George, as someone who gave a shout-out for “The Falls” on the getting to know you post, I really enjoyed reading about how the story was born. I was struck by how as a reader, the only version of the text I can conceive of is the finished product, and so it’s hard to imagine you writing beyond the end of the story as it currently exists; the final line is what I love most about this story, and it’s so powerful and complete that in my imagination when you wrote it you knew instantly that the story was over because, duh, tautology-alert, there is it, the perfect finish to the story.
This led me to try to express why the last line is so important, and what it does to me as a reader. On the most basic level, from the first time I read the story and then called my wife and read it aloud to her over the phone because I wanted to share it with someone else immediately, it’s heartbreaking and heroic and despairing and hopeful, and that mess of emotions that it stirs would be ruined if anything else happened to resolve that ambiguity.
During a later reading, I remember being struck by how powerfully this story asks and answers a key question about the human condition: Why do you do when all the alternatives are hopeless? It’s impossible, of course, to do nothing, to watch the girls drown, but it’s also of course impossible to swim to the snag, and so we get to watch as Morse tries figure this out himself and juggle the impossible and unthinkable outcomes and there’s something thrilling about his thoughts circling around and justifying one course of action while his body has already taken flight. While reading I always appreciate the action that Morse’s body takes, independent of his mind, and see it as deeply moral and heroic and true: that watching the girls drown is the thing that you really can’t do, more than any of the other things that you can’t do, that cuts across your fear and despair and rationalizing and justifying. Knowing whether or not the heroic moment succeeds or fails is counterproductive: if it succeeded, the story of Morse feels as false as the thoughts of Cummings; if it fails we lose that glimmer of hope and our empathy with Morse gets broken and replaced by something else: sorrow, sympathy for his family.
Today, in light of your teaser about looking at sentences as a creative driver, I thought more about the rhythms and cadences of this story, and the ways in which Morse’s thoughts tumble out and over each other like water rushing over the falls. A good deal of the humor and the tragedy of this story for me is what’s happening in Morse’s head and how he can’t seem to stop it, this interior flood of memories and resentments and fears and bits of occasionally forced gratitude. In this way the final sentence feels like a kind of release from Morse’s neuroses: the sentence starts with his normal tumble and turmoil: eight thoughts on top of each other, separated by commas. Then the sentence suddenly slows down as he makes his decision, as we get this lovely “threw his long ugly body out across the water.” If the problem in this reading of this story is Morse’s indecision and anxiety, then this sentence brings it to a close quite nicely: even for just a split second, Morse and the reader are given a moment of grace, and the noble act is mirrored by a calmness of language and thought.
Anyway, glad to have some time today to sit back and think about this stuff; reading literature creates these moments of grace for me where I can sit back and ponder all these questions about being human.
I've always been a sucker for "how this was written" narratives, and this was a marvelous one. Of all the many things to dig into here, the most salient for me is when you say: "So, process produced a structure..."
This reminds me of another quote that I saved some time ago and recently stumbled across again. It's from Jasper Johns, in 2006 New Yorker profile: "Actually, when one works, one comes to a solution much more quickly than when one sits and thinks."
It's good to be reminded that miracles like good stories emerge not when we're sitting on our hands but when actually putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboards). I tried to explain this once to an interviewer -- that writing produces thoughts you could not generate in any way -- by saying that writing *is* thinking. I utterly failed to convey what I meant then, so I'm glad to have the idea clarified for me here in a way that I could probably repeat more sensibly to someone else.
And of course I want to get back to my writing desk now and do some thinking.
Hi George, I loved reading "The Falls" and learning about your process. I’m with you 100% on wanting this kind of peek behind the curtain more than anything from the writers I love - so thank you for this!
