Love the advice to be specific--to lean towards more specificity, rather than thinking in terms of "show don't tell." Of course, being specific won't always keep a piece of writing from being "told." (I note that George didn't use "scene/summary" to talk about any of this. I think that distinction can be useful for people trying to understand the difference.) I also love that George warns us to be leery of writing advice--use what works, leave the rest. I feel like many people search and search for the "answers" when the answer always is on the page of one's own writing. Write and see what you have written. That's really all there is. (Along with reading, of course. Read, write, repeat.)
In teaching middle schoolers creative writing, I've found the idea of summary vs. scene quite helpful to steer students away from writing synopses and get them writing stories. It seems "show vs. tell" is a much more difficult concept for them to grasp. But the funny thing is as I'm reading through George's thoughts and the comments here, I'm realizing that these categories aren't as binary or mutually exclusive as I used to think. You can "show" in a summary by doing exactly what George pointed out: getting specific. Such a useful way to think about all this!!
The recommendation to be specific resonated with me as well! I was really drawn to this paragraph:
"For me, that’s really what revising is: working with prose to make it more specific. (In my view of things, specificity is often the pixie dust that takes something from “a bit of writing” to “an experience I, the reader, am having.”)"
I'm excited to get to work on revising my current wip tomorrow and see if I can apply this concept effectively!
Please don't take this as my being rude. I just wish to explain something that happened to me when I was much younger and wanting to be an author.
My family never had enough extra money to advance us out of a happy but poverty driven life.
My bringing up my desire to write, we were in the living room staying out of Georgia's summer heat and humidity. I felt that Georgia was in competition with Seattle, vying for a medal for which state had the most rain.
Ma put her magazine down, at least that quick move provided a tiny breeze, looked at me as though I had theee heads (I don't), and she said, "You haven't done anything!"
She was lying and she knew it. I knew she just wanted to protect me from the Georgia bigotry against, to use the descriptive of Georgians, mostly outside the City of Atlanta where freedom seemed to be growing faster than elsewhere in the South, the bigotry against who they referred to as 'Queers'.
Having lived in the State of segregated Florida since age 13, I came to know that my "types", Yankee and Queer, were two out of three of the most hated groups in the South. Need I name the other?
So I finally took a course in writing from a case offered through the mail. I could understand the rules offered but they were the rules offered by professionals to beginners.
I already considered my writing to be a bit above center of good. The Coursetenders seemed to feel I was more than a bit below the center.
Each item I turned in as that period's homework was deemed unworthy of their grading.
By the end of the course I was offered the chance to critique the courseg.
I did. I really blasted them, but good.
With that I quit writing and didn't revive that desire for ten years! By then I could secretly, silently, but subtly tell my Ma, "Bullshit! I've done plenty to shout about clear up to the gods of Greece!"
I took to writing in private. The words and style were mine, not belonging to strangers to sneer over.
Well, matters beyond my control kept dragging me from my keyboards that grew from attahed to a typewriter to a keyboard separate from a computer to a keyboard attahed to a laptop with a special cord you could plug in a separate keyboard the size that made your hands happy.
Now, again due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm reduced to doing my writing with a stylus tapping out one letter at a time on the face of a cellphone that isn't a product of Apple. Guess what. This is how I've accomplished more writing than ever using a program named Substack where the writing on my Substack is legally my own via copyright.
Not only that, the comments I write on others' Substacks have received enough Likes to allow me to die happy.
Who would have thought I would be so happy to be 78 and getting around using a walker, in an elderly persons' complex, my car out front inoperable for over a year, whatever...
There is not even a tiny trace of ‚rude‘ there, Richard!? Thank you for sharing your experience with destructive writing advice. Good that you protected your writing from then on.
I was the one who asked this question! Thank you, George, for such a wonderful response. On reading “Clay” what struck me the most was not something about the story content, but the way it is written. It feels like somebody is telling you a story, and I mean that in the best possible way. The whole tone of the story feels like it is being told by an elderly aunt or uncle to a bunch of children. Maybe it is just me, but that is the mental image I get when I read the story, and I love the story for that image.
Love George’s suggestion regarding specificity. I am learning the importance of specificity here in Story Club, and now I see it in all the writing of the greats. Sadly, in my own writing, I still tend to miss it often.
"It [Clay] feels like somebody is telling you a story."
