These are a few of our favorite things...

Sometimes I get captured by a voice, and this time it's not Pavarotti, but the Pavarotti of bloggers, James Wolcott. Sometimes he says things so eloquently and ironically, I want to preserve it. (But that, I suppose, is why they have archives.)
Alicia

Alicia, Here it is--

(With apologies to those of you lacking ties to the great state of Indiana--)

I think I've told Alicia (and everyone else I know) about this gift at least three times this week. My brother and his family gave me this for Christmas. It's a 1935 program from the bucket game, beautifully mounted and framed. So here it is, Alicia and anyone else who's interested, in all its deco splendor.

This is totally going on the wall next to my desk. (Even though Purdue lost that year. S'ok, we still lead the series.)

To keep this vaguely tied to writing, I present to you the very minor poem which donated the name of the trophy.

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,

When fond recollection presents them to view!

The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,

And every loved spot which my infancy knew!

...And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well—

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,

The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

That's by Samuel Woodworth. I have no idea what else, if anything, he might have written. It reads like song lyrics, don't you think?

Theresa

Fun things

I was reading Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich, and I realized that one reason she's so popular with her readers is that she knows what's fun and spins it out to an enjoyable length. She doesn't just allude to it-- she exploits it.

She has a recurrent "stoner" character who is kind of fun himself, and so when the protagonist hires him to do security on the boyfriend's house, she doesn't expect much real security. She just really wants to keep him occupied so that he doesn't get into trouble. But he takes this security job seriously, which is funny in itself (camo uniforms, etc). And he invents a special cannon to protect the house, a potato gun. PVC pipes that shoot potatoes.

Okay, so that's fun, this stoner and his young sidekick inventing this gun. But Evanovich doesn't stop there. She spins it out-- the protagonist comes home to be almost bombarded with vegetables. And the vegetables are funny too-- not just potatoes. They also hurl a cantalope (she goes for the funny names). And there are little dropped-in lines, like the stoner shooting a "twice-baked".

There's a full scene built around this. BUT that's not all. In the end of the book, when the protagonist is under siege by the bad guys, the stoner arrives like the cavalry and shoots potatoes at them and wins and is interviewed by the local media.

Two thoughts here--

1) Figure out what will be fun for the reader and go with it-- really play it out, exploit it. If you go too far, you can always cut it back later. But have fun with the fun.

2) The climax should be unique to your story. How your protagonist conquers the bad guy or accomplishes the goal should bring in elements you've set up in your story. In this book, Stephanie has been kind of a house mother, gathering these little orphans (the stoner, the boy whose mother was kidnapped, the homeless stalker) around her and feeding and housing them. So her reward for this is that they are there to help her in the climax. What has your story set up for in the end? What is the unique way your protagonist can use what he/she has learned or gained during all that rising conflict? What allies has he gathered? What skills has she acquired? IN THE STORY... use what he/she has gained in the story, not just what he/she came into the story already having.

Oh, another--
3) The climax should echo the type and tone of the book. That is, a comedy should have a comic climax (like the potato gun rescue). A romance should have a climax that has a romantic element (like one of the couple rescuing the other, or their new trust letting them overcome some obstacle). Don't settle just for a generic thrilling climax-- bring in the extra element that is unique to this book.

So let's talk about what is "fun" in stories. It's easy to see in a comedy, but what's fun in other types of books? Look at your own story, and tell us what type it is, and what you think the reader will find to be a lot of fun and you should expand?

Like the book I was talking about in the last post, with the hero who sings her swoony songs. Well, at least I and Murph think that's fun. So I might have him sing a song later too. I have no idea how to pull that into the plot, but what the heck. Also it's a big pain that most songs from the 20th and 21st Century can't be quoted (copyright). Fortunately he's Irish, so I can use Irish folk songs, but not the Pogues, alas. I mean, "Love You to the End" would SO fit their romance.

But anyway, I suspect the "fun" part for the readers might be his songs. As long as I don't have to write them myself, I think I can spin that out. Not sure how his singing can help save the day in the climax. Hmm. Maybe the villain is going to be on American Idol.

