"Where'd it go, all that precious time?"

[greygirlbeast]

Cooler and, more importantly, less humid, here in Providence. I actually had to put on a sweater this morning. We had several days of hot, spectacularly humid weather, so this comes as a relief.

Today, I very much need reader comments, if only to help me stay grounded. Thank you.

Not a lot of progress on the book though. On Thursday, I wrote 1,081 words, about normal for me, for any given day. But then yesterday, a combination of self doubt and misbehaving blood pressure (thank you, meds) left me such a mess that I only wrote 14 words (I shit you not). Today, I'll try to do better.

But the truth is, almost a year after conceiving of the story that has, eventually, become The Drowning Girl, and just a couple of months shy of the two-year anniversary of having finished The Red Tree, it isn't going well. It's hardly going at all. Do I know why? I have a bucketful of conjecture, but no, I don't know for sure. I only know it's put me in a truly terrifying place.

---

Lots of thoughts yesterday on convention in novels. Conventions in first-person narratives. Such as, how so few readers pause to consider the existence and motivations of the "interauthor." When you're reading a first-person narration, you're reading a story that's being told by a fictional author, and that fictional author— or interauthor —is, essentially, the central character. Their motivations are extremely important to the story. The simple fact that they are telling the story, in some fictional universe, raises questions that I believe have to be addressed by first-person narratives. Why is the interauthor writing all this down? How long is it taking her or him? Do they intend it to be read by others? Is it a confessional? Reflection? A warning? Also (and this is a BIG one), what happens to the interauthor while the story is being written, especially if it's a novel-length work of fiction?

In my case, it takes anywhere from a few months (The Red Tree, Low Red Moon) to years (my other novels) to write a novel. I assume this is the case for most people who sit down to write something that's seventy- to one-hundred-thousand words long. These are not campfire tales. These are major undertakings by their interauthors. So, the narrators stop and start writing the documents over and over and over while it's being written. But rarely are we shown what happens to her or him while the story is being told (Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves is a brilliant exception, and sure there are other exceptions). Some things will almost certainly occur that are important enough that they will intrude upon the narrative.

A first-person narrative occurs in a minimum of two time frames: the present (when the story is being written down) and the past (when the story occurred).

And it baffles me that so few readers or writers pause to consider these facts, and that so few authors address these problems in the text. A first-person narrative is, by definition, an artifact, and should be treated as such. Rarely do I use the word "should" when discussing fiction writing.

The other thing I thought about a lot yesterday was the convention of chapters, especially as it applies to first person and the interauthor. Does the interauthor actually bother dividing her story into chapters, especially if she's only writing for herself? If so, why? It seems patently absurd to me. She might date each section of her manuscript. She might divide sections with hash tags or asterisks. But chapters? No. That's absurd.

If I can ever get The Drowning Girl written, it may have no chapter divisions. To use them would be a ridiculous adherence to convention that makes no sense within the context of the artifact of the story.

One more thing: Most readers do not want to read books that are, to put it bluntly, smarter than they are. Such readers get very pissed, and resentful, and interpret their emotional reactions as a mistake or shortcoming on the part of the author (transference). This phenomenon will never cease to amaze and confound me.

---

Last night, we watched Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell (2009). It was appropriate to kid night: over-the-top goofy camp. Not sure if I liked it or not. It was fun, I suppose. Spooky probably liked it better than I did. For me, it was the sort of film I mostly enjoy while I'm watching it, but pretty much forget as soon as it's over. We also watched another episode of Nip/Tuck. We finished Season Two on Thursday night. And I have to say, the last episode of Season Two is one of the best, most-harrowing hours of television I have ever seen. I'm very glad I didn't give up on this show halfway through Season One, as I almost did.

Not much reading. It's almost impossible for me to read fiction while trying to write a novel.

And now...another fucking day...

Comments

[sovay]

She might date each section of her manuscript. She might divide sections with hash tags or asterisks.

I like both of these ideas.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I like both of these ideas.

I'll likely use one or the other.

Assuming...

