I'm struck by the idea that if we honour the journey, the imagination, the twists and turns, let our story find its path, then we can't know the crisis ourselves. It must come as a surprise to us. As though the line of men with their buckets of water, that increase in size and weight, and begin to boil towards the end of the line, and the final bucket arrives at the final man and at the end we find, not a fire, but a cow with a newly born calf. Got a bit carried away there, that's not really a crisis moment, more of a twist at the end. But are we saying that our obsessing about plot, structure and a journey toward a crisis, is flawed, because we can't create the crisis ourselves it has to arise from the fabric of the story. And if we are good writers we will get good at finding those moments, at spotting them, and warming them up. So its more about listening to the story than it is about telling it...sort of...?
This resonated with me as well. I've never outlined a story and when I have it's a lifeless thing. The joy is in the discovery -- all those bits collecting in the filter of your subconscious over the course of writing the story until they emerge as something solid and inevitable.
Yes Tom, that's what we're saying here in the Saundersian realm of storytelling. As you know George is simply telling us what works for him and what he needs to do as an artist, which is to follow the Donald Barthelme idea of The Art of Not Knowing. He is not saying this is the only way to go about it, as evidenced by Story Clubbers in this thread who prefer to outline, or write the ending or climax first so they know where they're headed. But can great art be so premeditated I wonder? Picasso did tons of sketches of an idea to hone it in yet allow it to meet him halfway if you will, before he ever put brush to canvas.
Me? If I was hiking in the woods and came upon two caves, one with a shallower entrance that allowed me to see all the way to the back of the cave, and a second cave which was only lit at the very opening then extended beyond into a dark unknown, I'd step into the second one, to find out via my own experience what's behind the darkness.
Haha. You've reminded me that I suffer from situational claustrophobia: I will enter a dark cave yet will not ride in the backseat of a car. Go figure.
Hi, Tom. What you describe is a cherished belief about how a story should come together, "organically" or as a serendipitous journey the author embarks on as words and images discover a path in the very moment they're being laid down. I find that George's teachings are infused with it too. People who subscribe to "our" model are dubbed "pantsers" because, according to this myth, we write by the seat of our pants.
This unfortunate locution tends to obscure the idea that there is plenty of discipline required in this approach, particularly when we're talking about the arduous task of teaching ourselves how to subdue our egos and super-egos. As if that was easy!
The alternative, that of being a "plotter" never appeals to me. I always twist it in my mind so that when I sound it it, it comes out as "plodder".
Joseph Campbell in his series The Power of Myth, recorded in interviews with Bill Moyers, is brilliant on the general necessity of subduing the conscious / controlling aspect of the mind, letting our less bullying neurons, which are I gotta believe vastly superior in number and capability, go to work for us. Hell, he describes quite convincingly how dominance of this part of the mind is an aberration that threatens the health of the individual and all of civilization!
Campbell also acknowledges in one of those Power of Myth episodes the serendipitous journey as one of the forms of his fabled "Hero's journey".
Many thanks John. I wonder if the style we pick relates to ‘who we are’ and ‘why we write’. As a neuro-divergent writer, I don’t think I access emotions in a straightforward manner, which seems to mean that I don’t know what I’m writing about until later. I have good access to my sub/un conscious, it’s more real to me than the linear logical world. So a technique that supports and champions this process is incredibly valuable and it’s quite moving to get this validation and allows me to go deeper with confidence.
Tom, I think it's whatever works for you. But yes, listening as you write, allowing the story to lead you forward, remembering in some part of your brain that things must escalate, and eventually getting your story to its climax--maybe during revision. It's true you don't have to obsess about plot/structure, but it's also true that you can't ignore those elements either. Everything works together. How you get there is your own process that you have to discover for yourself.
Okay David, I'm drawn to focus on your 'nearly' and wonder how you relate to George's often long and extending, as necessary, time window for writing his 'short' fictions?
What a relief it has been to realize I don’t have to write a given story perfectly in a week’s time. Especially since my time is severely limited right now. I can only write in a geological time frame, apparently.
'Geological' strikes me as 'way toooo long' David. How about setting yourself a goal of honing a capability to get from story start (up the hill) to story finish (down the hill) in good order at a 'glacial' pace?
It is way too long, but it’s a comfort to know I have something in common with the Grand Canyon! (Don’t worry, I’m getting there, one substratum at a time.)
