Disarming the Plot Monster

On our beach walk this morning we were lucky to find Judy Irvin Kuns, the author of the middle grade novel, While You Were Out, (Dutton Children's Books), just coming out of the water.

She was kind enough to stop and share some thoughts on how she's learning to swim past what she calls the "plot monster."

Her guide? Jane Vandenburgh's Architecture of the Novel.

With any luck, Judy's thoughts on plot will help you swim past the plot monster, too:

As a child, I was certain there was something lurking under my bed at night--a big hairy beast of a thing--that was just waiting for an arm or a leg to dangle over the edge so it could snatch a limb and pull me under and I would never be seen again.

Today, that’s pretty much how I feel about plot. The only difference is that the plot monster doesn’t confine itself to the narrow space beneath my bed. The plot monster follows me everywhere I go.

So I decided to try and vanquish my dread and face the plot monster head on. I would read every book and article I could find on plot and I would disarm him once and for all. But my plan only managed to further confuse, confound and overwhelm me until I felt completely incapable of attempting even the briefest, simplest of stories.

Enter Jane Vandenburgh. With her casual tone and sense of humor, Vandenburgh immediately felt like someone I could trust. “We need only to think about plot in order to feel lost,” she says in her book, Architecture of the Novel.

Vandenburgh maintains that my story is not something I have to create. It already exits. It has chosen me, not the other way around. All I have to do is uncover it, expose it to the light, and I can do this by the simple act of writing scenes. That’s all. Just scenes. Oh joy! I can do that.

But wait. What about that oft repeated “rule” that says, in novel writing, the whole must be greater than the sum of its parts?

Vandenburgh assures us that we can learn the whole by creating the smallest of its parts.

And for right now, that’s enough. If it’s not meaningful yet, it will be when you make it that way. And you will do this only after observing all the other scenes you have written prior and subsequent to this particular one. Be patient. “Nothing will be as random as it might first appear.”

“There will always be a reason your story has asked you here,” she says, “as the scene contains something it needs for you to find.” I love the treasure hunt feel of this statement, not to mention the challenge put forth. All of a sudden it feels like a game rather than a chore. Reading this, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of me and placed on the story itself.

So as your simple little scenes accumulate, they start bumping into each other and begin talking amongst themselves. Just leave them alone. They’re making their own plans.

And just when I felt I couldn’t get any giddier at the simple doableness of this, Vandenburgh adds, (in not so many words) oh and by the way, forget about any kind of organization. No chapters, no outline (“Keep the blueprints in the tube.”), no back story. Scenes only. And don’t try tucking memories into scenes, either. Memories are back story and back story is a plot concern. We’re not going there, remember? When a memory presents itself, just write it as a scene and worry about where it will go later. (I LOVE this woman.)

“Background, if ignored, will almost always take care of itself,” she says. Which sounds very similar to what one of my beloved Vermont College mentors, Brock Cole, told me so many years ago. “Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself.”

And as if all of this good news wasn’t enough, Vandenburgh explains that writing in scenes removes the need to explain things. But don’t think you can get away with just gazing at your scenes as if looking in through a window. Oh, no. You must “go to the door, turn the handle, open that door and step into your story.”

Exposed to the light and confronted by you advancing one scene at a time, the plot monster shrinks to a dust bunny.

For more information on Jane Vandenburgh, visit: http://janevandenburgh.com/about

And to learn more about Architecture of the Novel, take a look at: http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Novel-Handbook-Jane-Vandenburgh/dp/1582435979

Judy Irvin Kuns is a graduate of the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first middle grade novel, While You Were Out, (Dutton Children's Books), was a Junior Library Guild Selection and winner of the Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers. An excerpt of her middle grade novel, The Family of Things, was selected as a finalist in the Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adults and Children’s Writing sponsored by Hunger Mountain Journal of the Arts. She lives in Sandusky, Ohio.

