1 Reply by UmitN

(5 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

(4) Maria thought back to all the reasons she had broken up with Brian. He was messy, it took him hours to return her calls, he liked the wrong movies. Furthermore, he was a terrible kisser and she hated that cologne he doused his neck with every morning. Still, she had to admit she missed him nonetheless.

Wordiness
- The reader will probably know from the context that it's Maria thinking
- "had to admit"
- "his neck with every morning" - these two details don't carry much meaning/seem very important (without more context around them)

Redundancy
- "all the reasons" seems redundant since the reasons are spelled out in the following sentence
- Too many "he"s in there, though the repetition could be part of the style/tone so I feel like this one's a toss-up

Incorrect register
- "Furthermore"
- "nonetheless"

Reporting
- "Maria thought back"
- "she hated that cologne" - this feels like too much 'telling'

I changed it to:

(4) Why had she broken up with Brian?  He was messy, took hours to return her calls, liked the wrong movies, was a terrible kisser—and that cologne he doused himself with!  Still, she missed him.

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2 Reply by UmitN

(2 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

Thanks Anita!  I just finished the Browne and King book and it was fantastic.

Here are a few of my favorites:

- The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante (wide-ranging and one of the best craft books I've read)
- The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch
- Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, Elizabeth and Ned Stuckey-French
- Stein on Writing by Sol Stein
- John Gardner's books (his thoughts on the three main faults of fiction - mannerism/frigidity/sentimentality - felt very resonant, quick primer on them below)
http://jimhamilton.info/2011/04/06/erro … f-fiction/
- Ernest Hemingway on Writing and F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing, both edited by Larry W. Phillips
- Paris Review author interviews (free, in-depth interviews with classic authors - an amazing resource)
www.theparisreview.org/interviews

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3 Reply by UmitN

(5 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

I'm going to give The Great Gatsby a try, though it turned out to be way harder than I thought!

1.)   Initially I was going to go with the protagonist Nick leaving the Midwest and moving to New York, but this event doesn't seem to really get the gears of the plot turning - it initiates the story, and without it the plot couldn't be set in motion, but it's too bland and feels more like requisite backstory.  I suspect the inciting incident is Nick becoming Jay Gatsby's neighbor - but I'm not too sure.  The problem here, again, is that this doesn't exactly trigger the plot.  I feel like the plot arc begins when it's established that Jay Gatsby wants to reunite with the married Daisy Buchanan, but this doesn't happen till we're well into the book.

2.)  External conflict is another tough one, because Nick is a special kind of first-person narrator/main character; externally, he's almost peripheral to the plot, and acts as more of an observer or interpreter of events rather than a pivotal participant in them.  The external conflict of the plot seems to be character vs. character (Gatsby vs. Tom, Daisy) but the external conflict of the story or main character arc seems to be character vs. society (Nick vs. the moral corruption of aristocratic society, embodied by almost everybody except Gatsby, who "turned out all right in the end").  If I had to choose one, I'd go with the latter.

Over the course of the story Nick changed (as he describes it) from a tolerant person who reserves judgments to quite the opposite - this might be character versus self, a conflict between who Nick used to be (or who he believed he was), and who he became (or who he really is).

3.)  The tension in the first scene - the small dinner party at Tom & Daisy's mansion - is powerful.  The night is constantly being interrupted by the ringing telephone with Tom's mistress on the other end.  The tension is maintained by having the affair be an open secret - no one can talk about it openly, but the insistent phone shatters the illusion of Tom and Daisy's marriage over and over again.  There's also a small hint that Daisy (and her friend Jordan) know Gatsby, Nick's new neighbor, somehow.  The reader wonders how they're all connected, and what will become of this troubled marriage.

