How do authors approach writing a book-length piece, whether fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir? As he continues tackling his work-in-progress novel, host Ben Hess explores varying approaches to structure, character development, and plot with debut novelist Elizabeth Marro (Casualties) and GrubStreet National Book Prize Winner Josh Weil (The Great Glass Sea). He also includes another perspective on structure from award-winning writer and teacher Pam Houston that was first broadcast in Episode 001.
Links:
- Elizabeth Marro - http://elizabethmarro.com
- Josh Weil - http://www.joshweil.com/
- Pam Houston - https://pamhouston.wordpress.com/
- Episode Sponsor: Talking Book - http://talkingbook.pub
- Produced & Hosted By: Ben Hess - http://ben-hess.com
- Season Partner: Writing by Writers - http://writingxwriters.org
Election Year Lit Selection: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Episode 010 - What's Your Scaffolding?
Outdoor sounds - water of a fountain, car traffic in background. It starts to fade then ..
Ben Hess
Given you started the novel, the first draft I guess, in 2004ish / 2003ish, how many iterations did you feel like you went through, give or take?
Betsy Marro
If I showed you all the versions of this thing you would gag. [laugh].
[theme music kicks in]
Ben
Welcome to Story Geometry, the podcast on the craft and community of writing, I’m your host Ben Hess, and that’s Elizabeth Marro who has just released her debut novel, Casualties.
Betsy
I added them all up, and we’re talking over a thousand pages, you know pages actually written and tossed and kept. I mean we’re in the thousands.
Ben
In the thousands! Yeesh. Each episode I choose a theinsights from award-winning writers and teachers as well as newer scribes. Here we are, Episode 10 - hitting double digits - with What’s Your Scaffolding?
Yes, we’re exploring structure in this episode, with a nod toward longer form fiction and creative nonfiction. You’ll hear much more from Elizabeth - who goes by Betsy - on her 12 year journey as Casualties went from idea through many, many, MANY drafts and ultimately to publication. Final page count is 358 by the way, well down from her 1000 plus. We’ve got key insights on structure from the Sue Kaufman Prize winner for First Fiction, Josh Weil. Josh is the author of short story collection New Valley and the novel The Great Glass Sea, and we’ll hear about a different approach from award-winning writer and teacher Pam Houston. Josh Weil How do you get from this initial thing into a story? Ben Here’s Josh Weil. Josh When I say OK here’s this theme I want to deal with, here’s this guy I want to figure out, here’s this event that’s going to set something in motion, what’s going to be the way the story unfolds then? Ben After Josh tackles these questions, they’ll be a discussion about literature and politics and the intersection of the two. I kicked off this Election Year Lit segment in Episode 9 reading an excerpt from Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath which topped the bestseller list in 1940. All of this is brought to you by my literary partner in crime, the nonprofit workshop series Writing by Writers, and our sponsor Talking Book, the independent audio book publisher, so stay with us. [theme music punch, then fade] Josh What craft means … what it really means to me is tools Ben Again, here’s Josh Weil. He spoke at Writing by Writers Manuscript Bootcamp in glorious Tomales Bay, 90 minutes north of San Francisco. Josh … and being able to use tools in order to transfer that inspirational feeling you might get or the thing that leads you into a story and the great kind’ve trick and frustrating thing that I’m trying to do is get how I feel on to the page in a way that can transfer to the reader. [So] for me craft is about tools that help us get there. And one of the most important tools for me is an outline. So I thought I’d talk about outlining um I want to do that for a couple reasons. One, I suspect it’ll piss Pam off. [huge laugh] Ben As you probably know, Writing by Writers co-founder Pam Houston is NOT a fan of outlines. Her view of story just doesn’t support that approach. Here she is from Episode 1: Pam Houston For me stories are really physical things, you know, they have a shape, they have a depth, they are really 3D in my mind when I’m writing them. I think of geometric figures in relation to the story to help me understand the story structure. Sometimes the structures are more complicated; and sometimes it’s quite simple like I think about stories as like two intersecting triangles or a rhombus or um, uh, a parallelogram. I think of geometric figures in relation to the story to help me understand the story structure. Sometimes the structures are more complicated; and sometimes it’s quite simple like I think about stories as like two intersecting triangles or a rhombus or um, uh, a parallelogram. Ben And yes, this approach led us to the podcast name Story Geometry! But, on the other hand, here’s more from Josh: Josh If I know the bones of the story, if I have the scaffolding there then it gives me the freedom not to worry about the purpose of what I’m doing on the page in the moment and instead let the characters do shit. Ben As I’ve floundered off and on with my novel, this makes sense to me. It has a logic to it. But then, here’s more from Pam: Pam I don’t ever think about plot. I don’t even really ever think about characters until many revisions down the road, you know, I’m thinking about form, I’m thinking about what is the shape of the story, if this story were a sculpture what would it look like, what would its geometry be. Ben With these two divergent approaches toward the process, here’s more from Betsy Marro. We chatted in a gorgeous park, near the Pacific Coast Highway, just south of Los Angeles. Betsy I was interviewed on the radio last week … she said, do you bang out a draft, do you barrel through it then go back and fix it? And I said no, there’s been no barrelling. [laugh] No barrelling for me. Ben To that point, for the next one since you’re working on one, either the short story collection or the novel, would you outline or would you … Betsy I’ve started to. I’m trying to. And outline isn’t really what I’m going for. What I’m trying to go for is, ‘what is this story about for me.’ Know enough about it going in and see what structure ... Outline it? Yes and no. I think once I have my people, to me I have to say, when in doubt, I goto the characters. At the end of the day I’m a character driven person. People and their weirdnesses and what makes them tick, that’s the thing that makes be excited about writing. That and place. [laugh] Ben So we’ve got varying approaches to consider from Josh, Pam, and Betsy, all yielding complex, powerful, character driven stories. Josh wrote 4 novel length things - his description, not mine - before getting his MFA. None of those 4 were published. But he continued to hone his approach to the craft, using organic outlines - again his term, not mine - and started winning short fiction contests and getting published. Betsy, on the other hand, doesn’t have a MFA. In fact, she told me writing Casualties was, in essence, her MFA. And she writes organically, letting in depth character research dictate their actions and subsequent plot. In fact, Josh spoke about both of these paths when we sat down for an interview after his talk: Josh Some writers will go through that entire growth process on one novel and they're going to spend ten years working on that novel and revising it and reimagining it and that's just the book they have to write and that's a fine approach too. On the other hand you know I have a novella that I wrote that is 150 pages. Some people think about it as being a short novel, I wrote it in three weeks and then didn't change it that much afterwards you know so it really depends on the project and where you are as a writer too. Ben Before exploring story scaffolding further and since we’ll be talking about it in more detail, I want to give you a taste of Betsy’s novel. She’s going to read a short excerpt and has graciously provided the text as well, which I’ve placed inside this episode’s transcript. So you can read along as you wish - and of course, click the link to purchase Casualties too - all on StoryGeometry.org. Here’s Betsy: Betsy I’ll set this up a little bit, I’m going to read from the first chapter, and it’s where Ruth, my lead character, who is a single mother and defense executive, with big plans for her 19 year old son who’s been in the house a little too long. She’s meeting him later that day, after his birthday. He’s late, supposed to have been there the night before but he spent the weekend in the desert and he he’s just rolling in as she’s rolling out to work. And she’s a little impatient. BETSY MARRO from Casualties Ruth thinks of the garage where he works part time, fixing dirt bikes, motorcycles, and those tricycles his friends race in the desert. Then she sees her brother back in New Hampshire, head always stuck under the hood of a truck or car, or half-buried in the engine of someone’s farm machine. He’d given up on himself without even trying. She wasn’t going to let that happen to Robbie. “I’m talking about a career. It’s not too late. You can find something that—” “I’m starved. What’s in the fridge?” Robbie grabs the door of the refrigerator. “Don’t turn your back on me. We’re going to get this settled. Now.” He swings around to face her. “I was going to save my news for later, but I might as well tell you now.” Ruth doesn’t want to hear; she’s heard it all before. “You need a real job. With a real future.” They’ve both heard this before too. She pauses, searching for words that are new, that will penetrate. “That’s what my news is all about Ruthie.” Ruth feels her jaw cramp with the effort of biting back a sarcastic What now? Maybe he’s gotten that girl, his boss’s daughter, pregnant. He’s going to spend the rest of his life getting tattoos and living for weekends in the blazing sun with beer, engines, and a couple of kids. He’s going to let his mind, that alive, curious mind she’d once been so proud of, go to waste. Is he trying to spite her by hurting himself? Ruth’s train of thought is rumbling so loud and fast she doesn’t realize at first that Robbie is still speaking. “What did you say?” Robbie’s chin still juts out as though he’s expecting trouble, but he is searching her face the way he used to when he was a boy and wanted to see if he’d pleased her. He starts over, speaking slowly, deliberately, as if each word is loaded with explosives and must be uttered with care. “I said I decided to work for Uncle Sam. Kinda like you only I joined the Marines. Signed on the dotted line last Friday. A couple months and I’m outta here.” Ruth feels a sudden slipping inside, even though she can’t move. “That’s impossible.” Robbie’s eyes harden and he smirks again. “They want me. A few good men. Guess I’m good enough for once. Besides, there’s a war on—but you know all that, right?” He