#cead

[bettsfic]

craft essay a day #11

took a couple days off because i got a plot bunny for a fic that turned into a short story that turned into a novella that turned into a novel but might still be a novella depending on whether i want the main character to commit a murder or if i just want everyone to have a good time.

"The Sword of Damocles: On Suspense, Shower Murders, and Shooting People on the Beach" by Anthony Doerr, The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House

beginner | intermediate | advanced | masterclass 

filed under: plot & conflict, structure, pacing, process

summary & my thoughts

in 2017 i was at tin house and i went to Anthony Doerr's lecture on simile. i use the word "lecture" loosely; it was closer to a performance. the guy's got great energy. i was so inspired by his lecture that i skipped the next one and returned to my room to start writing a new story, one that would go on to get published, win an award, and become my writing sample for the next four years, including my PhD application. i think that story was so successful in part because i wrote it only as a way to practice what Doerr had taught me about the work of similes. in fact in put so many similes into this story that when i workshopped it later, my professor wrote a little note in the margin that said, "not everything has to be like something else."

i wrote the thing to practice similes, and i ended up taking all the similes out. so it goes.

later, i attended Doerr's reading. having an audio processing issue, i'm really not a fan of readings. i would be able to listen if i could just look down at my phone, but that's rude so i end up only really getting disparate sounds and the occasional fleeting mental image. so i sit there in the back, bored and wishing i could process sound without requiring a second sensory stimulus.

with Doerr, a miracle happened: somehow, there was something about his sentences and paragraphing that made me able to understand what he was saying. for a brief, shining moment i understood the cultural obsession with podcasts. he was reading an excerpt from a short story, and i was hooked. and then it ended on a cliffhanger. so, being in the back, i left right before the end of the event and bought his book, hoping that when i asked him to sign it, he would tell me where i could find the story.

i was first in line. i gave him the book to sign and asked about the story. he said sorry, it wasn't published and probably wouldn't be. devastating. as he was signing my book, he looked at my badge which had my name and listed my genre as creative nonfiction. he asked what project i was working on. i was somewhat taken aback by this (because his line was now a mile long and also why would he care?), and told him the truth: "i'm writing a memoir on fanfiction."

over the years, i've been pretty open with just about everyone regarding how cool i think fanfic is and that i write it. it's not something i'm ashamed of and i'm generally not afraid of being judged, because it's an awesome and wonderful thing that exists in the world, and anyone who thinks otherwise has no idea what they're talking about and probably isn't someone i care to know. i've talked to dozens of authors, editors, and agents about fanfic and for the most part receive mild and polite curiosity as they attempt to align what i'm telling them with what they know of publishing. ultimately i'm sure they dismiss it, but for a beautiful couple minutes, i introduce them to something new.

(not a single person i've ever spoken with has known anything about fanfic. to us it seems so huge, but in literary circles, some people haven't even heard the word fanfiction.)

Anthony Doerr's eyes went wide. he gasped. he glanced around as if having a grand epiphany and said, "everything is fanfiction, isn't it? everything is inspired by something else."

"yes!" i said excitedly, appreciating that he and i are both excessively, possibly offputtingly, enthusiastic people. he signed my book, For Beth! A fellow writer. Your fan, Tony.

unfortunately his line was getting even longer (that's what happens when your book wins a Pulitzer i guess) and we had to cut our conversation short. a week later when i got home, i cracked open his book (all the light we cannot see) at, i don't know, 8pm maybe, and didn't go to bed until 5am when i finally finished it.

which is all to say, what Anthony Doerr says about writing, i listen to.

his essays are a lot like Mary Ruefle's in that he kind of talks about and around a general topic, and as such, this essay is a bit hard to summarize. in the vein of Wayne Booth he also leans heavily on dissecting block quote examples, and so this is a very long essay.

he begins with a disclaimer: "i'm an absolutely terrible writer of suspense. i use up most of my sentences describing trees or snow or light." i actually lol'd at this because i use his short story "The Hunter's Wife" in my lesson plan on developing imagery, and specifically refer to his detailed descriptions of trees, snow, and light.

he introduces the idea of "suspended suspense," or the moment of the story at its apex and relishing in the length of time it hovers there.

