i had no idea that "authors and teachers advise against flashbacks." That sounds crazy, to me. Flashbacks can be fantastic! And necessary! One thing I've noticed by reading these threads the last few months is that a lot of people have been given a lot of rules. There really are no rules (George has said this as well). You can do whatever you want as long as you do a good job of it. (I've seen Alice Munro mentioned here. She is the queen of writing all over the place in time. Her use of time--well, if you haven't read her, dive in anywhere. She's not just digressing--she often goes back and forth. It's amazing to see what she can do with chronology and time.)
To this particular questioner, I hope you don't mind my unasked-for advice. Just write your novel in any way that feels right to you. Don't listen to any rules. Finish your book and then analyze it. You'll see what's missing or what needs to be added. If your flashbacks or sequences aren't working, you can revise them. If you need more, you can put them in. I'm sure you're already on a good path. Listen to yourself and do what you feel is right.
amen about the rules. When I was teaching, 1st year college, we spent the first week laying out all 'the rules' that students brought with them that teachers had told them or that they misconstrued from instruction. "Don't use 'I.'" "Don't start sentences with 'and' or 'because.' - sooooo many rules. And then I'd explain which ones were decent rules and which ones were what I called "bullshit" rules. My students appreciated that because the felt the rules constricted them so much they had to "write for teacher." So I freed them from those shackles of rules. Of course, that freedom was paralyzing to so many of them. Now they had no training wheels and signposts. So we'd build up to tendencies and moves - see what worked and didn't given a particular assignment so writing became experimentation and more fun.
The rules were so ingrained it took all my strength to unlearn them.
My favorite story was of the student from a small town of about 300 people in western Kansas. He was taught to write 5-paragraph thesis essays. Each paragraph was 4 sentences long - no more no less. Each paragraph MUST have a topic sentence, an example, an explanation of the example, and a transition to the next paragraph. Obvious accommodations were made for the Intro and Conclusion, but they also were 4 sentences long. It was as reliable as a prairie apple pie recipe. The student became a better writer when I told him that he could, indeed, have a paragraph with 5 or even 6 sentences. His eyes grew so wide, and he didn't really believe me. "Mrs. Anderson" wouldn't steer him wrong.
I've had my share of Mrs. Andersons over the course of my life.
(Side story: when my kids were growing up, I had a set of "life rules" on the fridge. Rule Number One: Life is full of disappointments. Whenever they'd complain about some unfairness, perceived or real, I'd just point to the fridge. Parenting 101.)
Great points! I heard this a lot when I was working in LA. Screenwriters (and sadly screenplay buyers) being hung up on the so-called "inciting incident" and arcs and how such-and-such has to have happened by page 30. They end up crawling through the weeds when all they have to do is stop and look around long enough to know they're not weeds at all, but the stems of flowers they planted. It all comes down to IMHO of just telling a good story well. Inciting incidents happen when they happen, characters don't all have arcs, bad guys can be good guys and vice versa. The rules are rules until you find something that works, rules be damned. I mean not saying any of us are James Joyce-like (though who knows?) but nobody argues that Ulysses is a work of genius and he kinda made up his own rules, didn't he?
Bottom line: If you're honest with yourself creatively, you won't need anybody to tell you it isn't working or it is. You'll know.
I actually struggle with this--throwing away the rules! I talk the big talk, but in reality I think a lot about character arcs when I write. And inciting incidents. If i write a story and leave out certain elements, I can feel something not working. (That being said, I've written stories that ignored the rules and worked very well.) As far as screenplays--I finally wrote one and of course i used that Save the Cat book. I found it helpful, mostly because i had no idea what I was doing. Has that screenplay sold? Of course not. I think what you are getting at here is the difference between mediocre and true talent/genius. Those who have "it" can break all the rules and create something beautiful. Those without it, break the rules and end up with a big mess.
I don’t buy that about “talent/genius” and the mediocre. I think there are an incredible amount of other variables (privilege, those you know, luck, opportunity, and plain old hard work) between those who make it or don’t.
I see nothing wrong with playing by the rules and sticking to them. Or breaking them from the start. Or starting within the rules and then consciously breaking them.
Those who want to break the rules before they’ve learned to abide by them and learn fundamentals - they have the most difficult road.
... I see that this conversation really took off in interesting ways so I’ll get off my phone with its limited view of life (and the thread) and get onto the computer and read the rest before continuing.
But to put it briefly - pshaw on the rules, as long as you know what they are and how you’re violating them.
Hi Lee. I wasn't referring to "making it." I was saying that some writers are mediocre and others are not. And if you are a great writer, you can get away with a lot--break the rules and create something beautiful. I'm not talking about sales here. I'm talking about creating art. (I'm guessing you've read the rest of the thread by now. I could go on and on in this thread, but we came to a natural end.)
I haven’t read the thread yet. I’m not much for sales talk - I prefer the art talk as well. But thanks for the clarification for when I read the exchange tomorrow!
You only end up with a big mess (if it really is a big mess 🙃) if you don’t follow your best instincts and/or listen to good criticism and your heart and gut. Or if it’s not finished. 🙃 While I reject most rules especially presented to be absolutes, I do follow some basics. We all do. But let’s look at character arcs for one example: Your character(s) has to go through something, be about something, experience something. That doesn’t mean your character has to have had some meaningful inner journey. It only means that character whoever she is in your story has to be interesting to read about within a good story well told. Thats not a rule, it’s just a result. How you get to ‘’interesting story well told‘’ isn’t about following rules, it’s about following your own creative process. That’s it. And it’s a pretty good start if it’s interesting to you. And that you’ve taken the time to understand your idea and what makes this story good and interesting and, I think George wrote recently, also being able to cull better, truer, more observant writing by being your own best and most honest and bloodless editor. To me it’s a spin on the old adage - write like nobody is watching. Embrace and hone the voice within and be kind enough to tell yourself when it’s not working. Again from George, it’s the writing and rewriting that gets you home. That’s work. Hard work.
i love this comment. Thank you. I totally agree that a character has to go through something, experience something. But that "something" has to have the potential to affect the character. (Okay, it doesn't have to--there are all sorts of stories.) The character can then feel the effect, or choose to ignore it. Or go against it, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm just describing the kind of stories that I like, that I find satisfying. An "interesting story, well told" to me has certain elements embedded in it. (Heavy emphasis here on the words 'to me.') Yes, write what interests you. Then examine what you've written. Look at what the story is telling you and then rewrite and revise, adding, subtracting, etc. until the story glows. And absolutely write like no one is watching. That is key. But the analysis is also key (to me). And by looking closely, you see what the 'meaning' is, large or small. You are right that a character doesn't have to have "a meaningful inner journey." But without that, a story better have a lot going for it--fantastic writing, for one. Because I think we read for meaning, we look for meaning everywhere, we see stories everywhere we go. We are constantly putting together puzzles in our head using our very limited perceptions. When i read a story that lacks meaning (no matter how small), I'm usually very disappointed.
