shakespearemom

As you may have already guessed from the title, this is your chance to write something particularly distasteful, especially to me. Choose your words carefully now, for I want you to create a short selection of the most flowerful, obnoxious, irritatingly pompous language imaginable. Try to use the biggest words imaginable (use a thesaurus if it helps) to describe the simplest, most mundane act.

My example:

Olivia slipped her silken limb gracefully among countless water molecules, aided in her quest by the magic found in her secret bottle filled with a new elixir, one destined to wash the grime from even the most intrepid oil-laden china. As surely as her hands flitted like hummingbirds, swerving past the once shiny objects deep within her own private ocean, the elixir came to her aid, cleansing them before her very eyes. “Ah!” she sighed. “To have such magic!”

(I would have kept writing, but I had to stop and puke. In fact, I actually had to come back and write more on the second go at it.)

Now it’s your turn to make me puke. Get unreal, and make your words ridiculous.

Why can’t I just be brilliant? Maybe it’s the same longing we often see when we try to lose weight, the whole why-can’t-I-just-lose-ten-pounds-every-week sort of longing. We want something to happen, but more importantly, we want it to happen now. 

Do you ever feel the same impatience? I write for all sorts of reasons–therapy, conveying meaning, entertainment (my own and others’), passion, fantasy, you name it–but once the writing is down on paper (or, in most cases, entered into a document on my computer), I want something more out of.

I want it to be brilliant.

But, woe is me (and yes, I am whining), my writing pretty much isn’t brilliant. Often whatever I’ve written is downright dreadful… unfocused, boring, static, one-dimensional… and I get a handful of polite comments designed to not offend me, to encourage me to keep trying, yet to make it clear that whoever it was didn’t LOVE what I did.

And I can’t blame them. I usually don’t like it either, especially once I’ve given myself some distance from it.

Even when my writing’s okay, it still doesn’t get to that great level, the I-can’t-put-the-work-down level that I so long for. 

So, what’s a girl to do? Truthfully, I might have given up by now except that my writing eats at me when I don’t attend to it (as it’s eating at me now, since I haven’t written on my regular stuff for weeks). Perhaps I should just turn recluse, like Emily Dickinson, hiding within the delusion that I’m brilliant but only I know it. 

Then again, maybe I’ll just take my punches… and grow from them. It would be easier to hide, but even if abject humility doesn’t agree with me, it probably does me more good than I’d like to admit.

Okay, whining day is over… I need to get to work! 

To go along with yesterday’s blog, here’s an exercise on creating the mood in your writing. Now remember, you don’t have at your disposal the same elements that movie makers have… music, scenery, lighting, etc. But you DO have all of these in your writing… and that is why your writing should be tightly controlled at all times, so that you pay attention to all of these elements when you create the mood for your piece.

Here’s a bit of dialogue between two people:

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t you stay longer?”

“I wish I could.”

“What should I do?”

“Go on. Just go on.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can.”

“Come back. Please.”

“If I can, I will.”

Not much to go on, is it? Well, that’s intentional. Now it’s your job to fill in the scene. You can change the dialogue when necessary, but that shouldn’t be your focus. Instead, set the scene, use your words carefully, create the mood of the piece so we feel what you want us to, sense the world you have created with more than our minds. I’ll bring in my own example once a few of you have tried your own out. 

Remember, set the scene. Put us in the mood. Give the passage its meaning through what you write and how you write it.

Most importantly, don’t spend two hours on this… give it a few minutes, and show us what you come up with!

Today, for the first time, I watched Twilight. I’d read the books, and though I’m not the fan so many of my friends are (after all, I am a bit old), and although I would call neither the books nor the film amazing, I found one absolutely brilliant aspect to the film. 

So many films do this wrong when they translate a book into a movie. The plot may remain about the same, the characters stay consistent, but the mood of the film changes. What is mood? 

Good question. Wikipedia doesn’t even answer it (not yet, at least)… but it’s a feeling, blended from the setting, lighting, music, vocal resonance of actors, and the list goes on. And I’m a fan of films–even not so great films–that hold a mood all the way through. 

Honestly, most films don’t. Moulin Rouge had flashes of genius, and its “Roxanne” scene may be one of the best scenes ever put on film, but the film itself doesn’t keep its focus. In my opinion, the first forty minutes of it are pretty horrid. The frenetic cuts of film, the attempts to make what is going on funny (and none of it achieve actual humor), the odd twists that add nothing to the tone set at the very beginning of the film–all of this works against what I think the point of the film is.

