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Joseph E Bird

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Writing Tip: Tinker

I’ve been writing stories and novels for many years and have used various techniques for moving through the process of cranking out 80,000 words. To do something like that, you can’t afford to get stuck very often.  Yet it happens, particularly when you’re in the beginnings of a new scene that hasn’t quite found its rhythm yet.

This morning I sat down to work on my story about Heather and did what I always do. I read a few paragraphs – maybe even a few pages – of what I wrote yesterday, just to get back into the flow of the scene. As I did, I started tinkering with word choices and the phrasing of sentences. Nothing really creative, just basic editing. Then I reached the end of what I had written previously.

I wish I could tell you that new sentences sprang forth and before I knew it, I had knocked out another 1,000 words.

No.

So I went back and tinkered some more.

Here’s the thing. As you tinker, things are happening that you don’t realize. Your writing skills are improving, but more importantly, thoughts are forming in your subconscious. You’re working harder and more effectively than you realize. After two or three sessions of tinkering, the next new sentence will appear. Followed by another. Or a new twist to the story may present itself. And maybe an hour later, you’ve added 500 words.

Tinkering is better than staring at the screen, doing nothing, letting the hopelessness take over. It can be a very produtive exercise.

It works for writing. It works for painting. It works for running. It probably works for whatever you’re dong.

So tinker, my friends. Go forth and tinker.

 

2

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The two friends were very different. The one who always steered the way was an obese and dreamy Greek. In the summer he would come out wearing a yellow or green polo shirt stuffed sloppily in his trousers and hanging loose behind. When it was colder he wore over this a shapeless gray sweater. His face was round and oily, with half-closed eyelids and lips that curved into a gentle, stupid smile. The other mute was tall. His eyes had a quick, intelligent expression. He was always immaculate and very soberly dressed.”

— The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers

Two mutes?  You mean two people who can’t talk? Mute sounds old-fashioned and maybe even offensive. McCullers published her novel in 1940 when there was less awareness of such sensibilities. In modern medicine the inability to speak or use verbal language skills is called aphasia. Nonetheless, the town had two aphasics. In my entire life, I have never met an aphasic. And for a small town to have two aphasics would be very unusual.

McCullers continues in a Joe Friday kind of way. Just the facts, ma’am. No purple prose here. It’s so straightforward it almost seems like the start of a middle-schooler’s short story.

The two friends were very different.

First, we learn about the obese and dreamy Greek.  He’s kind of a pitiful character. A little slovenly. Half-closed eyelids. Lips the curved into a gentle, stupid smile.

Wait a minute. Gentle, I can accept. A gentle giant with a kind smile. But no, McCullers throws one high and tight when we were expecting an off-speed breaking pitch. His smile was stupid.  No way around this one. Stupid is offensive. I suspect that McCullers didn’t go around calling people stupid just because of how they looked. But she’s very much aware of human nature. She knows that her readers – meaning all of us – can’t help but to make these kinds of judgments, even if we are polite enough to keep it to ourselves. So when she says his smile was stupid, she knows we’ll get it. She doesn’t want us to like this guy.

The other guy is tall. Ok. He seems intelligent, just by the way he looks. Another unfair generalization that we make all the time.

He’s immaculate and soberly dressed. This tells us a lot. He may not have any control of his height or the way his face is structured, but he can sure control how he dresses. And he cares about his appearance. He’s not flashy or fashionable, just immaculate.

He’s friends with his opposite. Sure, the fact that they’re both mutes has something to do with their friendship, but you get the feeling that the tall guy has befriended the dreamy Greek because the dreamy Greek needs a friend. So we like this guy. All of this in the first paragraph.

Two mutes. Two friends. Always together. But very, very different.

Where is this going?

Very simple language. Very simple descriptions. And with that, an undercurrent of tension that compels the reader to turn the page.

Another strong beginning.

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Overtime

“Although I have no way to tell what time it is, I know that my torment will start soon.

