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by From Where You Dream- The Process of Writing Fiction (mobi)

  ROB: Thank you, Mary Jane. Brandy?

  Brandy: When I was three years old, I went on vacation to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, at Arrowhead State Park, and I was seesawing with both of my brothers, the older brother on one side of me and the next oldest on the other. The middle brother always had middle-child syndrome and couldn't stand me, and he got mad at one point and decided to get off, but he didn't realize that my legs were in the handle part of the seesaw, so when he did, it shot me up in the air and I broke my leg, and I had to drive all the way back home with a broken leg.

  ROB: Thank you. That works too. Leslie?

  Leslie: When I was small, I grew up in a house surrounded by hay fields and pecan orchards, and in the middle

  of the fall, about this time of year, my cousin Gaines—who looked a little like Clark Kent, with big bottle glasses—would, get on his tractor, and he would mow all the hay and leave hundreds of bales of hay the size of a Volkswagen out on the edge of the pecan orchard. Then my brother and I would climb up on the hay bales and jump from bale to bale and play king of the mountain. The goal was to knock the other person off the bale. When I was very small, I couldn't get onto the hay bales because they were round, and sometimes they'd be so big that I couldn't get a grip in smooth hay without digging into it—and it's hard to dig into it because it's real dense—so I'd have to find two bales that were close together and crawl into that narrow space in between and inch away up sideways, and my brother would knock me off and sometimes it hurt really bad falling down.

  ROB: Thank you, Leslie. If the four of you are serious about continuing, then that's probably all we're going to need. Who'd like to go first for the retelling? Come on, Sandra.

  All right, I want you to remember that you're all in this together. I want you essentially to take on Sandra's consciousness, participate with her, really try to see this scene—a little bit ahead of her even.

  Sandra, I want you to relax, clear your head. Don't consider your words. Speak in full narrative sentences, but don't worry about your grammar and syntax. Just try to keep things flowing, and just let what comes out of your mouth be simply an articulation of what's going on in that cinema of your own mind.

  Let's take you from the first moment you step into the barbershop, Sandra. Pick us up there, and understand that the goal is to articulate only in the moment through the senses.

  Sandra: I can see a lot of men pushing around me.

  ROB: OK, you've just now generalized. "A lot of men" is a generality. You take that first step in the door and you stop. You place yourself in that room and I want you, like the camera eye, to see it in its fullness—look from left to right, up to down, whatever, but let's see what you're seeing in the moment.

  Sandra: There are men sitting.

  ROB: You've generalized once again. Let's start at one specific spot in the room. If you're taking in a generalized view of the room, it's not really general because, in fact, there's a picture full of detail, but because we're not painters—we're fiction writers—we have to place those details in a sequence, don't we? So take the step in, and I want you to look at a specific spot and see that spot, then move your eyes, and move them, and move them.

  Sandra: OK, I go through the door.

  ROB: That's also summarized: "I go through the door." There's no engagement of the moment with the doorknob, no sound of the door opening, no feeling of the exchange of air between the outside and barbershop. Do you understand? There are so many moment-to-moment sense impressions going through the door that were left out. What we're looking for is every moment-to-moment detail. But let's not get hung up at the door. You have entered and have just closed the door behind you. You are in your first moment completely in the barbershop. Let your eye fall on one specific thing right now.

  Sandra: It's a man.

  ROB: Now you've started this with a summarizing state-ment. I want you to see it in the moment specifically. What is the first feature on that man's whole being? What's the first thing your eyes come to? Engage him with your eyes in the moment. So tell me the first thing you see about that man.

  Sandra: I can't see him properly.

  ROB: OK, that's probably because you're trying to remember him from the literal event. What I want you to do now is invent him. Make him a sensual reality in this cinema of your mind, in your imagination. Take a moment. You've just touched the brass of that doorknob and it felt cool in the very center of the palm of your hand. You've turned it and you've leaned into the door and it has creaked open and a little bell tinkles at the top and the smell of powder and . ..

