Write about what you know, people say, but how do you know what you know?
I would like to tell you to forget you are the granddaughter of a Baptist preacher, but I doubt if you can and would worry what the cost might be. I am convinced that the Methodist Sunday School—all those years!—will be with me forever, even though I no longer have my formal beliefs. A large part of me admires reticence, seeing it as kind of a writerly tact or, as the divine Emily says, a way of preventing blindness (“tell all the truth but tell it slant”). Not so different from your word: oblique. What I try for is pushing against the form while staying inside it, making for myself a kind of tension that I can control. (Does this make any sense?) I love this notion of being “ready to testify,” but think that probably we “testify” with every word, or with every act.
In Alice Munro’s stories, there is often a sentence near the end of the piece, never at the end, or rarely, in which she tells the reader, fairly directly, what the story is about. I look for these. It occurred to me you might bury in your story a rather striking remark you made in your letter, about the affair and the abuse being concurrent rather than one causing the other. Can you find a way to say that?
August 16, 1995
Carol to QE
An interesting story. I have a couple of suggestions, and the more important one is that you try putting this story into past tense—which will give you, I think, a richer sense of narrative. You may find your sentences growing longer and more reflective, and I think the story needs this to give it resonance.
I like the first person, and think it can, if you let it, give voice to your concern about political correctness. You can say exactly what you said to me in your letter, let out your feelings, your reflections. Again, I think this will make the story richer. We need to trust the intelligence of that first person voice. As it is, it seems a little jaunty and off-hand.
August 21, 1995
Carol to IU
Hello after the long summer. Hope you had a good lazy time of it and weren’t too much affected by the US heat wave.
I’m sending back about fifty edited pages, and will try to get another batch off to you in the next week or two.
I’m a little concerned about the “sprawl” of the novel, since it’s very tricky to knit together so many strands. I love the “apple” material, but in some ways it sounds like another whole novel. It’s very detailed, and it moves a long way back in time. I don’t want to discourage you; you did tell me your overall design, but I think you’ve chosen a hard-to-control multiple narrative. On the other hand, you may find when you get it all roughly in place, that you can go back and make some needed connections and transitions, and that the novel is all the richer for your ambitious scheme.
I do urge you to work more on the level of the sentence, and I suggest that the best way to do this is to read the material aloud, once, twice, whatever it takes. Trust your ear. Some of the sections are made up of short choppy sentences that perhaps can be brought together, giving rhythm and coherence. A number of sentences are lacking verbs (I’ve marked some of these, though not all). I realize you are suggesting the unfinished structure of interior thought, but some of it seems unnecessarily awkward, and quite a few sections gave me “pause.” Again, I feel you can pick this up by reading aloud. I mean really out loud, too, not just in your head. I suggest, at this point, keeping an eye on mechanical problems too; spelling, punctuation, vague pronouns.
I like L’s thoughts about her aging body, her reworking of her life, why she is the way she is. Interesting material. K still feels a little vague to me, but perhaps she will open in the next section.
All best wishes with this. Let me know your thoughts.
August 22, 1995
Carol to IB
Yes, I think the names work much better now. I do keep my chapters in separate files in the computer (but it’s only the last book I wrote on the computer). And I have another file for the chapter titles themselves. I’m rather eccentric in that I almost always decide early on how many chapters I’m going to have and their approximate length. I visualize them as little boxes. I’m going to fill a little train of boxes (or else hangers on a coat rack) though I don’t know what’s going in them (or on them). I did give the chapters names, usually names on a time line: Birth, Childhood, etc. With my first novel, Small Ceremonies, I have each chapter the name of a month in the academic year. I think it helps keep you organized to have titles, even though you may want to abandon them later.
August 26, 1995
Carol to IU
Some more pages returned. Most of my suggestions are in the text, and many are the same as when I last wrote. You are using a lot of dashes, and I think that if you resist you’ll find ways to make more interesting and varied sentences. I think your sentences are where you need to concentrate your energy. Some of your details of the natural world are lovely and highly precise, and you might try to bring that kind of care to the interior life of your characters.
If you read your work aloud you should be able to get a feel for when you need to use a name or a pronoun. Or when, in dialogue, you need to use names in address.
I suggest rethinking Chapter 23. Can this information be compressed and inserted in another chapter? You aren’t really obliged to fill in every character’s background, parentage, courtship, etc., and I am worried that you’re getting far away from the main lines of the story. Let me know what you think.
Shall send some more pages next week.
All best
August 27, 1995
Carol to AG
I found your pages, as always, fun to read, lively, full of social comment. I haven’t yet seen enough to know where all this is going. Most of my suggestions in the text deal with mechanical problems. Where I’ve written v.p., vague pronoun, I’m really suggesting that you restructure the whole sentence, looking for new ways to avoid certain words: “just,” in particular. It’s hardly ever needed. Writers talk about something called the “somehow syndrome.” The use of “somehow” usually means you haven’t thought it through. I’ve also marked problems with tense and with certain repeated sentence structures. I guess I really do believe that writing succeeds or fails at the level of the sentence. I suggest you read your work out loud, really out loud, not just in your head. You’ll soon hear where these repeated structures fall, and also those places where the language could be fresher, more original.
