The Under Ground Writing Project

Hey guys -

For all those who have followed this blog, I just want to say a hearty THANK YOU!! It's really been a pleasure. I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned from the experience.

However, Ali and I have decided to head up our writers group's blog: Notes from Under Ground. We'll be talking writing, publishing, books, and whatever else comes into our heads - along with the rest of our gang. Please come by and chat with us, we'd be super sad to miss anyone!

The posted articles will remain here, just in case any one particular post inspired you...or maybe you need a direction for a school paper. =)

Happy writing and reading to you, my friends.

~Jenny

Quickie

Are you strapped for time?  Trying to write, but in the mood for something short and sweet?  The Foundling Review has you covered with their Pachaas contest.  Write a story that's exactly 50 words long and send it their way.

Library Run and Chickens

Last night I went to pick up a stack of Alice Walker books.  I'm going to start diving in today and I'm not quite sure what to expect.  On one hand, this is a woman who can go to dark places in her writing, and on the other hand, this is a woman who has published a book titled, The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who have Returned with My Memories... the rest of the title names the chickens.  I have decided this is the book I will read first, because seriously, how could I not?

In the first few paragraphs, I found this passage:

Once I stopped moving about quite so much my interest in chickens, and memory about that particular chicken, asserted itself.  I realized I was concerned about chickens, as a Nation, and that I missed them.

Hrm... What am I getting myself into here?

Tournaments, Cross Dressing Princes, and Mini Operas: A Tuesday Post of Accountability

Ali:  No breaks in this week's chain, I am pleased to report.  Also, I made cookies and went on a seven mile hike over the weekend.  As of yesterday, I'm only two miles away from hitting my work out goal for the week (a seven mile hike helps a lot).  Work in progress for this week = a fairy tale about a cross-dressing prince.

Jenny: Breaks all over the chain! Two words for you: Baseball Tournament. Actually, make that three words for you: Surprise Baseball Tournament. Wait. Make that ten words: Badly Scheduled and Badly Given Notice of Weekend Baseball Tournament.

It was a hot, rough weekend my friends. I should also mention that this weekend was the first practice for Owen's second  baseball league. Yeesh.

Anyway, as far as writing goes...

1. Finished rewriting a chapter of La Llorona and marked up the next phase of the novel. Soon I'll be at the point where I can write fresh words from scratch -- meaning I'll probably go a little faster.

2. Also, I have nine days to really finish a short play that I'm working on for a local theatre festival. I'm not quite there yet, and it's the baseball tournament that I largely blame for this.

3. At some point soon we should be hearing the results of ENO's mini opera contest...but my formatting was so bad that I'm not holding my breath. If you'd like to see how jacked up it got in translation from Blogger to ENO's website: here ya go. (And if you're so inclined, feel free to hit 'like' and show me a little pity.)

What've you guys been up to? Lots pages? Lotsa brainstorming?

Pitfalls and Unexpected Benefits of the Epistolary Form

Welcome to June and our new mentor: Alice Walker!!!!

Alice Walker, Miami Bookfair International, 1989

Alice Walker, as you may or may not know, is the Pulitzer Prize winner author of The Color Purple (you may’ve seen the Oscar nominated movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg).

The Color Purple was on my to-read list for a looooong time. And I have only one, somewhat shallow, reason for this. I hesitated for so long because The Color Purple is an epistolary novel. Just in case you need to know what an epistolary novel is, don’t run to Wikipedia. It’s a novel written in different media – like letters, emails, news articles, etc. Some very famous, iconic novels have been written in this format. Dracula and The Sorrows of Young Werther are two classic examples. Bridget Jones’s Diary and World War Z are a couple contemporary examples.

As fun as a few of those are, I have found epistolary formats troublesome. In my opinion, epistolary formats automatically kill some of the suspense that a novelist tries to build.

Take World War Z. It’s an epic, hugely sweeping novel of the (possibly coming?) zombie apocalypse. By writing it in an epistolary format Max Brooks has made sure the reader understands two things off the bat: 1. The apocalypse has happened and the zombies were, essentially, defeated and 2. The humans have survived. I’m not spoiling anything. As a reader you figure this stuff out after the first couple pages. You know these two things are true because people have to be around in order for documentaries to be made – so people lived. And, if people have moved on enough for documentaries to be made, the zombies can’t be posing a daily threat anymore. So you know the ending before the story has even really started.

So, if you’re going to use an epistolary format, be aware that there is an inherent loss of tension that comes along with that choice.

I managed to get past my epistolary hang-up (which is just a personal, reader preference – the way many people get annoyed with first-person, present-tense formats) and read The Color Purple.

The opening scenes are so emotionally wrenching that I wasn’t sure how the tension could be held throughout the book. Celie (in the movie: Whoopi Goldberg) writes to God about her shitty – sorry, there’s really no other word for it – circumstances. Later she writes to her sister, Nettie, who also writes letters to Celie.

And here is where it gets interesting. Nettie’s letters to Celie are held back from Celie by her jerk of a husband (played wonderfully in the movie by Danny Glover). Celie finds the letters and is quite, quite angry. When Celie starts to direct her letters to Nettie, there’s no way for the letters to be delivered. She has no address. She has no point of contact at all. Nettie is on a different continent. Celie keeps talking to her sister, but her sister can’t hear her.

I found this to be technically brilliant. One of the underlying thematic elements of The Color Purple is the question of faith – who keeps it in the face of adversity and who loses it, who gains it where they never had it, and how to hold onto faith once it’s found. Sending a letter that will never be read by its intended recipient is a gigantic leap of faith for Celie. And Nettie’s constancy with her own letters – when she has no guarantee that Celie is receiving them – shows Nettie’s faith. They cling to each other in spite of the silence on either side. It’s a really beautiful, poignant undertone to the story that couldn’t have been achieved without the epistolary styling.

So, I suppose the point to take away is this: be aware of the pitfalls of the form. (I knew Celie wasn’t going to die, for example, though her life could’ve gotten progressively worse.) You’re going to have to build tension in a different way with an epistolary format.

Some of the things that can be played with – and played with gusto – within an epistolary format:

1.       Silence vs. noise. What is being said, and to whom? Why? Who can overhear or intercept the message? Aside from the reader, who has access to the information presented via letter/note/news column/whatever?

2.       Lending credence to unbelievable events. This is where World War Z is effective. A documentary is a trustworthy source, presumably. If someone is making a newsy story about zombies, it adds a certain buyability to the story. (Also one of the reasons District 9 was such an effective movie.)

3.       Multiple viewpoints. Most of the epistolary novels I’ve read, including The Color Purple, utilize multiple points of view. Journals and letters are the ultimate first person POV. It’s next to impossible to get a full story when the cards are held so close to the chest. Celie and Nettie exchange their stories – and both stories inform the main narrative, fleshing it out whereas a single POV would’ve been very one note. (And, as a side note, I think this is a flaw with the movie version. It’s all Celie, all the time. And the viewer of the movie doesn’t get a lot of Celie’s vivaciousness because there’s no letters to read.)

4.       Stream of consciousness. This is always a risky bit of territory, but the epistolary form allows the free flow of thoughts, one connecting to the other, the way real people think.

What are some other possible pitfalls or benefits to the epistolary form? Have you read any books recently that used letters or journal entries to great effect? Have you ever written anything using an epistolary form? How was that experience? Did the story work to your satisfaction?

Bedtime Stories

As soon as I saw this call for submissions, I thought of how perfectly it fit with our conversation with Alameddine.  Wicked East Press is currently collecting submissions for not one, but three anthologies featuring bedtime stories.  Check it out.  The deadline is June 30th.

Happy Writing!

Guest Post: When Women Write Men

Today, I bring you a special edition guest post from our friend John.  Last week, I talked about men writing women, and we thought it would be fun to get the other side of the story.  So, without further ado, here's what John has to say about it.

"How do you write women so well?"

"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."

-As Good As It Gets

It is in the spirit of gender equality, that I say women can't write men either. Or rather, women who do a good job of writing men can still fall short.

I tried to read My Sister's Keeper, but I was so put off by Picoult's absurdly written lawyer, I nearly threw the book across the room. There was no way anyone could convince me that this was a real human being. However, Carolyn Parkhurst with The Dogs of Babel has written a protagonist that is not only believable as a human being, but you might even get the sense that you have met a guy like him before.

There are a couple of issues at work here. First, you have to understand the human condition enough to create a believable human being. Second, when it comes to anything that modifies a character beyond just being human, you have to focus on perspective.

 

Full disclosure, Ali really is a woman, and I really am a man. I also happen to be over a foot taller than her. Now, just from a physical standpoint, she has the advantage of seeing things on the bottom shelves of the bookstore where I possess the advantage of seeing the things on the top shelves. In this case the key to understanding each other's perspective is to either squat down or learn how to build a ladder.

There is another issue at work here: Double Standards that often get ignored. When a man "can't write a woman," he is viewed as inexperienced in talking to girls and is to be pitied or ostracized. When a woman "can't write a man," it's because "men folk are just too confusing to understand." Which I find particularly amusing, because men generally aren't a very complicated group of creatures. If you can't figure them out, I challenge you to reassess how much you're really paying attention. 

Also, it is a fundamental fallacy to assume that the experience of a group is completely homogenized. Just the fissures between feminists regarding how to fight for equality is enough to know that if you're going "to talk to women," you're best served talking to a variety of women. I've met Stepford Wives with some of the most awful, degrading opinions of men, and granola hippy feminists who are able to tick off rather unique things men have to endure, and respect men for doing so. You have to make sure you've got your newly acquired perspective in perspective as well.

Basically, it comes down to the same things you have to keep in mind with any topic you wish to write about. Do you due diligence, stretch your imagination to include a perspective that doesn't come naturally to you, and make sure you're not building your ladder wrong. This is not anything new, regardless of the topic.

As for all of this talk of women depicted in chainmail bikinis: Yes, they're impractical. Yes, they are probably uncomfortable. But, the goal of putting a woman in a chainmail bikini is NOT to present a believably strong woman. Fun Fact: A character called Jirel of Joiry was written in the same era as Conan the Barbarian. She was written to be just as physically strong as a man, and wore armor, but it was always worn with practicality in mind. She was the creation of a writer called C.L. Moore, who also was a woman. However, if you look at the cover of Weird Tales where Jirel first appears, she is in no way dressed as she was in story. She wore something more befitting an alluring damsel in distress.

Here's why women get dressed up in chainmail bikinis and are forced to stand in ridiculously uncomfortable and awkward positions: All of that work makes them look AWESOME. Men who see a woman in a chainmail bikini are more likely to spend money on whatever creative vehicle is being advertised with a woman in a chainmail bikini rather than a regular bikini, and especially rather than something practical. Some businessman took biology and eventually discovered the connection between spending tendencies and how they are tied to evolutionary-borne instincts that are steeped in how humans go about looking for a reproductive mate. 

In other words, sex sells. But, it's not always the writer's fault that their characters are being tramped up. If you're going to take issue with that, take it up with marketing executives and book cover artists first. If they blame the writer, then you know where to go next.

And just for the record, C.L. Moore's depiction of men was fairly thin and one-dimensional as well.

Birthday Blip: A Tuesday Post of Accountability

Ali: I did a lot of stuff this week.  I went on three hikes, I made muffins, I went on a food tour, I turned a year older, and I mostly kept up with the chain.  I gave myself two days off for the holiday weekend/my birthday.  But, I also finished transcribing Chapter 2 of the Sleeping Beauty project and sent it off to Jenny for her to take a look at.  I also wrote about 2/3 of a new short story which I'm writing as an exercise in starting with a bad situation, then escalating it.  Even with two days off, I'm pleased with how the past week has gone.

Jenny: Happy Birthday to Ali!

I'll keep it quick, since this is posting so late (my bad). Good news: my chain continues to grow!

1. Finished rewriting a chapter of La Llorona.

2. Am halfway through a short play I'm working on for a local theatre festival.

How are y'all doing?

Mistresses of the Macabre

Since my last post was about gender & writing, it caught my eye when I saw a call for submissions from Dark Moon Books that wants horror written by women: "No doubt about it, woman view the world differently than men."  The deadline is June 30th.

Time to get your creep on.

Sorry boys, this one is girls only.

When Dudes Write Chicks

I the Divine was the first book I read by Alameddine.  When I picked it up, I had a moment of skepticism because here was a dude writing a book with a female protagonist and some of the chapters are even in first person.  Right around this time, we had a couple of guys cycling through our writers group who were trying to write female protagonists and failing spectacularly.  So, I was in a cynical frame of mind.  However, I was pleasantly surprised because Alameddine wrote his protagonist like she was a real human, not just a male fantasy.  Imagine that!

Why is it so hard for guys to write authentic female characters?  Or, rather, why is it so hard for some guys to write good female characters?  Maybe because a lot of our contemporary fiction is pretty short on strong female protagonists - a lot of times, a "strong woman" gets translated into stereotypes and a chain mail bikini. 

But, I say cheers to all the male writers out there who actually understand that women are people too.  If you haven't already seen Jim Hines' blog post where he mimics the poses of women on book covers, click over right now.  It's not only hysterical, it makes great points, too.

Another piece that makes some great points is an article author Greg Rucka titled Why I Write "Strong Female Characters".  One of my favorite parts of the article is when he's talking about preparing to write Shooting at Midnight, which was written in the POV of Bridgett Logan.  Here is what he has to say about preparing:

"Bridgett was not my first female protagonist, clearly, but it was the first time I was diving into such deep waters. I was going to be in her head, see through her eyes, and while I knew her personality, there were many gaps... And despite my best empathy, I didn't know what it was to see the world as a woman."

My favorite comment of Rucka's is the one that the problematic writers I mentioned earlier really need to hear and understand, because that's the crux of where they go wrong.

"But the best thing I did, the thing that helped the most, the thing that became the guiding principle, and has been ever since, was also the simplest.

I talked to women."

See, these guys who were problematic would bring their work to the writers group, then the women in the group would give them feedback about the characters, and the guys would blow it off.  They thought they understood women better than women did.  No wonder their female characters were disasters.

Let's go back to women on covers.  Consider the difference between the woman portrayed on the cover above and the woman on the cover of one of Rucka's comics below.  Which woman would you take more seriously?

On a final note, it wouldn't be fair to talk about men writing women without also talking about women writing men.  Next week we'll be featuring a guest post on the topic written by a feller.  Stay tuned!