Forms of Devotion

by Diane Schoemperlen

  He tries to imagine wrestling the bear to the ground with his bare hands. He tries to imagine slitting the bear’s roaring throat with the knife he tries to imagine he has in his belt. John has neither the knife nor the courage.

  John turns and runs back to camp. For a few minutes he can hear the bear charging through the woods behind him. He imagines being eaten alive one piece at a time. The noises behind him subside and then cease altogether but John keeps running as fast as he can until he reaches the other hunters. He leaps upon the first sleeping bag he sees and hangs on tight. Soon the hunters decide to go home.

  Back at home safe and sound, John tells Mary the story of the bear. He shows her the scratch on his right cheek which he says he got when the bear reached out with her giant paw and touched his face, gently, so gendy, it was like a caress. In fact, he got the scratch when he was running and a tree branch smacked him in the face. Either way, Mary is not sympathetic. She says it serves him right for hunting. However, she does get out the Band-Aids and the iodine. John tries not to flinch as she cleans the scratch. They have pizza for supper and Mary does not sleep on the couch.

  Obviously this scene reveals not only something about nature and bears, but a great deal about John and Mary as well. It is not necessary to state these revelations directly. The reader may resent being hit over the head. In serious fiction, you are supposed to be subtle.

  Inner torment is an essential ingredient in a serious novel. The reader will relate well to a character who has emotional problems, who sometimes does not know what she wants, who senses that something is missing from her life but cannot put her finger on exactly what.

  Mary has everything a woman could want. She is married to the only man she has ever loved. He loves her as much as she loves him. He is a good provider. He is not physically, verbally, or emotionally abusive. He never forgets to bring her flowers on their anniversary. He never forgets to take out the garbage, hang up the wet towels, or put his dirty socks in the hamper. He vacuums without being asked. They live in a bright, spacious suburban home on a quiet, safe cul-de-sac. They are not wealthy but they are comfortable. They both enjoy their jobs. Their children are healthy, smart, and well-behaved. Mary is a good cook and pursues many hobbies including knitting, stamp collecting, and bowling. John loves golf, swimming, and woodworking. John is a good lover and Mary is often multiorgasmic. Mary has never had a broken heart or any broken bones. Her children do not have allergies or learning disabilities. John does not have high cholesterol or a family history of heart disease. Mary does not suffer from migraine headaches or excessive menstrual pain. Her friends envy her. They say she is leading a charmed life.

  Mary knows her friends are right. But still…but still…

  Mary knows she is not as happy as she should be. Sometimes she feels frustrated, dissatisfied, unfulfilled, empty, and bored. Sometimes she gets tired of giving, caring, looking after; tired of wiping counters, tables, noses, and bums; tired of washing clothes, floors, dishes, and her children’s hair. Sometimes she even gets tired of washing her own hair. Sometimes she resents always having to be reasonable, reliable, and responsible.

  Mary feels the kettle of discontent bubbling inside her. Sometimes she wishes she had become an acrobat instead of the perfect wife and mother. She imagines a skimpy gold outfit with sequins, a thrilling drumroll, the whole crowd holding its breath while she performs death-defying acts before them. She imagines herself afterward, triumphant, riding round the ring on a noble white stallion. The horse’s mane and her long blond hair are flowing in the wind. The crowd, roaring, throws flowers and kisses.

  Or else maybe Mary wishes she had become an artist. She could have lived in a garret, worn outlandish clothing, and gone to scintillating bo-hemian parties. She could have taken courses, cruises, lovers of either sex. She imagines her whole head swollen with creativity. After she got famous, her paintings would be hung in exclusive galleries and her openings would be attended by famous people from all over the world.

  Now Mary, in her real life, feels trapped. Mary knows that cul-de-sac is just a fancy way of saying dead end.

  In fiction, as in real life, most people want their lives to amount to something even if they’re not sure what.

  Any minute now the whistle on that kettle of discontent is going to blow. Mary is going to either break out of her own life or get up and make herself a pot of tea.

