November Newsletter

By Jessica Page Morrell

The Emotional landscape, part 1 We read for many reasons÷to be informed, to be entertained; to slip into another world far from the one we live in where the latest CNN update on senseless deaths in Iraq chills our heart. But if you examine what happens in most writing, youâll notice that a writerâs role is to stir a readerâs emotions. Thatâs it. Thatâs the essence of our job. Emotions are the lens through which we read and experience story; the full moon cast that sweeps into a readerâs veins, enters his brain and lingers there, stirring things÷memory and senses and the pulse. True, there is writing designed strictly to dispense information÷reports, news accounts, memos, technical manuals and such. But if you consider a range of genres including fiction, screenwriting, playwriting, poetry, speeches, sermons, and lectures÷youâll discover that the best writers and orators are tweaking our emotions. Emotion drives our hungers, our needs, and our relentless desires. Emotions are the filter through which we perceive the world and theyâre hardwired into our brains from infancy when they were first shaped. But translating emotion into writing is one of the most difficult aspects of craft. Finely honed writing overlays emotions into the text so that it is never crude or overwrought, melodramatic, contrived, silly or outdated. Emotions when well orchestrated, make your words resemble real life, but also accurately represent the vast range of human experience. Emotion is evoked to make the readers care, to create involvement and empathy, but also to breathe life into a story. Lately Iâve been noticed that the manuscripts that I edit are greatly improved by using a subtler touch, by trusting the reader to understand the human heart without spelling everything out. Beginning writers often betray themselves and their characters when, in essence, they shout and wink at the reader. Or theyâre constantly stating, labeling or judging emotions as in ÎMary was terrifiedâ or ÎSam was furiousâ or ÎJoan was filled with dreadâ. Because it is when describing or evoking emotion that the writerâs hand should remain invisible. In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner writes, ãIn great fiction we are moved by what happens, not by the whimpering or bawling of the writerâs presentation of what happens. That is, in great fiction, we are moved by characters and events, not by the emotion of the person who happens to be telling the story.ä Gardner goes on to describe how Tolstoy and Chekov often kept their narrative voice deliberately calm and dispassionate so that the emotions arising from the story events came through untinged by presentation. While their restraint had power, he also points out that Faulkner took a different approach and flamboyantly displayed emotion. Gardner explains, ãThe trick is simply that the style must work in the service of the material, not in advertisement of the writer.ä Both describing and evoking emotion requires finesse and restraint yet many writers approach it using blunt objects÷clichs, overworked metaphors, and hackneyed phrases. Writers often depict their characters as teary eyed, or with a single tear sliding down a cheek, or shouting, gasping, heart pounding, hang-wringing wrecks. And yes, sometimes our hearts DO pound from fear or excitement. But step back and reconsider these devices. Donât choose the obvious, or the mundane. Donât always look straight on at your subject. The body÷facial expressions, posture, and gestures create a panoply of signals that indicate mood. Your role as writer is to prod your readerâs imagination, not do the work for her. I suggest that when describing or stirring emotion that you use a surgeonâs care. Writing demands precision, meticulous choices and accuracy. And a technique that separates practiced writers from sloppy writers is the precision and specificity with which they describe emotion. And my second suggestion is to consider the range and complexity of human emotions and also the many layers of emotionality. Within a single day most of experience a gamut of feelings and in rendering them in our stories, we must take a character and reader through these many states. Much writing fails because experience is rendered within a narrow scope, hauling out the familiar signals and devices. But in a single scene a character can veer from hope to despair, rage to laughter, with many levels of these potent feelings. Powerful emotions such as grief have many dimensions÷despair, sadness, fear, worry, longing, loneliness, and anger. Emotions sometimes boil over, and are at times repressed or hidden. In places a writer will want to directly expose a characterâs mood, at other times merely suggest it. So render emotions with care, using them only when their weight and significance are truly needed. Donât insert emotion into the commonplace and donât resort to the obvious. Think about how the best actors display a world of meaning in a single expression or gesture. Theatrics and melodrama belong to another era, not in your pages. To be continued ************************************************************************ On my coffee table, in fact, scattered throughout my place, Iâve clustered miniature pumpkins and gourds. I find these small tokens of the season irresistible; colored in hues of orange and gold and copper, they seem to spell autumn. And what a season it is. November skies showcase such dramatic weather÷steel-colored clouds roiling in overhead, followed by days of pale winter sky, chased away by fierce winds and shades of