Category: Pen to Paper

Pen to Paper: Reimagining

Posted on by bryon

One of the things writers do is to reimagine the old stories to make them more accessible to modern audiences. Jane Smiley won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her novel A Thousand Acres, which was then made into a movie in 1997; it’s Shakespeare’s King Lear set on an Iowa farm. James Cameron added a touch of the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet to his Titanic to act as a focus for the tragedy of the lost liner. The Coen Brothers gave us a new way to view Homer’s Odyssey in O! Brother, Where Art Thou?

The stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood are periodically updated and retold. Even more modern heroes like Superman and Batman are given new focus both in print and on screen.

At its best, this practice keeps great stories fresh for a new generation and a new audience. At its worst, Hollywood remakes bad television shows into even worse motion pictures, or “reboots” perfectly good franchises just for the joy of screwing around with the well-known characters and trying to squeeze more bucks out of them.

I can’t recall that I’ve reworked an old favorite myself. I’ve built on well-known stories and expanded upon them, such as in my story “The Fatted Calf.” But perhaps I’ll try it one day just to see if I can find a new way to make a familiar story shine.

During my regular perusal of the Internet, I came across a visual depiction of the Myth of Sisyphus that, while being awfully funny in ways the original story was never meant to be, encapsulates the myth’s basic concept and got me to thinking about reimagining the great stories. That’s a nice new constellation of thoughts from one lolcat gif.

Pen to Paper: Depression and Creativity

Posted on by bryon

Today’s topic comes from Greg’s second comment on last week’s topic.

Is there, in fact, a link between the depressive personality and the creative one? Do they inhabit the same skin? The answer is a definite maybe. It all depends on the latest study done, which may say the opposite of the study before that. There are some interesting parallels, however, between the manic phase of bipolar disorder and the creative process.

Some research suggests that it is not depression but rather the coming out of depression which engenders a burst of creativity. This seems reasonable; if you’ve been seeing through a glass darkly and daylight begins to break, isn’t that cause for a psalm of joy? Or perhaps an epic tragedy?

The belief that depression is a necessary component of creativity may be a cultural orientation: “In the West many people believe that creativity comes from torment, while in the East there is more of a tradition of great art coming from balance and realization.”

Author, psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel is quoted as saying, “Creators are not necessarily afflicted with some biological disease or physiological disorder… They experience depression simply because they are caught up in a struggle to make life seem meaningful to them.”

If you’re a happy and creative person, don’t hunt for reasons to be unhappy on the theory that you’re not down in the trenches with the rest of us. And for those who are depressed, perhaps it will help to believe that although “weeping may endure for the night, joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5, speaking of psalms), and your creative cup will runneth over once more.

UPDATE, 12/16: Health.com has made a list of 10 Careers with High Rates of Depression. “Artist, entertainer, writer” is listed at number six. Right before “teacher.”

Pen to Paper: ‘This is Water’

Posted on by bryon

The text for today’s lesson is a commencement address David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. Despite having skipped both of my college graduation ceremonies, I have a fondness for reading good commencement speeches. Read Wallace’s now, and then come back for my take on what it means for writers.

Continue reading “Pen to Paper: ‘This is Water’” →

Pen to Paper: Keep Going

Posted on by bryon

If, in the face of rejection slips, lack of comments or unkind comments, unenthusiastic friends or family members, you need a reason to keep going, to keep writing, here’s one.

In this interview with Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, Elie Wiesel tells a story:

A just man decided he must save humanity. So he chose a city, the most sinful of all cities. Let’s say it is Sodom. So he studied. He learned all the art of moving people, changing minds, changing hearts. He came to a man and woman and said, “Don’t forget that murder is not good, it is wrong.” In the beginning, people gathered around him. It was so strange, somewhat like a circus. They gathered and they listened. He went on and on and on. Days passed. Weeks passed. They stopped listening. After many years, a child stopped him and said, “What are you doing? Don’t you see nobody is listening? Then why do you continue shouting and shouting? Why?” And the man answered the child, “I’ll tell you why. In the beginning, I was convinced that if I were to shout loud enough, they would change. Now I know they won’t change. But if I shout even louder, it’s because I don’t want them to change me.”

Pen to Paper: Harry Potter and the Creativity Conundrum

Posted on by bryon

With the upcoming release of the final Harry Potter movie, our favorite boy wizard is almost everywhere you look.

Once the Potter books became successful, various writers and other folk started crying, “That’s not original! I wrote that first!” Or “J.K. Rowling took this and this and this from this other book.” Envy is an ugly thing. Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs have written an article posted at io9 that looks at all the claims and sorts fact from fiction.

