Exercise:  The Other Side of the Story

In  400 words orless, rewrite a scene from a story familiar to most of  us from the point of view of someone other than the main  character. Tell us the name of the story you have chosen and who  your viewpoint character is, and then show us what is different about  the way that character sees the action and personalities involved.

The Collar

When he was nine weeks old Pup was introduced to another Human who would become his Mother. When he first saw her, she squatted down and put her hand—the palm facing forward—for Pup to sniff. Her scent was like clean, sweet grass, with a hint of bananas and cream. Pup licked it, and She looked up to Him and said, “I think he likes me.”

He who Smirked when Pup was around said, “I suppose he’ll be my competition for your affections.”

She laughed, “Don’t be silly. You both have my love equally.”

“Spoken like a true Marxist,” He who Smirked said.

Months passed, and Pup’s name was now Max Eastman. Mother argued for that while He who Smirked said that it was long that he would not respond to it. What He who Smirked didn’t know was that he could understand everything and was bilingual!

One afternoon while he was basking in the sun on the sofa, Mother sat next to him. She said he had an important job. She took his red Coach collar, and with manicure scissors tore a small section of the stitched leather. He watched Mother as she took a tiny square from the pocket of her blouse and inserted it inside his collar.

“We’ll take it to Yuri to sew it together. No one will suspect,” she said.

No one ever did. Not the men with the blue jackets and with the large yellow letters, who ransacked Mother’s flat after she disappeared, and not even He who Smirked knew he carried an important secret.

Months later He who Smirked took him on a journey to Moscow to visit Mother. Her name, he said wasn’t Cyprian, but Yulia. In Moscow, he sniffed the air, the scent of sweet grass, bananas and cream was strong. He barked. Mother was near. When he finally saw her, she hugged and kissed him. In their language she said, “You did well, secret-keeper, but you no longer have to carry this burden. Look what I have.”  Mother took from her coat’s pocket, a brown leather collar.

“What’s wrong with his red one?” He who smirked said.

“It’s too old and dirty.” She put the new one on, and dropped the old collar in a trash can.

Max Eastman wagged his tail. Their job was finally completed.

I was actually looking forward to September. The heat would finally settle down, it would get cooler, the leaves would change, and I was organizing all my writing to dos for both HAND/EYE and novels, and I was back on track to eating right and getting in shape. All of it got thrown for a loop when on September 1st I took Alvah on a much needed long walk. Just as I reached the entry to our private little road, I took a spill and twisted my left ankle and scraped my right leg.  Resulting in a strict regimen of rest and immobility. In other words, I’m stuck in bed.

Now I’ve done the Truman Capote way of writing in bed, but I really wanted to get my days going by getting up early, making breakfast, exercising, then spend the day writing. No more lounging in sweats or pyjamas. The dog days of summer were gone, finito, kaput!

And now, I’m in bed with two laptops. I’m using the netbook for non-related work stuff since it’s lighter and doesn’t get as hot as the HP. For all the work stuff, I have to have the bigger laptop on the bedtray and that’s a bit cumbersome since I have to have my leg elevated (the ankle is still very swollen.)

Anyway, I thought that today, the third day of September, I would do something different since I’m not inspired to write anything about writing, Julius, or The Wilde Solution, and I thought a nice melancholy song by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson would do for this rainy day.

September Song was written for the 1938 musical Knickerbocker Holiday. Weill and Anderson wrote it for Walter Houston’s gravelly voice and low range. The song is essentially about an older man’s lament about his passing youth.  Others have sung the song from Bing Crosby to Lou Reed. Women have sung it too, including Lotte Lenya, Eartha Kitt, Lena Horn, Sarah Vaughn, and the great Ella Fitzgerald.

And by the way, Weill collaborated with Bertolt Brecht in 1928 for theatrical production of The Three Penny Opera (made into a film by the GREAT German expressionist G.W. Pabst). However, in 1930, Weill’s and Brecht’s successful working relationship ended because of politics. According Lotte Lenya (who was married to the composer) Weill had commented that he was unable to “set the communist party manifesto to music.”