Gifts From The Sea

Long-time Wordswimmer reader and friend, J. Irvin Kuns (While You Were Out), was kind enough to share her notes on some gifts from the sea that she discovered in Wordswimmer postings last year:

I love the imagery in this description of the writing process from Tim Wynne-Jones:

"Making up stories is all about wanting more – taking the ordinary, turning it upside down and shaking out whatever it’s got in its pockets.” Tim Wynne Jones,12/5/10

One of my all-time favorites was a post called, "Time and Patience" where Brad Kessler talked about his life on a Vermont farm raising goats and making cheese:

"I like that my cheese is called a tomme, because making a cheese is somewhat like making a book. Both take raw material from the world and transfigure it into art. Both are the products of rumination–animal and human. When you make a cheese you do a little work with the milk then wait and come back later and do some more, and wait again. It takes months to make a cheese. A book takes even longer. You can’t make either in one go. Time is the essential element. Time cures the imperfections, one hopes, in both.

The conditions in the cellar seemed almost perfect for aging a tomme, 59 degrees and 90 percent humidity most days. The walls were stone, the floor earth. We had no idea if the right microorganisms would thrive there or the tommes turn out okay. There was nothing to do but make the cheese and see." Brad Kessler 7/18/10

And the best answer (in my humble opinion) to the question, "What's the hardest part of swimming?" came from Caroline Leavitt:

"The self-doubt that comes on like muscle cramps. The realizing that there are better swimmers who are further out there, and that no matter what I do, they’ll always be further out (which leads to the realization that it’s not a competition and that’s a mighty big ocean out there). When I can’t get something right, self-loathing sometimes rears its ugly head. Sometimes I forget that I know how to write, that I’ve had story problems before and solved them, and I sink into deeper despair." Caroline Leavitt, 7/11/10

Another of my favorite responses came from David L. Harrison on 3/28/10. In response to the question, "what keeps you afloat..." Harrison says,

"I love the word game. Anyone can draft a rough copy. I could be a sculptor if all I had to do was knock the edges off a block of granite and call it a dog. Just so, a draft merely knocks the edges off an idea to expose its potential substance and shape. Writing comes after. Writing is the process of giving the dog a nose to read the wind, curious eyes to track grasshoppers in the garden, a busy tail to sweep flowers off coffee tables. If I’ve revised eight times, on the ninth I’ll notice hair on the sofa where the dog never goes, a detail that thought to sneak past me." David L. Harrison, 3/28/10

On March 21st Anne Mazur and Ellen Potter talked about their book, Spilling Ink, a handbook for young writers:

“There is a lot of time wasting in writing. Make up your mind that this is the way it is and don’t let it bother you. Writing doesn’t always have a clear ending or beginning. There isn’t any one way to do it. And you usually have to throw a lot of it out.” Anne Mazur and Ellen Potter, 3/21/10

And starting off the new year on Jan. 10, 2010, a quote from Kyoko Mori’s memoir, Yarn: Remembering the Way Home:

"Knitting had taught me to plunge into color and swim through it, each row of stitches like a long lap across the pool. Though the motion seemed repetitive, the rows were adding up to a larger design just as the laps were adding to the actual distance I had traveled. My writing, too, had to be a movement and not a repetition. If I could match the perfect knitting tension in my head–holding on and letting go at once–then the words and the sentences sometimes veered away from where they were going and guided me to a new thought that surprised me. I found myself suddenly on the other side of the muddled, tangled phrases, with words for what I didn’t know before. Those were the moments to write for." (p. 146) Kyoko Mori, 1/10/10

And last, but certainly not least, from Bruce Black, our beloved Wordswimmer himself, this insightful comment regarding Facebook:

"What I have to remind myself each time I sign on to Facebook is to be careful of deluding myself into thinking that writing horizontally is writing vertically. It’s not.