rubs the tips of his thumb and forefinger together and imitates the sound of a cash register. “Cha-ching.” Ruth grips the edge of the chair in front of her. She wants him to take it all back, the announcement he made so proudly and now his insulting tone that somehow makes her job sound dirty. The military couldn’t run their wars without the civilians she found for them. She helped men and women make money they needed, more than they could ever make doing the same jobs at home. But they were adults, not nineteen-year-old kids. “No!” Robbie shrugs, but his eyes stay focused on hers. “Not your call. For once, I’m doing what I want to do.” I think I’ll stop it there … Ben Fantastic! So many questions for you …. But standby, we’ll get to those questions soon, along with more from Josh Weil, and our Presidential Election Year Lit selection after a brief word from our sponsor, Talking Book ... [music change] TALKING BOOK AD Are you a writer? Do you want your book to morph into strange and beautiful new creatures while you sleep? Talking Book is the independent audiobook publisher and they're making moves right this second ... like publishing the audiobooks Bad Sex by Clancy Martin and Jigsaw Youth by Tiffany Scandal. Go to talkingbook.pub and make something awesome with them. Act now, and I just might come to your house dressed as the ghost of Flannery O'Connor and read you a story. Talking Book: the muscle shoals of audio book publishing. [ad music fades] Ben You’re listening to Story Geometry, Episode 10, today’s theme, What’s Your Scaffolding? With all the writers and teachers I’ve had the opportunity to meet and talk to, I’m always curious why they write? And why do we choose fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, or screenwriting? Or is it even a choice? Again, here’s Betsy Marro. Besty I’d been a writer since um my early, early days. I was a journalism major and english major in college and then anything I did in business required a huge amount of writing. But the writing of the novel, that I had to learn. Ben A different beast … Betsy A different beast. I had read, I understood fiction from, from a literature major’s perspective, from a reading perspective, but to actually sit down and write it was another whole experience. … the more I wrote, the more I realized I didn’t know how to write. Or I didn’t trust I knew how to write. I knew I was learning it. I knew I was coming, I knew I could write, there was just so much more to know. Ben And Betsy wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote Ruth’s story and Robbie’s story. Without a clear picture of where she was going, without the novel’s foundation or its trellis or scaffolding. Betsy There were a bunch of iterations between 2004 and say 2006 or 07 or something. Then a big change. Then a bunch of throwing out, then in 2009 I had what I thought was still a pretty big book, and I threw out 600 pages. And I ended up with 150 pages of disconnected scenes. This is very interesting for anyone who's talking through things from a structural standpoint, I spotted something. I sort’ve violated some rules with the structure of my book I think. [BH - Yes.] I um don’t bring in a major character until halfway through the book. [BH - Page 145 or so, yeah]. I know, and um … Ben Given the 600 pages you cut and all the evolutions you’ve gone through when did you hit on this structure that you ended up with? Betsy Well that’s interesting because Casey - that character who comes in halfway through the book - used to appear a lot closer to the front. I used to have 3 or 4 chapters, and then Casey. You know the first three chapters were Ruth, then Casey, then it was going to go back and forth. And I’d largely handled Robbie through flashbacks. And um, but there was a remoteness to Robbie that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. And I’m going to credit … I can’t blame the structure on my father but what he did say to me, we were driving up to see his sister in Vermont. I didn’t think he’d finished the last draft I’d given him, and he said ‘Oh no I finished it.” And I said, “oh yeah?” And he was real quiet for a minute and said, “You know, it just seemed weird not to meet Robbie. I really needed … I wanted to see him, I wanted to understand him .. he’s the reason a lot of this story happens. And I felt cheated, I didn’t feel like I got a sense of him. Just through the way you’ve done it.” … So so just as an experiment, I wrote the Robbie chapters which are now at the beginning of the book. You know really the book was going to be, when I did the major revision in 2009 and lost 600 pages, it was going to be entirely a journey story. The roadtrip was going to be the spine of the story. And it turned out not to be spine but the lower half of the back. [laugh] I would say that I like structure. I like playing by the rules … I think they help you. [laugh] So I’m, I’m very happy with this next one to try to do that a little bit more. We’ll hopefully see how that goes, you know. Ben Indeed! I am confident Betsy will launch her next book in say 2020 so cutting her cycle by two thirds. Meanwhile, Josh Weil came to fiction both as an avid reader and also as a filmmaker. Josh I come to writing in a roundabout route as a director. My undergraduate training was in film school, and I studied directing theater a lot, and when the writing is really singing for me, when it’s going really well, it feels like I’m a director directing actors, the characters. And they have … I’ve kind’ve set out a