The Writer's Attic, Issue 14, an Essay fanfic

The Writer’s Attic
Issue Fourteen
Interrupt Mode

Disclaimer: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Any advice/opinions in this column come straight from my own experience which is not all-encompassing and may not necessarily apply to you. I do not guarantee success with my methods. Everyone's different, and everyone has their own writing styles, which may or may not apply only to them. With that in mind, I hope something I say is of use to you, and that you enjoy reading my column.

Quote of the Month:

“And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we’ve lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the Dangling Conversation,
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.”
--Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel

Book of the Month:

The Trick of It, by Michael Frayn
- In a series of letters to an old friend, an anonymous narrator (literary critic at a British university) discovers that “the trick” of writing a novel is in fact beyond him. Enamored with the work of novelist “JL”, he invites her to speak to his students, and subsequently discovers that his dream come true is in fact a nightmare. He falls for her immediately, and although his courtship is perhaps as bumbled as is possible, eventually marries her. Unfortunately, he realizes thereafter that what comes out in her stories is lacking in her life—color. He begins to worry that he will appear in her writing, only to feel neglected as he realizes he can neither influence her work, nor create his own. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that he wants nothing more than to get out, but is unable to do so: jobless (after all, he can’t critique his own wife’s work), aimless, and, ultimately, paranoid:
What? Are my underpants aubergine? Of course they’re not aubergine! Don’t you know anything about my taste at all? But she may be saying they’re aubergine! That’s what they do, these people. They embroider, they improve on the truth—they tell lies . . .

The Writer’s Workbench:

This month, we’ll take a look at two somewhat related (and also somewhat unrelated) topics. I know it’s the Halloween issue, but it wasn’t supposed to be, so you’ll have to make do with my slightly less than spooky prose . . .

1. The Intrusive Author
As discussed last month, one of the easiest ways to tell a story is in the third person. That is, to write as a historian recording a series of events in which you are not involved. When using the third person, the pronoun ‘I’ is necessarily omitted—the narrator, as such, is not a sentient ‘I’ but merely a pen on paper . . .
The voice of the Intrusive Author, however, eschews the boundary line between the first and the third person. It retains the narrative characteristics of third—the relation of events from an outside point of view, yet permits the usage of ‘I’ from time to time in short asides—interjections, or intrusions, into the main story.
To understand this, it is perhaps necessary to think of a story as something not written, but told. Indeed, in oral traditions, a storyteller is clearly visible, clearly a person who may be adding their own inflections and judgements to a tale, without necessarily having been involved in the events they are describing. The Intrusive Author is this storyteller made invisible and handed and pen and paper—still, however, the medium through which the story reaches the reader.
As might already be clear to you, this is not a commonly used voice. It was briefly popular something over a century ago, with such writers as George Eliot and E.M. Forster. It was also popular—and still is, if Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) is any indication—as a form for children’s books, used by writers such as Edith Nesbit and, of course, the quintessential preteen adventure novelist, Enid Blyton. Although it might at first seem to be a rather limiting voice, the greatly differing writings of these four (five) authors will hopefully serve to illustrate that the Intrusive Author can in fact be quite versatile.
First examine one of the key problems in fiction writing—how to achieve believability. The Intrusive Author makes this, if anything, an altogether knottier question. Once we see and recall that there is indeed a ‘man behind the curtain,’ the illusion loses its credibility—we are less likely to accept an account as fact.
This is not a problem. Some writers (Forster for one) have used intrusions rather humorously, to intentionally strip away the façade:

Once again Gold found himself preparing to lunch with someone—Spotty Weinrock—and the thought arose that he was spending an awful lot of time in this book eating and talking. There was not much else to be done with him. I was putting him into bed a lot with Andrea and keeping his wife and children conveniently in the background . . . Certainly he would soon meet a schoolteacher with four children with whom he would fall madly in love, and I would shortly hold out to him the tantalizing promise of becoming the country’s first Jewish Secretary of State, and promise I did not intend to keep.
--Joseph Heller, Good as Gold

This enters into the realm of the experimental novel. ‘Look,’ it says to the reader, ‘you know and I know that I am making this up, and that I can in fact make theses characters do whatever I wish, so why not admit that writing truly has no bearing on life?’ It eliminates the extended metaphor—how can there be a deeper meaning when there is no particular meaning to begin with? At the same time, the fiction (if well-written) is likely to be no less enjoyable, and the intrusions (if kept to a reasonable number) may even make it more so. After all, a lack of pretense is often refreshing.
The voice can also be used, in a more serious vein, to mediate judgement. Forster, naturally, did this as well. Most often, this is done at important points in a novel—when we are meeting a character, or after a significant action. For example, if a character possesses a physical attribute commonly associated with a specific characteristic, the author may step in to remind us of this fact: “Despite the blandness of his features, I hope you will not think Edward a dull man.” It can also be used to pass judgement—“Even as he slammed the door, he began to regret his harsh words, and this not without cause, as I think it must be said, certain of his comments had been in rather poor taste.”
In this fashion, authorial intrusions can be used to direct a reader along a certain path or into a specific mode of thinking about characters and events. We may be asked to refrain from making our own judgements—after all, the author clearly is better acquainted with the characters and therefore possessed of more valid opinions. On the other hand, we may be informed that the author does not feel qualified to judge and that we must trust ourselves to do it for them.
There are many other possibilities for the Intrusive Author, but I think that my own readers might grow weary if I attempted to detail all of these that occur to me. Some further examples are—to mitigate suspense, the author can provide a brief summary of events prior to describing them in detail (think of the scene on the spaceship as it reaches Magrathea in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). It can also be used (as previously mentioned) for children’s writing. Edith Nesbit did this, often creating a sense of camaraderie by referring to the failings of the “tiresome” grownups who would simply not understand her stories:

. . . and when I told you about the children’s being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, ‘How true!’ or ‘How like life!’ and you would see it and very likely be annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts and uncles either are likely to write ‘How true!’ on the edge of the story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good little sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy.
--Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It

And this, I think we can all agree, is rather a nice way of approaching the ‘unbelievable’ action of a story.

2. The Epistolary and Telephone Novels

Further exploration, if you can forgive me, into the realm of the Experimental Novel, although these particular two are rather more mainstream these days.
This month’s Book, The Trick Of It, is in fact an epistolary novel—a novel in letters. Of course, this makes it a first person narrative, but accommodates certain special features—like a diary, we are allowed to see a character develop as events take place, and we are also confronted with the knowledge that, unlike someone writing in a diary, they are writing for an audience and may therefore not be entirely truthful. It is also interesting to note that, as both are intimately involved with the writing process, a fictional letter is entirely undistinguishable from a real letter. That takes care of believability . . .
Additionally, the epistolary novel gives you as a writer slightly more scope than a first (and perhaps even third) person novel. You can delve deeply into the psyche of not just one, but two (or even more; the possibilities of email en masse . . .) people . . . and exchange of letters, set down and recorded, eliminates the question of how the author became omnipotent. After all, these people did write it all down. It was simply a question of finding it. Even if, as in The Trick Of It, the author limits himself or herself to one character, it is possible to carry on a sort of dialogue with the intended recipient. People corresponding over a long period of time are likely to know each other well—letter answers questions posed in the previous one, anticipates responses, and provides ongoing details of both lives. This format even shares some characteristics with the Intrusive Author—the letter-writer may be interrupted by events in his or her life, or may digress from a retelling of events to make judgements, refer to past events, or lament/rejoice over a more immediate occurrence.
The more modern version of this, of course, is the telephone novel. The best example I can think of is Vox, by Nicholson Baker. I was, in fact, going to select this as the novel of the month, until I realized that a) I was not entirely sure if I had liked it, and b) it would probably be a good idea to recommend books with a slightly less mature rating . . .
Unlike letters, which require some sort of eloquence (that is, complete sentences and coherence), people speaking on the telephone can be rather less clear. The telephone, eliminating visibility, and, in some sense, tonal inflection, lends itself to deception. People are far more likely to tell ‘white lies’ on the telephone—perhaps to say they are calling from home when in fact they are upstairs with the neighbor (although the recent advent of caller ID might render this a problem). The telephone, as a function of its being, engenders confusion, miscommunication . . . and, to some extent, general discord. Long awkward silences . . . “Well, that’s what happened.” “I see.” And then?
The telephone can be a prominent feature of a novel . . . the center, perhaps of the conflict and confusion . . . or it can be the center of the novel, as in Vox. By eliminating the ‘he said’ and ‘she said’ and all other speech tags, such a novel requires the readers more active participation and involvement in order to decipher who said what. It also requires the reader to determine how and why words are being spoken—dramatic inflection, in this case, can only be in the mind, and therefore, what the author meant is set solidly in second place to the text. A modern convention perhaps . . . but then, so is the telephone.

The Social Commentary:

I very much fear that this is less a social commentary than a literary one . . . and a brief one, at that.
I’m currently working for a national literary magazine, and possibly one of the most exciting things about the job is that we receive advance copies of book from publishers in the hope that we will decide to review them. Of course, while we get the gems such as The Bright Forever, we also get books ranging from duplicate copies of The Seven Levels of Intimacy to Passport to Narnia, and it is this last that I wish to discuss in brief.
My first thought, of course, was “do we really need another guide to Narnia?” Nevertheless, I flipped through it, and ended up reading from approximately the middle of the introduction to the end of said introduction. At said end, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was the work of Neil Gaiman. As he had mentioned feeling cheated on discovering that the Chronicles of Narnia were really an extended metaphor for God and heaven, I felt somehow validated. This is, of course, remembering my own utter shock and anger when I suddenly understood that this was not “just a lousy ending” . . . this was an attempt to convert me, and I was prepared to fight it publicly.
In retrospect, my reaction may have been a little extreme
In any case, finding this book containing something by Neil Gaiman, I felt obliged to palm through the rest of it, and discovered, in the very first chapter, to my utmost horror, a glaring error. The author points out some parallels between Nesbit’s The Story of the Amulet and C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew . . . and concludes by saying that Narnia fans will likely enjoy Nesbit’s trilogy (and I quote)—The Railway Children, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet.
Dear readers, please tell me you are as horrified as I am . . . The Railway Children, although by Nesbit, is a novel on its own and entirely unrelated to the actual trilogy, which consists of Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet.
Clearly, this author is recommending a book he has neither read nor researched correctly . . . and fie on whosoever did the copyediting for Passport to Narnia. I of course immediately shot off an email to the publisher telling them of this error . . . while I doubted that they would be able to rectify this five days before publication, I hoped that they would take note of it for future printings (take note of the politeness—I am by no means sure that there will be future printings). It all made me feel rather like Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail (the scene in Fox Books . . . “Who wrote the shoe books?” “Noel Streatfield”) . . . but at the same time, if I don’t know my novels, I sometimes wonder what I really do know . . .

And look at that, I even got in some angst for you . . .

The Glossary:

So perhaps this is yet another copout, but . . .

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. November of every year. You start from scratch November 1, and the goal is to have a complete novel (175 pages; 50,000 words or more) by midnight of November the 30th. Unfortunately, there are no cash prizes for winning, since, as might be expected, a novel written in a month is likely to have some rather awful moments . . .but, on the plus side . . . you might walk away a novelist, and if you succeed your name will go up on a “Hall of Fame” type list. More information at www(dot)nanowrimo(dot)org.

On another note, I would seriously like to attempt this this year, as I have significantly more time than I will likely ever have again. Unfortunately, I have a dearth of novel ideas . . . so any ideas you would like to send my way would be greatly appreciated.

Insomniacs Central:

This section, I must say, is largely what held up this issue. I got absolutely no responses . . . which makes me reluctant to issue a new challenge. Challenge however, I shall:

In honor of the epistolary novel, this month’s challenge is to write a letter. A fictional letter, of course, on any topic your heart desires. Not an email-type letter, please . . . something a little more formal would be nice, but other than that . . . have at it.

The Microphone:

Uploading as an essay has the interesting side effect of allowing you to respond to each other’s comments . . .

From: Muffers
I love tinkering around with POVs. Honestly, it just amuses me to no end and is usually a riot to do. My favourite is doing a first and second person mix, where I (as a tormenter, usually) play with a "toy" (or you, the poor victim). That mixture is wonderful for horror/suspense fiction, simply because it gets the reader involved in the thoughts of both viewpoints because they're being told at the same time. When I find fiction like that, I swoon. :D
When considering the POV to use in my fiction, I usually tend to go with third person. I'm not sure if it's just me, but first person seems like immature writing to me. Like, not that the writer is lacking in skill, but just that it's hard to sound ethereal in the way that third person characters can. I think it's because contractions are used a lot in first person, and because the reader and writer both can do so much deeper into the character's emotions and thoughts. I've started to question something regarding to that. Perhaps, is it possible to be drawn in a close to a third person character as a first person character? Or will third person characters always have that slightly detached feel to them? Even switch it around; can a character ever really be written as impassively in first person as they could be in third person? These are questions I've never really gotten proper answers to, even with all the columns and articles I've read. I suppose it really depends on the writer/reader, but there's always that general advice lingering around there somewhere ... :P
Well, I'm done. Wonderful article. I look forward to your next one. Always a pleasure. :D

From: Ivan Rathe
I've never read any of these "Writer's Attic" issues, but I thought this one was very interesting. I've only thought about POVs a little before this, but this made me evaluate my own style.
In response to Muffers's post...I believe that a third-person character can become just as close to a reader as a first-person character -- maybe even more so. When you read first-person works, sometimes the character's biases will influence you, and affect your opinions. This isn't necessarily a good thing. Third-person (at least, neutral or omniscient) allows you to view all the characters equally, and formulate your own opinions on them. (I personally like to use third-person limited, with a hint of omniscient...i.e., I generally focus on the main character, but sometimes I'll write from the point of view of a supporting character for a short time.) This is just all my opinion, though.
...Where was I going with all that...? Now I'm not quite sure. Hm. Oh, well...

And for my own take . . . I don’t know if you can feel quite as close to a third person character as a first . . . I don’t believe Ella Enchanted, for example, would have worked nearly as well in third person (just look at the movie—it was a different story entirely). I do, however, think that first person can be as impassive as third. It may perhaps not be a good example, but the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime has a first-person narrator who is autistic. The style seems very dry . . . until you realize that the narrator is not quite normal. I suppose that make him more empathetic, not less, but it is an example of how facts about a character can be hidden just as long (and in this case perhaps longer) when they are telling the story rather than you . . .
Autumndark

Return to Top