This is maybe too adjacent of a question, but it's coming to my mind here at 3 AM in Munich while I can't sleep from my own personal crises and maybe too much caffeine. How often, if ever, do you consciously work through your own crises in fiction? I read Chuck Palahniuk's "Plot Spoiler," and I believe at one point he talked about his mentor who taught fiction as primarily a means of confronting our own personal daemons and deepest fears, or something like that. And then of course there's the adage of fiction being truer than life. Do you feel like something in your conscious, or subconscious, writing mind uses whatever might be weighing on you in a given moment as fodder? Or do you see that as completely separate from your work? And if related, do you think it's possible to produce decent work from immediate crises/wounds or does one have to wait a few years until wounds are scars and the writer has greater nuance and perspective (but perhaps lost some emotional memory of the details that bring a story to life)? How many sentences can I end with a question mark before I fall back asleep?
Alicia, i hope you fell back asleep! I don't know if your questions are for George or the rest of us here... But I definitely feel that all of our writing comes from our subconscious and that we end up placing our current and past issues on the page. Even if the story seems to bear no relation to our inner turmoils/pasts/ruminations. It's all there. Writing is therapy and a way to get to know yourself. As far as writing from "immediate crises/wounds," well, everyone's different. Joan Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking soon after her husband died, while she was still mired in grief. It is a masterpiece. Others, writing through grief, may end up with the kind of journal entries that no one else wants to read. So, yes, sometimes time has to go by in order to have distance and perspective. But not always. As with everything here in Story Club, there are no correct answers. Sorry to hear you are having personal crises there in Munich. Hope things improve for you very soon.
And to provide another example, Elie Wiesel gave himself a ten year moratorium on writing before he embarked on Night. I think processing time is writer dependent.
Thank you for such a beautiful reply, Mary. I still need to read The Year of Magical Thinking. Perhaps that will keep me company on my train ride to France! Yes, I did fall asleep eventually, at 6 AM. It's something. :)
Emotional memory is an interesting topic. Since it is now hardcore science that one can inherit PTSD from our ancestors, the source of an emotion is often not what it seems. Is the emotion mine, or did it come from my father? Or his mother? Yes, appears to be the answer.
"Or does one have to wait a few years until wounds are scars and the writer has greater nuance and perspective..."
If the approach to emotion is like having an instrument for many years and playing the same tunes over and over, waiting won't improve the music or the writing. If I am genuinely curious about what is important about the emotion, the layer underneath can display itself. In my opinion, writing that comes from the deeper layers is more compelling to the reader and may lead to transformation in the character, writer and perhaps the reader.
"Do you feel like something in your conscious, or subconscious, writing mind uses whatever might be weighing on you in a given moment as fodder? Or do you see that as completely separate from your work? "
Nothing is completely separate. When we use that might be weighing on us the writing is more authentic. Writing from who we are is the strongest, in my opinion.
There is a certain resonance when we're actively working through something, isn't there? (And hallo ! I live in DC but come here every few months to visit newly discovered family. Still need to learn German. :)
Hello, Alicia. I'm in DC, too, where, if you're not home yet, the weather has been suspiciously pleasant. As for using for fodder whatever might be weighing on you, I don't see how you can avoid it, really. Even if whatever it is isn't transcribed directly onto the page, whole & in tact, it will still be an influence, a lens. Even if it's not a big crisis situation, but more the quotidian, I believe we are, inescapably, our experiences. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, it's not what you see, it's how you see. And I believe the how to be that lens of experience. I think also of a lot of George's work resulting from, as he has said, his own struggles as a kind, hard-working guy just trying to catch a break. Not every personal detail may have made it wholesale onto the page but I bet his own experiences & how they made him feel were there in the room with him as he typed.
This is beautiful Rosanne and I tend to agree. Even when we don't put something explicitly on the page I think it makes its way into the spaces, somehow. (Belatedly replying to this from back in DC where I'm soaking up the sun after that crazy day of storms yesterday! Not sure how I missed this back in May.)
"A crisis moment is best discovered, I’d say, as opposed to mandated. Or, a crisis moment arrived at in this way (i.e., organically) will have more integrity and be more undeniable."
I aspire to this, but I almost always find myself writing this crisis point first and then expanding the story outward from there. What usually ends up happening is the original crisis morphs into something else, or gets moved to another place in the story, or something else unforeseeable happens to it, and I just sort of react as best I can. I honestly have no clue how some (most?) writers just sit down and write their story from beginning to end.
Brad: This may be a problem with definitions. If you start with a crisis, that's different than starting with the climactic moment of the story--the moment the original crisis comes to a head and the character must act. Stories really ought to begin (after the exposition, if exposition is needed) with some sort of crisis, even if it's very small. That's the "and then one day," part of the story. Like, everything is fine and THEN--something happens (the crisis to which i think you may be referring). After that, the protagonist has to deal with that crisis. So it may be that your strategy is just fine as far as story creation. The fact that your cries morphs or moves or whatever it's doing, is fantastic! That part is the writing part, in which you eventually discover what your story is.