corral of what is acceptable for the scene, you know, how the scene is going to work, what it needs to accomplish, then I just let’em go to it. Ben I love this reference to our characters as actors on stage or on set. Josh Even Stephen King - I was looking up writers who might support my idea - and I thought surely Stephen King would support the outline. And it turns out, he doesn’t. [light laughter] Uh, it turns out he believes the plotting and spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible with an outline and that stories make themselves, and the writer’s job is to give them a place to grow. I actually agree with that I just think the place to grow for me is the trellis of this outline. Same thing with Ishiguro. Ben Josh is referring to Kazuo Ishiguro, four-time Man Book Prize nominee and winner for Remains of the Day. Josh He says he spends two years researching before writing. He complies notes and flowcharts that layout both plot and character’s emotions and memories. he says, “the preparation gives my narrators the opportunity to suppress meaning and evade me. Especially when they say one one thing and mean something else.” And that can be very important to know kind’ve what is at heart, what is coming in the story, what are the characters deepest concerns of the characters so that they can not talk about it. Margaret Atwood starts to feel the story’s staking shape … Ben Just confirming, Atwood wrote The Edible Women, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the recent dystopian MaddAddam trilogy. Josh … she prints out chapters, she arranges them in piles on the floor, plays with the order by moving the piles around. For me I kind’ve see all that as outlining, it’s just different ways of going about it. I spend you know a year or more writing ideas out in a notebook.And then when I’m ready to start … before I start actually writing the piece I collect all those ideas for scenes, the scenes that are most exciting to me, the conflicts that seem most important to the work, and I write them out in paragraphs. Ben And it’s these paragraphs of scenes that form Josh’s scaffolding. And as he actually writes - one of these foundational paragraphs could bloom into 10 or 20 pages - he’s constantly making more notes on the outline, revising direction, moving things around. So it’s alive, it’s organic. Josh And I should say, partly why I feel so strongly about this - and again, I have to stress, this is the way that I write, not for a minute saying that everybody should do this, but I value a first draft tremendously which is a dangerous thing to do because it puts a lot of pressure on the a first draft. Sometimes that stymies me, it takes me a month to get going because I don’t want to get going in a way that’s on the wrong path. But I do feel, for me at least, there is a certain freshness and honesty and newness and truth that comes out of a first draft that is not … my editor hat is not yet on. And I don’t want to lose that. So that’s why I feel such a need to outline so that I can lose as little as possible in that first draft. Ben In honor of the Election 2016 circus and in the spirit of unconventional structure, I’m going close today’s episode with a contemporary work for our Presidential Election Year Lit series. With immigration one of several key themes this election cycle, I’m featuring a contemporary literary immigrant, Dominican American Junot Diaz whose novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. In an interview with British publisher Faber & Faber, Diaz says, quoting here, “in Oscar Wao, for all its historical stuff, all its nerd stuff, the entire book is about a family trying to find love.” Which I found moving and bold. This from an immigrant who quote “faced a tremendous amount of racism and bigotry. Not just from white Americans, but from black Americans and Latinos.” For those interested in hearing Diaz, there are several clips of him reading from Oscar Wao on YouTube. Don’t you just wonder what literature will spawn from this bizarre, vitriolic Election cycle of 2016? What recommendations do you have for a future installment of Election Year Lit? Hit me up on social media or hello@storygeometry.org. Special thanks to Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Marro, Josh Weil, and Pam Houston for their thoughts on structure. I’m your host and editor, @BenHess on Twitter and Instagram and we’re Story Geometry on Facebook and Twitter. Mark those calendars for future episodes arriving like a foil wrapped easter egg the last Monday of each month throughout 2016. Don’t forget to visit today’s sponsor Talking Book dot pub to create your very own audiobook. Our theme music is from Mark Hodgkin and additional tracks are from Greg Glazner’s band, The Responders. Be sure to rate and review Story Geometry in iTunes, send feedback via StoryGeometry.org, and sign up for future Writing By Writers events and conferences at Writing X Writers dot org. And in closing, for those of us a little farther along the roller coaster of life, Betsy Marro: Betsy I’m not as unique as I thought in that category. There are people out there writing all the time and at all ages and doing amazing things. Usually 50, not closer to 60. [laugh] Really what makes it harder are the stories you tell yourself. Yeah the competition’s always there, just look around at all the writers that are out there.You know, age at the point, hasn’t got a whole lot to do with it. Ben More words of wisdom next time on Story Geometry, thanks for listening!