Between good and great
May 23, 2005 | 12:00am
Its hard enough to achieve competence in language especially a language that isnt natively ours, to begin with but in creative writing, the greater gulf to cross is that between being simply good and being truly great.
"Being good" is having a near-flawless command of the written language its grammar, its idioms, its idiosyncrasies. Good writers have a fundamental understanding of what stories, poems, plays, and essays try to achieve and can, most of the time, achieve them on demand. They know the elements of fiction (plot, character, point of view, etc.) and can handle versification as well as the next fellow. Theyll write pieces that will even win prizes and get published into perfectly respectable books. Some will teach, and produce equally good or even better students; many will be happy to publish the one book theyve been nurturing in their stout hearts since childhood, before turning to actuarial science or gourmet cooking or teaching postcolonial theory, or giving up the ghost.
The only problem is, taken as a whole, the good writers work will barely leave a ripple on the surface of its readers memory. A clever twist in the plot, an unusual turn of phrase, a particularly tart witticism, a jazzy title all of these will make their mark, and if youre lucky the retentive reader might associate them with you. But is this all you want? "Oh, youre the one who wrote that story about the three-headed monster, and the three heads have an argument about what was that again?"
Some other stories or poems can be so technically perfect especially after theyve been pruned and polished in three different workshops that theres not a thing you can say against them. The language is impeccable, the tone just right, the ambiguity expertly achieved. Everything works but when you add it all up, everything is very little, because nothing new is said, no risks are taken, and the reader cant remember a thing not even an image or a phrase from the work just three days later.
Theres an American poet named Donald Hall who has made it his lifes crusade to inveigh against mediocrity in contemporary poetry the proliferation of what he calls the "McPoem," referring to todays billion-burger culture (never mind that some American critics themselves think of Donald Hall as a bad poet). Halls challenge to writers was: "You have just one chance to be Homer. Take it."
Purely by chance, while pondering this piece, I was sitting as a panelist in a dissertation defense on the work of the British novelist John Fowles (The Collector, The French Lieutenants Woman), and the dissertation quoted Fowles explanation of why a writer writes: "It is necessary to make my name known; I must have power physical, social, intellectual, artistic, political but power. I must leave monuments, I must be remembered. I must be admired, envied, hated, feared, desired. In short, I must endure."
Now, you may not want to be Fowles, much less Homer (Homer Simpson may be more your style) and whats wrong with that? Nothing, I think; everyones perfectly free to be modest and obscure, or to write about distinctly un-Homeric topics (a difficult thing for me to exemplify, now that Im thinking about it; he wrote about them all love, death, politics, sex, honor, vanity, religion, individualism, myth, even pets).
In our terms, you may not want to be Jose Rizal or Nick Joaquin. Fine. But on the other hand, I honestly cant think of anyone who grows up thinking, "Oh, I want to be a mousy, mediocre, forgettable writer."
The point of Halls challenge is to break out of the mold and to do something fabulously memorable in other words, to be great, to be enlarged by your own imagination and creative energy. I dont think greatness (or, as Fowles puts it, endurance) is even something to consciously strive for; rather, it should be the consequence of the quality and consistency of ones imaginative acts, the reward of a lifetimes marvels and surprises many hits, some misses the specific reward being ones continuing relevance to the breathing world, ones continuing ability to delight and to instruct well past, if not during, ones own time.
Good writers can and will say all the right things, for all the right reasons. Blessed are the poor; save the planet; crime does not pay; love conquers all; lifes a bitch, and then you die. Fine sentiments, all and tedious clichés that, if they cant be reversed, at least need to be refreshed. "Make it new!" was Ezra Pounds admonition to the modernist age, and it remains a worthy challenge to the writer who, beyond mastering words, aspires to a mastery of human experience, by looking beneath the layers of our assumptions and pretenses, and by taking risks with character and material (and no, making you character say a cuss word every other minute is not risk-taking, unless youre 15 years old). When I read a story, Id like to be taken to untraveled territory, as John Updike does when he has Sammy say "I quit!" in "A&P" or as Kate Chopin does when she gives the young wife a heart attack in "The Story of an Hour."
