G: Terminology

Slow month for the blog. I have been busy. I'm only going to get busier.

One of the weirder moments at the last family gathering (well over a week ago) was when I remarked on Aunt Karen's interesting flatware, and everyone else commented on my unique word choice. Flatware. Not that they were like "Why did you say FLATWARE and not UTENSILS?" just that "Wow, you know that word?" Um yeah guys, I'm a writer, I know things. We've been over this.

I wanna talk a bit about people talking like experts about things they don't know, can't know, or don't know to the extent they believe they do. And in the process, I am going to talk like an expert about something I don't really know. I was watching the Canada-USA hockey game back on Sunday, and when I tuned in US was up 2-1 or somesuch, in the midst of the first period. And it looked to me like Canada was blowing it big time, like they were not playing the level of hockey their opponents were, the level their fans and countrymen would expect.

And make no mistake, I admit to being the least hockey-interested Canadian I probably know. Most of my hockey awareness comes from D2: The Mighty Ducks. I resent the Leafs for being an insanely popular team despite their history of ineptitude. I also prefer baseball, which also makes me different from all Canadians. So I don't really know much about how the game of hockey is played. but it seemed to me that the Canadian team was doing a bad job playing this game.

After the first period, though, the Canadian commentators pointed out that even though the US were winning, Canada was out-playing them, keeping control of the puck and out-shooting them. So I think, fair enough, but when they have the puck, they can't get it past the goalie, and when the US gets the puck, they really have no problem. And we were losing. So from my perspective, the USA was winning handily. But what do I know? I just admitted to not being a big hockey fan.

Still. It seemed like a couple of indicators were the fact that in the first period, goalie Martin Brodeur swing his stick at the puck like he was the Star Wars kid. And then three players bumped into each other while practically standing still. That was the low point of hockey. I don't mean that was the low point of the game, I mean it was the low point of the entire history of the sport of hockey.

I exaggerate, but it was fairly ridiculous. So when the game was over and the US won what was, admittedly, not a blowout (not points-wise anyway, but the sheer number of shots deflected by the American goalie were ridiculous) I thought "Okay, the US played a really good game and the Canadians played like a bunch of noobs," so I kind of resented later commentary that it was a good game of hockey, because I still didn't see it. And in any case, Canada bounced back against Germany and Russia.

But such is life. Sometimes we must surrender to the authorities. Sometimes not.

I was reading a few lists written by writers. "Rules for writing," although I doubt any of the writers themselves take the notion that there are "rules" for writing. Many of the writers participating included some kind of note that said "Feel free to ignore my rules or make your own if it pleases you," because in my view, the best writing is whatever works. And you can guide someone through what works best for you, what works best historically, but it is not necessarily what always works or the only thing that works.

Now, you'd be an idiot to disregard these rules altogether on that basis, but they're there for your consideration, not your unquestioning obedience. So when Elmore Leonard says "Don't use any verb to connote speech other than said," he probably means it, but think about why, exactly. He explains that the line of dialogue belongs to the character, and by slipping a less natural verb in there, you're taking it away, putting yourself between the character and the reader. Not to mention using varied words like "shouted, stated, spoke," is the hallmark of (bad) fanfic-type writing. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with specifying when a character is yelling or crying or adding or interrupting, but be careful. It's all about context and exactly how much of the narrator you want your reader to see. Lately I've been favouring verbless dialogue:

"Line of dialogue."
"Response."
"Question?"
"Answer," the second character answered, just to re-orient the reader.
"Allow me to interject," added a third character.

Sometimes paired with an action. "Listen to this," the character said, brushing her hair to one side.

It's good advice. If you can do well without it, do. Another one was to avoid describing the characters' physical appearance, which I found interesting. The idea is to let the reader decide how they look, based on how they speak. But again, hardly an all-encompassing tactic. The writer of the rule cites "Hills Like White Elephants," which is pretty indisputably an excellent story, and consists almost entirely of dialogue, but not every story is, wants to be, or could possibly be "Hills Like White Elephants." Some characters obsess over appearances. Some have more important things on their minds (such as the American and the girl in "White Elephants.")

I'm learning, and I'm learning by practice, which leads me to the only "rule" I've ever set for myself, the one all writers ought to obey. Writers write. I am writing right now about stuff I am writing or intend to write. And in a sense, this writing is writing, but it's not the writing I mean. I look at my colleagues Blake and Andy and I see two extremely productive writers, and it's not for nothing. That's the way to do it. I write when I can, which right now is not as often as I'd like, but I do find the time. I re-wrote my old story "The Insomniac" this past weekend, something I'd been intending to do for months, years even. I started it first when I was 18, and it was good for my experience level, for what of the world I'd seen. (That's the other thing: writers read, they get aware of what others are doing, at least to start with. Nobody's in a vacuum here guys.) Facing facts, my prose was pretty shitty back then. I had neat ideas but I was really amateurish about how I went about them. Even now I'm still struggling to shake it off, but seeing a problem I seek to rectify it. This could only happen once I'd read more great stories. The first story I wrote that I was really satisfied with -- I could probably do it better but when I wrote it I felt it was a cut above my other stuff -- was "The Curb Appeal" which I wrote after extensive lessons on Joyce and Hemingway.

