So where have I been?…
I’ve been a lot of places since posts on this blog dried up.
The last month has seen me wrap up the MFA program, walk at graduation, finish up one job, get promoted at another, finish a plethora of wedding details, wrap up the big end-of-the-year stuff at my jobs, and of course, a full week of being in bed sick as a dog. “Sick as a dog” feels a little cliche, so let’s go with sick as a sea lion after a shark attack. Actually, that’s a little morbid. How about, sick as a squid. Not that they get sick, but I think squids are awesome.
In a nutshell, dear reader, life caught up with me.
Over the next week, I plan to retro-actively toss up blog posts for missed moments like Your Monday Prompts and Your Friday Recommendations, plus other bits of reflection here and there (particularly about graduation, wrapping up workshop, and a few surprises, t00, like the announcement of my promotion at work). Look for a post that details all of the new posts soon, as well as future entries, of course.
Thanks for your patience, reading, and subcription.
-nm
Technorati Tags: life caught up with me, retro-active blog, blog update
I graduated.
Today I can officially add this to my bio:
“Nathan Melcher earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University - Mankato. He feels pretty good about it.”
Huzzah!
-nm
Technorati Tags: MFA, creative writing, mankato
Expectations for a writing workshop
My aforementioned short story gets reviewed in fiction workshop tonight and I thought I’d take you on a backstage tour of my brain so you know my mentality going into the workshop…
“I hope my peers in the workshop like my story, and I’m going to be okay if they don’t.”
Audience is at the forefront of my mind in most all of my creative endeavors. I write to entertain and I read to entertain, so I hope my readers are entertained. This doesn’t often come up in a workshop situation, however. The best workshops are less about writing peers like and more about how peers interpret the writing works. This is where written comments on the manuscript pages and verbal comments during break come in handy.
But let’s say they don’t like it. Be prepared to accept that. Not every story is for everybody, no matter how well written (I enjoy T.C. Boyle, but there are long stretches of The Tortilla Curtain that do not entertain me). Your story will find its audience, but consider what this first audience thinks of it so you can adjust it as needed (or not, if you don’t respect them, though you should respect your peers if only at least a little bit).
“I hope my short story works, and I hope my peers are able to tell me if it doesn’t.”
I try to use craft choice to enhance my writing, and I hope my work shows. As a young writer, however, it doesn’t always show, so I have to hope there’s enough to entice my readers. If my choices aren’t working, or the piece would be enhanced by other choices, my hope is my peers tell me so and give positive suggestions on how to do so. Basically, try to write well and if you don’t, have people interested in your continued improvement.
Your craft choices may end up heavy-handed or on the other hand, far too subtle. Decide which choices are best for the story, not which ones are the most impressive. Remember, your peers are studying the same skill set of craft choices you are, so it’s worth listening to what they have to say.
“I hope I walk away from the workshop experience excited, and I absolutely know I will.”
Whether a story gets eviscerated in workshop or published in Tin House, the writer should feel excited about their product. I put a lot of work into my writing, and the writing that excites me is the writing I enjoy giving my time and effort. If you aren’t excited about what you’re writing, why bring it to workshop? How can you expect anyone else to get excited about it?
This is a lesson in marrying humility with self-confidence. If you’re too confident, it becomes vanity and you won’t listen to anyone about your writing. And if you’re too humble, you’ll take every single suggestion thrown your way even if it ends up being detrimental to the story. Rather than those two directions, let them combine as excitement and let that fuel you in a workshop.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to take my own advice tonight. I’m pretty excited about this story, and my last point will be the most important for me to follow, particularly if it doesn’t work for this audience. I’ll let you know the specific workshop results tomorrow, dear reader.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing workshop, workshop mentality, fiction workshop, story eviscerated
Your Monday Prompt #25
Write about a character who is affected by the weather. Perhaps it makes them feel a certain way or remember a particular memory. The weather may possibly prevent or enable them to do an activity or job. Maybe the weather is extreme enough to impact their chances of survival, like something out of a Jack London story. This is an opportunity to explore setting and environment as boons to your story and link them directly to your character. You may try placing a character you’ve already worked with into a weather-related environment and see how they react.
Please give this exercise fifteen minutes of your time. Write it up and see what happens.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing exercise, writing prompt, surprise yourself
Your Friday Recommendation #16
Last Friday night during my thesis reading Q & A, someone asked me what scripts or screenwriters taught me a lot about screenwriting. I listed a few screenwriters I enjoy (Scott Frank is a genius, David Mamet is precision incarnate, and John August seems to be having genuine fun with the craft), plus what movies I’d been watching during my writing process. Given my thesis was a science fiction adventure comedy, yes I watched The Incredibles and Star Wars a few times, but there were three films in particular I watched for specific reasons:
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Cop Land, and The Guns of Navarone. Today I’d like to recommend the final film in that trio…
If you want to learn how to write about an ensemble of characters which balances both their relationships and their mission, this is a film to watch over and over. Captain Mallory (Gregory Peck) is hand-picked by Major Roy Franklin (Tony Quayle) to lead a six-man group to assault a German artillery battery of giant cannons holding a battalion of British soldiers hostage. They’re joined by Colonel Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), a rogue filled with hate for Mallory and Corporal Miller (David Niven) who has no love of war or death. These four men plus two others sneak onto a Mediterranean island and attempt to knock out the guns.