I particular loved hearing your thoughts on the ending, and how what happens to Morse/the girls is not ultimately important - not the question the story cares most about. Fascinating and inspiring to see how that kind of focused question the story DOES care about (Morse's ability to transcend himself) emerged so naturally/playfully. One thing I’ve found myself thinking about lately in several pieces I’m working on is the shifting possibilities of what this question at the heart of things could be, and how many possible stories could emerge from the same material/situation, and thus how many questions are there under the surface, each connected to a slightly different story, with slightly different focus, ready to emerge if I go in this or that direction - and so much possibility can just be kind of scary. So it really does feel refreshing to hear how playful your process was with this story, and how a kind of wisdom emerges from the process itself that can't be accessed any other way.
I also want to echo Tina’s comment about this constant Christmas feeling I’m getting from Story Club, created by your warmth and generosity, and the warmth of this community. Pretty special thing going on here.
Thank you George for your boundless insight and reckless generosity. This is like watching a great film, listening to the director’s commentary, and then heading to a coffeeshop to discuss it with people you have never met but know very well. Hello, all.
My first decent short story opened a lot of doors for me--and as a result I acquired a delusional mindset: I'd better keep writing EXACTLY like this! This story must be my "voice." Ultimately finding freedom from this trap has put me on a wild goose chase that I never want to end, despite the failures and missteps. This is the adventure. Thank you, George, for revealing your process and inspiring more playfulness, a lighter touch, trusting gut feelings.
The appearance of characters as you explain their arrivals is not like birth. They already exist, though likely from your skin and personality, and they walk into, or talk into your pages.
I like that. We don’t lose anything by recognizing they have appeared, do we? I like that, too.
I think you’re saying creative writing is more like reporting, then, jotting down what we semi-consciously build into a scene. That’s the creative space, but journaling our imagination is kind of cheating. It’s still not creating.
I don’t care, though. We don’t plagiarise our imagination, cuz it’s ours. The sickly feeling of stealing what we imagine is kind of delicious.
Do you always spark such odd thoughts in your classrooms? Those are some lucky ducks who spend time with you.
Ducks return to their home every year. You will need to get a bigger lake to house all of us online students.
The comments section on the last post was full of people very bravely truthfully answering the question: what makes you anxious about writing. I wasn't sure what my answer to that question was. I knew that I am anxious about my writing. I knew that I hold back too much of myself too often. But I wasn't sure why. This post gave me my answer. What makes me anxious about writing is the fear that I am, or am at least in danger of becoming, Cummings.
Sometimes I write something and I know it's not great, sometimes I'm fairly pleased with what I've produced, every now and again I have that anxious of joy of feeling instinctive faith in what I've just written. In its rightness. But always I worry that those instincts that tell me what good writing feels like, what bad writing sounds like are just self delusion... That I am not really a writer at all but just someone who likes the ego-pleasing idea of being one. That maybe at the end of the day I have no talent, no true creativity, nothing genuine or relatable to say... just a childish need to be special. And God I hope that's not true!
Can I just say how incredibly refreshing and inspiring your candor has been, already? You noted it at the top and it's so true: this is EXACTLY the kind of insight into the creation of a story that aspiring writers (at least this one) crave. Trying not to gush excessively, but thank you for the early holiday gift that is this newsletter.
I'm gratefully drinking in all this generous sharing of process and craft and just wanted to say...pithiness has its place, but please don't truncate out of misplaced humility! It's a pleasure to be able to dig into all these thought layers of yours.
This class is the only thing keeping me from sticking my head in the toilet and flushing it followed by throwing my work laptop out the window. Thank you.
I was surprised, saddened, and gladdened by your admission that you felt trapped by the first person, minimalist ironic tone of your Civilwarland stories. I started reading you when that book came out 20 something years ago when an Amazon algorithm that no longer seems to exist hooked me up with you because I loved Vonnegut. Even though you have moved on and I love your new work I will always associate you with that earlier voice and I always go back to read those stories for inspiration (a mistake, because it traps me too, but in a worse way, because it was never my voice.) This solves a mystery for me for why your stories have changed (in a more concrete way than the obvious one that people change.) I'm looking forward to more revelations ike this.