Thanks for the response. So here's the thing: I'm not saying the story itself doesn't have to have "meaning", all I'm saying is that great stories don't live or die on whether your main character has any deep meaningful inner journey or arc or whatever the kids are calling it now. I apologize -- the misunderstanding is on me.
Let me try better.
In sticking with our main topic of discussion, a short work of fiction works well when it exists and/or functions as a work of art, however that's defined. Note the last part because defining what makes a story Art is a bit open to interpretation -- George has demonstrated that clearly time and time again here. And defining what makes it a GREAT work of art is possibly more fraught although there seems to be a general consensus in the world that James Joyce is a genius and maybe, no offense intended, James Patterson is not.
We can all agree I think that great stories are not just well told (writing/ structure) but elicit sometimes deep, sometimes conflicting emotions whatever they may be -- contemplation, surprise, anger, sadness, pathos etc. It *affects* the reader. And this could be its deeper meaning or it could have no meaning at all except to paint a brief picture of a time and place or action, like a photograph or a song. It exists and flourishes as one that that we can all say is good or even great but yet impacts us all in different ways (even to the point where some of us find it distasteful). A person could walk by a perfectly bred Pug dog that has just won Best in Show at Westminster and think, "dude, that is one ugly dog".
As George tells us, it's the choices we make as writers/editors/observers that lead our burgeoning A-OK story to something closer to art. This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak -- it's hard, hard, hard work. But hell, that's writing.
So back to the example of the character arc. A common question from script readers is "what's the character's arc"? This comes from the common understanding (in and out of Hollywood) that the best characters must go through something akin to Joseph Campbell's description of a "hero's journey", a deeply meaningful inner journey via story that significantly alters their perspective/actions/behavior and how others view them from page 1 to end credits. It's the kind of writing advice that is dispensed as a hard and fast rule. Even though many, many very good stories involve protagonists that don't change at all -- their circumstances might change, they may go through a lot of trials and tribulations or nothing at all and yet the story still works. It may indeed be important to your story that your character grows and changes from beginning to the end or it may not be.
My take and YMMV: worrying about the "arc" of your character isn't as important as making sure you are true to who she is --the choices she makes make sense organically. And if they don't make sense, you need a helluva good reason to make it make sense. And that right there is in your control, you The Writer. This is what makes our craft so kick ass -- you can make all kinds of allowances within the imaginary world where your characters live -- as long as it all makes sense IN THAT WORLD. As far as rules go, those are way more important.
i'm going to try to respond succinctly here. I'm in Seattle in the middle of a heat wave in an apartment with no air conditioning. I can barely think but i love this discussion, so i'll do my best.
I think we're talking about several things at once here, and that sort of muddies things. Yes, yes, stories can look many different ways, can have all sorts of shapes, can derive meaning from the poetry of the words or the order of the paragraphs or from the fact that nothing happens at all. Great writers can move us, can bring us to tears and sometimes we don't know why, can't explain it, can only point to the story itself and say "it's all right there." And any rules about story making can be broken.
But ignore all rules at your own peril. Break rules when you know that you are breaking them.
Also, not everyone is talented. Not everyone can write a story. Beginning, middle end--even this simple structure throws many a writer off. A character arc is very basic. It's very, very often there, in a story that satisfies. (I"m not saying other kinds of stories don't satisfy--but there's a reason James Patterson sells millions of copies. People like stories.) When you say "worrying about the arc of your character isn't as important as making sure you are true to who she is"--that doesn't work for me. Because if I am true to who my character is and if I want to write about that character, then she's going to have an arc of some kind. And that's because, in a story something happens. And that something that happens happens NOW. For a reason. Any other story is probably a story I won't finish reading or writing. Yes, everything has to make sense in the world of your story. But you also need a sense of urgency. And that urgency usually comes from an inciting incident. So maybe I'm just very hooked into conventions, but they make sense to me and they result in stories that work. Give me a character who sits on their butt day after day. And then...ONE DAY something happens. And they have to get up and do something before the world explodes.
I don't think we can compare any of this (story writing, as in short stories/ novels) to script writing and script readers. That's a different world altogether based on algorithms and money. Only a small handful of artists can make the films they want to make. Any company that has script readers is looking for the next hit. And a hit has certain elements to it. Often the hero's journey! Or at least a big character arc with a grand climax and a great ending. Any studio NOT looking for that sort of script isn't going to survive for long, unless they've got some very deep pockets. Studios spend a fortune on audience research, looking for holes in plots and moments that don't work. That's just not how novels and short stories work.
I hope this was clear and not too preachy. I'm not even sure i've said what i meant to say. I guess overall i just gave a defense of a character arc! And i guess that means I'm a person who likes to see a character go through something and come out the other side.
Hitting post and hoping I don't have to edit later.
When I was in school, my teachers always warned us against using flashbacks for our compositions. It was touted as a "lazy" technique that's disruptive and overused! I completely agree with you that we should just write whatever feels right. It's strange that we admire pioneers of the different literary movements throughout history and yet discourage students from creativity and more descriptive writing!
I’ve only got my phone at the moment so I can’t put up the link. Please google “bury the lede.” It’s a saying that refers to a story that puts the main point far down in the story instead of the beginning. In journalism the opening is called the “lede.”
I knew there was something unappealing about “flashbacks of convenience.” I just hadn’t seen the problem articulated so clearly. In essence, the reader feels the writer’s laziness in using the flashback to do the work the writer should be doing. Then, on some level, the reader decides she too can cut corners by simply checking out.
This was instructive and useful, and I appreciate it. Thanks.
George you are so often asking these challenging questions, like, do I know the relationship between my techniques and my rules [when to use a flashback] (it never even occurred to me that I might have rules for my writing) and my sense of what life is about? This is a hard question, but I am not whining, no. I'm groaning because I can see that the link between rules and my sense of things, or, put it another way, between heart and brain, is essential to my stories. Well, to anybody's stories? These questions, well, I'm a different writer today, and I thank you.
Each in their turn noisy enough I agree but so what? I'm minded to think that such stuff is just so much nonsense: it is the telling of a well told tale that must be the litmus.
Such 'technic' words are fine and dandy but what have they to do with such an opening line as 'Mother died today'?
Notice: no hint of a sad cliche in those three words 'Mother died today'.
