Crazy Little Thing Called Craft: Endings

People often ask me how I come up for endings to my stories – a valid question – knowing how to end a story is a crucial skill that should be understood early on. What’s the point of writing “Good Dialogue” if you can’t end your story? One of the problems young writers have is a lack of reference. I’m not surprised to encounter a workshop where fifty percent of students have never read short stories. That’s bad. For better or worse, the short story has become the training wheels of fiction writing. To add to the problem, students aren’t likely to study the short story as a form in the average literature class. There is a bias towards teaching novels over short story collections, but that’s a different issue. Nonetheless, it aids to see the reality of an intro or mid level workshop. When it comes to ending short stories, the answer is simple: read fifty short stories and ask me again. Often, the case is that the young writer enters workshop with no idea how a story is supposed to work. Imagine what would happen if someone who has never seen a violin shows up to a violin lesson. The first step: we should become familiar with the instrument.

The short story is like a musical instrument. Learning the guitar is not like learning the piano. You may take some of what you learn writing short stories and apply it to another instrument – let’s say a novel – but each instrument is fundamentally different. In which case, due to poor sales, I’d say the short story is more like a tuba or a French horn. All this just goes to say, if you’re not familiar with the contemporary short story – how can you expect to write one?

So, with that in mind, let’s look at a short story and see how stories “should” end. When I say “should” I mean this in a very subjective way. There are no “rules of craft” that apply 100% of the time. The trick is to learn these, so called, “rules” and later, learn how and why to break them.  A literary short story does not work like the average genre piece, in which the motivation for the reader to keep turning pages is often the unfolding of the events (plot). In literary fiction, stories tend to have logical conclusions which readers can predict – some are outright plot-less. The motivation for the reader to keep turning pages isn’t necessarily the question of “what happens next?” Literary short fiction is an exercise in rhetoric. It’s structured to give the ending a sense of “finality” without resolving all the problems the characters face. This type of ending aims to create some sort of emotional resonance for the reader. Some of my favorite short story endings are totally irresolute. Usually, a protagonist will face an internal and external conflict, and the writer must choose to solve one of these two problems while leaving the other unresolved. As with anything, the best way to illustrate this is with examples.

“When We Were Nearly Young,” by Mavis Gallant, is a story written in “informed past tense,” which simply means the protagonist has already survived the experience she’s telling us about. The narrator tells you, as the story progresses, that the she has become distant with the rest of the characters in the story. One doesn’t read to learn “what happens next?” the POV implies what has happened. We read to see how these events unfolded. There are two things I would like to point out BEFORE you read (or listen) to this story.

Conflict
Internal: Loneliness (idleness)
External: Money problems (poverty)

Narrative Device
The Journals the characters keep

This is a good example of a story where the protagonist’s external conflict is resolved while the internal conflict is left unresolved. Also, there are many clever uses of narrative device in the story. The one that essentially creates the ending is the comparison the protagonist makes about the content of their journals. The narrator often points out what activities the characters engage in. She describes what each of them is doing at the time, like when they go to the museum. Here’s an example, where the narrator describes each of the character’s dreams :

“I dreamed of food, Pilar dreamed of things chasing her, Pablo dreamed of me, and Carlos dreamed he was on top of a mountain preaching to multitudes. But I dreamed of baked ham and Madeira sauce.”

However, when the journals are mentioned, the narrator excludes herself from disclosing what she was writing. See below:

“We began keeping diaries about the same time. I don’t remember who started it. Carlos’ was secret. Pilar asked how to spell words. Pablo told everything before he wrote it down.”

This bit of information will make more sense once you get to the end of the story. Ideally, you’ll see how careful placement of information in the story creates and “ending.” I will not ruin the story with any more spoilers.

Listen Antonya Nelson read Mavis Gallant’s:
“When We Were Nearly Young”
at the New Yorker website.

 

Mavis Gallant was born in Montreal and worked as a journalist before moving to Europe to devote herself to writing fiction. Her Paris Stories and Varieties of Exile were published by NYRB Classics. She lives in Paris. You can find her books at:

Workshop: a Terrible Place?

