Intentional Coffee Shop Pages

Went to a new coffee shop last night and did my first out-of-the-house pages since I acquired a dog. It felt good. I got about two and a half pages of the story about finding bones.

Since the other day when Deb told me what she saw as my thesis theme, I've been slowly seeing more and more of it myself. After all this time, trying to figure out what connects my stories and being too close to them, I think her comment was just what I needed to be able to take that step back. While I'm still very much looking forward to what the group has to say, I'm starting to feel I have my own direction.

Which is even better for hearing others' comments.

Whenever we're talking about writing, one of those bottom lines we're talking about is what the author is trying to convey versus what the reader sees. As the writer, I can have a crystal clear vision of exactly what the story is in my mind, but unless the reader reaches the same conclusion, my vision is a moot point. Sometimes, unexpected and fun things come out of this when the reader says, "Well, here's what I see," and it's completely different from what the writer had planned, but better than the writer's plan. Then you steal the reader's vision and use your revision to bring it out, all the while claiming that it's what you were going for the whole time.

So, now that I have a clearer idea of where I'm going, I'll be better able to use the feedback from the CWC folks. Now I have a baseline.

The reason I've brought this all up is because it's relevant to my pages last night. Thesis themes have been rolling around in my head and I've been looking more closely at how those themes cross from one story to the next. Last night I sat down with an idea, which would have been alright on its own, and then played with it a bit to make it fit the themes I can see elsewhere in my thesis. In short, I sat there and said, "Well, how can I make it speak to theme X? Well, if I change this detail, then it relates to that other thing, and if I make the setting this place, then that has something in common with the other story..."

Last night, as I sat there with a raspberry green tea and my fountain pen, was the first time I worked on a thesis story with clear ideas of what made it a thesis story.

Cool, huh?

Chopped

I've decided to cut a bit from my thesis. I put it in, tweaked it a bit, thinking that it was a good fit. Then, I changed my mind. Deb's comment about what my thesis is about got the proverbial wheels turning. I can see the theme she pointed out, and now I'm seeing another which is more of a magical realism theme, and which fits all of the stories, with the exception of The Unusual Life of William H. June.

There's also another factor at work, the soon-to-be-arriving movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is based on a short story that Jenny recommended I read when I was telling her about June. The timing is kinda funny and I'm thinking that maybe since there's another, much more well-known, story along the same lines that's about to be very prominent, it wouldn't hurt to shelf mine for a bit.

So, here's a question: You're in the midst of working on a story or novel when you discover another story/novel that's already published and remarkably similar to yours. What do you do?

Deb Knows

A while back, Jenny and I talked a little about finding the theme(s) in my thesis. Her main piont being that even if I couldn't see the links, as soon as an objective reader read it, they'd spot 'em easily. It's a matter of me being too close.

Last night, Deb and I got to the pirate meeting a bit early. While we chatted, she said, "Hey, I know what your thesis is about." Then she said three words.

I said, "Huh. Yeah, I see it."

Now the really interesting part will be if the rest of the CWC pulled out the same connection. I figure either they'll all be pretty much on the same page, or their thoughts will be pretty diverse. Either way would be fun.

Theme As Blunt Instrument: Across the Universe, a.k.a. The Beatles Were Super Cool

The other night I watched Across the Universe and though I watched it in its entirety, I almost didn't.

Sound tracks can be used to great effect in movies, and they can also start intruding. This movie was made out of Beatles songs, and very explicitly so. After all, three of the characters are named after the songs - all of which are in the movie. Okay, so it's a musical, right? Having loads of songs is what musicals are all about. Yeah, I'll give you that. But, when I was watching the movie and realized that the writers tacked together a collection of songs then said, "Now, what plot can we come up with to match it?" I gave up on caring about the plot and the characters.

I get the impetus to make the movie. The songs are, by and large, great ones. When you stitch them together, you do see a story. However, where it went wrong was emphasizing quantity over quality. If you could cut out a third of the songs from the movie, write more dialogue and tweak some character and plot points, I think it would work beautifully. As-is, forcing so many songs creates story-telling schizophrenia. It's more "how can we get this song in?" than "how do we best tell this story?"

Some of the songs were used well - the Let it Be montage sticks in my mind as particularly effective - but many songs/scenes were superfluous. As much as I love Eddie Izzard, his bit was pretty irrelevant. But hey, they got a psychedelic bit out of it, right?

Anyhow, this brings me around to the question of motifs, themes, running gags, etc. Done well, they add another level to a story. The recurring conflict of reality vs. "truth" in The Things They Carried is what makes the book work. The constant showcase of Beatles songs in the film ultimately made me loose interest.