As an ensemble, the six characters work well together. They each have a specific role to play in their team and relate to each other in specific ways based on both their personality and rank. This is what makes this 1961 film work (and what left it nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, as far as I’m concerned). The characters’ personalities are at the very heart of how they go about the mission and how they help or hinder each other. One could say the two other men I didn’t mention by name are able to blend into the background more than the other four, but that could be as simple as star power. That said, I’m not sure their stories are as compelling as the others, but that is the nature of ensemble, isn’t it? Some characters rise to prominence while others round out the cast in their own necessary ways?
The pacing is from a different era, and for as much as I love old movies and this movie in particular, I find myself consistently bored with a twenty-five minute stretch of the film. A half-hour into the film, a scene involving a boat landing during stormy weather and subsequently climbing a mountain serve to develop three important relationships for Mallory: his mutual respect for Major Franklin, his mutual animosity for Corporal Miller, and rising tension between him and Stavros. We learn a little bit more about their plan, how Miller feels about the whole mess, and how Stavros plans to Kill Mallory someday, even seeing Stavros have an opportunity to do so. Finally, we see Franklin’s wounding and how it affects the group.
Pretty important plot points, yes? Absolutely, but the pacing kills the film here - they take fooooor-eeeeeh-vuuuuuhr! The film is 2.5 hours long and these scenes total twenty-five minute stretch only a half-hour into the film. In short, it takes a story based on getting a job done in a time crunch and slows it to a halt. The film has a patient pace altogether, so it doesn’t surprise me these scenes take such a big chunk of the film, but still, the pace leaves me fast-forwarding to the Nazi sharpshooter shoot-out that follows.
But let’s not dwell on the detractions. Peck is amazing. Quinn is even better. The story format sets the classic standard of gathering a ragtag crew for one final job. The pace is easy to follow and the stakes - both personal and outward - are high so the audience becomes invested. I’ve not read the novel (I hear it’s quite different) or its sequel and film adaptation, Force 10 From Navarone (a Harrison Ford box-office blunder), but I may have to give them a try.
This is one of those classic movies I watched as a young boy with my father on Saturday afternoons. My father was great at explaining plot twists and character relationships. This memory and a decent first DVD release kept the film spinning in my computer while writing my ensemble-cast sci-fi adventure screenplay thesis. Only through digging for photos for this post did I find out there’s a special edition 2-disc DVD set, so I may have to pick that up.
Any thoughts on this film, dear reader? Any ideas on what it can teach us about writing and story?
-nm
Technorati Tags: guns of navarone, movie recommendation, gregory peck, butcher of barcelona
Thesis reading follow-up
My Creative Writing MFA thesis reading was on Friday night and it was a proud evening for me. Jon Surdo read from his thriller-horror screenplay, Rat Trap, first and I went second reading from my science fiction adventure-comedy screenplay, Earthlings.
Jon and I each presented our work in our own way. Both of us displayed our pages on a document camera, and Jon had seven readers sit to either side of the projector screen and read the characters as he read the scene direction. As for me, I went ahead with my solo read, putting the pages on the document camera while also displaying eight illustrations on the computer. I’ve been a reader for three of my peers this semester and enjoy the ensemble process, but ultimately I decided to challenge myself to the solo experience and it went well. I provided voices for all of the different characters and when I ran out of voices I stole voices (thank you, Peter Lorre). I read it with as much enthusiasm and excitement as I felt the material was supposed to convey on-screen, speeding through space battles with intensity. As for the illustrations, they were done in pencil, then inked with my trusty Zebra Zeb-Roller 2000 0.7mm Liquid Black Ink Pen with the Rubberized Grip, then colored in grayscale on the computer. Those illustrations make up the very end of my thesis and will be bound along with the writing.
We had a crowd of approximately fifty in attendance and they were an excellent audience. They asked good questions, listened intently, laughed at all the right spots and a few more that surprised me, plus were genuinely interested to know what happened in my script beyond the portion I read, act one. The fiancée made the drive down and my parents surprised me by my mother driving up for the event. I knew my father was coming (he’s a few hours closer right now, having taken a new job in a new city while mom prepares their house to sell), but she completely surprised me. After the reading we went to Blue Bricks and had a fun time with friends. My ride home saw me with a pretty big smirk on my face.
Earlier that afternoon, I printed four copies of my thesis on fancy-schmancy (that should really be a brand name) 100% cotton paper with a watermark, got final adviser signatures, and turned them in to the office of graduate studies. I came close to crying. An emotional weight has been lifted, one which has consumed so much of my time and energy over the last three years, especially in these last few months but especiaspecially (that should be a new adjective) in the last few weeks. That’s already started, with funding approved tonight for my promotion at work (perhaps tomorrow’s blog, dear reader) and a new outlook on how / what / when to write. Things are looking up. :)
Except for my taxes. I’m getting enough back to go to the movies. By myself.
