Tangent:…

(Tangent from the tangent: If one is of a schizophrenic persuasion, chasing impulse and flighty ideas like a dog spinning at cars on the freeway, is any thought really tangential? It’s not like we have a strong, solid baseline from which to diverge. Well, back to the initial thought.)

Isn’t it cool that storytellers rule the world? I find that truth to be totally awesome, to use a Dashnerism. (Dashnerism: noun—A word used with great frequency by James Dashner and which is, without exception, completely incongruous with the world of Jane Austin, unlike James’s name; common Dashnerisms include “totally”, “awesome”, and “totally awesome”.)

What do I mean? Simply that story is structure, as William Goldman says. This doesn’t mean that screenplays include three acts or that novels wrap up with a denouement, no more than consciousness means having the physical ability to sense the outside world. The truth is so much greater and grander and unfathomable than that. The structure of story is nothing less than meaning; story is the interrelating of stuff (anything really) in such a way that relevance can be drawn from the raw material of life, thought, and imagination.

I’ve been thinking about this since teaching an adult learning class on writing last night. (Thanks to Brenda Bench and her class for an interesting and enjoyable evening, as always.) The presentation was on using POV to achieve the three objectives of story simultaneously, and I got to talking about how we can only make sense of anything by incorporating it into a story. Here’s an example: China has a population of about 1.2 billion; the U.S. population is around 300 million. So tell me what that means. No, “China has more people that the U.S.,” doesn’t count. That’s like saying red and blue are different colors: meaningless. Can’t do it, can you—at least, not without placing these numbers into a story, such as: Because of their massive workforce, China will supplant the U.S. this century as the world’s greatest economic power because of its power; or, as environmental destruction and global climate change continue to intensify, China’s massive population will result in far greater negative consequences than the U.S.’s smaller citizenry, which is why China will not overcome the U.S. as the world’s dominant economy. One story is the story of environmentalism, one is of means of production. What are these, really, but perspectives or points of view and the narratives that go along with such?

No fact matters in isolation, only in conjunction with other facts. The structure of aligning information is story. Story is the substance of who we are as individuals, cultures, religions, nations, and even as a species. With that being so, a storyteller becomes something a good deal more than the proverbial daydreamer detached from things that really matter. We’re more akin to superheroes, possessed of mystical powers to manipulate reality according to our desires and designs. All the truly influential individuals in history have understood this or have benefited from someone who did, whether politicians, scientists, artists, business people, philosophers, or whatever. History isn’t just written by the winners; the meaning of life and its substance is created by the tellers of tales.

Which leaves only one question: am I, Clint Johnson, also known as R.D. Henham and a slue of less respectful appellations I won’t mention, a superhero or supervillain? There is a certain romanticism about being bad….

May one be a  super-anti-hero? Now come on, there’s no way a question that important could be considered tangential.

When you work at a college and travel in academic circles you come across quite a few people for whom teaching is a distant plan B from plan A (writing), some of whom—not many, thankfully—make perfectly clear that their fondness for plan B is no greater than plan Q.  I find this genuinely sad.  While storytelling is my prime passion and writing my medium for expression, and I consider these my profession, in many ways the opportunities I have to teach are just as important to me.  In some ways, certainly more important. 

Thursday night I was reminded of this when I spoke to a chapter of the League of Utah Writers.  I talked about networking, and people participated by asking questions, sharing stories, and making comments and recommendations.  Like just about every instructional event I do, it was constructive and fun for me, as I hope it was others.  I don’t have to try very hard to hope that, though, because of the expressions of appreciation and gratitude that followed the presentation, that night, here on my blog, and elsewhere.  It’s very easy to convince yourself you’ve done something helpful when other people tell you so.  And I can’t recall a single workshop or panel I’ve ever participated in that people haven’t thanked me for.  I share this not merely to acknowledge the many kind people I get to meet, but to admit I’m just beginning to see how important this all is to my advancement as a writer.  I don’t mean by broadening my name recognition and interest in my writing, though that is certainly true as well; for me, teaching others is a large part of what makes the writer’s life—my life—happy.

There are pitfalls for writers, like any artist, some darker and deeper than others.  Addiction to self-destructive vehicles of distraction is always nearer than we think.  Every good story goes places that no healthy person would ever want to travel emotionally; to get the story there, the writer has to go  as well, if only in their mind.  It’s no wonder that individuals who emotionally confront the darker aspects of human experience rather than retreat from them sometimes cope unhealthily.  But not every pit is so insidious.  Some, like feelings of rejection and loneliness, are common to all humans.  It’s just that, for writers, these pits are so broad it’s incredibly difficult—if not impossible—to avoid them for much of your life. 