But I’m not writing just to pick on Moulin Rouge. Despite its weaknesses, it has some brilliant scenes. Overall, though, its mood fails. Other films have the same problem: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Australia, Titanic, and many older films come to mind, but the list is too extensive for me to name.

Twilight manages to get that right, at least. Part of it is the setting–a dimly lit world from the overcast Northwest (an area I’m particularly fond of, since I live only a few hours from Forks). But the music plays a huge roll in the mood of the work–highlighting the softer, foreboding moments, mirroring the other elements pretty seamlessly. Firelight, a film I’ve used in composition classes, has a similar focus, primarily created through lighting, setting, and music (though the music does get a bit obvious, especially after several viewings). 

Now, in writing, the mood must also be created, but writers don’t have the same opportunities to use other media to help create it. All we have is words, yet those words serve to create the setting,  the dialogue (making word choice crucial at every point), and even the music of the piece (yes, you know from poetry that words are musical, too). 

So, what mood are you creating in your work? Does it follow through the whole piece? Where does it falter? Where does your novel not keep its focus?

Tomorrow I’ll give you an exercise to create mood. Be ready.

Actors are well-known for asking this question, mainly because, even though the final scene of Hamlet may be the culmination of conflict for four or five main actors, Hamlet most especially, the final scene is also filled with a bunch of other people: noblemen, soldiers, courtiers, bystanders, servants, etc. And while what the fifth soldier feels won’t be compelling to most of the audience, it will have an effect on the overall scene, on the overall movement of the play. 

Think about this in your personal life. How many times has motivation not kicked in? How many Sunday mornings have you wanted to lie under the covers, slumbering peacefully, while the rest of the world keeps turning? How often have you found it difficult to motivate others? I consider this question every day, especially on mornings when I manage to convince my son to undress, but it takes an open threat to get him to put clothes on. 

Now think about your characters, whether the persona of a poem or the tiniest character in a novel. What motivates these people? Why do they act as they do? Perhaps what they say is typically funny, or sarcastic, or angry, or kind, or stupid–but why? Why do they speak at all? Why do they reveal information about themselves or about others? 

Now, you may just say, “Look, my characters are mine, and I just put them in the scene, and then write down what they end up doing.” Larry McMurtry claims his characters act on their own, and he’s not the only writer who does this. But I’ve noticed so many characters who serve the action of the story, who further the movement of the main characters, but even after rereading (or rewatching) I can’t figure out why. 

And while the motivation for a minor character will likely not make the entire novel fail, it does lessen the impact of it. If we don’t see why someone does something, even if it only registers subconsciously, our suspension of disbelief may be what suffers. 

My favorite bone to pick? What motivates a love interest–guy or girl, doesn’t matter which–to change his or her mind and come back to a partner. From My Fair Lady to pretty much every single romantic comedy in American film, this is how the plot ends. We think the two people are separate forever, that what one of them did–lies, abuse, rage, cheating, misunderstanding, etc.–is too much for the other to forgive. So we follow that person who was left behind, while the soft, sad music is whining in the background, until the strings get a bit louder, the person looks up, and, LO! There she is, breathtaking in the sunlight, a smile on her face, forgiveness in her eyes. 

But why? Why on earth would she forgive him? Or he her? Why don’t they show a scene or two where the one who left is out in the world, figuring it all out? Are we just supposed to accept the idea that “love conquers all”? 

I need more than that, both as a reader and a watcher of films. After all, you want me to feel motivated to come back, don’t you? To see another film? Read another book?

Oh, you do? Then motivate me. 

The title is true. One picture can evoke countless feelings, can shatter assumptions, or can create for us a reality we cannot create through our own imaginations. But can we put that picture into words? Can one feeling be passed from genre to genre?

Of course it can! 

Just this morning, I heard a musical composition taken from a poem–and the poet, commenting on the musical version of his work, found it lengthened the pathos of it movingly. We see books turned into musicals, ballets turned into children’s books, art turned into opera, and the list goes on. 

So, as practice, here’s a picture:

Your task is to take the picture and make it into something written… evoking a feeling, creating a situation from it, etc.

