Replies

I'd like to get back to what Eli said about temporal twistiness - you see that's what I think separates the boys from the men in the editing world (and the women from the girls if apropos).  A lesser editor would have read the first draft of my book and probably gone running with their tail between their legs because it had this temporal twistiness (I think Eli's coined a phrase here), but Eli rose to the occasion and didn't see it as a reason to not publish the book.  He was ready to sit down with me and do the work needed to get the book in the right shape, most editors balk at that and what they want is a book that's not going to make them have to think, it's much easier to line edit than to imagine the entire scope of the book and its design.

So it was Stendahl who said that about writing being a mirror walking down a road - thanks for aiding my memory, or setting it straight.  Brian Evenson might be right about getting dizzy walking down a road holding a mirror that way, but you know there's a trick to these things.  I learned it in spoon bending academy, if you're ever carrying a bowl of soup, a glass of liquid, or something you don't want to spill, don't ever look at it and don't ever look at the floor while you're walking, instead look straight ahead.  This will prevent you from ever spilling. It really works.  Try it.  Somehow this ties in to mirrors and Stendahl.  Right about now you are being to feel bad for Eli and all the work he must have had to do in order to make a bit of sense out of my mish-mosh train of thinking and the writing in Here They Come.

Oh Ignatius the Hunchback - no, never thought of the similarities between John and Ignatius.  John was a real guy.  John really looked like the way I described him too.  He really did have all these photos of girls taped to the side of his metal hot dog cart. He was sleazy, but there was a good side to him too.  At first it was hard to show that a sleazy character could be a good egg too, but with help from Eli, I think we were able to pull it off.  In the fictional world, people want to categorize the characters so quickly - good, bad, evil, etc. but in my books, even the pedophile gets a fair shake.  I just have a hard time believing that someone can be 100% evil, or a 100% anything for that matter.  Am I the only one getting dizzy holding this mirror? 

Comments

[eli]

John was always one of my favorite characters. The creepy molester is such an easy shorthand in modern fiction -- childhood trauma, just add water. Not to take anything away from actual trauma, but I liked that some creepiness could exist within the context of an actual life, and could emerge from common human loneliness.

Stendahl/Evenson's mirror analogy is a good one, but I think Yannick may have something with the "don't look at the soup" response. Temporal twistiness or whatever, I think one of the most important challenges is to think simultaneously as a writer (or editor, I guess) and a reader. To know everything and forget everything, In control and along for the ride. Different writers approach this very differently, I think.

Here's a question: Yannick and I talked for a while about whether the book had a climax, and whether it needed one. We eventually added a scene that filled that role for us, but I don't know if anyone actually reads it that way. Does anyone see a climax? Do all books need some sort of climax?

[Dan Wickett]

I'm not sure I read this as having one, but I certainly do NOT think all books need climaxes.

Not that I don't like books that do, I just have enjoyed a few that don't just as much.

[YannickMurphy]

If I think in terms of novels having to have climaxes then I'm going to deflate my own story before I even begin to tell it. Maybe the climax comes from the progression and the pressure of events and the images surrounding them. What Eli suggested I do to achieve the effect of a climax was pretty subtle. It grew out of what came before it in the writing. It was always hiding in the writing, just waiting for someone to come along and let it rise to the surface. But, I do agree with Dan, I'll go along for the ride whether there's an obvious climax or not in a novel. Here's a thought, is it possible that there doesn't have to be a climax on the page, but the climax itself is born when the reader later plays the scenes/images back in his/her head and understands the scope of what the writer was trying to achieve? Just a thought.

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