THE
JOY OF STORY
John
M. Daniel’s Blog
October
17, 2015
Greetings!
This week I have a brief essay about writing with both hands. Also, I’m pleased
to present this month’s guest author, historical novelist J. R. Lindermuth.
You’ll enjoy reading what he has to say about prejudice and circumstantial
evidence. Also please don't miss the announcement of our new book from Daniel & Daniel: Urban Flight, by Jonathan Kirshner. It's a winner!
Writing
with Two Hands
or: What Do Stories Do?
President Truman, when asked one year what he wanted for Christmas, answered, “Give
me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, ‘On the
one hand.’…On the other…”
This is a fairly famous quote, so you may have heard it before, but I first
heard of it from Mary Wilbur, a skillful writer, a glorious gardener, and a
delicious cook. That Mary is such an accomplished woman is all the more
remarkable because she has done all this, and everything else she’s done, all
her life (all 93 years of it, and counting )literally single-handedly. Mary
Wilbur has only one hand, so she may be a fine writer, gardener, and cook, but
she’ll never make it as an economist, even though she’s a graduate of the
London School of Economics.
This introduction has very little to do with the essay I’m about to write. I
just wanted to use the word “literally” correctly. Hint: never misuse that
word, or your critics and detractors will be literally jumping for joy and
rolling in the aisles.
Now then, what does fiction do?
Well, let’s begin with the basics. Fiction tells lies. That’s what the
word means: the opposite of facts. Every fictional story is a pack of lies from
the get-go. Oh yes, it may be based on things that really happened to the
writer, and it may take place in a real city during a well researched period of
history. It may be accurate in many ways, and it may be quite, quite
believable. But fiction is untrue. Fiction can’t help it. Fiction lies.
On the other hand…Most fiction writers, and I’m
willing to say any fiction writer worth reading, is doing his or her level best
to tell the truth about something. Melville may have written the biggest, most
outrageous whopper of a fish story about the one that got away, but Moby-Dick makes a sincere and honest
statement about the nature of monomania in general, and in particular the
absurd madness of man’s battle with a ruthless universe. Great fiction tells
great truth, whether it be about war and peace, or about crime and punishment,
or about love and death.
In fact, I argue that by lying, the fiction writer turns up the truth another
notch. The truth is better shown when some of those devilish details are
heightened, edited, rearranged, and underscored by a crafty spinner of yarn.
Now we face the question: “Why would a writer work so hard, even to the point
of concocting lies, to tell the truth?” The answer is found in another thing
that fiction does. Writers of fiction are born to teach. More than that (or as we
say in charades, “sounds like…”), we write in order to preach. Somehow it seems
all great fiction writers are on a quest to make this earth on which we live a
better place for our fellow human beings and for our fellow species. We write
to prove a point, in the wild and hopeless hope that our words will convince
our readers to straighten up and fly right.
And sometimes it works. Sometimes fiction makes us progress. To take only a few
examples of only one social disease that has needed, and still needs, fixing,
consider and be grateful for the influence of these novels (and many others
like them) that preached on the subject of racial inequality in American society:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, Native Son, To Kill
a Mockingbird, and The Help. Of
course the job isn’t over yet, and it will take a lot more than literature to
defeat institutionalized bigotry. The thing about writers, though, is that they
will never stop preaching, despite the odds.
On the other hand…What reader’s going to sit still
and get preached at for hours at a time? I scratch my head in disbelief when I
read about Victorian men and women who supposedly read sermons for pleasure.
Speaking of sermons, aren’t we most likely to listen to preachers who crack
jokes every now and then? They know, and good writers know, that the way to
sell message is to disguise it as entertainment. Even Jesus knew that the way
to sell his message was to make up stories, which he called parables. Aesop
wrote fables. Steinbeck wrote epic novels for the same reason.
Would Steinbeck have won any sympathy for migrant laborers by making speeches
or writing tracts? Would we still be reading Grapes of Wrath or In Dubious
Battle today if he were just reporting working conditions of an era that
ended seventy years ago?
So fiction preaches, but it preaches successfully only because it entertains.
What else? Well, fiction explores the world. A good novel delivers to the
reader great knowledge of places on all the continents and the seas between; of
people of all ages and races and beliefs; of eras gone by and times yet to
come. My living room is rich with knowledge because here I’ve learned about the
Ojibwa from Louise Erdrich, the Neanderthal from John Darnton, the Middle West
from Charles Baxter, New England from Alice Hoffman, and Oz from L. Frank Baum.
Yes, and when we stretch the limits of fiction to include the planets and the
stars and the even grander reach of the imagination, it’s fair to say that
fiction explores the universe, as if with a telescope, and delivers it to the
reader, page by fascinating page.
But on the other hand… Fiction may use a telescope to look outward, but it also
looks inward, as if with a microscope, to explore the human heart and mind. The
best fiction—perhaps the best writing—is about the plight of the human soul. Oh
stop trying to sound so fancy, you tell me, and you’re right. But didn’t Holden
Caulfield give voice to my teenage complaints? Didn’t Jack Kerouac make me want
to travel light? Didn’t I learn most of what I know about the twists and turns
of our overworked brains by reading the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley
Jackson, or Franz Kafka and Vladimir Nabokov, William Golding, and Ken Kesey?
So, to summarize, Fiction tells lies, but it also tells the truth. It preaches
while it entertains, and it explores the universe outside and probes the soul
within.
But on the other hand…
Guest Author, J. R. Lindermuth
I take great pleasure in welcoming back
to my blog a writer I much admire, J. R. Lindermuth. As usual, I asked John to
write something about the joy of story, and he has done so by exploring the
thorny issues of perception and the benefit of the doubt in questions of guilt
of innocence. Please welcome John, and read his words:
It's easier to judge than to
understand another person.