I caution you against making these people “types,” instead giving them certain inconsistencies, moment of redemption, flashes of self-doubt, reflection. Don’t be afraid to expand; you can always cut back later.
August 28, 1995
Carol to ML
I’ve marked a variety of things, repeated words, very occasional awkwardness, and particularly, places where I think you’ve been slightly over rigorous in your use of precise detail. I love detail, particularly when it attaches to sensory experience, but there were places here where it seemed to serve nothing. You’ll see what I mean, I think.
September 19, 1995
Carol to AG
I’m returning these pages with some scribbled comments, most of which seem to fall into the following categories:
1. Varying structure. I’ve marked some, and you’ll pick up others. You can start by joining some of the shorter sentences, trying to keep them aloft grammatically—and through this you should discover new and more interesting structures. You can also make a deliberate attempt to start sentences with prepositional clauses. I suggest you read your favourite writers and see how they do it. I honestly believe that writing succeeds or fails at the sentence level.
2. I think you need to “thicken” your scenes, and you already do this by way of dialogue. But you can also use more sensory description of people, their faces, their clothes, their gestures, their surroundings, but particularly—and I think this is most important—what they are thinking. I need, for instance, to know how these characters feel about their new-age therapists. I feel a s
ense of mockery, and yet they seem to take their advice seriously. Is there conflict there as I sense? I think you have to make up your mind about the narrator’s tone toward the characters and toward the material. Every scene could be twice as long as it is.
3. I’ve been thinking about what I miss in these characters and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. You can do what you want with them, make them good, silly, mean, whatever, but I think we have to know that you, the writer, honour and like (love?) them. It may seem ridiculous to speak in these terms about a comic novel—and I think that’s what this is—but even comedy needs characters we can feel for. And we can only feel for them if you feel for them.
Many of the things I’ve mentioned may be what you’ll want to go back to when you’ve done your first draft. (Everyone arrives at a final draft differently.) But you might try—and I do suggest this—doing it as you write: thickening, explaining, describing, taking it slowly, letting the pages breathe. And occasionally going in a little deeper, a sudden plunge that takes the reader by surprise.
September 21, 1995
Carol to AG
My comments—mostly noted in the margins—have to do with sentence structure, sentence variation, tense changes. This may seem boring stuff, but writing lives and dies at the sentence level. I suggest you work on longer and more varied sentences; you already have the knack of the short ones. Try beginning sentences with prepositional phrases; try adding clause on clause and see if you can get more power, maybe even more lyrical rhythm.
I also suggest that you “thicken” your scenes. Tell us about the weather, set up the scene in terms of the time of day, the furniture. You already have a lot of food—perhaps too much, though you do it very well.
September 21, 1995
Carol to A
I’m returning your poem with a few suggestions, though I’m not awfully good at this. I love it, actually, particularly the changing form of the obituary. One thought was to try to establish the narrator’s identity a little earlier (the fact that “you” is really “I”) but I’m not sure how you can do this without getting heavily into narrative. I was a little confused by this, and then had to scramble to readjust. In the bottom of page 2, you can separate the two stories by using separate stanzas, but this leaves it a little late.
I do think you have a story collection now, and that you needn’t necessarily wait to get more stories published. Do you have some ideas of where to go for publication? I’d be happy to write a supporting letter when you do decide—let me know.
Anne Lamott has written a book called Bird by Bird about writing. I haven’t read it, but I attended a reading she did in California and I thought she was brilliant. But these books can confuse one with their conflicting advice. My advice—you didn’t ask, but here it comes—is to write “thick.” You can always prune later. This and loose, far looser than with short stories, just let it pour forth, piling it up. The other thing to remember is that if you write one page a day, you’ll have a novel in a year. It helps—at least it helps me—to set out my chapters in the beginning, some kind of timeline. I wrote the first novel by deciding it would cover the nine months of the academic year, and each chapter was to be a month. I didn’t know what was going into the chapters, but this structure, somehow, kept me on track.
You asked about movies. Swann is being filmed right now in Toronto, with Brenda Fricker and Miranda Richardson starring. Also a beautiful young man from Twin Peaks whose name I can’t remember. I went for the first read-through, though I’m not really involved and didn’t write the script. I was full of skepticism, but to my surprise it was incredibly exciting.
A, it’s been wonderful working with you. You are a gifted writer, full of ideas and willing to take real risks. (Bold is a very good word to remember when writing.) Part of the pleasure of doing this Humber course has been connecting with women writers that I now think of as friends. That’s been a lovely surprise. Keep in touch.