"I'm more interested in measured, proportionally handled suspense; the kind of suspense that makes you simultaneously want to skip forward a few paragraphs and to find out what will happen and dwell for as long as possible inside the slow blister of rising action."

he goes on to pull my favorite move of any craft essay: elaborating on the etymology of the term he's discussing, in this case "suspense," which comes from the latin "pendere" which means "to hang."

he talks about the idea of a plot being the thing in a story that is always ticking down to zero, and then compares storytelling and the concept of an obstacle to sports games and the reason people watch them.

"One way to look at games, tournaments, and seasons is that they are essentially highly formalized structures designed to produce obstacles. Why? Because obstacles are delay, and delay produces compelling narration."

Doerr believes that the draw of suspense is the ability to create a kind of anxiety outside of reality where one can feel emotions within the safe bubble of narrative structure. the story, after all, must always end, but life continues on.

he elaborates on two ideas in relation to suspension: interruption and diminishing returns. he cites a study which declares that humans crave interruptions in anything lasting. taking a break at work, for example, or an intermission at a play.

"Maybe interruptions—slowing down scenes just at their most pleasurable—are a way of making the sensations of vicarious anxiety and longing feel acute to us for as long as possible."

of the law of diminishing returns, he says that humans "crave newness" and that part of the allure of a break is to make new something pleasurable and familiar. for example, savoring chocolate by eating it slowly.

"...a huge percentage of writing your most climactic, emotional scenes is about learning to go very slowly. One has to learn to trawl the attention through the texture of the dream."

while all of this is great in theory, it doesn't really address the practicality of writing the damn thing. my favorite rule of thumb is "when the action is hot, write cool," an adage from Debra Gwartney that is certainly prescriptive but something i always keep in mind regardless. action hot, write cool is more or less what Doerr is saying. he's saying, slow down and take your time, while Gwartney is saying, the way to do that is to create narrative distance. my go-to example is the climax of the personal essay "The Fourth State of Matter" by JoAnn Beard, in which we become so distant from JoAnn's point of view we reach into the point of view of someone else.

climaxes are my least favorite thing to write. once i reach them, i skip all the way to the end of the story and write backwards, until the only thing left to write is the climax. i can't say whether or not this is effective advice, because i simply can't do it any other way. if there's a better way, i don't know it.

but i do have something you can try when you finally have to buckle down and get it done:

climaxes are generally the most emotional and visual part of a story. it's where the internal conflict meets up with the external conflict, and therefore you're dealing with both interior narration and sensation, and external movement of bodies in space. you should not expect yourself to handle all of these things at once. you only have one brain, and these sorts of scenes take two brains, maybe even three (how can you expect yourself to be inside your character's perspective while also standing outside of it to direct the action?), and so sometimes you have to layer them.

for your first pass on the climax: work on blocking only. all you're doing is rendering bodies in space. who are the characters in this scene, where are they in relation to each other, and what are they saying. how do they get from A to B interpersonally and/or physically? let's say your characters are finally having their first kiss. you have two bodies that have to go from not touching each other to touching each other. you potentially have some discussion between them. don't worry about dragging it out at this point per Doerr's recommendation. just get mouth A against mouth B. this is more or less only a light pencil sketch of the scene.

second pass: you've focused on the movement, now you go in and add the static details involving the sensation of the kiss and any other external detail your character is attending to, like an airplane flying overhead. most writers like to elaborate on what a person tastes like, which personally i think is weird and unnecessary because i as a reader don't really need to know what someone had for lunch, but whatever. you do you.

third pass: interiority only. my favorite way to pace out a climax is to allow your narrator access to time. allow them to think into the past, into something we don't know yet, or have them realize something, or whatever. let them think. you're controlling the mind of your narrator; use that to your advantage.

if you need to, make a pattern of it: blocking sentence, external sentence, internal sentence. movement, feeling, thought. of course, you're going to revise the shit out of this whole scene later hopefully and so you'll be able to move things around and rewrite as necessary. but in terms of just getting the whole thing onto the page, i find this layering technique pretty useful.

craft essay a day tag | cross-posted on AO3 | ask me something

[fuckwhattheysayin]

Flicks of some trains back in February

Flint, MI

[earningswhisper]