And you all know what happened to Brecht, right? Subpoenaed in 1947 to appear in front of the House of Un-American Activities Committee (he was one of the Hollywood 19 that later got whittled down to ten). Unlike the other ten who refused to testify and later went to jail, Brecht appeared and answered the questions, saying he was never a member of the Communist Party. During his time in front of the witch hunters, he joked throughout the proceedings, and had translators on hand. The day after his testimony, he left for Europe and never returned to the United States.

Technically Brecht was not a member of the Communist Party, but was heavily influenced by the dissident communist Karl Korsch’s version of the Marxist dialectic, which became a major factor of Brecht’s aesthetic theory and theatrical practice.  In 1954, Brecht won The International Stalin Price for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples (blacklisted screenwriter Howard Fast won it the year before.)

And there you have it, a post that somehow meandered from a sprained ankle to a song and it’s composer to Bertolt Brecht. At least you learned something new.

What are my thoughts about this?  I don’t look at it too favorably. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with writers creating a marketing platform to spread the word about their book, and I certainly don’t have any problem when a good book is adapted into a good film with a respected screenwriter, director, and actors on board, but I frown when a writer allows his work to be turned into a theme park, video games, fashion, toys, or whatever under the sun the genius marketer thinks will turn a buck.

I personally feel that literary work has been cheapened when becomes a franchise. The reality is that most marketers have not even read the actual book (maybe, at best, a treatment) and it’s pretty probable the intended market audience hasn’t even glanced at the book at all. I know that’s cynical, but remember I was in public relations.

I know some people will disagree with me. After all we are society whose foundation is based upon capitalism and consumerism, but if writers wrote solely to make a buck what does that tell you about them and their craft? Are they writing with the ambition to have their work turned into major franchise or are they writing because they actually enjoy creating stories and characters that will resonate with readers ten, twenty or fifty years down the road?

I’ve always loved making up stories to amuse myself, and when I finally decided that I really wanted be a writer and not a flack, I admit I entertained the notion of writing a best-seller (okay, with a movie option too boot from an Indie production team, and with me as the screenwriter) but I would be horrified if I had some marketing guru approach me and tell me that they could extend the Julius brand into something bigger (a great irony since the main characters of the book despise the Lower East Side’s commercialized gentrification). And this brings me to selling out. I write it for the fun of it (even as grueling as it is). I have no ulterior motive for fame and fortune, I write because I enjoy the creative outlet.  Yes, it would be nice to make a living from writing fiction and have a following of people who enjoy reading my books, and not numbing their brains with latest marketing fad.

Do we really have to be spurred by Eat, Pray, Love marketing ploys to travel, eat pasta or buy incense? Wasn’t reading the book enough of an experience to spark some curiosity or is this living vicariously by shopping? Is this what we want as writers to become the catalysts for more mindless and endless consumerism? Are we writing the next Great American Novel (or memoir) with the aim of a great licensing or franchise deal thrown into the mix?  I hope that most of us are a little more altruistic, but also true to our craft, and  follow some variation of what Marx said, “The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.”

There’s Inspector Javert, who  believed in enforcing the law at all costs.

Hannibal Lecter liked  to eat the census taker’s liver with fava beans and chianti. The Big Bad  Wolf ate Grandma, but couldn’t keep her down. The evil-doers in Lord of  the Flies are children. In Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, revolutionaries  are the villains.

Read Shakespeare for a veritable gallery  of villains, one of whom was an ambitious lady who lived in  Scotland.

Most of us will write about villains of some kind at  some point. Let us have the beginning of a story in which you let us  see the villain at work and give us some idea of what prompts  those evil deeds.

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Exercise: In 400 words or less, write at least the beginning of a story or  memoir in which we see a villain at work and learn something of his or  her motivation.