Writing is, mostly, a solitary art.  So is the contemplation it involves, the ruminating and daydreaming and asking yourself innumerable questions to which you have no answers.  Success doesn’t change that.  In a way, it only makes it worse.  There is a special kind of loneliness in fame (a supposition of mine, as I’m as far from famous as one can get); in being marked and noted by mobs of people, none of whom know you at all beyond the brand you’ve come to embody.  There is no escape, not completely.  When you decide to become a writer, to do it full-hearted and regardless of cost or condition, you reconcile yourself to being a lonesome kind of person.  Rejection is just as inescapable.  In a flux so great as that of written story, where every person has the potent birthrights of language and narrative affinity; where these potentials tie together into a unique, subjective, and lovely snarl that we call a person;  where mastery is so impossible you may write your whole life and send your skill not a jot higher but only sideways—in such a place, how can any of us expect to write and not be rejected, under appreciated, and misunderstood?  It’s a great and terrible truth that every person is a mystery, even to one’s self.  When we bump against each other in passing there is zero chance that our rough edges will always fit together.  The best work we will ever do—could ever do—will not please all people.  Sometimes when it does not, we will hear about it.  We will hear. 

Agents, editors, those who publish our work to world, they don’t want to reject us.  But they will.  Many, many times, they will.  

We don’t desire to be away from people, alone and apart, to make our stories breathe.  But we will be.  For too much of our lives, we will be.

We can’t help but feel these things.  I certainly can’t.  Which is why, as much as any other reason, I love to teach.  It fills my writer’s life with those things it so desperately lacks: society instead of solitude; mutual edification rather than private refinement; gratitude and immediate returns rather than form letters, criticisms, and the hollow ticking of the clock.  If you are like me, a writer and storyteller for better and worse, then I offer one heartfelt suggestion: share that.  Teach.  Find something you know and do well and help others to know and do it too, still their way, only a little better than before.  I have no doubts that your career, your quality of life, and your entirety of person will all improve if you do.

Sorry this is a few days late.   I thought about giving an account of Wednesday’s BYU class visit before this, but, well, I didn’t. 

For the record, the students in Rick Walton’s children’s book publishing industry class are the luckiest in the nation, certainly, and most likely this world and most others.  And no, not because I talked to them for an hour earlier this week.  (I’d like to think that wasn’t too detrimental.)  Do you know the people scheduled to stop by to talk to them this semester?  I don’t know all the names, but the Brandons Mull and Sanderson top the list, along with Chris Schoebinger from Shadow Mountain, just to start.  And that’s after Shannon Hale tried to undo any damage I did earlier in the evening on Wednesday.  If these students are prepared for the publishing climate after this class, they haven’t been listening.

Anyway, Wednesday was great.  I arrived and greeted Rick, who knew my name and had seen me around but I’m not sure he could place the name with the face until we shook hands.  Kristen Chandler was there as well, and it was great meeting her for the first time as well.  Then Rick called Kristen and me to the front of the class and asked us to answer questions for a little over an hour, which we did.  I was impressed by the questions we fielded, which ranged pretty widely in content, as we were addressing up-and-coming authors, editors, illustrators, agents, and one lawyer who Shannon couldn’t quite figure out why he was there.  (She decided it must have something to do with women, which is a good bet, because I’m convinced everything that’s the least bit confusing ties in some way to women.)  Then Shannon answered questions for the last hour plus, signed books, and, I assume, went home.  I must so assume because I said goodbye to everyone and left earlier. 

So, the postmortem (don’t you love how macabre that sounds): finally got to know Rick a little better, met Shannon and Kristen for the first time, and got to talk about my profession and passion to a very attentive and bright class of kindred spirits.  I hope Rick finds some reason—real or imagined—to have me back some time. 

The Saints just kicked off, so I’m needed elsewhere.

MrsBucket, also known as Lori, asked the following:

A couple of questions about the downloadable study guides: Did you write them? Other than theme, they don’t really address reading strategies; is that something you think children should be taught? I’m interested in how you, as a children’s writer, think children should approach books. Vocabulary, comprehension, et al. are good, but what about deep reading (i.e. critical theory)? Do you think that’s something children can and should learn or no?

I did write them.  As for reading strategies/deep reading (which are synonyms for the same types of moves), these are tactics or methods to achieve comprehension, not separate things.  Readers adopt particular strategies to help them decode a text; readers read deeply rather than superficially to comprehend the meaning of the text more completely and intimately.  So, the way I interpret your question is: “Why didn’t I include more proscribed critical reading methods in the study guide?”

