This November I reflected on my writing practice. Not just the daily grind of reading, writing, and showing up at the writing desk, but specifically:
What do my characters want? And Do I have the bravery and tenacity to write down these emotional truths on the page?
When facing an existential question, I am learning to seek artistic experiences to fill my creative cup. As a writing instructor once told me, “Our novel is smarter than us.” Subconsciously, I spent three weeks consuming a diet of strong female protagonists with startling clear wants. The list below is a compilation of high and low brow artistic pieces that, at the time, felt random. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving weekend, when I sat down to write a new chapter in the wake of my turkey induced hangover that I noticed my characters speaking in different voices with a vulnerability I can only attribute to my therapist and the artistic bravery of the creators below.
#1 Oh Mary! and The Tempest by Shakespeare
Yaaasss! I saw Oh Mary! For those unfamiliar with the formally off broadway show which has taken Broadway by storm since May. Cole Escola’s hilarious play is an unhinged retelling of Mary Todd’s quest to reclaim her identity as cabaret singer in the days prior to Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination. Do not attend this play if you are a historian studying for an American History exam. Do attend if you enjoy irreverent humor, razor sharp dialogue, and want to route for a protagonist with a very clear want: To live her dream as a cabaret star.
Woven into the play is the Tempest by William Shakespeare. I just attended a seminar class on The Tempest a few days before seeing Oh Mary!, so the plot and themes were fresh in my mind. Both of these stories share themes of female captivity. Ariel, in the Tempest, wants literal freedom from captivity and Mary, freedom of artistic expression.
#2 - “Romantic Weekend” by Mary Gaitskill
My professor assigned this short story for a Master’s of Style Practicum. Gaitskill switches between two points of view, a man and a woman who are meeting for a weekend getaway (that doubles as an errand for the man’s wife? Wild multitasking). The conflict of this clever piece is a miscommunication.
At the outset, two prospective lovers who have only briefly met at a party, hop on a plane to test their compatibility in a BDSM relationship. Hilarious and heartbreaking, they did not clearly discuss the terms of this relationship prior to traveling. While this short story was polarizing in my class, I loved this unhinged depiction of mismatched lovers. While one is vying for physical pain, the other emotional manipulation, Gaitskill captures the tangled dance of intimacy. How we can misunderstand our lovers' cues and make disastrous assumptions. Subtle and smooth, the narrator dips into each lover’s interior fantasies, desires, regrets, and longings. If you like unconventional, toxic protagonists, this piece is for you. Don’t come here for quality life decisions or moralizing. Ew.
True Crime is a guilty pleasure of mine. Typically, I’m simply too chicken to partake. Woman of the hour, directed by Anna Kendrick is a psychological thriller framed with the dramatic irony that works for me: this killer, Robert Alcala, is deceased. In an interview on Armchair Expert, Anna Kendrick said women serve as mirrors for the men. She suggests, women’s true vulnerability in relationships is contending with the following question:
“How much of your shame do I have to absorb so you won’t hurt me?”
I stopped right in the middle of my walk down 7th Avenue and rewound that interview twice, so startled I was by her description. I definitely have experienced this in relationships with males of all varieties: lovers, friends, coworkers, and family members. Kendrick’s depiction of how women are targeted, manipulated, dominated, and silenced was an intriguing 90 minute ride.
#4 - Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and corresponding craft lecture by Dawnie Walton
Toni Morrison is a literary beast, as I’m sure most are aware. This particular story weaves an intergenerational story of a black community with magical realism and civil rights history. While Song of Solomon is a framed narrative beginning and ending with flights both physical and spiritual, the majority of the novel is steeped in memory and spiraling mental journeys through time, recollections, and reflections of her characters.
A male driven novel, it is women who serve as the mirror of men’s internal struggle with modern forms of slavery- masculinity, power, guilt, and shame. In Morrison’s craft piece “Site of Memory”, she refers to her process as “literary archeology” that “finds and exposes a truth about the interior life of people who didn’t write it…to fill in the blanks that the slave narratives left.” She describes wanting to cultivate an “intimacy” with the reader as a “participant” in the worlds she is reconstructing: The actual and the possible. I am forever indebted to Toni Morrison as a literary ancestor of mine, as an example of how to weave one’s personal experiences with the fictional and fantastical. My writing has changed dramatically due to reading her work.
Dawnie Walton visited St. Joe's to teach a Master Lecture on crafting dynamic characters. How to amplify your characters' quirks, distinctions into dramatic action. How to imbue characters with symbolic qualities, super powers, and even tame and control them when you fear the character could upend your novel.
To build a giant and then explain away their magic by showing their history, a glimmer of vulnerability or weakness, or a change in the character or society around them.
#5 - A Real Pain written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg
In reflection, this film written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg feels reminiscent of Romantic Weekend. Two cousins with a fraught history travel together (their grandmother’s dying wish) on a pilgrimage to tour the concentration camp she was held in during WWII and visit their ancestral home. It is a group tour which lends plenty of opportunity for public over sharing and awkward family discussions on the tour bus.
For me, the film was a poignant depiction of the various ways family members grieve. Some of us want to drape ourselves in our grief like an oversized rainbow colored poncho. For others, their grief is a private affair like granny panties or long underwear. Necessary garments but rarely seen outside the laundry room. The conflict created by this grieving odd couple took my heart on a 90 minute ride: I full belly laughed, wept, and confronted my own contentions with grief. If I talked to my sister, I would tell her I wish we grieved just a little softer and louder. In our next life, when we lose our father, I hope we hold hands.
#6 - Dave season 1 and 2 by David Burd aka Lil Dicky
Dave is the story of David Burd, Jewish rapper, on a quest to become the world’s greatest rap artist. A true underdog story, Dave’s clear want, to be the best rapper of all time, spurs dramatic action, comedy, and tragedy through each 30ish minute episode.
Loosely based on his real journey from youtube viral comedian to rapper, he rubs elbows with rap the likes of Benny Blanco, Rick Rubin (sort of), and Justin Beiber. My Shakespeare professor, David Gates, says whether a story is a comedy or tragedy all depends on when the story ends. For Dave, each episode toes that dramatic line leaving viewers rooting for the complex protagonist and fully developed side characters.
Champagne Toast
In my delusions, I thought I would have time to write more. I wanted to tell you about starting Story Genius by Lisa Cron, attending the Brandon Taylor launch of Smith and Taylor Classics, and reading Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical novel. But here, we are friends, at the end of our journey.
This week’s champagne toast is to killing our egos, softly, letting them bleed out all over the page. So gross, but I’m learning it’s the crux of writing a meaningful novel.
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