Thank you so much for this. I love "The Falls" and I teach it to my students in a fiction writing course. It's such a marvel of point-of-view and voice and I want them to see how much a character's perspective can do on its own, so it's wonderful to hear about the process that got you there. I find I'm still thinking about the story after teaching it many times, and I'm always interested in the elements you built in to make Morse's selfless act feel heavy and serious in the midst of these hilarious characterizations. (The comedy and the meaning are so close together: right before he leaps in he asks if the girls think he is Christ, which is both an image of self-sacrifice and a wonderful joke, since it would be concretely helpful right now if he could walk on water.) I'm also obsessed with the image of Cummings thinking he should find someone to help and turning to find himself face to face with corn. It's perfect and I still don't know why -- perhaps because a huge field of corn is something he could probably have noticed before this moment, so it's an abrupt image of coming face to face with the obvious. At any rate, the story sticks with me, and I'm excited to tell students in future terms about how you wrote it!
Having not read "The Falls" before, when Will Mackin got the the ending, that glorious dive (almost) into the water, I immediately hoped you'd stop right there. What a charming, funny, sad, hopeful story.
Your comments on understory and overstory and the story itself bringing them together really resonated with me as a potentially better way to conceive of story structure/construction than what I've been doing as I muddle along on my own.
And the idea of a vividly-fleshed character itself creating plot or momentum feels like something I've been sensing in my own practice.
I've had a couple old unfinished projects in mind while reading today's post that I haven't grappled with in a while (but that I couldn't bring myself to end my commitment to) that these ideas might help, I think. Thanks for this!
I'm working on an essay about a time I fell into a river, and here now is this story about a man jumping in a river, and surely that can't be a coincidence, except of course it can be a coincidence because so many things happen to so many people that mathematically some of those things are bound to coincide. Then reading ahead I see, "you two guys are in the same story, because I say so." A compelling argument. There is a connection between my essay about a river and the story about a river because there is a connection. Now I get to figure out what that might be.
Is it just me, or is anyone else thinking today, on the Tenth of December, that Story Club has the potential to save a life?
Thank you so much, George, for your warmth, generosity, and inspiration, and for creating this community!
George, as someone who gave a shout-out for “The Falls” on the getting to know you post, I really enjoyed reading about how the story was born. I was struck by how as a reader, the only version of the text I can conceive of is the finished product, and so it’s hard to imagine you writing beyond the end of the story as it currently exists; the final line is what I love most about this story, and it’s so powerful and complete that in my imagination when you wrote it you knew instantly that the story was over because, duh, tautology-alert, there is it, the perfect finish to the story.
This led me to try to express why the last line is so important, and what it does to me as a reader. On the most basic level, from the first time I read the story and then called my wife and read it aloud to her over the phone because I wanted to share it with someone else immediately, it’s heartbreaking and heroic and despairing and hopeful, and that mess of emotions that it stirs would be ruined if anything else happened to resolve that ambiguity.
During a later reading, I remember being struck by how powerfully this story asks and answers a key question about the human condition: Why do you do when all the alternatives are hopeless? It’s impossible, of course, to do nothing, to watch the girls drown, but it’s also of course impossible to swim to the snag, and so we get to watch as Morse tries figure this out himself and juggle the impossible and unthinkable outcomes and there’s something thrilling about his thoughts circling around and justifying one course of action while his body has already taken flight. While reading I always appreciate the action that Morse’s body takes, independent of his mind, and see it as deeply moral and heroic and true: that watching the girls drown is the thing that you really can’t do, more than any of the other things that you can’t do, that cuts across your fear and despair and rationalizing and justifying. Knowing whether or not the heroic moment succeeds or fails is counterproductive: if it succeeded, the story of Morse feels as false as the thoughts of Cummings; if it fails we lose that glimmer of hope and our empathy with Morse gets broken and replaced by something else: sorrow, sympathy for his family.
