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writingquestionsanswered · 6 years

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I cannot for the life of me decide the best way to open my novel, and it's making me feel like such a failure. I really prefer the "normal life", "I'm an interesting character even before shit goes down" start, but comments say they aren't matching my novel synopsis with what's happening in the first chapter (normal life, shit happens, MC copes). My MC doesn't hint to the "gee I wish I could find true love" (the overall theme) until chapter 5. So I'm not sure what to do here. #1

#2 With 3rd limited I can’t just weave in hints to what will happen in those opening paragraphs (“She would never expect that love was just around the corner!”) or some such omniscientness. I DO strongly hint that MC isn’t happy. I am starting to think that the comments center around seeing MC interact with ppl who aren’t her husband as the throwing-off factor but it isn’t clear. MC should be able to interact with the world… Anyway, I’m disheartened and confused and lost at this point.

Betas Unhappy with MC’s “Normal Life” Before Inciting Incident

This is one of those situations where it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on without being able to read it and see exactly what the betas are saying. I wish I could do that for everyone, but it’s just not possible. I do have some thoughts, though, and hopefully something here will help somehow.

Before I get started though, I just want to say this is a normal part of writing a novel. If every story fell from our heads perfectly onto the page, writing would be super easy and everyone would do it all the time. The reality, however, is that writing a novel is taking a shapeless lump of clay and working it over and over again until it closely resembles the thing in our head. It takes a lot of shaping, smooshing, re-shaping, smashing, tugging, shaping again… it’s a lot of hard work. So, you’re not a failure for experiencing this,

YOU’RE A WRITER!!!

When betas are saying, “Your opening chapters don’t match your novel’s synopsis,” I can think of three potential things that may be happening:

1) It’s Not You, It’s Them

Beta readers aren’t perfect, and depending on who they are and where you picked them up, it’s sometimes possible to just get a bad batch. I know a romance writer who did a little contest to choose several fans to beta read the first three chapters of her next novel. Most of the beta readers were great and had helpful feedback, but a few just seemed mad they weren’t getting a completed romantic arc in three chapters. Whether they just didn’t understand what they were signing up for or had unrealistic expectations, who knows? But, it just goes to show that it’s possible to get a bad batch of beta readers. If your gut instinct is telling you their feedback doesn’t make sense, try looking for another batch of betas someplace else and see if the feedback changes. Alternatively, you can put together a short, clear survey to try to get to the bottom of the feedback and ask the betas in question to fill it out. It may help you better understand where they’re coming from and whether or not their feedback is worth considering.

2) Too Much Normal

Another possibility is that you’re spending too much time in your character’s normal life prior to the inciting incident. Some stories can get away with an inciting incident that doesn’t happen until much later, but not all stories can. Stories that can get away with it tend to be genre fiction with lots of world building and the necessity to familiarize the reader with the story’s world as much as to show the protagonist in their normal life. But if your story is in a more normal setting, like a contemporary romance or historical fiction romance, you really don’t want that “normal period” to drag on too long before the inciting incident occurs.

3) Irrelevant Build-Up

You mention that during your protagonist’s “normal period,” shit happens and they deal with it–and that’s good, but the shit that happens has to be relevant to the story somehow. Whatever that inciting incident is going to be, you have to find ways to drop in subtle clues about what’s coming, even if the reader will hardly realize hints are being dropped.

