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Annotative Essay on the book: ‘A House for Mr. Biswas,’ by V.S. Naipaul

A house for mr biswas vs naipaul

v.s. naipual annotative essay book cover

            Life can pass by without every really hitting someone; moments flow into moments, and without awareness things can go unnoticed. What V.S. Naipaul has done with his novel, A House for Mr. Biswas, is show the reader the moments of a character’s life and the awareness, or lack of, which encapsulated the entirety of the character. His story is not one of romance, love, crime, drama, mystery, war, or anything else. It is simply the story of a man and the moments of his life and the accumulation of those moments. What this accomplishes, though, is that it gives the reader a deep connection, not to the story, but to the character of the story. And it is the characters that really make a story come alive. Without characters there are no stories, merely events. This is a useful, and powerful technique, and one which not many writers can accomplish.

“Nothing in real life is as linear as it often appears in fiction, especially story driven fiction, rather than character driven fiction.”

The general storyline of A House for Mr. Biswas is not very impressive. As the title alludes to, it truly is a book about a man named Mr. Biswas who merely wants a house. There is, of course, a lot more to the story, but not in the typical sense. There is not great mystery waiting to be solved. There is no discourse on love or politics. There is no single action that moves the book forward. Mr. Biswas is all there is, and that’s enough. Because Mr. Biswas is a character that V.S. Naipaul has brought to life; he feels real, he looks real, he sounds real, and his thoughts seem real. This realness is what truly connects the reader to the characters. Even though Mr. Biswas is not a likeable character, the realness of him is what makes him unique, and is what helps drive the reader forward. For instance, in a scenario where Mr. Biswas attempted to ask his aunt Tara for money; V.S. Naipaul tells us the story of Mr. Biswas wanting to ask his aunt for money, but this one scene goes on for pages and pages, and intertwined within the scene, we have Mr. Biswas’ changing thoughts and emotions about whether or not to ask his aunt for money.

  • “He hurried to the back verandah, hoping to see Tara first and to catch her alone.”
  • “She greeted him so warmly that he at once felt ashamed of his mission.”
  • “His resolve to speak directly came to nothing, for when he asked how she was she replied at length and, instead of asking for money, he had to give sympathy.”
  • “Mr. Biswas felt more and more reluctant to tell Tara what he had come for.”
  • “And Mr Biswas realized that the time to ask had gone for good.”
  • “But he was glad he hadn’t asked her for money.”
  • “…Mr. Biswas no longer thought of the afternoon’s mission, but of the night ahead.”

At the beginning we see that Mr. Biswas is already ashamed of having to ask his aunt for money, hence wanting to catch her alone. Then we see his thoughts as he realized he can’t ask for money from someone who’s not doing well. And things progress from there until he realizes that the time to ask for money has passed, and then eventually he becomes glad that he hadn’t asked for money. As people, real people, and not characters, what V.S. Naipaul presents here seems to be an actual realistic changing of thoughts and feelings that hits real people. Nothing in real life is as linear as it often appears in fiction, especially story driven fiction, rather than character driven fiction. Instead of being concerned with entertainment or carrying the story forward, it seems as though V.S. Naipaul’s only concern is with conveying a realistic character/story. This aspect of conveying realistic characters is his real power and where the most is to be learned.

“The way a character flicks their cigarettes, or sucks on their teeth, or is afraid of water, or even the simple way that they smile; it all becomes important in a character driven novel and it’s what truly connects the reader with the character and makes them interested in reading more.”

The above example of the changing thoughts of the main character Mr. Biswas is not unique to that one section and situation. The entire novel is filled with the changing thoughts and feelings and emotions of Mr. Biswas and they are weaved in throughout longer stories, in little parts, so that they add in an extra effect that gets a reader thinking. For myself, as a reader, I know that my thoughts would have been very similar to Mr. Biswas’ in the same situation. If I were about to ask someone for money but the person had just finished telling me how bad things were for them, then in that moment I wouldn’t have asked for money, most real people wouldn’t have either. But if a different writer were writing the story, they might have asked themselves “what would make this scene better? More entertaining? Etc.?” and they might have changed the situation to something else; not because it was realistic, but because it would have moved the story in a certain direction or made it more entertaining. It seems as though V.S. Naipaul chose realistic expressions, thoughts and actions, rather than ones which may have been more entertaining or sensationalistic. He could’ve had Mr. Biswas killing people, or stealing, or a million other things that could’ve made the story more interesting, but instead he took a character, Mr. Biswas, wrote this character up, and took him for a realistic walk through the pages. This is what made his novel memorable. He didn’t introduce us to a character he introduced us to a real person.

In writing, authors often struggle to let their characters come alive. Often, the idea of an entertaining story takes precedent over any realistic character element, and although that can often be a good thing; it can also be a good thing, every now and again, to come across a novel with the mere intent of presenting a good, well-rounded, realistic character. Many writers say that they write dozens of pages about a character’s background before they even place them into their novel—and even then often only a few sentences or pages from the character descriptions actually make it into the novel. What is important to them though, and ultimately the story, is that the characters are thought about and properly birthed. The writer takes them through their years as an infant, child, teenager, young adult, adult, elderly adult, etc. And even though the story may only be based on the character’s adult life, everything becomes important in the writing. The way a character flicks their cigarettes, or sucks on their teeth, or is afraid of water, or even the simple way that they smile; it all becomes important in a character driven novel and it’s what truly connects the reader with the character and makes them interested in reading more. In a Stephen King novel, readers don’t care about the characters as much as they do about the plot and the story and what’s happening, or is going to happen. But in novels like A House for Mr. Biswas, what happens to Mr. Biswas isn’t as important as Mr. Biswas himself. And in character driven novels this, ultimately, becomes their strength. A reader isn’t concerned with what is actually happen, but more concerned with what is happening to whom.