In this podcast: Quote from Sandra Cisneros (25^th Anniversary of The House on Mango Street) and the experience of “workshops.” Daynee and Carlos discuss the not so good aspects of creative writing workshops and some of the kinds of feedback one may get in a beginners workshop.  

 

 

 

SANDRA CISNEROS

 Follow the quote to the interview at WNYC.org

The House on Mango Street 
Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous – it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories: And Other Stories
A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

 

 

There’s still time to register for Write Night @ The Creative Cauldron
This is an open enrollment workshop and space for writers of all genres to come together and both practice their craft and assist other writers with theirs. The workshop supports and challenges writers of all levels in a nurturing environment and community.  Write Night will encourage participants to explore various genres over the course. Topics will include: creative non-fiction, essay, poetry, performance poetry, storytelling, essay, short story, flash fiction, etc. At $120 bucks, this eight week workshop is a great way to get feedback on your work.

 

The Small Press Scene

 

In this podcast: (explicit quote by Junot Diaz) The Small Press, a conversation with D. Cullen Nolan local author and founder of Phoenix Tree Publishing. Announcements: 1 Crafty Bastards, an exhibition/sale of handmade alternative arts and crafts from independent artists. 2 Write Night, an open enrollment creative writing workshop in the DC area. 3 Mixtape, a new podcast by Barrelhouse Magazine.

 

 

Spy in the House of Fitzwalter
During the 13th Century, only one man saw King John sign the Magna Carta and the Mongols conquer half the world. Only one man served as envoy, soldier, and spy across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Discover the life of Robert de London in Spy the House of Fitzwalter, in the historical novel by local author D. Cullen Nolan.

Crafty Bastards
This is the 6th year for this exhibition and sale of handmade alternative arts and crafts from independent artists presented by the Washington City Paper. The fair is all-day, outdoors, free to attend, and will offer goods for sale, food, entertainment, prizes, and more! Crafty Bastards will take place Saturday, October 3, 2009 in Washington, DC

Barrelhouse’s Mixtape
A monthly podcast on the independent literary scene.  Each month, we’ll talk to writers, editors, publishers, artists, pretty much whoever will talk to us about what’s happening in indie lit. Like This American Life, but without all the high production values and famous writers with interestingly whiny voices.

Write Night @ Creative Cauldron
Write Night is an open enrollment workshop and space for writers of all genres to come together and both practice their craft and assist other writers with theirs. The workshop supports and challenges writers of all levels in a nurturing environment and community.  Write Night will encourage participants to explore various genres over the course. Topics will include: creative non-fiction, essay, poetry, performance poetry, storytelling, essay, short story, flash fiction, etc. At $120 bucks, this eight week workshop is a great way to get feedback on your work.

JUNOT DIAZ

Follow the quote: in this interview at SlowTV  

Drown
With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. In “Ysrael”, two brothers hunt a disfigured boy who hides behind a mask; in “No Face”, the mirror is flipped and perspective belongs to the tormented. In “Fiesta, 1980″, a spirited family gathering plays against the noiseless hum of a father’s infidelities. In “Boyfriend”, a young man eavesdrops on the woman next door and colors in the life overheard with the drama born of intense longing. And always, it seems there is the throb of waiting: in “Aguantando”, for the fulfillment of a promise; in “Negocios”, for rescue; in “Aurora”, for respite; in “Drown”, for resolution.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who, from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister, dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú — a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA.

NOTES: I need to work on my “interview skills.” The “hello” and “goodbye” portion of the interview were cut off for lenght reasons (I’m not sure that was a good decision). Hey, I’m still learning the art of the podcast.

Crazy Little Thing Called Craft: The Fugue

I’m a huge fan of comparing the idea of craft in music to the craft in writing. Creative writing instructors can learn a lot from music teachers simply because music has been taught in a formal setting for much, much longer than writing. Learning terms like “Sonata” for a short story or “Symphony” for a novel can be of great aid in describing the structure, events, and intensity of a particular piece. One could even go as far as John Gardner did, scoring the rhythms of his sentences on a staff. To add to the former post on Modular Design, I want to talk about the fugue as a form.