Now, before all of you people with hours of free time on your hands plan on writing a thousand words from this picture, I’m not giving you that much. Instead, using 100 words or less, create a background, a set of events, a poem, or a very short story from this picture. Think outside what seems immediately apparent. And write something in. Even if you only have time for a haiku, do that. Anything will add to our view of the photograph.

So, what are you waiting for? Show me what you got! I’ll throw in one of my own once I’ve seen what you can do.

We are so caught up by the reality surrounding us–the dirty dishes, the traffic, the drippy-nosed kids, the chores–that we come to notice little else. Even with the good things–the best TV show ever (Lord only knows what all of you think that is), our spouses, those same drippy-nosed kids when their noses aren’t drippy–we notice little more than the physical. Yet I sense, most days, that far more is around us than meets the eye (or the nose, or the tongue). We are surrounded by the invisible something.

Religion speaks to this to some extent, but they go too far with it, in my opinion. When someone of mere Muggle means purports to know what the invisible something is, and denies the possibility of anything else invisible existing alongside (or instead), then he goes to far. And churches have expended far too much energy irritating each other (or worse) because some other church believes something a bit different.

I cannot know what the something is. I am neither sensitive enough to it, nor clairvoyant enough to read it. But I appreciate when others can, and I am fortunate to have others in my life with just those gifts. Take my sister, for instance, who just started a blog where you can pretty much ask her ANYTHING. Not only does she know a ton of stuff, she’s also a fabulous Tarot card reader. 

That doesn’t mean she knows exactly what’s out there, what’s between our reality and our perception. Her gift, though, reminds me that the unseen is there, shaping our world more than we give it credit, guiding us more than we wish to believe it does…

She is by no means the only sign I have that something else exists. All I need do is look outside on any day, or feel the breeze blow around me, or sense something behind me, something I cannot see no matter how hard I look, to know that I am not alone.

What signs have you seen? How sensitive are you? Think deep.

Okay, here’s a little activity to do. Be sure to do these steps in order, without reading ahead.

1.  Pick a color.

2.  Choose a fruit or vegetable that goes with the color.

3.  Create a situation in which someone uses the fruit/veggie, but doesn’t eat it (that would be too easy). Now, other people can eat it, but not the main character, but the main character MUST use it in some way.

Here’s my answer, off the top of my head (I promise I will never lie about this. I really am writing it off the top of my head. No planning, no revising, no five-hour pressure write):

1.  Green–that nasty yellow green–what is it? Chartreuse? (blecch!)

2.  Aged celery. Yup, when it stops being regular green and gets all chartreusish… (another blecch!)

3.  Here goes:

Norman had his head in the refrigerator, again. 

  “Could you get me the celery, Norman,” his wife Edith whined from where she stood at the kitchen sink. “We could use it in the salad.”

Norman opened the drawer, shoved past the tomatoes and the white ball of lettuce, and found the plastic-wrapped stalks. He peered at them through the plastic. “Are you sure they’re still good?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Norman. Like you would know. Just get them.”

They looked pale. Norman opened the bag. “They don’t smell too good.”

“Celery’s not supposed to smell good, Norman.” 

“Is it supposed to taste good?”

“It’s got fiber in it,” Edith insisted, like that was an answer. “The doctor said you needed fiber.”

“They’re kind of this weird green.”

He felt a slap on the head. Edith had swung the towel at him, messing with his combover. He’d have to go fix it before lunch. He put a hand up to try to flatten his hair. 

The towel whacked at him again. “Would you give me that celery?”

“It looks bad,” Norman said. “I’ll just chuck it in the trash.”

The towel hit his head again. He felt strands of hair on his face, but he kept his eyes closed, concentrating on holding his temper. “Edith, their bad.”

Again, the towel attacked. “I said give them to me!”

Norman swung around, the limp celery aimed and ready. He pointed it at Edith like a sword. “Leave off,” he threatened.

“Norman!”

He stepped forward and poked her with it. “I said leave off!” He stabbed her with it again, even lunging toward her, like a swordsman going in for the kill. 

Edith stared back at him, blinking, her towel only half-raised to strike again. 

Norman realized his breathing had gotten heavy, so he stepped back, trying to calm it down. 