More specifically, this brings me around to thinking about my thesis. My "unifying theme" refuses to stick to one thing consistently (as evidenced in this very blog) and is stubbornly remaining fluid. I keep getting nearer to nailing down what I'm going for, but I haven't quite got the "click" yet. Right now one part that seems more clicky than anything else so far is this question of animate vs. inanimate and changing one into the other. It works as part of my unifying theme, but doesn't feel like it's enough to be the theme in its entirety.

So, how do I figure my theme? How subtle should it be to keep from being overpowering? How overt should it be to keep from being lost? So far, my thoughts on the subject have leaned toward having a pretty explicit unifying factor in the thesis. I want to make sure it's clear, right? However, after watching the movie and thinking about it a bit more, I'm realizing that my first impulse leans toward overdoing it.

Now, some questions for you guys:
When you talk about the effective use of a theme/motif, what examples do you tend to use? Do you have a good example about overdoing it? What's the best way to find that happy medium in utilizing an over arcing theme? Are there particular types of themes that tend to work best?

Do Fairies Have Tails? Wait. I Mean...

I started a new post, trying to talk about fairy tales and why I keep coming back to them as a starting point with my thesis. I tried to be eloquent and articulate. It didn't work. Instead, my train of thought derailed and got convoluted. This time, I'm going to try explaining less and see if that helps.

I've come to realize I have a preoccupation with fairy tales. I love it when Realms of Fantasy features a re-telling, and got a kick out of all the references in Stardust (the book more than the movie). I can still remember illustrations from the copy of The Green Fairy Book I read as a kid, though unfortunately I no longer have the copy. In short, fairy tales are embedded in my head.

Not just mine, either. For my terrible class, I did a paper about canonization and how fairy tales are unjustly excluded. Yes, they're in the Children's Literature edition of Norton, but can hardly be seen in Western Literature, let alone any other editions. Yet, they're such a significant part of our cultural subconscious. Shame on Norton for shoving them off as only good for kids. Arrogant bastards.

Think about it. How many Cinderella spin-offs/spoofs can you think of? In our society, we have a common language that revolves around fairy tales and the allusions/revisions they've birthed. "Mirror, mirror," anyone?

As far as the thesis goes, technically I'm working on magical realism, but in my head it makes almost as much sense to call them fairy tales. Not re-tellings/modernizations like Ever After or even Pretty Woman. Rather, getting back to the original mythos of fairy tales: You take a more-or-less real world setting, then throw in fantastical elements without explaining why they're there. A gigantic bean stalk that grows over night? A very old man with enormous wings? Sure, why not. If anything, fairy tales were the ancestors of magical realism, despite this whole idea of magical realism as a shiny new genre.

Right now I've got a number of books at home, on hold at the library, or coming via interlibrary loan which are all collections of fairy tales, or commentary on them. Now, ask me how many books I have on magical realism.

Secrets and Secrets

I'm going to build off my previous post a bit by talking about secrets. As story tellers, we have this fantastic opportunity to tell them. More than that, I'd say it's why we're story tellers. On one hand, we create fictional people and expose them like a farmer-tanned truck driver at a nude beach. On the other hand, we also tell our own secrets.

Each bit of something we write is informed by our own lives and experiences. Sometimes the influence is slight, sometimes it's not. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three stories I've written which are a translation of a struggle from my own life. Writing the piece helped me work through that struggle, but I also wanted it to be a story in its own right, not just therapy. So, one situation became a completely different one. A character was removed, added, their gender/age changed. In the end, the story I wrote bore little resemblance to the actual details of why I wrote it. Yet, the truth of the situation was still there for me.

As I get further into this whole writing thing, I find more and more that the secrets I tell in my fiction are my own. Strange, especially when I remember turning to fiction as a way to tell other people's. During my last poetry workshop, I even made myself a note: "Fiction is telling other people's secrets, poetry is telling my own." That was only a handful of months ago and it's already untrue.

My questions: When you write, whose secrets do you tell? Has it always been that way? Do you find yourself going in phases from one to the other? How do they translate/evolve?

Patterns, Themes, and/or Motifs

At some point, I remember reading something where Russell Crowe was explaining his band and he said that all TOFOG songs are, in some way, love songs. Say what you will about him being tempermental, he's also got a poetic sensibility which I have a lot of appreciation for. Besides, the guy knows what he's about, and not everyone can say the same.

We all have certain things we keep turning back to. Sometimes we realize it, sometimes we don't. Thinking about the thesis has made me think harder about the trends in my own writing, the types of conflicts, characters, and other things that I like.

For instance: I'm fond of redemption stories, characters who are emotionally detached, birds, and a bit of the magical/mystical.

What about you? What kinds of patterns do you notice in your writing? How prominent are these themes/motifs? Do you embrace them? Try to break away?