And here is my take on it with my new characters who appear in The Wilde Solution:

After Hal left for the grocery store, Cyprian was alone in the flat. She stepped out of bed, threw on one of Hal’s button-down shirts and toured the apartment. At 1,200 square feet, Hal had amassed over the years quite of bit of furniture, rugs, books, and artwork. His taste was eclectic and he had predilection for rugs that included woven Berbers, a large knotted Persian with a kaleidoscope of floral and geometric designs in deep reds, greens, and blues; Afghani prayer rugs in earth tones in all sizes haphazardly covering much of the floor space.

Cyprian wandered down the hallway, and found the second bedroom. She smiled at the room’s centerpiece: An antique mahogany banker’s roll top desk with, she counted, twenty-five special upper drawers. This was most likely where Hal kept his address book. She needed to find one name and confirm with Dorian that they were on the right track.

Cyprian tip-toed into the study, grabbed a tissue from a box of Kleenex that was on shelf above the desk. She opened the center drawer, and found a tray that held some pens, paper clips and small box of staples. Behind the tray were two stacks of yellow legal pads, and a file folder. She pulled  the drawer further out, and using the tissue she picked a pen to flip open the folder’s cover. There was nothing, only recent bills, but on top was an unopened envelope, facing down, and it looked like an invitation. The return address was not visible.  She was about to turn the envelope with the pen’s tip when she heard Dorian’s ringtone on her Blackberry. Cursing, she left the envelope back in its original position, dropped the pen back in the tray, and slammed the drawer shut.

When she reached her bag and pulled out the phone, she hit the talk button, and said, “Da.”

“You’re alone. Well?” Dorian asked.

“Phase one, entry, is right on schedule,” Cyprian said.

“Have you found anything?”

“An invitation.”

Cyprian heard Dorian exhale. “That’s it. Make sure he takes you. That’s where you will make contact with Daniel McKenzie. The code is, ‘I just visited Cordoba, Spain.’ And you say, I hear the architecture is amazing.” Two other things–make sure the professor falls deeply and hard for you, and get a dog. Understood?”

“Yes,”she said.

“Udachi.” Dorian said, and ended the call.

My villain is a bit subtle, but you’ll see later that she’s puts poor Hal’s boxers in a twist.

So far I’ve completed two chapters or 4200 words, and if I can write 1500 to 2000 words per day, I might have a complete novel by early October. The best part is that I don’t have to research much, and I know how it ends.  The story is based over some events that did occur this summer, and I think I said to a friend on a Facebook exchange it will be a fun and sexy read.

Will I continue my work on Julius? Oh absolutely, but there are sections that I need to rethink altogether to make it flow better. In the mean time, I’ll work on this one just to keep the creative juices flowing.

Now back to the The Wilde Solution, the intrigue begins . . .

Today’s assignment was the following:

Exercise:  Use the seven-line guide below to write a short “poem.” Then, in 400
words  or less, turn the sensory images in the poem into a short scene that
shows a character experiencing the emotion you chose. Include  both the poem and
the scene in your submission.
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Directions:  Use the template below to write a “poem.” It will force you to
focus on the  sensory manifestations of a particular emotion.

Line One: A  one-word title which is an emotion
Line Two: A line that tells what  that emotion looks like visually
Line Three: A line that tells what  that emotion sounds like
Line Four: A line that tells what that  emotion smells like
Line Five: A line that tells what that emotion  feels like tactily
Line Six: A line that tells what that emotion  tastes like
Line Seven: A one word emotional synonym for the title

Next,  take the lines from the “poem” and incorporate them into a scene that
shows the  physical actions and responses of a character who experiences the
emotion. Try to include at least four of the five senses in your  scene.

So here’s my take on the assignment:

Lust
Eyes fixed on pillow plush red lips
Blood rushes in crashing waves
Pheromones and judgment clash
Fingertips graze smooth, cool cheek
Tongues dance to the sweet tune of
Desire

Hal was nervous. Corinne Sand was to meet him at his apartment instead of Chez Panisse’s cafe. At first when he jokingly said that they should hold their meetings at the restaurant to discuss her dissertation, Hal thought she would have insisted in keeping them at his office at Berkeley, but she agreed and for the past four months, three times a week they met, drank expensive espressos and ate pastries while arguing over the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya.

