Show and Tell

I feel this class has helped me to grow as a writer. From poetry to creative essays, I have discovered new and unique aspects of creative writing. However, the one piece of advice I have found most valuable is to show details in my writing rather than tell.

In fact, an English instructor once said to me, “Show, don’t tell.” That phrase captured my attention, but I always struggled to execute the concept. There seemed no concrete method to replace telling with showing. This class has helped me to discover ways to move in that direction.

Through the many creative writing assignments, I finally comprehend that showing is a way to evoke an emotion in your reader by using words. The writing is meant to appeal to the five senses and make a person feel like they are actually there, experiencing what the character is experiencing. Showing draws the reader into the story. Reflecting on the many pieces I have read, my favorites are always the ones with vivid descriptions: the stories that conjure an image in my mind. The pieces that “tell” me details in a cut-and-dry manner are the ones I put down; they do not engage.

In writing, it is my goal to entertain others. I do not want to be the author whose work is dry and uninspired. Now, I feel I can one day reach this goal, because, each time I pick up a pencil or set my fingers to the keyboard, I remind myself: “Show, don’t tell.”

Oppressive Overshadowing

In Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, the chapter “Total Eclipse” used exceptionally memorable imagery to capture a once-in-a-lifetime experience: a total solar eclipse. Dillard’s vivid descriptions of the eclipse paint a very solemn and apocalyptic image in my mind.

To our eyes, light scattering off surfaces gives them their color. When the moon is between the sun and us, it blocks the infrared rays from reaching the Earth’s surface, giving the entire area a cold, dark look. “The sun was going, and the world was wrong…This color had never been seen on earth. The hues were metallic; their finish was matte…The darkness of night mixed with the colors of day.”  The earth going dark is familiar in the gradual form of twilight descending. It is unnatural to be a bright morning and then “abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky”

For many, darkness is synonymous with evil and desolation. From Dillard’s word paintings, the image of these tendrils of shadow is “eerie as hell.” They are floating across the brightly lit Earth, coating everything in their path with midnight. “It rolled at you across the land at 1,800 miles an hour, hauling darkness like plague behind it.” No one can escape its clutches.

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,

Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,

It lies behind stars and under hills,

And empty holes it fills,

It comes first and follows after,

Ends life, kills laughter.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Feather-Light Futures

“It’s as if the past were sinking like lead, while the feather-light future defies gravity.” Bernard Cooper expertly writes Maps to Anywhere, illustrating throughout the course of his reflections how the past can hold a person down. By living in past memories, it is difficult to embrace the present. For Cooper, the event he seems to dwell upon most is the death of his brother. From my own experiences, it is always difficult to let go of loved ones. It takes years to move beyond the grief phase; each loss seems to take a small part of my heart. That place never fully heals, but eventually it does scar over with good memories and the pain fades.  

With a loss, there is often one question floating through people’s minds, “why, if no one wants to, [does] everyone dies.” This is the question that could be the cause the deluges of tears; those still left on earth cry, not because they are sad for the deceased, but because they miss them. Constant longing for their return, renews the sorrow. It is this living in the past that pulls anyone down like lead, as Cooper describes it. 

However, there is always a hope of a feather-light future where we can all move on from past grievances. This is the hope that keeps us all going from day to day. Without it, we would never be able to remember people with fondness: move on. As Navajo proverb says, “You cannot see the future with tears in your eyes.”

Surgery of the Samurai

As Ernest Hemingway said, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” This is the most tedious part of any authors’ journey: the revision process. To effectively revise, a writer must cut his or her work up: moving sentences or entire paragraphs, adding words to make it flow, essentially reworking the entire piece.”  Natalie Goldberg captures the essence of revising in her chapters “The Samurai” and “Reading and Rewriting” from Writing Down the Bones.

Goldberg draws an analogy between revising a piece and using a samurai sword. “Like a samurai with an empty mind who cut their opponents in half, be willing not to be sentimental about your writing when you reread it. Look at it with a clear, piercing mind.” The first part accurately captures how I look at the task of rewriting: a brutal, mindless murder of innocent words. However, I often find it difficult to clear my mind and mutilate, then rebuild my own piece.

I must perfect my eyes to be as sharp as a samurai’s blade. It is only then when I can properly dissect my writing. “When you’re in the samurai space, you have to be tough. Not mean, but with the toughness of truth.” It is very difficult to look at my own writing and see what flows, what is a complete mess, and what reads as beautiful prose. I know what I mean to say, so I read it that way, mentally filling in all the gaps. In other cases, I like each individual sentence so much that I cannot bear to remove even one, despite the lack of cohesion. However, this is when I need to get into the samurai mindset and remove myself from the sentimentality of my work. It is then I can remember Goldberg’s words: “Write one good line, you’ll be famous. Write a lot of lukewarm pieces, you’ll put people to sleep.”

