A Visit to the Jazz Age

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Monte

So, last night “The Artist” won the Best Picture at the Oscars. Good for them! A very fabulous film it was, evoking not only the loss of innocence in a most unusual way, but an era long gone. Certainly I reveled in the recreating of  the Jazz Age, both visually

The Artist with Jean Dujardin & Berenice Bejo

and in that flashy sensibility of post-war/pre-Depression glamour and fun. My own novel, “The Big Town,” achieves the same feeling, I believe, and I really see “The Artist” and “The Big Town” as almost aesthetic and historical companions. There is a sense in both of a time existing so close to our own that it seems recognizable, yet is not, being now a generation separated from the living, the memory of it reconciled to print and celluloid. If both works of art are more than homages to that lovely and tragic era, they are also reminders of how much we lose with the past, and how much of the past we carry through to the present. We are still human, after all: hearts love and break and heal again; the world intrudes in our lives; we persist always. As Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

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Why do we write?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Monte

Marketing is everything today. How we choose what to write about. Where we learn about query letters to agents. Where we find our agents. How we market our books to editors, and how to sell our books to the public. Sell, sell, sell. As if the world of the written word were no different from the automobile industry or product placement at Kmart. And certainly for the professional writer, marketing what we write is part of the game, but it’s not the whole show, and it ought not to be even the strongest motivation. I’ve spoken with agents and editors who seem to me to be little more than salespeople themselves, newly arrived in the world of NY publishing from a previous career at GM or the shoe department at Saks. Books are more than commodities. They are expressions of the human spirit, our hearts and souls, the muse of the world attempting through the medium of language to communicate something valuable, even deathless. Sure, we can write to entertain and debate, to enthrall and infuriate, to frighten and fascinate. Yet from Homer to Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain to Joyce, Faulkner, Mailer, Styron, and even Stephen King, there is a voice speaking to us that means more than book sales and internet hits. We write to prove we were here, that we listened and lived among each other and left something behind for those who follow. Every poem, essay, novel and play is a message in a bottle cast out onto that great sea hoping to be discovered. We want to be read, but more than that, we want to write. And so we do.

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Rules for Writing

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Monte

So, it seems a very popular pastime among authors these days is to make up a list of ten rules of writing. Reading over some of them from several of our more popular and successful writers is instructive, if for no other reason than to observe how absorbed most of them are in their own craft. That is to say, it’s interesting to see how closely each of their ten specific rules relates and applies directly to their style and tone, in some cases to the exclusion of how others are writing today, or yesterday. An author who prefers sparse dialogue to descriptive setting will offer a rule telling you to keep your narrative to a minimum and let the characters reveal themselves by what they say. Less trees, more talk.

  1. Try to avoid having your characters converse in a white space with nothing but their voices on the page. Setting matters. Don’t go overboard, but let your readers see where your characters are interacting.
  2. If you’re writing literary fiction, have something actually happen, preferably melodramatic. Interior conflict only goes so far in carrying a story forward. On the other hand, genre writers ought to avoid having their characters behave like robots. Plot driven fiction does not preclude interior reflection or character development.
  3. Write what most appeals to you, regardless of publishing trends. Don’t choose a story because you think it’s what’s selling; choose one that fascinates and inspires you.
  4. Use the English language! Hemingway’s relative minimalism is not the last word on style. Some writers may preach that less is more, but that’s simply personal preference. Elmore Leonard is not a better writer or stylist than James Lee Burke, nor is Hemingway better than Faulkner. They’re just different.
  5. In that same vein, try to avoid using “said” in every instance of dialogue attributions. Eighty percent of the time will be sufficient! In other instances, no, there is nothing wrong with using “remarked,” “noted,” “observed,” “suggested,” “offered,” “explained,” “complained,” etc. It just makes your text more lively, more colorful, subtly more interesting. It’s wallpaper, but it will be noticeable.
  6. Read, read, read. It seems to be the silliest, most obvious advice to give writers, but over my years teaching at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve heard writers say they’re too busy writing to read books. Sad, but true. Or those same writers will only read in their genre or field of interest. Many will read only fiction. Too bad, again, because reading widely in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry offers the opportunity of exploring not only intellectual opportunities, but also discovering different styles and narratives, as well. That’s never a bad thing.
  7. Try writing in different points of view: first person, third person, and second person, just simply to see how it’s done, how it feels. Maybe you’ll find a voice more appropriate and fitting better to what you’re working on. Also, begin casting a careful eye on what’s possible within those narrative points of view. For instance, we’ve become so used the idea of third person omniscient narrative within a form of stream of consciousness that we’ve forgotten how to tell a story about the characters, rather than from within them. Think Grimm’s fairy tales! Also, consider the true flexibility offered by a first person, with that immediate character serving as the omniscient narrator. Too often, first person is rejected because the writer believes his narrator must be present whenever the action is occurring. Not so! If the narrator is telling the entire book, he can be in or out of the action as often as he chooses.
  8. Get used to spelling and grammar being an important part of writing. Don’t imagine that your agent or editor is going to do the irritating work of giving your story a makeover by correcting bad grammar and misspellings. Don’t rely slavishly on spell check. Look up words you’re unsure of. Consult grammar guides on the proper use of semi-colons. Learn how words are spelled. Learn how to punctuate sentences. Doing so will make the architecture of your pages elegant and clean.
  9. Find people to read your work who are reliable enough to care about your work and who understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Fewer readers are preferable to many. One well-read mentor will be more helpful than half a dozen friends or family members. If possible, have different people read for different reasons. For instance, I’ve always tried to find readers interested in either story or style or grammar, or pacing. I look for different responses from each. Workshops can be helpful if you trust the readers, but beware of art-by-committee. You cannot go into a workshop having no idea of the worth or quality of your writing. Otherwise the blizzard of comments and suggestions will be confusing and counter productive. Trust in your own opinion best of all. No one will care about your work more than you will.
  10. Make writing your life, not just a passing fancy. Don’t imagine that publishing a novel will make you rich and famous. Maybe it will, but probably it won’t. Don’t see writing as a career change. Don’t give yourself six months, a year, two years to make it as a writer. Think instead that once you put words on a page, you are a writer, and this is something that will fascinate, frustrate and fulfill your soul for the rest of your life. Don’t believe in writer’s block. There’s no such thing. My dad told me that only amateurs get writer’s block; professional’s can’t afford it. I’d add to that only the dilettante gets writer’s block; the passionate are never dissuaded. Believe in the magic of the written word. And put more words on paper!
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Monte’s Challenge (Enough Jane Austen and 19th century pseudo-erudite reading.)