gray. Some leaves are blazing red and gold, some are wilting, the nights are crisp, and the moon seems to ride higher in the night sky. There are fewer stalls at the farmerâs market, and only a smattering of flower vendors. I bought orange dahlias this week, but the Thai couple informed me that these are the last of the season. The furnace blasts on at regular intervals and Iâve been making soups and roasts and cookies. Thumbing through the many magazines that arrive in the mail, Iâm already noting recipes for future holiday feasts. In November, in the north weâre naturally driven indoors. The light has changed, the mornings sometimes dawn with mist and fog, and the year is ticking away and I count the days left as if walking toward a gravesite. Itâs the season for endings and celebration; for finding radiance in autumn vegetables and cooking hearty foods. And, of course, with the light splintered and temperatures dropping, there cannot be a better time to write. ***************************************************************** Writing as Practice? Recently someone from my past contacted me, someone who had found me via the Internet. Someone whose presence in my life was unwelcome, who wanted to connect, who wanted to pretend that the passing years had also erased the pain between us. I had imagined that the events between us were long buried and somehow cured. But I found, to my annoyance, that I just couldnât simply whisk away the years of grievance. Maybe I am not able to truly forgive, maybe my heart wasnât big enough; perhaps the timing was bad. There was certainly way too much collateral damage. The feelings stirred by his emails were uncomfortable, mostly because I realized that he was the type who would simply never understand my point of view. But I also discovered that I was reluctant to unleash my displeasure back at him. I believe in karma, I believe in not causing harm even when there is a part of me that can gleefully imagine bashing someoneâs brains all over the kitchen floor. I wrestled with my moral dilemma, (to vent or not to vent) and finally simply told him that his contact caused too many painful memories and I didnât want to hear from him. I kept my message short and civil. And then I wrote poems. I wrote them in coffee shops. I wrote them first thing in the morning, I wrote them by candlelight, searching for images and phrases and the tendrils of memory that had crept in on Halloween fingers. I wrote them for the lost girl I had been÷because these events started when I was 18; for the girl whose first chance at love was such a disaster. I wrote them because I was following the advice I give my students. I wrote because I wasnât having a particularly great month to begin with, and the whole incident was threatening to shrivel my heart. And I swear it helped. There are many cures for the unfinished business of life including venting to friends, therapy, and long walks. But Iâm not confessing here to merely recommend the therapeutic values of writing. Writing makes us taller in the saddle, it brings meaning and fun to our lives, and even a chance to murder people on the page who, of course, weâd never have a chance to bludgeon to death in real life. Iâm writing to remind you to practice, to use the many avenues of writing to talk back to ghosts, record your many joys, but also to stretch your talents. Poetry forces us to select each word with a surgeonâs precision. When I rewrite a poem I weigh it, trying to discover if Iâve nailed the truth, but also if Iâve conveyed a larger truth. If my words can touch another heart, not merely cure my own. When writing is your practice, you move beyond the tidy rules of grammar and aim for your readerâs heart. You write to express what it means to be human. You write to slip into your readersâ veins. So practice, dabble in techniques, genres or methods that you normally leave to others. I write poems and dabs and sketches because it reminds me that Iâm willing to work with all the parts of my life. To somehow sift it all onto the page. Lying on my back in my office, I watch a russet-colored oak leaf drift from the tree and slip languidly down the skylight as if pulled by a thin thread. Where can that leaf land in my poem or essay? I use the ingredients of my life because I must. I use it as one uses a yoga or meditation practice. There are times when wisdom or peace seems elusive. When I need to find me in the midst of drama. So I write to remind myself that Iâm always willing to search. ************************************************************************ Inspiration ãTry not to shy away from painful subject matter. Where thereâs pain, thereâs often something big.ä Gish Jen ãThe key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary.ä Stephen King ãThe heart is forever inexperienced.ä Henry David Thoreau ãIf you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.ä Horace ãI write because I have an idea I want to get out·. Writing it feels better, and if what I write influences anyone, thatâs unexpected and great.ä Michele Weldon ãEach of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.ä Bishop Fulton J. Sheen ãThe best emotions to write out of are anger and fear and dread·. the least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.ä Susan Sontag ãWhen we copy a writerly voice, we put up a barrier between us and the emotions of our characters. As a result, the readers get filtered versions of emotions instead of real interpretations and an honest rendering of them.ä Ann Hood © Jessica Page Morrell No portion of this newsletter may be reprinted without permission.