[cithra.livejournal.com]

Since you asked for comments, I'll share a speculation on continuity in first person narrative, as a compulsive diarist... I've kept a paper journal since I was 12, a little over 30 years now, and early on I fell into writing it to some sort of audience, initially the diary itself (I named them) as a friendly letter. Later that convention fell away, but I still find myself feeling as though I'm addressing someone, either my future self or some distant reader, most likely after I'm dead. Considered as a narrative, my journals have huge gaping holes in them, where I simply didn't feel the urge to write, where something was so intense to me that even confiding it to paper seemed unwise or dangerous; and I've moved enough over my life to think there are probably volumes/notebooks gone missing.

More to a point, when I read other first person narratives, even ones that are not structured in letter or diary form, I believe I take for granted that those sorts of gaps appear. Not only because of looking back on my own fairly-well documented yet fragmentary memoir, but with the added knowledge that most people don't even write this stuff down, and memory is tricky. (I began my journal because I wanted to remember correctly what I was thinking and feeling at the time...)

I don't know if that exactly addresses what you were considering, but it's some thoughts. As an aside, what I've found as a mildly amusing artifact of this journal-habit is I have a really hard time not writing fiction in a sort of broken first person narrative, so far, when I've essayed it.

Added: I often feel like chapters are a result of editorial insistence or an attempt at cliffhanger, so if they are balking you as artificial-seeming, perhaps that's worth listening to, at least in the first draft or so.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

You've opened various other cans of worms...

I've kept a paper journal since I was 12, a little over 30 years now, and early on I fell into writing it to some sort of audience, initially the diary itself (I named them) as a friendly letter. Later that convention fell away, but I still find myself feeling as though I'm addressing someone, either my future self or some distant reader, most likely after I'm dead. Considered as a narrative, my journals have huge gaping holes in them, where I simply didn't feel the urge to write, where something was so intense to me that even confiding it to paper seemed unwise or dangerous; and I've moved enough over my life to think there are probably volumes/notebooks gone missing.

If anything, this points out how first-person narratives ought to be marked, frequently, by discontinuity. This is almost never the case. They are handled as straight-forward linear narratives, which seems very unrealistic

As for writing to a reader, that's something the extra-author has to determine if the interauthor means to be doing.

and memory is tricky.

A fact most authors of first-person narratives simply choose to ignore. Try recalling a complete conversation from only a week ago. Now try a month. A year....

[count-01.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of setting aside chapters for a first-person narrative. Real life happens in scenes, not neatly-cut chapters. Some seem to take forever (like waiting for the dentist) while others take forever to describe but happen in a moment (like a first kiss.)

And yes, like most readers, I hate it when a book tries (often unsuccessfully) to be smarter than I am. Do you hear me, Robert Ludlum? That is why Bourne Identity sucked. It's supposed to be a neat, action-packed mystery/thriller, and it pretends to be a Great Work, which may I point out, very few really great works pretend to be.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

If we don't ask ourselves who and why writes down the events in third-person novels, why should we care about it in first-person novels?

Wrong.

A first-person narrative is an entirely different beast than a third-person narrative. The latter does not insist upon the existence of the interauthor. It's more like watching a movie (at least, the sort without a first-person narration). The interauthor is a character with motivation and must be addressed. Which is why the reader should care? Why is it important that this story is being told by a character (not an omniscient third-person extra-author)?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And yes, like most readers, I hate it when a book tries (often unsuccessfully) to be smarter than I am.

You're making an assumption: That the author has tried to be more intelligent than you are. How can you know that? Because it happens to feel that way to you? How can you any weight on such inherently subjective assumptions, as you cannot know the intent of the author?

Do i know what X was thinking when she wrote a novel? No. All assumptions as to her intents are circumspect.

[brienze.livejournal.com]

A few disjointed comments...

Any moderately educated reader subliminally understands negative space. Web pages that lack it are unreadable. I doubt the interauthor would write "Chapter 2" at the top of a page unless they're intending the work for publication, but I bet they'd leave extra blank lines between blocks of text sometimes, or go on to the next page without filling the previous, etc, just because it will be easier on their own eye.

Chapters in books do often create artificial cliffhangers. As a reader, I cruise right through chapter breaks and bookmark and stop reading when the narrative lags or I get to a Tolkien-esque block of description... so as a writer, maybe that artificial chapter break is better than the implied insult to any slow bits in the text?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

but I bet they'd leave extra blank lines between blocks of text sometimes

Which is why I suggested hash tags or asterisks. Simple space breaks would suffice.

first person narrative

[ghasmarii.livejournal.com]

A regular reader from Germany here, delurking for the first time.
A rather special case of a first-person narrative in which several of the issues that you mention have been thought through, and handled (I think) well, is Gene Wolfe's Soldier books. Don't know if you have read them, but I imagine that you might like them. (Gene Wolfe is someone who certainly doesn't care if readers may be displeased on finding, reading his books, that the book/author is much smarter than they are.)