So, like, your character might - as you start by writing 'climax first' - be on the top of the mountain, let's say Everest, without any indication (that is, sequence of meaningful actions) of how she got there and, likewise, no indication of what could possibly happen (that is, in terms of meaningful action) next?
Basically, yeah. Though more realistically, in that case, I would write a short scene about the sensation of standing on a mountain, then maybe think about what kind of person would do such a thing, and what circumstances might bring about such an undertaking, and then what they do next. It's really not as strange as it sounds, I promise!
I second that notion. Nearly always, I begin with the climax. Though, I confess that my favorite-est writing moments come when characters refuse to cooperate with their prescribed, planned roles in the story. They simply do not do what I’d imagined, and the story detours to accommodate their willfulness, and sometimes, the climax has to change in order to satisfy the characters’ stubborn refusals.
So Brad, your character at the moment of maximum climax, is she more likely to step forward along the arc of story she's tracing or to look back down along the arc of story she's already journeyed?
Does how she's got to the top of the mountain actually matter, now she's there on sharp end of the red hot needle of jeopardy?
If the tip of the mountain sits atop rock faces that are of convex slope, 360 degrees around the tip top she's standing on...
Really value your POV on getting a writing start on a new story by starting not with a climax but with THE climax. Maybe picking Everest is rather hard arsed, but you should know I considered Mount McKinley / Denali but had to shake my head in rejection... topping off at a mere 20,310 feet is - I thought - going to be way too much of undershoot for the kind of climax that satisfies Brad as a starter... 🌄
That's the "and then one day," part of the story.....@Mary.g. you always give me an insight into something I don't know I'm looking for. This is something I've been grappling with lately. In stories that really pull me in right from page one this is what's happening!
I don't get the straight writing from beginning-to-end thing either, Brad. The story hands up what it can as it can & I'm happy for every morsel I'm given & in whatever order. Part of my job as the writer, as I see it, is to make order, to shape what I'm given into a recognizable story. Lucky me when it happens. I know that some claim to write beginning-to-end---some even end-to-beginning (John Irving, Katherine Anne Porter)---but that straight line thing mystifies me, too.
(Edited down from a few hours ago. I think I was half-asleep when I first responded and ended up repeating myself a lot.)
Thank you, George, for your response to this week's question. I love knowing that you think about a story's climax in the process of writing your stories. That, in fact, you always aspire to have your stories reach just such a moment. I know that your method of writing is one of discovery through the process of writing. But it's nice to know that even you, at a certain point, steer things so that the crisis moment arises. Because you haven't mentioned it before, I've been wondering!
Yes, i harp on and on in these threads about a character-defining moment that happens at the climax of a story, but for me, thinking about stories this way really helps me analyze stories I read as well as rewrite stories I'm working on. Here's how I see it: In the climax, the protagonist must make a (character-defining) decision to go either left, right, straight ahead, or stay frozen in place. But no matter what the character does (or doesn't do), it's an active decision on their part. Depending on the decision, the character will be defined a-new. The story will say "this, as it turns out, is who the character is." And that is the point of the story!
You mention that getting the water to boil can be tough. To me, getting the water to boil isn't the most difficult part--it's getting it to boil harder and harder until the pot overflows that's hard. I mean, you put a character in a pickle and things begin to simmer (not so terribly hard to do--inventing a character with a problem). But then....things get worse. Figuring out exactly how to make things worse--that takes imagination and skill.
George, you bring up The Overcoat in your post, and I'm still pondering that story and its crisis moment. I don't think his death is the big crisis moment, as you have posited. Our lowly clerk did not choose to die. It is not a "character-defining" moment--it is something that happened TO him, not BY him. If we agree that the clerk is the story's protagonist, then the moment of truth comes when he makes the decision to go to the prominent personage, having exhausted every other idea for getting his cloak back. It's also possible (maybe?) to think of the prominent personage as the story's protagonist! He's the one who changes in the end, becomes a slightly better person, the outcome of his horror ride to his mistress' apartment. (But this is all discussion for a Sunday post, not a Thursday.)
I so look forward to your discussion of Tenth of December!
I think it’s so important when you state the crisis bubbles up as a function of getting the water to boil. or maybe it’s a tomato sauce. It’s the cooking that infuses the flavor not throwing spices on at the end.
This is somewhat different than what seems to work for me. I often get invested in a writing a new story by seeing (dimly/vaguely) that crisis moment in the distance, and trying to get there, because I’m excited to get there. (Like starting a road trip with a destination in mind.) Of course, the actual crisis moment is almost never exactly as I imagined when I set out (but then again, neither was Wally World for the Griswolds). But I do often feel that I need something to aim at, and there will be delightful surprises/changes along the way.