Today, in light of your teaser about looking at sentences as a creative driver, I thought more about the rhythms and cadences of this story, and the ways in which Morse’s thoughts tumble out and over each other like water rushing over the falls. A good deal of the humor and the tragedy of this story for me is what’s happening in Morse’s head and how he can’t seem to stop it, this interior flood of memories and resentments and fears and bits of occasionally forced gratitude. In this way the final sentence feels like a kind of release from Morse’s neuroses: the sentence starts with his normal tumble and turmoil: eight thoughts on top of each other, separated by commas. Then the sentence suddenly slows down as he makes his decision, as we get this lovely “threw his long ugly body out across the water.” If the problem in this reading of this story is Morse’s indecision and anxiety, then this sentence brings it to a close quite nicely: even for just a split second, Morse and the reader are given a moment of grace, and the noble act is mirrored by a calmness of language and thought.
Anyway, glad to have some time today to sit back and think about this stuff; reading literature creates these moments of grace for me where I can sit back and ponder all these questions about being human.
I've always been a sucker for "how this was written" narratives, and this was a marvelous one. Of all the many things to dig into here, the most salient for me is when you say: "So, process produced a structure..."
This reminds me of another quote that I saved some time ago and recently stumbled across again. It's from Jasper Johns, in 2006 New Yorker profile: "Actually, when one works, one comes to a solution much more quickly than when one sits and thinks."
It's good to be reminded that miracles like good stories emerge not when we're sitting on our hands but when actually putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboards). I tried to explain this once to an interviewer -- that writing produces thoughts you could not generate in any way -- by saying that writing *is* thinking. I utterly failed to convey what I meant then, so I'm glad to have the idea clarified for me here in a way that I could probably repeat more sensibly to someone else.
And of course I want to get back to my writing desk now and do some thinking.
Hi George, I loved reading "The Falls" and learning about your process. I’m with you 100% on wanting this kind of peek behind the curtain more than anything from the writers I love - so thank you for this!
I particular loved hearing your thoughts on the ending, and how what happens to Morse/the girls is not ultimately important - not the question the story cares most about. Fascinating and inspiring to see how that kind of focused question the story DOES care about (Morse's ability to transcend himself) emerged so naturally/playfully. One thing I’ve found myself thinking about lately in several pieces I’m working on is the shifting possibilities of what this question at the heart of things could be, and how many possible stories could emerge from the same material/situation, and thus how many questions are there under the surface, each connected to a slightly different story, with slightly different focus, ready to emerge if I go in this or that direction - and so much possibility can just be kind of scary. So it really does feel refreshing to hear how playful your process was with this story, and how a kind of wisdom emerges from the process itself that can't be accessed any other way.
I also want to echo Tina’s comment about this constant Christmas feeling I’m getting from Story Club, created by your warmth and generosity, and the warmth of this community. Pretty special thing going on here.
Thank you George for your boundless insight and reckless generosity. This is like watching a great film, listening to the director’s commentary, and then heading to a coffeeshop to discuss it with people you have never met but know very well. Hello, all.
HOLY SHIT, “The Falls”
Just read it and I have never laughed so hard in a story and then gotten stabbed in the tear ducts like that.
And then we get a look inside how it grew?! What kind of constant Christmas is this place?
Is my favorite learning experience ever underway??
More thoughts on all the presents in the post later but I had to run here and freak out.
My first decent short story opened a lot of doors for me--and as a result I acquired a delusional mindset: I'd better keep writing EXACTLY like this! This story must be my "voice." Ultimately finding freedom from this trap has put me on a wild goose chase that I never want to end, despite the failures and missteps. This is the adventure. Thank you, George, for revealing your process and inspiring more playfulness, a lighter touch, trusting gut feelings.
The appearance of characters as you explain their arrivals is not like birth. They already exist, though likely from your skin and personality, and they walk into, or talk into your pages.
I like that. We don’t lose anything by recognizing they have appeared, do we? I like that, too.
I think you’re saying creative writing is more like reporting, then, jotting down what we semi-consciously build into a scene. That’s the creative space, but journaling our imagination is kind of cheating. It’s still not creating.
I don’t care, though. We don’t plagiarise our imagination, cuz it’s ours. The sickly feeling of stealing what we imagine is kind of delicious.
Do you always spark such odd thoughts in your classrooms? Those are some lucky ducks who spend time with you.