Re: first person narrative

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Gene Wolfe's Soldier books. Don't know if you have read them, but I imagine that you might like them.

Sorry. I've not read them.

(Gene Wolfe is someone who certainly doesn't care if readers may be displeased on finding, reading his books, that the book/author is much smarter than they are.)

A fact for which he is to be commended.

[kaz-mahoney.livejournal.com]

I like what Jonathan Carroll did with The Marriage of Sticks: although he did use 'chapters' they weren't identified in that way, either through the word 'Chapter' or by numbering them. Each section of the novel is preceded by a heading/title, which sort of tricked me - as a reader - into not thinking of them so much as chapters.

I suppose it's the same thing, really, but it was a bit different - which I liked.

[cithra.livejournal.com]

I guess perhaps I just meant that as listeners/readers, we often smooth over or ignore the gaps and discontinuities naturally, without thinking, the same way we see patterns where they may or may not be, or can recognize all sort of amazingly different images as the letter L (http://www.lettercult.com/archives/2077).

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I like what Jonathan Carroll did with The Marriage of Sticks: although he did use 'chapters' they weren't identified in that way, either through the word 'Chapter' or by numbering them.

Frank Herbert did the same thing in Dune, and did it brilliantly, dividing sections only with epigraphs from fictional books.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I guess perhaps I just meant that as listeners/readers, we often smooth over or ignore the gaps and discontinuities naturally, without thinking

Oh, I agree that readers (and people, in general) often do things without thinking. But it is the author's job to make a reader think.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Why a first-person narrator might use chapters: he or she has read many novels.

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

Immediate impressions with which I may no longer agree after a few minutes' consideration:

I think it's become more common over time to have the first-person be just a hip, clever voice more or less trustworthily relating his or her adventures.

Just glancing at the shelves, The Tale of Genji is framed in several layers of storytellers and incorporated commentary. Frankenstein is a manuscript transcribed from dictation nightly and sent with letters. Even more straightforward first-person narrations, from Robinson Crusoe to Gatsby to any number of works by, for instance, Poe, are understood to be related by people of various motives and levels or reliability. More recently, Nnedi Okorafor and James Sallis have both provided first-person narrations that were told that way for very specific reasons bound up in the tales they were telling.

But I think over the past several decades, there has been a shift away from a first-person narrative as a narrative told/written/related by a real first person, for personal and not always apparent reasons, and toward a first-person narrative as a way of dazzling the reader with particularly clever observation -- the first person is less a real person than a voice-over narrating a cinematically conceived adventure. It's a narration rather than an artifact produced by a person. It's a form often adopted for fun rather than for reasons intrinsic to the story and the way the story has to be told. (Again, certainly not always, but frequently.)

It might also have something to do with the increasing popularity of the memoir, which is more often than not presented in first-person, chronologically, in chapter format, rather than in a stream-of-consciousness form that reads like the following of memories and associations and discovering discrepancies between memory and fact and all that. But I haven't read enough memoirs to fairly gauge the way the authors most often construct and present themselves and how similar or different it is to the construction of first-person novels.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Why a first-person narrator might use chapters: he or she has read many novels.

This is an interesting proposition. It's not unreasonable.

[kaz-mahoney.livejournal.com]

You know... I don't remember that. I read it so many years ago (trying not to think about quite how many years), but I will have to dig out a copy and remind myself. That's such a clever device - I really like things like that.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Just glancing at the shelves, The Tale of Genji is framed in several layers of storytellers and incorporated commentary. Frankenstein is a manuscript transcribed from dictation nightly and sent with letters. Even more straightforward first-person narrations, from Robinson Crusoe to Gatsby to any number of works by, for instance, Poe, are understood to be related by people of various motives and levels or reliability. More recently, Nnedi Okorafor and James Sallis have both provided first-person narrations that were told that way for very specific reasons bound up in the tales they were telling.

Good examples, on and all.


