Lesser Known Chekhovian Techniques

Funny piece in McSweeney's here in parody of Chekhov's famous advice--

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." From S. Shchukin, Memoirs (1911)

Writers on Revision

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. ~ Samuel Johnson

On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away. ~ Annie Dillard

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. ~ Elmore Leonard

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ~ James Michener

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. ~ Scott Adams

I can't write five words but that I change seven. - Dorothy Parker

A Brief Handbook on Revision for Writers by Tom Jenks in Narrative Magazine -- a good guideline for how to revise. (You'll need to get a free login from Narrative to read on the site.)

Enjoy!

Here is a link to "Girl," a short-short by Jamaica Kincaid that I mentioned in my 12:30 class today.

Writing Across the States to be held Friday

The University of Central Arkansas and Auburn University creative writers will host two public readings Friday, March 30. The first event will be a student reading from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Eagle's Nest South. Students from UCA and Auburn will share their work, including fiction, nonfiction, essay and poetry. The second event will be a faculty reading from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at The Gnu's Room. UCA faculty members Garry Craig Powell and John Vanderslice will share their work as will Auburn faculty member Ryder Collins. Students interested in sharing work should contact Jennifer Collins at jkc0010@auburn.edu.

Jhumpa Lahiri

Lahiri's fiction is known for focusing on Indian-American characters who are caught between two cultures, and she tells her stories both from the perspectives of the parents who moved from India to the U.S. and of the children who have grown up in the U.S.

Lahiri made a name for herself with the publication of her first story collection The Interpreter of Maladies, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998. This is especially astounding because of how little recognition is given to the short story form in recent years. She also has a novel, The Namesake, which was turned into a movie; in 2008, she published another collection, a New York Times best seller, Unaccustomed Earth. "Once in a Lifetime" comes from Unaccustomed Earth and was originally published in The New Yorker in 2006. The story is part of a section of three stories about the same characters, grouped together under the name "Hema and Kaushik."

The book critic and poet Anis Shivani has named Lahiri one of the most recent "overrated" writers in an article in which he had this to say:

Utterly unwilling (though probably fully capable, since she's the only readable writer on this list) to write about anything other than privileged Bengali immigrants with PhDs living in Cambridge's Central and Inman Squares, and making easy adjustments to the top of the American meritocratic pyramid. Determined to shun any stylistic influences besides Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant. Has staked out a very marketable niche territory and is never going to venture beyond it. Never a good sign when the movie based on a writer's only novel (The Namesake) is better than the book (there's no character in The Namesake that generates as much sympathy as Irfan Khan or Kal Penn in the movie). The protagonist's whole circle of immigrant elders moves from MIT to Harvard, but he's traumatized by whether his nickname (or given name) brands him an outsider! Invariably maintains coy persona of a modest writer in whose lap everything just happened to drop because of luck--come to think of it, this may not be far from the truth. There is such a thing as New Yorker fiction, even today--just read one of her upcoming stories about Central Square PhD Bengali immigrants effortlessly shedding their native ways. Possesses the talent to be so much more adventurous in theme and style--but remorseless caution stops her.

Here, however, is praise for Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, including praise for the story we're reading. Lahiri discusses Unaccustomed Earth in this Bookforum interview. Here is a link to Charlie Rose's interview with Lahiri -- she discusses how she got started with writing, how she studied other writers as she was working on developing her own stories, her thoughts on the story as a form, and what she was trying to do in her collection.

International Blog About Rusty Spell Week

My husband tells me that this is what week it is, so here's a post on one of his short stories, "The Age I Was at Christmas and the Girl That I Was With."

The story is a great example for you of how you can use a central motif (in this case, Christmas + the girl) to tell a story that covers a lot of time and/or characters. Rusty is also able to structure the story easily . . . and it's an interesting way to build character (something you could steal for your own work). You'll also notice how he has to use a lot of summary rather than scene because the story covers so much time, but how each section has such a high level of particular and sometimes quirky detail that the story still maintains energy. Also notice how he balances humor and sadness and gives his character flaws but still makes him likeable.

Your Brain on Fiction

From The New York Times:

Your Brain on Fiction

An excerpt:

Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. . . .

The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.

The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters.

Raymond Carver

In my 12:30 class, Raymond Carver's story "A Small Good Thing" came up and luckily we can read it online--this is the version that was less heavily edited. I can't find it anywhere online, but the more minimalist version of the story is called "The Bath."

Here and here are really interesting (to me, anyway) articles about Carver's relationship with his editor, Gordon Lish.

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace is a short story writer, novelist, and essayist. In his shortened lifetime, he published a 1,000 page+ novel, Infinite Jest; a collection of essays called Consider the Lobster; and a number of story collections. He's known for his postmodern, experimental style.

"Incarnations of Burned Children" was originally published in Esquire, and you can also find it in his collection Oblivion.

The New York Review of Books published this interview with Wallace. And you can watch Wallace's Charlie Rose interview here.