I'm replying to you, specifically, Jane. That said, and actually and more broadly, pitching this particular reply to suggest that what a writer's feeling for their story - be the writer's sense of inclined to being she or he - is what, ultimately matters:
Way back George put Morse and Cummings before us, padding their trods along a particular towpath. The story he unfolds, in each instance, unto his readers has everything to do with being midwife to a birth that had to happen. George simply writes in response to the demands of the unfolding story.
Enough, undoubtedly said on this theme, for the moment.
Should any Story Clubber, passing this way, choose to pass Comment I will, as ever, be interested in what you decide to say.
I remember The Mom of Bold Action, and I just reread it. Curiously enough, I had not remembered Ricky, who seems, now, quite memorable. How could I not remember? What grabbed me in this story then, and again now, was/is the brilliant weave of that voice, curling through time and event and desire. And the wham at the end is nice too, and made me ashamed at how, both times, I laughed and joyed my way through. Genius, really. I flashed back myself to living in Manhattan, and was following my first-grader down, no up West End Avenue when a gang of maybe 2nd graders jumped him and stole his bike before I could reach them. My son went back home and drew very violent pictures of the event, bearing so hard on the pencil, he went through the paper. I called the cops. Ha ha ha. I loved where we lived, but we moved the next month to LI. Can't raise a kid in a place like that. No freedom. No good. Now I need to read yet again and, for my own enlightenment, map the travels the voice makes, even if just for a page or two. Thanks, George! I keep saying this Story Club is teaching me to read! Sometimes it helps me read my own work and go back in and cut loose. If you can get away with it . . .
We had our RV (as Americans think of it), our Camping Car (as the French revere it), our Motor Caravan (as we Brits see it) stolen from our drive, May of last year.
Just watched 'Legend', the movie about the Kray Twins, Reg and Ron. Like your son - as he was at the the age he was; as I, this person 'Geezer' as the world sees me now - I'm a sucker for the kind of bullet hard, sharp knife noir fiction that will become real when I get to start knocking silk socks off. Knock spots off that is, off each and every bastard that wakes up to find that, on looking in the bathroom mirror the blinding pain in her or his head is simply explained by the brand 'C.R.G.' burnt across their forehead.
Have you every experienced the charnel stink of fresh branded flesh? If not, and if you happen to be one of those captured on our good neighbour's CCTV, my simple suggestion is that you should be very, very afraid.
This discussion on flashbacks–inclusion, length, purpose, triggers, and structure/pattern–is so incredibly helpful to the struggling memoirist in me. Thank you, George, and I hope there are other nonfiction writers among us in your fabulous club. I'm learning so much, and I'm imagining you and Mary Karr sharing writerly notes.
Memoirist over here. I consider the reader with every flashback that I use. When I found myself writing a flashback within a flashback, I know I’m asking too much of the reader. Ada Calhoun’s new memoir Also a Poet ranges freely between past and present but I’m never frustrated or confused because she always lets me know where I am in the arc of the story.
I love this post dearly. Two things that stood out, among so many things: I am so intrigued by this idea of being “too on the nose.” And also the mention of Jack Kerouac. I really struggled with On The Road; his writing style made my head hurt. But then when I heard a recording of Jack reading part of it, it was so beautiful that my resistance ducked out. (One of my favorite passages of Kerouac is the first sixty or so pages of Desolation Angels, where he is writing his state of mind while working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades. [I have been there. A place of utter beauty, and not so easy to get to.] Those pages are basically the stream of his thoughts as he is living and writing by himself in the middle of a spectacular nowhere, without the distractions of friends, travel, parties or jazz. A most lovely and worthwhile read.)
Don't know if this will help you any, but for me a flashback is usually in scene, and thus active, while backstory is often given in exposition which makes it passive.
I am reading a novel by Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart, and several pages of one minor character's back story (he's actuallly dead) are delivered completely in dialogue, so in scene. It is quite artificial in a way - hard to imagine anyone actually talking like much of it - but I love the technique! I'm sure you can still find it in contemporary fiction . .
A flashback is a scene told as action but chronologically out of order, whereas backstory is information about a character’s past that can be told at anytime, if necessary for the story, maybe just a passing fact. That’s the way I think about it. A flashback doesn’t have to be a huge deal though. It can be quite compact as well.
In my mind, ditto. We're flashing back to backstory. Personally, I hate it. Makes me feel like the writer doesn't trust the front story enough. I always wonder even with good fb/bs how would the story be without it?
Thanks for your comments. I was interested in George's take.
My understanding of backstory, like Lee's, are those necessary elements salted in throughout the forward moving story that fill us in on background. A flashback moves us back in time, for however long you wish the reader to dwell there!
I'm not a fan of 'flash back' structure, and yet sometimes it is the only way to get where you want to go. I absolutely love Evie Wyld's The Bass Rock whose structure depends on the chaos created by going back. It creates a sense of unease that she couldn't get to any other way. As with anything else, if it's done well, it works. I know the feeling though of, uh oh, can I pull this off?
I haven't read "The Bass Rock" but I recently finished Evie Wyld's "All the Birds, Singing", which I loved and it sounds like like the structures are similar. You get whiplash going back and forth but that may be what kept me glued to the book.
I am also sorting through the flashback vs. backstory use in this post. I take the former to equate with a character's memory (as the brain works); the latter with the character's background, meant to inform the reader. Both seem necessary. Then there is the non-linear and linear narrative. I mention this because I'm reading McEwan's latest novel, Lessons (not offpress yet). I prefer linear storytelling generally so in reading a long novel (over 400pp) like this, a back and forth rendering of time, I am challenged, bordering on feeling manipulated. I wonder if anyone on this list struggles with what seems to me a trend, when chapters flip back and forth. Clearly a determined plan of structure by the author.
Thank you for this reflective and helpful post, this in particular: "The structure of a book is an enactment of a belief system, if we really think about it. What is allowed (in your book) and when?” I’ll come back to this quote....
This post clarified and enhanced my understanding of the purpose and effect flashback can have much better than a critique on a novel chapter of mine I received several years ago. When, in that workshop, the leader/teacher, a very accomplished writer, said I shouldn't use the flashbacks I had, I said, "But isn't the reader going to want to know WHY the protagonist is the way she is, why she's done these things?" he said, "No, not really. The reader just needs to see the world through the protagonist's eyes and, sort of, glean how she got there from who she is now."
That made a little bit of sense to me then, maybe a little more now, but I still like George's take on flashback better.
Well I read a ton of popular novels, mostly crime, and alternating between the past and present is a very common structure. Chapters will be like, "Jane, 1993. Tom, today. Marion, 1994. Marion, today." I don't totally love it and sometimes it's confusing. But flashbacks are far from dealbreakers in contemporary novels.