But I think over the past several decades, there has been a shift away from a first-person narrative as a narrative told/written/related by a real first person, for personal and not always apparent reasons, and toward a first-person narrative as a way of dazzling the reader with particularly clever observation -- the first person is less a real person than a voice-over narrating a cinematically conceived adventure. It's a narration rather than an artifact produced by a person. It's a form often adopted for fun rather than for reasons intrinsic to the story and the way the story has to be told.

True, at least in part. But I also think it's a hold over from the primitive storytelling, and the stories we are first told as children.

I'm not sure I've ever read a non-fiction memoir.

[count-01.livejournal.com]

I rarely blame an author for overreaching. Some days you (meaning one) write well; some days there is no fire. But a book itself should be consistent, thematically, tonally, and it is an editor's job to point that out.

I don't make the assumption an author is shooting for Grand Literature unless he or she breaks out of a scene with words that are too big for it, or grandiose, pompous prose that makes me wonder whose manifesto they'd read that morning. All of these are simply editing mistakes, either on the author's or editor's part, but really should be gripped and choked into submission by the collaborative process between drafting and printing.

Have I ever known an author's intent? Well, once, but I was helping proof/edit and had a fair amount of input/feedback on the story itself. I presume that will be the only time. Is it important to me, as a reader, to discern authorial intent, or to enjoy a story, how it's put together, where it's going, and the style in which is gets there? Honestly, the latter is the only point I can see in reading. If you don't enjoy it, go do something else.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Have I ever known an author's intent? Well, once, but I was helping proof/edit and had a fair amount of input/feedback on the story itself. I presume that will be the only time. Is it important to me, as a reader, to discern authorial intent, or to enjoy a story, how it's put together, where it's going, and the style in which is gets there? Honestly, the latter is the only point I can see in reading. If you don't enjoy it, go do something else.

I think you're begging the question I asked, by assuming your original thesis wasn't flawed.

And I have little use for editors.

And I think we read for very different reasons, and in very different ways.

[lupa.livejournal.com]

Now that online journaling has become blogging, I note that the standard for someone putting down their story is not to use only a date, but a date and a title. Additionally, there might be multiple titles for a single date. Titling one's journal/blog entries to me suggests chapters, though the format tends to make the blog-chapter much shorter than the novel-chapter. So if someone is writing something down, telling the story, the question for me becomes *in what format* the character is writing. In The Red Tree Sarah was typing, and on a manual typewriter, which is vastly closer to longhand and thus titles wouldn't have made sense. (I really liked how you explained the organization, by the way.) If someone was typing online, whether in a private location or public, I'd expect titles or some kind of similar framing.

Also, when online the tool one uses online makes a difference, because then I firmly believe one unconsciously tailors the writing to the way in which the audience (whether it's one's self or someone else) reads it. When I was writing on Livejournal, I tended to make multiple short posts because of the way in which I knew my audience - which were my friends - was reading. On Blogger, both before and after LJ, I wrote much longer post-pieces with titles, in which topical items were separated by a keyboard iconography of some kind.

I don't know if that helps, nor do I mean it to sound like a recommendation. It's all merely my own thoughts about a first-person writing project on which I've been toodling.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Now that online journaling has become blogging, I note that the standard for someone putting down their story is not to use only a date, but a date and a title.

The only reason I title these journal entries is because I hate "no subject" and default-date titles. The interauthor of a non-electronic manuscript would not face these problems. LiveJournal forces my hand, which would not happen if this were being written longhand, on a typewriter, or even in MS Word. I don't intend ever to write a novel in blog format.

[dragau.livejournal.com]

You address here many issues that I have while reading first-person narratives, particularly what occurs during the writing and how those most recent events, thoughts, emotions and most particularly, hindsights affect the narrative. Another question that generally remains unanswered is why the interauthor is such a good writer in the first place. Although Atonement blurs the identity of the narrator, Ian McEwan handled this issue with stark improvements in the writing quality from one part to the next.

Most readers do not want to read books that are, to put it bluntly, smarter than they are.

I am not one of them. Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon was a great novel that plunged forward whether the reader understood the underlying math or not. However, in Anathem, a novel dealing directly with a caste system imposed by secret knowledge, Stephenson does not even summon a sufficiently advanced technology to challenge the reader.

The author knows something and I as a reader want to learn it. I want a book to send me to Google. This is why over the last decade I have read as many textbooks as I have novels. Thank goodness for Dover Publications and their affordable reprints of classic texts.