Edith lowered her towel. “Hmmm…” she began, staring down at the celery, now very limp after its encounter with her apron. “You should just toss that in the trash. It’s gone bad.”

Now you write your own passage (and no pressure, since mine’s pretty lame). The key is to NOT take too much time with this, but just let things rattle out as they come. Only a few people read this blog anyway, and they are all nice, so you’ll have a small, kind audience to write for.

Whenever a great book or film comes out, people start talking sequel. Why? A number of reasons:

1. Lots of people like the first one, so publishers/producers think a second would also generate a lot of profit.

I said “a number of reasons” because publishers/producers/authors/screenwriters have said a number of other reasons:

1.  The story isn’t complete yet.

2.  A good idea is worth repeating.

3.  This book/film is starting out a whole genre/saga/world/religion/movement, and to keep going, it needs to be furthered.

Honestly, though, I don’t think any of those later reasons are actually the reason… it’s the first one. And it’s the reason we have 482 tales from Babysitter’s Club, Goosebumps and The Magic Treehouse… because publishers have figured out that readers, especially young readers, will devour books along the same lines or by the same writers as books they already love, and it will often take them several hundred volumes of those writings to figure out that the 47th installment isn’t nearly as good as the first one was. Money makes the world go ’round, doesn’t it?

It may very well make the world go ’round–though in this economy, I’m surprised the world isn’t grinding to a halt–but money does NOT, in any way, make for a good sequel.

So what does make a good sequel? 

The best sequels, I have found, were intended all along. J. K. Rowling had her plan for book seven figured out before book one was even published, and Tolkien Lord of the Rings trilogy is really more of a three-part book than three separate novels. Other writers have centered each book around a particular character, making each book stand alone and complement the other books in the series. For a sequel to happen well, it must have a reason for being, beyond money. If the first story isn’t finished, the sequel can offer the next step in the drama. But there must be truly something more to tell, something that is left behind, undiscovered, if the sequel doesn’t come out.

And it’s amazing how bad so many sequels turn out. They rehash the same plot lines, or simply bore us to death offering more backstory on characters than we could ever want. But if the sequel doesn’t have a true plot line that makes it worth reading, if it doesn’t offer us readers something new, it isn’t worth printing. It will be forgotten over time, if it isn’t criticized at the beginning. 

If you’re writing (or have written) a novel, have you thought of a sequel? Do you already have one in mind? Does it have its own purpose, beyond making a little more money for you once the first one has been published?

I hope it does. If it’s only purpose is profit, it likely won’t be the sequel I’m looking for. 

Come to think of it, if the first novel is only written for profit, I probably won’t like it, either. 

I thought of posting a picture like the one I saw on Tuesday, but I simply couldn’t (though I do suggest you check out David Haworth’s website and check out some awesome photographs of space). I didn’t want to taint the picture I had in my own mind, and I couldn’t find a single photograph that captured what I witnessed that night, just after the sun went down. 

I had just left my class about fifteen minutes late (the students and I tend to start talking and let the minutes slip by), but I’m so glad I was late–and that Daylight Savings Time had just ended. It meant that, just as I rose above the rest of the highway system on my way out towards Monroe, I was met with what may be the most breath-taking vision I have ever come across. 

Imagine this, if you will: The white ground, still retaining a few inches of glistening snow, now darkening to blue in the twilight. Above that, further in the distance, the thick, dark line of evergreens, black next to the glistening snow. Above that, the white-capped range of mountains leading to Steven’s Pass, already mostly blue, though the sun had just set. And slipping up above those mountains, surrounded by the vivid royal blue sky, a golden moon, ten times bigger than it looked when high in the sky, close enough for me to see each crater. It glowed with sunlight, full and almost orange.

I know I cursed when I saw it, if only in astonishment. I probably almost wrecked my car. I had to remind myself that I needed to keep driving, needed to concentrate, all the way to the line of trees. After that, I caught a few brief glimpses of the moon, but nothing else, and by the time I had reached home, the moon was high, barely yellow, and so much smaller. 

Oh, what disappointment I felt that the scene was gone! I know it isn’t likely I will see such a thing tonight, after my class, but I might just keep the students talking, or stop and go the restroom, if only so that I might catch the moon, in just the same way, on my way home. 

One thing is for certain. I will never forget that sight, not for the rest of my life. Perhaps I should paint it, if I ever get good enough to do it.

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