Yes, it does, but who is doing the telling? In the extract George quotes above, it may seem to us it's the author who is "telling" : "But wasn't Maria glad when..." But it's also Maria telling her story to herself: "Sure and wasn't I glad when...".
Joyce tells things through Maria's interior monologue. Even what seems to be coming from "the outside" (authorial voice) isn't. And, since Maria is not a reliable narrator of the thick and thin of her life and feelings (who among us is?), the result is a tantalizing tell-showing.
"...you leave the characters alone and through the suggestions and the images, their completed life is in the reader’s mind..." (from the John McGahern quote above).
A classic writing question that I think you have answered beautifully. Telling that is "unsupported assertion" as you say, does feel judgmental to me. Or at least, not open enough, not trusting enough. Specificity is good advice, although I hear this one repeated too, as some kind of a dogma. I love your writing suggestions that always feel kind and humble, despite your vast experience and knowledge. "Only if it helps" is a nice policy. Your drawings are good too. They make me laugh. Thank you!
Just here to let you know that I do not believe I have recovered from reading “Lincoln in the Bardo” some years ago. Wow. That’s my review. Here it is again: Wow
Me too! I’ve also listened to the frankly astonishing audiobook three times. The third time I just burst into tears at hearing the opening words. I’m here to add my WOW too 🧡
Another problem with telling, that's not really about telling, but about skill, is that when someone is told to show not tell, the thing they're being told is to slow down, to build to whatever thing is going on. Writing "Maria was upset at the letter from Tim, because he accused her, again, of deserting their family." jams too much in too quickly. You don't necessarily need dialog, this whole story could be done as narrative, but it has to build, to unfold. I suppose this is just another way of getting at specificity.
It's a halloween story. I think Joyce gets a certain amount of irony out of the witch he puts into his story. She's not at all a witch, except in her solitude, but a halloween story needs a witch, so this story gets a Christian (as opposed to Wiccan or pagan) who is destined, by the divination--which is not even divination but fixed--for the convent.
Roberta! I never think of Joyce as having a sense of humor. But sly? Definitely. Also, I had trouble keeping in mind that this is a Halloween story. (not Irish, not Catholic, etc) I’m out of shape. Thanks! Really.
Hehe. It kind of NEEDS a whole semester. I never got to Finnegan's Wake, too hard, but the funniest, people tell me. Portrait was life-changing for me, freshman year, Indiana University, 1970, the first book I ever stayed up all night to reread. But Joyce is not my favorite, and I'm rusty too. Just remembering. . .
I've found reading Joyce out loud, even if you have no idea what's going on helps. Portrait and Ulysses forced me to consult Dante (In Portrait, Stephen's aunt), Homer and Virgil. In trying to understand Ulysses, I gained a love of the epic. Oh, and on first reading I had no idea Clay was a premonition of death.
Isn’t it sweet to recall having time enough to spend that much of it on Joyce? Or [fill in writer’s name]? That was a life-changing semester. Joyce taught me how and why to read writers who kick my butt.
I seem to match up (a) the closeness of her nose to the tip of her chin with (b) her diminutive stature: somehow Maria, I'm realising writing this, has always struck me as a character who bustles along, rocking forwarding with each step, with a ambulatory gait particular to herself and so suited to bringing out the busy-bodying little-laundry beetle-lady that rolls along through the scrolling-scenes of this story which is simultaneously so told and so shown.
Stream of conscious... such stuff as, sometimes, visual artworks are sparked from off the back of story... didn't expect to be, but now I'm seeing scope for A Comics Homage (more specifically a condensed graphic versioning) to James Joyces' 'Clay' in the manner that, I recall, P Mann rendered Isaac Babel's 'My First Goose'... just a pity I've never had the knack of drawing.
Along an alternative path there's something about Maria in Clay that brings to mind Mrs Punch in Punch & Judy: both seem to present as characters 'disfigured / distorted' for purposes of caricature.
Don't see Maria as 'Witch'... but now that you mention it... what a gem of a story 'Clay' is turning out to be, and this is only our second pass over it... and now I thinking of Story Club as akin to a place such as Antwerp, where the quality of diamonds and other gemstones are brought out, enhanced, by the skill of the cutters.
So I could be completely off base, but it struck me as emphasizing the quiet interiority of Maria. Even her facial features seemed design to cloak her smile and laughter, in keeping with her shy, modest image. I don't see someone like Maria having a big, toothy grin or pealing laughter.
