Stating the Obvious?
I started reading Ted Sturgeon’s “Thunder and Roses” last night and it struck me that this was where John Kessel got the idea for “A Clean Escape.” There’s no doubt about it. There’s a line in there about forgetting, and boom, there’s the genesis of Kessel’s story. It always seems odd when this happens.
I cranked out 1400 words on a new story yesterday. I’d started it from the first person about a week ago and soon ground to a halt. I thought it needed to be in first person to really get the voice across, but it doesn’t.
I’ve been thinking a lot about voice nowadays. Gordon Van Gelder said at Clarion that voice was one of the big things he looks for in stories, and in this Strange Horizons interview Kelly Link said, “As an editor, what I want most from a new writer is voice—as if you’re getting a letter from someone. I don’t know how to explain this in an interview.”
Reread that last line; if you’re too lazy, here it is again: “I don’t now how to explain this in an interview.” Now change those last few word to “in a workshop” or “in a critique group” or just substitute it with the phrase “it’s one of those things you have to figure out for yourself.” During my session with Gordon at Clarion, he said my stories were pretty good but they needed a stronger voice. At that time I didn’t fully understand what he meant.
Now I think I do. For the most part, my early stories (as if I’ve been writing for fifty years) are almost always told in a dispassionate way. The characters act and talk in specific ways but the story’s overall voice is almost that of a reporter, or Joe Friday — just the facts, ma’am. Of course, the easiest way to infuse the story with a unique voice is to tell it in first person; but this isn’t the only way. Stories told in the third person usually have a viewpoint character, and if you pay attention you’ll notice that a great many of these stories’ tone (and voice) reflects the way the viewpoint character would have told it, had it been told in the first person. This occurred to me last night as I read Sturgeon’s “Thunder and Roses,” a prototype of what I’m blathering on about.
One other observation from an aspiring writer: I think many other aspiring writers focus on the wrong things. I remember seeing Matt Hughes, who has written a number of excellent stories in F&SF, telling people on a message board (Nightshade? SFF.net?) that yes, you should follow proper manuscript format, and yes, you should proofread for punctuation and grammar, and yes, follow the guidelines to a tee, but no, that’s not why stories bounce. Newbie writers (as I continue to paraphrase) should focus mostly on characterization, movitavation, pacing, plot, and all the other things that make stories great. Coffee stains on the manuscript won’t get it rejected, but a story lacking any of the above will.
So I guess I’ll mention this in light of “What I Learned At Clarion.” Looking back, the Clarion experience is nothing more than having swell folks like Kelly, Gordon, or a Matt Hughes (who hasn’t taught at Clarion for all I know, but probably should!) sitting around and dispensing this advice. The added bonus is you get them — and your classmates — telling you exactly where you’re failing to do it in a given story.
While six weeks of Clarion is a beautiful grind, the real hard work began (and continues) after I got home. Okay, so Gordon said my stories didn’t have a strong enough voice. Step 1: find published stories with a strong voice. Step 2: figure out why that voice works. Step 3: compare it to my stories. Step 4: find published stories with a strong voice told in a different way than in Step 1. Step 5: try to incorporate techniques discovered in Steps 1 and 4, if possible. Repeat, ad infinitum.
And while you’re doing that, do the same thing only substituting the word “voice” for “pacing” and “characterization” and “plot” and… You get the point. The one thing we did not do at Clarion, and arguably should have done, was read some stellar short stories that exemplify or embody these traits. You can talk about “voice” all day long, talk in circles, and like Kelly says in her interview, it’s hard to explain.
Or you can just read “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson. I reread it specifically looking at what made the voice so unique and I swear a chime went off in my head every time I saw a line or phrase that contributed to the voice. “Oh,” I thought. “So that’s how you do it.” Easier said than done, of course, but at least I understand the goal now. So much of the pleasure derived from reading is on a subconscious level, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what you like and what you don’t. Just putting a target on it is a big start.
Now that I’m looking for it, it leaps off the page at me in almost every short story I read. It’s one of those rules that I sort of knew, thought I was doing it, but wasn’t. Now it’s much clearer. Same thing for characterization. I have a tendency (also common amongst newbies) to go off on a tangent to tell about why a character acts a certain way, but now I realize that history is superfluous to the plot. For the purposes of the story at hand, the reader only needs to know that a character is that way, not necessarily why. And you can get a lot of history crammed into a sentence.
Maybe some people have an innate gift where all of this comes naturally, without even having to think about it. I dunno. For me, right now, I’m at least conscious of what makes a story good while I’m writing the first draft but I don’t really sweat it until I start revising. I also think stories go cold on me when my subconscious says, “This ain’t gonna work. You need to think about it some more.”
For instance, I’ve got two stories that have been sitting for almost a year now that I want to return to, because I think I’ve figured out why they stalled. I can get to the end of draft one as long as there’s more working than not. But I recently started hot on one story (mentioned here, here, here, and here) before coming a screeching, grinding halt about 65oo words in, with everything written but the climactic conclusion.
So this weekend will hopefully be a writing weekend. The computer downstairs is officially done (or done enough) and that means I can really focus on writing. I want to take another look at some of my recent rejections, think about them, probably do some editing, and then get them out in the next week. Wish me luck.
Current Mood - Bored at Work | 
Currently Listening To - The Ramones - “Ramones”
