Word Café

a master class for readers and writers

OWEN KING “THE B SIDE: SATYRS & ALIENS” 10/15/15

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WORD CAFE EVENT ARCHIVE
OWEN KING 10/15/15

owen-king-readingNovelist and graphic novel collaborator Owen King treated us all to a reading from his novel Double Feature, in which his hero Sam endures a classroom visit by his father, B-movie icon Booth Dolan. Regaling the youngsters with his philosophy of youth and maturity as a double feature, Booth reminds them that “make-believe is important” and invites them to try on his collection of rubber character noses.

Nina read another short passage from Double Feature, describing the video store where Sam works, with its rigid division between a lovingly curated Auteur section and disdain-inducing Commercial Fare. Does the same high art/low art divide apply in literature? How do we reach across the aisle?

Owen talked about making characters three-dimensional by presenting their flaws and the trap of liking your hero or heroine too much, so that they become more wish-fulfillment than human being. We also talked about character names. Owen often uses first or last names from old memorials and tombstones; Nina keeps a running list of names from New York cabdriver licenses.

owen king intro-to-alien-invasionOwen’s latest book is Intro To Alien Invasion, a graphic novel written in collaboration with his screenwriting partner Mark Jude Poirier and illustrated by Nancy Ahn. Owen compared graphic novel scenarios to screenplays, with the artist becoming “the whole movie production in one.”

Boiling a story down to essentials and single-frame images is a good way to practice economy; Owen said it’s helped him to make “ruthless transitions” in his fiction. Nina compared chapter and line breaks in fiction to “Cut To” in film. They allow you to jump freely from one point of view, time, or location to another.

THE EXERCISES:

diane arbus woman with monkey

Owen passed out xeroxes of Diane Arbus portrait photos, asking participants to choose one and write a short piece in first person, addressing the following:

— Something surprising about the character

— A beloved memory

— A sincere regret

In honor of Double Feature’s satyr/janitor, Nina suggested writing about a mundane encounter with someone–shoe-store clerk, bank teller, dental hygienist–in which that person becomes a mythological character.

Pamela Erens “The Storyteller’s ‘I'”

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May 7, 2015

nina-and-pamela-erensNovelist Pamela Erens treated us to a reading of the opening of her brilliant novel The Virgins. Its narrator Bruce Bennett-Jones, a student at an elite 1970s prep school. Obsessed with the romance of fellow students Aviva Rossner and Seung Jung, Bruce not only describes his own encounters with these two outsiders (Jewish and Korean-American) but imagines what might have happened between them in sophisticated literary detail.

Pamela’s reading sparked a lively discussion on narrative voice, and the differences between first and third person. Nina observed that in cinematic terms, third person is a long shot or even an aerial view, where first person is a point-of-view shot, often a close-up. She also paraphrased Valerie Martin’s dictum that first person works especially well when someone is trying to justify their behavior.

nina-and-pamela-2The Virgins is narrated in first person by someone who uses third person to narrate scenes that he couldn’t have been privy to–Bruce is recreating the story of Seung and Aviva, for reasons that become evident as the story unfolds. This unusual narrative strategy was inspired by James Salter; Pamela named an English teacher at her fictional school after him in homage.

Her first novel, The Understory, also has a first-person male narrator, whose view of himself and the story’s events is extremely limited. She finds writing male narrators “very freeing. I felt less exposed because I knew they weren’t me.”

One of Pamela’s writing teachers assigned her to write prose in the style of various famous writers, including John Cheever and Eudora Welty. She found it a very useful way to analyze diction and prose rhythms, and took comfort in realizing that even when her classmates were imitating someone with a distinctive style, they still sounded like themselves.

nina-and-pamela-erens-3There were some excellent questions from the group, including a discussion of writing first-person narration from the point of view of someone who wouldn’t have a sophisticated literary vocabulary, for instance a teenager. Pamela’s advice? “Don’t worry about it. The voice of a story is never identical to the voice of a character. It’s a translation of what that character is thinking and feeling. Prose that’s written as we really talk is not that interesting most of the time. Readers will always go with you if give more richness to the language.”

PAMELA’S EXERCISE:

1) List 4-6 basic attributes (gender, height, personality, etc) that are true of yourself.

2) Write a new list with the OPPOSITE of those attributes.

3) Choose an autobiographical event or situation you’ve wanted to write about and narrate it as this opposite persona.

NINA’S EXERCISE:

Think of a recent encounter you had with another person (buying shoes, arguing with a sibling, spotting someone on a train platform) and write it from the other person’s point of view.

Lois Walden “Channeling Characters”

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April 23, 2015

nina shengold lois waldenLois Walden’s reading from her novel Afterworld was a full-throttle theatrical performance, as she summoned the voices of her title character and various others in snippets of dialogue. She described how she creates characters, which is akin to her work as an actress and singer. “I get the rhythms of speech, sound, smell, how they move, which organ they speak from, the sound of their voice, how they breathe. I find what their longing feels like.” What is the most important thing to this person? What do they want most? What gets in their way, not just from their own life but from their family background and inheritance?

Lois talked about the importance of doing creative work of all sorts, “taking risks, trying to express things that are buried in the marrow of your bones.”

Asked how to proceed when a character you’re writing seems “thin” or you’re “stuck in a shallow place,” Lois suggested shaking it up by making a physical change: taking a long walk, switching from keyboard to longhand, or sitting perfectly still and waiting.

Nina suggested that if a character seems thin, you may be writing that person in too straight a line. Look for the shadow side. If the overall thrust of a character is rage, try finding a place where she’s tender or vulnerable. Characters with flaws and inconsistencies are always more dimensional.

Lois and Nina agreed that character is revealed through conflict. We learn more about people when they’re under pressure. Instead of introducing a character on an ordinary day and then having something happen to him, try jumping into mid-plot, so your character is introduced by how he deals with the unexpected.

LOIS’S EXERCISE:

Lois presented a guided meditation, starting with physical changes (close your eyes, follow your breath, uncross your legs, feel the earth beneath your feet). Create your own version of Afterworld, an objective, detached presence that observes from a distance. Introduce a character who arrives with an unresolved problem. Then add a second character who has a history with the first, and set them into dialogue with each other. (I’m paraphrasing: it was a rich and hypnotic stew, with many ingredients.)

​NINA’S EXERCISE:

Describe a person you know in motion, doing or making something, in five-senses detail. Somewhere along the way, change a specific detail into something fictional. Lie a little. See where it leads you. Fiction is not about what really happened. It’s about what could happen.