So I re-wrote the Insomniac to strip it of what I consider to be my amateurish tendencies in there. Excessively flowery description, reliance on bad simile and metaphor. What I've learned is that metaphor is best when applied to the tone of the story, rather than the syntax. At least, that's what works for me. Description is often just writer-wank. The reader is more interested in what is happening. This, I take from my experience as a reader. The description can enhance it, or if done badly, get in the way.

So anyway. Lists are funny things. I was reading this book last week, I was at the library killing time and I happened to find myself in the self-help section, and for obvious reasons this book catches my eye: Ten Myths Men Believe About Women. That wasn't the title of the book, for purposes of my discussion it is, because that was the name of the section I flipped through. and I find it fascinating, because as much as many men do believe things like that (Women are emotional, women are obsessed with commitment and take away men's freedom) in compiling such a list, it was necessary for the writer to assume the position that men - some men, all men, most men, great men through history, I don't know - believe those things. I think the truth is more complicated on both sides. For the record, she also happened to make some amazingly broad generalizations about both genders. I happen to think women, as with men, should be taken with the level of nuance they express in themselves. You can't say "Women are like this." You can't complain about men saying "Women are like that" by saying "Actually, women are like this, and it's because of such-and-such." making her assertions about men believing women to be emotional, she had to therefore assert that men are not in touch with our emotions, which we often aren't but sometimes are. Being in touch with one's emotions doesn't mean crying. It means understanding why one might cry.

Maybe.

Also puzzling was the list of "Women's greatest turn-offs/turn-ons" which I found remarkable. there was some truth in there but again, you can't generalize. The big one at the end of each list, respectively, were "Men who don't love us"/"Men who love us." Which is about the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever felt the need to point out. Everyone wants to be loved, lady. But you can't market that as a turn-on.

Last girl I was with -- and I use that term loosely, so you can interpret it however you like -- completely rejected any talk of love, because that wasn't what it was about. In this case, I suspect her greatest turn-on was stimulation of the erogenous zones, but I can't really be certain.

But look. I don't know what I'm talking about. That should be clear as crystal by this point. I am eager to learn, but there are things that will never be truly mastered, including the lively art of writing and the livelier art of seduction. I just try to practice, when I can, and learn from my mistakes.

Yes, of course women don't like their heads being pushed toward the groin. If a man does that to you, he probably can't be salvaged, ladies.

About a month ago I got a music paper back, and I did shitty on it. and it bothered me. Really. What bothered me in large part was, in addition to my own disappointment in myself, being put in what I perceived to be a position where I could not succeed. The paper, a thousand word "response," was due in the very second class, after we'd had very little time to acclimate our ways of thinking to match what was expected. Very possible a lot of people did well, but there seemed like no way I was going to, and that upset me.

A few weeks later, paper #2 was due, and though I didn't give myself as much time as I ought to have, I worked what i considered to be reasonably hard on it. Today, before getting the paper back, there was a test (Prof plays a song, we answer prescribed questions. Sort of a bell-ringer, a concept Vasa just explained to me the other night.) I think I did well on the test, as I was able to really interact with the material.

The paper was a different story. taking what I did badly on the last one into account, I was hoping for a B-. The last paper I got back in film, I'd hoped for a C+ (I thought it was utter shit) and got a B-, indicating that although it was by no means a great paper, it was worth at least a 70 for effort. So I said to myself "B-, I can be happy with. B- would be good." So this second music paper, on jazz, which I had read up on and tried to interact with without really being able to hear the music, AND summarize a very nuanced and complicated history in only a thousand words or so? Straight B.

I haven't read most of the notes, but the funny thing bout this class is the way the markers, even if they give you a good mark, (and in this scenario, I consider a B a good mark,) will interact with the points you bring up. And I think "that's a good point, but not only had I not thought of that, there wasn't really any room to address that complicated situation." When you have 5 pages double-spaced, to make a thesis and support it, you find yourself making generalizations.

When you have a whole book to address the complications of a woman's fickle heart, you can probably stand to address the complexity.

That'll bring you up to speed, as it is now Thursday afternoon and the test was at 10. More stuff happened of course, but it's too much to address in just this already-lengthy blog post. Maybe later. Now lunch.

Keep on rockin
-Scotto