Their relationship of advisor and graduate student had evolved into a friendship with Hal teasing her with playful innuendos. Corinne never seemed offended by his verbal overtures and took the comments in stride. He was, however, taken by surprise, when she suggested they meet at his apartment instead of the café. When he asked why she replied in her typically practical manner, “It’s cheaper to brew your own coffee, buy pastries at the bakery; and we can spread out all my folders without having to worry about spilling anything on them.” He had agreed, but wondered if there was more to it–was she calling his bluff and testing how far he would go?

Corinne was unlike any of his students. Her fervor for Marx was infectious; he loved dissecting with her the Theory of Labor Alienation. Sitting next to her, translating together the German text, the blood would rush to his head in crashing waves, driving him crazy to keep his needs in control.

The doorbell rang. He swallowed hard, battling to contain the forbidden lust. He opened the door, and there she was: looking deliciously fit and youthful. Dressed in a tight white t-shirt and black yoga pants, her book bag was slung over her shoulder, a folder peeked out from beneath the canvas flap. She held a white box tied with red and white twine.

“A dozen cannolis, as requested,” Corinne said and smiled. Hal’s eyes skimmed the box then rested on her lips. The pastries’ aroma lingered between them, but was it really Corinne fragrance? He fought the urge to touch her and reached for the pastries, but his hand took a detour to her face. His long fingers grazed her pale cheek. Corinne stepped forward and lifted her face to his, parted her lips to speak, but Hal had no use for words, just the sweetness of her tongue and endless kiss.

Yes, it’s rough, but I am bit out if practice. Did I succeed in following the rules. Is it believable?  Do you want to know what happens next? Would love to hear from you all.

Joe Wallace, author of Diamond Ruby, posted a couple of weeks ago on his Facebook update an interesting writing exercise. He’s actually doing this for publication, but he’s working on a Diamond Ruby side story from her niece Amanda’s point of view, and he’s discovering new things about Ruby from this young girl’s perspective.

When I read that I knew I had to try something similar. Craig–a former boyfriend of Corinne’s–leans more on the reactionary side. So I thought it would be a good exercise to flesh out Corinne from Craig who is attracted to her, but at the same time ideologically and intellectually repelled by her political beliefs and lifestyle.

While getting more insight about Corinne, I think the exercise will also help flesh out Craig. My goal is to have a split audience to either sympathize with him, and another group to be completely put off by his motives. And as I write this I’m realizing that this character will have a much larger role than I had originally thought.  Well, I think with the interfering Alvah, the capricious Jake, and the reactionary Craig, Corinne will have her hands full!

Onward to write from Craig’s point-of-view.

When it comes to pegging Julius into a category, I’ve been stuck. One member in my writing group thinks it fits in literary fiction, while I think it sits on the fence between commercial and literary. So what’s the difference?

According to AgentQuery.com:

Literary fiction is…If you marvel at the quality of writing in your novel above all else, then you’ve probably written a work of literary fiction. Literary fiction explores inherent conflicts of the human condition through stellar writing. Pacing, plot, and commercial appeal are secondary to the development of story through first-class prose.

Multi-layered themes, descriptive narration, and three-dimensional characterization distinguish this genre from all others. Literary fiction often experiments with traditional structure, narrative voice, multi-POVs, and storylines to achieve an elevated sense of artistry. Although some literary fiction can become “commercial” by transcending its niche market and appealing to a broader audience, this is not the same as commercial fiction, which at its core has a commerical, marketable hook, plot, and storyline—all developed through literary prose. Literary fiction often merges with other fiction types to create hybrid genres such as literary thrillers, mysteries, historicals, epics, and family sagas.