I also have to remind myself that time is a rare commodity. It slips away too quickly, as this anonymous Latin poet so poignantly suggests:

'Death plucks my ear and says,
Live—I am coming.'" Bruce Black, 10/3/10

Indeed. Thanks, Bruce, for giving us another wonderful year of Wordswimmer!

These thoughts on writing helped J. Irvin Kuns keep swimming last year, and, with luck, as the new year begins and we enter the water again, perhaps they'll help you find your rhythm and pace as you set off on new journeys.

Enjoy these gifts from the sea, and let us know in the year ahead how your journey is progressing the next time you step back on shore.

PS - Here are a few sites to check for inspiration in the year ahead:
http://www.writer-on-line.com/content/view/57/66/~Articles/Inspiration/Struck-by-Inspiration.html
http://writetodone.com/2008/03/03/31-ways-to-find-inspiration-for-your-writing/
http://www.writeattitude.net/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/may/05/find-inspiration-to-write
http://www.suite101.com/content/finding-the-inspiration-to-write-a209874

Diving Deeper

In response to last week’s post, J. Irvin Kuns, the author of While You Were Out (Dutton, 2004, a Junior Library Guild selection), wrote:

As so often happens when following the links offered on wordswimmer, I find myself diving deeper and deeper into the various related articles, interviews and exercises provided at the end of each post. It happened again with last week's link to storyfix.com. After doing the exercise recommended by author Larry Brooks, I noticed an e-book he wrote called Story Structure - Demystified. Since structure has always been my nemesis, I took the bait and ordered the book. I always suspected there was a book on structure out there somewhere that was different from all the rest. For me, this is that book.

Normally, whenever I pick up a book on structure and see those jagged mountain graphics that are supposed to represent rising and falling action, with the peaks growing taller and steeper and looking more and more ominous as they cross the plain of the page, I immediately shelve the book and run. I just cannot get my right-brained head around that kind of approach. Also with most books on structure there seems to be this underlying assumption that all writers understand what such things as plot points, turning points, midpoints, and pinch points (what are pinch points?!?!) represent and how they all relate to each other. I will readily admit I am not one of those people.

In this book, Brooks kindly, gently, and patiently leads us, using helpful analogies, towards a real understanding of what it is a writer must do to make a manuscript work. In the storyfix.com exercise that got me into all of this in the first place, Brooks suggests listening to three specific songs as a sort of meditation and inspiration to help draw you back to the page. One of those songs is "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. It is a beautiful and haunting song and I have listened to it several times over the last couple of days. But it was Brooks' book on structure that really drew me back to my work-in-progress, this time feeling cautiously optimistic that I finally (finally, finally!) have a clue about how to approach it. Hallelujah, indeed!

For more information about Brooks’ book on structure, visit:
http://storyfix.com/infusing-your-fiction-with-heart-and-soul-an-exercise

And to read more on writing from J. Irvins Kuns, visit:
http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2006/01/one-writers-process-j-irvin-kuns.html

One Writer's Process: J. Irvin Kuns

Before she can dive into words and stories, J. Irvin Kuns, the author of While You Were Out, has to inch her way toward the edge of a cliff.

Here's how Kuns describes her process of diving into deep water:

"I coax and cajole and bribe, assuring myself that I will feel better if I write something. Anything.

"But why do I need to coax and cajole and bribe? Why doesn’t the idea of creating something new with words sound like a fun and rewarding thing to do for myself?

"Because I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to pull it off.

"The beautiful idea floating in my head is going to be ruined if I try to put it into words. 'I dream of an eagle,' Edith Wharton laments, 'I give birth to a hummingbird.'

"My list of other fears is long but legitimate, I think.

"Fear of change: Each book I write changes me. Who will I be on the other side of writing it?

"Fear of abandonment. Family and friends are sick and tired of me doing nothing but sitting in front of a computer all the time. I am no fun.

"Fear of being busted. The same family and friends are on to me. Wait a minute, they think. You’re not a writer. Writers write. Writers finish things. You’re a phony.