  In a serious novel, such internal machinations may be examined at great length. The more complex the problems, the better the story. Investigate the fears and neuroses of your characters. Make Mary have an anxiety attack in the lingerie shop at the mall. Put John through a midlife crisis. Make Mary afraid of spiders, chickens, horses, fish, tall blond men with beards. Make John impotent. If you are not especially familiar with fears, phobias, neuroses, or impotence, borrow many library books on these subjects. This is called research. If the librarian gives you a funny look, tell her you’re writing a book.

  John and Mary, of course, will both have many memories which occasionally surface within the context of their current lives. In fiction these are called flashbacks. Generally speaking, their function is to give your story history and depth. They help the reader understand how John and Mary came to be who they are today.

  In fiction, as in real life, a flashback may be triggered by any little thing:

  The look of a fried egg on a blue plate, a black umbrella dripping in the vestibule, an old woman in a babushka weeding her garden. The sound of a shovel on pavement after a snowstorm, a song on the radio at the hairdresser’s, tires squealing in the night. The smell of shampoo on a strange woman in a crowded elevator, a cigarette lit outside in the winter at night, a woolen jacket in the rain. The feel of a child’s hand on your arm, a fat cat in your lap, a silk scarf against your cheek. The taste of an orange, a pomegranate, bitter chocolate, sweet potatoes, the pink eraser on the end of a pencil.

  Any one of these things may lead your character back through the doorway of time. The reader will go along gladly into the labyrinth of the past.

  In fiction, time is of the essence. In a serious novel, the strings connecting the past, the present, and the future are explicit and articulate. It is only in real life that you may well hang yourself on those same sticky strands. Your readers will likely feel much more comfortable in John’s and Mary’s past lives than they do in their own.

  In fiction, time is finite. Consider how much time your novel will cover: a day, a week, a month, a year, two years, ten, one hundred? All stories must start and end somewhere. The same can be said of individual lives, although not necessarily of time itself. In fiction, as opposed to real life, you control time. It does not control you.

  Whenever possible, try to work the dreams of John and Mary into your story. This will elevate your novel above the mundane preoccupations of reality, while handily introducing elements of surrealism, spirituality, and the arcane. For many people, dreams may well be the only remaining indication that there is more to ordinary life than meets the ordinary eye.

  Make John dream about turnips, dandelions, an alligator, an accordion, a windmill, and the Shroud of Turin. Make Mary dream about grasshoppers, rhubarb, laundry, an umbrella, a rhinoceros, and a flock of angels descending from heaven and landing in her own backyard.

  Give them dreams with music in the background like movies, dreams unrolling like ribbons or a highway, dreams with the smell of cinnamon, sulfur, or gasoline. Give them dreams in which the ordinary continua of space, time, identity, gender, and substance are toppled like towers of wooden alphabet blocks. Give them dreams in which nothing may be taken for granted.

  Start dreaming about John and Mary. Say their names out loud in your sleep. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, John and Mary will dream about you.

  Constructing fictional dreams is trickier than you might imagine. The vocabulary of the dream world bears little resemblance to the common language and landscape of wakefulness. If you find that you cannot make up a convincing drea
m, then use your own. Put them in the book for safekeeping. Press them between the pages like autumn maple leaves and years later, when you open the book, they will fall into your lap, surprising small wonders, cryptic leaps of faith.

  Whether you are writing about the dream world or the waking world, remember to use concrete language. Be specific. Give all objects the dignity of their names. You owe them that much at least.

  Avoid vague, limp words like good, bad, pretty, and nice. Especially be careful around the word nice. There is little or no place in a serious novel for a nice man and a nice woman having a nice picnic on a nice day. Even if you say the woman is pretty, the man is good, and the bugs are bad, it is still not enough. You can do better than that.

  Especially avoid the use of clichés. If you are going to use metaphors and similes in your novel (of course you are—everybody does), you must search for more original comparisons.

