The Importance of Story
Hi, friends.
There are weeks when I don’t know how to square the relative comfort of my life with all that is going on in the world at large. This has certainly been one of those weeks. A week where I met with my writing group, had dinner with a visiting writer, caught up with friends and laughed and planned for the future. It was also a week I gave midterms to students who can’t be arsed to read a short story or watch an hour’s worth of a documentary and felt as though every minute I spend in class is one that is wasted. A week when I’m watching teachers in the Ukraine taking up arms, mothers making Molotov cocktails in order to defend themselves against the atrocities of war.
So what does one do? The world, I suppose, changes in big and small ways every day, and it is our job as writers to make sense of it. To put juxtaposing images against each other. To show the highs and lows of life as best we can.
Story.
I have two small pieces this week. This short essay, One Hundred Years of Solitude or The Importance of a Story, by Oksana Zabuzhko. And the flash piece, Everything is Terrible but You Should Read this Story, by Amber Sparks.
Craft tidbits.
Both of these pieces get at the importance of story, of creating human connection. The titles themselves set the tone for the pieces. Sparks begins her story by saying:
This is a story born of need. It’s the story you need right now.
One of the things I love about the story is the repetition. There are thirty six variation of in this story, this is a story, etc. The repetitions work like an incantation, summoning the magic that’s found in storytelling.
Sparks takes mythological characters (Tiresias, the blind prophet who is granted clairvoyance and transformed into a woman; Philomela, whose tongue was cut out after she was raped and was then transformed into a nightingale; Icarus, who attempted to escape captivity on waxen wings) and revises them for her own purposes. It seems important that these characters all have roots in transformation. In becoming something they are not. But Sparks takes it further, letting Icarus succeed in flying to the sun. Giving women an extra tongue when they are attacked. In this story, there will be punishment for those who need it.
We create story to make sense of the world. We’re seeing the idea of narrative play out right now in news reports, in which stories get picked up and broadcast into our homes. They often fall into tropes we learned as children: the importance of courage and bravery, the struggle of good and evil. As adults we’ve grown to realize the world is more complicated. And yet. We fall back into these patterns because there is some comfort to them. A way to order that which seems chaotic, a way that lets us stave off the complexity of heartache for something more soothing.
And that’s okay. Sparks believes stories allow us to:
cut out the bad parts and leave the good bits, the bits that will save your life.
Zabuzhko is an Ukrainian novelist and short story writer and even though this essay was published in 2016 it remains relative. In it, she quotes a British journalist who had the following:
Within the past few months, Ukraina, a nation unknown to the West, has come into the forefront of the world’s attention. Most people, I think, are prepared to say that they know little or nothing about it. For this deficiency in knowledge they need not blame themselves.
This, she reveals, is not a contemporary lament from 2016 or 1991 even, but a warning from the 1930s. A warning which was ignored.
She ponders which stories get told and whose are deemed more important than others. A problem that remains. How do writers show the complexity of their country to a world that is ignorant of its history or culture?
The problem with history, however, is that, when its lessons are overlooked, history sends the careless students back into the same classroom, to retake the exams they once failed.
I consider myself to be a fairly well read person. And yet, could I tell name any Ukrainian writers or artists before I began searching yesterday? Have I read any? Am I any different from my students, happy to read the stack of books that I have that don’t test me too much? May we all be more careful students in the future.
Sparks.
In the novel I just finished reading the main character was not clairvoyant like Tiresias but he had Gifts of Understanding which allowed him to “see” into another person’s life. Write about someone who is able to “see” things other people cannot. How does this add to their understanding of life? How does it complicate things?
Or. Borrow the first line from Sparks “This is a story that….” and write about the woman in the painting above titled Awakening. Keep repeating the phrase “This is a story” throughout the piece.
Revision. I read this piece by George Saunders on how writers put in place holders, moments he calls avoidance moments, as they draft. Perhaps they don’t yet know all of the possible paths or perhaps these possibilities will upend what’s already there. But look through your draft. What are your avoidance moments? What do you know now about your characters that you didn’t when you wrote the scene? Yes, upending things will make for more work. But it might also make the whole thing more interesting…
Other tidbits.
If you find yourself wanting to read some Ukrainian writers or poets, LitHub has some resources.
Hayden’s Ferry is seeking hybrid work through March 15. Hoxie Gorge is also seeking innovative work through March 15.
Over at Brevity Allison K Williams has some advice on why your work is getting rejected.
If you’ve got a project giving you fits, or want to talk about revision strategies, I have an opening for coaching in the next few months, so do get in touch. I’d love to set up a call with you.
Ok scribblers. I hope that you are able to carve out some writing time for yourself today and this week. Until next time~
Marsha