In Abola’s class, all my works were character driven. I’d know the character I wanted to write and I simply wrote about that character, found out where he’d bring me and what he’d do. He’d take on a life of his own and I was simply the stenographer of my own creation, a writer of biographical (although fictional) slices of life. The problem was that I didn’t care which details were really merited and which should be left implied.
In Suchen’s class, I’ve tended to start with big ideas and work from there. A man finds himself in a cloud of grasshoppers with little kids picking off the oblivious creatures one by one. How does he get there? A woman masseuse finds herself smitten by her client’s daughter. How do I show the novelty in the event? When exactly does the attraction come about? How do I contrast this to her usual mechanical sessions with other clients? Suchen described it as “adding salt here and adding pepper there,” and to build off of her analogy, without first knowing whether I’m cooking chicken or beef, noodles or soup. I don’t know my characters.
Granted, I’ve stopped writing “Starbucks Fiction” about shallow college kids with their idealism and their principles that they’d die for and their insistence that somehow their opinions would matter to a reader (not much unlike this blog), but in doing so, I find myself writing about characters that I know nothing about; those whose worldviews are unfathomable to me making it impossible to suspend the reader’s disbelief within the context of realistic fiction as opposed to tale telling like in A Sand Story.
I’ve lost the intimacy I’d once had with my characters. A guest speaker at one of my workshops (I don’t remember who, sorry ma’am) said that my story had the backbone of an award winning piece and that it was the language that needed improving. Like a dolt, I wrote my next piece with high school cry of “more description, more figures of speech, more details, show don’t tell!” I only now realize what she really meant by language. The language itself, the diction, the grammar and the syntax does not have to be impressive (and sometimes even gets annoying when it’s overdone). Rather, the language (and not necessarily the speech) has to suit the character.
The same teacher told me that language is a wonderful problem to have. I think she meant that an out of shape, yet experienced, ballerina is always a ballerina. She can always work out, strengthen her muscles, and regain her flexibility but a female body builder, no mater how strong, flexible or agile, would need much more work to become a ballerina. That’s what I think.