I find I want to write about 'Love Letter' - a deeply disturbing and riveting epistolary short fiction that with the quietest of voices, shouts to our time. I am grateful for George's analysis of 'Clay' and for others here. I concur with them all.
One aspect I notice is Joe's dependence on the women around him for love and nourishment and wisdom, both his wife and Maria fulfil important roles. Maria tries to intervene to invoke peace between him and Albie but he is resolute in stubborn refusal. His emotion, love, is evoked by Maria's singing, and perhaps the sadness of the verse she chose to skip, the loss.
He needs Maria, but he also needs his wife, for it to her he turns, for the corkscrew.
The women, the domestic world they conjure and circulate, breathes life into the world of men.
I listened to the New Yorker podcast with David Sedaris last night and was so moved by Love Letter, which I hadn’t been familiar with – and struck by the skill and lightness of that slight turn at the end, the glimpse of a different message. Knowing your editing process I wondered if you took a few passes to pare it back, to have him say not too much or too little about the use of the money? It would be fascinating to know how you revised that one, if you remember.
This guidance on show/tell is also so helpful. Thanks George.
Ps. Have just listened to David Sedaris read “Love Letter” and it was very moving. But may I be honest and admit that as much as I love Sedaris, I preferred your reading of the story when I first heard it on The New Yorker’s podcast..? Actually, this story is a great example of telling that is very specific and effective. A grandfather’s letter to his grandson, so rich in details and emotions, and leaves so much for the reader to imagine.
I love the way you have demolished a generalization that has had such a chilling effect on so many writers. Creating experience through specificity is an excellent guidepost—but balancing specifying with suggesting is a very tricky business. Details, but not *all* the details, perhaps? Please amplify this point when the occasion arises.
Speaking of "pixie dust" (as George does above), it did occur to me from Joyce's description of her small stature that Maria might be one of Ireland's "little people." I was actually thinking leprechaun at first--and I thought that might explain the nose-chin thing. But I looked it up and it seems leprechauns are always male, at least according to what I could find with a quick internet search. But maybe pixies can also be female, and so, maybe, at least on one plane of existence, Maria is a pixie (?) and maybe in order to "cast his spell" (see Kevin Farmer's great comment previous discussion), Joyce is "telling" us a kind of folktale (?). (My apologies if all this is a bunch of bs to those who, unlike me, actually know something about Irish folklore--and Joyce.)
In any case, it's interesting to me that Annemarie Cancienne mentions Babel's "In the Basement" in this current discussion (thanks Annemarie). That's exactly the story I was reminded of when I first read "Clay." I think "Clay" is in many ways a more compressed/more quickly escalated version of "In The B" ("version" is probably too strong, I know, but I can't think of a better term at the moment)--the liveliness and chaos of the "visits," the performances gone awry, the mix of humor and heartbreak, etc. But more importantly, for purposes of our discussion here, I see "Clay" as an example of Joyce "showing" us how "to tell" a story/tale; so, in "Clay," the "show" vs "tell" distinction becomes a false one. And that's exactly one of the things I particularly loved about "In The B"--Babel "shows" us how "to tell" a story and the story is a great writing lesson in itself. Vishal, thanks so much for your question. I totally agree that "Clay" sounds like it's a story that's being told, perhaps by an elderly aunt or uncle to children, and I agree that is one of it's many great charms.
It’s in the specificity that humour can/does come out. Babel’s In the Basement stands out for me as an example. The image of the grandfather popping up at the window with his manic violin, ragged top hat and clown clothes still sends me into giggles.
Others' experience may differ but I recall an exercise in the primary grades that required each student to bring, explain, and share a significant object with the class: "Show AND (not OR) Tell". Showing and telling are not mutually exclusive. Proportionality is as important as specificity. As Coleridge said: "The best words in the best order".
I'll respond to the overall Office Hours at a later time, but needed to say here and now how grateful I am for the link to David Sedaris's reading and discussion of LOVE LETTER. I've long felt it to be one of the singularly most important pieces of writing in the past decade. I hesitate, for obvious reasons, to refer to it as 'fiction' per se. It's masterful, tragic, hopeful, and heartbreaking. Having been a fan of Sedaris as long as he's been writing and performing, much in the same way I've been a devotee of George's own work since the 90's, I was compelled to share David's reading and discussion, as well as the text of the story, on social media, where I voiced my hope that everyone I know might read or listen.