2. Uncovering the Reasons Behind CEAD's Revenue Decline https://csimarket.com/stocks/news.php?code=CEAD&date=2024-03-30104051&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[p1nkballetflats]

as an irish person, i just find it so funny when people who aren’t from ireland (mostly americans) try to write AF fanfics… they make him sound so american, like we can just TELL from the google translated irish phrases that you’re using LMAO póg mo thóin, tá tú an-amaideach agus tá sé chomh greannmhar xx

[taakofromtv]

twitter people complaining how archive 81 was canceled on netflix....listen to the podcast....I beg you....the podcast will heal your sickness

[bitseventimes]

hate to b that guy but I don't think I've ever seen this many Twitter screenshots on my dash. sure they're all funny hahas mocking musk but if we really want the guy to fail we gotta stop using the platform completely, make it obsolete and forget about it. contrary to popular belief the man is not stupid, he knows the tantrum tweets are driving up engagement. don't take the bait.

[nickel2sulfate]

The .000005 seconds that a tumblr ad attenpts to take over my phones speaker

Specifically the Temu ads.

[cruelsister-moved2]

need a word for the irish equivalent of orientalism where its not nearly as damaging (although its not harmless either) but just the most supremely annoying and aesthetically hollow thing on planet earth

[lukasonder]

Day 57: Cead-

[relnicht]

aig an ìre seo tha mi a' wondraigeadh a bheil leabhar Gàidhlig sam bith ann anns nach eil bitheileas (existentialism) a' togail ceann mar chuspair

[bettsfic]

craft essay a day #1

(since i'm embarking on putting together a proposal for a craft book, i thought i'd read [or re-read] some some of the two dozen or so craft books on my shelf. and since i've gotten a lot of interest in craft book/essay recs i thought i'd summarize them here. will i manage to do this every day? who knows. but an attempt will be made.)

"Beginnings" by Ann Hood, The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House

beginner | intermediate | advanced | masterclass

filed under: structure, conflict, prose, process

summary

Hood begins the essay by talking about process, namely that she has to know her first sentence before she can start writing a novel, but that once the novel is finished, the beginning changes anyway.

"Yet, after I've finished a story and started the revision process, I almost always find myself right back at the beginning, reworking it again. While I was writing, characters changed, new ideas intruded, mistakes in the original plan revealed themselves, and sometimes a different story altogether has taken over. In his book The Triggering Town, the poet Richard Hugo says there are actually two beginnings: the one that comes from your initiating or triggering subject and the one that is generated as you write and discover your real subject. Your challenge is to let go of your triggering beginning and find your real one."

she then goes on to analyze a few dozen beginning sentences of famous novels and place them into 10 categories:

Introduction

An Old Saw

Character Description

A Setting

In Media Res

Facts

A Truism or Philosophical Idea

Dialogue

Overture

Otherworld

my thoughts

good essay for an intro cw course/workshop (i always love essays that break things down into categories).

i am in desperate need to find this exact essay but for ending sentences, yet i suspect it doesn't exist because no one is good at endings. still, the search continues. surely someone somewhere has attempted it.

made me think of my own beginning sentences in a new way and how i have a hard time letting go of my "triggering subject" beginnings.

would have liked to see a little more sentence-level analysis, really dig into the meat of why these sentences work (rhetorically, structurally, narratively), not just what kind of sentences they are. but that's probably a different essay. i've read a lot of tin house essays and they tend to stick to surface-level thoughts on craft. nothing mind-blowing, but great for teaching/referencing because they define craft concepts in memorable ways.

(additional note: i did the tin house workshop five years ago. great experience! highly recommended.)

[competingaccessneeds]

f. faceplamm

[d4x]

been watching voyager again and just started fair haven. deeply curious how annoyed my father + grandfather would be lol

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

the bafta livestream out of context: top 60 cursed quotes.

There is nothing more cursed than the livestream I just witnessed, and I made a summary post but now I'm just going to put in quotes by the worthy maggots in the stream with no context, because BELIEVE ME THE CONTEXT DIDN'T MAKE ANYTHING BETTER. The livestream chat was NOT A PLACE OF THE LORD.

