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A mother bear licks her cubs into shape |
Today I revised a paragraph, over and over again. It became
two. It became five. It melted back down to one. And now I think I’ve finally
got it right. But perhaps tomorrow I’ll look at it, be horrified, and start all
over again.
This only took me five hours or so.
Nevertheless, I’m fairly sure I’m on the right track. One of
the right tracks. There are many.
Yesterday I tried a different path. I sat down and wrote 1500
words on a new project. The story moved forward. A character came into
focus, one I’ve always wanted to meet. And vivid images: a garden with walls so
high they shut out the sun, girls playing with a shuttlecock. A knight dropping out of the sky.
Yesterday was better than today, but today was, I think, more necessary.
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Momma bear and cub, medieval version |
The problem isn’t that I’m deaf to the cadence of sentences,
or that I fail to find the precise detail that brings an image to life, though
these things are hard, too. It’s that stories have shape. While I’m entranced
with the girls and their shuttlecock, wondering who weaves the coarse linen fabric of their dresses and what they will have
for dinner that night, the story is running on without me in another direction.
I’ve written a page that’s part of something else. Or, very likely, part of
nothing at all.
At which point, it’s time to throw (almost) everything away.
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Looks more like she's eating it. But then, I do sometimes have to eat my words. |
The image is based on the ancient and
medieval belief that bear cubs are born as shapeless blobs of flesh. It's up to their mothers to give them form, which they do by licking them. (For the medieval bestiary tradition, see here.)
This makes wonderful sense to me, but that doesn’t mean I know
how to do it. What to keep and what to throw away? Will the book I'm shaping turn out to be a bear or a monster?
For now, the plan is just to keep on licking.
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"De urso" ("About the bear") |
But who is to define the shape of a story? Aristotle kept it very simple, a beginning, a middle, and an end. And what could be simpler than a structure that follows a character through his day? But oh how complicated "Ulysses" is. Young children can do what Aristotle required. We older folks want to weave a more complex pattern, add more heft. And what we are going to have for dinner is always important.
ReplyDeleteYou're quite right! Different stories and different books demand different shapes. There is no one right way to do it. Which makes it all the more complicated when you're a new writer, and still trying to decide...
DeleteYes, different stories take on different shapes. But, cynically, I wonder if people who churn out a new book a year don' have some template that they use to create a "new" story.
ReplyDeleteAnd then we are faced with the reception of Harper Collins "new" but old book, "Set a Watchman." A story of revision, drastic revision, providing us with one of the heroes of our age, who to begin with seems to have been a man with little to commend him to us. I would like to know more about that process!
Yes, I saw that about Atticus on the front page of the Sunday Times, and I did think about the revision process she must have gone through. I believe she said something to the effect of, "I was a first-time author, so I did as I was told." I'll have to read the book, I suppose.
DeleteTrying to "do as I'm told" today, but it feels like slicing off my arm with a butter knife. Time to quit for now, maybe.