Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

creative writing

Learning from the masters series: John Gardner & the world of monster

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Door to the inside of a monster

John Gardner’s Grendel is a work of delight and derangement cluttered in one diabolical monster’s mind.  It is poetry garbed in prose, sophistry hiding behind a misunderstood, disadvantaged descendent of Cain.  Gardner slips his monster into the reader, building sympathy and support as the beast twists its words around unreliable reasoning that makes the reader want to believe Grendel’s version and feel sorry for him.  Gardner does all this through the voice of the monster as the creature seems to share all his personal feelings, fears and frustrations.  He’s honest, sort of.

” ‘Ah, sad one, poor old freak!’  I cry, and hug myself, and laugh, letting out salt tears, he he! till I fall down gasping and sobbing.  (It’s mostly fake.)”

This short quote is just a few pages into the book.  It contains, “cry,” “laugh,” “gasping,” “sobbing” and the words in parentheses “It’s mostly fake.” This sharing of Grendel’s view of his behavior draws the reader in, grinning (though of course, Grendel would be grinning too, but it is the reader that thinks this is great fun.  And before readers know it, they are so entertained that they fall for him, crazy rapscallion that he is.)

His honesty is refreshing, diverting, entrancing and completely manipulative.  And the reader knows that, too, but that is not enough to keep him or her secure from falling for the monster, and that is John Gardner’s gift.

” ‘Dark chasms!’ I scream from the cliff-edge, ‘seize me!  Seize me to your foul black bowels and crush my bones!’  I am terrified at the sound of my own huge voice in the darkness.  I stand there shaking from head to foot, moved to the deep-sea depths of my being, like a creature thrown into audience with thunder.”

Pulled in, right to the brink of believing him and then he says:

“At the same time, I am secretly unfooled. The uproar is only my own shriek, and the chasms are, like all things vast, inanimate.  They will not snatch me in a thousand years, unless, in a lunatic fit of religion, I jump.”

And thus Gardner twists us about.  First one way and then another, until we don’t know if we trust this Grendel or not, but for some crazy reason, we like him and want to continue to spend time with him.  We ignore his eating of people, his sarcasm, his beastliness.   He’s just too interesting, too contradicting.

That is the secret, or at least one of the important ones of this work of creating a monster that more than a mother can love.  Grendel is a contradiction.  He wants to be welcomed into the forgiveness of religion, but overlooks the dead man he has clutched under his arm.  He peers into holes in the mead hall wall to watch the Danes live their small lives, like a lonely voyeur, and eats their cattle, old women and wayward children.

We shake our heads at him, and then devour more words, more rabid philosophy.

I haven’t written about any monsters yet, but I am going to keep this technique in mind:  the twist of honesty, sympathy and personal fear around destruction, hate and madness.  A monster one can love and hate to hate, though the reader knows, knows with a certainty, here lies a crazy bastard of a monster; don’t turn your back and watch his hands closely, and his claws closer.
#writing
#monsterbuilding

Learning from the Masters series: Robert A. Heinlein Knew Dialogue

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The art of writing dialogue

I have always enjoyed reading Heinlein’s books, but it is his dialogue that holds my attention the most.  His characters play with words and by doing so demonstrate relationships and conditions.

This excerpt from The Cat that Walks Through Walls is a great example of how his dialogue clearly separated and defined his characters.  Gwen and Richard have just crash landed on the moon and are hanging upside down still strapped into their seats.  It has been a rather eventful landing, the end of which finished with the space vehicle twirling in a wobble on its rocket end until it lost momentum and fell over.  Not once does Heinlein use a tag other than the initial first person reference to the conversation continuing after the landing, yet it is obvious who is speaking.


    I added, “That was a beautiful landing, Gwen.  PanAm never set a ship down more gently.”
    Gwen pushed aside her kimono skirt, looked out.  “Not all that good.  I simply ran out of fuel.”
    “Don’t be modest.  I especially liked that gavotte that laid the car down flat.  Convenient, since we don’t have a landing-field ladder here.
    “Richard, what made it do that?”
    “I hesitate to guess.  It may have had something to do the processing gyro…which may have tumbled.  No data, no opinion. Dear, you look charming in that pose.  Tristam Shandy was right; a woman looks best with her skirts flung over her head.”
    “I don’t think Tristam Shandy ever said that.”
    “Then he should have.  You have lovely legs, dear one.”
    “Thank you, I think.  Now will you kindly get me out of this mess?  My kimono is tangled in the belt and I can’t unfasten it.”
    “Do you mind if I get a picture first?”

The dialogue supplies all sorts of details.  Not only are they upside down, but Gwen’s outfit has left her revealing her legs and the borrowed kimona is doing more than just causing a little embarrassment.  Her view is obstructed, she cannot extract herself from her upside down position and it has provided more about her personality and relationship with her newly acquired  husband.  She is handling the situation calmly and able to banter back and forth.  Richard’s response to the whole thing is humorous, playful and providing them both with a way to vent off the frustration they are feeling.  Remember they are somewhere on the moon currently upside down in a craft that has not been functioning properly.  The deck has been stacked against them, yet they behave as if being together is their ace in the hole.  How does this affect the reader?  The reader can’t help but fall in with them.  They are going to get out of this situation, somehow, and it is going to continue to be humorous even when things get worse.

