A Monstrous Little Voice

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This month marks the end of an Epoch.  Or of my high school career, at least, which is as near to an Epoch as an extremely ordinary life ever gets.  On June 1 I did one last round of tidying up - a bit of accounting review and such like - and closed the book, literally and figuratively, on that period of school.  My senior year is squarely behind me and I am looking down the road to a busy summer and, afterward, entrance into college.  Among other, more remarkable implications, this means that for as long as I like, I don't have to pick up another work of Shakespeare.

For those of you who follow me on Goodreads, you already know that I've been jumping from Shakespeare to Shakespeare ever since August.  He was my literature course this year.  Having already done the usual British and American literature, and probably some others that I can't remember now, we were a little at a loss when it came down to my senior year.  The choices were Eastern literature and Shakespeare, and I'm glad we decided to go with the Bard.  Nine straight months of him has been a strain; I can't imagine what nine straight months of Confucius would do to me.

The school year has, I think, been fairly evenly divided between tragedies and comedies (with a few histories thrown in, and sonnets at the end):

comedies

As You Like It, which demanded too much suspension of disbelief;

Much Ado About Nothing, a favorite;

Twelfth Night, another good, lighthearted romp;

A Midsummer Night's Dream, enjoyable but a little brief;

The Taming of the Shrew, possibly the top of the list;

The Comedy of Errors, definitely at the bottom.

tragedies & histories

Antony and Cleopatra, which was almost laughable in its drama;

Julius Caesar, which was also over the top;

King Lear, depressing, but I appreciated it;

Richard III, full of propaganda, but it's got some great speeches;

The Winter's Tale, which doesn't actually fit anywhere because it's so weird;

Henry VIII, which was episodic and rather stilted.

Apparently I leaned more toward comedy, since many of Shakespeare's more famous tragedies, including Macbeth and Hamlet, I had already read.

I didn't enjoy everything: The Comedy of Errors, for instance, or Henry VIII.  Like all writers, Shakespeare was not amazing one hundred percent of the time (although I get the feeling that scholars would like to make him so).  He had plays that were disjointed, puns that stretched humor, and in the main his plots were lifted from ancient or contemporary writers - fortunately plagiarism wasn't a big deal unless the famous person was the one being plagiarized.  Characters are not always given, in a mere five acts, sufficient time for what we might call development.  And, well, there are just some plays that ride the coattails of others' successes. 

However, Shakespeare had to develop some coattails before lesser works could begin riding on them.  A few less-than-stellar writings cannot negate the genius displayed in the true masterpieces - the Much Ado About Nothings, the Richard IIIs, even the King Lears.  For Shakespeare had wit.  He had a deft pen, a way with words, a skill at creating something beautiful out of the English language.  This is particularly apparent in his Sonnets, which, I confess, I did not read straight through; but I had to go write one after I had read about 40, and let me tell you, a man who can write 154 of them is nothing to sneeze at.  

It is also comes to bear, though, on his plays, tragic and comic.  There's a reason Shakespeare is so widely quoted (often incorrectly, I'll grant, but still quoted).  In plays like A Midsummer Night's Dream he infuses the dialogue with a lyrical quality, while in the highflown speeches of Richard III he conveys desperation and, of course, villainy.  The hopeless babblings in King Lear encompass the bleakness of the story, and the writer does banter like nobody's business in Much Ado About Nothing.  Shakespeare was always Shakespeare; having read about eleven of his plays more or less in a row, I picked up Henry VIII and, not knowing that it is thought to have been co-written with Shakespeare's successor, felt that the style was "off."  But Shakespeare was also dexterous enough to craft a story out of comedy, out of tragedy, out of a tertium quid. 

Shakespeare is not altogether popular, and many shy away from him.  Either the Elizabethan speech is thought too hard, or it feels weird to read a play, or they "don't get him."  I was somewhat on the fence; I had read some of his works, even enjoyed them, but with no particular appreciation or relish until I started off on this jaunt.  I'm no scholar now and I admit I'm ready to take a break, but I have enjoyed scratching the surface and, through essays and reviews, observing the genius. 