I love the metaphor of the boiling and passing water down the line of scenes. I’ve been thinking lately about the difference between tension and conflict -- and I’d love to explore how those function differently to help (or not help) the water boil.
The conflict needs to be something that produces tension not only in the character, but in the reader as well. So, take a character who needs a haircut but can't find time to get one. He's got to cancel something, but there's a conflict with each thing he might cancel and he doesn't know what to do. What a boring conflict! BUT, if he must get that haircut in order to disguise himself from the police who are after him.....well, that's a bit more interesting, and gives tension to the situation. A ticking clock. A consequence, etc. These things force tension. In other words, a conflict isn't tense unless it matters in some real way. Unless there is an embedded consequence. Then the reader is rooting for the character, hoping that he will work his way through the gauntlet that's been created by this meaningful conflict. Or, the opposite--hoping he will fail. When you put two people in a room and force a conflict on them, a reader will feel the tension if you've made them care.
So I’m no expert 😂 but what sparked these thoughts was a writing excuses podcast episode. Their point was that tension is created many ways and that conflict doesn’t always create tension. Here is a link if you are interested: https://writingexcuses.com/tag/conflict/
"The truth is, there’s a certain mindset I go into when I’m writing a story, that produces all the truisms you’ve listed above but, in practice, isn’t being steered by them. "
We see a little later what that mindset might look like. Or Georges anyway.
Sometimes, especially over the past few days, I am struck by the thought that this state of being, this setting of the mind, brings on communion with the muse; the story herself.
Many thanks to you, Professor Saunders…and to others who have commented – wonderful thoughts that have encouraged me to sit up straight and ponder!
This most recent post – How To Cause A Crisis – has me thinking about …aspects of The Overcoat…and…
The Crisis of Fitting In/Into…and along the Journey
Into the Workplace
Into the (old) Coat
Into the new Coat
Into the Friendships
Into the Thoughts/Minds of Community
Into the “slanted” System of Justice
Into Others’ Memories…ours, perhaps…
…and how Crisis bubbles up (thanks for that image of boiling water…and of the gents passing water buckets!) that bridges us from one situation to the next, or spills over…into…
Hmmmm…gonna pause, review others’ comments, and brew up more thoughts :-)
I'd say the hardest thing for me is discerning whether or not the crisis moment that was born from the first draft, and that surprised me in that initial run, will still feel like a surprise to the reader (as it no longer feels like a surprise to me because I know it so well). Is this an issue of attachment? Fear to let go of the crisis/ending/entire plot sequence that was cranked out to begin with? My biggest challenge is showing up everyday ready and willing to change the lines in the now moment I'm working on knowing what sorts of ripples that will do to a plot I was generally happy with. Would love your thoughts on how you recognize when something from your own draft can get better/become more of a surprise, or just how you let those ripples make their way through the story. As always, thank you so much for you time and generosity here. And yes, big vote for more on crisis building in Tenth of December!
Those moments are always in my mind. In fact, they're the reason I write the story: The story is the "dress" for the big thing, whatever it is ... just as the end is on my mind as I write the first sentence. The next 25 or 350 pages are the means to justify the end (ing). (oh gosh, I'm already sorry I wrote that ...)
I love and appreciate all this. It feels like it directly supports my project of respecting myself as a Serious Writer (still very much in-progress). AND/BUT, what comes up for me when I think all this over, especially your very practical and concrete and useful questions, is the challenge of achieving writing that is simultaneously poppy/buzzy/sparkly and a representation of something real and important in the reader's life. Like, I can make readers gasp and laugh, and I can make them relate, but I can't consistently do both at the same time! How, George, how??
I'm struck by the idea that if we honour the journey, the imagination, the twists and turns, let our story find its path, then we can't know the crisis ourselves. It must come as a surprise to us. As though the line of men with their buckets of water, that increase in size and weight, and begin to boil towards the end of the line, and the final bucket arrives at the final man and at the end we find, not a fire, but a cow with a newly born calf. Got a bit carried away there, that's not really a crisis moment, more of a twist at the end. But are we saying that our obsessing about plot, structure and a journey toward a crisis, is flawed, because we can't create the crisis ourselves it has to arise from the fabric of the story. And if we are good writers we will get good at finding those moments, at spotting them, and warming them up. So its more about listening to the story than it is about telling it...sort of...?
This resonated with me as well. I've never outlined a story and when I have it's a lifeless thing. The joy is in the discovery -- all those bits collecting in the filter of your subconscious over the course of writing the story until they emerge as something solid and inevitable.