I'm going to make the quotes that were by me a different colour. Please know that I am NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR A SINGLE QUOTE OTHER THAN THOSE. SO HERE'S THE TOP 60 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Barbenhimer awakened things in me ok

aroace people the most disturbingly sexual talkers on the planet fight me on this

WHO JUST GASPED

MICHAEL SHEENS BABY TALKING BARK BADK IM A DOG BARK WOOF

I feel so sorry for this woman. She's being so heartfelt and we're here thristing over a slinky that possessed a man

IRELAAAND PLEASE ADOPT ME AS YOUR OWN PLEASE TAKE ME TO THE LAND OF UNPRONOUNCABLE WORDS, GREEN FEILD, CATHOLISISM AND HOZIER PLEASE

the urge to go to france and misgender a croissant is real

Devastated the slutty knees have gone away

So many men nowadays are so submissive and breedable like thank you lord for these men thank you

witches and murder slime tutorial

speaking of royals did the bloke who ISN'T lizzy's husband but her son apparently die yet

Turtleneck Crowley is my gender.

WE COULD HAVE LEFT IT AS NOT SAFE FOR WORK WHY THE DRTAOLS ASMI

SAY AN BFUIL CEAD AGAM DUL GO DTÍ AN LEITHREAS AN WE'LL LET YOU THROUGJ

"Oompa loompa doopety dee, I really hated being in this movie" -Hugh grant probably

IF YOU'RE A CHILD AVERT YOUR EYES FROM THAT MESSAGE IM SORRY

i want the kilt back this a betrayal

if someone put me in a room with kilt!david tennant one of us is walking out of that room pregnant and its not gonna be me

a lot of these words are in the bible and none of them should be in that order you need jesus

Can we vote to make david wear that kilt back? Maybe make him do a twirl this time

You mean Bildaddy? 😏

Honey what make you think a dude who roamed around with prostitutes and got himself more holes for mankind won't be calling bildad bildaddy? [this was about jesus btw.]

FREE THE KNEE

Show us the knees!

AND YOU'RE COMING AFTER ME FOR MY BLOWJOB BANANA

He looks like those fancy chocolates. Imma take a bite outta him. Think you'll leak molten goo like them?

My brain isn't working, I read "bratty couch jr"

i'm sorry the what holes

FIND ME ON GOAD AND I WILL MAKE YOU PAY APPROPRIATELY

I genuinely thought it was a road typo and I thought you were threatening asmi with physical violence on the road

OHH FLOWER OF SCOTLAAAAAAND

Combine that with the unfortunate oranges and see what happens.

DEVASTATING NEWS I ATE UP ALL OF THEM SO I'VE BROUGHT A BLOWJOB BANANA INSTEAD

That reminded me of the army video where the guy was deepthroating a 7 inch banana without a hitch.

OMG THEY JUST FLASHED BACK & I GOT A GLIMPSE OF THAT KILT 🥵🥵🥵

thats why apollo had to deliver you at an illegal sushi restaurant

How long do you think it would take to get david naked from his chocolate man suit? Can we set a new speedrun category?

SUPERBOWL FOR TENNANTISTS

Big feelings about pants straps in the chat tonight

Last time i check yoire supposed to thank the lord gor his gifts

HEY GUYS ASMI'S FROM A PARALLEL UNIVERSE CONFIRMED

I just have a deep appreciation for ireland

Can you use suspenders as bondage gear? I mean it looks like it would be fine? I mean if you make the length a bit more they might be more comfortable than ropes. Just sayin

All i can think when i see him in the costume is the one specific ken and oppenhimer slash fic. Lord help me i can't be saved

GIVE MY LOVE TO THE LEPRECHAAAAAAAAAAAUNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Like a giant orange slice on her one arm.

Stop hitting the lectern geez / what if its into that?

Men who wear suspenders are such losers like why do you need so much cloth to keep your pants up. Why dont you just wear a belt. Where do you live. What is your timezone. What are you office hours

what is this suspender shaming ari chappal for you

Aziraphales office hours are: fuck off

Put me ina room with a suspender wearing man and he shall have the same fate as kilttennant

MARIYADAM E ILLAI

It was titled "snake in my b***" It meant butt lmfao

CROWLEY AND LOKI MY GENDERFLUID ICONS

THE KNEES ARE BACK

THEKNEES GOD SAVE ME FROM THESE SINFUL THOUGHTS

What if slutshaming is my kink?

NOT THE BLOWJOB FACE NO

AT THIS POINT IF NEIL HASN'T UNFOLLOWED ME YET HE'S ASKING TO BE MENTALLY SCARRED IM SORRY

I am failing

Tagging the main culprits whose tumblr handles I know:

@thearoacemess @vitrilol @queermarzipan @good-usernames-were-taken

Cheers, maggots.