Alicia

Endings and Anarchy

Did anyone see the season finale of Sons of Anarchy? I was trying to tell my sister about this, and she said her co-worker Missy is also watching it, and she'd direct her to the blog. So Missy, this one's for you, if you're out there.

Now this makes me think about endings, and this is important: The ending tells what's really important. How the characters resolve the various conflicts is how you tell the reader who they really are, and what they really stand for, and what they really value. But it also tells what your whole story is ultimately about-- the theme. That's actually why good books so often go bad in the ending, I think, because they don't truly let the reader know what's important. The ending should give the reader events that show the characters and who they are now and what matters, after all else.

Well, the end of Sons of Anarchy shows a lot, but above all it shows that it's about fathers and sons. (There's a daughter too, the archvillain's.) At the center is the powerful romance between Gemma and Clay, but her actions here in the end show that she doesn't trust this, doesn't trust his love, doesn't maybe even want him to love her above all (she is selling him short, I think, but this part is definitely from her POV). Gemma has just been framed by the FBI lady for a murder (committed actually by the FBI lady). At that very moment-- and see how effectively events are stacked here in the end, so that there's no downtime at all, and no let-up of pacing), Clay and her son (his stepson) Jax are in the process of avenging her gangrape by ambushing the evil overlord. Now Gemma is, more than Clay actually, the keeper of the motorcycle gang code. She knows that by this code, their revenge and the taking back of the power of the town is all important. And she doesn't interfere with it.

Instead, she calls Wayne, the sheriff. He's an old friend, and probably in love with her, and he has confided to her that he is dying of cancer. Somehow she knows that he will help her, that his own code as a lawman will be secondary to his desire to help her-- and I think because it is not HER code, she is fine with this. And he does-- he helps her escape. She apparently never thinks to call her husband or her son (although I think they've both shown they love her and would put her first-- this is her choice, to let them do their work).

However, Jax (the son) gets a panicked call from his girlfriend, and rather than go through with the ambush, he decides to go with her (choosing love over revenge, and showing what he values). But interestingly, he says to Clay, "I have to go to her," and waits for his permission. This is (for those of us who love this relationship) where he shows that he once again accepts Clay as his father, as the authority, after a season of hating him. Clay does not do as Clay would have done earlier, asserted that authority and ordered him to finish the job of the gang. Rather he shrugs yes, and even orders one of the others to "go with your brother", thereby depleting the hit squad by a third.

Then Jax discovers that his own baby son has been kidnapped by the Irishman (who thinks Gemma killed his son-- that's the murder the FBI lady is framing her for): "A son for a son". Jax calls Clay and says only, "I need you." Clay abandons the ambush and immediately goes to Jax, telling the others, "Irish took my grandson." He chooses love over revenge, but here it's love of son/grandson. Before, his revenge was a sign of his love for his wife, but here he shows that actual love-- being with a loved one in crisis-- is more truly --now-- what he knows to be love.

(Okay, details matter!! First, he has always identified Jax as his son and Abel as his grandson, but Jax has deliberately this season referred to him as "my stepfather/not my real father". See how precisely this is written-- today, Jax says, "I need you." That's all we hear, but that is a son talking to his father, isn't it? And as Clay is talking on the phone, he's holding the phone with his left hand. Hands are very important with Clay, because his hands are becoming crippled with arthritis. On that left hand is his wedding ring. Now the director could just as easily made that the right hand, but it's the left, and the ring is showcased-- the symbol of the wedding that brought him Gemma, but also brought him Jax as a son.)