-nm
Technorati Tags: thesis reading, creative writing mfa, document camera, screenplay thesis, trading places movie quote
Your Monday Prompt #24
Write about accomplishment. A character finishes an important milestone, a team pulls together to win a competition, good triumphs over evil, etc. Let the accomplishment and circumstances of the event be the dressing - focus on the emotions of the character(s) in terms of what the accomplishment means to them, their reflection on their journey, and where they believe they will go from there. Remember, it’s about the journey, not the destination.
Give this exercise fifteen minutes of your time. Write it up and see what happens.
-nm
Technorati Tags: writing prompt, writing exercise, surprise yourself
Your Friday Recommendation #15
How’s this for a recommendation? Thesis reading, tonight only…
(Click the pic for the super-deluxe ultra-mega gigantor version…)
Analyzing a Short Story: Kevin Brockmeier
Tonight’s discussion of a Best American Short Stories selection in our fiction workshop revolves around “Space” by Kevin Brockmeier, taken from (guess where) the 2003 edition.
Brockmeier controls language with amazing authority. The story focuses on how a father and his teenage son, Eric, deal with the suddent death of their wife and mother, Della. She was the anchor of the family, and now two men who don’t know how to communicate with each other are left to support each other. Their dialog is minimal, reflecting their reluctance to share feelings with each other. Most every exchange of words between Eric and Dad revolve around the mundane, rarely breaking into their inner thoughts. they even answer questions with new, rhetorical questions, letting them fill the silence, the space in their family left by Della’s death. And when the conversation does find its way to Della, both father and son are quick to turn it away.
The story progresses through the sparse dialog and other simple communication. Eric and Dad speak to each other in random bursts of short and long while other communication in the piece is deliberate, patterned, and streamlined. For example, the katydids “are out there calling their names,” communicating on a synchopated schedule with a call so consistent it’s an accurate temperature gauge. Fireworks are launched at timed intervals, and the patterns they create are usually distinct, crowd-pleasing images.
Finally, there’s the beam of light shooting into space, Della’s light aimed high to the sky from her flashlight. It sends a direct signal to the distant world she hoped she was lighting. All of these types of communication, all laid throughout the piece, serve to deepen the relationship between estranged father and distant son.
Two comparisons spring to mind with this story. The Stanley Kubrick gem, 2001: A Space Odyssey has a running time of 148 minutes, yet the film only features 60 minutes worth of scenes containing recognizable spoken dialog. Then there’s playwright Harold Pinter, well-known for increasing tension in his work by using silence and deliberate understatements in dialog that already concentrates as much on the inflection and nuanced delivery as the content of the characters’ speech. Two situations in which silence is used as a craft choice to great effect.
I brought this story for analysis in a fall, 2005 fiction workshop and it had enough of a profound experience on my peer, Jon Surdo, that he brought it in to talk about this time around. Looking at my own presentation essay (which was more like two paragraphs worth of talking points and the above-mentioned comparisons to 2001 and Pinter), I can see how my craft analysis skills have expanded during the program. I’m excited to give this story one final ‘go’ tonight for what I hope will be profound, academic, and heartfelt analysis.
-nm
Technorati Tags: kevin brockmeier, best american, short story, walter mosley, father son story
What I’m writing, how I’m writing it
I’m on the tail-end of two writing projects - a new short story for fiction workshop and my thesis. The thesis is ready to be put to bed. Actually, it’s been ready for bed for a while; it’s tired and wired and cranky and frankly it wants a drink of wah-wah and a nap. It gets “finishing touches” today, meaning I’m reading it out loud in its entirety to listen to the writing. It’s an important step in the revision process which often gets overlooked. Listen to your writing. Catch repetition in the act, capture awkward phrasing before it captures you, zero in on typing errors and blow them away.
As far as my thesis reading on Friday (which you’re invited to attend, dear reader), I’m performing the piece myself. Many screenplay readings have assigned readers for speaking roles, so I’ll be relying on my character vocal talent. Two weeks ago, peers asked me how I planned to present my thesis, I said I might read it myself - that drew enthusiasm. When posed with the same question of late, peers don’t seem as enthusiastic, but I’m doing it, anyway; we’ll find out if I made the right decision.
The new short story is a fun one to write. It’s set in Cheyenne, where I lived for three years between my undergrad and grad school days. While it’s not a nonfiction tale, it contains an incident that happened to me out west, one that represented some of the worst hours of my life. I’m trying imitation, trying to weave aspects of Stuart Dybek’s “We Didn’t” and T.C. Boyle’s “Tooth and Claw” into the story as positive craft and stylistic choices. The piece will be workshopped on April 22nd and it’s the last piece of writing that will receive peer and professor comments during my MFA.
…That effect of writing that last sentence filled me with a little more cheerless emotion than I thought it would.
-nm
Technorati Tags: thesis reading, fiction workshop, screenplay reading, read out loud
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About
Brought together by mutual interest in creative arts and web development, Minnesota duo Barry Hess and Nathan Melcher founded Scrawlers.com in 2006. Scrawlers marries creativity with a web-based outlet for aspiring writers and The Scrawl blog seeks to add fuel your creative fire.
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