Two answers.  First, I did give some basic critical reading strategies in the form of a reading journal that teachers can have their students keep.  In the journal I suggest that students: 1) summarize the chapter, which is a distillation thought process that involves creating a heirarchy of information, essential to understanding any text; 2) record words they did not understand to be learned later or looked up in the dictionary, which teaches both intertextuality and rereading; 3) a section where students record questions they have about the chapter, an exercise of self-monitored comprehension; and 4) a few sentence response to each chapter, an exercise of reflection that introduces basic, non-threatening reader-participant awareness.  The guide recommends that this journal be kept for each chapter, so you can see that there are quite a few opportunities to learn these basic critical reading strategies and processes.

Also, deep reading entails certain types of thought, such as analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving, among other metacognitive processes.  Contained within the comprehension sections of the guides are questions and prompts that require all three of these specified modes of thought.  Analysis is addressed through many what and why questions, including some that encourage readers to privilege certain characters, actions, or situations, which all requires analysis.  The “Crystal Ball” sections of the guide ask readers to predict what will happen in the future in the story, which requires a logical identification and analysis of past events.  The “Exploring Theme” sections often ask students to synthesize  material from the story with their own experience and contemporary culture.   Finally, the children are frequently asked both to identify and critique problem solving shown in the story and to solve similar problems on their own.

I guess I’m saying that the guide does, I feel, facilitate deep reading in many different ways appropriate to the primary educational audience of the book.  

My second reason for structuring the guides the way I did (emphasizing the reader’s comprehension and response over proscribed reading tactics)?  Because the book is for 8-13 year olds (the primary audience), I’m less concerned that they learn specific ways to read critically than that they become aware that such options exist in a text.  When children read, some of the moves and cognitive processes adults make unconsciously take conscious effort.  Reading deeply is more difficult for children and, frequently, not possible at certain depths.  I had very little interest is giving a bunch of theoretical tools that the kids weren’t yet equipped to use. 

Instead, I took a response-based approach.  Sometimes the best way to teach a method or technique, especially to learners new to such skills, is to start with the results of their cognitive processes.  By examining the thoughts and feelings (what they comprehend) from the text, kids gradually become aware that their understanding is not exactly the same as their classmates’ and their teacher’s.  Further discussion results in evolved understanding of the text, which promotes the realization that their current comprehension is not a perfect given, but instead came from somewhere.  For this age group, this realization is what I’m going for.  I want them to know that options and factors do affect the way we read.  That they understand which factors and how these function takes greater metacognitive awareness and is more demanding, and they have a whole lifetime of reading and school to learn that.  And they will—as long as they understand the basic truth that comprehending what we read takes effort, tools, and intent.

To put all this more simply, I didn’t want teachers telling kids how to read this book.  I want kids to read it however they are currently equipped and to enjoy it—then I want them to take the understandings they have gleaned, discuss those, and reverse engineer their own understanding of their cognitive processes.  I don’t care if they do things perfectly, efficiently, or even correctly.  By continually examining “What is the effect of this?” in groups, kids are led gently down the path “So how did I get here?”  If students are asking themselves that question, even without realizing it, the guides have done their job.

Does that makes sense?  I hope so.  As always, if anyone has other questions—or wants to argue with me about my answer to this—Bring it on!

This’ll have to be quick, as I still have a few things to do before my signing tomorrow, but I couldn’t go without letting those who read the blog know about this piece on writing workshops I just read in The New Yorker. It’s about a number of different issues, most centrally can creative writing be taught and how has the pedagogy of the writing workshop affected this teaching. There’s some pretty theoretical stuff in here—and a myopic focus on the genre of literary fiction—so those without an affection for higher academic level discourse may find the reading tedious. But there are some interesting things here for those who are intrigued.

My main reason for blogging, however, is to point out the ridiculousness of the question that predicates the entire essay: can creative writing be taught? Yes. Let me say it again. Yes. And as yes is only three letters, I can keep typing that until opponents grow hoarse and quit arguing. It is true that you can’t teach inspiration, but you don’t need to; people can’t exist without developing peculiar fascinations drawn from their experience. That’s inspiration, and it’s a universal component throughout the human species. All it takes added onto this is craft: story craft, structure craft, language craft, etc. All these things can be taught, and they can be learned. The only limitation on these things is that they can’t be learned from any one source. Creativity comes from education via exposure, and creative writing is no different.

So rather than debate if it is possible to teach/learn to write creatively or not, which proves that there are stupid questions after all, just get to learning. Read good books and bad books and do your best to understand why, for you, they were so good or bad. Read books on writing and obey every rule you read; then break every rule. Note what happens. Take classes from published authors; talk shop with unpublished authors; don’t assume one experience will be more helpful than the other. Oh, yeah, and write! Write lists, and journal entries, and short stories, and novels, and poetry, and thoughts, and feelings, and what the color orange is like, and how you feel about things, and how you would feel about things if you weren’t you, and how someone else would feel about things if they were you. In short, if you think anything you could say, do, think, or observe might have anything, in the most remote of senses, to do with your creative makeup, and you haven’t tried it before, DO.  Only never, ever suggest or believe that any of these actions is THE way to learn to write creatively.  As long as you don’t search for THE way, you’ll inevitably find YOUR way. (Note that this exploration of experience excludes all actions that are illegal, clearly immoral, not possible for beings of a physical aspect, or that have a high probability of getting one dead.)