It's (again, for painfully obvious reasons) a more critical work in the present moment than it has been prior. We need it now, more than ever.
I agree with you and had the same reaction hearing it on the New Yorker Fiction podcast when it was released— that it was masterful and needed. The grandfather is so sympathetic— we understand why he gives the advice he gives, we’d do the same, and yet, we and he know this is not enough.
Also, I was delighted when GS mentioned in his OH post that he felt like Huck Finn in the rafters as he listened to Sedaris and Triesman discuss it because, I’ll admit, I’d wondered what he thought about their discussion as I listened too. 😉
Since G mentioned David Sedaris, I thought of DS's ability to paint pictures when he writes. The pictures are so well painted, you see them right in front of you with no difficulty at all. Could be showing, could be telling, but it's always pictures and you're always right there with him.
I think he says something like this in a piece about an argument with Hugh when some friends are round for dinner. David embellishes a story that he tells over dinner and Hugh picks it apart. David says something like, doesn't Hugh know people like pictures, people need pictures painted for them, we've been through this before, they like to imagine the pictures, it gives them something to do instead of just listening.
For me as a reader, this really strikes a chord, more than show/tell or specific/general... is this writing painting a picture and is it just like being there and do I feel it?
As with Sedaris, same with Dickens. Same with Joyce, same with Chekov, same with ...
This is interesting, Niall. I tried listening to Sedaris reading George's story and stopped mid-way through. And that's because, to me, this story of George's does not particularly "paint pictures." I couldn't "read" it by having it read to me. Even though I've read the story before (more than once!), I simply could not follow along as it was read aloud. There was too much information (telling)--and not enough pictures (showing). I'm not a fan of audiobooks/stories anyway, so maybe it's a problem with my own brain and my own processing speed. I turned off the podcast and went to the story itself on the page and relaxed again!
For instance, here's part of the story where I had a hard time listening and painting a picture in my brain:
"I think you are right regarding G. That ship has sailed. Best to let that go. M., per your explanation, does not lack proper paperwork but did know, all the while, that G. did lack it, yes? And did nothing about that? Am not suggesting, of course, that she should have. But, putting ourselves into “their” heads—as I think, these days, it is prudent to try to do—we might ask, Why didn’t M. (again, according to them, to their way of thinking) do what she “should” have done, by letting someone in authority know about G.?"
Once I read it myself, at home, I "got" it--I was able to follow the information. But while Sedaris was reading it aloud, I was lost. I think it was an interesting choice of his--the readers on that podcast choose what story they want to read. He chose this one which does not lend itself well to "storytelling" voice. I think he just loved the story so much he wanted to read it--and of course, it is the exactly right story for this moment in time. But I think he should have chosen something else by George. I'm wondering if anyone else agrees.
Interesting. I've not listened to this story, read by anyone. I see what you mean from the extract you quoted, though. Information rather than pictures.
'But while Sedaris was reading it aloud, I was lost.'
I havn't listened to Sedaris but reading the story I am lost at this point too. But maybe that is the point. The grandfather writer is lost. His empathy fails him. He does not understand what motivates M and their behaviour.
He cannot even imagine it. This is in part due to the change in laws suiting someone else's beliefs. Although he is 'as disgusted as you are with all of this', 'it behooves us, I would say to think as they think, as well as we can manage' to avoid 'unpleasantness' and 'future harm'.
He is considering adjusting his own beliefs.
So at this point the g/father writer is at risk of losing his moral compass. To resist or accommodate is not a dilemma that exists in the alternative belief system.
Is not a sense of loosing our own compass at this point exactly right?
I understand the story. I just couldn't follow an audio version of it, as the story asks my brain to do a lot of work. The story doesn't lend itself to painting mind pictures as you read it--and so the audio version didn't work for me. Reading it on the page, however, was no problem for me. That was my only point here.
Love the advice to be specific--to lean towards more specificity, rather than thinking in terms of "show don't tell." Of course, being specific won't always keep a piece of writing from being "told." (I note that George didn't use "scene/summary" to talk about any of this. I think that distinction can be useful for people trying to understand the difference.) I also love that George warns us to be leery of writing advice--use what works, leave the rest. I feel like many people search and search for the "answers" when the answer always is on the page of one's own writing. Write and see what you have written. That's really all there is. (Along with reading, of course. Read, write, repeat.)