Human Compassion

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, “Compassion is the basis of morality.” In her piece The Fifth Story, Clarice Lispector interweaves multiple tales to form a complex image of humanity versus a guilty conscience. To many, insects such as the common cockroach are just pests to be exterminated. However, using these varmints, Lispector introduces the recurring argument reading the value of a life. “Should I renew the lethal sugar every night [and kill more of nature’s creation]?” Despite the fact that these bugs invade homes, carry diseases and scare the unsuspecting, their extermination is strangely accompanied by the despicable feeling of having killed a living creature.

While calling attention to the mindless killing of creatures, Lispector provides a brilliant literary example of how a simple story can have much more to it than meets the eye. As she first tells the story of the “murder” of the cockroaches, she introduces it simply as a successful way to kill the pests, calmly stating, “The cockroaches died,” to summarize the results of her sugary and deadly potion. She proceeds to tell the same story again, this time adding details of her malicious outrage over the invasion of the cockroaches and the burning desire to eradicate them. She adds on two more drafts of the same murderous tale, each time adding details and sculpting the scene of the crime.

By the fourth story, Lispector evokes a newfound sympathy for the cockroaches by introducing the plight of right versus wrong: either bear the creepy-crawly invasions or butcher the pests. Even the executioner “trembled at the sight of that hardening gypsum, the depravity of existence would shatter my inner form.” With it arrives a choice “between two paths…Any choice would mean sacrificing either myself or my soul. I chose.” But Lispector does not reveal the slayer’s choice; instead, she leaves it to our interpretation as to what the fifth story would hold.

This decision on the author’s part makes the reader think more about killing helpless and innocent creatures, who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I cannot count the number of times a poor spider or mosquito has lain smashed, by my doing. Yet, I have felt little remorse; to me they are just pests with no purpose in life. But is this the case? Or, would it be better to give them a little human compassion?

  

A Spark of Inspiration

As William Arthur Ward said, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” I have encountered many great teachers in my educational career and each one, in his or her own way, has inspired me. This inspiration enables me to remember and comprehend far more about a subject. This is what made Miss Ferenczi, the intriguing substitute teacher in Charles Baxter’s Gryphon, a great teacher: she encouraged the students to think and learn.

Instead of following the typical class schedule, Ms. Ferenczi chooses to engage the students in her own unique way. When she was talking, “there was not a sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice.…No one even went to bathroom.” This rapt attention is the gift of an extraordinary instructor. Miss Ferenczi appealed to youths’ learning style with storytelling. And no one was going to forget the interesting facts she illustrated.

For example, for the unit on Egypt Miss Ferenczi did not bore everyone with dates, facts, and details to memorize. Instead, she engrained the Egyptian’s beliefs into each student’s head by describing, “how they [people] behaved—‘well or ill’—in life,” could affect their prospects of reincarnation. Or, that “people act the way they do because of magnetism produced by tidal forces in the solar system, forces produced by the sun and by its ‘planetary ally,’ Jupiter.” Miss Ferenczi’s “ideas themselves were, as the dictionary would say, fabulous.” With such vivid and captivating ideas, none of Miss Ferenczi’s students would ever forget the religious aspects of Egyptian culture.

For young minds, Miss Ferenczi manages to capture the most important foundations of education: an interest in learning. Once this spark is lit for a student, it could be the start of something big; it could change a person’s life. As my great-aunt once said to me, “Labor for learning before you grow old, for learning is better than silver or gold. Silver and gold will vanish away, but a good education will never decay.”

Be the Character

Fiction: fantasies, sci-fi, historical dramatizations, novels. But what is fiction? To me, as long as a story is not narrating a documented event, anything and everything can fall under the category of “fiction.” While the typical format to a story contains a beginning, climax, and end, with creative stories, there is freedom to stretch these guidelines. This is why I enjoy writing fiction. Once a story begins to flow onto paper, there is no right or wrong way to progress a plot; I have creative license.

However, before I can reach the point of “creative licensing,” I must begin sculpting a piece of fiction. I have always fought writer’s block. I know what I want to have happen in each story, but I can never seem to reach the end. The middle becomes like wading through mud and traps me with a slow, dull plot line until I am stuck. The best piece of advice that allowed me to overcome my writer’s block was simply to let the character write the story. This came from Anne Lamott’s chapter on “Character” in her book Bird By Bird.

Previously, I had always made the mistake of trying to get my character to conform to my desired plot. This would make for very dry prose, full of specific descriptions. Just the other day, I attempted to write a short piece of fiction, but kept on stumbling over illustrating a scene to my reader. Lamott’s suggestion to dig deep while getting to know your main character was what saved my story from being boring and me from stress. While writing, I tried to put myself in my character’s shoes: thinking about the little things that are important to her, discovering the way she thinks, opening myself to her opinions. The moment I did that, the story flowed. I removed many of the dry descriptions and began to show the depth through my character’s reactions and feelings. Looking through her eyes allowed me to get a glimpse into another life and, hopefully, convey that to the reader.

While I have tried to write novels and short stories before, I found doing so problematic. It was not until this last short fiction attempt that things finally came together for me. From now on, I will definitely be taking Lamott’s advice and molding the plot to the character instead of the character to the plot.