Yes Tom, that's what we're saying here in the Saundersian realm of storytelling. As you know George is simply telling us what works for him and what he needs to do as an artist, which is to follow the Donald Barthelme idea of The Art of Not Knowing. He is not saying this is the only way to go about it, as evidenced by Story Clubbers in this thread who prefer to outline, or write the ending or climax first so they know where they're headed. But can great art be so premeditated I wonder? Picasso did tons of sketches of an idea to hone it in yet allow it to meet him halfway if you will, before he ever put brush to canvas.
Me? If I was hiking in the woods and came upon two caves, one with a shallower entrance that allowed me to see all the way to the back of the cave, and a second cave which was only lit at the very opening then extended beyond into a dark unknown, I'd step into the second one, to find out via my own experience what's behind the darkness.
The Cavern of Not Knowing What’s Next.
Indeed.
I love this metaphor, even as the claustrophobe in me has to go and lie down.
Haha. You've reminded me that I suffer from situational claustrophobia: I will enter a dark cave yet will not ride in the backseat of a car. Go figure.
Bravo!
Ah! Listening to the story!
Hi, Tom. What you describe is a cherished belief about how a story should come together, "organically" or as a serendipitous journey the author embarks on as words and images discover a path in the very moment they're being laid down. I find that George's teachings are infused with it too. People who subscribe to "our" model are dubbed "pantsers" because, according to this myth, we write by the seat of our pants.
This unfortunate locution tends to obscure the idea that there is plenty of discipline required in this approach, particularly when we're talking about the arduous task of teaching ourselves how to subdue our egos and super-egos. As if that was easy!
The alternative, that of being a "plotter" never appeals to me. I always twist it in my mind so that when I sound it it, it comes out as "plodder".
Joseph Campbell in his series The Power of Myth, recorded in interviews with Bill Moyers, is brilliant on the general necessity of subduing the conscious / controlling aspect of the mind, letting our less bullying neurons, which are I gotta believe vastly superior in number and capability, go to work for us. Hell, he describes quite convincingly how dominance of this part of the mind is an aberration that threatens the health of the individual and all of civilization!
Campbell also acknowledges in one of those Power of Myth episodes the serendipitous journey as one of the forms of his fabled "Hero's journey".
Your "honour the journey" is a lovely expression!
John
Many thanks John. I wonder if the style we pick relates to ‘who we are’ and ‘why we write’. As a neuro-divergent writer, I don’t think I access emotions in a straightforward manner, which seems to mean that I don’t know what I’m writing about until later. I have good access to my sub/un conscious, it’s more real to me than the linear logical world. So a technique that supports and champions this process is incredibly valuable and it’s quite moving to get this validation and allows me to go deeper with confidence.
That totally makes sense. I understand your elation. As the myth suggests, your Achilles's heel is the source of all your strength!
Tom, I think it's whatever works for you. But yes, listening as you write, allowing the story to lead you forward, remembering in some part of your brain that things must escalate, and eventually getting your story to its climax--maybe during revision. It's true you don't have to obsess about plot/structure, but it's also true that you can't ignore those elements either. Everything works together. How you get there is your own process that you have to discover for yourself.
It all feels so strange. My stories are getting weirder but stronger.
Sounds fantastic. Weirder AND stronger is a great combo!
Listening. That's exactly it. Thanks, Tom!
This post somehow addresses nearly everything I’ve been thinking about lately, so, thank you!
He does that doesn't he?
Some kind of magical serendipitous synchronicity happening there.
I feel this too!
Okay David, I'm drawn to focus on your 'nearly' and wonder how you relate to George's often long and extending, as necessary, time window for writing his 'short' fictions?
What a relief it has been to realize I don’t have to write a given story perfectly in a week’s time. Especially since my time is severely limited right now. I can only write in a geological time frame, apparently.
'Geological' strikes me as 'way toooo long' David. How about setting yourself a goal of honing a capability to get from story start (up the hill) to story finish (down the hill) in good order at a 'glacial' pace?
Remember- diamonds are created one hundred and fifty miles under ground^^
It is way too long, but it’s a comfort to know I have something in common with the Grand Canyon! (Don’t worry, I’m getting there, one substratum at a time.)
This is maybe too adjacent of a question, but it's coming to my mind here at 3 AM in Munich while I can't sleep from my own personal crises and maybe too much caffeine. How often, if ever, do you consciously work through your own crises in fiction? I read Chuck Palahniuk's "Plot Spoiler," and I believe at one point he talked about his mentor who taught fiction as primarily a means of confronting our own personal daemons and deepest fears, or something like that. And then of course there's the adage of fiction being truer than life. Do you feel like something in your conscious, or subconscious, writing mind uses whatever might be weighing on you in a given moment as fodder? Or do you see that as completely separate from your work? And if related, do you think it's possible to produce decent work from immediate crises/wounds or does one have to wait a few years until wounds are scars and the writer has greater nuance and perspective (but perhaps lost some emotional memory of the details that bring a story to life)? How many sentences can I end with a question mark before I fall back asleep?