Were not talking about shock value here, but precisely about the fact that while these turns or endings may seem unbidden and even illogical, closer reading will show that they are, indeed, necessary and inevitable, entirely in keeping with the character who has become fresh and interesting by going against his or her own character. There should be more than shock value to the unexpected: in a story by Raymond Carver whose title I forget, a long-married couple on the verge of a divorce encounter magic and mystery when four white horses suddenly appear at the window of their cottage; it doesnt save the marriage, but it revivifies the pain and deepens the sadness.
But how many writers do that, or can do that? As I often tell my graduate writing class, were very good at rendering scenes, at depicting situations with microscopic fidelity, down to the last curl of hair and the last phlegmatic cough. But just when the scene is about to ignite dramatically, or just when you expect something new and marvelous to happen, the writer decides to get lazy and to play it safe, and tacks on one of those bitin endings that the writer thinks is artful and clever, but is actually a cop-out, a surrender of a storys possibilities to its easiest and most obvious options.
Many good stories stop short of greatness because their writers didnt think out of the box when faced with typical situations. For example, instructed to write a story dealing with poverty in Philippine society (something I expect my students to do without being told, if it interests them), most student writers will fall back on the familiar irony of, say, a yuppie couple arguing over which restaurant to go to in their late-model BMW, only to encounter a young sampaguita vendor at the stoplight, the dewy freshness of her flowers contrasting with the premature aging of her face. Id give the writer one point (say, out of a possible five) for the albeit obvious irony, and maybe another point if the scene is rendered capably but thats as far as it gets, not until and unless the writer shapes this basic lump of material, like a glassblower, into a fluted vase.
This is why (aside from the 10-page limit imposed by most magazines and journals) few people write 25-page stories anymore; writers dont know where to take their plots or how to develop their characters beyond the usual exchange of barbed witticisms over cappuccinos at Starbucks.
And now, to my own cop-out: Ill continue with this mini-treatise on what I consider memorable writing next week, or when I next get the chance to (see the end of this column).
Meanwhile, instead of giving you all the answers, let me leave you with a problem, and I promise to read and discuss the most interesting responses.
Heres the set-up:
A 35-year-old woman (lets call her Laura) unmarried, perhaps a teacher or a former nun or both has just learned to drive a car, and is carefully going up the flyover on Katipunan Avenue. On the radio, she listens to a newscast and catches a snippet about a 17-year-old girl who was killed with two other friends the previous night in a horrible car crash on EDSA after a drinking binge.
Wheres the story, and if you just had another page to add, what would Laura do?
Once again Id like to thank the extravagantly artistic Salvatus family of Lucban, Quezon, who treated our haplessly hungry party of seven to lunch at the Pahiyas festival last Sunday. Last year, also at Pahiyas, we chanced upon the shop of Annie Salvatus near the church, and marveled at its floor-to-ceiling display of artworks, antiques, crafts, and curios.
We learned that Annie and husband Ramon had four sons, all of whom were artists, especially painter Mark, a consistent prizewinner and now an instructor at his alma mater, the University of Sto. Tomas. Cat people that we are, we were especially taken by the abundance of feline pictures, figures, and masks in the shop many of which, of course, found their way to our bags. The wares are made by the members of the family themselves, including Annie. It was Ramons late father, Ramon Sr., a municipal official and a poet, who coined the term "Pahiyas" in the 1970s to describe Lucbans unique way of marking the feast day of San Isidro Labrador. The name stuck, as have the droves of tourists that descend on Lucban every 15th of May to revel in the colorful sea of kiping, gorge on pancit habhab and longganisang Lucban, and buy a straw hat or two. The only downside to the festivals popularity has been its virtual hijacking by a cell phone company, the same situation (and the same company) you find in Boracay, where all the sails of the paraws have become just so much advertising space.
Again, as you read this, Ill be packing my bags for Rome and the olive groves beyond. When my friends ask me why, I tell them Im meeting with the new Pope to plead for sainthood on behalf of Rosanna Podesta and Claudia Cardinale, who performed certain miracles for me in my early teens involving a form of spontaneous combustion.