That’s how you learn to write creatively. Fostering and enabling people to engage in the above is how you teach creative writing. If you think about it, it’s kind of one of those things that’s pretty hard to mess up. I really like those things. It’s a special breed of happiness that comes from meeting expectations of ridiculous ease.

Hope to see some of you tomorrow at my signing.

Okay, as promised, some basics on my SCBWI workshop on May 6th from 7:00-9:00 P.M. The SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) holds a local group meeting on the first Wednesday of every month at the Downtown Library in Salt Lake City. Attendance is free for members and non-members alike. (On that note, if you write for children you really should join. The organization has different membership levels for published and unpublished writers, and it’s a great way to network and start traveling in serious writing circles. I believe they even have a mentoring program, where aspiring writers can be paired up with pros to work on their material. Not sure if they’re still doing that, but it’s worth checking. If you’re interested, go here.)

The workshop I’ll be presenting is on Conflict and the Narrative Mechanism. Basically, I cover why conflict IS story, and how different narrative elements (characterization, plot, POV, etc.) work together to form a complex, well-functioning machine. All too often, we storytellers conceptualize our work in partition; we sculpt our compositions element by isolated element. That’s like trying to build a car based solely on knowledge of how a piston works or the function of a spark plug. Specializing on a component can’t create a powerful machine; you have to understand the whole. Most writers, even published writers, don’t understand the whole narrative machine very well. Here are a few questions to help you determine if this workshop will be helpful:

1) What is story? I mean exactly that–what is story and why does it exist?

2) How does a story function? There is a specific blueprint to narrative, so what is it?

3) Why is story conflict–not narrative contains conflict, but narrative IS conflict?

If you know the answer to these questions then there’s no reason for you to come to my workshop (other than to experience my ebullient charm in person). If not, come. Really. Writing stories is, when you get down to the nuts and bolts, very simple. Not easy, but simple. In this two hour session, I can teach you the tools that comprise probably 80% of my own writing methodology. If you master the concepts of this workshop, you can write publishable stories. Period. Anyone looking for an undergraduate-level storytelling foundation will find this workshop useful–at least, I do my best to make sure this is so.

*****

If anyone tried to find Hasting’s on Saturday and discovered (as I did) that they’d moved the store on us, I’m so sorry about the mix up.  It truly wasn’t my fault, though.  Blame Google maps.  Or Hastings.  (Or Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather, if you’re a Sachar fan–and you should be.)  The store did not ask my opinion before deciding to move, darned ambitious retailer aspiring to impersonate a Barnes and Noble.  If they’d been satisfied with the hole-in-the-wall original location, I would not now be so put out. 

Despite the confusion, I think we made it (at least most of us).  L.T. Elliot, Scarlet Knight, my friend Sherry, and I enjoyed talking writing and critiquing each others’ work for a few hours after the workshop.  It was a very fun time.  As for the workshop, I think it went well.  Tried a group storytelling exercise or three, and we ended up with the following: a horror story about a demonic icon seeking to hide its own murderous sentience by misleading an investigation; a comedic satire about an arrogant writer who, rather than writing, acts like a total ass to “provide fodder for other ambitious writers who aspire to be like him”; and a paranormal romance about a woman torn between her spectral husband–confined to a particular window in a bed and breakfast–and a new suitor while she endures the matchmaking of her interfering aunt.  It was my first time working with Josi, which was great.  Walt wrote a book about a neighbor’s wife leaving him for a polygamist, which reminded me that I did, indeed, know Walt and it merely took that to remind me.  (So if I meet you some time and later can’t remember you, please understand that it’s because you haven’t written a book on polygamy, or cannibalism, or something else sufficiently jarring.  This is how I differentiate individuals, which may explain why I think there are only about fifty people in the world–though there are billions of models of these fifty people.  In fact, the only person who is a unique person and not a casting of a person is Neil Gaiman.)  

So to anyone who went to the workshop, I hope it was worth your time and effort.  As always, I love to hear from people about my teaching.  If you think the Spring Workshop was the most edifying experience of your life, please comment and tell me so.  Maybe comment twice, or three times.  If you found it vomit- or labor-inducingly painful, tell me that (though once is enough for comments of this variety).  Suggestions and requests for future workshops on similar topics are always welcome, as are follow up questions not answered Saturday.  So bring it on!