In teaching middle schoolers creative writing, I've found the idea of summary vs. scene quite helpful to steer students away from writing synopses and get them writing stories. It seems "show vs. tell" is a much more difficult concept for them to grasp. But the funny thing is as I'm reading through George's thoughts and the comments here, I'm realizing that these categories aren't as binary or mutually exclusive as I used to think. You can "show" in a summary by doing exactly what George pointed out: getting specific. Such a useful way to think about all this!!
Right. Just like life!
The recommendation to be specific resonated with me as well! I was really drawn to this paragraph:
"For me, that’s really what revising is: working with prose to make it more specific. (In my view of things, specificity is often the pixie dust that takes something from “a bit of writing” to “an experience I, the reader, am having.”)"
I'm excited to get to work on revising my current wip tomorrow and see if I can apply this concept effectively!
Please don't take this as my being rude. I just wish to explain something that happened to me when I was much younger and wanting to be an author.
My family never had enough extra money to advance us out of a happy but poverty driven life.
My bringing up my desire to write, we were in the living room staying out of Georgia's summer heat and humidity. I felt that Georgia was in competition with Seattle, vying for a medal for which state had the most rain.
Ma put her magazine down, at least that quick move provided a tiny breeze, looked at me as though I had theee heads (I don't), and she said, "You haven't done anything!"
She was lying and she knew it. I knew she just wanted to protect me from the Georgia bigotry against, to use the descriptive of Georgians, mostly outside the City of Atlanta where freedom seemed to be growing faster than elsewhere in the South, the bigotry against who they referred to as 'Queers'.
Having lived in the State of segregated Florida since age 13, I came to know that my "types", Yankee and Queer, were two out of three of the most hated groups in the South. Need I name the other?
So I finally took a course in writing from a case offered through the mail. I could understand the rules offered but they were the rules offered by professionals to beginners.
I already considered my writing to be a bit above center of good. The Coursetenders seemed to feel I was more than a bit below the center.
Each item I turned in as that period's homework was deemed unworthy of their grading.
By the end of the course I was offered the chance to critique the courseg.
I did. I really blasted them, but good.
With that I quit writing and didn't revive that desire for ten years! By then I could secretly, silently, but subtly tell my Ma, "Bullshit! I've done plenty to shout about clear up to the gods of Greece!"
I took to writing in private. The words and style were mine, not belonging to strangers to sneer over.
Well, matters beyond my control kept dragging me from my keyboards that grew from attahed to a typewriter to a keyboard separate from a computer to a keyboard attahed to a laptop with a special cord you could plug in a separate keyboard the size that made your hands happy.
Now, again due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm reduced to doing my writing with a stylus tapping out one letter at a time on the face of a cellphone that isn't a product of Apple. Guess what. This is how I've accomplished more writing than ever using a program named Substack where the writing on my Substack is legally my own via copyright.
Not only that, the comments I write on others' Substacks have received enough Likes to allow me to die happy.
Who would have thought I would be so happy to be 78 and getting around using a walker, in an elderly persons' complex, my car out front inoperable for over a year, whatever...
Thank you for reading.
Richard La France
Thank you for writing, Richard!
There is not even a tiny trace of ‚rude‘ there, Richard!? Thank you for sharing your experience with destructive writing advice. Good that you protected your writing from then on.
Lovely, lovely. Thank you.
I was the one who asked this question! Thank you, George, for such a wonderful response. On reading “Clay” what struck me the most was not something about the story content, but the way it is written. It feels like somebody is telling you a story, and I mean that in the best possible way. The whole tone of the story feels like it is being told by an elderly aunt or uncle to a bunch of children. Maybe it is just me, but that is the mental image I get when I read the story, and I love the story for that image.
Love George’s suggestion regarding specificity. I am learning the importance of specificity here in Story Club, and now I see it in all the writing of the greats. Sadly, in my own writing, I still tend to miss it often.
"It [Clay] feels like somebody is telling you a story."
Yes, it does, but who is doing the telling? In the extract George quotes above, it may seem to us it's the author who is "telling" : "But wasn't Maria glad when..." But it's also Maria telling her story to herself: "Sure and wasn't I glad when...".
Joyce tells things through Maria's interior monologue. Even what seems to be coming from "the outside" (authorial voice) isn't. And, since Maria is not a reliable narrator of the thick and thin of her life and feelings (who among us is?), the result is a tantalizing tell-showing.