Last time I was here it was tomorrow, but now I'm here again its not that now's passe that is the issue, but rather I find myself past into ancient history.
Anyone else in Story Club have stories to share about being on Lindisfarne in 993 AD?
And did the tide waters recede on time to reveal the causeway?
They don't always.
One magical time, when Grandson was a bit more but not so much more than a toddler, we were held back by the slow turning tide and a slow shifting sea mist was playing 'now you see it, now you don't' with our sight of the island. The boy nestled in the crook of my right arm was delighted when, to mute his grizzling, having walked to the head of the waiting car queue, the veil of vapour was momentarily drawn back by the slightest breeze to flash upon our eyes the castle! "Look, look!!" the boychild expostulated in delight, only to cry out in bemusement next moment "Gone, gone!!" What a grand Northumbrian day we had, and made, of it.
Past lives are, certainly, a key part of the story who we think we are Galer.
Having said which, have you never met yourself coming out of a supermarket carrying a bag of groceries for a sick relative who, to your certain knowledge won't deliver them later today, simply because you know they passed them across the invalid's threshold yesterday?
Vonnegut was good at being flashy in all times and places. I’m not sure any novel contains more time jumps than Slaughterhouse-5…please correct if I am wrong! (I haven’t read Atkinson yet…)
He certainly knew how to do that timewarp slide. It's been a long time since I read it last. Maybe time to see if it's still on the bookshelves. Not really flashbacks, I guess. And the Atkinson is really more alternate lives - same life over and over, different roads taken. I like Atkinson, had a period of reading a lot of her and prob more to read before I go.
Flashbacks. Movies use this a lot, and a flashback is triggered by a present event in the character's mind explaining the why of the present reaction. But when the author writes a backstory, it would be called exposition. Digressions and side stories feel like decorations enriching the narrative, like a pleasant chat as in a Munro story ( like a btw). For me digression also add to the suspense and I start wondering why it is there. Flashbacks, exposition, digression.... . Enjoyed your idea of a narrative being a belief system....
Ok... I like the way he has expressed the idea, so very simply. I have heard fiction described as a dream, " fictional dream" by John Gardener. "Dream" sounds nice, but vague, and belief system is better- an entire imagined world, with its own rules, laws and presumptions.
That's a fine reply that flies with me KG. Thank you.
I now have this image, maybe in part a flashback to watching a film, of John Gardener and George Saunders sitting at a poker table. They are the stand out guys in the passing moment, going head to head.
"I'll raise you George" says John playing the ace from his 'fictional dream' suite.
There's a powerful, albeit barely audible intake of breath from the other, all folded, players and the outer circle of onlookers. All heads turn to gimlet eyed George.
"Trump you John" says George laying down his bettering 'belief system' ace, reaching forward to rake in the pot.
Another, real as in actual rather than real as in imagined, flashback bulb has spent itself in catching my attention and travelling me back to 10am on a morning early in October 1973. I'm gathered with other newly arrived undergraduates in the Armstrong Lecture Theatre in the Stephenson Building. First lecture of my first year at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I'm about to discover that there is another way of seeing Human Geography than the one which I've known: Abler, Adams & Gould's 'Spatial Organisation: The Geographer's View of the World'. Paradigm Shift!
George's Story Club - in the here and now moving ahead so fulsome that there's little scope to indulge in the joy of flashbacking (Ha Ha! What an unreliable narrator I'm playfully being as I type, maybe my next career should be a 'politician' standing on a platform of 'never knowingly telling truth?) - strikes me (being serious now) as being quite a Paradigm Shift.
I'm going, I can see now, to have to make a window of time in which to get to know more about this John Gardener dude. Thanks for the heads-up KG. Be readin' ya pardner as we mosey along the trail ahead.
Edited: just to add a point I had in mind but failed to make. George in a previous career was a mining engineer which does I think inform his way of thinking about the workings of creative minds in a writing context. Illustrates the truth of an old saying, which in George's case runs along the lines of "You can take the Boy out of Mine Engineering but you'll never Mine Engineering out of the Boy." Same goes for most of us I think, in my case while I'm long past being paid as a Geographer the Geographies that are in me are ever there in who I am and what I do today. Same indeed goes for all of the great exponents of short fiction that we have been invited to engage with in Story Club.
Would you sit down, comfortably, to play out a hand of poker with is hombre KG?
Remember the scene in the Amarillo Abattoir? What I noticed that, sharp as the knife that the hulk threatened to disembowel him with, for fun, was: George didn't flinch.
What a hoot ... "gimlet eyed George" ... is that the sound of Billy the Kid I hear groaning, still stuck, In the Bardo?
Sure thing, Rob. His response is appreciative of a difficult subject. It's straight to the point and illustrated with good examples. Also I like how G.S. provides his thoughtful admission of hesitation regarding what can become a beast if writers let self-indulgence get the best of them. What did you think?
As I'm reading your words I'm thinking of ways in which George writes words that strike us as 'wonderful'. What has burbled up bigger and bester than all the many other contending thoughts is the wonderful way in which George encourages us to exercise our judgement but never to fall prey to the folly of being unduly judgemental.
Wow D.
Thanks for so generously tripping me into what I feel is a worthwhile expansion of my own thoughts just why Story Club is a place of regular rather than rare wonderment.
I dunno, my memories can go on for quite a while. One time I ate a madeleine and had a flashback for like a thousand pages.
Hahaha!
I want to read those pages!
💞
Bob, that is hilarious.
Is that the flashback which closed out, sharpish, when Rosemary came back to mind? :-))
i had no idea that "authors and teachers advise against flashbacks." That sounds crazy, to me. Flashbacks can be fantastic! And necessary! One thing I've noticed by reading these threads the last few months is that a lot of people have been given a lot of rules. There really are no rules (George has said this as well). You can do whatever you want as long as you do a good job of it. (I've seen Alice Munro mentioned here. She is the queen of writing all over the place in time. Her use of time--well, if you haven't read her, dive in anywhere. She's not just digressing--she often goes back and forth. It's amazing to see what she can do with chronology and time.)
To this particular questioner, I hope you don't mind my unasked-for advice. Just write your novel in any way that feels right to you. Don't listen to any rules. Finish your book and then analyze it. You'll see what's missing or what needs to be added. If your flashbacks or sequences aren't working, you can revise them. If you need more, you can put them in. I'm sure you're already on a good path. Listen to yourself and do what you feel is right.