What writers can learn from a work such as A House for Mr. Biswas, is how to connect readers with a character. The character may not have to be likeable, but as long as they are realistic in the sense that their actions and thoughts match with who they appear as on the page, then a reader will become connected with this realistic character and will continue reading forward to find out what happens to them and how they will react in different situations, even if those situations aren’t life or death or sensationalistic.

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Annotative Essay on the book: ‘Cures for Hunger,’ by Deni Bechard

deni bechard cures for hungerLiterary Pacing

deni buchard annotative essay cures for hungerAn Annotative Essay on: Cures for Hunger, by Deni Bechard

Pacing is when athletes spread out their strength and power over a period of time rather than in short bursts; longer distance runners use the technique, as well as swimmers and bicyclists. Pacing helps an athlete save themselves for the entirety of a competition/sport rather than just the beginning or end. Through pacing they’re able to spend hours giving the amorous 110% rather than just minutes or seconds—like in sprinting, etc. (Usain Bolt has no need to pace himself since he’s only running for nine seconds at a time.) But what about writers?  Writers too need to pace themselves when telling a story; and the memoir Cures for Hunger by Deni Y. Bechard is a great example of literary pacing.

“We watch and read because we’re interested in the outcome, and it’s the pacing that keeps us going as we follow along the journey…”

Just as a runner can burst ahead at the beginning of a race, foreshadowing a future win, so too can a writer burst ahead at the beginning of a novel/memoir and foreshadow what’s to come. Bechard started his memoir with a prologue in which we learn that his father has died alone and in a cabin, that his father has had trouble with the law, and that the two were estranged. Then Bechard took a jump backward and began talking about his childhood, and so started the pacing; Bechard started off ahead, letting us know what the outcome was going to be, and then it was time to just sit back and watch the other 26.2 miles of the marathon.

Through the memoir, we are shown a chronological order of events that have taken place in Bechard’s life, and that of his father, Edwin. Bechard doesn’t give us too much at once, just a consistent stride throughout. Foot after foot until the race is over. That’s how it is for running, swimming and bicycling; and that’s how it is for writing, too. A writer needs to set the tone/pace that they’re going to use through their book, essay, and memoir, and it needs to be a pace that they’re comfortable with, that they can maintain, and that will ultimately, in a sense, lead them to victory! This is what interests us as readers and spectators. We become curious whether or not the person who takes the lead is actually going to win: What if an underdog comes from behind? What if the person trips? What if they win in a way that wasn’t expected? What if no one took the lead and we’re only watching to find out who eventually wins? We watch and read because we’re interested in the outcome, and it’s the pacing that keeps us going as we follow along the journey, cheering, hooting, and hollering, crying in victory and defeat, along with the winners and losers, and the characters and narrators.

“When someone’s running a long-distance marathon, the last thing in the world he wants to do is start sprinting right out of the gate at a speed that is unmaintainable.”

Bechard tells the story on his terms, letting us know right from the beginning that he’s going to be taking us through his childhood year by year. When he introduces characters he neither introduces them obtrusively nor too circumspectly. His choice of what/when to describe certain scenery/emotions is dependable in the sense that he gives us the cues so we know what to expect—the way a runner might, for instance, always tilt his head down when running up hill. He never changes his pace and gives us too much or too little at a time, it is the same consistency through the book, little by little we find more and more and step closer and closer to the end. It is a good technique; however, not all authors use this technique. Sometimes for better or worse. Some authors will jump around with their prose. One minute they’re ten years old and then next they’re thirty. One minute we’re introduced to a dozen family members and the next we’re engrossed in ten pages of internal dialogue. In the military this is called 30, 60, 90; it’s an exercise to increase your endurance. It’s where you start walking for thirty seconds, jog for sixty seconds and then sprint for ninety seconds; and then you repeat this again, and again, and again. It’s an exercise, but this, too, can be parlayed into literary terms. Bechard takes on a very clear and steady pace throughout his story. He doesn’t have any huge time jumps—I.E. he doesn’t go from ages thirteen to thirty in a matter of pages—and we are with him every step of the way. Other authors take a more 30, 60, 90 approach, where they will start off slow, work their way up, start sprinting ahead with the story and introduce a handful of new characters, slow down again and focus on just one character or plotline, and then work their way back up. They are simply different techniques that work well in different situations and with different people.

“As a reader, I knew from the strong start, how it was going to end…”

Pacing, though, I believe, is important for any writer, and by discovering this idea of literary-stride, through reading Cures for Hunger, I realized that I needed to look at my own work and see what type of pacing that I was using; or whether I was evening using pacing in the first place? Was I just blindly running down the road taking stops whenever tired, or was I pacing myself with something that’s comfortable, something the reader could follow along with and would be interested in, something I could maintain and enjoy? When someone’s running a long-distance marathon, the last thing in the world he wants to do is start sprinting right out of the gate at a speed that is unmaintainable. He’ll become tired, winded, and unable to complete the race. In writing, one of the worst things a piece can do is start off strong and then let the reader down the more it drags on, getting slower and slower until finally the book is put down, unfinished. But, then again, there is a need to start off strong. Not too many runners, if any, can go from a last place start to a first place win. In writing we need to start off our pieces strong, but not too strong if unable to deliver that intensity throughout. The start needs to set the pace for the rest of the book: how it will be told, what it will be about, and how things will unfold. We need to see strength right from the beginning, but it cannot be overused or unmaintainable.