I've also discovered that there really is no excuse for not delving into Shakespeare, at least a little.  Certainly it is best when performed, and performed well, but the beauty of the dialogue is not lost when read; and as for the style, while not every section makes perfect sense, context and practice do wonders for conveying Shakespeare's meaning.  It takes a bit of work, sometimes a bit of cheating and looking at Dover footnotes, but the more you read, the clearer it becomes.

As I said before, some scholars go overboard: all Shakespeare's works are good, and every element has Particular Meaning, and he was really talking about gender-equality-free-speech-nature-reason-the-mind-true-love-every-other-liberal-keyword-out-there.  Maybe he was.  Maybe he wasn't.  But the short and the long of it is that the centuries after Shakespeare owe him a great debt for his wit and for the beauty of his writing, and writers especially would do ill to discount him.

at the very least, a study of shakespeare adds some splendid quotes to your repertoire.

Like Nobody's Reading

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I read a quote the other day.  It was probably on Pinterest - most quotes are - and I have not the least idea who said it.  (Which is good, because I'm going to disagree with it, and I hate disagreeing with famous people.)  I can't locate the quote now, but in essence it said

write like nobody's reading.

I thought, when I came across it, that is sounded good and pithy and like something we need to hear.  Most of us have had times where we get ourselves into a bind wondering if what we write will be appreciated. I know I've had panicked moments when I think, "What if people think I hate cats because Regina dislikes them?  What if they think I don't like to read because Tip doesn't?  What if people misunderstand these characters' relationships?  What if they twist my words and come out with something horrible?"  The questions range from the petty to the dire, and if allowed to grow, they could quickly become overwhelming.  In one sense, therefore, this "Write like nobody's reading" quote has a point.

But I believe there is another side to the coin, a side I had not particularly noted until reading Dorothy Sayers' book on the Trinity and the creative mind, The Mind of the Maker.  (I wrote something of a synopsis for this after I finished it back in September.)  In her work she draws a parallel between the economy of the Godhead and the economy of the mind of creative man - a reasonable object, seeing as we are made in the Image of God.  The first two "persons" of this imagining, creating mind are simplest to see and to explain; they are the Idea, that thing that exists in our heads before ever we begin to write, and the Energy or Activity, where the Idea is translated into something understandable to others.  But of course the third is rather more elusive, which to me makes Sayers' parallel more credible.

The third "person" deals, in essence, with the power that brings about proper communication and appreciation in the mind of the reader.  It is that thing which conveys the spirit of the Idea as expressed in the Activity.  It is that thing which, when present, creates the vital connection between the reader and the writer through the book.  And it is absolutely necessary.

In her book - which I continue to recommend for all writers - Sayers generally uses the example of a playwright, being one herself (as well as a novelist and an essayist, but that's beside the point).  It is critical, she writes, that when a man is penning his play, he keep in mind the perspective of the audience.  What is the audience going to understand by this wordplay?  How are these props going to appear?  Will the scene be conveyed?  She uses a humorous example of a play that failed to do just this; instead, the writer (who really should have been a novelist instead) substituted a long passage of "stage directions" - those sections in italics at the start of a scene in a Dover Thrift edition of Shakespeare.  Thunder.  Darkness.  Woman in bed, tossing and turning as if in pain.  Woman cries out, twisting sheets in hands.  End of Scene I.

This is an exaggeration, and yet it is an exaggeration that applies to all creative fields: whether you are writing a novel or a play, a failure to figuratively place oneself in the viewer's chair will result in a terrible disconnect.  At the heart of the matter, the fact is that mature writers, the ones not just starting out (and that is an important caveat), must write as though someone is reading.  Because isn't that the very thing we desire?

he that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

- john locke, an essay concerning human understanding

We want to be minded.  We want to be understood.  And in order to do so, we have to be able to have minds in two positions at once: that of the writer, designing and creating; and that of the reader, following and learning.   That is why, while we cannot allow worries about what others will think to paralyze us, we also cannot ignore them.  They have their place in helping us to convey our story, and the vital spirit of that story.

Tweeting Fathers

I didn't used to be interested in American history.  For one thing, there isn't as much of it as there is of - well, just about any country in Europe and Asia.  Besides, I had The Landmark History of the American People for an American course years ago, from which I learned that there have not been such things as Color or Life from the Revolution to date.  (All the pictures in that massive tome are black and white, and to a child, it felt like reading the obituaries.)  Needless to say, not much was got out of that course.

