Story on the Brain

Coming soon to an auditory system near you! I read Laini Taylor's brilliant and category-defying novel Daughter of Smoke and Bone .  It's part one of a hefty trilogy that is on my must-keep list. Like if I imagine moving to Norway or Finland and only taking a few books with me, this trilogy is on the list. Even though e-book is probably smarter. Definitely lighter.  These books! Are so! Good! They're like literary high fantasy science fiction young adult. See what I mean about category? I think they get shelved with Young Adult.  Fine, I'll list the books I'd take: these three and Laini Taylor's duology (is that a thing?) that followed, about Lazlo Strange Rainbow Rowell's collected works except for Landline because I hated it, but maybe should reread Joan Aiken's collected works (except the Jane Austen continuation ones and the cynical New Yorky modern ones) probably a lot of William Mayne even though he turned out to be a convicted serial child rapist ...

Justine Larbalestier’s Liar , at last! This is such a good novel. You have to read it before you listen, though. I will RUIN it for you by spoiling every possible thing. This is a book you have to experience unspoiled! You only get one chance. So please go read before you listen. I usually take five class meetings to discuss this novel, so I talked really fast and didn’t get to say most of what I would have wanted to say. Gaaaah! What can you do. I would love to hear what you think of the novel once you read it, before you listen to this, so in the event you are that person, please get in touch! The students have more than once thrown their books across their rooms! More than one has come up to me after we’re done reading it and given me their copy to give to someone else, because it made them so wild. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, Micah is the champion unreliable narrator. And no, there is no narrative truth that’s out there! This is a book that makes you question everything about ...

Oh boy, I keep seeing people wish they could write novels but don’t know how, or where to start, or what to do, so here’s some advice about that. You do not need to know how to do this before you start. You need a person with a problem. And you need specificity: what that person is like, their skills and weaknesses, their particular situation, plus the geographical location and things like time of year. Then go ahead and go buck wild. Tell a story. They want to do this thing or solve the problem or find the answer or whatever it might be. Good! Take STEP ONE. Then take step two. What happens? Do it one step at a time. Listen to yourself. Is there a random mycologist in the forest? He turns out to be important later, so if he shows up, write him in! Also, if you’re writing about a real place, like Eustis, Maine, the place in Landslide whose name I can never remember, then GO THERE. Reality is so much richer than your imagination. Otherwise, get okay with making mistakes, being bad...

This week I get into the strange linear narrative of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” not in the sort of high school New Critical way of x symbolizes y, but in the sense of episodic versus serial narrative structure. It’s a very strange story in a lot of ways because we have no idea where Phoenix Jackson is going or why she’s going there. And in fact when she arrives, she doesn’t know either. This story subverts narrative so thoroughly it’s almost like Tom Stoppard. Ooh, we should talk about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at some point. And stories told from the other side in general. I discuss what makes us get and stay interested in a story with NO PLOT and see how I can apply that to other writing. Normally we assume the plot is what makes us stick around, but it sure isn’t in this case, since we don’t know what it could even be. Still one of my favorite stories, even if (or because) it’s so strange and in some ways baffling. Sacred cheese of life!