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Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Teaching

Ray Bradbury: a fire in the belly

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I have read a few of Ray Bradbury’s books.  They offer more than enjoyment and an easy way to pass the time.  He had such a way with metaphor (was it a real snake or a stomach pump tube, a jet overhead or a scream?) and was one of the most literary of the major science fiction writers.  I have read Fahrenheit 451 numerous times, as well as The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles.  He was a writer that made the reader think, and think deep.  I was not so much captured by his characters as by his ideas.  I have taught, like many English teachers, Fahrenheit 451.  It has always made my students look at their education in a new way, a privilege they don’t ever want to lose.  For that alone I could thank him profusely.  But he has also taught them tolerance, the beauty of a well-turned phrase and how people can be manipulated into not trusting what they know.  Most importantly, he showed that the human being must question, must seek greater understanding and failing that will surrender to madness.

When the writer inside them says, “I am here.”

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As a teacher of creative writing, I at this time of the year always enjoy the moment when my students suddenly look to each other and say, “Your writing has changed.”  They mention detailed images, strong word choice, developed characters, etc.

This is what they have been working towards all year and most of them didn’t realize it.  They thought they were just getting to write all the time about any idea that came into their heads.  They have grumbled about the redrafts, scrambled for reasons to miss deadlines, gotten excited about a prompt or a day they could just dedicate to writing whatever fell into their heads.  They reminisce about the walks around campus we have taken looking for interesting images skulking about the place in unexpected corners, inside the book room or under the mats by the doors.

wild about writing

At the start of the year, they did not expect they needed to improve or that anyone would notice if they did.  But here it is. That moment when someone finishes reading what he or she wrote in response to the prompt, and then epiphany:  “Your writing has changed — and mine too.”  When this happens, I do not say, “Ah, here is a teaching moment.”  I remain silent and listen to the writers inside them say, “I am here.”

How to write good dialogue

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Writer at work

Teaching dialogue is not easy, partly because we all talk without paying attention. To write dialogue you have to have paid attention to others talking.  But that’s eavesdropping!  Okay, so listen without making any judgements, and definitely don’t make any faces or any shocked sounds in response to what you hear.  This is scientific research; be objective about it.

  • So listen.  Note how two (or more) people talk without really responding directly to what each person is saying.  This is important. We rarely answer questions directly because we often don’t want to give away anything important, and we have other things on our mind at the time and want to share or not share those things, so we tend to answer off topic.  Also, if we have a long term relationship with the person, we are going to talk in a sort of short hand, fragments, incomplete sentences. Some writers like to mimic this very tightly, others prefer to write in complete sentences while maintaining all other aspects of authentic speech.

Example:
“Honey, where did you put my keys?”
“You never gave me any keys.”
“No. They were here on the table, where your hat is now. So where did you move my keys?”
“There weren’t any keys when I put my hat there.”

  • Note, the person responding to the question has not once answered the question.  The hat person is more worried about being blamed for losing the keys then helping the key person find them.

  • Dialogue also needs to be essential.  Don’t waste time with dialogue that isn’t offering something: characterization, rising action, relationship dynamics and such. 

So in the above situation, maybe the hat person does in fact have keys, but they are the keys to a new car, and hat person just wants to get key person to get frustrated enough to confront him, so he can then jangle them in key person’s face, get that reaction he has been hoping for.

  • Add action, physical movement, reactions, etc., to create a greater sense of individuality and scene for the reader.

Modified example:
     Jill picked up the sweaty baseball cap and peered beneath it at the otherwise empty hall table.  She tipped the cap to look inside and then called over her shoulder loud enough to be heard in the next room, “Honey, where did you put my keys?”
     “You never gave me any keys,” was the muffled reply.
     “Noooo,” she stretched the word in mild irritation.  “They were here on the table.”  She clenched the hat tightly and dropped it back down.  “Where you hat is now.” Pivoting on one heel, she turned to the doorway.  “So where did you move my keys?”
     This time the response held the same note of irritation as her own, “There weren’t any keys when I put my hat there.”

The best can come out of the bits and pieces

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I have always been a believer in the idea that there are things that are specifically made to fit a situation or need, but one can always come up with a bypass if that item is just not available. This is how I manage to deal with computers that don’t want to work or when an overhead projector at school decides to go on the fritz. Being a teacher, I need to be ready for every contingency.  I remind my students of this outlook when one tells me the computer died just as she was about to type a homework assignment (pull out a pencil and write) or his printer broke (email it). (Computers crashing far outnumber dogs eating homework these days).  I think I learned this make-do style from my father.

My mom always did the cooking, but there were rare times when she was too sick and my father had to take over.  He never minded, she always did.  He would look in the refrigerator and start pulling things out.  A pot on the stove was the destination for everything he found.  In the end, the bubbling mass would look like a poor quality of concrete ready for pouring.  We would make burritos with it, adding cheddar cheese and taco sauce.  Though it looked disgusting, it was delicious.

When my mom was well enough to return to the kitchen, we would all make her “sick” with our rapturous descriptions of Dad’s “Slab” recipe.

I look at writing this way, too.  Need a name for a character to be common but memorable:  I pick an average name, Fred for instance, and add/delete a letter.  Fned Carson is one of the characters in my short story tentatively titled “Scrapper.”  He’s an average guy whose life has been flowing downhill for awhile (something that happened to my father for a time, too). My main character Moekaff, an eight-year-old boy, is left at Carson’s Rest, a transport rest stop and restaurant. There the two suffer separately as they try to deal with rough times.  I needed Fned to be both an addition to Moe’s troubles but also a man with a right to be angry and depressed, ready to take out his frustrations on this kid who is himself in mourning.  They don’t save each other, but they do share their misery and somehow walk away with possibilities.  But that is only a part of the journey Moekaff takes before he finds a place to call home again.  I am still finishing this story and hope to make it part of an anthology of science fiction stories I have written.  As soon as it’s done, I’ll finish my redraft on my second novel of my Students of Jumps series, No Time Like the Present.

I love it when a lesson comes together

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Today I was introducing the idea that interpreting poetry is heavily based in the personal experience and knowledge of the reader.  I wanted my students to have a strong grasp on perspective and how it influences how we look at things. So I found several Escher pictures online (http://mcescher.com/) and one by one (via the usual various cables, a computer, an overhead projector and a screen) presented them to my students.  We talked about each one and tried to switch back and forth to see the different images. 

I particularly like this lesson because the students get excited about seeing things in a different way.  Later when we start examining poetry and the students have different viewpoints on meaning and imagery, I can remind them of these Escher prints and how we each saw different images at first, but ultimately, they all drew together a similar idea about what was happening in the print.  They learned for this brief moment to appreciate the different viewpoints of each student and to realize those differences increase their understanding.

So today my students enjoyed a great lesson. It was one of those I wish my principal could have been present to see on those days when he is there to evaluate my teaching.  Aw well, there will be other great days when a lesson comes together and feels like I produced magic.