Because it’s an easy example, let’s take a look at Twilight. Spoilers if you haven’t read/watched it. The story begins with an epigraph from Genesis about the tree of knowledge, and then there’s a “preface” containing a brief flash forward to a critical moment from the novel’s climax, but let’s pretend neither of those are there and focus on how it opens. In the print version, we get 17 pages detailing Bella’s arrival in Forks, getting settled at her father’s house, and starting her first day at Forks High School. On page 18 she lays eyes on the Cullen “siblings” for the first time and is drawn to how unusual they are. They’re pale with dark eyes, have old-fashioned names, and are “inhumanly beautiful.” Not only are the Cullens themselves relevant to the rest of the story, but their appearances are subtle hints as to who and what they are. On page 23, Bella has to sit next to Edward in class and he’s obviously very uncomfortable with her nearness. He tenses when she sits down, he leans away from her and behaves as though she smells bad and sits with his fist clenched as though struggling for control of some unknown situation. Then, when the bell rings, he bolts out of his seat so fast it practically leaves Bella’s head spinning. These are more clues, because we find out later they relate not only to what Edward actually is, but to a more specific connection he has with Bella. The actual inciting incident doesn’t occur for another 33 pages, near the beginning of chapter three, but there are a few more interactions between Bella and Edward prior to that which continue to drop those kinds of clues.The point is, those 56 pages don’t just show Bella in her “normal life” and set-up the inciting incident, they’re actually laying the groundwork for everything else that is to come. The reader may not be openly aware of that, but all those little hints and details are building up in the back of their minds, so it all feels like it’s moving toward something, and it’s the something that was promised in the book’s blurb. If your betas aren’t feeling that connection, you may need to do more to not just build toward the inciting incident, but also to drop hints that lay the groundwork for the future.Best of luck with your story! Let me know if you need more help. :)

#writing #writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

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drhstories · 5 years

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An attempt to sUmmarize the impossiBle

It’s weird to think that a third of my life has involved the program. I don’t take much time to internalize the impact that it has had on my life as I think through my past, but without UB I would not be where I am today. It’s not in the sense that I’d never be in college or never have accomplished what I have so far. It’s more like UB is my main reminder how much I care about students, their well-being, their future, and their position and transition from where they are going into college.

As an education major, you only really interact with students during your time there twice during the duration of being a student. The first time is before you board into the COE, and the second is when you student teach at the end of your degree. Your first placement isn’t even in a high school if you are in secondary, so if that is your intention, you don’t really see students of that age to confirm your decision to work with them (after 4 years of college mind you) until then.

My opinion of UB and appreciation for the program has changed highly due to my position as an educator, eventually. Though I generally am lax during UB, I understand high school students are high school students and they will do what they want to do, making bad decisions or terribly radical choices, but they learn from their choices. I think back to how much I know about relationships now from a secular standpoint instead of from my religious background and a large majority of my understanding of how to be a boyfriend or future fiance and husband comes from being a bad boyfriend or being treated poorly in the past. I made many a bad decision throughout high school, mostly all involving relationships, and I spent a lot of time, money, and heartache (both within and outside of UB) in relationships that I thought mattered.

The corollary to that is the fact that high school students, from my opinion, needed to be treated like their decisions matter. Generally speaking, high school students assume that their decisions are make or break, that their life will be destroyed if they fail a test or break up with a significant other or whatever. Every event is the coolest or biggest thing that has happened since sliced bread, and I think where people fail to communicate with high schoolers is that they try to step into that learning experience where errors are necessary for growth.

I don’t always write chronologically, I see myself as a blur of thoughts that somehow weave together into a theme. It’s why I can only ever write a verse instead of a full song, and also why I like slam poetry so much since one minute you could be talking about types of cheese, and the next stanza is you slamming the government for its’ treatment of their citizens. So, backtrack farther.

I throughout Upward Bound learned a lot about life and friends that I didn’t consider before as somebody that learns primarily by example. Specific topics include that you should break up with somebody before you start talking to another person, or that you should not give every ounce of your energy into everything that you do (I still struggle with this one). I didn’t care much about my 11th and 12th grade year. My GPA went from a 4.0 to a 3.5 in 3 semesters, which is /pretty impressive/. I wanted to go to UTC due to having a large community of friends there and also reports of having a phenomenal Education program, but personal laziness stopped me from applying. I only got into ETSU because my Bridge application got me into the university, and it has the convenient benefit of being 10 minutes from my house, which I can’t complain too much about the “free room/board and meal plan” that I have from living there. Outside of my personal laziness, I know students that would have never went to college coming from families with drug issues or domestic issues that were inspired to succeed on their own and the program is a tool to launch their determination into high gear.

This is the part where I start talking to you, the reader, which for the sake of me sharing this is to be assumed as somebody as a part of the program in some facility. Though Dr. Gross says that these people may be some of your friends for the rest of your life, in some cases they are, but for me they weren’t. What I will always remember are little things that inspire me to keep doing what I’m doing, though being more serious eventually. The things like “Zander, I’m want you to be on our bus.” or “Will you come take a picture with us?” or “I’ll miss you a lot when you aren’t here next year.” help remind me that since I’ve heard these things from such a large variety of students that whatever I’m doing, personality wise or just my approach to this job is working.