It is interesting to see that what we think is purely original really isn’t. Rowling has acknowledged her debts to other creative minds. We see the same sorts of stories being told and retold. Writers today, after millennia of humans telling stories, aren’t in much position to bring something wholly new into the world. That doesn’t mean we can’t tell wonderful stories; we must recognize that we type on the shoulders of all who have told stories before us. Jill Harness, over at Neatorama, shows us how Rowling has made mythical creatures from stories of the past live in the world she created.

Finally, let me share with you an excellent piece by Cheryl Klein: A Few Things Writers can Learn from Harry Potter. (Spoilers abound if you haven’t read all the books.) This is something I come back to occasionally to refresh my memory and my imagination.

Pen to Paper: Mary Sue

Posted on by bryon

Mary Sue comes to us from Star Trek fan fiction. She was in a parody of the fanfic of the day, and her fame has grown since. As you’ll see if you follow the links, nailing down what is and what isn’t a Mary Sue character is like nailing Jell-O to a wall.

The definition I want to focus on is Mary Sue as an author avatar: the over-the-top perfect character that outshines the sun itself. This is the author writing himself into the story in an idealized form for the purpose of wish fulfillment. The author adds a new character who is smarter, braver, more beautiful, more caring, more, more, more than the original characters, who instantly adore the avatar.

This sort of character shows up in original fiction, too. Mary Sue wasn’t a 20th century invention, either, but was around at least in the 19th century.

The term has come to be strictly pejorative, and there is growing controversy in some circles about its use. There are those who believe that a strong female character is too often labeled a Mary Sue. Or that any character who has his head screwed on reasonably well is tarred with the Mary Sue brush. These are valid concerns.

The point I want to make today is simple: enjoy Mary Sue in your daydreams, but leave her out of your fiction. She merely annoys the reader.

Pen to Paper: The Long View

Posted on by bryon

This is only a day late for Halloween. It’s the story of one of the most popular fictional monsters: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The writer tells the story well and there’s not much for me to say, except this: Write as well as you can. Create the best characters you can. Because even though your contemporaries might think your work is a pain in the neck, later generations may really sink their teeth into it. Give them that chance.

Pen to Paper: Finding Time to Write

Posted on by bryon

“Bryon, how do you write a short story — and a haiku — every week? How do you find the time for such creativity?”

I get asked this question a lot. Every time I daydream about being a Famous Author standing in front of an auditorium filled to overflowing with fans, someone at one of the microphones set up for questions asks me this.

The answer is simple. I have decided that I will commit this sort of creativity on a weekly basis. That means there are other things I will not do because they would take up the time I require for thinking and dreaming and observing and writing.

Continue reading “Pen to Paper: Finding Time to Write” →

Pen to Paper: Meteors

Posted on by bryon

Meteors — those bright streaks of light that flare against the dark sky and occasionally deposit a new rock on our planet — have long fascinated us.

Meteor has been and remains a popular product name. Newspapers, mobile communications businesses, graphic arts firms, advertising businesses, a games company, a make of guitar and banjo, a portable stove, phonograph needles (the younger set can just look that up), tabletop patio gas heaters, tennis shoes, weather radar systems, several kinds of aircraft including a Nazi rocket plane, a filtration system, and, of course, various automobiles have carried the name Meteor. This surely is the tip of the iceberg in things named after the meteor.

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Pen to Paper: Story Theory

Posted on by bryon

What is a story? What elements are so vital to a piece of fiction that if one is missing you would not call it a story?

At this teacher resource site, the crucial elements are setting, plot, conflict, character, point of view, and theme. At this one, we’re told the elements are character, setting plot, conflict, and theme. This writing site says the elements are character, plot, setting, theme, and style.

In my researches to try to improve my flash fiction stories, I’ve come across these quotes:

For our purposes a story is a story only if it contains the following four elements: 1) a setting, 2) a character or characters, 3) a conflict and 4) resolution.
– Steve Moss, editor of The World‘s Shortest Stories

The flash fiction story must include characterization, conflict, viewpoint, significance and resolution.  When many writers try to write flash fiction they end up with a sketch.
– Guy Hogan, writer

Well, writing fiction is an art, not a science. Scientists generally agree on what combined with what equals what and on how to measure an experiment to see if it was successful. We humanities majors have opinions.

How many times have we read something only to say, “That wasn’t much of a story,” or even, “That wasn’t a story”? Something was missing. Perhaps there was no overt conflict, or maybe the setting was too vague.

Writer Bruce Holland Rogers has a fascinating — I might even say liberating — take on the elements of story, particularly as they relate to short-short fiction. He respects the rules but argues that by slavishly keeping a checklist we’ll keep getting the same stories we always have. Only by experimentation can we discover new kinds of stories. They won’t look like other stories and may challenge us to accept them as stories.

Rogers renews our poetic license to push the envelope of prescriptivism to see what we can accomplish. I hope you’ll enjoy his article as much as I have.