      The fugue is a work of music that features the counterpoint relationship between two (or more) voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and yet harmonically interdependent. Some folks believe that the form reached its pinnacle in the Baroque period with Bach’s “The Art of The Fugue.” I have to thank my friend Yang Li for introducing me to Glenn Gould, and to better illustrate what a fugue is, here’s a sample of what a fugue sounds like:

     In that way, I would describe a short story in the fugue form would include two narrative vectors (voices) that follow separate trajectories (contour) but are thematically interdependent (harmony). The relationship between these two narratives is reciprocal. They create a “wholeness” that otherwise would not exist as separate stories. One of the problems with this form in writing is that while we can listen to two voices at the same time, we cannot read two separate narratives at the same time. For that reason, they usually exist as intrusions on each other. Yes, it takes a while to get used to reading something like that, though it isn’t impossible. As a written form, the fugue ranges from alternating voices in large chunks (paragraphs) to some changing vectors every few sentences. If you look at the staff for a fugue pieces (ignore the bottom bass clef section) you can see how the piece looks like in paper.

     I see two different ways of charting a modular short story. The way Madison Smartt Bell deals with it is what he calls, the “football” graph. He chooses to represent vectors are two separate entities. Here’s an example:

     However, I see another, more tricky, but perhaps more accurate way of tracking the trajectory of the vectors. I guess you could call it the “Staff” graph. Here, the story is plotted over one another, like the clefs of a staff, and in this way, we can see their relationship a little bit better:

 

For an Example of the fugue form see: Marcia Golub’s “The Child Downstairs”

The first vector: I listen to the child cry downstairs. I don’t think they beat or abuse him, but he cries

The second vector: I want to tell you about a woman. She is married. She has no children. She thinks…

     This story, like many similar pieces, works by laying out the “meaningful pieces” of a story, as a mosaic, and count on the reader to make the connections. One can assume, that the protagonists of both stories are, in fact, the same woman. I don’t believe this is necessarily true, but I’d like to believe that’s the case. That’s one of the issues with this form, too much ambiguity prevents the reader from becoming fully vested in either the characters or the plot(s). We have several elements the reader desperately wants to put together and make sense of. This may create a greater intellectual investment in part of the reader, in fact, novels like No Country for Old Men and As I lay Dying, create that effect. We as readers want to put the story together. Here, John Gardner’s advice on jazzing around with structure may come in handy “don’t confuse storytelling with puzzle-making.” whether the story works or not I usually consider it on a case-by-case basis.

     While I was writing this, it also occurred to me that the example I had given earlier “City of Clowns” resembles more of the fugue form, that I had originally intended. I was really looking for a “collage” form that would resemble “Happiness is a Warm Gun” in structure. There’s an excerpt of Rick Moody’s “Five Stories” on AGNI online. This a modular story of five distinct pieces together, only one of them is posted online, but I’ll guess it’ll have to do until I find something better. Until then, enjoy!

On Becoming an Editor: An Anthology

I’m always happy to learn by doing. So when I started telling people that I’m editing an anthology (that’s what I’m calling it now) which I intend to publish myself later in the winter, people immediately started asking me how do you do that, and why.

Why? Because I think it’ll be a good experience. Some people are just not going to understand the idea of self-funding a tiny press that’ll churn out a few dozen books that only my friends will read. Ever heard of a small press literary journal? I think more people submit to them than subscribe to them, or even read them. That’s sad. I attended the Small Press Publishing Panel at Fall for the Book today and learned all kinds of good stuff, like the struggle for editorial identity. When one looks at the New Yorker, one is looking at an institution. Barrelhouse, for example, is a small press journal, but it tries to bridge the snobby world of literature with a low-brow pop-culture twist. They do a kick ass job at it. I have a rejection from them somewhere in my stack. When I decided to put this anthology together, I decided early on, to find a niche for it. But it seems I may have thought too narrowly. For Barrelhouse, when it comes to non-fiction and poetry they absolutely want the pop-fiction element, but when it comes to fiction, they just want to publish the best fiction they can find. When most publications start out, this includes Barrelhouse and No Tell Motel, their editors solicited submissions. They explained that it’s hard to get people to submit their work when can’t see a sample of the finished product. As far as soliciting submission, Dave Housely explained how he had to bug a writer friend of him for three years to submit an essay on “Thin Lizzy.” The editors of Phoebe said that the journal exists to help up-and-coming writers, they publish the writer’s whose work they beleive in.