Alicia, i hope you fell back asleep! I don't know if your questions are for George or the rest of us here... But I definitely feel that all of our writing comes from our subconscious and that we end up placing our current and past issues on the page. Even if the story seems to bear no relation to our inner turmoils/pasts/ruminations. It's all there. Writing is therapy and a way to get to know yourself. As far as writing from "immediate crises/wounds," well, everyone's different. Joan Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking soon after her husband died, while she was still mired in grief. It is a masterpiece. Others, writing through grief, may end up with the kind of journal entries that no one else wants to read. So, yes, sometimes time has to go by in order to have distance and perspective. But not always. As with everything here in Story Club, there are no correct answers. Sorry to hear you are having personal crises there in Munich. Hope things improve for you very soon.
And to provide another example, Elie Wiesel gave himself a ten year moratorium on writing before he embarked on Night. I think processing time is writer dependent.
I hadn't realized it was ten years, M.A., but, yes, I agree processing time is essential. Lots of cogitating goes on when we aren't looking.
God love the procrastinators!
Thank you for such a beautiful reply, Mary. I still need to read The Year of Magical Thinking. Perhaps that will keep me company on my train ride to France! Yes, I did fall asleep eventually, at 6 AM. It's something. :)
An infinite number, Alicia. More power to you in turning your grist into power!
In turning love that turned into heartache back into love, what I was trying to say.
Thank you, David. So good to be back here and see your name!
Likewise, my friend!
Emotional memory is an interesting topic. Since it is now hardcore science that one can inherit PTSD from our ancestors, the source of an emotion is often not what it seems. Is the emotion mine, or did it come from my father? Or his mother? Yes, appears to be the answer.
"Or does one have to wait a few years until wounds are scars and the writer has greater nuance and perspective..."
If the approach to emotion is like having an instrument for many years and playing the same tunes over and over, waiting won't improve the music or the writing. If I am genuinely curious about what is important about the emotion, the layer underneath can display itself. In my opinion, writing that comes from the deeper layers is more compelling to the reader and may lead to transformation in the character, writer and perhaps the reader.
Also, hardcore myth, perfectly expressed in the story of Cain and Abel.
Also in Munich Alicia...
"Do you feel like something in your conscious, or subconscious, writing mind uses whatever might be weighing on you in a given moment as fodder? Or do you see that as completely separate from your work? "
Nothing is completely separate. When we use that might be weighing on us the writing is more authentic. Writing from who we are is the strongest, in my opinion.
There is a certain resonance when we're actively working through something, isn't there? (And hallo ! I live in DC but come here every few months to visit newly discovered family. Still need to learn German. :)
Hello, Alicia. I'm in DC, too, where, if you're not home yet, the weather has been suspiciously pleasant. As for using for fodder whatever might be weighing on you, I don't see how you can avoid it, really. Even if whatever it is isn't transcribed directly onto the page, whole & in tact, it will still be an influence, a lens. Even if it's not a big crisis situation, but more the quotidian, I believe we are, inescapably, our experiences. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, it's not what you see, it's how you see. And I believe the how to be that lens of experience. I think also of a lot of George's work resulting from, as he has said, his own struggles as a kind, hard-working guy just trying to catch a break. Not every personal detail may have made it wholesale onto the page but I bet his own experiences & how they made him feel were there in the room with him as he typed.
This is beautiful Rosanne and I tend to agree. Even when we don't put something explicitly on the page I think it makes its way into the spaces, somehow. (Belatedly replying to this from back in DC where I'm soaking up the sun after that crazy day of storms yesterday! Not sure how I missed this back in May.)
"A crisis moment is best discovered, I’d say, as opposed to mandated. Or, a crisis moment arrived at in this way (i.e., organically) will have more integrity and be more undeniable."
I aspire to this, but I almost always find myself writing this crisis point first and then expanding the story outward from there. What usually ends up happening is the original crisis morphs into something else, or gets moved to another place in the story, or something else unforeseeable happens to it, and I just sort of react as best I can. I honestly have no clue how some (most?) writers just sit down and write their story from beginning to end.
