If You Write It, They Will Come

In the novel It, by Stephen King, there is a scene I have always enjoyed.

 

It’s actually a flashback sequence, where Ben Hanscombe, one of the “Losers Club,” volunteers to stay after school on a cold January day–the first day back to class after Christmas vacation.  He is helping his teacher, Mrs. Douglas, count the books that had been turned in just before the holiday.  The task takes quite a while, and after they put the books away in the storage room, Ben realizes that the school has all but emptied out, the only sounds the clanking of the radiators and the whoosh-whoosh of old Mr. Fazio the janitor’s broom as he sweeps up and down the corridors.

Mrs. Douglas apologizes, saying she’s kept Ben too late.  Dusk is descending, the last flickers of daylight bleeding away into the rapidly approaching winter evening.  She tells him that, if she drove, she’d give him a ride home, but she doesn’t.  Her husband will stop by a bit later to pick her up.  If Ben were willing to wait . . .

But he tells her not to worry.  It’s still light enough, and he’ll walk right home.  And yet . . . and yet–there is something about the day, the faint, cold lighting of a winter dusk in northern New England.  Ben feels alone, as if something is about to happen.  Something bad.  The scene creates a mood, preparing the reader for what follows.

But King is not finished setting the tone.  Before Ben leaves the building, the janitor passes by again, sweeping the floors, gathering dust with his broom.  “Be careful of de fros’bite, boy,” he says, and walks on, completing his rounds.  And for me, as a reader, that one line really resonates.  It is the exclamation point that puts the finishing touches on the scene.  As he walks home in the darkening twilight, just before he spots the monster Pennywise the Clown along the way, the janitor’s words echo in his ears. “Be careful of de fros’bite, boy . . .”

Would the scene have worked even without Mr. Fazio and his broom and his dust?  Of course.  The tone had been set, the mood established.  But the janitor, even with just a single line of dialogue, enhances what is already there.  He is one of those bit characters, so minor he shuffles off the page after a moment, an eye-blink, but whose presence, no matter how brief, adds something worthwhile to the story.

The thing is, characters like this–little strands of string and twine that add nuance and texture to a scene–often are not thought of ahead of time.  In this case, especially knowing that Stephen King (as he shares in his memoir, On Writing) does not generally plot his novels in advance, I certainly picture old Mr. Fazio suddenly appearing, unplanned, unasked, out of the periphery of King’s imagination.  I could be wrong about that.  Maybe before he sat down to write this scene, King knew the janitor would be a part of it.  But I suspect this is not the case.  I would venture to guess that, as he wrote the scene, as it unfolded on the page, Mr. Fazio simply decided to appear, as if through a will, a desire, of his own.

 

I guess this in part because it has happened to me countless times during the creative process.  I begin writing a short story, or a chapter in a novel, and, before I know it, someone, well . . . just shows up.  When I wrote The Eye-Dancers, this happened several times, perhaps best illustrated in chapter 4.  In this chapter, the four main characters are sitting alongside The Erie Canal, talking about the threat of the “ghost girl” in their shared dreams and what to do about her.

 

Before I tackled this sequence, the only thing I had to go on was just that–that the boys would be sitting there, pedestrians and bicyclists constantly passing by on the canalside recreational path behind them.  What I did not envision was what occurred on the very first page of the chapter.

As they talk, a little boy in a farmhouse across the canal comes outside, in his backyard, smiles at them, and begins to toss a baseball to himself.  He offers very little to the story in any substantive way, but he does attract the boys’ attention, and serves as a sort of catalyst to the conversation they are having, and to the scene as a whole.  Would chapter 4 be shorter without the nameless boy’s presence?  Probably.  Would it be better?  I suppose that can be debated either way.  But once the first draft of The Eye-Dancers was finished, and I went to work on the rewrite, examining the flurries and inspirations of the initial draft with a more objective and critical editorial eye, I thought the farm boy added to the canal scene–and so he stayed.

 

After all, he was the one who announced himself upon the scene, not me.  I didn’t even know he existed until he showed up.  I had no concept of him, no idea he would barge onto the stage, as it were, like a bold, uninvited actor determined to win a role.   Maybe when things like that happen, they represent our subconscious telling us that something is needed to flesh out a scene, something we never would have thought of in advance.  Or maybe they come from our muse, gifting us with a discovery, a missing piece to the fabric of our story.  Maybe they’re just blind chance.  Whatever they are, these unforeseen character appearances strike me as very intuitive, and very organic within the creative process.  As such, we as writers, as creators, need to listen very carefully when they come calling.