However, about the time I started reading histories and biographies in some degree of earnest, I decided that I ought to incorporate at least some works on America's past.  So I read David McCullough's John Adams, and discovered that the founding of the United States was actually interesting.  The men had voices and personalities; through the writing of an another like McCullough, you can see the world of the times unfolding - and the writers of The Landmark History got it wrong: there was color.  It was quite the breakthrough for me, I assure you. 

So after a short jaunt to the Roman Republic in April, I've picked up Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton and returned to the United States in its early years.  One thing I especially love about these books, and the time period in general, is the insults that men hurled at each other.  (I know I'm supposed to be appalled, but I'm more inclined to wonder why on earth such wit ever went out of style.)  Reading the invectives used by Hamilton when he was just getting his start in the States - one man's writing was "puerile and fallacious" - and the fact that just the other day I opened a Twitter account gave me the amusing thought, Whatever would the Founding Fathers have done with social media?  I can't help but feel it would have curbed their wit; I'm not sure Hamilton could ever have managed to fit any of his thoughts into 140 characters.  One can imagine the butchery of the English language that would have inevitably resulted -

@TJefferson - Sir, ur grasp of ecnmc thry is abysml.  I hmbly submit to u that u r an idiot.  #washingtonscabinet  #federalbank

@JAdams - Yes, I sabotged the elect'n.  Get ovr it.  #election  #chump

@GWashington - Receivd notes @ 11 pm.  Emailing 65 pg treatise 2 u now.  Dont think adqutly addressd pt 22 on pg 59.  What u thnk?  #sleep?

@JMadison @JJay - I allude to the fishries. #federalistpapers #random  

@Seabury - Such is my opnion of ur ablties as a critic, that i vry much prfr ur disapprbtion 2 ur applause.  #awestchesteridiot

(Real quote from Alexander Hamilton, if you un-butcher the English.)

The beauty of Hamilton's wit is lacking, as you can see.  And amusing as it is, the humor comes in a bitter way - for, judging from the popularity of Twitter, people nowadays don't struggle at all with reining in their thoughts to 140 characters.  There is no wit to be lost.  I can't say I want us to go back to speaking in quite the same flowery language that the men of the 18th and 19th Centuries used; sometimes it's hard to sort out the fellow's meaning from his blathering.  There is, however, one thing that ought to be preserved, and that is the beauty of thought and its expression. We are, after all, writers, and that should make both things doubly dear to us.

"There's a moral somewhere in that, if you like morals."

- the eagle of the ninth, rosemary sutcliff

Words in Time

I don't know about you, but a stranger looking at the search engine history of this computer on a day that I can devote to writing would probably be (to understate the point) befuddled. In case you don't believe me, take a look at some of the things I researched yesterday alone.

Dutchman's breeches - Not to be confused with the saying that when there's enough blue in the sky to make a Dutchman a pair of breeches, it won't rain. Don't ask me who came up with that anyhow.

Richard Valentine Morris - One of the commodores sent to the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War. This one at least makes sense.

Mangelwurzel - I blame Jenny entirely for that one; it had nothing to do with The White Sail's Shaking.

Lunch - I needed to know when the term came into use in America as the midday meal.

American Naval Register - This is me trying to find a decent collection of records for American ships in the 1800s.

Raincoat - Yes, I looked up raincoats. I couldn't think of the word I wanted, which turned out to be "slicker."

Bulldog - How does one describe a man who looks like a bulldog?

Buck up - When did this phrase come into use?

Dark horse - When did this phrase come into use?

An odd assortment, indeed. Quite interesting, but definitely odd. Such is the case with many authors' fields of research; my friend likes to tell about the time she asked her mother how long it would take someone to die who had been stabbed through the chest with a spear. It is particularly so, however, with those who write historical fiction, since with contemporary novels the writer does not have to worry about the use of idioms and the dates of invention of various articles. Unfortunately, this business can seem very tedious to writers and is often skipped or forgotten, which is sad in the days of fast information-finding via the internet. But accurate speech is just as important to provide depth to a story as solid facts; it's hard to stay with an author whose pre-1800s character uses "Okay" and other modern slang. Glaring mistakes like that will ruin the historical feel of any story.