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4 Reply by UmitN

(7 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

Since I've read a good bit of his work and noted shifts in voice across it, I'll take a shot at F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I would characterize the narrative voice of his first two novels as ornate, often wordy or breathless in pace, and slightly dandyish/aristocratic with streaks of pretension.  This melds perfectly with the narcissistic main character of This Side of Paradise, Amory Blaine (the first part of the novel is duly named "The Romantic Egotist"), and the generally upper-class concerns and subject matter of the novel.  In The Great Gatsby there seems to be a startling modulation - economic word usage, meticulously sculpted and measured prose, and descriptive depth that imbues a sense of mystery and gravity.  This change in tone grows organically from the nature of the story - a first-person narrator who's relatively less well-off than Fitzgerald's previous protagonists, the mysteriousness of Gatsby, several marital affairs and a murder - but also from Fitzgerald's conscious attempt to "write down" as he called it, and develop a different kind of voice.  Tender Is the Night was less economical, more complex, but I feel the voice in Gatsby is more or less the one he carried on through most of the short stories/novellas he wrote throughout his life.
         
Using Gatsby as an example, setting is basically spelled out.  After some macro references to the Midwest, New Haven, and 1915 that come up as Nick the narrator begins recounting that fateful summer, on page 4 he's stopped on the road by a stranger who asks him "How do you get to West Egg village?"  A few paragraphs later we learn that this is in Long Island, and Nick has rented a place there.  The first scene takes place at a mansion on Long Island Sound, and though the micro-level settings are mostly built with detailed descriptions that slow the movement of the story, it still feels organic as Nick is marveling at the grandeur of it all.

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5 Reply by UmitN

(6 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

For Exercise 2:

- It looks like there's a lot of data dumping going on in these first few paragraphs, and though it may serve to vaguely characterize the protagonist a bit, it doesn't move the story forward - or at least doesn't feel very relevant to it.  By the narrator's own admission this opening is digressive.  It would help if the narrator could stick to one or two important topics/characters/pieces of backstory.

- We're not getting much grounding information (particularly a sense for the narrator's age/gender, his or her relationship to Chris, and what's happening/what just happened) and the disembodied feeling is starting to kick in.     

- Lots of jumpy musing and ruminating going on, so tension fizzles.  It would be helpful if the inner monologue built to a crucial reveal or revelation rather than the acknowledgment of a departure from the story.     

- All said, considering that the narrator suffers from ADD, the confusing elements in the passage might actually be an attempt to convey the narrator's unfocused and neurotic inner life.  If that's the case and the chaos is intentional, the writer might find a way of communicating this while avoiding the pitfalls that alienate the reader.

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6 Reply by UmitN

(5 replies, posted in Crafting the Strongest Start - Spring 2015)

Hi everyone,

Really looking forward to the class!

(1) In which genre(s) do you write?
Literary/Upmarket fiction, with elements of magical realism.

(2) How long have you been writing?
I wrote my first book when I was about 8 or 9 (a picture book with construction-paper pages, bound with cardboard), and entered my first poetry contest in
fifth grade.  But it was five years ago that I began writing seriously, aspiring to be a published author.

(3) Is your primary goal to find a traditional publisher or to self-publish, or both (and have you published before)?
Ideally I'd like to find a traditional publisher.  I haven't seriously considered self-publication, though that could certainly change.  I haven't published before.

(4) Have you submitted your current work to agents or publishers, and if so, any feedback you’d like   to share?
I'm currently working on my second novel, which is still very much a work-in-progress.  I received manuscript requests from agents I queried about my first novel two years ago, and generally the feedback was that it was too stylistic/experimental (multiple POV's mixed with unconscious narration etc.) for a commercial audience.  After a round of (extremely helpful) developmental editing with a freelance editor on that first novel, I ultimately decided to put it in a drawer and start fresh, write something more accessible and traditional.

(5) Who are a couple of your favorite authors?
Jesse Goolsby (particularly his short story in the latest issue of the lit journal Redivider), Toni Morrison

(6) What's a fun, quirky, or interesting fact about you?
I was an "ad man" at the advertising agency that the show Mad Men was based on.

Umit

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