Sunday, April 06, 2003
No writing yesterday. No writing yesterday. No writing yesterday. That makes a fairly nice mantra, doesn't it? It's unclear, however. I might be reporting that yesterday was marvelous, as I didn't have to write. Or - which is actually the case - I could be bemoaning the fact that I can't find the top of this wall that has appeared before me. Regardless, it's true. I wrote not a word that mattered. I sat and stared at the iBook for hours. I kept myself properly sequestered in my office. But I might as well have been sitting in traffic on Peachtree Street, or floating dead in the Chattahoochee, for all the writing it got me.
It was a relief to cook dinner for Jennifer and Spooky, to feel somewhat useful and constructive. I kept eyeing a bottle of Scotch in the pantry. I watched A Bridge Too Far on TCM late last night and pretended it was something I'd written.
No writing yesterday, no writing yesterday, no writing yesterday . . .
This morning, while Spooky cooked breakfast, I began to prattle on about tense and person (I had just realized that I felt slightly better than I felt all day yesterday and feeling better usually makes me talkative). Almost all the novels and short fiction I've written have been written in third person, present tense. Silk was written in past tense, a decision I still regret. I complained to Neil Gaiman about it at some point and he told me to write the next novel in present tense, and I did. And the next. I choose present for its immediacy, for its inherently visual nature, for the way it rolls off my tongue when I read the words aloud. For me, it places a story now, no matter when the story might actually be occurring, just as cinema does. Threshold is not a story that has already happened when you begin to read it. It's not history until your act of reading it makes it history. You're the first person to ever watch Dancy's meeting with Chance in the library. The first person to see Chance and Deacon's descent into the water works tunnel.
As for third person, well, I've long argued that, in most cases, it's the most powerful literary voice, and the most logical. Especially for young writers. My rule of thumb, only use first person if you have a damned good reason for doing so, if it's important to the story that the reader know the narrator on a first-person basis, and if you are going to include somewhere within the narrative an explanation for why and how the speaker is speaking to us. I've never once written a story in first person (though I have used bits of epistolary material, letters and such, in larger narratives) and I've had people complain, a lot, about my use of third person, present. This morning, while Spooky was cooking, I pondered aloud what this general preference for first person might mean in a psychological and developmental sense. The infantile pull of "I." I am seeing. I am telling this story. I am writing. I want you to see me. Certainly, I've been told again and again by more inexperienced writers, "It seems more natural." Which makes sense, as Ego is still ruling their art. You have to forget whether or not it's easier to write in first, whether it might seem natural to you. Writing is not natural. It's an artifice. You are not talking to your audience, you are creating an illusion, sucking them in, pulling the wool over their eyes. It usually galls me. First person, I mean. I can't stop asking myself, "Who is this person speaking to and why?" If the story relies on any sort of suspense involving the safety of the narrator it tells me, right away, that either a) I need not worry, the narrator has literally lived to tell the tale, or b) the author has no idea what he or she is doing. It galls me. Oh, there are lots and lots and lots of exceptions. Some of my favorite stories are in first person. But this is usually writing by longtime, experienced authors who know the strengths and weaknesses of any given voice. Shelly Shapiro, an editorial director at Del Rey, writes:
Many inexperienced writers choose to write in the first person under the mistaken impression that it will make characterization easier. In fact, the opposite is true. People rarely consider what they themselves are like; when a character does this in a book, it immediately rings false ("I looked in the mirror and ran the comb once more through my long, curly red hair. My green eyes looked unusually bright."). The author has no chance to step in. When the third person is used, however, the author can allow the reader to stick closely to a character's viewpoint, even to be inside that character's head, while still preserving a more critical awareness. Far from distancing the reader from the character, this outside awareness can (and should) actually add depth and realism.
Why the hell am I going on about this? Because people send me e-mail asking writerly advice? No. I'm just trying to think about fucking writing. I couldn't care less whether you use first person, or even second person (the vengeful gods of prose will get even with you, though, if you dare write a story in second person). As long as I never have to read it, and most likely I won't, it's not my problem. I am annoyed at the people who complain that I write in third person, present tense, especially the ones who act like no one else has ever done it before. Public illiteracy pisses me off. But these people are usually only writing on Amazon, or on their websites, or somewhere equally beside the point. So, life goes on.
God, this constipation, this wall between me and what I have to write, is making me even more unpleasant than usual. I'd apologize, but it wouldn't be sincere.
I'm thinking I may try to do a short story, just to knock myself back into the flow. I have a title that's in need of a story. Empires by VNV Nation on the headphones and this album always makes me want to write. But the will is not enough, when the words aren't coming. Necessary, but wholly insufficient. Maybe I can ride this angry, mournful music into one of those third person, present tense narratives that drive my detractors to distraction. Or. Maybe I'll throw caution to the winds and write first person. Ah, I do live dangerously!
Damn, I need to get back to the crew of Enterprise, don't I? I mean, T'Pol still locked in her cabin, Sato still lying open as a Gray's Anatomy diagram on Phlox's examination table. Maybe tomorrow.
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