In contrast is Zobelle, the evil one, and he is definitely sorry his beloved daughter is killed (by Gemma, but in self-defense). He really is. But when he amazingly escapes death by Clay (because Clay has gone to his son), Zobelle runs, getting on the plane that he chartered. Again, watch the precision of the staging here. The clerk asks him if his daughter is coming, and he says no-- that is, the writer has shown that Zobelle does not veer from his plans because of his daughter. This doesn't happen just in his head, or offstage, but right there in the action of the scene. I think it's important to SHOW the changes and the changing in the ending-- give the reader the ammunition. (Zobelle is played by Alan Arkin's son, btw, and has that sort of grave good humor that goes interestingly with villainy.) "We adjust and adapt," he tells the clerk, showing that he has not been changed by the events. That's his character theme, actually-- "We adjust and adapt," but for him, he adjusts but doesn't actually adapt-- a refusal to adapt his values and his agenda to the circumstances. Interestingly, in this he resembles Gemma, who loves fiercely, but cannot change her certainty that the code matters more than love does.

Jax and Clay, however, show how much they have changed. Both have chosen love over revenge, and love over their code of honor. In the end, they even choose love over what they think of as manhood (protecting what's theirs). Jax cannot save his son (let's hope there's another season), and collapses, and Clay grabs him and holds him up, and the end shows the two of them embracing and weeping. For such macho guys, this is a transformation.

But this ending-- and ending HERE-- shows that this is about parental/paternal love, not romantic love, or honor or manhood. This closes the circle of the season, which started out with Jax rejecting Clay as his father.

By "allowing" her men to continue with the revenge, Gemma is paridoxically liberated from the claustrophobically intense love that ties her to her husband and son and forces her into venerating a macho code that has injured her. She accepts rather the less complicated love of friendship instead. Her parental love has been exhibited throughout the season, but here she is breaking free of the tie that binds. (I'm sure she'll come back.) The conflict for her has always been what she has willingly given up for that love-- her love for Clay leads to her being raped, and her love for Jax has confined her to a continuing mother role (she's pretty much raising his son). She also, as Keeper of the Code and matriarch to the club, has always given up what matters to her for what's required by the code. She's never counted the cost, but now she knows that her freedom is more important than continuing in her Leather-Madonna role.

SO what does this show:

1. The ending is where you decide what the theme is, what the story is really about, what really matters-- and your final scenes should show that.

2. The ending should have characters act in a way that demonstrates how and if they've changed.

3. If some characters haven't changed, that shows something about them, doesn't it?

4. Write precisely here. Make the characters' dialogue and actions say what you want to demonstrate. At this stage, the ending, the characters are raw and true, all their defenses stripped away by the plot events. At this point, they will speak more truly than they have ever before, so let them speak.

5. Watch your staging and adapt it to your purpose. Show that something's important by "surrounding" it with conflict. For example, when Clay calls off the ambush, one of the brothers protests. That highlights that Clay is going against what's expected, and what seems sensible. Similarly, the clerk asking Zobelle about his daughter sets up the display of his inability to change, his central coldness. The scenes are set up and the events are structured so that these important points can be made.

Alicia

More on Gemma's dark moment

Why is this a "dark" moment? I think it's illustrative to see how this is set up.

Gemma is TOUGH. And she loves her men, and above all doesn't want to cause them harm. (And she knows they're dangerous when they're riled. :)

She doesn't "whine". She doesn't seek support. She doesn't ask for help. She is always in charge. That's her value system. Telling about this is against her own personal code. It's weak.

That's set up ahead of time. So when she is moved to tell this secret, to reveal her vulnerability and what she thinks of as her shame (she knows it's not her fault, but she thinks she was stupid and weak to let it happen), it's a very difficult choice because it goes against what she believes she "ought" to do. She ought to be able to handle this. And she sort of can (her sexuality is profoundly affected by the secrecy, and her relationship with Clay, so it's not unmixed-- and shouldn't be). Her decision to tell is made from love -- trying to reconcile Clay and Jax.

Clay, btw, has a similar journey. We of course think the husband of a rape survivor should act with love and compassion and never scorn her (and we're right). But by his code, or the club's code, which Gemma knows and actually supports, he should reject her now. That is, it's HIS value system, not ours, that makes this "dark", makes this a difficult choice for him. (He too acts with love, fortunately, but the writers quite rightly make this take a bit of time.)

