Link to the actual piece:
Introduction to Writing Notes
Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 (and I assume Fahrenheit’s 1 through 450), is quoted as saying, ‘The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories.’
The short story form is great for learning. You can iterate quickly: try something, make a mistake, reflect, try again… In this way, writing short stories is a lot like sex: the more you do it, the better you get (or so I’ve heard). And yes, as with sex, there’s a long refractory period. After giving it your all—I’m talking about writing now—you need a few moments before your rock-hard imagination returns.
In those moments of post-writing clarity, my mind normally drifts to ants. Ants can… (I’ve deleted 15,400 words on the behaviour of ants. This included a fact about how they… [I’ve just deleted a further 7,500 words]). What I was trying to say is that, instead of pondering ants, I will turn my potentially-capable mind to its analytical mode. After each piece I will post my reflections the following week. Hopefully I learn something.
At a high-level, my Substack is about following Bradbury’s advice. I will write short stories until I’m good. Maybe that takes 500 stories, but to quote Vin Diesel MD, ‘You learn a lot of things on the way to 500.’
A discussion on form and effect
For three years running, I was voted Australia’s ‘Most Average Consultant.’ Before inviting me to speak at the award ceremony, the President of the Barely-Professional Services Association of Australia (BPSAA) offered a few kind-ish words.
He said, ‘Luke is broadly capable of applying some, if not most, of the analytical methods at his disposal.’ He then realised he’d spilled more than one complimentary satay chicken skewer down his front and scurried off-stage to gum at his shirt in the men’s room. This man’s name was Bill Skelton, but that’s not important.
I raise my consulting experience to demonstrate that I have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. These skills I will now use to assess my piece of short fiction, A Fool’s Loop. (As an aside, the very thought of conducting a ‘gap analysis’ is creating pressure on my pants zipper.) I will structure my response in the following way:
What I was trying to do and why
The gap between what I was trying to do and what I did.
What I was trying to do and why
Before writing A Fool’s Loop, I read Raymond Carver’s story, Why Don’t You Dance. I had just written two stories in a row with traditional character arcs, seven-point plot structure, etc… However, in Why Don’t You Dance, as in many of Carver’s stories, he doesn’t really do all that. So, basically, I wanted to emulate Carver’s form (not his style) to see if I could deliver a similar effect, or any effect really. And I’m not sure I did.
If you read Carver’s story, you might agree that we don’t get to know the characters too well; there’s a scant plot; there’s no overly dramatic conflict, compelling decisions, or character growth; it’s quite subtle, more of a moment in time/slice of life than a story (not to drift into semantics–I’m virulently anti-semantic). So, what is he doing then? The answer–the effect–I believe, is in the form itself.
To quickly summarise, he gives us a strange encounter on a front lawn between a young couple and a lonely man, and then a brief look at the young woman later. The encounter on the lawn without the young woman’s comment weeks later would fall flat: it would just be an odd guy with his stuff on the lawn. With her comment, however, we–the reader–unlock the tragedy underneath; that’s the magic. It’s not the young woman, her boyfriend, or the man who have the epiphany, it's us, the reader. The characters remain blind to the truth we now see. That’s what I wanted to do.
I wanted the reader to see/understand the futility of the protagonist’s position while he remained blind. He was stuck in a loop. His decision at the end was evidence.
I wrote a story last year called A Fish on the Golf Course of Life with a similar theme. We’re all growing/changing but that process isn’t linear. I see it as repeated loops and—sometimes—jumps. We might be blind to our own loops; indeed, we probably are.
So, my protagonist was going from naive hope to cold acceptance over and over. And, like a deep-sea diver, it’s not the depth itself but the rapid change in depth that causes the bends. Our man is drunk, in pain, trying to rationalise with an unreasonable world and then suddenly he is hopeful, desperate: wave to ocean floor, on repeat.
The gap between what I was trying to do and what I did
For several reasons I did not deliver the quality of Carver’s work. Unlike him, however, I am not dead, and there is nothing he personally can do to take that away from me. Maybe you can tell I’m a little insecure when it comes to our talent deficit: Carver being one of the great writers of the 20th Century, while I am the undisputed, three-time BPSAA MAC. When it’s my time, they’ll put my CV on the tombstone. Let us count the women and their roses then, dead man!
Insecurity, rage, and blood lust aside, there were a few technical reasons for my failure. First, I made it harder for myself by using the first-person-shooter perspective. We were inside the man's head. It was hard to keep him blind to what we would learn.
Second, Carver used a scene change as a filthy crutch! The young woman says her pivotal line to other people; she couldn’t say it to the man; that’s the juice, the honesty, the tragedy. My piece, however, was a single scene from a single perspective.
Those are the two main technical faults I could identify. As I wrote the piece, I also drifted further from what I initially wanted to write, however, I don’t see that as a fault. There’s a danger in being too rigid. The setting, the characters, and that strange part of your mind you don’t control, should dictate your path. That’s what gave my story its flavour: the absurdity, the argument over the song, the boys like rabid dogs…
Sometime in the future, I will try to emulate Carver again. I want to write novels, and it would be great to be able to deliver an effect without relying on a character’s big moment or some twist. That’s not to say those things aren’t important–they are. It’s more that I would like to also have more subtle takeaways. I guess, thinking about it right now, it’s considering how the movement from a to b itself will cause an effect.
Quick-fire thoughts
Always working on improving my prose. One way is by ending sentences well. The end of the sentence hits harder than the beginning or the middle.
For example, ‘I like seeing the flashing letters above the beer taps in neon green,’ instead of, ‘I like seeing the flashing letters in neon green above the beer taps.’ In this case, ending with the location of the flashing is not as powerful as the colour. I spend a lot of time reordering sentences.
Always wondering how best to describe things/people. There is a lot to consider.
For example, I don’t want to say a man is tall. Who cares if he is tall? I want to show something interesting/useful, but I want to show it in an interesting way, and—if possible—not just an interesting way, but with beauty, and also originality, etc.
Here is one from Don DeLillo: ‘Phil is a straight-up guy, barn-sized, looks you in the eye.’ Straight-up guy implies so much; barn-sized, though comic, paints a picture; looks you in the eye is a single behaviour. He combines a summary, physical description and behaviour perfectly. He didn’t say Phil is a big, honest man. Zzzzzzz.
Always seeking movement, progress, and change to maintain reader interest. As with music, movement is interesting.
For example, in this piece it was the man’s increasing level of intoxication. In my previous piece it was the terrorists getting closer and the protagonists moving from the meeting room to the office, to the closet… (their space got smaller). In the piece before that, the sun was rising (time running out). Movement, like in music, helps create tension and release.
Favourite line
My favourite line is the following:
‘What did you just call me?’ asked the woman.
This line follows a long paragraph which included all the horrible names the protagonist wanted to call the woman but wouldn’t because he believed himself too wise. This line shows his internal monologue was mistakenly said aloud/he’s a fool.
So interesting to hear a self diagnosis of one’s work. Also brave. Well done 👍
Love it Luke, keep going, great intelligence and humour!