I face east. And the long shadow projecting before me and down the length of this ragged basketball court tells me that the sun behind me is at its lowest ebb. The shadow itself, although exaggerated by the distance and the long-angled sunlight, is, like always, definite and unmistakable; it is of the concrete bench where I am seated, beneath the western goal. The shadow is all of straight lines and square corners. There is no human shape; no profile of me. Though I have experienced the same thing a hundred times or more and by now I should know that the laws of physics no longer apply to me, the old neural pathways are too well established. I cannot escape the register of shock. I still cannot avoid the unconscious and automatic processing of all my sensory data the feel of the hard concrete bench beneath me, my view of this familiar court, my certainty of the identity of the shadow, and my absence from it – against that certain knowledge of light and shade, cause and effect that my 52 years on the earth burned into me.

I am not there. How can that be? And then, of course, the deeper question, the one that still frightens me and the one that I am no nearer to answering even after these long months of invisibility and immobility, why am I here?”

— Overtime: A Basketball Parable, by Larry Ellis

How can you not be intrigued by that first sentence? His torment is about to begin, though he has no way of knowing time.

He must be a prisoner.

But no. He’s outside, sitting on a bench. As the sun sets, he sees the shadow of the bench, but not his own shadow.

Oh, yeah?

And it happens to him all the time.

Hmmm.  What’s going on here?

He says he’s not there. After clearly stating that he’s sitting on the bench, yet he’s not there?

He says he’s immobile. He says he’s invisible.

He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know why.

The why is the deeper question he needs to have answered.

That’s enough for me to keep reading. A great beginning that promises a different kind of mystery and a different kind of story.

If you want to know more about this prisoner of time, you can find Ellis’s book here.

 

 

3

Breakfast of Champions

“This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.

One of them was Kilgore Trout. He was a nobody at the time, and he supposed his life was over. He was mistaken. As a consequence of the meeting, he became one of the most beloved and respected human beings in history.

The man he met was an automobile dealer, a Pontiac dealer named Dwayne Hoover. Dwayne Hoover was on the brink of going insane.”

— Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

Ayn Rand: serious and intense.
Kurt Vonnegut: irreverent, off the wall, fun, and yes, serious.

Ayn Rand’s approach was more intellectual and might leave the reader emotionally drained.
Kurt Vonnegut aimed for the gut, but the ride was so much fun, you didn’t mind the punch to the stomach.

“This is the tale of…”

A tale, not a story. Relax, dear reader, I’m just telling you a tale. No need to get uptight. Just two skinny, lonesome, old white men. They’re everywhere, these old white men. Yes, the planet is dying, but this is just a tale, remember?

And Kilgore Trout. How can you be a serious person if your name is Kilgore Trout? Such an unassuming nobody. Ok, so maybe he became one of the most beloved and respected persons — no, not just a person, a representative of the entire species we call human — in history. Not a mere fifteen minutes of fame, mind you. All of history.

The other character in this little tale is Dwayne Hoover, a car dealer. A wheeler dealer. But lest you think that this tale is going to get serious, one other little fact: Poor Dwayne is about to go bonkers.

Of course none of this really happened. It’s just an interesting little tale I made up, Vonnegut seems to be saying. Nothing to fear. Leave your intellect at the door. It’s just a silly little tale.

See? You didn’t even notice the sock to the gut.

 

 

 

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The Fountainhead

“Howard Roark laughed.

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone — flowing. The stone had a stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.”

— The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand.

One of the first serious novels I read. The first sentence leaves absolutely no doubt about who the book was about, even though these opening paragraphs are identified in Part One – Peter Keating. This is Howard Roark’s story.

And so many questions raised by this beginning.

Who the heck is this crazy guy standing naked at the edge of a cliff?  Why did he laugh?  Will he jump?  Is he suicidal?

And Rand’s choice of words. Yes, maybe a little melodramatic, but they weigh heavily with importance. As it turns out, this Roark fellow was indeed very serious.

The book is not without controversy and many think the it’s over-rated.  When I first read the book in my twenties, the background philosophy espoused by Rand flew right over my head, as did the possibility that the story puts women in a subservient role to men. For me, it was about Roark’s belief in his work – architecture – and his unwillingness to compromise his principles for either money or fame.  But because his talent was so deep, and because the power of his personality was so great, Roark survived.  And in the end, he was the only one with his integrity in tact.

And it ends like this:

“She saw him standing above her, on the top platform of the Wynand Building. He waved to her.

The line of the ocean cut the sky. The ocean mounted as the city descended. She passed the pinnacles of bank buildings. She passed the crowns of the courthouses.  She rose above the spires of churches.

Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark.”

 

6

Beginnings

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

–Genesis, Chapter 1

What evocative language. What a way to start a story.  What a choice of words.  The prose is so strong, it’s poetic.

Of course the original writing was Hebrew.  Does the Hebrew translation have the same effect on the reader?  I don’t know.  The translation above is the King James Version.  Here’s the New International Version.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Basically the same meaning, and probably more grammatically correct.  No sentences begin with “And”, which I know drives some people nuts.  And the last two sentences have been combined into one, which modern grammar-check software would undoubtedly suggest. It may be more correct, but as literature, it loses a little of its punch, a little of its rhythm, a little of its beauty.

The choice of words matter.  Subtle changes can make powerful differences.

Let’s look at another beginning.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

–The Gospel of John, Chapter 1

I find this language intriguing. If one were to pick up this story without knowing anything about it, the first two sentences would produce a shaking of the head. What??? A mystery right off the bat. Then the third sentence introduces the main character. Quite a powerful guy, it would seem. Then the talk of light and darkness. A sense of foreboding.  Yeah, this would be my kind of story.

Many of my favorite books begin this way. A sense of mystery. The introduction of an intriguing figure. And you know something is going to happen.

This week we’ll take a look at beginnings, and we’ll see that words matter.

 

 

 

 

3

coming home

washington avenue sunset

She turned right onto Virginia Street. As a child, in the back seat with Wayne, coming back from the family vacation or a visit to Grandma’s or a Friday night out to eat, turning onto Virginia Street had meant they were home. The street, where they rode their bikes and played kickball and walked to their friends without worry or fear of anything other than staying too late, was as much their home as the big brick house, where on cold winter nights they sat on the worn out couch in the living room and watched television on the boxy console, where they did homework on the dining room table next to the folded dish towels and rolled up socks, and where she had dreamed of places faraway in a bedroom covered with posters of rock bands and pop stars. And though it had only been two weeks since she had left for Texas, she felt her body relax, and the tension that she didn’t know she had been carrying, slipped away.

copyright 2017, joseph e bird

2

Heather’s Father

A few days ago, my faithful friend and reader Lee Anne, commented that I hadn’t mentioned Heather lately, Heather being the main character of my novel in progress.

For those who may be new to the story, Heather has traveled to Houston, where her father, George, has been paroled. At this point in the story it has been revealed that her father murdered her mother. Heather hasn’t seen him or talked to him in the ten years since. Her sole reason for even going to Houston is to make sure her brother is prepared to take care of their father and that there is no chance that he will try to come to her home.

In this scene, Heather sees her father for the first time since his conviction. She and her brother are outside of an old school that has been converted into a community center. Inside, a group of parolees are finishing up a mandatory counseling session.

HEATHER HAD PAID NO ATTENTION to the empty classrooms as they had walked, but ahead, light shining through a long bank of windows spilled onto the sidewalk. As they approached, Wayne put out his arm and stopped her.

“They can’t really see because it’s dark outside.”

He took a couple steps forward. Heather followed. Inside, they sat in a semi-circle. A young man who look more like a boy, sat in front, notebook in hand. The counselor. She went down the line of old men. She couldn’t pick him out.

“Which one is he?”

“On the end on the right.”

“That’s not him. It can’t be.”

Wayne nodded. “That’s our dad.”

His shoulders slumped, his chin rested on his chest. His hair was totally white and stood from his head on weightless wisps. It was hard to tell as he sat on the metal chair, but he looked thinner. Not the stoic figure who had stood in front of the judge ten years ago and received his sentence. Not the man of confidence who had built his small engineering practice into a regional design firm. Not the imposing father she had looked up to when they worked together in the garage. This was an old man. A frail old man.

“I knew he would be older.” It wasn’t necessary to finish the thought and she let the sentence trail off. “He’s only seventy-three.” Then it occurred to her that maybe she had done the math wrong. Maybe skipped ten years. She looked at Wayne. “That’s right, isn’t it? Seventy-three?”

“Yeah. Chronologically. But biologically, it’s more like he’s ninety-three.”

She scanned the others in the class room. A few seemed more alert, but not by much.

“Is that what prison does?”