Reb, the editor of No Tell Publishing explained that she publishes a handful of books a year; her budget consists of around $1000 for each. This includes lay out, design, and short run for sample and author copies. Everything else goes through a print-on-demand company. Dave Housely also mentioned how he writes the check to print Barrelhouse and how his wife doesn’t appreciate the boxes of unsold issues he has in his basement. Small Press is a labor of love. Even Glimmer train, which last year featured ten stories short-listed for the Best American Short Stories, cannot break even. Some of the absolute best literary art — specially the short story form — is published out of love. This doesn’t depress me anymore. At a reception for my first undergrad publication, the Dean of the English Department told the entire audience not to worry about the business world. There are hundreds of people with nothing else to do, but go into business. They’ll keep the new products coming. They’ll keep the cash registers ringing. They’ll keep the world spinning. But he also told us that we shouldn’t, under any circumstance, stop making art. In a society where even someone like Faulkner could not make a living with his art, why are we to expect any better? Even Sherman Alexie admitted he shifted from writing to shooting films because he made more money. That’s why most writers teach, though that’s a different topic. From nine-to-five, I’m an A/R Rep, a revenue cycle specialist. I worry about money for a living. So, if I can take some money and share someone’s art, why is that crazy?

The best thing about the panel, was that in only one hour of listening, I was able to conjure up a much more concrete plan about putting together my anthology. After looking around, I decided I will use Lulu as the POD service. The price is right and the product looks great. JMWW uses it and their magazine looks very spiffy. As a side note, JWMM latest issue features Madison Smartt Bell! As far as paper, binding, and cover, I have ideas, but I won’t worry about them until I have submissions. I hope some of my more artsy friends will help me on that. I also have established a tentative schedule. The budget will include contributor copies, a few copies to handout to friends, and the rest will go thru print-on-demand. I’ll use this blog to document the process. In the end, if this venture turns out to be a failure, it will be a well documented failure. Which will eventually help someone out down the road. So, here’s the first update:

Since this thing will be called an “anthology” I will accept previously published work as long as the rights have been reversed to the author.

I’m in the process to find a poetry editor.

I’m in the process of soliciting stories from writers I know.

I’m going to take the Barrelhouse approach, and keep the non-fiction “related to the Winter Festival Frog Mythology” but open up the poetry and fiction to include any immorality during the holidays.

I don’t have any solid plans to do this again next year, but if it somehow takes off, I don’t see why not. If enough people are willing to get involved we can turn this into a periodical publication.

I’m drawing a list of people to call on for help, as the people who help with the podcast know; I can only pay you in beer

On Becoming an Editor

There’s an issue with small-press journals no one wants to talk about. About a year ago, when I decided to start submitting my work to the small-presses, just to get my feet wet, I began ordering literary journals from around the east coast. I really wanted to take a look at the regional press to see what I was up against. I know my stories wouldn’t get in The New Yorker or Tin House, so I was perfectly fine with rejections from the small press. I had gotten a list of journals that publish fiction from my first creative writing teacher, and I began to go thru it. This was all in all, fine and dandy, I didn’t really expect my stories to get anywhere, but I knew I had to start submitting at some point–and get used to rejections and what not–so the fall of 2008 seemed as good time as any.