I definitely and admittedly am not as professional as I should be for this job, which leans into why I think that students enjoy my company, but you all truly do not understand the impact that you make on the staff and RA’s lives in a similar way that we seem to make on you. I thank you all for every compliment you have ever given to a staff member here, me or anybody, since it truly keeps us motivated. Between my two jobs, I was working from 7AM-11PM with two hours worth of breaks throughout the day combined, and it was a nightmare especially on my seven night duties, but every time I went into work with a smile and the best attitude that I could and it was responded with joy and all positives back from the students.

I think the whole point of all of these cluttered thoughts is a large thank you, from myself but on behalf of all of the staff, for just being a great group of students. I think back to my seemingly normal life of me getting into UB with a family that was together, a brother not in a wheelchair, and a fine lower middle class life and I wonder how I got into UB. I’m not going to go too much into it, but I think that God (please don’t stop reading) put me in Upward Bound to help show me my passion for students of this age and continue to remind me how much I care for each and every student.

I love each and every day that I have had working with the program. The best part of this job is you all, the students. This program has no purpose, meaning, and can not exist without you all taking a step towards the success of your future and joining UB. I know that sounds unnecessarily like I’m giving the beginning of the summer speech, but between all the classes and CWS and Bridge and having staff ready to help you and living in dorms for a month and traveling around the country doing who knows what, there are so many new experiences that you would not have been able to have had you not signed up for this program.

On the most personal note, and a concluding one, each group every summer just spills my heart with joy of being to hang out. Though I definitely act your age more often than my own, I can sense that you all know that I’m somebody you can come to in a time of need, and that when you need a pick me up or a bad joke, I’m your guy. All that I could ask for from being a staff member of UB is for students to know that I care about them, and I think that this summer I’ve done that better than before. My goal was to make myself seem like a better friend to all instead of a few, and I’m not a crier outside of relationships but I can tell you all that I am deeply saddened that I will most likely not be involved with UB next summer. You all are a truly unforgettable batch of students, and I could never ask for a group as hilarious and caring and joyful to be around as you all.

The UB program is not a program made up of summer staff, we are temporary and change yearly. It is a program of students, whose united front to succeed and make their lives better than their present situation would make out for them come together to be as strong as they can be and make themselves as bold as they can to move out into college in the real world. Outside of my friendships with each and every one of you, I am proud to have been a teacher, a mentor, a leader, and a numerous variety of other titles as you all grow through your time in UB.

Peace out,

Hopefully see everybody next year, but if not I know I’ll see you all doing great things in whatever you decide to do.

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sobdasha · 4 years

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library book haul

these are all many months out of date

Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee This sci-fi and fantasy short story collection is Good Shit. Plus it includes my favorite short-story-collection thing, aka Author's Notes on the stories, which enhances the experience even more. So: I tried to read this in the previous batch with Lee's other work, but Lee's work requires your full attention and is not suitable for reading in the breakroom at work, where people come up, see you with a book, turn on the TV, and then proceed to ignore the TV the entire fucking time while they talk excessively loudly with the other people in the breakroom. I've been enjoying the fact that they put a real chair in the department so if I don't work the morning shift I can take my break in the department where the din from the customers is, in fact, quieter. And I don't have to walk to the literal opposite corner of the store, wasting time and chronic pain! Anyway. So I waited until I was on vacation, and had large stretches of quite time, to read this, and it was amazing. I did not do the write-up then because I am lazy. However, I am in the middle of rereading now, and I can tell you that these stories only get better the second time around. I was a little worried it'd be like Shakespeare--you have to read several Shakespeares before you finally get into the Shakespeare zone and can actually, like, read the Shakespeare. These stories, on the other hand, remained accessible and are enhanced by having half a clue where the story will go. I like them all, but some of my top favorites: Ghostweight--Lee says this was the second-hardest story to write because it took months to nail the intro/outro of the story. Well, it pays off. The Bones of Giants--Lee says the fantasy equivalent of mecha is to dig up some giant skeletons and apply necromancy. I'm bad at recognizing "zombie" when you don't use the word "zombie", so like the Abhorsen series I don't really consider this "zombie lit which I would hate." Mostly it's just a little soft and when I'm reading I picture big sweeping landscapes, like a Studio Ghibli film or Breath of the Wild. The Unstrung Zither--Lee just talks about the music stuff, but this one feels to me like Gundam Wing if I'd actually finished watching Gundam Wing because Gundam Wing had turned out to actually be anywhere near as interesting as the quantum versions of it I'd imagined. (Thanks to Lee's other stories, I'm now using "quantum" instead of "noodle incident".) Well, now I no longer feel any need to actually go back and watch Gundam Wing. Cool! It's occurring to me that Lee's works mostly fall into the category of: soft; this is the literal cost of genocide and occupation; and both at once. It's a hell of a lot better than ~the glory of war~. Anyway as I said it's all good.

Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin I actually quit reading this one pretty early on. Not exactly a quit, though. I wasn't in the right mindset; I just couldn't get through it and realized what I was in fact craving was Adventure. So I went on to reread The Prydain Chronicles instead and I'll pick this up again sometime later when I am in the mood for something quiet, reflective, domestic, and not big on plot.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interviews, ed. David Streitfeld This was interesting! Although I always have mixed feelings when I'm reading about authors talking about the craft. IDK I think it's a me-thing. Like, I pick up this essay expecting the author to tell me what works for them, and then I get annoyed because I decided the author was telling me "this is the only way" when that's bs and now I want to rebel??? Or maybe because Le Guin talked about how even a novel ought to be poetry and as someone who understands the theory of meter but has been flunking everything related to meter or stress since grade school in the practical sense, I find that idea Highly Overrated. I honestly don't remember what else was in here, because I waited for many months to do this write-up. I didn't actually hate reading this though so.

The Prydain Chronicles, Lloyd Alexander These are Peak comfort food to me. All I want to say this time around is, I should write some fics as Alexander's penance for making Eilonwy Very Cool but mistakenly doing so by making her Not Like Other Girls. (Crying and having feelings is gender-neutral in these books; what's portrayed negatively about Eilonwy through Taran's view, despite the fact that she's objectively better than him lol, is her ~chattering~. Which is annoying because not only does Eilonwy internalize that into putting down non-sword-women for "clucking like hens", Fflewddur chatters at least as much as Eilonwy, if not more, and because he's a guy it's never phrased that way even though we're all aware he's super flighty. I really wish this had been done with more nuance, because Eilonwy also has internalized misogyny about things like dresses and washing your hair and sleeping in a comfortable bed, and Fflewddur again is always the first person to be like "um but I would like to be comfy tonight though.") Anyway I just think that after Taran is king, if he wants to go someplace and keep his hands busy to think, presumably the gardens and fields are enough out of the way that this would make your king difficult to find. So instead, I propose that he goes to the spinning and weaving rooms, because that's literally in the castle, easy to find, he knows how to do that shit, Dwyvach schooled his ass good about how work doesn't have a gender in book 4, and he did enjoy weaving, and as a bonus he can realize that "chattering" is not bad and gossip is a good way to learn things you, as a king, probably need to know about the working of your castle, and Eilonwy can join him for bonding and realize this is not so terrible after all, and we will all value these women who spend a lot of fucking time and effort making sure you can have some goddamn clothes to wear. THE END.