So the next time someone like old Mr. Fazio crashes the party created by your imagination as you type feverishly at your keyboard, perhaps you can pause, take a moment to enjoy the mystery and wonder of the creative process.

 

Where did that character come from?  They just . . . appeared, on their own.

Or, to paraphrase one of the most memorable lines in motion picture history . . .

“If you write it, they will come . . .”

 

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

Uniquely, and Universally, Your Own

When I was growing up on the east side of Rochester, New York, my family had a tradition.  The first Sunday of every December, we’d head to Wambach’s Farm Market a few miles up the road.  There, usually in cold and biting weather, we’d stroll through their selection of Douglas-fir trees, looking for the “perfect” tree for Christmas.  Some years, we’d bicker among ourselves.  My two older brothers might like a particular tree.  My sister might like another, and I might want yet another.  Being the “baby” of the family, my vote probably counted a little more than it should have, much to the chagrin of my siblings.

The memory of my family’s annual outing to the farm market, hunting for our Christmas tree, is now an old one, going back to the 1980s.  And yet, even today, when I’m in a pine forest or beneath a fir tree, the scent of the pine takes me back.  That is one thing I recall vividly from those Sunday mornings in early December, years ago.  I remember the sting of the cold on my face, the wind whipping in off of Lake Ontario just a few miles away.  I remember the arguments–annoying at the time, but fun now, looking back.  “I like that one!”  “No, that one’s no good.  Let’s pick this one!”  But most of all, I remember the scent of pine needles.  And when I smell that fragrance today, in my mind, I am transported back two and a half decades to the farm market and the Christmas trees. . . .

It’s a very specific memory, of course.  It’s my memory.  My experiences.  But at the same time, it’s yours, too.  Maybe you didn’t go on family excursions to the farm market when you grew up, picking out that season’s Christmas tree.  (Or maybe you did.)  Maybe you didn’t celebrate Christmas at all.  It doesn’t matter.  Because, very likely, you have a similar memory.  The specifics, the details, the circumstances, may be very different.  But the heart, the essence, is the same.

In The Eye-Dancers, near the end of the book, Mitchell Brant puts a gold, heart-shaped locket around his neck.

He realizes he might be laughed at.  It’s not the kind of thing you’d expect a boy to wear.  But he has just said good-bye to a very special friend.  He had met Heather only a few days ago, yet connected with her on a level he’d never experienced with anyone else.  The problem is–she lives in a different plane of reality.  He can’t stay.  He has to leave.  She gives him her locket to remember her by, and I’m sure, years later, he will look at it again and remember. . . .

And, it is my hope, this sequence in the story will resonate with readers. On the surface, this seems laughable.  How can you relate to someone who has fallen for a girl in a different universe, a different sphere of reality?  Underneath the details, however, we see a boy, growing up, entering adolescence, saying good-bye to what really is his first girlfriend.  He knows he will never see her again.  And that kind of feeling–losing a first love, saying good-bye when it breaks your heart–we can all relate to, in some shape or form.

It strikes me that one of the keys to creative art of any kind (be it a poem, a novel, a song, a painting . . .) is tapping into your own highly personalized experiences, and then sharing them with people you don’t know.  They don’t know your personality.  They didn’t grow up with you, don’ t know your friends.  They might have a completely different culture and point of view.  And yet, despite the differences, your words, or melodies, or brush strokes somehow bridge the gap between you.  They touch your audience, move them, perhaps even bring them to tears.

When I read about (or watch, if I’d rather see the movie) Andy Dufresne get convicted of a crime he never committed in The Shawshank Redemption, and then slowly and methodically execute his escape from prison over a period of two decades, I am riveted.  When he is able to instill a sense of meaning, of hope, into the lives of some of his fellow inmates, most notably the character “Red,” I am moved.

When, in the movie, “Red” says, at the very end, “I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope” — I am on the cusp of tears.  And yet . . . I have never been convicted of a crime.  I have never been to prison.  I can’t relate, on the surface, to being locked up for twenty years for a crime I never committed.  But it doesn’t really matter.  The story moves me just the same.  Because somewhere, somehow, the feelings Andy Dufresne feels, the sense of loneliness, isolation, and, ultimately, friendship are feelings I have known.