Even with our modern jury system, there's
sometimes a tendency to judge on perception, which helps explain the number of
innocent people who have been found guilty.
Imagine how much more difficult it might
have been for a person of limited mental capacity to be proven innocent of a
crime in a rural village in the 19th century.
That's the dilemma of my character Ned Gebhardt
in Something So Divine.
When a young girl is found murdered in a
Pennsylvania rye field in the autumn of 1897, Ned is a prime suspect, though
there are other suspects. He is known to have stalked the victim and gossip and
prejudice contribute to the circumstantial evidence against him.
Ned's only defenders are his stepsister
Iris and Ellen, a village shopkeeper, who believe him incapable of the terrible
crime of which he stands accused. Influenced by their opinions, particularly
that of Ellen to whom he is romantically attracted, Simon Roth, the
investigator, is inclined to give Ned benefit of the doubt.
Even after he discovers damaging
evidence, Roth is willing to put his job and reputation in jeopardy to assure
the boy a fair trial. This is partly because he's still unwilling to see Ned as
a cold-blooded killer but also because he doesn't want to disappoint Ellen and
Iris.
Perception colors our romantic
inclinations just as it does other aspects of our lives. Ned's adoration of
Susie, the girl he's accused of killing, is obviously obsession. Yet he's
willing to sacrifice himself on her behalf. A more realistic form of love
develops between Roth and Ellen, yet even he is willing to temper what his
intellect tells him to satisfy what he believes she seeks from him.
A brief excerpt from the book:
The sound startled Jane Felty. The woman rose from
the table where she'd been sorting clothes to iron and went to the door. She
stepped out on the porch and looked down the lot to where her husband was
chopping a fallen tree into kindling. The tree had toppled weeks earlier in a
storm, and Elwood wanted to get the yard cleared of the debris and the wood
stored before bad weather. He noticed her now, halted his work, and came up to
the porch, ax held loosely at his side.
"Something wrong?"
"I thought I heard a shot."
Elwood shrugged. "Nothing unusual about that.
Especially not at this time of year."
She nodded. "I know. It just startled me is
all."
He gazed fondly at her swollen belly and smiled. The
baby was due in another month. They had other children (though this one was an
unexpected blessing), and he knew pregnancy did things to women's emotions.
"Nothin' to worry about."
Jane returned his smile. "I know. I didn't mean
to disturb you."
"Didn't. I was due for a break."
She jerked her chin in the direction of the tree.
"How's it coming?"
"Slowly. It's a big tree. Should last us a good
ways into the winter."
"Would you like something to drink?"
"A cold tumbler of buttermilk would be
nice."
"I'll bring it. Some fresh-baked cookies,
too." Jane turned and went back in the house.
Elwood started back to his project. A drink, a snack,
and maybe a smoke before he went back to work. I'm a fortunate man to have such a good wife. The thought brought a
smile to his lips. A peripheral movement caught his attention then. He looked
up the hillside to his right as a twig snapped. Something moved through fallen
leaves. Elwood stared but couldn't make out what it might be for the thickness
of the foliage. A deer, he surmised, swinging the ax over his shoulder and
seating himself on the tree trunk to await Jane and his refreshments.
Bio:
A newspaper reporter/editor for nearly 40 years, J. R. Lindermuth is the author
of 14 novels and a regional history. His short stories and articles have been
published in a variety of magazines. He is a member of International Thriller
Writers and currently serves as vice president of the Short Mystery Fiction
Society. Since retiring, he has served as librarian of his county historical
society, assisting patrons with genealogy and research.
Something So Divine (August
2015), Sunbury Press
The Tithing Herd (May 2015), The
Western Online Press
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR
SPONSOR
New from Daniel &
Daniel, Publishers
A
Bird’s Eye View of Big Apple Corruption
URBAN
FLIGHT
a
novel by Jonathan Kirshner
It’s New York City in the dark days of
1975. Crime is up, the roads are impossibly gridlocked, and the Big Apple
is on the verge of bankruptcy. And, just as he had threatened, there isn’t even
Nixon to kick around anymore. High above the despairing streets, Jason
Sims, part-time guitarist and one-time sixties idealist, now pilots a
helicopter for the traffic reporter of a television news station. At the
request of the station’s mysterious owner, Jason agrees to do some extra
flying, leap-frogging over the impassible streets below. But during these
extra-curricular flights he observes activities that could be related to the
urban corruption scandal that his best friend, journalist Adam Shaker, has been
investigating. As Jason becomes inadvertently enmeshed in the City’s political
crisis—and a new love interest—he confronts the demons of his past and
experiences a personal re-awakening.
“Bribery, corruption, murder…a wise-cracking
hero helicopter pilot, a compulsively sleuthing reporter, an up-for-anything
history professor.… Take all this and drop it into the stew of a city going to
hell, and it comes to a boil and stays there until the end.”
—John
Darnton, author of Black and White and
Dead All Over
Reminder: The deadline for November’s 99-word story submissions is
November 1.
note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest.
Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it
stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly.
That’s an unwritten rule.
Rules
for the 99-word story feature are as follows:
1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot
(something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this
blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains
all rights.
THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY:
Use the following sentence as either the first or the last
sentence of the story:
“The old woman walked out of the bar with a smile on her face.”
Deadline: November 1, 2015.
If you follow the rules,
your story will appear on this blog November 14.
Thanks
for dropping by! See you next week, I hope. Meanwhile, keep writing, reading,
and celebrating the Joy of Story!