Now, granted, the literary pacing/athletic pacing analogy might be a little far-stretched but, in a general sense, it works. As I read Cures for Hunger, the strong start of the prologue is what initially hooked my interest. The foreshadowing of things to come interested me in seeing how things were going to unfold and come about. Then, as the story carried on further and he took us through the years, slowly giving us pieces of the puzzle, we learned more and more, until finally the end of the book. As a reader, I knew from the strong start, how it was going to end, but the pacing of the story, and having things unfold, is what kept me interested, even though I already knew the ending. There are different ways of doing this, and I’m tepid in the idea of using it in my own current work, but it was interesting to have in mind while reading Bechard’s work. Without the prologue, I don’t believe I would have been as interested, initially, in the book. If I didn’t know what the story was going to be about, and I just started reading about someone’s childhood, then I wouldn’t have been interested. But the prologue let me know that it wasn’t just a normal childhood I’d be reading about, it was a childhood of abandonment, of adventure, of estrangement, and that ended with the death of Bechard’s father. Prologue foreshadowing is only one technique, and even though I’m not sure whether I’ll be using it on my current work, the idea of it, and of pacing, in general, I will surely keep with me throughout all future work.

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The Craft of Writing: Reliable Narrator, in an Unreliable World

typewriter: craft essay reliable narrator in an unreliable worldReliable Narrator

In an

Unreliable World

“Some first lines are so powerful that you absolutely have to keep on reading.” –Noah Lukeman

If a writer cannot hook their reader within the first sentence, paragraph, and ultimately the first chapter, then all is lost. Like a car salesman who knows that he has to make the sale before the customer leaves; “They’ll never come back, make the sale now!” is often the motto.  The same goes for writing.  Once a book is placed down, there’s always a chance that it may never be picked back up.  A writer’s best bet is to make sure that the book is never placed down.  The best way to do that is to introduce a reader to a foreign, often unreliable world—which is somewhat implicit in memoir—and give them a reliable, trustworthy, narrator.

“How does the reader know that they’re going to be taken through a foreign world by a guide they can trust?”

In this annotative essay, the first chapters of great works will be discussed—particularly non-fiction—and how it is that the authors convince us that we’re being introduced to an unreliable/foreign world with a reliable, trustworthy, narrator. The books to be focused on: A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert, Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt, and Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

As stated, the beginning of a book has the biggest, most important, job.  It sets the tone.  The intensity.  The plot.  The characters.  It introduces us to the world within the pages.  If the world seems too bland, too predictable, too passé, then all is lost.  No person begins reading with the intent to be bored, no person reads to learn something they already know; instead, we read to escape, to be entertained, to become informed.  We can’t escape to the same world in which we live, we can’t be entertained from tired words, and we can’t be informed from which we already know.  A book must introduce a reader to a foreign world, an unpredictable world, a world in which they can see a possibility for entertainment, mystery, escapism, and information. It’s often said that “truth is stranger than fiction,” and in non-fiction authors often have the difficult task of taking extraordinary, unbelievably true stories, and making them believable.  From the man who was hiking and had to cut off his own arm, to the pastor who claims his child went to heaven, to the man who claims he slept with thousands of women.  Books implicitly introduce the reader to a foreign world and once we enter this world, we need to know that we will have a trustworthy narrator to guide us through.  Because if we don’t trust the narrator then we don’t trust the world they’ve created.

“This doesn’t mean that the narrator is boring, simply instead that we can trust them.”

How does the reader know that they’re going to be taken through a foreign world by a guide they can trust? Imagine going to a museum and there’s two tour guides that you can choose.  Tour guide number one is a nineteen year old, high school dropout, named Frank.  Frank’s a slacker who always wears his t-shirt too big and pants too low, he only gives tours so that he has enough money to buy drugs.  Tour guide number two is a sixty-five year old, retiree, named Blake.  Blake has a Ph.D. in art history, and only works as a tour guide because he’s loves art and needs something to do while he’s retired.

If you were going to have a tour of an art museum, and if you had a choice, which tour guide would you prefer? The answer is easy… Blake, of course.

We chose Blake because we trust him.   We trust the bow-tie that adorns the collar of his nicely ironed shirt, we trust the Ph.D. that follows the word “Blake,” on his nametag.  We trust the kind hearted voice of a man who’s poured over books of art, who’s seen the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and who’s gazed up at the Sistine Chapel.  We trust Blake because when he doesn’t know something he tells us he doesn’t know.  He isn’t here to be your friend or get you to like him or go out on a date with him he’s only here to tell you everything he knows about art.  Everything about Blake, from the way he looks, to the way he talks, is what we would expect.  He’s congruent with himself.

“Dostoyevsky’s narrator may be a horrible, miserable person, but he’s a horrible, miserable person that we instantly trust as our narrator.”