Another feature of this dialogue is the word choice.  Richard describes Gwen’s appearance as “charming.”  Clearly he appreciates the view, but he also appreciates the lady he is viewing and repeatedly uses endearments that support that he would view the whole impression as “charming.”  The allusion to Tristam Shandy lends spice as well; it is a compliment Gwen takes with a grain of salt.  “Thank you, I think.”

Heinlein creates distinct characters, though he has been accused of using the same characters over and over again.  It is more, in my opinion, that he uses the same character type for his main characters: strong, resourceful, nonsensical with a purpose.  But they are not the same character; if they were, the above dialogue would lose its anchor.  There are several cues which assist the reader in tracking who is speaking, but they smooth the reader along.  Richard discusses the appeal of a woman with her skirts over her head, Heinlein describes her reaction to Richard’s statement about her landing the craft, and Gwen calls him by name and demands he help her with her belt that she believes is caught in her kimono.  All these help the reader maneuver through the dialogue.  It is a fun piece of dialogue that lets the reader know the conditions and the characters’ response to it and each other with ease and without a lot of description or overloaded dialogue.

Simple to complex to simple to complex to simple: that’s how we grow in everything

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ring by ring, we build brevity, depth, complexity, simplicity

Every new skill or bit of knowledge we learn brings with it that usage curve that starts out complex, and as we gain understanding and mastery, we simplify and integrate.  That applies to life and work in general, but it is also the essence of growing as a writer.

My students practice descriptive imagery, and it is such agony for them.  They struggle with words like thing and stuff and painstakingly turn them into “blue-green fabric around stuffed spun polyester, stitched tight, bursting with fishy lushness among the two year old’s many teddy bears” and beam with pride at their accomplishment.  It is indeed worth their excitement and pleasure for creating an image.

They repeat the exercise, draw the lesson into their writing, fill the pithy lines with gaudy images, each clamoring for attention, none greater or lesser than the other.

They learn discernment. They learn to select which images need to stand ahead of others.  They learn the pithy line has a place.  “The child’s toys, a jumbled plethora of giraffes and Teddy bears, were topped with one lone length of glimmering scaled fishiness.  It flopped to one side, scalloped fins lolling over, soft tail aswamp in the white fuzz of a round-faced kitten.”

The struggle begins again to create the perfect effect. The image that sets up place without overpowering.  The symbol that will appear at necessary intervals to carry a theme, support a motif.  It is a battle of controlled inspiration that requires complex planning, the ability to draw back from the precipice of too much and pull in from the wide open range of subtlety.  It is nail-biting, tongue out the side of the mouth, pencil tapping concentration.  It is love and hate of the written word, the designed phrase, the scintillating sentence.

They take another run at it.   This time much has become just part of their writing.  Meaning and clarity hold precedence, the image part of the foundation, not the crowning glory of the effort.

Simplicity gains complexity, complexity turns to simplicity, simplicity participates in the complexity, complexity feels like simplicity.

And this process does not change. We never reach the last summit, but keep climbing to the next.

Though we seek perfection, we must recognize the value in a good flaw, the unintended potential it grants

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Flawed yet potentially beautiful.

We all face demands that require near perfection, sometimes even perfection.  Those of us naturally conscientious try hard to meet them.  In fact, we often demand them of ourselves, without an outside force motivating us.  I am a perfectionist, so I can certainly sympathize with those who demand it of themselves and others.  But the writing of a draft should never fall victim to this expectation.

To avoid binding myself by those unreasonable demands, I remind myself that humanity is strong because of its imperfections.  Flaws offer opportunity, diversity and adaptability which is a necessary ingredient for survival and for an author’s creativity.  I cannot possibly count the times a flaw in my writing or a student’s has opened up a new aspect of a story’s conflict, a character’s motivation or an image that adds new light to the matrix that makes up a story or poem.

I love to tell my students of one of my long-graduated, creative writing students who had not made much effort in her regular English classes to gain skills in punctuation and diction.  She wrote several poems and submitted them for our first workshop.  Of course, as her teacher, I was familiar with her faults having combated them for years.   But her peers were not.

The first day we reviewed her work was comical.  Several diction issues cropped up.  Her peers, whose feedback was provided before I wrapped up the review, took her diction choices at face value and tried to make sense of them.  They offered advice on how to tighten the images she was casting.  They suggested ways to connect these unusually phrased constructs creatively together.  I watched in my silence her increasing concern.  As a student receiving feedback, she was not allowed to defend or explain her choices.  I knew she was trying to figure out if she should admit that spelling and comma placement had made a mess of her original intents for the poems.

It was a definite struggle as her peers had found complexities in the writing that had not naturally been there.  They had offered valuable advice based on misunderstandings that had come out of her word choice (and the unfortunate assistance of Word’s spellchecker).  Honesty and the intrinsic humor of the student won out, and she admitted the confusion her writing had created.  She had a good laugh at herself, but she also could not help looking at her poetry in their new light.  The conscientious notes her peers had made on her workshop copies could not disappear, and they were hers to take home, review and consider.

