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The Magic of Storytelling

Arundhati Roy wrote a beautiful and heart-wrenching story, The God of Small Things, which won her the Booker Prize in 1997. Though the book is fiction, what she writes about a Kathakali play, as the main characters Estha and Rahel watch it in the History House, is universal.

“The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t.”

I finished reading Arundhati Roy’s book the other night, and the story sat with me for a long time. I knew the fate of the characters as the story unfolded, but I read anyway. The end grabbed my heart and pulled me down for a while. It was painful. But, for me, closing the book and wandering through the rest of my day with the characters at the forefront of my mind is clear evidence of a great story (even if it hasn’t won an award).

A different author wrote a blog post on a different subject, but it resonated with me as much as the quote from Arundhati Roy’s novel. Michelle Davidson Argyle, aka. Lady Glamis from The Literary Lab, reflects about knowing when we’re writing honestly:

“Magic. That’s what seems to happen when I manage to get honesty into my writing. It’s like a memorable, catchy song where everything comes together and it makes me feel a mixture of emotions that reach more deeply than I thought was possible. I look into the mirror and I see me, but I don’t see me. It has become a creation that took on a life of its own. My honesty gave it that life.”

I’ve settled into the magic of a great story many times. And,I’ve ridden the magical roller coaster of honest writing a few times, when the details of a story pour out in smooth succession: thrills, chills, and elation.

Those are the reasons why I love literature, and why I keep coming back to writing.

***

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1998 (p. 218). Print.
Argyle, Michelle Davidson. “That Song was Dinner.” The Literary Lab, November 19, 2009. Online.

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Pulling My Head Out of the Sand

Today is Wednesday – mid week, mid month – and I’m avoiding my NaNoWriMo novel. Tamora Pierce wrote a great pep talk for NaNo-ers this week, who (like me) are spending their valuable writing time reading emails and blogs. She listed several questions I can ask of my characters to help get my creative juices flowing again. I read her talk and thought, yes. I will ask those questions. Definitely.

But today is Wednesday, and Wordsmith.org doesn’t put their word of a day routine on hold for NaNoWriMo. I’ve committed to write on Wednesday’s word of the day, nevermind I’m easily distracted and willing to do  just about anything…even vacuum the cobwebs from the corners of every room in my house.  Wait, that’s NaHoCleMo.

Anyway, Wordsmith’s word of the day today is expiate: a verb meaning to atone, to make amends for.

So, I hereby expiate for leaving my NaNoWriMo characters in a lurch this week.

To my dear friend Millie, who prefers to live life watching others through the glass pane of windows, I am sorry I left you at that party, in the middle of a crowd, vunerable and windowless.

To Mr. Millstead, who I continue to address as Mr. Millstead. Eventually, I will get back to my draft and figure out when and where I can start calling you by your given name, and therefore let your character fill out and your face color up.

To Marcie, who’s pissed off at the world and likely at me, since I have given her minimal dialogue and few appearances in the novel thus far. I realize you have much to say, and I intend, wholeheartedly, to give you your day.

To Mrs. Wilson, who showed up in the beginning in a lovely opening scene and was cut, by this author’s swift and indifferent hand, in the first few days. You were kind enough to revisit the story and even willing to let your name take the limelight.

My dear characters, in my first draft of Missing Mrs. Wilson, I promise (with my right hand on my heart and my left hand in the air) to write my way to 50,000 words, even if it takes me until Christmas.

***

Phew, that’s a load off.
Now. Enough stalling. Back to that novel.

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Fiction vs. Memoir

On Salon.com, Laura Miller wrote “A new book says: Fiction is dead, long live the age of autobiography,” in which she reviews Ben Yagoda’s book Memoir: A History. Laura Miller quotes Ben Yagoda when he claims fiction has become “like painting in the age of photography — a novelty item.”

He isn’t the first to say that nonfiction, including memoir, sells better than fiction. Nathan Bransford, in his recent article in the Huffington post, said “for many years adult nonfiction was the bread and butter workhorse of the industry.”  It isn’t that fiction is better than non, or vice versa, it just seems to be a fact that we are drawn to the stories of real people more often than the tales of our made-up friends.

It’s easy to slide on over to the nonfiction section in the bookstore and get caught up in the lives of real people suffering, and surviving. Reality TV plays a big part in our attraction to the memoir, as does our need to know that someone out in the real world might be worse off than we are. I think Laura Miller would agree, since she says “the characters and events in memoirs are often, like real people and events, the subjects of energetic controversy….”  Even when we know the ending of the story, we still ravage ourselves with the details.

So, Laura Miller’s article got me thinking. I like memoir, but I also like good fiction. I walked into the bookstore today with my daughter determined to leave with a new novel. While she twirled and tumbled in the middle of the store, I scanned the Indie Bound bookshelves.

I’m terrible at making decisions under pressure, so I let her pick out a book. She finally sat down on a couch, and I turned and found a bookcase of all the Best American anthologies. When I saw Alice Sebold edited the The 2009 Best American Short Stories, I stopped looking.

Alice Sebold’s introduction also acknowledges recent trends in the publishing industry. She says “highlighting good fiction is more important now than it ever has been.” I agree. She could have been talking about memoir or fiction when she writes “a story about grief can comfort; a story about arrogance can shock and yet confirm; a story populated largely by landscape, whether lush or industrial, can expand the realm that we as individuals inhabit.” But, she insists that great fiction narrative is just as critical to the publishing industry as great memoir.

If nonfiction is the mainstay that pushes the publishing industry through a recession, then taking risks and publishing fiction becomes even more critical.

“Stories provide an endless access into another world, brought forth by an infinite number of gifted minds,” Alice Sebold writes. Great fiction, like memoir, must find readers. And, it can’t find an audience if it’s never published.

I can’t wait to dive into the stories Alice Sebold deems Best of the best.

***

Sebold, Alice, ed. The Best American Short Stories. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.