Narrative Friction

I recently learned (maybe I’m the last to know) that Ben Zimmer of The Boston Globe has been tracking anachronistic language in the PBS hit show Downton Abbey for a project called Visual Thesaurus. The anachronisms are also the subject of a YouTube video.

The examples (“I couldn’t care less”) have not struck me while I watched the series, so I can’t claim they took this viewer out of the fiction. It could be that I’m just a sucker for an English accent, lapsing into instant credulousness at the first seemingly erudite syllable. Then again, some of these “mistakes” seem like a great deal of hairsplitting. For instance, the word “floozy” — which Zimmerman flags — is said only to have begun in American (not British) slang in the earlier part of the decade in which Downton takes place. I don’t know — I’m not a linguist — but the first written citation in the Dictionary of American Slang dates to 1902. Wouldn’t the oral slang precede the written? Doesn’t at least sixteen years seem like enough time for that usage to have crossed the pond, especially with a world war on? And isn’t it possible that the character who speaks this word was at least exposed to an American in England who introduced her to the usage?

Well, never mind the pilpul; it’s all in good fun. But this exercise does bring to my mind the issue of narrative voice in fiction.

What's It All About?

As I labor through the early stages of writing my next novel, Proximity, I find that it’s worth considering the role that theme plays in fiction.

When we place a book in a genre, that can suggest a certain theme by itself. We can presume that a literary novel, for example, will give us some insights into human nature. A mystery will be a search for truth. Science fiction will treat the promise or consequences of technology. A thriller will demonstrate the resourcefulness of the seemingly overmatched hero. Et cetera.

But most successful novels, I think, have a central theme that transcends category. This may seem obvious when discussing literary fiction, but it is also true for most so-called “category” fiction. In all cases, the theme may be pre-ordained by the original intention of the author, it may flow logically from the overall subject matter, or it may arise on its own as a byproduct of the author’s efforts to lend depth to the story.

The End of the Hiatus

Can this really be only my second post ALL YEAR? Well, er, yes, unless you count my weekly posts on The Nervous Breakdown. Those posts will explain a good bit of what’s kept me away: being edited and designed and working out distribution arrangements for Primacy, and making good on my promise to bring that novel to the world as well as the Big Six publishers might.

Not that any of that work is finished, but it’s finally settling down into something of a routine, which means not only that there's a smidgen of time left over to get back to sharing my thoughts here on writing, but there's also finally a chance to get to work on the next novel.

Crap on the Path of Life

No, the above title isn’t a list. It’s an exhortation.

We’ve been having a lot of snow around here — who hasn’t? (O.k.: shut up, San Diego.) And this has necessitated more than a little shoveling around the house.

When I’m shoveling, I am ever mindful of our two dogs. I always dig a path across the patio to the lawn in order to facilitate their — ahem — doing their business away from the house.

Naturally they don’t comply. Ever. Even when the weather is perfect, more often than not they drop their load right near the house, sometimes smack in the middle of the garden path.

Why 127 Hours Felt Like 130

Some time ago a friend of mine saw Aron Ralston speak at a business function.    He told me that it was the most inspirational talk he’d ever heard.

Ralston — as everyone knows by now — is the young man who became pinned by a boulder during a misfortunate solo hike and used an all-purpose tool to cut off his right arm below the elbow in order to escape.  It was an act of astonishing courage, the kind of thing that prompts normal people to pause in their daily routines when they first hear about it, to reflect for a moment on the human capacity for survival, and to wonder whether we ourselves would have the chops to do what this man did in extremis.

So why did the feature film 127 Hours, which tells this story, fall so flat for me?

Saved at Birth

It always begins this way.

An idea intrudes, insists that I give it attention, finally settles upon me.  It’s exciting — a promise to oneself that makes the hair stand on end.  And, of course, because it resides in the mind, not on the page, there’s a certain perfection to it.

Oh, I know it’s not really perfect.  It’s incomplete, in fact, not fully formed.  But there’s thrust behind the thing.  So even if the blade isn’t sharp, the subject has been engaged.

Then comes a moment when the only way to move the idea forward is to think more deeply, to hone the details.  This represents a profound psychological shift.  It’s the difference between a pitcher knowing he has a start scheduled for next Saturday and undertaking the stretches for that start in an hour hence.  With preparation comes trepidation.

Four Meetings on the Future of Books

In the course of about 24 hours, I met in New York this week with four book publishing professionals. Not in symposia or conferences, mind you, but one on one, old friends across the table.

Nor was this an academic exercise. I have completed two novels and hope to have more on the way. Yet current business models — the “old” business models, if you will — look more and more like castles made of sand. The tide of technology is lapping at their foundations. Is this the time to build another sand castle in the same spot or should I strike out in search of firmer ground?

The Director
My first meeting took place over Indian food with the director of a small division within one of the large houses. The division has a spectrum of products, not all of them books but all in support of a branded worldview. Despite being earlier to market than a startup competitor, this division has had its clock cleaned by that competitor, a company with no prior baggage and with a tendency toward innovation.