I'll shut up now. Thanks for reading.
amen about the rules. When I was teaching, 1st year college, we spent the first week laying out all 'the rules' that students brought with them that teachers had told them or that they misconstrued from instruction. "Don't use 'I.'" "Don't start sentences with 'and' or 'because.' - sooooo many rules. And then I'd explain which ones were decent rules and which ones were what I called "bullshit" rules. My students appreciated that because the felt the rules constricted them so much they had to "write for teacher." So I freed them from those shackles of rules. Of course, that freedom was paralyzing to so many of them. Now they had no training wheels and signposts. So we'd build up to tendencies and moves - see what worked and didn't given a particular assignment so writing became experimentation and more fun.
The rules were so ingrained it took all my strength to unlearn them.
My favorite story was of the student from a small town of about 300 people in western Kansas. He was taught to write 5-paragraph thesis essays. Each paragraph was 4 sentences long - no more no less. Each paragraph MUST have a topic sentence, an example, an explanation of the example, and a transition to the next paragraph. Obvious accommodations were made for the Intro and Conclusion, but they also were 4 sentences long. It was as reliable as a prairie apple pie recipe. The student became a better writer when I told him that he could, indeed, have a paragraph with 5 or even 6 sentences. His eyes grew so wide, and he didn't really believe me. "Mrs. Anderson" wouldn't steer him wrong.
I've had my share of Mrs. Andersons over the course of my life.
(Side story: when my kids were growing up, I had a set of "life rules" on the fridge. Rule Number One: Life is full of disappointments. Whenever they'd complain about some unfairness, perceived or real, I'd just point to the fridge. Parenting 101.)
Great points! I heard this a lot when I was working in LA. Screenwriters (and sadly screenplay buyers) being hung up on the so-called "inciting incident" and arcs and how such-and-such has to have happened by page 30. They end up crawling through the weeds when all they have to do is stop and look around long enough to know they're not weeds at all, but the stems of flowers they planted. It all comes down to IMHO of just telling a good story well. Inciting incidents happen when they happen, characters don't all have arcs, bad guys can be good guys and vice versa. The rules are rules until you find something that works, rules be damned. I mean not saying any of us are James Joyce-like (though who knows?) but nobody argues that Ulysses is a work of genius and he kinda made up his own rules, didn't he?
Bottom line: If you're honest with yourself creatively, you won't need anybody to tell you it isn't working or it is. You'll know.
I actually struggle with this--throwing away the rules! I talk the big talk, but in reality I think a lot about character arcs when I write. And inciting incidents. If i write a story and leave out certain elements, I can feel something not working. (That being said, I've written stories that ignored the rules and worked very well.) As far as screenplays--I finally wrote one and of course i used that Save the Cat book. I found it helpful, mostly because i had no idea what I was doing. Has that screenplay sold? Of course not. I think what you are getting at here is the difference between mediocre and true talent/genius. Those who have "it" can break all the rules and create something beautiful. Those without it, break the rules and end up with a big mess.
I don’t buy that about “talent/genius” and the mediocre. I think there are an incredible amount of other variables (privilege, those you know, luck, opportunity, and plain old hard work) between those who make it or don’t.
I see nothing wrong with playing by the rules and sticking to them. Or breaking them from the start. Or starting within the rules and then consciously breaking them.
Those who want to break the rules before they’ve learned to abide by them and learn fundamentals - they have the most difficult road.
... I see that this conversation really took off in interesting ways so I’ll get off my phone with its limited view of life (and the thread) and get onto the computer and read the rest before continuing.
But to put it briefly - pshaw on the rules, as long as you know what they are and how you’re violating them.
Hi Lee. I wasn't referring to "making it." I was saying that some writers are mediocre and others are not. And if you are a great writer, you can get away with a lot--break the rules and create something beautiful. I'm not talking about sales here. I'm talking about creating art. (I'm guessing you've read the rest of the thread by now. I could go on and on in this thread, but we came to a natural end.)
I haven’t read the thread yet. I’m not much for sales talk - I prefer the art talk as well. But thanks for the clarification for when I read the exchange tomorrow!
You only end up with a big mess (if it really is a big mess 🙃) if you don’t follow your best instincts and/or listen to good criticism and your heart and gut. Or if it’s not finished. 🙃 While I reject most rules especially presented to be absolutes, I do follow some basics. We all do. But let’s look at character arcs for one example: Your character(s) has to go through something, be about something, experience something. That doesn’t mean your character has to have had some meaningful inner journey. It only means that character whoever she is in your story has to be interesting to read about within a good story well told. Thats not a rule, it’s just a result. How you get to ‘’interesting story well told‘’ isn’t about following rules, it’s about following your own creative process. That’s it. And it’s a pretty good start if it’s interesting to you. And that you’ve taken the time to understand your idea and what makes this story good and interesting and, I think George wrote recently, also being able to cull better, truer, more observant writing by being your own best and most honest and bloodless editor. To me it’s a spin on the old adage - write like nobody is watching. Embrace and hone the voice within and be kind enough to tell yourself when it’s not working. Again from George, it’s the writing and rewriting that gets you home. That’s work. Hard work.
i love this comment. Thank you. I totally agree that a character has to go through something, experience something. But that "something" has to have the potential to affect the character. (Okay, it doesn't have to--there are all sorts of stories.) The character can then feel the effect, or choose to ignore it. Or go against it, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm just describing the kind of stories that I like, that I find satisfying. An "interesting story, well told" to me has certain elements embedded in it. (Heavy emphasis here on the words 'to me.') Yes, write what interests you. Then examine what you've written. Look at what the story is telling you and then rewrite and revise, adding, subtracting, etc. until the story glows. And absolutely write like no one is watching. That is key. But the analysis is also key (to me). And by looking closely, you see what the 'meaning' is, large or small. You are right that a character doesn't have to have "a meaningful inner journey." But without that, a story better have a lot going for it--fantastic writing, for one. Because I think we read for meaning, we look for meaning everywhere, we see stories everywhere we go. We are constantly putting together puzzles in our head using our very limited perceptions. When i read a story that lacks meaning (no matter how small), I'm usually very disappointed.
Thanks for the response. So here's the thing: I'm not saying the story itself doesn't have to have "meaning", all I'm saying is that great stories don't live or die on whether your main character has any deep meaningful inner journey or arc or whatever the kids are calling it now. I apologize -- the misunderstanding is on me.
Let me try better.
In sticking with our main topic of discussion, a short work of fiction works well when it exists and/or functions as a work of art, however that's defined. Note the last part because defining what makes a story Art is a bit open to interpretation -- George has demonstrated that clearly time and time again here. And defining what makes it a GREAT work of art is possibly more fraught although there seems to be a general consensus in the world that James Joyce is a genius and maybe, no offense intended, James Patterson is not.
