write a novel starting with the word kumquat. I'm not responsible enough.
All I can think is that the word, whatever it was, had an association with something important in the author's life. I imagine that it happened like the evolution of most ideas in a novel. The word made him think of something else, and something else, and something else. Maybe he thought of his father one afternoon when he came home from the store carrying a bag of kumquats and the news that the family had to move and the boy would have to leave all his friends, his high school, his everything. Obviously not going to be a lover of kumquats. Or maybe he is and that's the story. Why does he love kumquats?
I do think it's helpful to consider that this gathering or growing of ideas, whether it begins with character or setting or theme or some point of action, is a process that can be worked through. It makes the whole act of starting a new novel a little less daunting to me if I think of it as a process of attracting and growing ideas. Of course once I get going I'm mostly thinking about characters and the moment-to-moment experience of those characters, but the ideas are woven into this if I've begun with one that's strong enough to grow others.
The truth is even if there was an Idea store out in Marfa and even if they had a 70% off sale, I wouldn't be buying. It's too much fun coming up with my own.
Where do your ideas come from?
When asked this question, I sometimes like to appropriate and regionalize a line from Kurt Vonnegut and say I get them in a little store out in West Texas near Marfa.
I wish.
So where do they come from?
Don't have a clue, but I do know every writer has many, many ideas. They come when you're in the shower, walking the dog, on the drive to work. They fall out of the sky when you least expect them. Sometimes you see a hint of one disappear around a corner and you have to chase it down. Regardless of whether they come easy or hard, the little buggers are everywhere. So when someone says they have A GREAT IDEA FOR ME, A SURE MILLION SELLER IDEA FOR ME, and all they want for their brilliant idea is 50% of the profits when I write the book, I get a little dismissive. Ideas are the easy part.
Easy. Getting them, that is. Actually making them work? Not so easy. Most ideas aren't enough to carry a novel. The novelist Patrick Ness says he waits to write a novel until he has an idea that is strong enough to attract other ideas. I like this notion that you start with one idea and others are attracted to it. Another way to think of it is you begin with an idea and other ideas grow out of that one. If they don't, then the novel will wither and die. Usually this happens around page thirty-three for me.
There are lots of different kinds of ideas. There are the big ideas behind a novel that create theme and there are the more focused ideas that drive scenes and characters. Sometimes the ideas will change as the writer moves through his story. For example, you think you want to write a novel about loss. Your main character's girlfriend dies and it's a novel about how he copes with this terrible and difficult situation, but halfway through the novel, he meets another girl and he starts to fall for her (Where did she come from? One day she just appeared on the page, but that's another post) and his grief begins to fade and he feels amazement and gratitude and guilt, so then the novel becomes about this experience. Maybe the novel then becomes about this whole journey to a new life.
I read this article in a writer's magazine not long ago about the subject of ideas. One writer said that he started his novel based on a single word. I don't remember the word but I remember it wasn't one of the big ones. Not one like freedom or liberty or sex or greed. It could have been kumquat for all I remember. I could never write a novel starting with one word. How could anyone start a novel with the word kumquat?
"One morning Henry woke to find he was a kumquat."
"One morning a kumquat in a fruit salad began to talk to Henry."
It's obvious I can't write a novel starting with the word kumquat. I'm not responsible enough.
All I can think is that the word, whatever it was, had an association with something important in the author's life. I imagine that it happened like the evolution of most ideas in a novel. The word made him think of something else, and something else, and something else. Maybe he thought of his father one afternoon when he came home from the store carrying a bag of kumquats and the news that the family had to move and the boy would have to leave all his friends, his high school, his everything. Obviously not going to be a lover of kumquats. Or maybe he is and that's the story. Why does he love kumquats?
I do think it's helpful to consider that this gathering or growing of ideas, whether it begins with character or setting or theme or some point of action, is a process that can be worked through. It makes the whole act of starting a new novel a little less daunting to me if I think of it as a process of attracting and growing ideas. Of course once I get going I'm mostly thinking about characters and the moment-to-moment experience of those characters, but the ideas are woven into this if I've begun with one that's strong enough to grow others.
The truth is even if there was an Idea store out in Marfa and even if they had a 70% off sale, I wouldn't be buying. It's too much fun coming up with my own.
January 30, 2011
story
It's hard, at some point in a manuscript, to see its weaknesses. As a writer it's hard sometimes to see your own weaknesses. I'm lucky to have an editor who has a strength that is my weakness. One of her strengths is story structure which is always a struggle for me, though I think I'm getting better at it. She has been part of that improvement. Of course I don't agree with everything she thinks needs work. She wouldn't expect that. But I'm struck by how many times she's right. She asks the kind of analytical questions that lead me to plot answers that improve the work.