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Monte
  1. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
  2. The Circus of Doctor Lao – Charles G. Finney
  3. Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote
  4. Finnegan’s Wake – James Joyce
  5. Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
  6. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
  7. The Odyssey – Homer
  8. Peter and Wendy – J. M. Barrie
  9. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells
  10. On the Beach – Nevil Shute
  11. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
  12. They Came Like Swallows – William Maxwell
  13. Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne
  14. Elmer Gantry – Sinclair Lewis
  15. Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
  16. The Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  17. Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara
  18. The Human Comedy – William Saroyan
  19. Cassandra at the Wedding – Dorothy Baker
  20. The Last Picture Show – Larry McMurtry
  21. The Crucible – Arthur Miller
  22. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
  23. After Many A Summer Dies The Swan – Aldous Huxley
  24. Of Time and the River – Thomas Wolfe
  25. Joe – Larry Brown
  26. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
  27. From Here to Eternity – James Jones
  28. The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
  29. Tree of Smoke – Denis Johnson
  30. Psalm at Journey’s End – Erik Hansen
  31. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
  32. Ship of Fools – Katherine Anne Porter
  33. Zorba The Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis
  34. Raintree County – Ross Lockridge Jr.
  35. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
  36. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
  37. Sophie’s Choice – William Styron
  38. The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs – William Inge
  39. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
  40. Rabbit Run – John Updike
  41. Slouching Toward Bethlehem – Joan Didion
  42. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
  43. A Bell for Adano – John Hersey
  44. The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
  45. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit – Sloan Wilson
  46. Delta Wedding – Eudora Welty
  47. By Love Possessed – James Gould Cozzens
  48. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
  49. The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
  50. A Death in the Family – James Agee
  51. The People, Yes – Carl Sandburg
  52. Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
  53. What Makes Sammy Run? – Budd Schulberg
  54. A Fan’s Notes – Frederick Exley
  55. Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin
  56. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
  57. Suttree – Cormac McCarthy
  58. The Quiet American –Graham Greene
  59. The Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
  60. Libra – Don Delillio
  61. Blue Highways – William Least Heat Moon
  62. Andersonville – MacKinlay Kantor
  63. Advise and Consent – Allen Drury
  64. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
  65. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
  66. Caesar and Christ – Will Durant
  67. The Waste Land – T.S. Elliot
  68. The Member of the Wedding – Carson McCullers
  69. The Death of a President – William Manchester
  70. Tending to Virginia – Jill McCorkle
  71. Ironweed – William Kennedy
  72. Winesburg Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
  73. The Golden Gate – Vikram Seth
  74. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
  75. Cain – Jose Saramago
  76. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
  77. Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
  78. Howl – Alan Ginsberg
  79. Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
  80. The Iceman Cometh – Eugene O’Neill
  81. All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
  82. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
  83. Goodbye, Columbus – Philip Roth
  84. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
  85. Dhalgren – Samuel R. Delany
  86. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues – Tom Robbins
  87. Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban
  88. The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
  89. Illumination Nights – Alice Hoffman
  90. Last Car to Elysian Fields – James Lee Burke
  91. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
  92. Dispatches – Michael Herr
  93. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
  94. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
  95. A Coney Island of the Mind – Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  96. Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
  97. The Making of the President 1960 – Theodore H. White
  98. New Burlington – John Baskin
  99. Studs Lonigan – James T. Farrell
  100. My Name is Asher Lev – Chaim Potok
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