Frank, on the other hand, we don’t trust. He seems unreliable.  He calls it the Sixteen Chapel instead of the Sistine Chapel, and he knows more about Kim Kardashian then Pablo Picasso.  Frank is covered in tattoos but tries to hide them with long sleeves.  Frank contradicts himself.  At one point he tells you that he’s been working at the museum for six months, and at another point he says three months.  He leaves out information about paintings during the tour; he pretends to know more than he does, he misleads you purposely, sometimes for his own amusement, sometimes just to get an easy laugh.  Frank gives tours in a certain way because sometimes he’s trying to impress some pretty ladies that are in the group and sometimes he’s just trying to get a bigger tip. Frank’s intentions as a tour guide are never altruistic, he’s never reliable or congruent, and frankly, Frank is a tour guide that we simply cannot trust.

The key to presenting a reliable narrator in an unreliable world is to make sure that they are more like Blake then Frank. This doesn’t mean that the narrator is boring, simply instead that we can trust them.  If we look at the beginning of Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

“I’m a sick man . . . a mean man. There’s nothing attractive about me.  I think there’s something wrong with my liver. But, actually, I don’t understand a damn thing about my sickness; I’m not even too sure what it is that’s ailing me. I’m not under treatment and never have been, although I have great respect for medicine and doctors. Moreover, I’m morbidly superstitious—enough, at least, to respect medicine.  With my education I shouldn’t be superstitious, but I am just the same. No, I’d say I refuse medical help simply out of contrariness.  I don’t expect you to understand that, but it’s so.  Of course, I can’t explain whom I’m trying to fool this way.  I’m fully aware that I can’t spite the doctors by refusing their help.  I know very well that I’m harming myself and no one else. But still, it’s out of spite that I refuse to ask for the doctors’ help. So my liver hurts? Good, let it hurt even more!”

“We need to know that the narrator is a real person, not an amalgamation of different people or ideas, not some idealized version of a person, but a real, flesh and blood, faults and all, person.”

We see that what Dostoyevsky does is set up a strong intense tone of the narrator.  He creates a character that has such a unique intensity that the reader is drawn forward to read more.  And what’s more, he keeps up the intensity throughout the whole first chapter, and ultimately the whole book.  Like Blake, he admits when he doesn’t know something, “I don’t understand a damn thing about my sickness,” he admits his mistakes, “I shouldn’t be superstitious, but I am just the same,” his vulnerabilities, “I’m a sick man . . . a mean man,” Dostoyevsky’s narrator may be a horrible, miserable person, but he’s a horrible, miserable person that we instantly trust as our narrator.  Everything that we read and hear in that first paragraph is congruent with the portrait that the narrator is painting.  We can see him.  Similar to how Blake’s bow-tie matches his shirt, pants, and personality, so too does everything that we see of the narrator match up with the picture being painted.  But the most important part is that we can actually see the narrator.  It’s easier to trust a narrator that we can see.

In just the first paragraph of Notes from the Underground we get the sense of a man who is hurting, pleading, who is on bended knees baring his soul.  This is another way to let a reader know that they’re dealing with a reliable narrator: vulnerability.  By being upfront and admitting the faults within ourselves and our story—“I don’t understand a damn thing about my sickness; I’m not even too sure what it is that’s ailing me.”—the reader knows beforehand what they’re getting themselves into, and with whom; they know that the narrator’s not trying to pull one over on them, that they can be trusted.  It is the man adorned in armor who needs it the most.  But a man who takes his armor offer is a man unafraid, and it is the man who doesn’t hide that we trust.  So even though the narrator that we’re being introduced to seems to be a horrible, miserable, loser of a narrator, he is also a trustworthy narrator, he is a narrator that we feel safe with, in the sense that we can see that he’s hiding nothing.  He is vulnerable and we keep reading because we trust that vulnerability.

“We trust this vulnerability because she’s opening herself up, showing us her wounds, she’s not trying to hide, protect, or paint a perfect picture of herself, and it is vulnerability like this which makes a story great and a narrator reliable.”

Another way in which a narrator can set up a tone of reliability is with relatability. If a narrator is too far out-there, then they’ll be seen as unreliable and untrustworthy.  If a character is set up as smart and intelligent but keeps doing dumb things, things that we know no real, normal person would do, then the narrator loses our trust.  We need to know that the narrator is a real person, not an amalgamation of different people or ideas, not some idealized version of a person, but a real, flesh and blood, faults and all, person.

Dostoyevsky follows all these steps perfectly in Notes from the Underground.  The first thing that he does is he sets up the main character, the narrator.  He sets up the narrator so well and so succinctly that with each word, though, idea, and phrasing, the character becomes more and more alive, more relatable.  Within a few sentences we’re no longer reading a book, we’re now hearing a story from the person sitting next to us.  The words suddenly have eyes, and a nose, and a mouth, and fingers, and a beard, and a bald head.  Next he shows us that not only is this narrator a real person who’s sitting next to us, but also that this narrator isn’t like our typical neighbor, co-worker, family member, or stranger on the bus.  This narrator is sick.  He’s depressive.  He’s paranoid.  He’s a man so stubborn, so defiant, that he refuses medical care out of spite.  Spite for crying out loud!  He neglects his own health for vengeance against and unknown, unnamed enemy.  He’s “out-there” but not so far out-there that we would write him off as an untrustworthy, unrelatable, narrator.  He may be telling us that that he’s crazy but we trust him when he tells us that he’s crazy.  His actions are all congruent with who he is as a narrator.  Then combined with the vulnerability we have a narrator who we can see, relate to, feel for, and who we trust to be our tour guide through the pages.  We have our Blake!