We can all agree I think that great stories are not just well told (writing/ structure) but elicit sometimes deep, sometimes conflicting emotions whatever they may be -- contemplation, surprise, anger, sadness, pathos etc. It *affects* the reader. And this could be its deeper meaning or it could have no meaning at all except to paint a brief picture of a time and place or action, like a photograph or a song. It exists and flourishes as one that that we can all say is good or even great but yet impacts us all in different ways (even to the point where some of us find it distasteful). A person could walk by a perfectly bred Pug dog that has just won Best in Show at Westminster and think, "dude, that is one ugly dog".
As George tells us, it's the choices we make as writers/editors/observers that lead our burgeoning A-OK story to something closer to art. This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak -- it's hard, hard, hard work. But hell, that's writing.
So back to the example of the character arc. A common question from script readers is "what's the character's arc"? This comes from the common understanding (in and out of Hollywood) that the best characters must go through something akin to Joseph Campbell's description of a "hero's journey", a deeply meaningful inner journey via story that significantly alters their perspective/actions/behavior and how others view them from page 1 to end credits. It's the kind of writing advice that is dispensed as a hard and fast rule. Even though many, many very good stories involve protagonists that don't change at all -- their circumstances might change, they may go through a lot of trials and tribulations or nothing at all and yet the story still works. It may indeed be important to your story that your character grows and changes from beginning to the end or it may not be.
My take and YMMV: worrying about the "arc" of your character isn't as important as making sure you are true to who she is --the choices she makes make sense organically. And if they don't make sense, you need a helluva good reason to make it make sense. And that right there is in your control, you The Writer. This is what makes our craft so kick ass -- you can make all kinds of allowances within the imaginary world where your characters live -- as long as it all makes sense IN THAT WORLD. As far as rules go, those are way more important.
i'm going to try to respond succinctly here. I'm in Seattle in the middle of a heat wave in an apartment with no air conditioning. I can barely think but i love this discussion, so i'll do my best.
I think we're talking about several things at once here, and that sort of muddies things. Yes, yes, stories can look many different ways, can have all sorts of shapes, can derive meaning from the poetry of the words or the order of the paragraphs or from the fact that nothing happens at all. Great writers can move us, can bring us to tears and sometimes we don't know why, can't explain it, can only point to the story itself and say "it's all right there." And any rules about story making can be broken.
But ignore all rules at your own peril. Break rules when you know that you are breaking them.
Also, not everyone is talented. Not everyone can write a story. Beginning, middle end--even this simple structure throws many a writer off. A character arc is very basic. It's very, very often there, in a story that satisfies. (I"m not saying other kinds of stories don't satisfy--but there's a reason James Patterson sells millions of copies. People like stories.) When you say "worrying about the arc of your character isn't as important as making sure you are true to who she is"--that doesn't work for me. Because if I am true to who my character is and if I want to write about that character, then she's going to have an arc of some kind. And that's because, in a story something happens. And that something that happens happens NOW. For a reason. Any other story is probably a story I won't finish reading or writing. Yes, everything has to make sense in the world of your story. But you also need a sense of urgency. And that urgency usually comes from an inciting incident. So maybe I'm just very hooked into conventions, but they make sense to me and they result in stories that work. Give me a character who sits on their butt day after day. And then...ONE DAY something happens. And they have to get up and do something before the world explodes.
I don't think we can compare any of this (story writing, as in short stories/ novels) to script writing and script readers. That's a different world altogether based on algorithms and money. Only a small handful of artists can make the films they want to make. Any company that has script readers is looking for the next hit. And a hit has certain elements to it. Often the hero's journey! Or at least a big character arc with a grand climax and a great ending. Any studio NOT looking for that sort of script isn't going to survive for long, unless they've got some very deep pockets. Studios spend a fortune on audience research, looking for holes in plots and moments that don't work. That's just not how novels and short stories work.
I hope this was clear and not too preachy. I'm not even sure i've said what i meant to say. I guess overall i just gave a defense of a character arc! And i guess that means I'm a person who likes to see a character go through something and come out the other side.
Hitting post and hoping I don't have to edit later.
When I was in school, my teachers always warned us against using flashbacks for our compositions. It was touted as a "lazy" technique that's disruptive and overused! I completely agree with you that we should just write whatever feels right. It's strange that we admire pioneers of the different literary movements throughout history and yet discourage students from creativity and more descriptive writing!
https://www.pw.org/content/dont_look_back_the_problem_with_backstory Ben Percy's take on it. Even he says despite his objections that the best do it well & can get away with bs/fbs.
Oh good one - I love Percy.
Ben Percy buries the lede!
The lede?
I’ve only got my phone at the moment so I can’t put up the link. Please google “bury the lede.” It’s a saying that refers to a story that puts the main point far down in the story instead of the beginning. In journalism the opening is called the “lede.”
When I think of how long can a digression go on, Faulkner comes immediately to mind.
Thank you for the advice—rules aren’t that helpful.
I knew there was something unappealing about “flashbacks of convenience.” I just hadn’t seen the problem articulated so clearly. In essence, the reader feels the writer’s laziness in using the flashback to do the work the writer should be doing. Then, on some level, the reader decides she too can cut corners by simply checking out.
This was instructive and useful, and I appreciate it. Thanks.
George you are so often asking these challenging questions, like, do I know the relationship between my techniques and my rules [when to use a flashback] (it never even occurred to me that I might have rules for my writing) and my sense of what life is about? This is a hard question, but I am not whining, no. I'm groaning because I can see that the link between rules and my sense of things, or, put it another way, between heart and brain, is essential to my stories. Well, to anybody's stories? These questions, well, I'm a different writer today, and I thank you.
It takes the heart of a lion and the brain of a scarecrow to get Dorothy home to Kansas.
And the courage of a tin man. (Still love that Bert Lahr went from being leonine to waiting for Godot.)
What constructs are these that you write of Jane?
'Techniques'? 'Rules'? 'Flashbacks'?
Each in their turn noisy enough I agree but so what? I'm minded to think that such stuff is just so much nonsense: it is the telling of a well told tale that must be the litmus.
Such 'technic' words are fine and dandy but what have they to do with such an opening line as 'Mother died today'?
Notice: no hint of a sad cliche in those three words 'Mother died today'.
I'm replying to you, specifically, Jane. That said, and actually and more broadly, pitching this particular reply to suggest that what a writer's feeling for their story - be the writer's sense of inclined to being she or he - is what, ultimately matters:
Way back George put Morse and Cummings before us, padding their trods along a particular towpath. The story he unfolds, in each instance, unto his readers has everything to do with being midwife to a birth that had to happen. George simply writes in response to the demands of the unfolding story.