Brad: This may be a problem with definitions. If you start with a crisis, that's different than starting with the climactic moment of the story--the moment the original crisis comes to a head and the character must act. Stories really ought to begin (after the exposition, if exposition is needed) with some sort of crisis, even if it's very small. That's the "and then one day," part of the story. Like, everything is fine and THEN--something happens (the crisis to which i think you may be referring). After that, the protagonist has to deal with that crisis. So it may be that your strategy is just fine as far as story creation. The fact that your cries morphs or moves or whatever it's doing, is fantastic! That part is the writing part, in which you eventually discover what your story is.
Right, what I mean is, I don't write my stories in the same order they're read. I start writing the climax first.
Well, that is VERY interesting!
So, like, your character might - as you start by writing 'climax first' - be on the top of the mountain, let's say Everest, without any indication (that is, sequence of meaningful actions) of how she got there and, likewise, no indication of what could possibly happen (that is, in terms of meaningful action) next?
Basically, yeah. Though more realistically, in that case, I would write a short scene about the sensation of standing on a mountain, then maybe think about what kind of person would do such a thing, and what circumstances might bring about such an undertaking, and then what they do next. It's really not as strange as it sounds, I promise!
I second that notion. Nearly always, I begin with the climax. Though, I confess that my favorite-est writing moments come when characters refuse to cooperate with their prescribed, planned roles in the story. They simply do not do what I’d imagined, and the story detours to accommodate their willfulness, and sometimes, the climax has to change in order to satisfy the characters’ stubborn refusals.
So Brad, your character at the moment of maximum climax, is she more likely to step forward along the arc of story she's tracing or to look back down along the arc of story she's already journeyed?
Does how she's got to the top of the mountain actually matter, now she's there on sharp end of the red hot needle of jeopardy?
If the tip of the mountain sits atop rock faces that are of convex slope, 360 degrees around the tip top she's standing on...
Really value your POV on getting a writing start on a new story by starting not with a climax but with THE climax. Maybe picking Everest is rather hard arsed, but you should know I considered Mount McKinley / Denali but had to shake my head in rejection... topping off at a mere 20,310 feet is - I thought - going to be way too much of undershoot for the kind of climax that satisfies Brad as a starter... 🌄
That's the "and then one day," part of the story.....@Mary.g. you always give me an insight into something I don't know I'm looking for. This is something I've been grappling with lately. In stories that really pull me in right from page one this is what's happening!
I don't get the straight writing from beginning-to-end thing either, Brad. The story hands up what it can as it can & I'm happy for every morsel I'm given & in whatever order. Part of my job as the writer, as I see it, is to make order, to shape what I'm given into a recognizable story. Lucky me when it happens. I know that some claim to write beginning-to-end---some even end-to-beginning (John Irving, Katherine Anne Porter)---but that straight line thing mystifies me, too.
Yes please to discussing Tenth of December! One of my favourites.
(Edited down from a few hours ago. I think I was half-asleep when I first responded and ended up repeating myself a lot.)
Thank you, George, for your response to this week's question. I love knowing that you think about a story's climax in the process of writing your stories. That, in fact, you always aspire to have your stories reach just such a moment. I know that your method of writing is one of discovery through the process of writing. But it's nice to know that even you, at a certain point, steer things so that the crisis moment arises. Because you haven't mentioned it before, I've been wondering!
Yes, i harp on and on in these threads about a character-defining moment that happens at the climax of a story, but for me, thinking about stories this way really helps me analyze stories I read as well as rewrite stories I'm working on. Here's how I see it: In the climax, the protagonist must make a (character-defining) decision to go either left, right, straight ahead, or stay frozen in place. But no matter what the character does (or doesn't do), it's an active decision on their part. Depending on the decision, the character will be defined a-new. The story will say "this, as it turns out, is who the character is." And that is the point of the story!
You mention that getting the water to boil can be tough. To me, getting the water to boil isn't the most difficult part--it's getting it to boil harder and harder until the pot overflows that's hard. I mean, you put a character in a pickle and things begin to simmer (not so terribly hard to do--inventing a character with a problem). But then....things get worse. Figuring out exactly how to make things worse--that takes imagination and skill.
George, you bring up The Overcoat in your post, and I'm still pondering that story and its crisis moment. I don't think his death is the big crisis moment, as you have posited. Our lowly clerk did not choose to die. It is not a "character-defining" moment--it is something that happened TO him, not BY him. If we agree that the clerk is the story's protagonist, then the moment of truth comes when he makes the decision to go to the prominent personage, having exhausted every other idea for getting his cloak back. It's also possible (maybe?) to think of the prominent personage as the story's protagonist! He's the one who changes in the end, becomes a slightly better person, the outcome of his horror ride to his mistress' apartment. (But this is all discussion for a Sunday post, not a Thursday.)
I so look forward to your discussion of Tenth of December!