These kinds of plot questions need to be asked. Not in my first draft since my first drafts are mostly a way for me to enter the story, but in later drafts. Here's a big plot question (when you're focusing on that aspect of story): What does this scene accomplish? Just that simple and just that difficult. It's easy to fool yourself. Well, you might say, the scene reveals my character's love of meatloaf. But is that really important to the story? If not, even though there's some good writing in that scene about metaloaf, maybe some very funny and entertaining sentences, you have to consider cutting it. That is very hard, especially when it's a scene you like and enjoy.
Because we're writing novels we don't have to be quite as merciless as the story writer. We have a little room, now and then, in my opinion, to wander slightly, perhaps for humor or to make a general statement about life, but I think my editor's very smart questions about what is accomplished, scene by scene, to advance the story need to be asked at some point. It's easy for a story to lose its momentum.
These kinds of plot questions need to be asked. Not in my first draft since my first drafts are mostly a way for me to enter the story, but in later drafts. Here's a big plot question (when you're focusing on that aspect of story): What does this scene accomplish? Just that simple and just that difficult. It's easy to fool yourself. Well, you might say, the scene reveals my character's love of meatloaf. But is that really important to the story? If not, even though there's some good writing in that scene about metaloaf, maybe some very funny and entertaining sentences, you have to consider cutting it. That is very hard, especially when it's a scene you like and enjoy.
Because we're writing novels we don't have to be quite as merciless as the story writer. We have a little room, now and then, in my opinion, to wander slightly, perhaps for humor or to make a general statement about life, but I think my editor's very smart questions about what is accomplished, scene by scene, to advance the story need to be asked at some point. It's easy for a story to lose its momentum.
January 23, 2011
You Got to be You
The way you see the world and the way you communicate the way you see the world is very closely connected to the voice of any particular manuscript. Even the particular voice of the narrator of your novel sees that particular world in a specific way and communicates it in the novel, BUT this voice is informed by your sensibilities as a writer, too, what might be called the voice behind the voice.
The way you see the world is what is most unique about you as a writer and it is something to be cultivated. Sometimes I think writers suppress this out of fear that their way of seeing the world isn't what's selling or fashionable, that it won't have any interest to readers. How can you know? I don't think readers really know themselves what they want until they see it. If you persuade them that your particular way of seeing is interesting and unique, they'll keep reading. Maybe building an audience will take several books if your way isn't assessable to an audience or is very different, but you have to trust that you'll eventually reach readers that respond to your vision.
The way you see the world is what is most unique about you as a writer and it is something to be cultivated. Sometimes I think writers suppress this out of fear that their way of seeing the world isn't what's selling or fashionable, that it won't have any interest to readers. How can you know? I don't think readers really know themselves what they want until they see it. If you persuade them that your particular way of seeing is interesting and unique, they'll keep reading. Maybe building an audience will take several books if your way isn't assessable to an audience or is very different, but you have to trust that you'll eventually reach readers that respond to your vision.
January 16, 2011
Ideas 2
I think novels come from imagination, experience, and memory. Any of these might contribute to the work: start it, push it forward, add layers to it. For me, ideas come from these, but I think I need to define ideas a little before trying to write about them more.
When we talk about ideas, we might be talking about any aspect of writing. What first comes to people's minds when people talk about their idea for a novel isn't always the same. Some people might be thinking about a situation and others might be thinking about a theme or setting. Very different. So there are these big ideas that are at the core of a novel, that drive it, and that can come from all kinds of places.
In addition to these big ideas, there are more focused ideas such as those, for instance, about character. You're thinking about your character and you have ideas about what he does, what he wants, what he fears, and how he fits into the novel. Some people start with character when they start their novel and the character helps ideas grow and develop and helps the author find his story and his way through that story.
Things can, of course, change and this will change your ideas. For example, you think you want to write a novel about loss. Your character's wife dies and it's a novel about how he copes with this terrible and difficult situation, but halfway through the novel he meets another woman and he starts to fall for her (Where did she come from? Ah, the mystery of fiction and life.) And his grief begins to fade and he feels amazement and gratitude and guilt, so then the novel becomes about this experience. Maybe the novel then becomes about this whole journey to a new life. (And so the beauty of revision because you'll have to revise the first part with this revelation in mind because ideas lead to other ideas in a plot. They have to be connected.)
Ideas work on many different levels in a novel. I think it's helpful to consider this and to think of ways to connect them.
Or so I think today.
When we talk about ideas, we might be talking about any aspect of writing. What first comes to people's minds when people talk about their idea for a novel isn't always the same. Some people might be thinking about a situation and others might be thinking about a theme or setting. Very different. So there are these big ideas that are at the core of a novel, that drive it, and that can come from all kinds of places.