But seriously (or still maybe not), Im supposed to be receiving a literary prize from a mountain town called Cervara di Roma, population less than 500. Sounds like a worthy mystery for this island boy from Romblon to solve. Ill tell you about it when I get back on the 31st , and as soon as I figure out what the citation in Italian actually means. Ciao!
Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com.
"Being good" is having a near-flawless command of the written language its grammar, its idioms, its idiosyncrasies. Good writers have a fundamental understanding of what stories, poems, plays, and essays try to achieve and can, most of the time, achieve them on demand. They know the elements of fiction (plot, character, point of view, etc.) and can handle versification as well as the next fellow. Theyll write pieces that will even win prizes and get published into perfectly respectable books. Some will teach, and produce equally good or even better students; many will be happy to publish the one book theyve been nurturing in their stout hearts since childhood, before turning to actuarial science or gourmet cooking or teaching postcolonial theory, or giving up the ghost.
The only problem is, taken as a whole, the good writers work will barely leave a ripple on the surface of its readers memory. A clever twist in the plot, an unusual turn of phrase, a particularly tart witticism, a jazzy title all of these will make their mark, and if youre lucky the retentive reader might associate them with you. But is this all you want? "Oh, youre the one who wrote that story about the three-headed monster, and the three heads have an argument about what was that again?"
Some other stories or poems can be so technically perfect especially after theyve been pruned and polished in three different workshops that theres not a thing you can say against them. The language is impeccable, the tone just right, the ambiguity expertly achieved. Everything works but when you add it all up, everything is very little, because nothing new is said, no risks are taken, and the reader cant remember a thing not even an image or a phrase from the work just three days later.
Theres an American poet named Donald Hall who has made it his lifes crusade to inveigh against mediocrity in contemporary poetry the proliferation of what he calls the "McPoem," referring to todays billion-burger culture (never mind that some American critics themselves think of Donald Hall as a bad poet). Halls challenge to writers was: "You have just one chance to be Homer. Take it."
Purely by chance, while pondering this piece, I was sitting as a panelist in a dissertation defense on the work of the British novelist John Fowles (The Collector, The French Lieutenants Woman), and the dissertation quoted Fowles explanation of why a writer writes: "It is necessary to make my name known; I must have power physical, social, intellectual, artistic, political but power. I must leave monuments, I must be remembered. I must be admired, envied, hated, feared, desired. In short, I must endure."
Now, you may not want to be Fowles, much less Homer (Homer Simpson may be more your style) and whats wrong with that? Nothing, I think; everyones perfectly free to be modest and obscure, or to write about distinctly un-Homeric topics (a difficult thing for me to exemplify, now that Im thinking about it; he wrote about them all love, death, politics, sex, honor, vanity, religion, individualism, myth, even pets).
In our terms, you may not want to be Jose Rizal or Nick Joaquin. Fine. But on the other hand, I honestly cant think of anyone who grows up thinking, "Oh, I want to be a mousy, mediocre, forgettable writer."
The point of Halls challenge is to break out of the mold and to do something fabulously memorable in other words, to be great, to be enlarged by your own imagination and creative energy. I dont think greatness (or, as Fowles puts it, endurance) is even something to consciously strive for; rather, it should be the consequence of the quality and consistency of ones imaginative acts, the reward of a lifetimes marvels and surprises many hits, some misses the specific reward being ones continuing relevance to the breathing world, ones continuing ability to delight and to instruct well past, if not during, ones own time.
Good writers can and will say all the right things, for all the right reasons. Blessed are the poor; save the planet; crime does not pay; love conquers all; lifes a bitch, and then you die. Fine sentiments, all and tedious clichés that, if they cant be reversed, at least need to be refreshed. "Make it new!" was Ezra Pounds admonition to the modernist age, and it remains a worthy challenge to the writer who, beyond mastering words, aspires to a mastery of human experience, by looking beneath the layers of our assumptions and pretenses, and by taking risks with character and material (and no, making you character say a cuss word every other minute is not risk-taking, unless youre 15 years old). When I read a story, Id like to be taken to untraveled territory, as John Updike does when he has Sammy say "I quit!" in "A&P" or as Kate Chopin does when she gives the young wife a heart attack in "The Story of an Hour."