Whereas commercial fiction uses high-concept hooks and compelling plots to give it a wide, mainstream appeal. Commercial fiction often has the “ouuuh” factor: summarize what happens in your novel is a single, succinct sentence, and you invariably get, “ouhhh, that sounds interesting!” Plot (the events) and story (the overall tale) are first and foremost; characters’ choices and actions create heightened drama that propels the reader forward with urgency.

Like literary fiction, the writing style in commercial fiction is elevated beyond generic mainstream fiction. But unlike literary fiction, commercial fiction maintains a strong narrative storyline as its central goal, rather than the development of enviable prose or internal character conflicts. Commercial fiction often incorporates other genre types under its umbrella such as women’s fiction, thriller, suspense, adventure, family saga, chick lit, etc. Commercial fiction is not the same as “mainstream” or “mass market” fiction, which are both umbrella terms that refer to genre fiction like science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, and some thrillers.

I still think Julius shares elements of both, but bordering more on side of literary fiction. What matters to me is the narrative voice (Corinne’s) and her internal conflicts rather than a plot with mass appeal. Julius is targeted to a very niche audience (one that reads history and is a bit cynical) rather than readers who tend to read more mainstream fiction. Is it possible it could cross-over? I’ve tried to include popular culture elements to it, but I’d be fooling myself to think that the Dan Brown readers of the world will find Julius appealing or even amusing. However, you never know what sells and what doesn’t; it’s really all about how well the book is marketed, and not, unfortunately, how well it’s written, but that’s another post for another day.

Off to write (I’ve fallen behind and I am very past my deadlines!)

While I continue my research on all the numerous topics that Julius touches upon, I’ve taken the presumptuous luxury of daydreaming of what the book’s cover would look like if I actually finish it and if it ever gets published (presumably if you envision your goals, it helps with achieving them.)

Pretty spiffy, Huh? But what’s it all about? I’ve been dreading to write the synopsis because it’s about so many things. However as Keith Recker, editor, founder, my boss, and colleague at HAND/EYE Magazine wisely said, “Don’t be afraid of what you have to do.”

So here goes . . .

Set in New York City’s Lower East Side in 2006 and 2007, Julius is the story of Corinne Sand and Jake Wells, a marketing communications executive and an attorney, who hate their lucrative occupations and dream of publishing a political and literary journal modeled after the defunct New Masses. Told from Corinne’s point of view in the first person, the reader soon learns that Corinne has a chockful of obsessions that include her family’s views on the Spanish Civil War, the Rosenbergs, the CPUSA, the Hollywood Ten, Alvah Bessie and his memoir Men in Battle, and the movies.

After a series of events occur, Jake and Corinne decide that it’s time to pursue their dream. With their life savings, the financial backing of four elderly communists, and staff of two, Jake and Corinne launch Julius, named after the left’s martyred hero Julius Rosenberg.

Running a Marxist magazine during the height of the Bush and Cheney years in money mad New York City does have its problems. Liberal friends either mock the venture or reactionary ones are afraid to be associated with Jake and Corinne. Sticking to their beliefs, the couple move forward and successfully launch Julius. Although it all seems too easy, there are conflicts. Jake and Corinne publish articles very critical of the Lower East Side’s gentrification, real estate developers, City Hall, and new businesses in the area, putting them under the public scrutiny of potential enemies. On top of that, Corinne philosophically wrestles with Jake’s propensity to mix tenets of capitalism with Marxism, while she, a classical Marxist, questions her own dedication to the cause. Then there’s the ghost of Alvah Bessie who haunts Corinne, gives her unsolicited advice about politics, love, life, and writing, and persuades her to become personally involved in a labor story she’s covering.