Vulnerability, congruence, relatability, a narrator that we can actually see; these are the four things which most convince a reader that they’re dealing with a reliable narrator, and which ultimately keep them reading.  And now that these four traits have been identified in Dostoyevsky’s work, we will look at several other successful, and not so successful, attempts at creating a reliable, relatable, vulnerable, and congruent narrator in non-fiction.

The memoir A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas, begins:

“This is the one thing that stays the same: my husband got hurt. Everything else changes.  A grandson needs me and then he doesn’t.  My children are close then one drifts away.  I smoke and don’t smoke; I knit ponchos, then hats, shawls, hats again, stop knitting, start up again.  The clock ticks, the seasons shift, the night sky rearranges itself, but my husband remains constant, his injuries are permanent.  He grounds me.  Rich is where I shine.  I can count on myself with him.”

“But its objective moments like this, where we may not actually believe that the narrator had the worst of the worst of upbringings, we may not believe that an Irish Catholic upbringing is the worst, but we do believe that the narrator believes it’s the worst.”

Immediately we’re shown a woman “my husband,” older “a grandmother,” who is stuck in a changing, “This is the one thing that stays the same…” never-changing, rut. The one place where she’s grounded, that lets her count on herself, is the one place that also gives her the most misery: her husband Rich.  She invites us into her world, shows us the tedium of everyday life, and she, ultimately, spends the entire first chapter showing us how vulnerable she is: “I got stuck with the past and future.  That’s my half of this bad hand.  I know what happened and I never got used to that.”  We trust this vulnerability because she’s opening herself up, showing us her wounds, she’s not trying to hide, protect, or paint a perfect picture of herself, and it is vulnerability like this which makes a story great and a narrator reliable.  She is taking the armor off, and like a man at a strip-club, it’s the removing of the clothing which is the most alluring.  She’s showing us her tattoos not hiding them under her sleeves.

The narrator of A Three Dog Life is immediately consistent with the picture being painted.  She’s congruent.  From the image of an older women, to the talk of her knitting, to the fact that she has only a twenty-seven inch TV.  Most kids nowadays have iPads that are twenty-seven inches.  But not her.  She’s older.  A writer.  A reader.  She lives in a “cozy house,” with “pretty furniture,” where “Time passes here.”   She sits quietly with her husband, plays with her dogs, talks to her grandchildren.  She immediately becomes a person that we can see and relate to.  We recall images of older women we’ve met or seen on TV.  Wives, mothers, grandmothers, friends, co-workers, the narrator shows us a glimpse of her life and it’s something that we can immediately relate to; a woman who is simply living her life as best she can in the face of tragedy.  These all help us to see the picture of a woman, and when the picture matches up with the words and actions, combined with vulnerability, congruence, and relatability, then we have a reliable narrator, one that we believe we can trust.  This narration is kept up throughout the book and on every page we see a narrator who is giving herself to us, who we can see, relate to, trust, and care about.  This is why Stephen King called A Three Dog Life, “The best memoir I have ever read.”  This means another Blake!

Let’s look at one more good example—Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt—before moving onto an example where the author doesn’t set up a reliable narrator. Angela’s Ashes begins:

“My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene barley one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone.

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood; the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.  Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years.”

In the first few pages, McCourt sets up a narrator that we can see. Irish and Catholic we can see those rosy white cheeks and blue eyes.  We can see the tough-as-nails kid with a hard upbringing and a just as hard look at life.  We can see this rough narrator and rough lens which he views the world.  What is set up is a narrator who thinks that he had it the worst; that his upbringing wasn’t just the worst of the worst, it was the worst of the worst of the worst.  We know that this is a narrator who is going to tell us about how bad things were for him, and he does.  But its objective moments like this, where we may not actually believe that the narrator had the worst of the worst of upbringings, we may not believe that an Irish Catholic upbringing is the worst, but we do believe that the narrator believes it’s the worst.  And that’s all that really matters.  Memoir isn’t about perfection, it’s about point-of-view.  We’re reading about a person, their thoughts, feelings, action, and in-actions in life.  We need to see them and know their thoughts, no matter how faulty we may see them as.  We’re not looking to see our reflection but theirs.

“It is hard to trust a narrator that we cannot see. And even harder still when said narrator has covered themselves in armor.”

Like everyone’s infamous Uncle Larry who always says he’s going to stop drinking.  He might mean it every month when he says it, but we all know the truth.  We know that every month he says he’ll quit, then will quit for a few hours, a day at the most, and then is right back at it.  We don’t have to believe everything Uncle Larry says, or the narrator, but we do have to believe that we can trust the narrator.  And just as we trust Uncle Larry to keep at it, so too do we trust the narrator of Angela’s Ashes to keep up with the voice that is set up.  Frank McCourt gives us a reliable narrator.

Throughout the whole first chapter the narrator of Angela’s Ashes is shown as a man with a hard upbringing.  From the stories of his father being hunted by the Irish Republican Army (“a price on his head,”) to the stories of poverty (“dad loses his job,”), alcoholism, and death (“he died of the drink,”).  He shows us that he meant what he said.  That he had a tough upbringing.  He didn’t tell us that he had a tough childhood and then begin telling us about how rich his parents were and how much he loved them and them him. We see a narrator as a person who saw things not for better or worse but simply for what they were.  This is another clear-cut example of a narrator allowing themselves to be vulnerable on the page and stay congruent with the voice and image that they’re presenting.