"...you leave the characters alone and through the suggestions and the images, their completed life is in the reader’s mind..." (from the John McGahern quote above).
Such an important point that "it's also Maria telling her story to herself" and completely agree with you "the result is a tantalizing tell-showing."
A classic writing question that I think you have answered beautifully. Telling that is "unsupported assertion" as you say, does feel judgmental to me. Or at least, not open enough, not trusting enough. Specificity is good advice, although I hear this one repeated too, as some kind of a dogma. I love your writing suggestions that always feel kind and humble, despite your vast experience and knowledge. "Only if it helps" is a nice policy. Your drawings are good too. They make me laugh. Thank you!
Just here to let you know that I do not believe I have recovered from reading “Lincoln in the Bardo” some years ago. Wow. That’s my review. Here it is again: Wow
Thank you, Patris. Not sure I've recovered from writing it. :)
Some of the best writing I’ve encountered in many decades of reading.
Me too! I’ve also listened to the frankly astonishing audiobook three times. The third time I just burst into tears at hearing the opening words. I’m here to add my WOW too 🧡
Another problem with telling, that's not really about telling, but about skill, is that when someone is told to show not tell, the thing they're being told is to slow down, to build to whatever thing is going on. Writing "Maria was upset at the letter from Tim, because he accused her, again, of deserting their family." jams too much in too quickly. You don't necessarily need dialog, this whole story could be done as narrative, but it has to build, to unfold. I suppose this is just another way of getting at specificity.
Question: why does Joyce show us so much about Maria’s nose and chin? What’s he telling us? All I can think of is Witch, which doesn’t seem right.
It's a halloween story. I think Joyce gets a certain amount of irony out of the witch he puts into his story. She's not at all a witch, except in her solitude, but a halloween story needs a witch, so this story gets a Christian (as opposed to Wiccan or pagan) who is destined, by the divination--which is not even divination but fixed--for the convent.
Roberta! I never think of Joyce as having a sense of humor. But sly? Definitely. Also, I had trouble keeping in mind that this is a Halloween story. (not Irish, not Catholic, etc) I’m out of shape. Thanks! Really.
OMG. Parts of Ulysses are hilarious. Even A Portrait of the Artist . . . But yeah. It's sort of subtle.
Alas, my Joyce is rusty. And after a whole semester JUST on Ulysses! Thirty years ago, though. [sigh]
Hehe. It kind of NEEDS a whole semester. I never got to Finnegan's Wake, too hard, but the funniest, people tell me. Portrait was life-changing for me, freshman year, Indiana University, 1970, the first book I ever stayed up all night to reread. But Joyce is not my favorite, and I'm rusty too. Just remembering. . .
I've found reading Joyce out loud, even if you have no idea what's going on helps. Portrait and Ulysses forced me to consult Dante (In Portrait, Stephen's aunt), Homer and Virgil. In trying to understand Ulysses, I gained a love of the epic. Oh, and on first reading I had no idea Clay was a premonition of death.
Isn’t it sweet to recall having time enough to spend that much of it on Joyce? Or [fill in writer’s name]? That was a life-changing semester. Joyce taught me how and why to read writers who kick my butt.
I seem to match up (a) the closeness of her nose to the tip of her chin with (b) her diminutive stature: somehow Maria, I'm realising writing this, has always struck me as a character who bustles along, rocking forwarding with each step, with a ambulatory gait particular to herself and so suited to bringing out the busy-bodying little-laundry beetle-lady that rolls along through the scrolling-scenes of this story which is simultaneously so told and so shown.
Stream of conscious... such stuff as, sometimes, visual artworks are sparked from off the back of story... didn't expect to be, but now I'm seeing scope for A Comics Homage (more specifically a condensed graphic versioning) to James Joyces' 'Clay' in the manner that, I recall, P Mann rendered Isaac Babel's 'My First Goose'... just a pity I've never had the knack of drawing.
Along an alternative path there's something about Maria in Clay that brings to mind Mrs Punch in Punch & Judy: both seem to present as characters 'disfigured / distorted' for purposes of caricature.
Don't see Maria as 'Witch'... but now that you mention it... what a gem of a story 'Clay' is turning out to be, and this is only our second pass over it... and now I thinking of Story Club as akin to a place such as Antwerp, where the quality of diamonds and other gemstones are brought out, enhanced, by the skill of the cutters.