It took another two similarly confused but still highly useful workshops (much of it spent laughing as her fellow writers were more knowing now and found making her strangled diction work as much a game as an effort to bring clarity to rough drafts) to motivate her to make change.  When she graduated, after two years of creative writing class, she told her story to the  students new to the class and those considering taking it.  She admonished them to learn the tools of the trade and not be proud of their lack.   And she laughed at how she learned to find deeper complexity in her work through playing purposely with word choice.

Imperfection at its best and received for its potential can lead to tremendous growth, not just in the work but also in the writer.  Certainly, one should write with the intent to provide text worthy of growth and must start with the best of production, recognizing that the effort will not bring perfect production.

I sit down determined to move what I imagine before my internal eye into words on the screen before me.  Later in the shower, on the treadmill, sitting in the passenger seat on the way to work, the missing bits that develop scenes, dialogues, and crucial interactions between characters slip forward now that room has been made for them.  In my imperfect prose, I can make my way toward perfection, just as my students do daily.  Each flaw offers a moment for consideration of alternatives and growth for the work and the writer.

So write your flawed constructions, traction your prose with the early confusion of imperfect muses, then with patience and consideration, and a good dose of humor, find its near perfection.

Advice: Increase creativity with meditation

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take ten and monitor some meditation

There are so many recommended activities for writers to increase their creativity.  Join a writer’s group, take a writing class, get feedback from fellow writers and read the works of great writers.  Here’s one more: meditate.

According to an article at Science Daily, Lorenza Colzato and her colleagues at Leiden University in the Netherlands have found that a specific type of meditation increases creativity better than other variants.  In the article “Meditation Makes You More Creative,” the form of meditation calling for open monitoring offers more freedom in the generation of ideas which would seem to be a benefit to writing creatively.

In other words, rather then focusing on a specific object, idea or concern, the writer free thinks, monitoring what comes to mind but not forcing or focusing on anything particular.  (Think of mental free writing practices or stream of consciousness.) So if I am having difficulties with a scene, I could lay down and just let creative ideas enter without prelude or pressure, and by observing the different thoughts that entered my mind, I would come up with a variety of ideas which ultimately lead me to a solution to my writing problem.

Colzato compared this technique to Focused Attention meditation which does maintain concentration on an object or idea with the individual seeking just one solution as opposed to several possible or combined solutions.  Focused Attention meditation according to her study, and a few others I have read about, does not invite greater creativity.

The broader meditation style of open monitoring appeared to provide greater creativity because it was more receptive to all possible solutions and subconscious invention.  Colzato’s study examined particular brain reactions and abilities to problem solve.

Colzato’s study was briefly explained in Science Daily, but it sounded worth trying, as it coincided with what I often do to prepare for writing.  I just lie down and see what rises to the surface ready to be put into words in my novel.  Sometimes what rises belongs to another story I am working on which may not be my original intent for that day, but if that is what is rising to the surface, who am I to argue, which explains why I have numerous short stories and another novel unrelated to my series drafted out.

Another article which explains three meditation styles, two which were studied by Colzato gives a brief description of each.  I found the article at The General Thinking blog. “The Buddhist Brain” does not just list descriptions but also supplies a link to the talk given by Andy Puddicombe  and posted at TED Blog about meditating just ten minutes a day.  I found it equally interesting and motivating.

I was looking at what aids creative thinking and ended up reading several articles on meditation.  This is a small sampling of what I learned and thought useful to writing, and it is worth practicing if it brings about greater creativity, not to mention a healthier mental outlook, heart and brain.

There are stories everywhere

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Yeah, it’s a horse, but why is it in my front yard?

There is a road I drive down every day to get to work.  It is not a popular part of the highway system, so there are few businesses along the way.  One site has changed renters numerous times.  It has been a restaurant half a dozen times, a used clothing store, seamstress business and is currently a donut shop.

Usually, at about a year and a half, the business just closes up and goes up for rent again.  The donut shop hit its one year mark back in May.  So I expect soon to see cars in the parking lot one day and the next the day find it as empty as an old shoe box, tissue crumpled and little packets of granular stuff maintaining a dry but useless environment.

That is a story just waiting for the telling. Why does that store never hold a business long even though they seem to be thriving?  Who owns it?  Are they nothing but trouble to their renters?  Is the highway itself unwilling to take so much traffic for too long and has its own agenda to push through despite human desires to succeed?

There are stories everywhere waiting to be told.

  • Why is that little girl sitting in bored meditation on her porch stairs, chin balanced on her hands?
  • Why did that family throw out a perfectly good couch?  It hasn’t any tears, slumping of cushions, or broken frame and is still in style.
  • Why is that fellow standing behind the tree talking on his phone and swatting at the bugs clearly annoying him?
  • Why is that horse wearing a blue cover over its face when the horse beside it isn’t?

You don’t have to beat bushes to find stories.  Write about the bush.

Where did you find your last story or did it find you?