Most people have dealt with troubles in their life and if we see a narrator who has dealt with similar troubles, whether directly mirroring ours, or in a deep enough sense compared to ours, we will make the connection and relate with the narrator.  If this is combined with vulnerability, congruence and a portrait, then we will once again experience the feeling of having a reliable narrator.

To look at something that isn’t the best of examples of the above mentioned techniques we will look at Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage a memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. Committed starts off:

“Late one afternoon in the summer of 2006, I found myself in a small village in northern Vietnam, sitting around a sooty kitchen fire with a number of local women whose language I did not speak, trying to ask them questions about marriage.

For several months already, I had been traveling across Southeast Asia with a man who was soon to become my husband.  I suppose the conventional term for such an individual would be “fiancé,” but neither one of us was very comfortable with that word, so we weren’t using it.  In fact, neither one of us was very comfortable with this whole idea of matrimony at all.  Marriage was not something we had ever planned with each other, nor was it something either of us wanted.  Yet providence had interfered with our plans, which was why we were now wandering haphazardly across Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia, all the while making urgent—even desperate—efforts to return to America and wed.”

Although well-written, Committed, lacks several of the tenants which I believe make a reliable narrator, and ultimately, a good story.

For starters, though, we will look at what works well within the story: congruency.  Gilbert comes across as a confused, though congruent narrator.  She is in love with a man, wants to be with him, but doesn’t want to marry him—these feelings fluctuate, but we are shown a narrator who fluctuates, so we can trust those feelings.  We can (at first) picture a young woman, in-love, who is going back and forth on her decision.  But even this congruency eventually works against the reliability of the narrator.

Does she, though, paint a picture of the narrator?  No.  She does not.  What we see is the image of a generic, rich woman (middle-aged?) who is a writer.  We don’t see her wrinkles.  The burn marks on her skin, the cigarette between her lips and drink in her hand.  We see nothing.  A generic woman who has a slight problem.  It is hard to trust a narrator that we cannot see.  And even harder still when said narrator has covered themselves in armor.

“A reliable narrator is someone who puts themselves into the pages. They strip off all armor and make themselves vulnerable.”

The problem with the narrator is that ultimately, throughout the book, we don’t trust the narrator.  Which means that even though the “voice,” may be congruent with the image that’s being present, we don’t trust that voice, so the image doesn’t matter.  There is no vulnerability in the pages.  She is wealthy, in love, and simply has to decide whether or not to marry a man who she claimed “…loved each other unreservedly,” and which she had already made a life-long pact, “We had even sworn lifelong fidelity to each other already…”  She gives us nothing.  Her most famous memoir, Eat Pray Love, was a more personal book, something that showed her vulnerabilities.  But those vulnerabilities are lacking in Committed.  We don’t see a real person with a real problem—a woman getting over an awful divorce, like in Eat Pray Love.  Now, her only problem is that she is wealthy, in a loving, committed, relationship with a rich, good-looking, tall, dark, and handsome Brazilian, someone whom she loves and has pledged her life to.  And yet, her big problem is that she’s hesitant on getting married again.  And these feelings teeter back and forth.  She wants to get married.  She doesn’t.  Maybe she can find another way around this.  Get married.  Don’t.  Etc.  This is a situation that isn’t that relatable.  There’s no vulnerability, so there’s nothing really for us to relate to and this is where she loses us.

Vulnerability and relatability is in the details.  Like Thomas talking about her 27in TV in Three Dog Life.  It just seems so pathetic.  So lonely.  So perfect.  Or like McCourt in Angela’s Ashes.  The hard childhood.  The alcoholism.  The deaths.  The Irish Catholic guilt.  He doesn’t skirt the issues.  He doesn’t skirt the facts.  He gives it to the reader.  Gilbert does not.  She gives a vague problem, doesn’t let us see her, and then gives no real details to the story, or about herself.  Gilbert is the Frank of narrators.  She hides her tattoos and doesn’t let us see her.  We have no choice but to not trust her and cast her off.

As the New York Post wrote about the book:

“Ironically, Gilbert’s heart does not seem to have been in this book

The book is more filler than anything, just pages and pages of rambling encounters with poor Asian people who talk to her about marriage and teach her things, then some Wiki’d historical facts, then some paeans to her worldliness and personal growth — all the while continuing to evade any real personal disclosures.”

A reliable narrator is someone who puts themselves into the pages.  They strip off all armor and make themselves vulnerable.   “This is me, blemishes and all.”  No one wants to read a book that is layered in chain-mail.  We see nothing, only manufactured goods, we don’t see the flesh and bones and blood, which is what we want.  To create a reliable, memorable, trust-worthy narrator, someone who we want guiding us through the foreign world of a book, we need someone who is vulnerable, relatable, congruent, and who we can see.  Someone who we may not like, but who we can trust.

More related craft essays, book notes, and MFA notes.

Picture: Flickr/mpclemens

Best Of, MFA Notes, Self Improvement / Healthy Living, Self Improvement / Healthy Living, Uncategorized

AJ Verdelle – Revising Your Writing

revising your creative work with aj verdelleType A Revision – with A.J. Verdelle – How to Revise Your Writing

Write → Review → Tighten → Clarify → Reorder → Seek nuance → Move the story forward →

How do you know when your story is finished?

Finished: When you’ve said all you have to say.

Finished: When there’s a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Remember: “You don’t get the book you wanted, you get the book you get.” – James Baldwin

Sometimes a revision is simply an addition. If your addition doesn’t add tension, drama, or explain something, then maybe you don’t need it. Whatever you keep, make sure it serves the narrative.