  Sandra: Shaving cream . ..

  ROB: Good. Pick it up. What else comes out of the air as you're just stepping through the door.

  Sandra: The sound of the strap as he presses the blade . . .

  ROB: OK, the sound of the strap—what is that sound?— give me that sound.

  Sandra: Kind of like a dull little whack against the leather strap.

  ROB: Good. What else? What else is coming out of you as you're inside.

  Sandra: Coughing. Talking.

  ROB: OK, you're generalizing those. Let's hear a specific cough, and tell me about that cough. And a fragment of talk. Tell me those things in narrative.

  Sandra: A man's coughing.

  ROB: Not too much removed from a cough. Tell me about that cough?

  Sandra: It's a dry cough.

  ROB: From where is it coming?

  Sandra: It's coming from his throat.

  ROB: All right. Hear a fragment of something that's spoken.

  Sandra: I actually hear my grandfather's voice.

  ROB: You've just summarized that for me, OK? What is he saying?

  Sandra: He's talking about dogs.

  ROB: You've summarized what he's talking about. Absolutely drop into the center of the conversation and let me hear a fragment of what he's saying.

  Sandra: "Sheila's a beautiful bitch."

  ROB: Good, very nice.

  Sandra: "Sheila."

  ROB: All right. Let your grandfather look in your direction. Tell me what you see and how you see him and what you see him do.

  Sandra: He has the razor in his hand.

  ROB: That's generalized for me. If that's the sentence, how is he holding it? Give me all the details.

  Sandra: He has it pointed out. He's holding his forefinger to the back of the blade, balancing it, holding it very delicately. He's such a big man, he has such a big hand. He's holding the razor very gently and delicately.

  ROB: OK, now those are abstractions—gentleness and delicacy. Tell me in the moment through the senses what you are seeing there that you have abstracted as delicate.

  Sandra: Lightly. It's a kind of a shape of the hand.

  ROB: What shape? How are the fingers arranged?

  Sandra: The forefinger's out in front of the blade.

  ROB: Where's the pinkie?

  Sandra: It's balancing the very end of the razor.

  ROB: Let his face turn to you. Let me see his face in the moment.

  Sandra: He is not surprised to see me.

  ROB: OK, you have just analyzed his face. He's not surprised to see you. We're not seeing a not-there; what are we seeing?

  Sandra: He's looking as though he was expecting me to walk in.

  ROB: You just analyzed it again. What do you read in the face? Because the little girl standing there perhaps rightly analyzes the look on his face, but what is it that's on the face she sees that leads her to that analysis? That's what we're after.

  Sandra: That's abstraction?

  ROB: That's abstraction. The thwack of that razor on the strop tells me that you have a very fine sense memory and also that you should drop into "She was a beautiful bitch" as the first words out of his mouth. Those are fine, striking moments, Sandra. Now what you need to do is turn that same faculty to this face.

  Sandra: He seems to gaze at me with a very level expression. His expression hardly seems to change.

  ROB: OK. From what?

/>   Sandra: From what I would have expected him to . . .

  ROB: OK, now you're begging the question. What feature on his face are you looking at? Focus on one feature.

  Sandra: His eyes.

  ROB: Tell me about his eyes.

  Sandra: He's gazing.

  ROB: Gazing is a kind of generalized thing, isn't it? There is an infinite variety of gazes. What are those eyes? Look at those eyes and let me see precisely what they are.

  Sandra: They're blue.

  ROB: Blue like what?

  Sandra: Actually like a steely kind of blue-gray.

  ROB: What do you smell?

  Sandra: Tobacco.

  ROB: What's that like? There are a lot of different kinds of tobacco. How do you experience that smell?

  Sandra: I associate that with men.

  ROB: Yeah, that's kind of generalizing for me now. There's a lot of different modulations of tobacco smell and they come to you in various ways. So let me smell that specific tobacco smell.

