First Person Narrative and the Problem of Memory

Often many of the most important choices a writer can make about a work of fiction are unconscious ones; the decision to use first or third person narration can seem more like intuition than anything else. There are times when I agonize over it, particularly when I'm heavily invested in the raw material (if I'm writing in the semi-autobiographical mode, for example). It's not enough that it "feel right"; the choices I make also have to work with whatever point I'm trying to make, with whatever themes I've (consciously) chosen to include. For A Temporary Life, my novel-in-progress, one of the themes—or maybe it's more accurate to say "problems"—I'm working with is that of memory.

Using the first person form of narration came most naturally, but I'm not satisfied with how most writers present dialogue in first person narratives. Let me give you an example from a book I actually quite like, Michael Helm's The Projectionist:

She stands and collects our plates, though I haven't finished yet, takes them to the kitchen counter and returns.

"What's the biggest secret you've kept?" she asks.

"This won't be easy, will it?"

"You've never asked me why I didn't come back home all those years."

"Some people don't. It's not that unusual."

Do you see anything wrong with that passage? Probably not, but I do. Not in terms of Helm's novel, of course, but in terms of my own. How can I create a narrator with an untrustworthy memory and allow him to quote dialogue with such precision? The answer, of course, is that I can't. How many people do you know who can remember conversations with that kind of accuracy? I can do it for moments of extreme emotional intensity, but otherwise I can't recount a conversation that I had an hour ago, never mind years or months or weeks ago. I make exceptions for this "problem" in works of what I think of as "Dear Reader" or "Gentle Reader" fiction, so named for the somewhat antiquated convention of the narrator (not necessarily the author) directly addressing the reader and thereby explicitly indicating an awareness of the novel as a specifically written construction, rather than a representation of memory or an oral retelling of events.

It would be easy to say that I'm frustrated with or dislike or am in some way in conflict with the conventions of realist fiction. Nothing could be further from the truth; all form of fiction have their conventions and great art can be made working both within and against those conventions. I quite enjoyed the Michael Helm novel that I quoted from above, and though it sticks rather rigorously to the conventions of the realist novel, it's also elegant, inventive, and challenging. It's a very strong work of fiction.

In the instance of A Temporary Life I've come to the conclusion that using the standard realist presentation of dialogue isn't the right choice; instead one of the things I've done is stripped nearly all the dialogue from the piece, and I'm even contemplating removing all the quotation marks and using long dashes like William Gaddis or James Joyce or any number of authors you could name. When (note the optimism) my novel finds a publisher I have no doubt that it will be called experimental (should it even receive any attention), though that's not at all my intention. As an artist I don't feel like I'm obliged to reinvent the wheel (or the novel, as it were), nor even to work outside of the conventions of whatever genre I'm working in (I would love to write some urban fantasy or science fiction some day). What I feel it's most important for me to do is make the choices that are most appropriate for what I'm trying to say with (or in) any particular work of fiction. If it means abandoning traditional forms of dialogue in one piece, or being relentlessly true to convention in another, then so be it; the only yard-stick I use is whether or not it's appropriate to the spirit of the work.

Posted by August on 05.26.08 at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)

#41 - You Only Live Twice, by Ian Fleming

The prose in this book was as compact and exciting as it has been for all the previous books, but Fleming was pretty obviously losing steam. The idea of dressing him up as a Japanese miner (including skin dye!) and training him in Japanese customs and then expecting him to pass muster in less than a week is patently ridiculous. The Japanese culture is incredibly nuanced, and at the time Fleming wrote this novel, the influence of the West had not extended so far into their culture as it has now, making Bond's transformation even less believable. I suppose the only consolation is that it doesn't work. Bond is found out very quickly by almost every Japanese person he meets. I won't comment on the Euro-centric attitudes that border on racism; I've already mentioned how poorly Fleming fares with non-European cultures when reviewing previous Bond novels. All that should be said here is that, while Bond himself makes little effort to respect the Japanese culture, Fleming himself at least tries to do so.

Exciting as these books are (and I don't care what others say; there is a lot of stuff in the Bond books that don't boil down to action) the bits in which Bond is revealed as weak and human are still the best. At the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the novel before this one, Bond's new wife was murdered in the final pages. The first hundred or so pages of You Only Live Twice are taken up, not so much with Bond getting used to his assignment and meeting new people (although those things happen), but with Bond's depression and apathy. The Bond of You Only Live Twice is not daring and reckless; he simply does not care whether he lives or dies. He has even botched several missions and is on the verge of being fired!

