Rutabaga

And this story draws to a close. I have to admit I was wondering pretty madly who the person was for that final call -- some of my speculations were far more "out there" than the actual one. I daren't say more. I found myself reflecting today on how I found myself drawn to Silas's early demonstration of competence in camping, survival skills, etc. It was the same thing I found myself drawn to in Cole Parker's "High Plains of Wyoming" tale, where the lead character (Mason?) had similarly developed extensive skill in wilderness survival. It's not that I personally want to undergo the privation involved; I just find it interesting to contemplate what it would be like to have that level of self-assurance and calm confidence in such a situation. I think it surely must be a guy thing. We value and savor efficacy. Anyway, good show, and may the navigator continue to navigate. R

This just cries out for a caption (or a punch line) but I'm stumped. R

I realized that I had used an entirely incorrect metaphor when describing my writing experience. It wasn't really a matter of painting myself into corners. it was, if you will, setting up an overabundance of corners that I could paint myself into, once I made up my mind which of many story threads to pursue. It might be better to call it the "Squirrel!!" syndrome, although that may overstate it. It was simply a matter that as I progressed in the story, I kept seeing opportunities to foreshadow and set up possible future things, without having any real clear idea whether I was going to pursue them or not, and, if I did pursue them, where they would go, and how they would fit into and serve the overall story. So, for example, we learn early on that our young hero's father is some kind of professional (probably a corporate lawyer or some kind of dealmaker) who travels all the time and is therefore rarely home to interact with his two sons. A bit farther into the story we learn that the father has called the mother to say that his current trip will be extended, and he has to go from London (where he is right then) to some meetings in Paris. The protagonist and his younger brother roll their eyes when they hear this from their mother, because it's such a frequent occurrence. And elsewhere there are hints that the mother is kind of reaching the end of her rope with these prolonged absences. There is even a faint suggestion that the father might be fooling around with someone who accompanies him on these trips. At the same time, our hero is surrounded by other school friends whose parents have divorced or who have other family problems. There is an interesting irony bubbling in the background as to how his family situation might be considered more "normal" than others, even though in actuality it is lacking in many ways. The problem is, I have no idea where I would be going with all of this. It really is a complete side issue to the main thrust of the story, which is pretty straightforward coming-of-age stuff involving his own self-discovery and acceptance. I don't really need the father as a component of this story, but I just kept throwing little bits and pieces in. As far as my story is concerned, I could leave the father in Europe the whole time. Or I could bring him home, and have him interact with his sons -- but how? That's my problem . . . I have this story element hovering out there, and have trouble deciding whether or not to use it, or how to use it if I decide to. I've already got so many other things going on that I don't feel a compelling need to raise another set of stakes with the father. Yet I'm still intrigued by where it would go. So I'm like a kid in a candy store, not sure which of the many interesting and delicious things to choose. This was definitely a seat-of-the-pants exercise on my part. I started out with a fairly simple premise and modest ambitions, and wrote a few thousand words. A friend who read it said to me, "you should make a list of your characters and write down some things about them." So I did that, and found myself becoming much more interested in the characters and where they would go in the story. And I became much more conscious of the importance of making these other characters (friends of the hero) different from one another and distinct in their personalities, rather than clones of each other with different names. I then figured out basically where I wanted the story to go in the end. However, there are so many different ways to get there! So I guess I'm dreaming that if I had really done some proper planning before I plunged into this tale, I might have a better handle on what elements to use or not use, which directions to take, and which "Squirrels!" I can safely leave alone. R

Here's an essay by Steven Pressfield that touches on some relevant points. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/2015/07/learning-the-craft/ R

Man, I had forgotten that batshit crazy Officer Higgins was still out and about. Enforcing the leash law, no doubt. R

What a unique and many-layered story this is. A worthy Pick from the Past. R

Glad to see this story reappearing as a Pick from the Past. It is very entertaining and not as long as some of Joel's other works. R

