Every writer makes the mistake of writing about death. Grandpa, a cousin, a friend, mom, dad, Tramp or Fluffers. And no one ever cares.
Writing is like the proverbially tree falling in the woods. Does it make a sound if no one's there to listen? The tree does. Writing does not. If writing is not for an audience, then it's meaningless or it's practice for the writer.
So if the writer attempts something that no one is going to care about, then he has wasted his time. The death of someone close to you is not important to a stranger. If we know the writer, we might say, "I'm sorry for your loss," but if we're the audience and have no attachment to the writer or the deceased, we scoff at how sentimental it is.
If you were to believe novice writers, every parent is a hero. Every friend is the greatest we could've asked for. Everyone is liked by everyone. None of that's true. Everyone hates everyone or at least gets annoyed by them. There are shitty friends and shitty parents.
So what do we do as writers when someone has died? We want to honor them and cause the world the same grief we feel (I guess we're cruel when sad). But when written a person becomes a character, neither real nor fake, and so someone who stars in a poem about death has been created to be abused for an emotional response from the reader.
That's not the writer's intent and readers can probably assume which deaths are real and created (as created deaths seem often more touching), but it makes the writing bad. The writing is sentimental, pointed from the beginning stab us in the ass until we cry either in pain or outrage.
So what do we do?
My solution is to not write about such things until we're older. When my grandma died, I had a cold. I drove the five hours to home, thinking "I better not hug grandpa or I'll be back in a month for another funeral." I thought this was morbidly funny. I also thought that when I got back to school, I'd write about the funeral honestly.
I could've too. My family, like most family, is full of kooks, failures and phonies. Everyone arrived and said their "I'm sorry for your loss"-es and "she was a wonderful woman"s, then they move into business talk. How are the kids? What's the procedure for the procession tomorrow? Where should we eat afterwards? My sister had separated from her husband the previous winter and divorced that summer but no one told my grandpa, so he said, "Hey, give Zach my best wishes. I hope to see him come Christmas." My sister smiled and looked to me, my mom, my dad, as her gaping mouth tried to shove out the words but she was too surprised. Finally she told him about the divorce and my grandpa felt awful. His wife had just died and he felt awful for the social faux pas!
When the funeral came the next day (as the previous events happened during the wake), everyone lied during their eulogies and the audience, all affected in the same way as the speakers, bought the lies. However, the audience of writing will not readily gobble up the lies.
Instead, we have to characterize the dead and the affected so well that they seem as alive to the readers as they are to the writer.
I, two time winner of Central College's short story contest and Calliope Prize recipient for creative contributions in literature and creative writing, am not a good enough writer to do that in a poem. I am not good enough to do that in a short story. I struggled to do it in my first novel!
I think about my favorite stories, short ones, novella, novels. Catcher in the Rye, one kid dies but no one cares but the narrator. The Sun Also Rises, no one important dies. Jane Austen's work, no one dies. Charles Dickens, no one I care about dies. Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy" someone dies!
Okay, why do we care that Grover, the narrator brother, dies? Because it's not sentimental! We spend three scenes learning about Grover before he dies. He cries and runs home to his daddy because a candy store owner is mean, he's mature and asks questions to strangers, he treats his sister to a meal with his earnings then pukes it all up and dies. But the narrator didn't know any of this before hand. That adds to the credibility of the story. We are learning about it in detail at the same time as the narrator.
But when Grover dies, there's that little "aww, that's a shame" moment but we're not in tears. And the story continues! The death is the middle! The characterization is the beginning and the death is the middle! That's absolutely epic. Novices end the story when someone dies or when someone breaks down and cries. But Thomas Wolfe stuck the death in the middle! Bravo.
So the end! The narrator, now in his 30s and knowing the story of Grover's death, returns to his childhood home. Someone else is living there and he asks to come in and sees the place and he has this little memory. A tiny memory.
Writing is like the proverbially tree falling in the woods. Does it make a sound if no one's there to listen? The tree does. Writing does not. If writing is not for an audience, then it's meaningless or it's practice for the writer.