The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle Everybody really loves The Last Unicorn, by which I think they mean the movie? And I thought that I did as well, even though I remembered exactly nothing from it save for the title when we watched it once in either kindergarten or first grade in place of recess for a week because it was, idk, cold?? raining nonstop??? Anyway I always thought that I loved it and then I finally rewatched it as an adult and it was. Not. Great. And then I forgot and watched it again a few years later and was like Nope, still Not For Me. And now, finally, I decided to get off my bum because for me books are almost always better than the movie, and lo and behold, it is. From what I can recall, the movie is the general plot structure of the book portrayed as an Adventure, stripped of the thoughtful, reflective narration and the deeper narrative themes. Which is 100% why that movie appears to me to be some kind of acid trip. I wish I had read this as an early teen, so that I could have absorbed some of Beagle's writing style, his turns of phrase in simile and metaphor. "His scimitar smile laid its cold edge along their throats," etc. He never really makes it seem like Too Much. (Side note, that's something I notice about Yoon Ha Lee too. Very lush and descriptive similes and metaphors, very much get the job done and are not things you have ever heard before. Although Lee's tend to make me stop and go "wait what???", and catch me off guard. I suspect it's a mix of innovation and cultural difference, whereas for Beagle everything sounds so exactly right and smooth and perfect probably because everyone else has been copying off him for years and I'm familiar with diluted versions. Anyway what I'm trying to say is, I got a bit away from that in my writing, but dang I am gonna have to up my game and purple my prose a little bit more because I really love what these guys are doing!)

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse Okay so Ann Leckie recommended this book to me, both in a general sense and also in person. And I looked at the description and thought, "Well, it's not my genre but it probs can't hurt me to pick it up and try." And so I finally did. Reading this was an interesting progression (probably most especially for my roommate who gets my live-reading reactions while she's trying to DnD) of watching me go from: "It's not my genre but it's not like the writing sucks so it's not bad" to "Well it is engaging and I do like garbage loner protagonist is a woman instead; I'm not compelled to buy this but I will read the rest of the series as it comes out from the library" to "Oh snap I love it when the critical reviews of a book were actually recommendations for me to read it" to "*weeping* Kai is a soft good boy and I support Maggie and her Emotional Support Shotgun, I will buy ALL THE BOOKS" At one point there was a perfect place, in the midst of a discussion about how you can like flamethrowers and makeup at the same time, Maggie, just because you don't like makeup, etc, to insert a joke about "it's called flaming gay for a reason". BUT in Rebecca's defense the entire scene was great anyway. The whole book was great. It's great. Read it. Oh speaking of the critical reviews, one of them was like "the protagonist claims to be unable to cook and then a few paragraphs later makes a 5 star meal, so this book is garbage." Lol was the reviewer confused because the word "bread" was used, and believes that bread is an art form unable to be accomplished by mere mortals (which, I mean, is how I feel about the idea of babying a loaf of bread all day)? Because bread only has to be "I made a paste of flour and water" which this. Basically was. Fried in a pan. And then the side dish was a can of beans with a can of chiles thrown in for fancy. This is literally the definition of can't cook, because you can't exactly order takeout on the reservation after the apocalypse when you prefer to live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. I'm just saying, this scene was perfect. Also this was the point in time where I started summarizing all apocalyptic books as "After the events of the year 2020" to my roommate. It. It continues to hold true. Every year for like the past five years we've been saying maybe next year will be better, but I'm gonna be honest, I'm terrified of what 2021 will bring. One final visual: me, unable to pronounce Navajo words to my roommate when reading select passages, and also not being able to spell them on account of not knowing the names of accents in English: "so it's c-h-apostrophe-i accent aigu cedilla-i cedilla-polish l with a line through it…" (not an actual word, I don't remember the actual words, I returned the book to the library long ago, this is for illustrative purposes of my ignorance only)

To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf I tried to read this because Le Guin praised it a lot in The Last Interviews, and it was on the Wizard's Library shelves and I thought maybe I should broaden my horizons. But I quit early on because I, a disaster of run-on sentences, could not parse half of these and I was not invested and if I don't have to read ~classics~ for literature class it probably won't ever happen. Honestly a lot of the contemporary literature I'm reading is better for me anyway.