December 1, 1995
Carol to KA
I read this with great pleasure. It is suffused with warmth, and is accessible without being simplistic, and the narrator/letter writer is thoroughly likeable. I feel you did an excellent job of pacing, releasing the background about the marriage slowly, taking your time. And I like the way you brought in subtly the mother’s possible unhappiness, the limitations of the life she lived. You did the same with the third sister, just hinting at the relationships.
I think you might have missed an opportunity of a counter-narrative: mentioning the substance of J’s life, her letters. It is something to think about anyway.
There is a problem with this kind of narrative strategy—how do you give information to someone who mostly has it already? J knows much of this background, so I suggest you say more frequently things like “you’ll remember how we” or “this is old stuff to you but” or “I don’t have to remind you of how Dad” etc. etc. There are all kinds of structure you can use.
I suggest loosening up the prose so that it’s more letterly, more sisterly, less formal. You can use more contractions for one thing, and more informal speech. And I do suggest dropping semicolons, since they are generally thought of as quite formal.
And I also suggest “thickening.” More descriptions, more sensory details, how people look, their names, the weather, how things smell. More concrete details.
March 2, 1996
Carol to ZQ
I admire the poems not just for their technique, but for the way they branch out to ideas. (I’ve always thought that each poem should contain an idea, and yours do, except for “Snow,” which seems all image, a sort of haiku feeling to it, and “Stones,” which I don’t understand.) I confess I also like them because they seem joyous and, in an entirely unsoupy and intelligent way, optimistic.
March 20, 1996
Carol to LG
This is all most fascinating! Your stories from the Bank are shaping, as they used to say in Manchester. (By the way, my time in the North of England in the early sixties helps me to accept the reality of what you have on the page here; otherwise I think I might have doubted the horror and the structure of these trapped lives.)
You have made powerful the nightmare of everyday life, and, curiously, at the same time have redeemed that life. Quite an accomplishment. Your blind doll of a child in the midst of the tangled chaos is extraordinary though—lovely in every way.
Most of my comments have to do with adjectival or adverbial overload, which weaken rather than strengthen the effect I think you want. I’ve suggested cuts; most of these move toward a crisper, sharper (I think) image. Occasionally whole clauses can be rethought: do you need them? I’ve written “tighten” in these cases but really mean “rethink.” How can you say what you want to say more cleanly, more economically?
You do a good job of getting inside M’s head, and so I don’t think you always need your “She thought.” Once you’re there, you’re there.
I think that this time you’ve got a sense of local usage without sacrificing clarity or eliciting head scratching.
Once or twice—and I’ve marked these places—I sensed an abrupt shift of tone.
One danger you might want to watch out for in the future is a romanticizing of G. There is a tendency to dehumanize labour leaders in literature, fill their mouths with speeches and lose their individual and human sense.
Your postcard story is charming with a strong sense of voice.
A wonderful project, L. I am excited by it.
March 26, 1996
Carol to KA
I read this with pleasure. The idea is breathtaking: lives that themselves straddle three centuries, and then all attached lives that are making the (purely abstract) jump. I wonder how many three-century souls there will be—more than a handful, I expect.
I kick myself for missing the discussion, since there are so many questions. Does this represent your whole project, or is it a part of a larger piece? How did you select your people? What, if you could put i
t succinctly, are you saying about the artificiality of time?
You have some nice scenes here. I love the journalist in H—a good device with a nice satirical edge. I was drawn, too, to the young boy trying so hard to be good at the seniors’ home. We don’t often see this straining toward goodness in fiction. I was also very interested in the case of extreme shyness and wish you’d gone further with it somehow—why are people cripplingly shy and how do they bear it? Can you find a way to tie this in with the idea of time?
In fact, I think you might have expanded almost everywhere. I’ve marked places where I think you could, for instance, be more concrete, give examples, and provide more substance to a scene. But you might push further, too, in terms of what people are thinking.
You’ve chosen to use a number of run-on (comma splice) sentences; sometimes these work for me, giving a sense of breathless narrative, almost stream of consciousness. Sometimes, though, they look like mistakes.
I’ve marked a number of sentences that for one reason or another seem awkward. Sometimes it’s grammar getting in the way, or vague pronouns (v.p.), but mostly it strikes me that you simply need to rethink them, reorder them. You might try reading them out loud, and then, if you can hear the bumpiness, attempt an alternate structure or even several possibilities.
This piece, with revision, should find publication (I think, hope).
All good wishes.
March 26, 1996
Carol to AA
I’ve always believed fiction to be about redemption, about trying to see why people are the way they are. When we talk about women of a certain age, we often dismiss them as the “blue rinse girls” or the “white glove ladies,” failing to imagine their inner lives, the million differences that make each of them unique. I wanted Mrs. Turner, with all her particles of differences, to shine.
Startle and Illuminate Page 16