So I could be completely off base, but it struck me as emphasizing the quiet interiority of Maria. Even her facial features seemed design to cloak her smile and laughter, in keeping with her shy, modest image. I don't see someone like Maria having a big, toothy grin or pealing laughter.
I find I want to write about 'Love Letter' - a deeply disturbing and riveting epistolary short fiction that with the quietest of voices, shouts to our time. I am grateful for George's analysis of 'Clay' and for others here. I concur with them all.
One aspect I notice is Joe's dependence on the women around him for love and nourishment and wisdom, both his wife and Maria fulfil important roles. Maria tries to intervene to invoke peace between him and Albie but he is resolute in stubborn refusal. His emotion, love, is evoked by Maria's singing, and perhaps the sadness of the verse she chose to skip, the loss.
He needs Maria, but he also needs his wife, for it to her he turns, for the corkscrew.
The women, the domestic world they conjure and circulate, breathes life into the world of men.
I listened to the New Yorker podcast with David Sedaris last night and was so moved by Love Letter, which I hadn’t been familiar with – and struck by the skill and lightness of that slight turn at the end, the glimpse of a different message. Knowing your editing process I wondered if you took a few passes to pare it back, to have him say not too much or too little about the use of the money? It would be fascinating to know how you revised that one, if you remember.
This guidance on show/tell is also so helpful. Thanks George.
Ps. Have just listened to David Sedaris read “Love Letter” and it was very moving. But may I be honest and admit that as much as I love Sedaris, I preferred your reading of the story when I first heard it on The New Yorker’s podcast..? Actually, this story is a great example of telling that is very specific and effective. A grandfather’s letter to his grandson, so rich in details and emotions, and leaves so much for the reader to imagine.
I love the way you have demolished a generalization that has had such a chilling effect on so many writers. Creating experience through specificity is an excellent guidepost—but balancing specifying with suggesting is a very tricky business. Details, but not *all* the details, perhaps? Please amplify this point when the occasion arises.
Speaking of "pixie dust" (as George does above), it did occur to me from Joyce's description of her small stature that Maria might be one of Ireland's "little people." I was actually thinking leprechaun at first--and I thought that might explain the nose-chin thing. But I looked it up and it seems leprechauns are always male, at least according to what I could find with a quick internet search. But maybe pixies can also be female, and so, maybe, at least on one plane of existence, Maria is a pixie (?) and maybe in order to "cast his spell" (see Kevin Farmer's great comment previous discussion), Joyce is "telling" us a kind of folktale (?). (My apologies if all this is a bunch of bs to those who, unlike me, actually know something about Irish folklore--and Joyce.)
In any case, it's interesting to me that Annemarie Cancienne mentions Babel's "In the Basement" in this current discussion (thanks Annemarie). That's exactly the story I was reminded of when I first read "Clay." I think "Clay" is in many ways a more compressed/more quickly escalated version of "In The B" ("version" is probably too strong, I know, but I can't think of a better term at the moment)--the liveliness and chaos of the "visits," the performances gone awry, the mix of humor and heartbreak, etc. But more importantly, for purposes of our discussion here, I see "Clay" as an example of Joyce "showing" us how "to tell" a story/tale; so, in "Clay," the "show" vs "tell" distinction becomes a false one. And that's exactly one of the things I particularly loved about "In The B"--Babel "shows" us how "to tell" a story and the story is a great writing lesson in itself. Vishal, thanks so much for your question. I totally agree that "Clay" sounds like it's a story that's being told, perhaps by an elderly aunt or uncle to children, and I agree that is one of it's many great charms.
"the "show" vs "tell" distinction becomes a false one"
Something that I tried to say in a reply above to Vishal. Thanks, Annemarie!
It’s in the specificity that humour can/does come out. Babel’s In the Basement stands out for me as an example. The image of the grandfather popping up at the window with his manic violin, ragged top hat and clown clothes still sends me into giggles.
Others' experience may differ but I recall an exercise in the primary grades that required each student to bring, explain, and share a significant object with the class: "Show AND (not OR) Tell". Showing and telling are not mutually exclusive. Proportionality is as important as specificity. As Coleridge said: "The best words in the best order".