Sunlight and Shadow, Cameron Dokey This was also on the Wizard's Library shelves and I like fairytale things in theory and despite reading the wiki summary on various occasions I really don't know anything about the plot of The Magic Flute, which is this a retelling of. This book queerbaited me. It's unfair of romances to always put more chemistry between the people who aren't getting together than who are. In this case, both girls and both boys, who were to pair off into het couples. There's literally an entire chapter of Gayna going from "You've ruined everything!" to "I wish I could hate you!" to "Oh no you're hot!" to "And that doesn't actually make me jealous oh shit!" to "Okay I'll help you" to "Oh no she smiled and my heart skipped a beat huhhh!" about Mina. The word gay is even in her name!!! What is the author doing with her choices??? Seriously what is the author doing with her choices, in the author's note at the end of the book I learned Statos (Monostatos) was originally "evil character just because he's a Moor" so Dokey Fixed It by making him just a guy who wanted Things like the rest of the characters want Things and he just happens to come off as bad because he's not aligned with them and also he's very, very white. Noooooo that's not how you do it, that's not how you fix racism, you redeem him while keeping him black. I also, as a rule, dislike first-person-narration-that-changes-each-chapter, especially when you're not skilled enough/don't care to write in such a way that the narrator can easily be identified, so basically for a long chapter and a half I assumed Lapin was a girl and when the Queen of the Night was like "fuck you, boy!" I assumed it was a sick burn and Lapin just ~wasn't pretty~ but it turns out he was, in fact, a boy. Also for a book that points out that you can be perfectly happy settling with a decent person and marrying your not-soul-mate (Lapin's parents and grandparents), it's awfully insistent that the main characters all be properly paired with soul mates. HM. Basically this is marketed as feminist but I think it fell pretty damn short on that mark.

#sobdasha booking

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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How to Rescue Fashion Before It Self-Destructs | Conservation Lab

Fashion, unlike art, is not expected to defy time. Designers consider a garment's durability with the consumer in mind, in terms of seasons, maybe even years—but certainly not decades. This leaves the Costume Institute's conservation team, then, to solve the riddle of how to preserve objects that were never built to last. The problems are diverse—from insect damage to century-old pit stains—but within that broad spectrum of difficulty, synthetic materials are in a category all their own. The exhibition description of The Secret Life of Textiles: Synthetic Materials, which opened early last month at the Met, reads like a scene from Mission: Impossible: "Due to their unstable composition, these materials have shorter lifespans than natural fibers; some actually self-destruct." With the clock ticking, fearless investigator Sarah Scaturro, otherwise known as the institute's head conservator, is trying to tackle the problem.

Gallery View: The Secret Life of Textiles: Synthetic Materials . © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scaturro recently took Creators around the exhibition she co-curated with Leanne Tonkin, a conservator who is currently studying plastics on a Polaire Weissman Fund Fellowship. The show is aptly named, considering its practically hidden location—a small gallery below the Medieval Art section. A single flight of stairs is enough to traverse the centuries: The room pops with technicolor hues and modern fashions. Against a bright pink backdrop made of ultrasuede (a microfiber invented in 1970), plastic mannequins and plexiglass cases showcase an array of synthetic garments and accessories.

"Elsa Schiaparelli is very much the muse of the exhibition," notes Scaturro, pointing to one of the designer's dresses made of rayon. "She was one of the first designers to really embrace plastics and their aesthetics—that kind of fake, surreal quality. This dress is from 1938, but the explosion of plastics really happened after World War II." The Schiaparelli ensemble hangs alongside a polyester dress from the late 60s, designed by Rudi Gernreich. "Polyester was a miracle when it came out: You didn't have to dry it, you didn't have to iron it. It was the fiber for the modern woman," the conservator tells us.

The objects on view were chosen to evoke the two main reasons plastics are so prevalent in fashion: aesthetics and performance. "Designers are drawn to these fantastic materials that can be flexible yet clear, appear metallic without tarnishing… And then there's performance: For the first time you had a material that mimicked wool, but didn't shrink in the dryer or get eaten by moths. It was easy to care for and comfortable; it moved with your body," summarizes Scaturro. She points out a few of the objects that organized her thinking: The "Invisible Sandal" by Salvatore Ferragamo, from 1947, was made with a single clear nylon thread that runs through the leather sole. Over in the performance-themed case, the label on a girdle from the 1950s (a.k.a. "proto-Spanx," Scaturro jokes) reads "I owe it all to Goddess."

Nuancing this celebration of plastics is the "scary case," with hair combs, belts, and shoes that are quietly self-destructing, and tell the story of just how problematic plastics can be as they age. When objects deteriorate in this way, simply because of instabilities in their material makeup, conservators speak of "inherent vice." Three afflicted plastics commonly found in fashion collections are cellulose nitrate, a flammable substance mainly used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; cellulose acetate, which came to replace cellulose nitrate but isn't so common anymore, except in sunglasses; and polyurethane, which is "surprisingly prevalent, often in blends of different plastics," notes Scaturro, looking concerned. "That might be a hidden time bomb that people don't recognize is in their collections."