In 2008, Wallace committed suicide after a long history with depression. Here is a nice write up of his career and history from Time Magazine. After Wallace's suicide, McSweeney's published a number of moving letters from people who had read Wallace's work, and in some cases, knew or met him. You can also read "All That", a story that the New Yorker published after Wallace's death.

A Hunger Artist

A link to a story I mentioned in my 11:00 section, Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" (the surreal story about the artist vs. corporate interests).

Two Links

. . . to works I was discussing in each of your sections today.

Sea Oak by George Saunders--a story in which the character hasn't made his complete change by the end, but he's shown to have the means to change so the change is implied. (discussed only in my 11:00 class but recommended to all.)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov-- a novel famous for following an unlikeable character. Here's the opening (my favorite novel opening of all time) and a nice article about how it's perverse without being obscene. (Note:I recommend reading the annotated edition, which is what I linked to on Amazon, rather than the plainer "anniversary edition")

George Saunders Quote

We'll probably discuss the darkness of Boyle's story tomorrow, and in light of that and some of our conversation about the student work from the last class, I was reminded of this quote by writer George Saunders:

What's interesting, though, is that if something bad happens in a story, or if something bad is the centerpiece, then that's considered dark, which I think is weird. People keep saying to me, "But you seem so happy." And I really am. But I love that Chekhov quote: "There ought to be a man with a hammer behind the door of every happy man, to remind him by his constant knocks that there are unhappy people, and that happy as he himself may be, life will sooner or later show him its claws." That seems to me to be a very legitimate function for literature: just to tap in the closet. For me it's pretty natural just to say, "Yes, life's pretty good, but it's not good for everybody. And when it's not good, this is how it might feel."

Watch Saunders speak about the short story form on The Colbert Report here.

Aimee Bender

Bender's story "Off" comes from her collection Willful Creatures.


Here is an interview my friend Claire did with her about her teaching and where she gets ideas from . . .

And Bookslut has an interview with Bender that came out around the time she published "Off" in which she talks about the collection.

If you'd like to read more, here's a story called "Bull" from her first collection, The Girl with the Flammable Skirt.

And if you're looking for prompts, she gives regular writing exercises here on her website.

Related to our Conversation on the Direct Address Comma

Two memes that have been going around . . .

T.C. Boyle

T.C. Boyle's author website. His autobiographical essay about becoming a writer might be especially interesting to those of you who want to become writers.


Penguin's site has a description of After the Plague, the collection that houses "The Love of My Life," followed by an interview with Boyle about his work.

The Paris Review offers a good overview of Boyle's work, with an interview that asks questions like, "What is the key to making people laugh?"

Here is another interview about everything from Frank Lloyd Wright to Iowa to his fiction.

Here is Time Magazine's account of the Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson case, which Boyle used as the source for "The Love of My Life."

A Venue for Short Shorts

Tin House--a well-known literary journal--has begun a weekly prompted contest for flash fiction. Mini-Plottos, 500 words or less, must be submitted by the following Monday at noon PST. Send to: theopenbar@tinhouse.com with PLOTTO CONTEST as the subject line.

The Week’s Prompt:

{A} a needy person picks up two pairs of cast-off shoes, one pair discarded by a clergyman, and the other pair by a man of reckless nature and “shady” reputation.

Louis CK Explains the Process of Creating a TV Show

. . . starting with writing a pilot here. An excerpt:

Someone on the other crazy newsgroup asked me about pitching and
selling a pilot. I gave a long winded answer because I can't get any
work done. What I wrote answers lots of questions I've gotten here
before so I'm reposting it here for you folks who can't stomache the
unmoderated group...

So here's a rough outline of how it works, taking a show from pitch to
series...


The first step is to meet with a development executive at the network
or studio and pitch them the general idea of the show. Usually you do
this with several companies over a week or so, sometime in July or
August. Then the agent fields the offers from the interested people,
and you weigh the offers and decide which network/studio to go with
according to three criteria: Who really gets your show and will let
you do it without fucking it up. Who is actually most likely to pick
up the show. Who is paying you the most money (the worst reason to go
with anyone). . . .


If you have sold your show to a studio, you now go on another round of
pitch meetings with them in tow, to sell the show to a network. If you
are able to sell to a network, then you start working, now for both
entities. (In my case, I sold the show to HBO Independant [sic] Productions,
which is making the show for HBO, which are a lot of the same people,
so my life is easier. )

Then the agent makes your deal and you start working.

The first thing you have to do is come up with the general story line
for the pilot, which you pitch to the executives, first studio, then
network.

Once the story is basically agreed to, you write an outline, which is
just a blow by blow description of each scene in paragraph form, which
should include all plot points and any funny details or jokes you
already have. You then pass the outline in to the studio, which gives
you notes. You take their notes and re-write it and if they are
satisfied, you pass it in to the network. They now give notes which
you re-write the outline with and then pass it in until the network and
the studio are both happy. When that happens, it's time to write the
pilot script. So you go off and take as long as you need to churn out
a first draft. I think this took me a couple of months. Only about
three days were spent actually writing. The other fifty seven were
spent driving myself nuts while ruminating about what the show is and
how to do it. That's me. Some people write every day, just pounds and
pounds of words. ....