Were not talking about shock value here, but precisely about the fact that while these turns or endings may seem unbidden and even illogical, closer reading will show that they are, indeed, necessary and inevitable, entirely in keeping with the character who has become fresh and interesting by going against his or her own character. There should be more than shock value to the unexpected: in a story by Raymond Carver whose title I forget, a long-married couple on the verge of a divorce encounter magic and mystery when four white horses suddenly appear at the window of their cottage; it doesnt save the marriage, but it revivifies the pain and deepens the sadness.
But how many writers do that, or can do that? As I often tell my graduate writing class, were very good at rendering scenes, at depicting situations with microscopic fidelity, down to the last curl of hair and the last phlegmatic cough. But just when the scene is about to ignite dramatically, or just when you expect something new and marvelous to happen, the writer decides to get lazy and to play it safe, and tacks on one of those bitin endings that the writer thinks is artful and clever, but is actually a cop-out, a surrender of a storys possibilities to its easiest and most obvious options.
Many good stories stop short of greatness because their writers didnt think out of the box when faced with typical situations. For example, instructed to write a story dealing with poverty in Philippine society (something I expect my students to do without being told, if it interests them), most student writers will fall back on the familiar irony of, say, a yuppie couple arguing over which restaurant to go to in their late-model BMW, only to encounter a young sampaguita vendor at the stoplight, the dewy freshness of her flowers contrasting with the premature aging of her face. Id give the writer one point (say, out of a possible five) for the albeit obvious irony, and maybe another point if the scene is rendered capably but thats as far as it gets, not until and unless the writer shapes this basic lump of material, like a glassblower, into a fluted vase.
This is why (aside from the 10-page limit imposed by most magazines and journals) few people write 25-page stories anymore; writers dont know where to take their plots or how to develop their characters beyond the usual exchange of barbed witticisms over cappuccinos at Starbucks.
And now, to my own cop-out: Ill continue with this mini-treatise on what I consider memorable writing next week, or when I next get the chance to (see the end of this column).
Meanwhile, instead of giving you all the answers, let me leave you with a problem, and I promise to read and discuss the most interesting responses.
Heres the set-up:
A 35-year-old woman (lets call her Laura) unmarried, perhaps a teacher or a former nun or both has just learned to drive a car, and is carefully going up the flyover on Katipunan Avenue. On the radio, she listens to a newscast and catches a snippet about a 17-year-old girl who was killed with two other friends the previous night in a horrible car crash on EDSA after a drinking binge.
Wheres the story, and if you just had another page to add, what would Laura do?
We learned that Annie and husband Ramon had four sons, all of whom were artists, especially painter Mark, a consistent prizewinner and now an instructor at his alma mater, the University of Sto. Tomas. Cat people that we are, we were especially taken by the abundance of feline pictures, figures, and masks in the shop many of which, of course, found their way to our bags. The wares are made by the members of the family themselves, including Annie. It was Ramons late father, Ramon Sr., a municipal official and a poet, who coined the term "Pahiyas" in the 1970s to describe Lucbans unique way of marking the feast day of San Isidro Labrador. The name stuck, as have the droves of tourists that descend on Lucban every 15th of May to revel in the colorful sea of kiping, gorge on pancit habhab and longganisang Lucban, and buy a straw hat or two. The only downside to the festivals popularity has been its virtual hijacking by a cell phone company, the same situation (and the same company) you find in Boracay, where all the sails of the paraws have become just so much advertising space.
But seriously (or still maybe not), Im supposed to be receiving a literary prize from a mountain town called Cervara di Roma, population less than 500. Sounds like a worthy mystery for this island boy from Romblon to solve. Ill tell you about it when I get back on the 31st , and as soon as I figure out what the citation in Italian actually means. Ciao!
BrandSpace Articles
<
>