This is the age-old debate between "pantsers" (people who write by the seat of their pants) and "outliners." I can only tell you that I decided to try the "pants" approach on a story several years ago, and just launched into it. Many chapters and 60,000 words later, it's a pretty good yarn, but I have painted myself into so many corners I'm not convinced I will ever get out. A number of people have looked at it and have pleaded with me to finish it, but I'm not sure I'll be able to. So . . . my advice is to do homework before writing. R

Just a quick note to alert people that a new, complete Mihangel tale, "Their Finest Hour," has quietly appeared on the main AD page under Completed Novels. I've just started it but I have no doubt it will live up to the quality of his previous work. R

YES!!!! And I hope they fry the bastard. Technically the death penalty is still legal in Colorado, but it hasn't been carried out there in decades. It will be extremely interesting to see what happens with James Holmes, the guy who was just convicted of umpty-leven criminal counts for shooting all those people in a Colorado theater three years ago. Oh, and Officer Higgins is clearly an accessory. R

California voters get to decide. http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2015/jul/17/condom-advocates-secure-signatures-ballot/ R

Boo. R

At the most theoretical level, subtext could not be considered "telling" because, um, it isn't the text. The question for me would be whether the subtext was amateurishly "on the nose" and therefore tantamount to "telling," or whether it was executed with some skill and sophistication so as to be a little more plausible and realistic and reflective of real life. I think another way of stating this is that to genuinely qualify as "sub" text the degree or depth of "sub"-ness must be more than superficial, and the author needs to handle carefully whether the existence of this subtext is perceived by some or all of the characters in the scene, or only by the reader. I find subtext fascinating. When I was taking some improv classes a few years ago, we had an exercise one night where the scene partners could talk only about something very mundane, like the weather, while being given a substantive scene assignment. We could not even hint at the actual assigned subject; we could only talk about the mundane stuff When my turn came, my scene partner and I were told that we were at our mother's funeral. We proceeded to discuss the weather while miming walking around the casket, looking down at it, looking at each other with varying emotions, and so on. Afterward, the rest of the class was asked what was really happening in the scene. They correctly perceived that I was mad at my scene partner because I was convinced my mother always liked him better, that he had been doing dishonest things with her money, and so on in great detail. We never said a word about any of this in the scene -- it was all conveyed by our expressions and tones of voice while talking about an unrelated and mundane subject. I was astonished. That's where I became convinced of the dramatic value of subtext. But this is simply one tool to use under the heading of "show, don't tell." Others include specifics rather than generalities, and not dumping everything the author knows all at once. There's a whole book about this topic, "Show, Don't Tell: A Writer's Guide," by William Noble, that was published in 1991. And Graeme is correct that underlying everything, whether showing or telling, is the story. All the techniques being used should serve the story, and keep the reader engaged. I think the concern about "telling" is that it can dilute or depart from the story, and cause the reader to glaze over. The term "show" probably shouldn't be taken literally (I think that's the central mistake made by the author of the quoted piece above), but rather as a code for the family of techniques that enrich story presentation by avoiding "telling." R

On re-reading what I said above I realized that I had not really closed the loop on what I was trying to say. What I was getting at is that a writer doesn't suddenly move from a state of "not having a voice" to a state of "having a voice." It's not like the ending scene in "The Wizard of Oz" where the Wizard hands out certificates to give the Scarecrow a brain and the Tin Woodman a heart. Rather, it is a matter of nurturing the natural gifts that are already there and augmenting them with experience, technical information and training, and practice. It may well be that someone will conclude that they have "found" their voice when the elements come together and cause them to feel competent and efficacious in what they are doing, and motivated to continue doing it. But it's not as though one day a bell will ring and people will proclaim, "There it is! There's that voice! Now you're in business!" Rather, I think it is a very personal experience, often malleable and mercurial, that things seem to be going in a useful direction. And the definition of "useful" is a very individual one. Someone may be extremely good at producing a particular kind of writing, and be well-paid for it (a rather rare circumstance for writers, I admit), yet hate the work. So it's only useful as a way of making a living, but not as a way of nurturing the soul. In the end, I think that by sometime in the mid-to-late teenage years, when the brain has largely finished connecting itself up, we all generally have some kind of a voice as writers or creators. After that it's a matter of learning the craft, studying what others have done, and using that voice to see how it develops. R