"And then of course there’s Fear of failure, Fear of success, Fear of losing ground, Fear of wasting my life, Fear of exposure, Fear of lying, Fear of telling the truth, Fear of power, Fear of responsibility.

"But even with all of these Fears breathing down my neck, Fear of regret looms larger still.
They say that we don’t regret the things we did in life, we only regret the things we didn’t do. And I don’t want to die with a case of the 'shoulda, woulda, couldas' haunting me.

"So I know I have to make that leap.

"But sometimes it feels like playing Frogger, trying to get across the busy street with traffic coming at me from both ways, horns honking, tires screeching, other people going places while I sit timidly on the curb, going nowhere, not moving for fear of getting flattened by the Mack truck of doubt coming from one direction or the Greyhound bus of ineptitude barreling at me from the other. Finally, I take a deep breath and I leap. Splat. Leap again. Splat. Once more, quicker this time. Leap, leap, leap. Splat.

"I don’t remember ever feeling completely safe in my life anyway, so I guess I figured that I might as well accept that fear is inevitable; I became a bit of a risk taker early on. I remember urging my dad when riding with him in the car as a kid to 'Go fast, Daddy! Go fast!' and then doing just that when I was old enough to get behind the wheel myself. (Okay, so maybe we do regret some of the things we did.). I remember clinging to a sled towed behind the car at what seemed like 50 mph on the snow covered country roads where I grew up and loving it. Sky diving and white water rafting were thrilling. Attending high school, dating, marrying and having children were downright scary. So what ever made me think that writing, of all things, should feel safe? And I don’t think I wanted it to feel safe. Feeling safe is copping out. 'Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing,' says Helen Keller.

"So forget security, I tell myself. Think opportunity. And not just opportunity but responsibility. As someone who watches and wonders and ponders and notices, and who strives to be 'one of those on whom nothing is lost,' I feel a responsibility to communicate what I have seen, wondered, pondered and noticed, and to do it as truthfully and as meaningfully as I can.

"Writing is how we process all the stuff of our lives and if we do it well enough – the writing and the processing – we need to risk sharing it. Who knows? Maybe our work will help others with their own processing. Our stories could throw light on things that might not otherwise be noticed. Through writing we could reveal new ways to cope, to understand, to deal, to forgive.

"Most days I don’t soar like an eagle, but I accept that as part of the process. In the meantime, I’ll nurture my fragile little hummingbird."

Taking Risks

Two writers--Jack O'Rourke and J. Irvin Kuns--were kind enough to share their thoughts on risk-taking in response to my comments about taking risks in our work and not backing away from fear. (See "Diving Off the Edge," Nov. 13, 2005.)

Jack O’Rourke started the conversation:

"Chris Lynch ... takes a lot of risks in some of his work. Freewill comes to mind. Also a very early one, Gypsy Davy. Even a less literary one, Extreme Elvin, takes chances. For the joy of reading, Gold Dust scores high, even if less risky."

His comment--about a work that he felt required less risk--prompted J. Irvin Kuns to respond:

"I would like to address ... the element of risk involved in a book like Freewill vs. a book like Gold Dust, both written by Chris Lynch. I disagree with Jack’s implication that Gold Dust is less risky than Freewill mostly because I know a little bit about the impetus behind each of these books.

"Freewill came about in part as a result of the Columbine shootings and the placement of crosses for each of the victims, including the shooters. Gold Dust was written after Lynch ran into a former baseball teammate, the encounter forcing him to re-examine some rather uncomfortable childhood memories.

"To me, writing about the events surrounding something personal, especially one I’d rather not revisit, takes as much if not more courage than writing a book about an event that was somewhat more removed. But I also know that it was risky for Lynch to 'go there' with Will in the writing of Freewill and to live with him in his depressed state for the duration of the writing of the book.