  The best way to accomplish this is to lie down in a quiet darkened room and free your mind from the prison of everyday thinking. Forget about the dishes that need doing, the dog that needs walking, the lawn that needs mowing, and your family that needs feeding again and again. Concentrate. Push away the obvious choices, the easy answers.Dispense with women who are pretty as pictures, with lips like cherries, eyes like diamonds, and skin as white as snow. Dispense with men who are sly as foxes, strong as bulls, quick as whips, thick as bricks, or as slow as molasses in January. Dispense entirely with all of these ideas which are as old as the hills. Instead, train your mind to float away to a higher plane where all thoughts are made new again.

  In order to get to the heart of the matter, you must forget all about hearts that look like valentines and pound like hammers.

  Go to the place where John’s heart is like a piece of celery: crispy, juicy, a pale green stick run through with strings upon which Mary will choke if she’s not careful. Go to the place where Mary’s heart is like a purse, a soft leather bag in which she carries a jumble of small but vital necessities. When she doesn’t need it, she hangs it from the bedroom doorknob.

  Go to the place where love has nothing to do with hearts, flowers, violins, chocolates, or weddings. Go to the place where love is like charcoal, apricots, a helicopter, peppermints, the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, a bucket of blood under the bed. This is the place where good writing comes from.

  Learn to love language. It, after all, is both the tool and the raw material with which you must work. It, fortunately, turns out to be a renewable resource. Make a list of all the words you love and then use them. Words like: simulacrum, erstwhile, luscious, lunatic, ambush, salubrious, sanctuary, breast. Do not neglect the power of verbs: ignite, coddle, holler, galvanize, capitulate, sink, saddle, expire.

  Remember that ordinariness is only in the eye of the beholder. Remember that ordinary does not mean simple or dull. You, as writer, have the power to reveal the extraordinary which lies within (behind, beneath, or beyond) the ordinary. Pay attention to details. Hone your vision. Rekindle the marvel, the innocence, and/or the menace of the mundane. All things have presence. Study the particulars of tables, sidewalks, ceilings, bricks, curtains, crockery, knives. Look out the kitchen window for an hour. See everything. Stare all night at the sky.

  If you look long enough at an ordinary cup of tea, it too will become a figment of your imagination. Remember that kettle of discontent about to boil.

  Describe the clear hot liquid filling the cup, the white steam rising in the kitchen on a bright March Thursday afternoon. Describe the cup: the white bone china so thin it is nearly translucent, the perfect curves of the handle, the delicate pattern of red and gold around the saucer. Describe Mary stirring a spoonful of honey into her tea and then licking the hot spoon. Describe the shape of her lips as she takes the first sweet sip and breathes in the aromatic steam with her eyes closed. Describe the sound of the cup being placed carefully back on the saucer. Then describe the silence.

  Think of everything you know about tea, about cups, about tea in cups. Think about tea leaves and the future.

  Ask yourself why Mary is not at work. She should be standing in front of her Grade Four class right now, teaching them about the solar system, the names of the nine planets in order, the position of the earth in the greater scheme of things. Why is Mary at home? Is she sick? Has she lost her job in the latest round of budget cuts? Has she been fired for insubordination?

  Mary, sipping her tea, has a wistful look on her face. Remember that it is possible to feel wistful about almost anything. It is even possible to feel wistful about pain, especially an old pain caused by great love, great loss.

  After Mary has finished her tea, she rinses the cup and leaves it on the drainboard to dry. Describe the drainboard and the sound of the warm water running into the stainless steel sink. Think about the fact that warm water makes a different sound than cold water.

  Where is John while Mary is having her tea? Mary assumes, correctly, that John is at work. She imagines the train station: the echoing noise of the crowd, all those people crying goodbye and hello, the trains grinding and blowing off steam, the announcements of departures and arrivals, the amplified voice so distorted that no one can understand what is being said but everybody looks up anyway at the high domed ceiling from which the voice seems to emanate.