As I've been pondering this issue I come out in much the same place as Merkin above. It seems to me that speaking of a writer's "voice" is more than just a metaphor. In fact, it can be compared to nurturing, training, and developing an actual human voice. Opera singers learn to produce lovely sounds by applying a number of technical methods to open their throats, lower their larynxes, relax their jaw muscles, use correct posture, and support from the diaphragm as they make sound. They perform exercises for stretching, relaxation, and strengthening of relevant muscles. They also work on matters of pitch (intonation), volume, attack and release of notes. All of this combines to produce a result that is, in fact, their actual "voice." And as they age, and as they gain experience, and as the physical changes of aging affect the various mechanisms, that voice evolves and matures. The same is true for classically trained stage actors. My undergraduate school had a renowned drama school where Edith Skinner taught aspiring actors precisely how to produce sound that would fill a theater, to pronounce words precisely, and to phrase and modulate their words so as to convey the maximum impact. At the end of the day, it was still the actor's own voice that was coming out, and the actor was in control of it, but with this coaching and development it expanded the range and quality of what the actor could do. I think there is a lot of beneficial coaching and training available for writers, but a lot of it is self-taught in the same sense that learning to play the guitar is self-taught. Yes, it is good to go to a guitar teacher, but in the end it is the student who is actually holding the instrument and making the sounds. The teacher can explain how to achieve certain things, and advise on drills for warming up and flexibilty, and assist with technical challenges, but the student, in the end, must actually do the playing. (I am reminded of the saying, "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.") And there will be students who take a basic idea offered by the teacher and run with it, developing fantastic new things the teacher would never have thought of. So it is, it seems to me, with writing. A writer today needs some basics, like knowing how to type (or write in longhand, heaven forbid), understanding a fair amount about grammar and punctuation, and so forth. But just as an aspiring guitarist does a lot of his learning by listening to other guitarists and deciding to explore what they have done, a writer does a lot of reading to see what other writers are doing. And just as, in the end, the guitarist can improve only by actually practicing and playing, the writer ultimately writes. And the opera singer ultimately sings. And the stage actor actually acts. I would define a writer's "voice," therefore, as his level of facility at producing a worthwhile written product -- however "worthwhile" may be defined in any particular case. The big difference from an opera singer or an actor is that the writer is starting with an idea and producing a product, not merely reproducing someone else's idea. Indeed, I would argue that part of the writer's "voice" is the very facility of generating ideas in the first place, and having some notion of how to nurture them into a written product. In that sense, the writer's voice is a much more comprehensive creative faculty. R

And it's still a cliffhanger . . . . R

Her discretion probably failed when the moment of truth arrived. R

She might want to select a different fitness exercise in the future. R

I assumed it meant she was trim and athletic looking. R

I've re-read the Henkin piece, and I'm still annoyed with it. I feel sorry for his students. If he thinks that "showing" means "using more adjectives" I'm not sure there's much hope for him. R

This is in Michigan. Here in California I have found that there is a certain unhealthy personality that ends up as judges in both family court and probate court. The civil judges rotate through those assignments, but the judges with any brains or integrity move heaven and earth to get out of that assignment as fast as possible. The ones who stay tend to be very arbitrary and difficult to deal with, generally doing more harm than good in my opinion. I think the nature of the work just fries their brains, or brings out their meaner side. I wholeheartedly agree that this judge should be removed from the bench. This case shows that she lacks any semblance of judicial temperament. I suspect that there are others just like her in adjoining courtrooms however. R

The 13th Amendment abolished involuntary servitude. These kids are not guilty of any crime except having deranged parents. There is no legal basis for forcing a kid to have lunch with someone against his will. R

The 13th Amendment abolished involuntary servitude. These kids are not guilty of any crime except having deranged parents. There is no legal basis for forcing a kid to have lunch with someone against his will. R

I've only read a couple of Vonnegut's works, and they didn't lead me to want to read more. I would give him at best a mediocre grade on Rule 1. R

And that, my friends, is a cliffhanger. R