But it's OUR value system (he should act with love) that determines, I think, that this is the right decision, even if it's the 'wrong' one by his own pre-existing value system.

Brilliantly done. But this is important-- we have to set this up. The action has to be painful, difficult, "dark" for this to be a dark moment. What in the run-up, in the whole story and character development BEFORE the dark moment makes this dark for your character?

BTW, there's a very nice setup moment for Jax in this episode. His friend, speaking of Clay, says, "He's your father." (Clay has, apparently, been his stepfather for 20 years, and they do love each other.) Jax says coldly, "My father died on Hwy 580." (His real father.) That is, Jax disavows this relationship (he has good reason, also set up). And so his action in the end of the episode, where he puts his hand on Clay's shoulder, and stays there as Clay covers his hand and holds it, is that much more intense, as it's re-establishing his filial bond.

Alicia

Sons of Anarchy dark moment

Anybody else watching this? It sounds crazy-- Hamlet in a motorcycle gang-- but it's really good.
The episode before the latest had a great crisis/dark moment. Gemma, the mother, my choice for the best woman anti-hero, saw her husband and son (his stepson) at odds, so much so that Jax, the son, has decided to leave the gang, and Clay (the husband) has voted him out. Very powerful, and well-acted. Okay, so Gemma sees this, and in her desperation to keep them both (she is afraid, btw, that Jax will kill Clay or vice versa, as they have been more and more in conflict during the season), she confesses something that she has kept secret for months, that the bad guys gang-raped her to send Clay "a message". She covered it up and never told her men or the gang because she feared their reaction, especially Clay's-- she thought that his ethos would mean that he had to reject her as she had been "violated".

Anyway, you can find this episode ("Balm") online, and it's On Demand for a lot of cable systems. Watch the ending. (Very nice Patti Griffin song accompanying, explicitly connecting Gemma to the Virgin Mary, for all you other parochial school dropouts.) Gemma, hard and tearless, explains in harsh detail what happened to her. The men are of course blasted. Jax comes to her and takes her hands and kisses them-- a sign of fealty and respect. As he leaves, he puts his hand on Clay's shoulder (understanding Clay's own dilemma here), and Clay covers that hand with his own. Very affecting. Finally Clay reaches over to embrace Gemma. Fade-out.

So her decision coming out of the dark moment is confession-- truth-telling. And it's painful and hard, as it should be. And it transfers the terrible pain to the men she loves most-- and forces Jax back into the group, and Clay to decide between his love and his code. (See how the dark moment decision can actually cause other characters to change too.)

Beautifully done. This is a very good show, and don't let the crazy premise get in your way. There are similarities to Hamlet, but in this, Clay and Jax do love each other in a way, and I hope that they'll end up reconciled and not dead!
Alicia

Point of no return

Been thinking about dramatic moments, and here's one-- it can be deceptively low-key, actually, and might be revealed as essential only when the events of the last act play out. I find it a fascinating turning point because, unlike most turning points, it often doesn't seem like a turning point-- and that "sneaking up on" aspect adds to the fun.

The point of no return is another Act 2 turning point, and usually comes pretty hard on the heels of the reversal. This is an action taken by the protagonist or an event that happens that means there’s no turning back, that the story is going to hurtle towards the climax, that the crisis can’t be avoided, that the protagonist has taken a fatal step into the inevitable.

This can be a clearly dramatic event (in a fast-paced story) or a seemingly trivial one, but no matter what, it’s important, essential, as it forces the protagonist and the plot into the final act (and actions).

I actually like to end Act 2 on the point of no return or have a scene or two of reaction/response/further action after that, more down-peltering to the crisis (when the worst that can happen happens). But I notice that in longer works

Hmm. Let’s speculate about why you would have an event happening to the protagonist or a protagonist taking an action, and which would be better for which kind of story. Why?