Okay, so you now have a first draft and you give it to the studio.
They read it and then you get their notes. The same thing happens now
that happened for the outline only often it takes longer. Unless you
wrote a good outline. What I mean is that, if you really tackle to
story and get it right in the outline, sometimes the script is a lot
easier. In any case, you go back and forth between studio and network
until everybody agrees that the script is in good shape. Unless no one
agrees or it is not in good shape. Generally, this is the first
failure point for most pilots. The writer, studio and network bat the
script around and it gets re-written to death, while other pilots are
clicking along and improving. You will start to notice that the
executives you're dealing with are showing less and less interest and
often you'll just suddenly stop getting calls and your agent will say
"Yeah... um... I think it's time to move on."

BUT if your script is good, if it stays hot and people like it and you,
it'll be decalred [sic] finished and passed in to the network for
consideration for pick up. In other words, the executives you've been
dealing with at the network, who are development people, will now give
it to the top executives, Les Moonves, Kevin Reilley, whoever. In my
case, Carolyn Strauss and Chris Albrecht. They read it and sometimes
they have notes. If they have big notes, like they think there are
essencial flaws in the script, you're sent off to re-write yet again and they read it a second time. . . .

'Discovering Southern Humanities Review' class Feb. 11

The Southern Humanities Review will host "Discovering SHR," a free master writing class, at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church Saturday, Feb. 11. Pushcart Prize nominees Alison Pelegrin and Emma Bolden will lead workshops on writing poetry and nonfiction. The classes are free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To reserve a spot, email to shrengl@auburn.edu. Following the master classes, The Gnu's Room will host a free reading by the presenters at 6 p.m. "Discovering SHR" is sponsored by the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts, as well as the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

Matt mentioned Elmore Leonard's rule, "Leave out the parts readers tend to skip," in my 12:30 class last week. Here are the rest of Leonard's rules, along with lists from other writers.

Note Richard Ford's rule #2: "Don't have children."

6-word Stories

Inspired by Hemingway: here

Some of the better ones:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
- Frank Miller

Three to Iraq. One came back.
- Graeme Gibson

Thanks to Molly for the link!

Natasha Tretheway

Museum to hold Ekphrasic poetry reading Jan. 26

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Tretheway will host an Ekphrasic poetry reading at The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art Thursday, Jan. 26, at 5 p.m.

Tretheway holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University. This program is in relation to "Promises of Freedom: Selections from the Arthur Primas Collection," an exhibition celebrating 150 years of African American art on display at the museum through March 10. This event also addresses issues that appear in "Mountains Beyond Mountains," Auburn's 2011-2012 Common Book.

Richard Bausch

. . . was born in Fort Benning, so he's a semi-local kind of guy. Here is his author website.

A review of his collected stories.

A video of Bausch giving a speech called "Letter to a Young Writer."

Denis Johnson

"Emergency" comes from Johnson's novel-in-stories Jesus' Son, which was made into a movie starring Billy Crudup. (Jack Black played Georgie and Denis Johnson himself played the guy with the knife in the eye. Watch the scene.)

Tobias Wolff reads the story and offers his commentary on it in this podcast from the New Yorker site.

Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, claims to have read the book 300 times.

Johnson once said, “My ear for the diction and rhythms of poetry was trained by — in chronological order — Dr. Seuss, Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, the guitar solos of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, and T. S. Eliot. Other influences come and go, but those I admire the most and those I admired the earliest (I still admire them) have something to say in every line I write. I don’t like William Faulkner. I think Wallace Stevens writes like the photograph of a person, not a person. But they too have had their effect on me.”

Postcard Exercise

Write a story short enough to fit on your postcard; you will send it to an actual friend.

The story should have nothing to do with your friend or with the fact that you are writing it on a postcard. Decide on the friend before you start writing the story—who you write to should influence the story itself—a story to your mother is going to be different than a story to your best friend or lover.

You may want to write down the story first and make some edits or compressions before putting your story on the postcard. (Remember that you need to leave room for the address and stamp.) If you write small, you may be able to fit 300 words, but your story will likely be around 150 words, a small story indeed. Write to fill the whole space, left, right, top, and bottom. As you come close to the end of the space, remember to wrap up your story. Don’t waste any space introducing yourself or your story to the friend; just jump right in.

Bring the postcard to me with a stamp and address when it’s done. I will drop them in the mail.

Short-Short Exercise

Write a short short (500 words maximum) in which the TV plays a role. Let the words/images on the screen interact with or reflect on the situation in the story. Your characters can be watching TV or it can be background noise.

Post it to your blog by Tuesday. Also bring a postcard.

Lydia Davis and Short Shorts

Here is a video of Davis reading her work at Cornell University.

And some reading material . . .

Five Stories by Davis from Conjunctions Magazine.

More Stories by Davis, from her collected works.

An interview with Davis and Sarah Manguso from The Believer.

Another Interview with Therumpus.net.

And one more interview between Davis and Francine Prose from Bomb Magazine.

In StorySouth, Jason Sanford criticizes the short-short genre for blandness and for being a route to "quickie" publication for writers.