So if the writer attempts something that no one is going to care about, then he has wasted his time. The death of someone close to you is not important to a stranger. If we know the writer, we might say, "I'm sorry for your loss," but if we're the audience and have no attachment to the writer or the deceased, we scoff at how sentimental it is.
If you were to believe novice writers, every parent is a hero. Every friend is the greatest we could've asked for. Everyone is liked by everyone. None of that's true. Everyone hates everyone or at least gets annoyed by them. There are shitty friends and shitty parents.
So what do we do as writers when someone has died? We want to honor them and cause the world the same grief we feel (I guess we're cruel when sad). But when written a person becomes a character, neither real nor fake, and so someone who stars in a poem about death has been created to be abused for an emotional response from the reader.
That's not the writer's intent and readers can probably assume which deaths are real and created (as created deaths seem often more touching), but it makes the writing bad. The writing is sentimental, pointed from the beginning stab us in the ass until we cry either in pain or outrage.
So what do we do?
My solution is to not write about such things until we're older. When my grandma died, I had a cold. I drove the five hours to home, thinking "I better not hug grandpa or I'll be back in a month for another funeral." I thought this was morbidly funny. I also thought that when I got back to school, I'd write about the funeral honestly.
I could've too. My family, like most family, is full of kooks, failures and phonies. Everyone arrived and said their "I'm sorry for your loss"-es and "she was a wonderful woman"s, then they move into business talk. How are the kids? What's the procedure for the procession tomorrow? Where should we eat afterwards? My sister had separated from her husband the previous winter and divorced that summer but no one told my grandpa, so he said, "Hey, give Zach my best wishes. I hope to see him come Christmas." My sister smiled and looked to me, my mom, my dad, as her gaping mouth tried to shove out the words but she was too surprised. Finally she told him about the divorce and my grandpa felt awful. His wife had just died and he felt awful for the social faux pas!
When the funeral came the next day (as the previous events happened during the wake), everyone lied during their eulogies and the audience, all affected in the same way as the speakers, bought the lies. However, the audience of writing will not readily gobble up the lies.
Instead, we have to characterize the dead and the affected so well that they seem as alive to the readers as they are to the writer.
I, two time winner of Central College's short story contest and Calliope Prize recipient for creative contributions in literature and creative writing, am not a good enough writer to do that in a poem. I am not good enough to do that in a short story. I struggled to do it in my first novel!
I think about my favorite stories, short ones, novella, novels. Catcher in the Rye, one kid dies but no one cares but the narrator. The Sun Also Rises, no one important dies. Jane Austen's work, no one dies. Charles Dickens, no one I care about dies. Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy" someone dies!
Okay, why do we care that Grover, the narrator brother, dies? Because it's not sentimental! We spend three scenes learning about Grover before he dies. He cries and runs home to his daddy because a candy store owner is mean, he's mature and asks questions to strangers, he treats his sister to a meal with his earnings then pukes it all up and dies. But the narrator didn't know any of this before hand. That adds to the credibility of the story. We are learning about it in detail at the same time as the narrator.
But when Grover dies, there's that little "aww, that's a shame" moment but we're not in tears. And the story continues! The death is the middle! The characterization is the beginning and the death is the middle! That's absolutely epic. Novices end the story when someone dies or when someone breaks down and cries. But Thomas Wolfe stuck the death in the middle! Bravo.
So the end! The narrator, now in his 30s and knowing the story of Grover's death, returns to his childhood home. Someone else is living there and he asks to come in and sees the place and he has this little memory. A tiny memory.
The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.
"Now say it-- Grover!"
"Gova."
"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"
"Gova."
"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."
And that's where I cry. It's not some great big memory about him serving in world war two. It's not some great profession of love between brothers. It's not Grover standing up for the brother. It's none of the cliches, but instead a human moment!
And you're not crying because you haven't read the story. So that should tell you that everything before this moment, everything before the death is important.
But young writers don't get that. They think the climax is most important. No, no. The climax matters not if we haven't invested any emotion beforehand. Characterization is most important.
The two have to work in proper proportion. Too much climax and not enough characterization as I've said, the readers don't care. Not enough climax and too much characterization and the readers feel unsatisfied when they put it down. They invested all this time and there wasn't enough of a reward.