Eliminiate excess! “The good shit wants to play with the good shit!” – Thomas Sayers Ellis. (Get rid of anything that isn’t “Good Shit.”)

Clarity is non-negotiable – Don’t make readers have to guess, don’t confuse them.

Get rid of redundancy: “The sun rose this morning.” Great. But the sun rises every morning, everyone knows that. The sun doesn’t rise at night. Revision would be “The sun rose.” (This is, of course, unless you’re writing some dystopian story where the sun doesn’t usually rise, etc.)

Revise only when the work is finished, when there’s closure. Don’t revise when you’re still working on it; don’t revise an unfinished piece of work. You need to be finished before you revise because you need to know where you want to end up before you figure out how to get there.

  • Rise above your work.
  • Circle the verbs (if they’re not necessary, then kill them!)
  • We want action and drama in our stories!
  • Action and reaction go together.

Think about killing your verbs: “Dan came into the room, clumsily.” VS “Dan came into the room late, like always.” Ask yourself if the verb is actually serving the story. Focus on accuracy. “The building appears…” A building doesn’t just “appear.”

When revising ask yourself: Why did I write this work?

(What did I intend to write? VS What did I actually write?)

*Look at places where you can get rid of the word “it” (more often than you think).*

*You need to be able to say what you’re writing about in 18 words or less.*

*Look at any word longer than 8 letters and make sure it’s doing it’s job.*

 *These notes were from one of my favorite professor at Lesley University: A.J. Verdelle.*

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: The Good Negress: A Novel, by A.J. Verdelle.

Picture: Flickr/Katie Sadler

 About these MFA Notes: Revising your creative writing

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

MFA Notes, Uncategorized

MFA Notes – Form and Function

form and function in non fictionQuick notes: form and function in non-fiction

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

Form and Function in Non-Fiction

Non-fiction: Unnecessary factual: Make it real, but hyper-real. “But then, in the earliest hours of that morning in November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal nightly Holcomb noises–on the kneeing hysteria of coyotes, the dry scrape of scuttling tumbleweed, the racing, receding wail of locomotive whistles.” – In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

When writing memoir there are always two narrators – There’s you in the past that you’re writing about, and there’s the you of today, writing the story and having already been through the experiences you’re writing about.

If you commit yourself to telling a story, then commit to telling the whole story. Don’t let the tragedy be at the edges.

Form -> Follows -> Function

What is the function of this piece?

What form will help with the function?

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick.

Picture: Flickr/Denise Krebs

MFA Notes, Uncategorized

MFA Notes: Life as a Public Writer

life as a public writerQuick Notes: Lesley University MFA: Q & A: Life as a public writer

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

Life as a Public Writer

Writer down your artistic statement: Who am I as a writer?

Just keep writing. If you don’t write for a while, don’t beat yourself up, forgive yourself and then keep writing. The only thing you control is the work.

[Separate the business-hat from the writer-hat.]

*Work shopping – Just because a piece can make it through a workshop without too much objection or abuse doesn’t mean it’s good. The good stuff should raise objections, it should offend and should invite abuse. (This doesn’t mean to write sloppy. But often it’s the “safe,” writing which is the least objectionable.*

Poetry is a performative act.

You’re constantly changing as a writer.

The readers and critics really only know an idea of me, not the real me.

Don’t let bad reviews get to you. Don’t take reviews personally-good or bad. Never give up!

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: Unless It Moves the Human Heart, by Roger Rosenblatt.

Picture: Flickr/Damian Gadal

MFA Notes

MFA Notes: Creating Compassion for Unlikable Characters

compassion for unlikable charactersQuick Notes: How to Create Compassion for Unlikable Characters

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

Can your Hero be an unlikable character?

Don’t turn a character into a marionette. You’re writing about people, not puppets (unless you really are writing about puppets, in that case, good luck!) When crafting a character though, and the character is an unlikable character (in fiction, or primarily, nonfiction) it’s important to show them as a real person and not just a one-dimensional, marionette, or a typical “bad guy.”

Pure Evil

Darth Vader

Cruella Deville

Captain Hook

Unlikable

Tony Soprano

Jessie Pinkman

James Frey

 -Pure Evil: Don’t have their own story, but helps move the story along.

-Unlikable: May be evil, but only unlikable because we have compassion for them because of their stories. (Tony Soprano and Jessie Pinkman are really great examples of unlikable characters that a reader/view roots for. Tony Soprano is the head of a Mafia family, he’s killed dozens of people; however, when you watch the show, you can’t help but root for him. The same goes for Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad. Yes Jessie’s a drug dealer, but he’s a drug dealer that we feel compassion for and that we actually end up rooting for–nobody roots for Darth Vader, or Captain Hook!)

Vulnerability: shows their foibles, character flaws, why they are they way they are. We need to show these about the unlikable characters in our writing to make them a tiny bit likable, or at least understandable. We may not like their actions, but we need to understand why they do them.

[You don’t have to make unlikable characters likable, you just have to make them more understandable.]

We need to understand their fear, frustrations, and worries.

Final tip: Imagine the universe in the raindrops. Show the big picture through the small details. When approaching a bigger issue, start with the smaller details. (Introduce big ideas in small ways.)

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws, by Angela Ackerman.