[shaunashoochiebae]

okay this IS a question but it’s very useful

An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?

what do u think it means (don’t look it up pls no cheating)

[tfsr1rlfem]

Just me: (prologue)

Summary: in a time of war and isolation you stumble upon one person. Problem? You’ve hated him since middle school. Will you put aside your hatred to survive or will something else blossom amongst the wreckage.

A/n:: here is the prologue i really hope you guys like it, i will try to make the next one better/longer sorry if this is terrible, also a warning for a little violence

It was a strange feeling really,being completely alone.

She thought she knew solitude prior to the shutdown. She was wrong.

In the dinghy little house that had managed to be missed out by the ceads hoards, (Y/N) has holed herself up with around as much food that would last her the next couple of days. The family that lived there before had an immense stock of canned goods, so she would be eating well tonight.

Didn’t mean she wasn’t extremely paranoid however, curtains closed and a large dresser pressed up against the front door and what she believed to be the only possible point of entry in the building. Well that’s what she thought.

It has been exactly two months and four days since shed last seen someone.she missed it, he people, her family, her mundane high school routine that she was so used to.

Blinking away the tears at the old memories coming back to her she straightened her backup, it was aching and th-..

Wait.

There was a breeze on the back of her neck, just a light one barely shifting the small baby hairs on the back of her neck. But it was there.

Turning her fully body around she searched for the source of the wind, eyes landing on a slightly ajar window at the top of the landing.

Ears strained and breath hitched she listened for any sort of noise that would alert her of someone else in the house, but found none.

Keeping her wits about her but with a slightly more relaxed form she started her ascend up the staircase.

The steps made were calculated and barely there, the idea of what could be luring at any corner of the house made her sick to her stomach and she reached the top of the stairs painfully slowly pulling the handle and shutting the window closed with surprisingly little noise. With her small victory secured, she turned on her heel to find something else to secure the window with.

That’s when she saw it.

Huge and slimy and hunched over at the top of the other stairs on the landing. It was a sort of grey-ish colour and absolutely reeked.

She smell was so overpowering that she congratulated herself in not throwing up then and there.

But there were more pressing issues than her strong stomach right now.

There was no mistaking that its pale white eyes were staring at her, but it remained unmoving.

Then suddenly it lurched. Limbs clawing out trying to grab her as she dashed under, practically falling down the stairs to evade its claws. The creature made the most wretched and pained sound at this and chased after her.

Now what the fuck was she meant to do?

Looking around frantically for anything that could aid her, her eyes landed on a broom in the kitchen. Darting for it her arms lifted it above her like it was a mighty weapon, and she swung for the thing that was rapidly gaining speed on her, and striking it straight in the neck. It groaned again and she gagged at the smell it gave off. Eventually pulling herself together enough to ram the broom into the ceads eye she started for her backpack.

Luck was however not on her side os she came to the front door bag in hand, and her gaze landed towards the large wardrobe pushed up against the door.

‘Shit shit shit, this cannot be happening right now’

Huffing she passed on the wardrobe willing to all gods out there to let it budge.

No such luck. Desperate pants filled the hallway as the cead finally rounded the corner and locked eyes. With her struggling form.

Almost laughing it languidly dragged its feet across the carpeted floor, knowing se wouldn’t get out.

But however it seemed Jesus Chris has mercy on some as the wardrobe budged just as its claw grazed her skin, falling completely on top f the creature and freeing the door.

She lets out a breath of relief and wastes no time in sprinting out of the house heaving all the while.

She runs through the neighbourhood, where there’s one there’s many, and only rests when she’s a good while away from the house.

Her sobs are loud as she walks along the pavement but she dosent care. The pain in her arm numbing any judgment made and he pain clouding her head.

Only does she realise how stupid she’s being when she heard something, no someone move, and it. Takes them less than a second to round the corner and smash into her.

On instinct she gets up to run but notices something, this isn’t some big monster in fact this wasn’t a cead at all. In fact it was-

‘’No fucking way, (Y/N)’’ she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in. Of course she bumped into him. In the middle of a zombie fucking apocalypse .

Steve fucking Harrington.

A/N: let me know if i should doo a tag list and if you would like to be added hope you enjoyed this chapter. Feedback welcome and appreciated. Thanks my loves.