"I haven’t had that much experience in novel writing, but I do know that each book I write changes me somehow. In light of that, I think it would be very scary indeed to write a book like Freewill. As a writer I think I would fear that I might never recover.

"So, I had been thinking a lot about Jack’s comments and finding myself unable to articulate exactly what was bothering me about them when I had the good fortune of meeting up with Chris Lynch at the recent NCTE convention. He was there to discuss his most recent young adult novel, Inexcusable, another very risky book as well as a National Book Award Finalist, no less.

"I asked him then which book, Freewill or Gold Dust, he thought was riskier. He immediately asked, 'For the reader or the writer?' My knee-jerk response was 'for the writer,' but after I thought about it, I realized that this was the distinction that was bothering me about Jack’s comment.

"Freewill may seem riskier for the reader, partly because it is written in second person and immerses the reader, from beginning to end, in Will’s depression. Gold Dust, on the other hand, might be easier on the reader, but I’m sure felt every bit as risky for the writer as did Freewill or any other book, for that matter."

For O'Rourke, though, the notion of risk is inherent in the choices an author makes in telling the story, such as those Lynch made to tell the story of Will in the rather unorthodox second-person point of view:

"I still have to say that Freewill is the riskier, both for the reader and the writer.

"For the writer there's the rarity and difficulty of writing in second-person point-of-view and keeping the reader engaged, demanding the reader interact with Will all the way through his depression, risking losing the reader who doesn't want to have Will lean on him/her all that terrible distance. It's my own salute to Lynch that he succeeded with me, but it was hard.

"Gold Dust, though, was an engrossing, spell-casting story all the way. There is rarely a character portrayed as fanatical about baseball and as likeable as Richard. Lynch's words propel this character through life in his Boston Ward with all the ease of last Olympic's gold medal girl who took her sledboard through all those pipes, half-pipes, and full flights with total confidence. I don't even like baseball, but I enjoyed Richard.

"Sure, Richard (white) has to face down racist talk/attitude from some locals about his friendship with Napoleon (West Indies black), and about Napoleon's friendship with the redhead, but I don't think that's taking very much risk with the reader today. I can't imagine anyone except maybe dispensable, non-reading Fifties retrogrades having problems today with such issues and how Richard navigates the situations.

"It wasn't delivered in the form of 'messages' either, it flowed smoothly with the story. Maybe I'm being too casual about the literary risk (not the story interest) of this conflict theme today, but I hope not. Kudos to Lynch."

But for Kuns the risk involves something different, not so much the stylistic risks that Lynch took but his willingness to risk exploring his feelings about a difficult, not entirely positive experience that he had in his life.

Here's what Lynch has written about the genesis of Gold Dust. (His comments appear in a HarperCollins flyer that Kuns shared with us.)

"The idea for Gold Dust came to me very slowly. In fact, it gestated in the back of my brain for 25 years. There are just some things, I think, that we bury among the trillions of small, important, and routine events of adolescence. And sometimes we bury them for significant reasons.

"The story here, and the character Napoleon, were based on my friendship with a guy named Michael Gray, who did in fact move to Boston from Dominica when we were about twelve. This was in the 70's. I was a catcher, and he was a pitcher who threw so hard I had to pack an extra inch of material inside my glove to protect my hand from the swelling. He'd learned the game by looking up the rules in a book the night before sign-up for the Regan Youth League. He joined because so many of us were doing it.

"That was the good stuff. The bad stuff, almost all of it, I had blocked out for years.

"In the 90's, Michael turned up in my life again, this time as the manager of my bank. One day during one or our banking conversations, Michael brought up the past. Didn't I remember? he wanted to know. Didn't I realize? He was talking about the one time the two of us got in a bit of a scrap. It hadn't come to much, but was unpleasant enough to attract the attention of all our mutual friends and admirers.

"Only the friends and admirers turned out to be not all that mutual. Not for him, anyway. Didn't I realize? he wanted to know two decades later. Didn't I notice?