  Mary imagines John looking up at the giant clock on the station wall: it will soon be time to go home. Does John look forward to coming home? Does John come home because he wants to or because he has to? Mary doesn’t know and has never thought to ask.

  The first thing John does when he gets home is jump in the shower. Mary is studying The Joy of Cooking while rattling pots and pans in the kitchen. She is going to try something new tonight: Chicken Tarragon With Wine. She must disjoint the chicken and then marinate it in a mixture of tarragon, shallots, and dry white wine. She will serve it with rice, broccoli, and a fresh green salad. John, she hopes, will be pleased.

  John comes into the kitchen. He is wearing a pair of baggy gray sweatpants with a hole in the crotch. He is drying his hair with a thick pink towel. He says, “What’s for dinner, dear?”

  Mary’s mind for a minute goes blank. What is she making? What does tarragon taste like? How do you disjoint a chicken? Who is this man in her kitchen wanting to know what’s for dinner, this half-naked man calling her “dear”? Mary stares at John as if she’s never seen him before. She stares at the sparse hair on his chest, the muscles in his arms as he rubs the pink towel all over his head.

  Mary looks down at John’s bare feet on the green linoleum. They are still pink from the shower. His toes are pudgy and his toenails are very small. His baby toes curl inward like plump pink snails.

  Mary stares at John’s bare feet until she understands.

  Suddenly Mary knows everything there is to know about this man in her kitchen and, for this brief moment, she can see the future in his feet as if they were a crystal ball. This is called an epiphany. It is not clear from the look on Mary’s face whether she is disgusted, disappointed, or relieved.

  John says, “What’s wrong?”

  Mary says, “Nothing. Chicken Tarragon With Wine. We’re having Chicken Tarragon With Wine.”

  John says, “Boy, that sure sounds good,” and then their lives continue.

  Describe the kitchen, the sky outside darkening slowly, the smell of tarragon filling the room. John closes the blinds and sets the table. Describe the blinds, the place mats, the dishes. Mary makes John put on a shirt before they sit down to eat. Describe the shirt. John says the Chicken Tarragon With Wine is delicious. After dinner, they rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Then they go into the living room to watch a little TV. It’s Thursday. They will watch Seinfeld and laugh out loud. Maybe the phone will ring. Notice that John’s bare feet make little sticking sounds on the floor as they go down the hall to the bedroom after the news. Take this opportunity to speculate at length as to the nature of love.

  Take this opportunity to flex
your recently pumped-up metaphor muscles. Think about love as a hot air balloon. Once the lovers have boarded this magical contraption, they will be transported far beyond the reach of the ordinary world. Imagine the earth receding, all of its anger, ambition, and misery reduced to minuscule dots and lines below.

  Imagine the breathtaking view. But maybe the balloon will collapse and one or both of the lovers will be forced to parachute back to earth. Don’t forget how easy it is to burst a balloon. Don’t forget that a person who is full of hot air is not someone you should trust your life to.

  Remember that love is blind. This is what you know.

  Remember that this all started with an ordinary cup of tea. Look at how far your story has traveled from there. Ask yourself where it will go from here. Remember that as your novel unfolds, you must always strive to create tension and suspense. This is what keeps the reader turning the pages, always wanting to know what happens next. Suspense in a serious novel does not mean car chases, killer tomatoes, or a serial killer on the loose. It is also probably better to avoid aliens, UFOs, talking animals, ghosts, and vampires as these elements are seldom appropriate or believable in a serious novel. A murder is okay as long as it is not handled in a spuriously sensational manner.

  The building emotion of your story is what will lead the reader forward. Along the way, feel free to run the reader through the gamut of delight, surprise, disgust, anger, disbelief, sympathy, sorrow, lust, and so on.

  What the action in your novel must build inexorably toward is called the crisis. At this point the various strands of tension and emotion running through your story will come to a head. Although a cataclysmic crisis is more dramatic, it is not absolutely necessary. John and Mary need not end up tearing their own or each other’s hair out. Think about the difference between calamity and cataclysm.