“I don’t know. All those guys, Dad included, are out because they’re either in their last months, or they aren’t who they were when they went it. Some don’t even know who they are.”

“You said Dad was sick. Is he terminal?”

“Not in the sense that you’re talking about. No cancer or congestive heart failure or anything like that.”

She thought about the alternative.

“Dementia?”

“Alzheimer’s.”

“How far along?”

Wayne shrugged. “You’ll see.”

The young man in the front closed his notebook and straightened in his chair. He looked at the old men, as if waiting for questions or comments. No sign of life from any of them. It seemed to Heather that as counseling sessions go, this had to be the least rewarding for the counselor. He forced a smile and then stood. Some of the men pushed themselves up and started shuffling toward the door. Most stayed seated, including their father.

Wayne and Heather walked around the building and by the time they got to the door, the lady who had smiled at Wayne earlier ignored him as she pushed her father out in his wheelchair. The young counselor was guiding their father by the elbow. He looked up at Wayne, then leaned in close to their father’s ear.

“I’ll see you next week, Mr. Roth.” He spoke more loudly than was necessary.

Their father reacted with a sharp turn of his head toward the counselor. “Geez oh wiz, why the hell are you yelling at me?”

It was the first time she had heard his voice in more than ten years and it was the one thing that hadn’t changed. A deep baritone. A little gravelly. Unmistakable George P. Roth.

She traded a look with Wayne. Both had been on the receiving end of his brusque reprimands many times, especially during their rebellious years. As he had aged, he had either mellowed by choice or contrition and he reserved his worst outbursts for politicians and TV preachers.

She wondered if Wayne had had the same flashback, but she dared not ask in front of him.

Wayne stepped forward and put one arm around his father’s shoulder and steadied him by the forearm. “Ready to go home?”

His father looked at his face, studied, then muttered something under his breath. Wayne gave Heather a quizzical look, Heather shrugged in return. As they stood side by side, she saw how much shorter he was than Wayne. He had always been taller. At least six-two. But now he was bent over and his legs never straightened.

They were still several feet from the door where Heather was standing, but everyone else had left. Even the counselor had gone back into the classroom. Her father glanced up to chart his course, but didn’t acknowledge her presence. He took a step.

It was then that she noticed her pounding heart. Her breaths became short and choppy. Though she had envisioned the conversation that she needed to have, the things she needed to say, she had given little thought to first words. In one imaginary scenario, he would see her for the first time, there would be a long pause, and he would begin with an apology. He would explain that he never meant to hurt her. That he understands why she hates him and understands if she never wanted anything to do with him again. Then she would tell him everything. How he had no right to do what he did. That he was selfish, thinking only of himself. That he robbed her of the chance to be with her mother when she needed her the most. No, she would say. I don’t want to see you again.

She took a deep breath, trying to regulate her breathing and slow her heart rate. It only made it worse.

He took another step. Then another. He saw her out of the corner of his eye. He glanced up, an annoyed look, as if he were irritated that she was in his way. She stepped back and held open the door. He shuffled through. He didn’t know her.

copyright 2017, joseph e bird

4

Check Engine

Joe H. used to say he didn’t have a creative bone in his body.  That was far from the truth. Consider this paragraph from an early draft of his unfinished novel, Test Drives.

“If Laura Lanham were equipped with a “check engine” light, perhaps someone she meets today would see something besides her silky dark hair, her high cheek bones, her cover-girl skin, and the way her jeans and her Alderson-Broaddus College sweatshirt seem to celebrate every swell and toss of Laura’s lithe body as it ripples beneath them. But that won’t happen today or any other day soon. For want of a simple warning light, Laura is allowed to roam the streets of Alban City in a large, gasoline-powered battering ram as if everything is fine, when it’s not.  In the year 2003 humans have not yet done for themselves what they have done for their cars, so the check engine light in Laura’s well-designed automobile will afford her car a level of protection Laura does not enjoy.” — copyright 2003, Joseph Higginbotham

Check Engine Light.  What a metaphor.

I look back on his writings and remember what I saw back then. A lot of understated but biting satire.  Characters that would be right at home in Twin Peaks.  I also see the autobiography in his characters.  Some in this one, some in that one.  Put it all together and you see everything that Joe wrestled with in his life.

No more.  He fought his good fight. He will be missed.

 

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