In Casablanca, as I said, the point of no return is when Rick nods—that’s all— to tell the band to play La Marseillaise, and thus he incurs the wrath of Major Strasser. But he’s also choosing a side, the side of the Resistance (as the US chose to join the Allies), while he’s spent the first part of the story avoiding just that. “I stick my neck out for no man,” remember. That nod seems trivial, but it brings on the closing of his café, the fury of Strasser, and leads to Ilsa re-committing to Laslo and the cause, and also makes it imperative for Laslo to leave Casablanca (and Rick eventually to help).

In The Godfather, the point of no return for Michael is when he chooses to shoot the police captain, thereby making himself an outlaw, choosing to join the family business, and estranging himself from “the straight world” embodied in Kay, the WASP fiancée who he leaves behind. (Notice how this happens nearer the middle than the end. The final act in this film --- and book—have always seemed very long to me, and for some reason, this really heightens the excitement.)

What’s the point of no return for Scarlett? Is it marrying Frank (her sister’s beau) or marrying Rhett? And why—in this most active and purposeful of heroines—do I think marriage is her important action? Maybe it’s definitely an action—she’s never swept away and marries due to love or impetuosity. She always has a reason.

Can you think of PNRs which happen to the protagonist, rather than actions of the protagonist? What about Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz?

I wonder if there’s usually (or always, if only in retrospect?) some moral or values component in this moment. Rick, whether he understands it or not, has chosen his side. Michael has chosen family loyalty over conventional morality. Is this a redefining of what’s important to the New Person? In light of the New Reality revealed in the reversal?


Alicia

The Reversal

The Reversal is a turning point that appears in many stories (and is particularly important, I think, in film). This is an event usually quite close to the midpoint of a story, that is, in Chapter 10 of 20 or 1 hour into a 2-hour film. It’s where something reverses, where what seemed true or important or self-evident in the first half of the story is shown to be false or trivial or mysterious.

What that does is force the protagonist to stop, regroup, assemble perhaps a new set of skills or apply a new strength. It creates conflicts because what might seem to be feasible in the first half no longer works. For example:

Someone the protagonist trusted is proved untrustworthy.

Someone the pro believed to be an enemy becomes an ally.

Something the pro believed is proved false (like his parentage or his cause’s moral rightness).

The protagonist’s role is reversed: The detective becomes the suspect, the hunter becomes the hunted, the insider becomes the outsider.

(Remind me to think about this—this is usually an event that happens to the protagonist, rather than an action the pro takes, though it can happen in response to an action… why—because the character has to be blindsided, which is hard to do when the pro is dictating the action.)

This is the event that often turns the protagonist from a character into a hero—because merely reacting no longer will work. She can’t go on being merely what she was before—because that doesn’t work. She has to become something else also, something that can solve the problem, whatever it is.

Let’s generate some examples.

In The Godfather, the reversal comes (I think) when Vito is shot, because he is revealed to Michael not as the all-powerful father, but as a victim in need of protection (and Michael, in protecting him, is drawn into the family business).

In The Fugitive, Harrison Ford jumps and thus frees himself from being hunted, and becomes the hunter himself (calling Tommy Lee Jones to tell him, “I’m going to find the one-armed man”). Notice that the protagonist role shifts here— is Tommy Lee or Harrison the protagonist of the second half?

In Gone With the Wind, the reversal happens when Scarlett is seeking shelter from the war and goes home to Tara, only to discover that there is no surcease, that Tara has been damaged by the war, that the mother she longed for is dead and the father she needed has gone mad.

In Pride and Prejudice, it comes when Lizzie gets the letter from Darcy and realizes he had his reasons both for loving her and resisting it. Notice that the proposal (however unexpected) isn’t the reversal—that merely hardens her existing prejudice against him.

Okay, your suggestions here. Take some famous movie or novel and tell us what you think is the reversal, and where it happens, and what it changes.

Hamlet?

Oedipus the King?

West Side Story?

Wuthering Heights?

Your choice?

Alicia

Quick turning points schema

I thought maybe I'd post this-- because I want to later talk about the Point of No Return, so thought it might be helpful to see how I envision the three-act structure and positioning of turning points (those scenes/events where the plot changes in some important way).