  Sandra: It's sweet. And dark.

  ROB: Sweet and dark. That's good. What part of your body does it make you conscious of? Where does it impact your body?

  Sandra: In the stomach. It seems to go straight down into me when I smell it.

  ROB: Good! OK, thank you Sandra. [Applause and much laughter.] It's very difficult. But so is writing literary fiction. And, you know, you must place these demands on yourself to be in the moment and through the senses. All the time, in everything you write in your fiction, this must be the standard mode of discourse unless and until the organic object not only allows but demands, from deep, resonant, dream-driven places, that the mode of discourse in a particular passage vary into other modes. What I'm trying to get you to do—though the details will be organically driven, as they are not now; and though the details will have yearning as their center of gravity or engine, as they do not now—nevertheless, that moment-to-moment sensual flow is your normal mode of speaking in literary fiction. As hard as it is. If you think this is hard, where you're free to make up anything, what if your choices are circumscribed by all the other detailed choices you've already made? See, this is what you're buying into, folks, coming to this university and wanting to be an artist.

  ROB: Mary Jane is going to do hers now. OK, Mary Jane and everyone else, get into your space. I think I'd like to take you into the corridor approaching the room where you must identify your father. So take a moment and get yourself there; and pick me up in the corridor, in the moment and through the senses, very close to coming into his presence. [She does not respond.] All right, let's put you just inside the door. You have just opened the door to the room where he's been held. Place yourself in the room.

  Mary Jane: I'm standing in a door frame looking into a room that is completely black.

  ROB: You've summarized that to a fair degree. Let's put you in that door frame and I want you literally to be the camera's eye. Look off to your extreme left, because there's a little sound. Something draws your attention. Or a bit of light to the left. You focus on that, and then swing your eye moment-to-moment back to wherever your father is.

  Mary Jane: It's like looking into a cave.

  ROB: OK, you understand the problem with that? Yeah. Let's see something. And if you've got to put a little more light in this room, do so. Let's just take that last step into the room; give me that motion and then stop yourself and then your eyes fall on one thing.

  Mary Jane: I step into the room. I can feel my brother right behind me.

  ROB: How? Let's do this: let's put you in that door frame again. I want you to take a moment and be in your body there. Now, tell me about how you know your brother is behind you. How do you feel him? Where do you feel him?

  Mary Jane: I have a sense of his presence over my shoulder. [She laughs.]

  ROB: What is that sense?

  Mary Jane: Maybe it's a smell.

  ROB: Maybe it is. Let's go back into your body there, OK? And just wait upon it. You don't have to rush answers.

  Just get into your body and stay in that doorway and if that room in front of you is dark, tell me where on your body you feel the darkness.

  Mary Jane: In the center of my chest.

  ROB: Tell me where in your body you sense your brother. Wait for it.

  Mary Jane: Behind my shoulders.

  ROB: Yes, but what part of your shoulders and what is the feeling on your shoulders?

  Mary Jane: A sensation of warmth.

  ROB: Is there really? Are your shoulders bare?

  Mary Jane: It's March.

  ROB: Don't try to remember, OK? In this moment that you're inventing now, imagine it.

  Mary Jane: Yes, because I'm wearing a sundress. In front, it's very cold. There's a patch of warmth.

  ROB: That's good. See where your father is now.

  Mary Jane: There's a spot of light in the room, almost like it's been ...

  ROB: Where is it first, before you tell me what it's like.

  Mary Jane: It's shining intensely on his head and illuminating the casket that he's lying in.

  ROB: You're generalizing now. OK, a spot of light comes from where to where? It falls from point A to point B, and in point B what do you see in full detail? Give me that in a few sentences.

  Mary Jane: Where it falls from?

  ROB: I just want you to see it and tell me what you see, because there is a sense of that light moving from a place to a place, isn't there? The source of light is one place—I want your eyes to go first to the bright light above, and then follow it and see something.