Enough, undoubtedly said on this theme, for the moment.
Should any Story Clubber, passing this way, choose to pass Comment I will, as ever, be interested in what you decide to say.
Yes Rob, I agree. No feeling, no story.
I remember The Mom of Bold Action, and I just reread it. Curiously enough, I had not remembered Ricky, who seems, now, quite memorable. How could I not remember? What grabbed me in this story then, and again now, was/is the brilliant weave of that voice, curling through time and event and desire. And the wham at the end is nice too, and made me ashamed at how, both times, I laughed and joyed my way through. Genius, really. I flashed back myself to living in Manhattan, and was following my first-grader down, no up West End Avenue when a gang of maybe 2nd graders jumped him and stole his bike before I could reach them. My son went back home and drew very violent pictures of the event, bearing so hard on the pencil, he went through the paper. I called the cops. Ha ha ha. I loved where we lived, but we moved the next month to LI. Can't raise a kid in a place like that. No freedom. No good. Now I need to read yet again and, for my own enlightenment, map the travels the voice makes, even if just for a page or two. Thanks, George! I keep saying this Story Club is teaching me to read! Sometimes it helps me read my own work and go back in and cut loose. If you can get away with it . . .
We had our RV (as Americans think of it), our Camping Car (as the French revere it), our Motor Caravan (as we Brits see it) stolen from our drive, May of last year.
Just watched 'Legend', the movie about the Kray Twins, Reg and Ron. Like your son - as he was at the the age he was; as I, this person 'Geezer' as the world sees me now - I'm a sucker for the kind of bullet hard, sharp knife noir fiction that will become real when I get to start knocking silk socks off. Knock spots off that is, off each and every bastard that wakes up to find that, on looking in the bathroom mirror the blinding pain in her or his head is simply explained by the brand 'C.R.G.' burnt across their forehead.
Have you every experienced the charnel stink of fresh branded flesh? If not, and if you happen to be one of those captured on our good neighbour's CCTV, my simple suggestion is that you should be very, very afraid.
This discussion on flashbacks–inclusion, length, purpose, triggers, and structure/pattern–is so incredibly helpful to the struggling memoirist in me. Thank you, George, and I hope there are other nonfiction writers among us in your fabulous club. I'm learning so much, and I'm imagining you and Mary Karr sharing writerly notes.
Memoirist over here. I consider the reader with every flashback that I use. When I found myself writing a flashback within a flashback, I know I’m asking too much of the reader. Ada Calhoun’s new memoir Also a Poet ranges freely between past and present but I’m never frustrated or confused because she always lets me know where I am in the arc of the story.
I love this post dearly. Two things that stood out, among so many things: I am so intrigued by this idea of being “too on the nose.” And also the mention of Jack Kerouac. I really struggled with On The Road; his writing style made my head hurt. But then when I heard a recording of Jack reading part of it, it was so beautiful that my resistance ducked out. (One of my favorite passages of Kerouac is the first sixty or so pages of Desolation Angels, where he is writing his state of mind while working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades. [I have been there. A place of utter beauty, and not so easy to get to.] Those pages are basically the stream of his thoughts as he is living and writing by himself in the middle of a spectacular nowhere, without the distractions of friends, travel, parties or jazz. A most lovely and worthwhile read.)
Thanks David. I will checkout Desolation Angels.
George, to your mind, what's the difference between a flashback and backstory?
Don't know if this will help you any, but for me a flashback is usually in scene, and thus active, while backstory is often given in exposition which makes it passive.
Good distinction.
I am reading a novel by Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart, and several pages of one minor character's back story (he's actuallly dead) are delivered completely in dialogue, so in scene. It is quite artificial in a way - hard to imagine anyone actually talking like much of it - but I love the technique! I'm sure you can still find it in contemporary fiction . .
That's a good way to explain the difference between flashback and backstory, Rosanne.
A flashback is a scene told as action but chronologically out of order, whereas backstory is information about a character’s past that can be told at anytime, if necessary for the story, maybe just a passing fact. That’s the way I think about it. A flashback doesn’t have to be a huge deal though. It can be quite compact as well.
My understanding, too, Lee.
In my mind, ditto. We're flashing back to backstory. Personally, I hate it. Makes me feel like the writer doesn't trust the front story enough. I always wonder even with good fb/bs how would the story be without it?
Thanks for your comments. I was interested in George's take.
My understanding of backstory, like Lee's, are those necessary elements salted in throughout the forward moving story that fill us in on background. A flashback moves us back in time, for however long you wish the reader to dwell there!
I'm not a fan of 'flash back' structure, and yet sometimes it is the only way to get where you want to go. I absolutely love Evie Wyld's The Bass Rock whose structure depends on the chaos created by going back. It creates a sense of unease that she couldn't get to any other way. As with anything else, if it's done well, it works. I know the feeling though of, uh oh, can I pull this off?
I haven't read "The Bass Rock" but I recently finished Evie Wyld's "All the Birds, Singing", which I loved and it sounds like like the structures are similar. You get whiplash going back and forth but that may be what kept me glued to the book.
Yes. I loved that book as well.
I am also sorting through the flashback vs. backstory use in this post. I take the former to equate with a character's memory (as the brain works); the latter with the character's background, meant to inform the reader. Both seem necessary. Then there is the non-linear and linear narrative. I mention this because I'm reading McEwan's latest novel, Lessons (not offpress yet). I prefer linear storytelling generally so in reading a long novel (over 400pp) like this, a back and forth rendering of time, I am challenged, bordering on feeling manipulated. I wonder if anyone on this list struggles with what seems to me a trend, when chapters flip back and forth. Clearly a determined plan of structure by the author.
Thank you for this reflective and helpful post, this in particular: "The structure of a book is an enactment of a belief system, if we really think about it. What is allowed (in your book) and when?” I’ll come back to this quote....
This post clarified and enhanced my understanding of the purpose and effect flashback can have much better than a critique on a novel chapter of mine I received several years ago. When, in that workshop, the leader/teacher, a very accomplished writer, said I shouldn't use the flashbacks I had, I said, "But isn't the reader going to want to know WHY the protagonist is the way she is, why she's done these things?" he said, "No, not really. The reader just needs to see the world through the protagonist's eyes and, sort of, glean how she got there from who she is now."
That made a little bit of sense to me then, maybe a little more now, but I still like George's take on flashback better.