The process of phrase- and word-checking varies, however, from era to era. Several people who had not yet read The Soldier's Cross asked me how I tried to maintain an authentic feel in the speech, and whether I used the language of Shakespeare. The answer to the latter is no, I certainly did not, because people in the early fifteenth century had regretfully not heard of Elizabeth I and therefore didn't speak in the Queen's English. In fact, they all spoke French. Henry V was the king who re-introduced the English language to the English court; prior to that, the upper classes (being Norman themselves) spoke French. Naturally, I couldn't write the story in French, and even if I could have it wouldn't have been the same French that they spoke in the 1400s. I had to stick to English - modern English.

This necessity gave me more freedom than I have in The White Sail's Shaking, since the very fact that the novel is written in English requires a suspension of disbelief on the reader's part, and one which I don't think anyone has trouble making. I therefore didn't spend time looking up phrases like "buck up" and searching for raincoats. I also didn't eliminate all contractions and whatnot, since that gets quite irritating for the modern reader. I simply kept the dialogue slightly formal, free of slang, and included oaths or phrases that were popular at the time, which is enough for a novel set in the Middle Ages.

But with The White Sail's Shaking, being accurate to the speech of the period is a little more taxing. (Not surprising, since it seems that everything about White Sail's is more taxing than my two previous novels!) They did speak English, and they spoke it a certain way and without certain idioms. One of my characters used the expression "a dark horse" and I was preparing to move on, happy with the sentence, when it occurred to me that maybe that phrase wasn't around in 1803. I anxiously checked and found that I was right - it's a racing term that came about in the 1820s and 30s. Granted, few people would notice if I left it in. In fact, it's likely that no one would notice at all. And yet it would not be in keeping with the era I'm portraying, and if anyone did happen to be a horse-racing connoisseur, they would notice the slip. I regretfully cut it and rewrote the sentence.

Minute research isn't always an easy task, even with the internet (although Dictionary.com is an excellent resource). On the other hand, if you want to find the silver lining on the dark cloud, checking the etymology of idioms and slang is an interesting business and provides the searcher with a collection of strange and possibly useful facts. For instance, I now know about when "lunch" came to be used in reference to a midday meal. I also know what mangelwurzel is, and that's not something you get to lord over people everyday. So even paying attention to the little things has its rewards.

The Joy of Writing

I read a post on a blog yesterday about whether or not writing was fun. The premise was that a person (whose name was changed to protect the innocent) enjoyed making up stories and imagining different worlds, but hated writing. They felt that all the joy went out of the story-making when they sat down to write. The author of the post was replying to this person, and said that this is a common ailment among those who call themselves writers; they even quoted Nicholas Sparks, a best-selling author, who said that he does not enjoy writing and it isn't fun when he's doing it. Of course, he likes the finished product, but he looks at writing as "going to work." The writer of the blog concluded that writers-who-are-not-fond-of-writing is perfectly normal and reasonable.

Now, at this point I'll interject to say that I have not read much of the aforementioned blog, and if anyone recognizes the post I'm talking about, please don't think I'm ridiculing the writer. These are just my thoughts on the subject.

My question is, can one be a writer without enjoying writing?

The idea seems to be incongruous. While I will concede wholeheartedly that writing is not always fun, and we all know about those times where we just slog through, waiting for the plot to get easier, this is not the normal situation of a writer. After all, what is a writer? Easy: it's someone who writes. A writer is not someone who makes up stories and then transfers them to paper, but is someone who creates stories with words. Making a straight separation between imagination and work is incorrect. They overlap and intertwine. You don't abandon imagination when you sit down at the computer, nor do you leave off work when you lie in bed thinking about your epic plot; they both make up the art of writing.

So, a writer writes, and a writer should write because there is enjoyment in the writing. There is simply too much uncertainty about the business for one to write for any other reason; there is no assurance that you will be able to get published and make money, and there isn't any fame to be had unless you can do that. Granted, the ability to pay one's bills is certainly incentive to write; granted, for those dependent on their writing to bring income, writing is work; granted, sometimes the joy is lacking from scribbling. These are all true, but at the heart of the matter, writers write because they love creating and capturing things with words - the same way painters love capturing beauty with paint, or musicians love capturing beauty in music.

Any thoughts?