I think it’s so important when you state the crisis bubbles up as a function of getting the water to boil. or maybe it’s a tomato sauce. It’s the cooking that infuses the flavor not throwing spices on at the end.
This is somewhat different than what seems to work for me. I often get invested in a writing a new story by seeing (dimly/vaguely) that crisis moment in the distance, and trying to get there, because I’m excited to get there. (Like starting a road trip with a destination in mind.) Of course, the actual crisis moment is almost never exactly as I imagined when I set out (but then again, neither was Wally World for the Griswolds). But I do often feel that I need something to aim at, and there will be delightful surprises/changes along the way.
Whatever works.
I love the metaphor of the boiling and passing water down the line of scenes. I’ve been thinking lately about the difference between tension and conflict -- and I’d love to explore how those function differently to help (or not help) the water boil.
The conflict needs to be something that produces tension not only in the character, but in the reader as well. So, take a character who needs a haircut but can't find time to get one. He's got to cancel something, but there's a conflict with each thing he might cancel and he doesn't know what to do. What a boring conflict! BUT, if he must get that haircut in order to disguise himself from the police who are after him.....well, that's a bit more interesting, and gives tension to the situation. A ticking clock. A consequence, etc. These things force tension. In other words, a conflict isn't tense unless it matters in some real way. Unless there is an embedded consequence. Then the reader is rooting for the character, hoping that he will work his way through the gauntlet that's been created by this meaningful conflict. Or, the opposite--hoping he will fail. When you put two people in a room and force a conflict on them, a reader will feel the tension if you've made them care.
Tension is the path to higher levels of conflict?
So I’m no expert 😂 but what sparked these thoughts was a writing excuses podcast episode. Their point was that tension is created many ways and that conflict doesn’t always create tension. Here is a link if you are interested: https://writingexcuses.com/tag/conflict/
That is a really interesting podcast: can’t thank you enough!!
No problem! I like how they break down things sometimes. They’ve got loads of material.
I also like that they give a new-book recommendation in the middle of each episode!
Thank you, I will check that out sometime in the next few days and get back to you!
Yes, thank you for sharing this. I'm excited to listen.
"The truth is, there’s a certain mindset I go into when I’m writing a story, that produces all the truisms you’ve listed above but, in practice, isn’t being steered by them. "
We see a little later what that mindset might look like. Or Georges anyway.
Sometimes, especially over the past few days, I am struck by the thought that this state of being, this setting of the mind, brings on communion with the muse; the story herself.
Trains having sex-can't get that image out of my mind^^
Many thanks to you, Professor Saunders…and to others who have commented – wonderful thoughts that have encouraged me to sit up straight and ponder!
This most recent post – How To Cause A Crisis – has me thinking about …aspects of The Overcoat…and…
The Crisis of Fitting In/Into…and along the Journey
Into the Workplace
Into the (old) Coat
Into the new Coat
Into the Friendships
Into the Thoughts/Minds of Community
Into the “slanted” System of Justice
Into Others’ Memories…ours, perhaps…
…and how Crisis bubbles up (thanks for that image of boiling water…and of the gents passing water buckets!) that bridges us from one situation to the next, or spills over…into…
Hmmmm…gonna pause, review others’ comments, and brew up more thoughts :-)
I'd say the hardest thing for me is discerning whether or not the crisis moment that was born from the first draft, and that surprised me in that initial run, will still feel like a surprise to the reader (as it no longer feels like a surprise to me because I know it so well). Is this an issue of attachment? Fear to let go of the crisis/ending/entire plot sequence that was cranked out to begin with? My biggest challenge is showing up everyday ready and willing to change the lines in the now moment I'm working on knowing what sorts of ripples that will do to a plot I was generally happy with. Would love your thoughts on how you recognize when something from your own draft can get better/become more of a surprise, or just how you let those ripples make their way through the story. As always, thank you so much for you time and generosity here. And yes, big vote for more on crisis building in Tenth of December!
Those moments are always in my mind. In fact, they're the reason I write the story: The story is the "dress" for the big thing, whatever it is ... just as the end is on my mind as I write the first sentence. The next 25 or 350 pages are the means to justify the end (ing). (oh gosh, I'm already sorry I wrote that ...)
I love and appreciate all this. It feels like it directly supports my project of respecting myself as a Serious Writer (still very much in-progress). AND/BUT, what comes up for me when I think all this over, especially your very practical and concrete and useful questions, is the challenge of achieving writing that is simultaneously poppy/buzzy/sparkly and a representation of something real and important in the reader's life. Like, I can make readers gasp and laugh, and I can make them relate, but I can't consistently do both at the same time! How, George, how??
Can't wait for your riff on Tenth of December - please don't forget it!