Well I read a ton of popular novels, mostly crime, and alternating between the past and present is a very common structure. Chapters will be like, "Jane, 1993. Tom, today. Marion, 1994. Marion, today." I don't totally love it and sometimes it's confusing. But flashbacks are far from dealbreakers in contemporary novels.
So....why not flash forward?^^
Ooh…I have seen that work sometimes. Trying to remember who and where. Maybe in Heinlein? But in some short stories I have, or will have, read.
Ha!^^
Last time I was here it was tomorrow, but now I'm here again its not that now's passe that is the issue, but rather I find myself past into ancient history.
Anyone else in Story Club have stories to share about being on Lindisfarne in 993 AD?
I was there in 2014..magical ^^
And did the tide waters recede on time to reveal the causeway?
They don't always.
One magical time, when Grandson was a bit more but not so much more than a toddler, we were held back by the slow turning tide and a slow shifting sea mist was playing 'now you see it, now you don't' with our sight of the island. The boy nestled in the crook of my right arm was delighted when, to mute his grizzling, having walked to the head of the waiting car queue, the veil of vapour was momentarily drawn back by the slightest breeze to flash upon our eyes the castle! "Look, look!!" the boychild expostulated in delight, only to cry out in bemusement next moment "Gone, gone!!" What a grand Northumbrian day we had, and made, of it.
That sounds most magical, Merlin!
Hi Graeme.
Curious? Why did I read, on my Outlook Hotmail, a fuller reply which has now disappeared?
If you decided to 'Delete' let me know? If you didn't ...
Let me check with my past lives and get back to you. :)
Past lives are, certainly, a key part of the story who we think we are Galer.
Having said which, have you never met yourself coming out of a supermarket carrying a bag of groceries for a sick relative who, to your certain knowledge won't deliver them later today, simply because you know they passed them across the invalid's threshold yesterday?
🤣
Yikes, Rob. No, that hasn't happened. Sounds like Groundhog Day + that movie with the elevator door...is this a plot or something you experienced?
Time loop galore
I'm thinking - Slaughterhouse 5? Kate Atkinson also I think - only maybe flash sideways, that one.
Vonnegut was good at being flashy in all times and places. I’m not sure any novel contains more time jumps than Slaughterhouse-5…please correct if I am wrong! (I haven’t read Atkinson yet…)
He certainly knew how to do that timewarp slide. It's been a long time since I read it last. Maybe time to see if it's still on the bookshelves. Not really flashbacks, I guess. And the Atkinson is really more alternate lives - same life over and over, different roads taken. I like Atkinson, had a period of reading a lot of her and prob more to read before I go.
Miles to read before I sleep.
Flashbacks. Movies use this a lot, and a flashback is triggered by a present event in the character's mind explaining the why of the present reaction. But when the author writes a backstory, it would be called exposition. Digressions and side stories feel like decorations enriching the narrative, like a pleasant chat as in a Munro story ( like a btw). For me digression also add to the suspense and I start wondering why it is there. Flashbacks, exposition, digression.... . Enjoyed your idea of a narrative being a belief system....
Care to expand on why you 'Enjoyed George's idea of a narrative being a belief system....' KG?
Ok... I like the way he has expressed the idea, so very simply. I have heard fiction described as a dream, " fictional dream" by John Gardener. "Dream" sounds nice, but vague, and belief system is better- an entire imagined world, with its own rules, laws and presumptions.
That's a fine reply that flies with me KG. Thank you.
I now have this image, maybe in part a flashback to watching a film, of John Gardener and George Saunders sitting at a poker table. They are the stand out guys in the passing moment, going head to head.
"I'll raise you George" says John playing the ace from his 'fictional dream' suite.
There's a powerful, albeit barely audible intake of breath from the other, all folded, players and the outer circle of onlookers. All heads turn to gimlet eyed George.
"Trump you John" says George laying down his bettering 'belief system' ace, reaching forward to rake in the pot.
Another, real as in actual rather than real as in imagined, flashback bulb has spent itself in catching my attention and travelling me back to 10am on a morning early in October 1973. I'm gathered with other newly arrived undergraduates in the Armstrong Lecture Theatre in the Stephenson Building. First lecture of my first year at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I'm about to discover that there is another way of seeing Human Geography than the one which I've known: Abler, Adams & Gould's 'Spatial Organisation: The Geographer's View of the World'. Paradigm Shift!
George's Story Club - in the here and now moving ahead so fulsome that there's little scope to indulge in the joy of flashbacking (Ha Ha! What an unreliable narrator I'm playfully being as I type, maybe my next career should be a 'politician' standing on a platform of 'never knowingly telling truth?) - strikes me (being serious now) as being quite a Paradigm Shift.
I'm going, I can see now, to have to make a window of time in which to get to know more about this John Gardener dude. Thanks for the heads-up KG. Be readin' ya pardner as we mosey along the trail ahead.
Edited: just to add a point I had in mind but failed to make. George in a previous career was a mining engineer which does I think inform his way of thinking about the workings of creative minds in a writing context. Illustrates the truth of an old saying, which in George's case runs along the lines of "You can take the Boy out of Mine Engineering but you'll never Mine Engineering out of the Boy." Same goes for most of us I think, in my case while I'm long past being paid as a Geographer the Geographies that are in me are ever there in who I am and what I do today. Same indeed goes for all of the great exponents of short fiction that we have been invited to engage with in Story Club.
Hahaha... imaginary flashback..... "gimlet eyed George" that's creative!
Would you sit down, comfortably, to play out a hand of poker with is hombre KG?
Remember the scene in the Amarillo Abattoir? What I noticed that, sharp as the knife that the hulk threatened to disembowel him with, for fun, was: George didn't flinch.
What a hoot ... "gimlet eyed George" ... is that the sound of Billy the Kid I hear groaning, still stuck, In the Bardo?
That's a tough subject to address, and I found much of what you said wonderful.
'Wonderful'. Fair enough; nice label; what lies - in more detail - beneath you point of view I'd be interested to know D. Care to expand a bit?
Sure thing, Rob. His response is appreciative of a difficult subject. It's straight to the point and illustrated with good examples. Also I like how G.S. provides his thoughtful admission of hesitation regarding what can become a beast if writers let self-indulgence get the best of them. What did you think?
Thanks D.
As I'm reading your words I'm thinking of ways in which George writes words that strike us as 'wonderful'. What has burbled up bigger and bester than all the many other contending thoughts is the wonderful way in which George encourages us to exercise our judgement but never to fall prey to the folly of being unduly judgemental.
Wow D.
Thanks for so generously tripping me into what I feel is a worthwhile expansion of my own thoughts just why Story Club is a place of regular rather than rare wonderment.
Likewise, Rob!