In addition to these big ideas, there are more focused ideas such as those, for instance, about character. You're thinking about your character and you have ideas about what he does, what he wants, what he fears, and how he fits into the novel. Some people start with character when they start their novel and the character helps ideas grow and develop and helps the author find his story and his way through that story.
Things can, of course, change and this will change your ideas. For example, you think you want to write a novel about loss. Your character's wife dies and it's a novel about how he copes with this terrible and difficult situation, but halfway through the novel he meets another woman and he starts to fall for her (Where did she come from? Ah, the mystery of fiction and life.) And his grief begins to fade and he feels amazement and gratitude and guilt, so then the novel becomes about this experience. Maybe the novel then becomes about this whole journey to a new life. (And so the beauty of revision because you'll have to revise the first part with this revelation in mind because ideas lead to other ideas in a plot. They have to be connected.)
Ideas work on many different levels in a novel. I think it's helpful to consider this and to think of ways to connect them.
Or so I think today.
January 10, 2011
Where do ideas come from?
Where do ideas come from?
I like to say I get them in a little store out in West Texas somewhere near Marfa.
I wish.
So where do they come from?
No writer knows. Every writer though has many, many ideas. They come when you're in the shower, when walking the dog, on the drive to work. Ideas are everywhere. So when someone—and they will if they haven't already—upon learning you're a writer says they have A GREAT IDEA FOR YOU, A SURE MILLION SELLER IDEA FOR YOU, and all they want is 50% of the profits when you write the book based on their idea, you can either:
a. laugh in their face
b. explain to them that ideas are the EASY part
c. call all your friends over and laugh in their face
d. laugh silently to youself but try to explain to them that ideas are the EASY part.
e. Pretend you suddenly notice how late it is and run away.
Ideas are the easy part but an idea that actually works for a novel is not so easy. Most ideas aren't enough. I would say no idea by itself is enough. The novelist Patrick Ness says he waits to write a novel until he has an idea that is strong enough to attract other ideas. I like this notion that you start with one idea and others are attracted to it. Another way of looking at it is that ideas grow off of it, and together they help you fill out the first idea.
One idea isn't enough. You'll get to page two or ten or twenty with one idea and then the story will die. You need to be able to attract more ideas, or add other ideas to that idea to develop your story into something substantial enough to become a novel.
I like to say I get them in a little store out in West Texas somewhere near Marfa.
I wish.
So where do they come from?
No writer knows. Every writer though has many, many ideas. They come when you're in the shower, when walking the dog, on the drive to work. Ideas are everywhere. So when someone—and they will if they haven't already—upon learning you're a writer says they have A GREAT IDEA FOR YOU, A SURE MILLION SELLER IDEA FOR YOU, and all they want is 50% of the profits when you write the book based on their idea, you can either:
a. laugh in their face
b. explain to them that ideas are the EASY part
c. call all your friends over and laugh in their face
d. laugh silently to youself but try to explain to them that ideas are the EASY part.
e. Pretend you suddenly notice how late it is and run away.
Ideas are the easy part but an idea that actually works for a novel is not so easy. Most ideas aren't enough. I would say no idea by itself is enough. The novelist Patrick Ness says he waits to write a novel until he has an idea that is strong enough to attract other ideas. I like this notion that you start with one idea and others are attracted to it. Another way of looking at it is that ideas grow off of it, and together they help you fill out the first idea.
One idea isn't enough. You'll get to page two or ten or twenty with one idea and then the story will die. You need to be able to attract more ideas, or add other ideas to that idea to develop your story into something substantial enough to become a novel.
January 4, 2011
language
Since at the end of last year I was making a plea for including "story" or plot in the family of fictional elements, and to that end maybe exaggerating slightly the emphasis put on language, let me say this year how important language is. Here's a quote I've used before but is, for me, one of the best. Mr. Mark Twain, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightening bug and the lightening." That kind of says it all, but here's a simple example:
I'm walking up a wide path.
I'm walking up a big path.
I'm walking up a huge path.
I'm walking up a large path.
Each of these sentences is the same except for the adjective. To me, though, the first is much stronger than the second, third, and fourth. It gives a specific image of the path while big, huge, and large do not. How a writer says what he or she says, how he or she rewrites to say it with as much clarity and precision as possible, is the foundation of any good story.
Or so I think today.
I'm walking up a wide path.
I'm walking up a big path.
I'm walking up a huge path.
I'm walking up a large path.
Each of these sentences is the same except for the adjective. To me, though, the first is much stronger than the second, third, and fourth. It gives a specific image of the path while big, huge, and large do not. How a writer says what he or she says, how he or she rewrites to say it with as much clarity and precision as possible, is the foundation of any good story.
Or so I think today.