Deterioration on Herbert Levine polyurethane boot from 1966, part of the Costume Institute conservation lab's study collection. Photo by the author.

Several objects in this case are sequestered from the others because they are malignant, meaning they are off-gassing acidic vapors into the environment. This is the case of two cellulose nitrate hairpieces that have cracked. Nearby, a red polyurethane boot by Herbert Levine, whose original faux patent leather appeared as a uniform layer in the 60s, now has a bad case of "elephant skin," with severe cracks all along the surface. Many objects here, including the boot, have been deaccessioned by the museum and are now part of the conservators' study collection. "I think most conservation labs have a wonderful study collection of scary things—for research, study and practice," says Scaturro.

Two evening belts (viewed through linear polarized light) by Elsa Schiaparelli, circa 1938. Cellulose acetate and metal. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two nearly identical Schiaparelli belts made of cellulose acetate, both from the same 1938 collection and both from the same donor, make for a compelling comparative study. One has aged remarkably well, while the other is severely warped and cracked. The extent of the damage is especially visible when viewed under polarized light: "Unfortunately, these beautiful, refractive colors are indicative of where the polymer is beginning to break down," says Scaturro, who has two hypotheses. The belts could have been from different batches, with one recipe proving more stable than the other—or it could be that the original owner favored one of the belts, and what we are seeing is the residual strain from years of wear.

An object's prior life has a lot to do with how it will age, and this is one of the reasons that the contemporary objects that are now acquired directly from the designers, never before worn, are at a distinct advantage. The other is simply age: "All plastics have an induction period—they're totally fine for a while, and you never know how long that's going to last, and then all of a sudden they just go," says the conservator. "It's sad to say, but a lot of our plastics from the early and mid-20th century are on borrowed time—they're nearing the end of their induction period." While discussing a pair of Courrèges sunglasses from 1965, which are starting to warp, she admits, "These are probably going the way of the belt."

Inherent vice cannot be reversed, so conservators focus mainly on extending an object's induction period for as long as possible—and early intervention is key. "A lot of my research is focused on contemporary plastics coming into the collection now. I have the greatest potential of doing good now, so that these fabulous plastics can last 50 to 100 years in the future." Unfortunately, the work ahead is labor-intensive: Objects must undergo extensive analysis, because their composition is what determines which storage strategy to use. For example, if an object is made of an ester-based polyurethane, it's more susceptible to oxygen, and should be stored in anoxia. If it's an ether-based polyurethane, it will survive longer in low humidity.

This is all uncharted territory, however, and conservators can't know for sure how an object will react—especially if it is made of a blend of several plastics, or if other materials are present. Take this as one example: The 60s Courrèges dress in the center of the exhibition was made with large circles of cellulose acetate, which are becoming brittle and warping. We know from the analog film industry that cellulose acetate does well in cold storage. "But it'll shrink a certain amount in storage, and expand a certain amount once it comes out to be displayed," explains Scaturro. "Over time, what kind of tension will that put on all the joints and the zipper—and will that actually do more damage?"

At this stage, there are more questions than answers, and with over 4,000 objects in the Costume Institute collection featuring some kind of plastic component, Scaturro knows that more research is desperately needed. Still, she remains optimistic: "People ask, 'Should we even be collecting plastics if we know they're going to degrade?' I think certainly we should. Synthetics are such an important part of contemporary fashion that not collecting them would be even more problematic. It's up to me and my team to figure out how to make this work, and I think we can."

Gallery View: Performance. With bathing trunks by Pierre Cardin, spring/summer 1975, and another pair by Jantzen, 1930–49. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Secret Life of Textiles: Synthetic Materials is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue through September 4, 2017. The two previous exhibitions in this series, also curated by conservators, highlighted plant fibers and animal fibers.

Go Behind the Scenes of the Met's Costume Institute | Conservation Lab

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Weave Your Way Through Magnified Photos of Fabric | Conservation Lab

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