Becoming an Artist-Writer
If you haven’t checked out Lit Hub, you probably should. There is the usual bunk rule setting and advice that falls short, but there are also often real gems that can be of help.
Today I read a piece by Lincoln Michael—I’d never heard of him before—titled On the Many Different Engines that Power a Short Story: t’s Not Just Plot or Character that Drives Fiction.
In short, he says that plot and character are the two primary engines that writing instructors say all writing should be formed around. There’s only two, they argue, make your choice. Michael says, no, there can be many more engines that drive a short story, such as:
Form
Language
Any element of fiction
I like the last one best because it is true and returns writing to an act of art rather than a place constricted by rules of form where the ruling dichotomy is character or plot. Instead, you can create with the only rule being that it must have meaning for the reader and engage them in some way.
This last point bears repeating: You must engage the reader in some way. I’ve read too many short stories in literary journals that follow all the rules learned in an MFA program that have no relevance or engaging element. They are MFA writing pure and true, but someone forgot to teach them how to be interesting.
I also would make the point that three of my favorite short stories would find it hard to get published in today’s market because they don’t conform to the rules as taught. They are:
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway.
A&P by Updike.
Wants by Grace Paley
To my reading, these pieces are driven through atmosphere, angst, and loneliness. And I believe these would’ve been lost if written today. This means we would’ve lost this opening line by Paley:
I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.
Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
Good stuff.
So, yes, let’s free the form up and start publishing those who break out of the plot or character dichotomy.
Near the end of his piece, Michael provides an exercise he learned from another writer on using a language engine. It is below:
Language engine exercise: write a first sentence on the top of a piece of paper. “My mother always said she wanted to die by the ocean” or whatever comes to mind. Circle the two or three key words—mother, death, ocean—and then write between 10 and 20 words you associate with those words:
water, dry, drink, father, waves, desert, children, swim, splash, pool, sea, thirst, towel, sun, sunscreen, etc.
Now write a story where each sentence uses one of the words on your list. This way, you’re a constructing a story through the language that is on the page, expanding and changing their meanings, rather than from a pre-planned plot arc or character arc. Here’s a quick example of how that might go:
My mother always said she wanted to die by the ocean. But it was my father who drowned at sea. My mother got the phone call while I was slathering on sunscreen. We were sitting by a motel pool in the desert. The dry sun splashed over us. “Your father is dead,” my mother said, wiping her tears with a towel.
In revision, you might tone this down. You don’t need “wet” and “dry” language in every sentence. And if you were writing a story instead of an exercise, you would pull out new phrases and words, new associations, to power the story, keeping it growing and expanding. The point is that there is a way to construct fiction through language—without preordained characters, themes, or plot—that can produce a different type of story.