"Michael turned into the invisible man after that fight. He was placed outside a glass wall. Inside the wall was almost everybody in my class, and me too. And there he was, the outsider. Totally ignored. Didn't exist.

"And I think I was the one who started it.

"After that, I started remembering. And I remembered that I remembered a lot more than I wanted to. And so, as a writer, I knew I had to go back. And that's Gold Dust."

Many thanks to Kuns and O'Rourke for pondering the nature of risk-taking as writers (and readers), and to Lynch, of course, for having the courage to "go back" and develop a seed of memory into a powerful work of fiction.

Have other Wordswimmers read or written stories that they feel take similar risks?

How would you define risk... for the writer? And how would the definition change, if at all... for the reader?

Do you think books that take risks are more significant than those that avoid risks? Why? (Or why not?)

Let Wordswimmer know when you get a chance.

Diving Off The Edge

Staring down at a blank page on some mornings can feel like standing on the edge of a high-diving board afraid to leap into the unknown.

From such a height the surface of the water can look more like a sheet of steel than a shimmering liquid. Rather than dive, you want to inch backward and tell yourself it's much more prudent to climb down.

But... you can't back away from fear.

Why not?

Because taking such risks--free-falling, diving--is the essence of writing. That's the goal: to plunge into uncharted territory and explore new, forbidding landscapes.

Diving into the water... cracking through that illusion of fear...is exactly what you must do if you expect to find what's hidden beneath the surface.

But how do you step off that high-diving board into ignorance and uncertainty?

John DuFresne suggests in The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction that failure and uncertainty are simply part of the territory that come with writing. People who invent things, says DuFresne, are always failing.

"Only a fool does not make mistakes," writes DuFresne. "You need to take chances when you write stories, and if you're afraid to fail, if you're afraid to take the wrong road in the story, then you won't ever write anything worthwhile. "

But your ability to take risks, explains DuFresne, depends on how you perceive mistakes. "James Joyce said that there are no mistakes, that an error is a doorway to discovery."

To find that doorway, it may prove helpful to begin diving from a lower height... to establish your faith in the process of diving.

To learn that the air will support you in your free-fall, and that the water will be there to welcome you when you reach the bottom.

Each time you dive, taking greater risks, you learn what it feels like to leap off the edge... and recognize the fear that accompanies risk-taking... and ultimately overcome it. The more risks in your writing that you take, the more likely you'll learn how to dive into riskier and riskier terrain.

It's important to remember that diving isn't about success or failure. It's about learning to find that doorway past fear... to let go of your fear and then let go again... and again. Each dive helps you see through the illusion of fear.

It was Chris Lynch, one of my teachers, who taught me about not shying away from fear. He came over to me one night as I was standing with a group of friends, waiting for the program of readings to begin, and said, "You're reading your story, right?"

Lynch (author of Shadow Boxer, Gold Dust, Freewill, Iceman and the 2005 National Book Award finalist, Inexcusable) looked at me with his blue-green eyes, and in that look was this message: If you back away from fear, it will devour you, and there will be nothing left of your guts or your soul with which to write the next day or the next week or the next year.

Give into fear, he was warning me, and you're done as a writer.

Not giving into fear, in other words, is one of the requirements of the job.

Another one of Lynch's students, J. Irvin Kuns, alludes to this fear in the acknowledgements section of her book, While You Were Out (Dutton, 2004), summing up the process of learning to dive in a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:

"Come to the edge," He said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," He said.
They came.
He pushed them... and they flew.

Learning to dive past the risks--to fly past our fear--is part of the writing process.

It never gets easier.

But, once you've done it... once you embrace uncertainty and trust the process of diving and plunge past your fear... you'll be surprised at the worlds that you'll discover hidden beneath the surface of the blank page.

(For more information about John DuFresne and his thoughts on writing, check out his blog at http://www.johndufresne.com/Dufresne%20Blog.htm. )