  Mary Jane: On his face. His face is an odd ash gray color and the shape of his face is not . . . there's a twist to his jaw and his mouth that doesn't look anything like him.

  ROB: You've analyzed the twist of his jaw. Let me see the twist of his jaw right now.

  Mary Jane: The twist of his jaw, his mouth, it looks as if someone had cupped their hand around his jaw and pushed up.

  ROB: OK. I want you to have a flash of memory in this moment. You see that face flash to something, some memory of that face.

  Mary Jane: Well, in the moment that he died, his jaw fell open.

  ROB: OK, you've just summarized that. Go from a specific, in-the-moment, concrete, sensual encounter with the face before you in the funeral home to a specific in-the-moment encounter with that other moment. I know this is tough stuff. It's tough for you personally, and the sense impressions we're getting at are very challenging in themselves, but so are they always, when you do them right. So let's back up: clear your consciousness. One more time, evoke the face in the funeral home, and then evoke the face that you saw in the moments before his death. Don't try to remember what you said; I want you to see it afresh and just be there with it. I want to get both faces from you in the same flow.

  Mary Jane: His chin and his lips and his nose looked as if someone had grabbed ahold and shoved them into a mask. The face that I remember from the moment of his death is soft.

  ROB: Soft where?

  Mary Jane: The chin was elastic. There was still mobility .. .

  ROB: You're analyzing and generalizing here. Let's just look at something on his face. Let's look into his eyes before he dies; look into his eyes.

  Mary Jane: His eyes are almost completely closed. There's some movement in the lids, a little water.

  ROB: Look at his mouth. What's his mouth doing?

  Mary Jane: His mouth is partially open.

  ROB: Partially, what does that mean?

  Mary Jane: Half open.

  ROB: Do you see his teeth, his tongue ? What do you see ?

  Mary Jane: You see his tongue. You see his lower teeth.

  ROB: What are they like?

  Mary Jane: They're yellow.

  ROB: Yellow like what?

  Mary Jane: Like old piano keys.

  ROB: What do you smell?

  Mary Jane: Room freshener.

  ROB: OK, but what's that smell?

  Mary Jane: Flowery.

&n
bsp; ROB: Flowery, like what?

  Mary Jane: Flowery, like jasmine. In bloom.

  ROB: I can't buy that one. It's trying to smell like jasmine in bloom. What's it really smell like?

  Mary Jane: Actually, the flowery jasmine room freshener is not doing a very good job of covering up . . .

  ROB: You don't have to analyze it. There is that smell but layered under it is . . .

  Mary Jane: The smell of old sweat and intense concentrated urine smell.

  ROB: All right, that's fine. Thank you, Mary Jane.

  It's tough. When you focus on this detail and that— his mouth, a smell. We had some nice things there. It's easy to get spooked doing this; very quickly you become conscious of how difficult and demanding it is, and then often your response to that stress is to start forcing it, willing it. The voice in your head that I talked about a few weeks ago starts going, "Oh, that's not good enough. This isn't working, is it? Better turn it up a notch." And then it falls apart.

  But look, it's this way for everybody. Janet and I struggle with the same things every day. We fight off those impulses to will this, to analyze and describe it with technique. We get the same kind of panicky feeling when it's not quite there. You just have to learn to let it go, to stay loose with it.

  Even if we're not fighting off serious emotion, this is still tough, isn't it? Just moving through space in the moment is very tough, it really is—but necessary, as I hope you're convinced. All right, Brandy, do you want to do it? Let's put you on the seesaw. Things are going OK. Let's do an up and down. Can we do that in the moment?

  Brandy: The air is hot against the back of my neck as it blows my hair up as I go down.

  ROB: You're at the top. Let's do a slow motion, and you're about to go down. Let's start you there. Put us on that seat of the seesaw with you and bring us down. So, you are sitting where?