It didn’t cake long for me to notice something. The editors of Journal-X were getting published in Journal-Y and vice-versa. This was not the case with every journal, but it was common enough to see it right away. This isn’t exactly a bad thing; for example, a group of struggling writers meets in bar and after a few beers they decide to start and literary journal. I’ve sat in a bar at some point of my life and had that conversation myself. We’ll start online and then move onto printing and binding later, etc, etc, etc. If I did start a new lit journal, who would I tell to submit, my friends of course.

     This is a double edge sword. On one hand, publishing all your friends is kind of lame literary venture, isn’t it? On the other hand, new journals not only struggle with finding readership, having a short shelf-life, but also struggle to find submissions. The fact is, everyone wants to get published in the glossies. 

     When I ask a few people I know with MFAs, they told me they had heard or been to such meetings, where editors of Journal-X hang out with the editors of Journal-Y and take turns deciding who will publish who and when. This doesn’t always mean that the material sucks. In the end, publishing is a business and a part of a business is one’s connections. Still, I can’t help to think there’s something dishonest about it. But there’s only one way to find out. I’d have to edit a journal myself.

     I recently published a story in a journal edited by grad students. This was all find and dandy, except that the journal was not edited and formatted very well. No offense, really. If you’re on your final year, working on your thesis, and doing an editing internship, I understand you’re very busy. But it got me thinking, I could do a good job editing an anthology. So it hit me, why not put together an anthology or a literary journal.

     After all, I’m that jerk in workshop who always thinks a story could be better. I’d be a decent editor. I also know how to use section breaks on MS Word. Hint. Hint, editor of unnamed journal. So, simply as an editing gig, I decided to fund it and publish this thing myself. It seems like a worthwhile experience. Having met the very nice folks who ran Peaks and Valleys (they were professionals who also ran a small lit journal which they supported with their own money). Because of circumstance beyond their control they had to close their journal. The beauty of creative writing programs is that they can support a literary magazine with their never-ending supply of students (never mind revenue) and not only provide the experience of editing for their students, but a venue for writers to publish their work. I know that I may not want to do this again next year, but this year, this project is a GO.

      I’ll be editing a chapbook this year, which will resemble more of a literary journal than a chapbook (which usually makes people think: poetry). It’ll include fiction, non-fiction, poetry and visual art, as well as comics and recipes. It will be themed around the Winter Festival Frog, a character of a loosely organized parody belief system. If you’re familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Winter Festival Frog is a similar type of character, except he isn’t the deity of a religion, exactly. Where Flying Spaghetti Monster is a parody of a biblical God, The Winter Festival Frog is a type of Santa Claus character. More information on the Winter Festival Frog.

     Despite the tongue-in-cheek and humorous theme, I intend for this chapbook to be quiet serious in terms of quality of content. Writing humor is hard, and often a niche market, especially satirical and parody writing, but I look forward to every submission. I think everyone has something to say about the holidays and humor can also be meaningful. So, without further ado, here’s the call to for submission for the first ever: Winter Festival Frog Anthology (working title).

DEADLINE IS SATURDAY NOVEMBER 6th 2009

Please email your submissions as an attachment to: wfanthology@gmail.com

Written Submissions should be in RTF or DOC format (not Docx)
Visual Art and Comics should be sent in JPEG or PNG format
Do not send your submission in the body of the email!

Click here for complete Guidelines

Contributors will receive a free copy of the anthology. Additional copies will be available to purchase online So, pass the word and send in your work.

E. L. Doctorow’s “Homer and Langley” beaten by vampires

I may be metaphorically speaking but I am not kidding.  Sweet Zeus I wish I were kidding.  Christine Feehan’s “Dark Slayer,”  the latest in her vampire series, topped the New York Times hardcover bestselling books this week. E. L. Doctorow’s latest novel, which placed seventh last week, was completely pushed out of the top ten. It is refreshing to see good literary fiction fight the odds and top the best seller lists, so seeing “Homer and Langley” bullied out of that seventh slot somehow hurt. It is bad enough that Patterson and Cussler thrillers sell better than Doctorow, but vampire romance stories are a whole other level of awful.