Part of me is sad that there are only two Bond books left for me to read, but given that Fleming seemed to have been running out of ideas (which you can read more about in this Guardian article) I'm glad that I don't have to look ahead to a long and painful fall from grace. If you're new to the Bond novels or simply a long-time fan looking for an attractive full set (I quite like the garish trade paperbacks that I've been reading, but tastes vary), then might I suggest you look at these amazing new hardcovers.

Next, a truly never-ending book, The Recognitions, by William Gaddis.

Posted by August on 05.11.08 at 3:36 PM | Comments (0)

Man of Constant Sorrow

Most of the writers I know who are either barely published (like myself) or as yet entirely unpublished live in mortal terror of two possibilities. First, that no-one out there will like their work and their masterpiece will never find the home it deserves, and second, that their work isn't any good at all and their work will never find a home at all. I alternate between one fear and the other with occasional confident bursts that border on arrogance. As I see things at the moment, there are two options open. We can persevere, if only slowly like myself, and continue to send our typescripts* to journals and agents and publishers. The other option is to self-publish. I respect this option, but rarely will I support it with my dollars. It's not that I believe there is no such thing as a good self-published book, or that there are no decent writers self-publishing. I'm sure there are many. What I do know is I will only be able to read so many books in my life, and I choose those with care according to a set of standards that, while perhaps not unique, are still my own. One is that the book must have first passed through the gauntlet of a professional editor's red pen. Publishing is a business, and editors are human beings, so obviously their opinions are fallible and their motives for selecting a book not always purely artistic or aesthetic. Commerce enters in. But still, somebody else out there, someone with experience and judgement, someone other than the the author him or herself, has declared that not only is the book worth their time, but they feel it is worth mine as well, and are willing lay down the cost of printing to back up that opinion. It is imperfect at best, but still it is something.

Despite how badly and (it seems recently) how often the system can fail, it pains me to see some self-published authors consumed by their anger. It's hard work to self-publish. Writers must not only be writers, they must be businessmen and designers and promoters and salesmen.** It's also hard, and I know this from experience, to have your work rejected. The rejections are not personal, but writers often have difficulty separating themselves from their work. Having a story or a poem or a novel rejected, especially if it happens repeatedly, can feel very much like the editors are rejecting you personally. It can be disheartening. Trust me, I understand.

To cope, I think writers must consider two things. First, that agents and editors are human beings doing a job. Unless you've done something incredibly rude or stupid to piss them off, they aren't out to get you, and most likely have no opinion of you personally at all. In fact, even if you did do something rude or stupid, they probably still aren't out to get you. You just won't be able to have any useful dealings with them. After all, while there are certainly assholes out there, most people won't act liked jerks until you give them a reason to. Not everyone's tastes are the same, and not everyone will enjoy your work. Get over it, and look for an agent or an editor who does, and be sure to do it politely. Second, and this is the moment we all live in fear of, a writer must consider that maybe his work just isn't good enough. I know that it's fashionable to behave as though we are all in this together, as though taste is all that varies and all writers are created equal. It simply isn't so. There is some horrible writing out there, and you might be one of the folks shopping it around. I might be one of them too. I can't tell you how many times, with panic in my heart, I've looked at my own work—including work that's already been published—and asked myself, "what was I thinking? Who would read this crap?" We can't all be William Faulkner or Vladimir Nabokov or Virginia Woolf or Carol Shields or whomever it is we admire. When confronting this possibility, I do not suggest giving up. Let me say that again: do not give up. Instead, get better. Read more, write more, do another draft. Be merciless in your rewriting and your editing. Also remember that getting better doesn't happen overnight. It could take a year, or two years, or ten years. It could take even longer. I won't pretend that it isn't demoralizing, but it's not useful to either your work or your emotional well-being to take it as a personal affront.