Ducks return to their home every year. You will need to get a bigger lake to house all of us online students.
The comments section on the last post was full of people very bravely truthfully answering the question: what makes you anxious about writing. I wasn't sure what my answer to that question was. I knew that I am anxious about my writing. I knew that I hold back too much of myself too often. But I wasn't sure why. This post gave me my answer. What makes me anxious about writing is the fear that I am, or am at least in danger of becoming, Cummings.
Sometimes I write something and I know it's not great, sometimes I'm fairly pleased with what I've produced, every now and again I have that anxious of joy of feeling instinctive faith in what I've just written. In its rightness. But always I worry that those instincts that tell me what good writing feels like, what bad writing sounds like are just self delusion... That I am not really a writer at all but just someone who likes the ego-pleasing idea of being one. That maybe at the end of the day I have no talent, no true creativity, nothing genuine or relatable to say... just a childish need to be special. And God I hope that's not true!
Can I just say how incredibly refreshing and inspiring your candor has been, already? You noted it at the top and it's so true: this is EXACTLY the kind of insight into the creation of a story that aspiring writers (at least this one) crave. Trying not to gush excessively, but thank you for the early holiday gift that is this newsletter.
I'm gratefully drinking in all this generous sharing of process and craft and just wanted to say...pithiness has its place, but please don't truncate out of misplaced humility! It's a pleasure to be able to dig into all these thought layers of yours.
This class is the only thing keeping me from sticking my head in the toilet and flushing it followed by throwing my work laptop out the window. Thank you.
I was surprised, saddened, and gladdened by your admission that you felt trapped by the first person, minimalist ironic tone of your Civilwarland stories. I started reading you when that book came out 20 something years ago when an Amazon algorithm that no longer seems to exist hooked me up with you because I loved Vonnegut. Even though you have moved on and I love your new work I will always associate you with that earlier voice and I always go back to read those stories for inspiration (a mistake, because it traps me too, but in a worse way, because it was never my voice.) This solves a mystery for me for why your stories have changed (in a more concrete way than the obvious one that people change.) I'm looking forward to more revelations ike this.
Thank you so much for this. I love "The Falls" and I teach it to my students in a fiction writing course. It's such a marvel of point-of-view and voice and I want them to see how much a character's perspective can do on its own, so it's wonderful to hear about the process that got you there. I find I'm still thinking about the story after teaching it many times, and I'm always interested in the elements you built in to make Morse's selfless act feel heavy and serious in the midst of these hilarious characterizations. (The comedy and the meaning are so close together: right before he leaps in he asks if the girls think he is Christ, which is both an image of self-sacrifice and a wonderful joke, since it would be concretely helpful right now if he could walk on water.) I'm also obsessed with the image of Cummings thinking he should find someone to help and turning to find himself face to face with corn. It's perfect and I still don't know why -- perhaps because a huge field of corn is something he could probably have noticed before this moment, so it's an abrupt image of coming face to face with the obvious. At any rate, the story sticks with me, and I'm excited to tell students in future terms about how you wrote it!
Having not read "The Falls" before, when Will Mackin got the the ending, that glorious dive (almost) into the water, I immediately hoped you'd stop right there. What a charming, funny, sad, hopeful story.
Your comments on understory and overstory and the story itself bringing them together really resonated with me as a potentially better way to conceive of story structure/construction than what I've been doing as I muddle along on my own.
And the idea of a vividly-fleshed character itself creating plot or momentum feels like something I've been sensing in my own practice.
I've had a couple old unfinished projects in mind while reading today's post that I haven't grappled with in a while (but that I couldn't bring myself to end my commitment to) that these ideas might help, I think. Thanks for this!
I'm working on an essay about a time I fell into a river, and here now is this story about a man jumping in a river, and surely that can't be a coincidence, except of course it can be a coincidence because so many things happen to so many people that mathematically some of those things are bound to coincide. Then reading ahead I see, "you two guys are in the same story, because I say so." A compelling argument. There is a connection between my essay about a river and the story about a river because there is a connection. Now I get to figure out what that might be.