The story escalates when Jake and Corinne vacation in Paris and they meet a mysterious writer who shares the same ideologies and is planning to return the US. Jake impressed with the man’s credentials hires him as a freelancer. When the mystery writer borrows a laptop from and absently leaves it behind in Battery Park, the case is mistaken as a bomb. When the police discover that it’s simply a computer they find a worrisome short story on the machine’s desktop. Called in for questioning by the FBI, Jake and Corinne learn they’ve been under surveillance since the beginning of their relationship primarily because of Corinne’s background as the daughter of a former blacklisted academic and his politically radical Spanish wife.

Concerned that a blacklist might be resuscitated, and that they’ll be harangued by the government, Jake and Corinne put Julius on hiatus and leave for Paris. In Paris, Jake works as a photojournalist with the idea of turning his essays and photos into a coffee table book, but Corinne seems lost. She had become accustomed to the ghostly Alvah’s visits and their conversations, but after the FBI’s questioning he no longer appears to her. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Corinne once again finds solace in Bessie’s memoir Men in Battle, and takes her obsession with film and the book, adapting it into a screenplay. Jake pushes her to send it to a famed and exiled director whom she admires and has a crush on, but Corinne is too embarrassed and afraid of getting turned down By chance, in a café near the director’s home, they see him and Jake boldly makes a move to strike up a conversation and mentions the screenplay. The director politely expresses interest to read both the book and the adapted screenplay. A few days later, he calls and says he want to make the film.

The story ends a year later in Spain with Corinne on location, serving as a historical consultant on Bessie and the Spanish Civil War. She watches the director’s multiple takes of a key scene, Alvah reappears, admitting to her that he had been watching her since grad school, knowing that her obsessions about him, Men in Battle, Spain, and film that she would be the one who would turn his book into a movie, but she needed a push and had to go through all the steps to get there, and now he had another project for her…

The end.

Well, I left out a lot of things, but that’s the general plot of the story. Obviously it needs work, but it’s a start.

This past Friday evening I attended an event at our local library on how to sell your book. The panel of experts consisted of two agents and two editors. For the most part much of what they said I knew, but I figured I would attend because they are folks in the industry that live here (actually they have second homes. They all live in Manhattan) and I figured it would be smart to schmooze a bit.

The one thing that stood out was the discussion of Ghost Editors. It seems the two editors on the panel would rather see most of the work polished by the author rather than receive a manuscript that has been doctored. These editors believe that with the agent making her tweaks, then having an editor make more tweaks, the author’s voice is lost.

One of my writing mentors strongly believes in using a ghost editor, and highly recommends hiring one when the manuscript has gone through it’s numerous revisions. How do I personally feel about this? My thoughts are mixed. I’d like to get a professional’s opinion of what I can do to improve the story, but I question what are my chances of snagging an agent even if I were to spend the money for this work and make the changes?  No matter how well it’s written, and if all the suggestions are used to make that one final revision it’s still a crapshoot.

Let’s assume that Julius ends up in the hands of an agent and said representative tells me, “Love the story, but it needs some tweaking. Hire this editor, whom I highly recommend, to help you make the following xx changes.” What would happen if I said no? What guarantee do I have that a ghost editor will improve my copy? Maybe he or she will lose the entire scope of the story, making it less likely to be acquired by a publisher.

A friend of mine recently found an agent who suggested she cut 20,000 words, saying that first time novelists should keep their work under 100,000 words (the panel of editors and agents thought this was ridiculous and arbitrary. Somehow I felt vindicated when they said this because I found it silly too) and to hire an editor.  Well, it’s been more than six months and still no sale. Did my friend lose her voice with the new set of edits?  Were those 20,000 words extraneous or did they actually help the story?  Maybe if the book had been sold and the actual editor working on the book said, “We need to cut here and here, and tighten this up here” then that would be a completely different matter. This is actual editor who is working on polishing and improving the book for it to be publishable.

So what am I leading up to here? I guess the best thing to do is really work on my editing skills. I think what makes Julius unique is my story-telling voice. I don’t want an agent or a ghost editor trying to double guess what the actual acquiring editor will want. Go with what I send and let’s take it from there, but don’t distill the story and don’t fuck around with the voice.

And on that note, time for some writing!