Things Only Stephen King Can Get Away With

I have a terrible commute.

Even Google Maps is like "This might take you an hour. Or not.
Not really sure. Have fun."

Because of this, I have listened to an unsual amount of audio books. I highly suggest this as a way of life for anyone else out there with a terrible commute. Go to your public library and investigate all those books you always meant to read but never had the chance. With an hour commute, you can finish a book a month just in the time you usually lose to Radiohead and Ke$ha.

On these commutes, I've been "reading" through Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I cannot really express how incredible this has been, as it is one of those stories that transitions very well to an oral telling. I'm going to wait to gush about this series until I've finished it (NO-NO SPOILERS. I know it's been out for years and I could just Google it. That's not the point).

I must be careful. 

But in the course of this series, I have discovered that, believe it or not, Stephen King does not follow the same rules as you or I. Stephen King does what Stephen King wants. And it doesn't matter what creative writing courses might be forgotten, what rules undone. But today, I heard him break a big one.

Don't hide information from your readers. Hide information from your characters, yes, but never from your readers. 

I'm in Wolves of the Calla, Book 5 of the Dark Tower series.*

I'm not going to go into annoying detail here, but in essence, Eddie Dean learns something from another character, right at the end of a chapter. King does the classic "fade-away" technique, drawing away from the conversation just as Eddie learns the advice about their enemies that TOTALLY changes everything about the story. Instead of letting us overhear every word that the characters have been saying, like he has for the entire chapter, King decides to cut right here, and leave us hanging.

You know, ok. It's his story. Let's let him do his thing. I guess we're not supposed to know yet. But then...THEN- Eddie Dean tells this new, incredible information to Roland Deschain, the main charcter (Cowboy/Jedi/Superhero), and yet again, we aren't allowed to hear it. Instead, King concentrates his writing on Roland's face while Eddie tells him this vital information, and yet again we are forced to wait around for the story to get around to the truth.

Stephen King can do this incredibly annoying writing technique, because we trust him. Honestly, I'm in Book 5 of this series, and I know that I'm gong to stick it out till the end. He could introduce literally anything at this point, and I would still read it. (Also, because of the relative insanity of this series, he could happy Miss Piggy leading a communist revolt against the citizens of Fraggle Rock, and it would still somehow make sense).

Inevitable. 

I tried this technique once, in a creative writing class with Judy Troy at Auburn University. I wrote this perfectly mediocre story about a boy and his divorced mothing dealing with his going off to college and leaving her all alone. I was really trying to tap into real emtional human stuff, really the kind of thing I try to avoid nowadays. But here's the weird thing. I had this whole story wrapped up in the main character's brother, a few years younger than him, who also didn't want to see him go. And we saw this little brother misbehave, act out, and through the whole story we just think he's young and growing up in a hard situation. But then at the end, I revealed that the brother was actually a 17 year old mentally handicapped person this whole time! 

And doesn't that just change everything? Wasn't it clever of me to fool you all into thinking this was just a little boy, that all the emotions I was trying to express here were really just a ploy, a distraction from the overall reveal of a side character's...true age?

Yeah. It was terrible. 

I was scolded incessantly by Judy until I realized that I am not allowed to play this game. If my characters know something, I need to let the readers know it too, instead of creating false tension by holding information behind. This seems like a very natural and easy trap to fall in to, but I know, at the end of the day, my story will be better for it. After all, if my story is good enough, there should be enough tension to keep readers interested without cheating.




*Let me here acknowledge that this is a little weird because I've been listening to this on audiobook, so I can't actually cite any lines here. I could go buy the book, or get it from the library, or find that one particular disk and listen to it enough times so I can write the word exactly, but that sounds terrible.

Try A New Perspective

I've never been comfortable writing in the 1st person. Whenever I have a story idea, I see it in my head as happening to someone else. The film in my head plays out like...a film, with discernable 3rd person characters, because Hollywood hasn't come up with a good equivalent of a "Write Your Own Adventure" novel.

This and "Blair Witch" are the closest we've come.
Plus, Jason Bourne's shaky cam. 

I'm not sure why I envision my storylines this way. I think part of it is because I was trained as a Medievalist, always envisioning a glorious past. People have been writing about the Trojan War since long after Troy even had the possibility of existing. And it is hard to write about something that happened so long ago as if I was a part of it. Other people were. I'm trying to tell their story.

Perhaps it's because I think less of where I am, and more of where other people are.* That I've always imagined that characters are doing something more exciting than I've ever done.

When really, I should accept that few ever will. 

This flips me into an interesting conundrum. I've never felt hampered by the 3rd person before. In fact, I believe that most of my favorite stories were written in the 3rd person. 

        Here are the first three stories to come to my mind:

1. Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling's epic explanation of why people can be terrible while they're young, and can still turn into great people. Give them a chance. (Seriously though, every adult in his life was a terrible kid. But the important ones got over it).
2. The Once and Future King- a guys finds a sword, another finds a cup. There's a lot of excitement in-between, though. You should really give it a look. 
3. Back in Action- a children's book by Elvira Woodruff which was a favorite of mine, concerning the adventures of 10 year old Noah and a magic powder which shrunk him and his friend to the size of his action figures, who also happened to come to life. This was an important tale to young me, who, with no shortage of real friends, always imagined having more.   

But let there not be equal representation here. After all, if there were not a conundrum, I would not be writing a blog post about this. 

Star Wars is the answer. I miss when Video Games allowed you to choose between the two pov's.

It makes a difference. 

Because sometimes you need to feel the stormtroopers burn as you swing. And sometimes you don't. 

Here's the flipside, that "outsider's pov."

      Books which are fantastic in the 1st person:

1. Gulliver's Travels- the story of a man learning what it is like to have ultimate power, ultimate weakness, and terrible ignorance. There are also horses, if you like that kind of thing.
2. The Historian- a book that will make you think vampires are really, historically real, and will also anger you because of the unbelievable, unmimicable effort that Elizabeth Kostova put into her world building. 
3. The Hunger Games- about the kids from children's television shows like Clarissa Explains it All and Clifford, all pitted against each other in a ring of death. [Seriously though- Suzanne Collins is a super genius, fantastic writer, and someone I'd be uneasy asking to babysit).  

So, here's my own experience. I've been writing on this book off-and-on for a few years (yes, my projects always run in the years because I have trouble commiting and I have always had to have 'real person jobs.' Annoying). I had it in 3rd person until just recently, when I decided to try shifting, and I've really enjoyed the result. 

Original 3rd person perspective:

Highway 280 was a lonely road from Sylacauga. It was only an hour and a half drive, past Alex City, past Dadeville…and then nothing but trees, which can make an hour pass in minutes with the right company, and minutes pass in hours with the wrong. Although they drove at a steady pace, there was the illusion of being motionless. Not even the leaves waved as they passed, the wind giving way to an August heat. They called it Fall Semester, but true fall, seasonal fall, wouldn’t come till late October, and two months of rising heat and scarce rain had scorched the Alabama landscape. The endless asphalt grey road radiated heat waves, only disturbed by the occasional pothole and the more than occasional patch of roadkill brown. 

New, first-person perspective, which I believe is an improvement:

"My name is Ryan Aleman. This all started in August, when we drove down to Auburn for the beginning of the semester. Highway 280 is a lonely road from Sylacauga. In the hour and a half drive, past Alex City, past Dadeville…there’s nothing but trees, which can make an hour pass in minutes with the right company, and minutes pass in hours with the wrong. We drove at a steady pace, but there was the illusion of being motionless. Not even the leaves waved as we passed, the wind giving way to an August heat. Yeah, they called it Fall Semester, but true fall, seasonal fall, wouldn’t come till late October, and two months of rising heat and scarce rain had scorched the Alabama landscape. The endless asphalt grey radiated heat waves, only disturbed by the occasional pothole and the more than occasional patch of roadkill brown."

It's a subtle change, but one I'm growing more and more confident with. I think it provides more imediacy, more insight into the character. I don't feel so bad dwelling on Ryan's thoughts, or describing what he sees. I guess, for some reason, this is just a story that I needed to tell from behind a set of eyes, instead of from the sky.

I just had to open myself up to the possibility. 

*(Although, I do believe that this often happens when authors try writing in the opposite gender, when it feels most natural to say, "she's doing this," or "he's throwing this," or "that person over there who feels different from me is having experiences." All I'm saying, in the relative safety of these parentheses, is that authors who are afraid of showing gender bias are probably more likely to write in 3rd person.)

Draw from Other Genres

My heart lies in the fantastic—fantasy and science fiction. There is often, as well, a certain ridiculous element that shows itself. 

Just imagine--in a few more years those horns will curl around enough to reach his mouth,
so he can blow great trumpet blasts right into his own head. 

I do enjoy, every now and then, writing a memoir, or a short-story with reasonably adult characters with jobs and mortgages, where the tensions lie in secrets or sexual tension, etc. And that’s all well and fine, but I always feel this pull towards something else. I never seem to last long in a “normal” world, perhaps because I use reading and writing as such an escape from my “normal world.”

After all, I too have a normal 8-5 job, bills to pay, a future to fret about. If I’m going to write a hero, that hero’s going to have a big flaming sword and a pet dragon and the issue he's dealing with has a lot less to do with the ennui of a life in suburbia and a lot more to do with the mystical viking martians who have crashlanded in the ancient mountains of his forefathers. 

AND TRUMPET GOAT WILL BE HIS STEED

As such, I tend to read works somewhere within the range of fantasy fiction (which is a wide range. A traditional definition would have Twilight and The Historian in the same category—a criminal offense). This does make sense: read what you write, know the genre, the trends. Know what storylines and tropes have been used and overused so you can avoid them. But there is another way to be original, I think.

My fiancé recently introduced me to the works of L.M. Montgomery, and such delightful characters as Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon. I am thankful for this, because these are not books that I would ever think to pick up on my own, and as a boy without sisters, they were not on my childhood reading list.

Montgomery is, first and foremost, a fantastic writer. I approached her books as a skeptic. The covers didn’t appeal to me, and neither did the titles, the settings, or the blurbs on the backs.

Everything about this is designed to repel me. In book stores,
 I would literally see blank space on a shelf in place of this

It was literally a labor of love for me to even crack one open. But I have changed my tune, now. It is most amazing that Montgomery can make the daily dramas in the life of a nine year old girl seem to be the most important things in the world for those three pages. Her characterization is absolute, her world building on-par with the most successful fantasy or sci-fi authors.  

And there is freshness there, new subjects and phrases that I have never seen in a modern books of fantasy fiction. Something I drew away, for instance, was how she describes the Canadian scenery:

“It was November--the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines. Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park and, as she said, let that great sweeping wind blow the fogs out of her soul.”

                -Anne of Green Gables

I especially recall the way she wrote about the flowers, because I’ve never cared a bit for flowers and would never think I could enjoy a book so much that spent so much time on them. That’s the joy of a good book. You enjoy it even when you can’t believe that you’re enjoying it.

And those kinds of words can make it into any genre, any setting. There’s no reason words like these have to stay in late 19^th century Prince Edward Island. They can stretch to any world or time I could possibly invent. This is a real lesson I learned from reading L.M. Montgomery. Good writing is not limited to any particular genre. And so, learning to write should include reading all the best works, learning from the best authors of every age, style, and subject. 

Learn How to Create

For anyone who hasn’t read my last two blog entries ("Goodbye my Darlings" and "Learn How to Copy"), it may seem obvious to encourage a writer to create, rather than copy. But in a world so saturated by stories, and a culture so obsessed by the best and worst of them, it is often difficult to separate ourselves both consciously and subconsciously from what we’ve already known. 

A friend of mine wrote a poem in 8th grade that he was incredibly proud of. It had everything a poem should - beautiful imagery, clever wording, a passionate outpouring of emotion. Then his teacher pointed out to him that he had inadvertantly copied much of the content, and sometimes almost the exact wording, from a poem by Wordsworth. 

Feeling discouraged with the fickleness of poetry, my friend grew up and became a doctor. 

But can't you see the poetry still yearning to crawl forth from his hollow smile?

I know I've fallen victim to this myself. I've cursed Orsen Scott Card several times for "stealing" several of my ideas--by writing them decades before I thought of them. 

To create something original, something both in-tune with the stories that a culture is currently consuming, while pressing forward towards something new, is difficult. It means getting uncomfortable. It means taking chances. And that may also mean turning your work into something completely different.

This is hard.

Or at least it's hard for me. You might be brilliant at it. I don't know your life.

The reason it is hard to really create, in my opinion, is because we learn through mimicry. As humans, we learn to speak by listening to others speak. We learn speech patterns and mannerisms by watching our parents communicate. 

Be open to eating warthogs and meerkats, unless they offer a greater supply of food and songs

For this reason, it is hard for us to do things we have never seen, i.e. difficult for men to act as fathers if they had no father figure in their own lives. We live, we learn, by copying.

And then, so that we do not repeat their mistakes or becomes clones of our parents, we adapt what we’ve seen. In a way, we learn history for the same reason. We learn what other people have done, both good and bad, so we can apply those lessons to our own lives. Teaching Monet in art class and Mozart in music class is the exact same as teaching Marx in economics and Stalin in government. We take those lessons and use them.  

Yes, I'm talking about painters again

I had an English teacher tell me that Shakespeare knew all of the rules, so he could break them. There is an extra step, forward movement past successful mimicry and into creation. I think few of us would be satisfied with being able to make “really, really good copies.” We want something original.  

I thought I had done it, with my decade-long novel project. I thought I had created something in a grand tradition, another piece in the puzzle that is the fantasy novel. I had mimicked and drawn something that seems so familiar and yet so very much my own.

But, no—I had very carefully and wonderfully crafted something that the world does not need—a copy.

I see now that though the world didn’t need it, I did. I needed it. To learn. I was just one step behind where I thought I was.   

Degas said—“You have to copy and recopy the masters, and it’s only after having proved oneself as a good copyist that you can reasonably try to do a still life of a radish.”

(Seriously, these painters have all the quotes)

Of course, the HOW is much more difficult. How do we press forward? How do I move past the tropes, the stereotypes?

I start by asking myself this—“Have I seen it before? Is it a character, or a theme, or a setting, or an entire universe ripped from another’s story? Am I rewriting known stories with such minor changes the differences are only superficial?

If I have seen it, if it feels too familiar…then it probably is. Try again.