We all have something to say.  Think about a personal memory.  Perhaps it is comforting, and brings a smile to your face.  Maybe it’s painful.  Maybe it’s bittersweet, and nostalgic.  Jot it down.  Sing it.  Draw it.  Paint it.  Write about it.  Chances are, even though it’s something that only you experienced, it will still reach and move, affect and inspire others.

It is uniquely, yet universally, yours.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

The Golden Mean

In the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, John Keating, the English teacher played by Robin Williams, has one of his students read aloud from the Introduction to their poetry textbook.  The author of the Introduction, a Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, provides, in dry detail, the method by which we should measure and grade poetry.  As the student reads, Keating begins illustrating these concepts on the blackboard, depicting a bar graph.  This Introduction, in other words, is attempting to break poetry down, almost as if it were a mathematical equation.

After the Introduction has been read aloud in its entirety, and after illustrating its principles on the blackboard, Keating turns to his class and says, simply, “Excrement.  That’s what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard.”

And then, in one of the film’s most memorable scenes, he tells his class to rip out the Introduction from their poetry textbooks.  They pause, wondering if he’s serious.  He assures them he is.  Then, one by one, the class rips out the pages, discarding the views of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard.

“Words and ideas can change the world!” Keating thunders a moment later.  He is appalled that anyone would try to measure poetry in a methodical, systematic way.  He exclaims such an endeavor rips the life out of the words, turns the beautiful into something mundane, something to be dissected and probed, and poked.

Surely, an intuitive, creative soul like Mitchell Brant would agree with Mr. Keating.  And so would the impulsive Joe Marma, who prefers to act first and think and plan second.  Marc Kuslanski, on the other hand, logic-driven to the core, would probably side with J. Evans Pritchard.

How do we measure great poetry, or great writing, in general?  Furthermore, when we have an idea, a situation, a character we simply must write about–how do we know when we’re ready?  Take a novel, for instance.  When do you begin page 1?  After you’ve come up with a protagonist, and perhaps a villain, and a situation to put said protagonist in?  What if you have a distinct image in mind? Long before I wrote The Eye-Dancers, I had a dream about the “ghost girl” who appears in chapter one, and throughout the novel.  In my dream, I experienced what Mitchell does in that first chapter.  Seeing this wraith-like girl with the blue, blue eyes, calling, beckoning, like an apparition.  That was over twenty years ago.  When I woke from that dream, I wanted desperately to write a story around it.  But I didn’t have one.  I just had that image, that opening scene, if you will.  What to do with it?  Where to go?  It wasn’t until nearly two decades later, when I had the same dream, a second time, and then woke up with a workable idea in place, that I actually began writing The Eye-Dancers.

I wonder what John Keating in Dead Poets Society would say about that.  Perhaps he’d say I am too analytical, need too much to be “in place” before I begin.  I know that’s what Stephen King would probably say.  In his memoir, On Writing, King says, straight out, “Plot is . . . the good writer’s last resort  and the dullard’s first choice.  The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.”  King explains that he begins with a situation first, and then the characters, and then he begins to narrate.  While he has an outcome in mind, he’s not locked in to it.  His characters, he says, often do and say things he never expects.

For me, I believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle–“the golden mean.”  For some writers (and who am I to argue with Stephen King?), just having a situation and some characters in mind is enough.  Without much of a plot yet, they can steam forward and begin.  I need more.  Before I begin a long work, like a novel, I need to have some idea where I want to go, how the book will likely end (at least in a general way), and I often have a broad story line in place.  I don’t do chapter-by-chapter outlines, since I find those too constricting, and, as King points out, characters often do the oddest things.  You may think something will turn out some way, and then it turns out another way.  Some flexibility is necessary, or else you’ll stifle the creative process.  But to begin without a fairly concrete direction already in place?  Without at least some measure of a plot in place?  That is something I can’t seem to do.

Certainly, there is no “right” or “wrong” answer here.  It really is a case of, “Whatever works for you”–as long as, throughout the process, the magic of spontaneous creativity is not stifled or ignored.

So for some, diving right in, without much information to go on, will work great.  Call this the Mitchell Brant or Joe Marma approach.  For others, in-depth planning is essential–the Marc Kuslanski Theory of Storytelling.

For me, it’s a combination of the two.  And if opposites like Joe Marma and Marc Kuslanski can learn to tolerate each other (albeit barely!) in The Eye-Dancers, then, hopefully, I’m on the right path.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike