the craft. the journey of the writer and the reader.
I love how you receive exactly what you need when you need it because I’d been thinking a lot about how I wanted to tell the story of my work in progress (WIP). You know the beautiful language is one thing but approach is a whole different part of the writing process. Things like what perspective to write in. Things like will it have a happy ending that ties up in a bow. How exactly do I want to lead into the climax? How much should I reveal early on, what should I keep for later?
As per usual when I’m looking for a little direction and inspiration, I was struck by this passage in Black Women Writers at Work, edited by Claudia Tate. I want to share it with you but please excuse the SA reference as it is talking about The Bluest Eye. In trying to edit, it didn’t have the same fullness, so I wanted to include the full quote.
Trigger Warner: Sexual Assault
“The language has to be quiet; it has to engage your participation. I never describe characters very much. My writing expects, demands participatory reading, and that I think is what literature is supposed to do. It's not just about telling the story; it's about involving the reader. The reader supplies the emotions. The reader supplies even some of the color, some of the sound. My language has to have holes and spaces so the reader can come into it. He or she can feel something visceral, see something striking. Then we [you, the reader, and I, the author] come together to make this book, to feel this experience. It doesn't matter what happens. I tell you at the beginning of The Bluest Eye on the very first page what happened, but now I want you to go with me and look at this, so when you get to the scene where the father rapes the daughter, which is as awful a thing, I suppose, as can be imagined, by the time you get there, it's almost irrelevant because I want you to look at him and see his love for his daughter and his powerlessness to help her pain. By that time his embrace, the rape, is all the gift he has left.”
- Toni Morrison
In this passage where Morrison explains her writing approach, one, it makes me want to quit writing again, two, it makes me think about this idea of the journey you want to take the reader on as a writer. So much of why reading activates us in a different way than other mediums is our ability to make it what we want it to be. When we are reading, our imagination is in overdrive trying to visualize the text on the page. How is the author actively engaging in the feat with all these choices they decide to make about the story? I feel like Morrison hits the nail on the head here in the excerpt.
It’s giving just enough detail but not too much. It’s allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. It’s also giving them enough information to interpret in their own way. It’s trusting them in a lot of ways, that they’ll get it. Although we’re completely not in control of that and it’s interesting what readers can infer that you never intended, I can admit that at times I want to. But all of this is the work that goes into our storytelling beyond our colorful language. This balance of not being too heavy handed is important I think, especially, as a new writer. To me, I feel like Morrison is challenging me to actually believe that the art is no longer yours when it leaves you in that way.
I’d been grappling with perspective a lot for my WIP. Currently it’s close third person, but it’s been gnawing at me whether to switch to an alternating third person perspective and right on queue I read a book with hella perspectives that killed. But here, with the illustrious Morrison, it’s almost like my fears have been qualmed. Where I’d been afraid of what adding the perspective would reveal, here she says, I’ll tell you the whole thing, but then take you on a journey of how these characters got there. And guess what? We’re all going to be there to figure this thing out, because duh, she’s the best to do it. We, the writer and reader, are both journeying through this thing together, I’d like to imagine, hand in hand.
Although what I’d like to reveal about my male character is not half as egregious as the act Morrison references here from The Bluest Eye, I feel like this gives me permission to include his perspective. My challenge with this story is to ensure that we understand that his shortcomings are not malicious. I want to evoke sympathy from the reader, even though naturally, readers would not be feeling him all that much. If I can give insight into who this character is internally and his struggles outside of the view of my main protagonist, I think a complex story now has enough layers to take us on the journey of this love between two people without as much judgment.
In talking to one of my writing friends, she asked “have you ever written in alternating perspectives before?” To which I answered, “No!” lol. But I’ve rarely met a writing challenge that backed me down. Well, except for this one story that I’m not smart enough to write yet, but I digress. The moral of the story here is, I never wrote a full novel until I wrote one. So, I’m not that afraid of dipping my toe in the alternating perspectives waters. What I was afraid of was my ability to keep the reader engaged if they know what my main protagonist doesn’t.
It’s a notable mode of storytelling really. Think about films that start with “I know you’re wondering how I ended up here,” it’s the voice over a freeze frame of some wild and crazy situation. You know what happens, but we all sit and watch so we know exactly how they ended up there.
Something about this new story I’m working on is making me so nervous because it’s nothing like the other manuscripts I’ve worked on where I knew the whole thing, start to finish, and only had to find enough words to get there. This story is still very much marinating and speaking to me about what it needs. Not to get all woo woo about it, but creativity has been feeling very spiritual to me lately. Like those moments when you know things are being downloaded into you because you’re not nearly interesting enough to be that creative? But anyway, the moral of the story here is that our literary fairy godmother has no idea how much her work and her approach is still teaching us. Or maybe she does, I don’t know, but I’m grateful. Grateful to be poured into, in a way that gives me permission. That hopefully wraps up this standstill I’ve been at in this story.
Here are a couple things I know now that I can take back to the page:
I don’t think my beginning is my actual beginning. So, I’m excited to think about how I actually want to start.
I can look at alternating perspectives, but now that means I need to do the full work on the secondary character that I did on the primary character.
Maybe I want to reveal the big thing and then walk the reader down the journey of how we got here. When done well, it works.
All the language I’ve been consuming, it’s go time to beef up the prose.
Anyway, I hope sharing in this fashion helps you. If you haven’t already grabbed a copy of Black Women Writers at Work, I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to prove. Just taking a little time out of your day to read a little about craft may give you exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Levi Winslow is looking to expand his pool of freelance writers who are knowledgeable about memes, internet personalities, and streamers for stories as he defines complex’s internet culture direction. Rates are $100-$300ish depending on the work. Send an intro and samples of work to levi.winslow@thentwrk.com.
Ink of Ages Fiction Prize. If you write historical or mythology-inspired short fiction, you can enter a story under 2,000 words to win some great prizes from World History Encyclopedia and Oxford University Press! Our contest is free to enter and we accept submissions in English from anywhere in the world. Submissions open 1 August to 15 September 2024.
Foundation House, located in backcountry Greenwich, CT, will open its doors for 10 days to six residents, allowing residents the time and space for concentrated creation in beautiful and inspiring surroundings. Foundation House’s mission as a non profit center for learning is to focus on health, wellness, the environment, and social justice. To that end, we host residencies, workshops, lectures and other meaningful gatherings on these topics. (Aug. 4th deadline.)
The focus of Bryn Du’s Artist in Residence program is to enhance local awareness and engagement in the arts by introducing new and varied artists to the Granville community throughout the calendar year. Equally important, the Bryn Du Artist in Residence program will provide an inspirational setting for the creation of artistic works by one artist at a time, of any discipline, over an 8 or 12 week time frame. (Aug. 31, Granville).