Working bookstore retail can be both a blessing and a curse. I have an incredible amount of access to vast amount of literature, but it comes at a price. For example: the new Dan Brown book came out on Tuesday. I had to set up many displays for it and constantly refill them because it was selling like crazy. It really took a toll on me. Every time someone bought a copy of “The Lost Symbol” a little part of me died and I can never get it back.

I am hoping that by submerging myself in Fall For the Book events next week I  will cleanse myself of bad writing.

NOTE: correction to podcast, To MFA or not to MFA: E. L. DOCTOROW WILL BE ACCEPTING THE FALL FOR THE BOOK AWARD ON SEPTEMBER 24TH.

 

to MFA or not to MFA?

 

Source: Seattle Times

In this podcast: a look at MFA programs and what they can do for the young writer. Also, Sherman Alexie will be in the DC area for the Fall for the Book festival. We say “yes” a lot, maybe that’ll stop once we learn to script these things a little better.

 

 

 

  

Fall for the Book

What began as a two-day literary event in 1999, organized by George Mason University and the City of Fairfax, has expanded into a week-long, multiple-venue, regional festival that brings together people of all ages and interests, thanks to growing community interest and generous supporting partners.      This year’s participants

Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian. He earned a 1994 Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, was a citation winner for the PEN/Hemingway Award for the Best First Book of Fiction, and was recently named one of Granta’s Best of the Young American Novelists. Alexie is the author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which served as the basis for a film that premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. His book Reservation Blues won him the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. Alexie’s several books of poetry include I Would Steal Horses, Old Shirts & New Skins, First Indian on the Moon, and The Summer of Black Widows.

Watch Sherman Alexie accept the National Book award for young people’s literature on YouTube

Hear Sherman Alexie read “Dear John Wayne” on Salon Magazine

Creative Writing Instruction and MFA Programs

John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. The Art of Fiction is a practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave; he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Whether discussing the supposed value of writer’s workshops, explaining the role of the novelist’s agent and editor, or railing against the seductive fruits of literary elitism, On Becoming a Novelist is an indispensable, life-affirming handbook for anyone authentically called to the profession.

 Charles Baxter discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works in The Art of Subtext. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dostoyevsky to contemporary writers Paula Fox, Edward P. Jones, and Lorrie Moore, Baxter explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details, how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed. Burning Down the House has been enjoyed by readers and taught in classrooms for more than a decade. Readers are rewarded with thoughtful analysis, humorous one-liners, and plenty of brushfires that continue burning long after the book is closed

 The AWP is great source to find info on Creative Writing Programs.

Junot Diaz on teaching Creative Writing: “At the graduate level the rewards are far less. I often find myself being asked just to be a midwife for other people’s dreams of fame.” Read the whole inteview on Other Voices.

Crazy little thing called craft: Structure in “City of Clowns”

 Structure is often taken for granted. When I first read “City of Clowns” I knew it was weird. I knew it was different. I knew it was brilliant, but I did not know how to articulate why. Then, I learned the term “Modular Design” while taking a class with Art Taylorand that term has come handy ever since. It comes from Narrative Design By Madison Smartt Bell, who divides the way we construct stories into two groups: Linear Stories and Modular stories. I would compare a linear story to a simple song. To illustrate a simple traditional song structure, I’ll use “Eight Days a Week” by the Beatles.  Here’s the structure:.

 

 

Pretty straight forward, eh? Well, believe it or not, there is also a traditional short story form: linear design.

 

    

You’ve probably seen this before (and you’ll see it in later posts, also). Most songs, and indeed most stories, follow these outlines closely. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this structure. It is graceful and elegant. It isn’t any easier to write a good story with this structure than it is to write a good song with a traditional structure. To give common example of this form, check out “Cathedral” by Ray Carver.
     As I said before, there’s nothing wrong with this structure, but writers and musicians are artists, and one of the responsibilities of the artist is to keep things new. Now, I’ll illustrate a modular song. A modular song may simply play with the order of its movements. “Strawberry Fields,” for example, starts with the chorus instead of a first verse. That manages to play a trick on the listener. One of the reasons this doesn’t appear so out of norm, is that the song is so well executed that its constructions seems seamless. How about “Happiness is a Warm Gun?” Oh boy! This song has three (3) very distinct movements and it does not follow any traditional structure. Here’s the best I could come up with:

 

   

  Notice that despite possessing three very different parts, “Happiness is a Warm Gun” certainly feels like one song. One could not call any single section a song on its own, but all come together to form a strange yet cohesive whole, and though unusual, it is highly musical. To borrow from Bell, he does say a lot of linear structures can be made into modular structures, but it’s much more difficult to turn a modular piece into a linear one. Of course, there are progressive rockers (and writers) who do all kinds of crazy things with structure. If you’re familiar with Baroque music, a fugue is a great example of very radical “modular design” and some stories try to achieve a similar effect. On the fugue structure, there’ll be more on a separate post.
     There are countless ways to write a Modular story, from mostly linear to super crazy fragmented narratives. Film versions of modular design would include “Memento” and “Pulp Fiction.” I believe the biggest problem to overcome when writing a modular story is to create that seamlessness necessary to make the story feel whole . In ‘City of Clowns,” Alarcon manages to do something incredible, he merges two story vectors (movements) about the same character, moving back and forth through time, and with great skill, he combines all the elements into one, cohesive, seamless story.

• Vector 1: The narrator is a journalist in his late twenties whose estranged father has recently died. His editor assigns him a story about street clowns, a landmark of Peruvian urban life, and this leads him to examining his life, allegiances, and relationships.
• Vector 2: The same narrator tells the story how as a teenager, he came to live with his father in Lima, and how he got to know him, and grew to dislike him.

Read “City of Clowns” by Daniel Alarcon for free at the New Yorker website

     I found this story a few years ago while reading Best American Non-Required Reading. Alarcon is unusual in many ways. One that bothers and impresses me, is that this is the first story he ever sold; and it was sold to The New Yorker of all places. He’s an Ivy League brat who went to Iowa, so a lot of people are turned off by his pedigree. Something I find silly. Judging authors by their background rather than their writing? That’s nuts, in a bad way. His stories were also picked up out of the slush-pile by the Virginia Quarterly Review and Glimmer Train. Now that’s nuts, in a good way. You can read how Alarcon views his background as a transgression on the romantic myth of the “poor immigrant success story” on this essay he wrote for Salon Magazine, and in this interview on Babies Are Fireproof, he talks about, amongst other things, his response to critics who say they found “fingerprints of the Iowa Writers Workshop” in his stories.

Daniel Alarcon is the author of Lost City Radio. The short story “City of Clowns” was included in his collection, War by Candlelight.

 

My Head Fills With My Own Yak – Topic: Fiction

In this podcast: What is Fiction? We try to answer this question drawing from William Faulkner’s “Banquet Speech” and Loorie Moore’s “Dance in America.”

 

 

 

 

William Faulkner

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat… Find the rest of the speech at American Rhetoric 

 Loorie Moore

     “Dance in America” appeared in the collection Birds of America out by Picador.

       Hear Louise Erdrich read Lorrie Moore’s short story “Dance in America” Free at the New Yorker website

 

The Fear of Being Blow Up

    – Watchmen

     It all begins with the paranoid delusions of a half-insane hero called Rorschach. But is Rorschach really insane, or has he in fact uncovered a plot to murder superheroes — and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians? On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives, but what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet! Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen.

     – End Zone

     At Logos College in West Texas, huge young men, vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and shiny helmets, play football with intense passion. During an uncharacteristic winning season, the perplexed and distracted running back Gary Harkness has periodic fits of nuclear glee; he is fueled and shielded by his fear of and fascination with nuclear conflict. Among oddly afflicted and recognizable players, the terminologies of football and nuclear war — the language of end zones — become interchangeable, and their meaning deteriorates as the collegiate year runs its course. In this triumphantly funny, deeply searching novel, Don DeLillo explores the metaphor of football as war with rich, original zeal.

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