I'll respond to the overall Office Hours at a later time, but needed to say here and now how grateful I am for the link to David Sedaris's reading and discussion of LOVE LETTER. I've long felt it to be one of the singularly most important pieces of writing in the past decade. I hesitate, for obvious reasons, to refer to it as 'fiction' per se. It's masterful, tragic, hopeful, and heartbreaking. Having been a fan of Sedaris as long as he's been writing and performing, much in the same way I've been a devotee of George's own work since the 90's, I was compelled to share David's reading and discussion, as well as the text of the story, on social media, where I voiced my hope that everyone I know might read or listen.
It's (again, for painfully obvious reasons) a more critical work in the present moment than it has been prior. We need it now, more than ever.
I agree with you and had the same reaction hearing it on the New Yorker Fiction podcast when it was released— that it was masterful and needed. The grandfather is so sympathetic— we understand why he gives the advice he gives, we’d do the same, and yet, we and he know this is not enough.
Also, I was delighted when GS mentioned in his OH post that he felt like Huck Finn in the rafters as he listened to Sedaris and Triesman discuss it because, I’ll admit, I’d wondered what he thought about their discussion as I listened too. 😉
Since G mentioned David Sedaris, I thought of DS's ability to paint pictures when he writes. The pictures are so well painted, you see them right in front of you with no difficulty at all. Could be showing, could be telling, but it's always pictures and you're always right there with him.
I think he says something like this in a piece about an argument with Hugh when some friends are round for dinner. David embellishes a story that he tells over dinner and Hugh picks it apart. David says something like, doesn't Hugh know people like pictures, people need pictures painted for them, we've been through this before, they like to imagine the pictures, it gives them something to do instead of just listening.
For me as a reader, this really strikes a chord, more than show/tell or specific/general... is this writing painting a picture and is it just like being there and do I feel it?
As with Sedaris, same with Dickens. Same with Joyce, same with Chekov, same with ...
This is interesting, Niall. I tried listening to Sedaris reading George's story and stopped mid-way through. And that's because, to me, this story of George's does not particularly "paint pictures." I couldn't "read" it by having it read to me. Even though I've read the story before (more than once!), I simply could not follow along as it was read aloud. There was too much information (telling)--and not enough pictures (showing). I'm not a fan of audiobooks/stories anyway, so maybe it's a problem with my own brain and my own processing speed. I turned off the podcast and went to the story itself on the page and relaxed again!
For instance, here's part of the story where I had a hard time listening and painting a picture in my brain:
"I think you are right regarding G. That ship has sailed. Best to let that go. M., per your explanation, does not lack proper paperwork but did know, all the while, that G. did lack it, yes? And did nothing about that? Am not suggesting, of course, that she should have. But, putting ourselves into “their” heads—as I think, these days, it is prudent to try to do—we might ask, Why didn’t M. (again, according to them, to their way of thinking) do what she “should” have done, by letting someone in authority know about G.?"
Once I read it myself, at home, I "got" it--I was able to follow the information. But while Sedaris was reading it aloud, I was lost. I think it was an interesting choice of his--the readers on that podcast choose what story they want to read. He chose this one which does not lend itself well to "storytelling" voice. I think he just loved the story so much he wanted to read it--and of course, it is the exactly right story for this moment in time. But I think he should have chosen something else by George. I'm wondering if anyone else agrees.
Interesting. I've not listened to this story, read by anyone. I see what you mean from the extract you quoted, though. Information rather than pictures.
'But while Sedaris was reading it aloud, I was lost.'
I havn't listened to Sedaris but reading the story I am lost at this point too. But maybe that is the point. The grandfather writer is lost. His empathy fails him. He does not understand what motivates M and their behaviour.
He cannot even imagine it. This is in part due to the change in laws suiting someone else's beliefs. Although he is 'as disgusted as you are with all of this', 'it behooves us, I would say to think as they think, as well as we can manage' to avoid 'unpleasantness' and 'future harm'.
He is considering adjusting his own beliefs.
So at this point the g/father writer is at risk of losing his moral compass. To resist or accommodate is not a dilemma that exists in the alternative belief system.
Is not a sense of loosing our own compass at this point exactly right?
I understand the story. I just couldn't follow an audio version of it, as the story asks my brain to do a lot of work. The story doesn't lend itself to painting mind pictures as you read it--and so the audio version didn't work for me. Reading it on the page, however, was no problem for me. That was my only point here.
We are being shown how easy it is to lose one's moral compass.