Picture: Flickr/Mali Mish

MFA Notes

MFA Notes: Dialogue Across Genres

dialgue across genresQuick Notes: the importance of narrative dialogue

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

Dialogue Across Genres

The dignity of an iceberg is that 90% of it is unseen, underwater. In writing, you, the writer, need to know and see everything, but sometimes it’s about what a character doesn’t do, or doesn’t say.

What dialogue can show: information, relationship, character intention, character personality, background, place, time, and produces tension.

How a character talks: diction, rhythm, slang, lingo, pauses, all tells us something.

Subtext

What’s below the surface?

What is left out and not shown or said?

Words -> Voice -> Image -> Action

Dialogue should be moving the story forward.

Dialogue needs to be accurate and realistic.

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: Write Great Fiction – Dialogue, by Gloria Kempton.

Picture: Flickr/Dmitry Ryzhkov

MFA Notes

MFA Notes: The Inspiration and Imperative of Place

the inspiration and imperative of place in creative writingQuick notes: the inspiration and imperative of place in creative writing

Recently, I graduated from Lesley University with an MFA in creative writing, and I decided that I wanted to share what I learned in a series of blog posts.

I decided to share for two reasons:

1) My notes, although not too detailed, could possibly  help other writers.

2) Rewriting my notes forces me to re-read and re-think everything I learned, so it’s a win-win.

But before we dive in, please keep two things in mind:

1) These notes are neither complete nor perfect. The classes at Lesley were not typical lecture/note classes; the classes were filled with writing and thinking exercises and often this left no time for notes (in a good way). However, even with that, these sparse notes, I do believe, could still offer value.

2) I may, from time to time, include actual writing prompts from the classes, please bare with me, they’re first drafts and were done in the moment.

I hope you enjoy this series of notes and if you have any questions about the notes, Lesley University, or MFA’s, please feel free to contact me.

The Inspiration and Imperative of Place

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Writing also abhors a vacuum.

Combine place and people. Allow one to stand in for the other. They can highlight one another.

Landscape can invoke memoires and emotions.

Place matters when setting a scene. Two people in a restaurant are different than two people in the woods.

In Class Writing: Place: Raining:

“It pours down, each droplet seeping into the ground, into my uniform, into me. It begins to pool. The ground is full, my boots are filled, neither of us have anywhere else to go. I must stay put, guard duty knows no weather. The rain must rain, it knows nothing else.”

“A flare goes into the sky, highlighting a thousand drops in mid-air, I look around, moving between the drops, between the trees, my enemies approach. It is merely a training exercise, but we are both wet, tired and angry. We need enemies. We both raise our rifles, water flows into our forward sights. We fire. Neither hits.”

*Use all your senses, if you can.*

Click here to see more MFA Notes

Recommended book for this section: Description & Setting, by Ron Rozelle.

Picture: Flickr/madame.furie

Best Of, Blogishness, Blogishness

Is It Worth It To Get An MFA In Creative Writing?

poor writer on the street

As many of you know, I’ve been enrolled in an MFA program for creative writing for the last year and a half. I’ve started my final semester now and will be graduating this summer. And now that things are working their way towards an end, I thought I should address the question that had been banging around in my head a year and a half ago: Is it worth it to get an MFA in creative writing?

The short answer is yes, and the long answer is yes … but…

Is there anything that you can get out of an MFA that you can’t get out of a good writer’s group? No. Absolutely not. (Well besides the degree, if you’re looking to teach, but let’s assume that you’re getting the MFA just to be a better writer and not a teacher.) The problem is that there’s no chance of finding a good writing group outside of an MFA program—let me clarify, there are good writing groups, but most of them are run by people with MFA’s and they usually include people who already have MFA’s. If you go out and look at the average writing group, you’ll see a handful of people who are engineers, dentists, homemakers, lawyers, janitors, people who want to be writers, but most often lack the commitment and passion necessary to truly make a worthwhile effort at becoming a successful writer. 

This doesn’t mean that an engineer or dentists can’t be a writer too, or that they can’t become a writer … Charles Bukowski was a postman, Tom Perotta was an English teacher, but what you get in an MFA is training, and access to a group of writers who are more committed and passionate towards writing than the average person.

Think about it. People in MFA programs have a level of commitment. They’re willing to commit two years, forty thousand dollars, and hundreds of hours of work. Where can you find a writing group with that level of commitment?

I’ve been to other writer’s groups. Plenty of them. They’re simply not at the same level, in commitment or quality.

You can put in the hours without an MFA program, but what you’re paying for is feedback, learning experience,  and friendships with fellow writers. An MFA program doesn’t just introduce you to a group of writers who will help you critique and edit your work for the two years of the program, it introduces you to a group of writers who will critique and edit your work for years afterwards.  Your peers are just as important as the faculty. 

I’m reminded of an article by two researchers who wanted to find out why some firefighters were better at their job than other firefighters. After pouring over all their research it turned out that the best firefighters were the ones who went out for beers afterwards with their fellow firefighters. And why did this make them better at their job? Because when they were out drinking they’d tell stories, “One time when I was in a fire … I did this…” “…and another time I did this…” That was the biggest difference. And it wasn’t about getting drunk, it was just that the best ones were constantly learning, even while getting drunk. It’s the same for our fellow writers. We go out and talk and tell stories, “this worked for me for character arc,” “this didn’t” etc.

So, again … is it worth it? Yes, absolutely. But can you still get the same benefits without the time and money? Yes, of course you can. For me though, it’s all about stacking the odds.

Related Article: Five Tips to Writing an MFA Personal Statement. 

Photo: itsmeritesh/flickr