Which brings me to Cliff Burns. I first heard of him three days ago, when Dave posted about him. Mr. Burns has a talent for rage and vitriol that is truly astonishing, and he directs it all at editors and publishers, seems to take every rejection personally. You can read some of his complaints here. When folks suggest that his responses are extreme, he has replied the following (you can find it in the comments at that last link): "My posts are not the aggrieved rantings of a petulant author, they are based on experiences I've outlined, in depth, in an essay called "Solace of Fortitude" (Google it, you'll find it)." I did search for the essay, and found it here. The story he tells is not so extraordinary, not so different from hundreds I've heard and read about, some of those stories being about the early years of now successful authors. Mr. Burns would have us think the rejections are unwarranted, however, particularly because of experiences like the one outlined here. That is indeed a ridiculous thing to have happen, but as I said before, editors are human and sometimes the currents of commerce prevail. He challenges us to download his novel, read the first ten pages or so, and see for ourselves if he should have a home with a major publisher. I did just that (you can find the novel, So Dark the Night—a good title by the way—here). I read the first twelve pages, in fact. Were I an editor, I would have rejected this novel as well. I may not have even finished the first ten pages. The prose is juvenile, with a cliché—either a phrase or an image—not only on every page, but in nearly every paragraph. His characters have names that would seem ridiculous in a parody of a genre novel, never mind in the real thing. I would not only refuse to recommend So Dark the Night to others, I will not even finish reading it. Mr. Burns' novel is simply not very good.

But Mr. Burns ought not give up. His blog is exactly as Dave described it, "entertaining and smart". He is not without talent; it simply does not show in So Dark the Night. Mr. Burns does not need to quit, he needs to get better. Unfortunately it may be too late. He has taken his rejection notices as assaults on his worth as a human being, and has responded by insulting editors and publishers directly, liberally employing words like "fuck" and "cunt". I mentioned above that doing something rude or stupid is a good way to ruin your already slim chances at publication for reasons that have nothing to do with the merit of your work. Mr. Burns has done something that is both rude and stupid at the same time. I'm sure that Mr. Burns is a fine human being; I have no doubt that were we to sit down over a cup of coffee that we would get along. The fact that I don't think very highly of his novel does not mean that I don't think very highly of him. I don't know him, and so I have no real opinion about him as a human being to speak of. I understand that twenty-five years is a long time to struggle. I understand the sense of helplessness, and the sense of hopelessness. I have had more than my share of those two feelings (though I have not written about them here), and I am not without sympathy for Mr. Burns. If he thinks he can find an audience in self-publishing, then I wish him all the best, but it doesn't stop me from thinking that his anger is misplaced. We all live with the same fears about how our work my be accepted, we all have the same trouble separating ourselves from the work we have put so much of our sweat and emotional energy into. The publishing industry is no doubt flawed, but name-calling and such is unproductive, unprofessional, and downright childish.

*I hate to be the one to break the news, but manuscripts are so-called because they are written by hand. When you send a publisher or whomever a type-written document, it is a typescript. You may not share or be interested in my linguistic pet-peeves, but I reserve the right to kvetch on my own blog, and will happily allow you to do the same on yours.

**I know that I use masculine forms most of the time, but I find consistency preferable to alternating between genders, and I despise the vague and grotesque grammatical constructions necessary to make all things gender-neutral.

Posted by August on 04.20.08 at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)

On Writing

I'm a writer. People know this about me, though I haven't published very much, and nothing outside of this blog for a while now. It's not entirely for lack of trying, although that is certainly part of it. The reason I'm not trying to get published right now is because I have, for the time being, given up on short fiction and am trying my hand at a novel. After two years of work, I'm on chapter three. From that statement you can learn that I've successfully passed the major "first chapter" hurdle, and that my biggest problem is maintaining momentum. Thank God I've only planned on a total of ten chapters. Even when my momentum is at its best I work quite slowly.

I don't bring this up because I want congratulations or criticism. I bring this up because I want to start posting about the process, about the act of writing, the preparation and the decision making. I bring my novel up because writing about the process may appear suspect when one has published very little, and I thought it would be a good idea to let you folks know where I'm coming from in my observations and ruminations. Who knows? It may help me with my own work, with the momentum, to make my thinking so public. It certainly couldn't hurt. I won't be keeping a running word count or anything like that, as I write all my first drafts in long-hand, nor will I discuss the specifics of plot or character. I'm not interested in opening a discussion about my novel-in-progress. I want to talk about writing. Think of it like this: just as I'd rather ask an author a question like "why did you choose the stream of consciousness form instead of a standard 'realist' form?" than "where do you get your ideas from?", I'd also rather talk about why I chose to use an elaborate syntax than where I got the idea to make my protagonist's second cousin a circus clown (that's not actually in my book, it's just an example). I will post when I have passed major(ish) milestones, like completing a chapter or a complete draft or something, but otherwise I will write about more abstract concerns. And hopefully with more clarity and organization than displayed in this post. Oh, I will tell you that the working title for my novel is A Temporary Life, although that is subject to change once the project is finished.

Posted by August on 04.20.08 at 3:59 PM | Comments (0)