This is by no means the only way to plot a book, etc., etc., and we might discuss different turning point designations and positions. This is just to start up a discussion of structure-- and Theresa's way better at this than I am, so ask her how she would suggest a typical plot structure. And Aristotle thought up most of this a few years before I did. But enough disclaimers! This is simply one structural schema, and I elaborate on each turning point in my article The Three Acts, archived on my website.

So without further ado:
Turning points are *---
Act 1 (The Beginning)
Set up (establishment of character, setting, situation, whatever)
* Initiating Event (what starts off the new storyline, the interruption of the routine, etc. This often comes at the very end of the Set up Scene)

Act 2 (The Middle)
* Emergence of External Conflict (and following that, the protagonist's response)
(rising conflict in between)
* The Reversal (when something reverses -- the hunter becomes the hunted, someone trusted proves untrustworthy, something surprising is revealed)
(rising conflict in between, but usually these two scenes are pretty close together)
* The Point of No Return (of which more later-- some action or event that once embarked on by the protagonist, inevitably leads to the crisis/disaster/dark moment)

Act 3 (The Ending)
*Crisis/Dark Moment (when the worst that can happen happens, and then the protagonist faces despair- usually some major step towards resolving the internal conflict happens here, and that gives the protagonist the courage, skills, ability, whatever, to tackle the external conflict again)

* Climax (when the protagonist resolves the external conflict)

* Resolution (when the protagonist resolves the remaining internal and/or interactional conflict)

I think that in Act 1 and Act 3, there's more pounding drama-- less between the turning points. In the middle act, there are scenes of rising conflict between the turning points.


A good film example for this schema is Casablanca. Well, that's a good film for about everything. :)

Let's see:

Act 1
The Casablanca set up is fairly long (because, I think, there are a lot of supporting subplots to set up).
Initiating event:
Ugarte gives Rick the letters of transit.
(Notice that the interactional plot-- the romance-- has its own set of turning points, and the initiating event for that is, of course, Ilsa coming into the cafe.)


Act 2
External conflict emerges:
Major Strasser comes into the cafe and recognizes Rick as a potential troublemaker, and Rick can't help but respond by being defiant. Same scene-- Ugarte is shot and killed, and Rick wants to but doesn't help him.
(Romance-- Rick sits with Ilsa and starts competing with Laslo.)

Reversal:
(The romantic reversal comes first-- at the market, Rick pretty much calls Ilsa a whore, and she reveals that she is married to Laslo and was even when she and Rick were lovers in Paris.)

Laslo reveals that he needs the letters and knows Rick has them, and Rick refuses to sell them and tells him to ask his wife for the reason. The reversal is that Laslo (as her patron) has had the upperhand with Ilsa, and now Rick does-- knows more about his wife than Laslo does.

Point of No Return:
The two plots kind of converge here, with the romantic and the external PNR in the same scene, where Rick throws his lot in with Ilsa and Laslo when he gives his band permission to play La Marseillaise. (More about this in next post.)

Act 3:
Crisis:
Ilsa arrives with a gun and demands the letters of transit, sure that her husband will be killed if he doesn't get out of Casablanca.
Dark Moment:
(same scene) Rick is willing to commit suicide-by-Ilsa rather than give into his love for her.
(Action that comes out of this-- She professes her love, and he surprises himself by agreeing to protect "all of them"-- taking responsibility for Laslo too.)
(This is an AMAZING scene-- one of the greatest ever in film.)

Climax:
Rick gets everything organized to get himself and Ilsa out of Casablanca... but of course, at the airport he reveals that the letters of transit are to be used by Laslo and Ilsa. They get away, but Rick stays.
(Romantic climax-- he and Ilsa "get Paris back" because of his unconditionally loving act of sacrifice to save her and her husband.)

Resolution:
He kills Strasser (how cool that this is a resolution, not a climax!), and he and Capt. Renault decide to join the Resistance and fight the Nazis together.

Thoughts? Any one of those turning points stand out as especially important in your story?

Alicia

Canada and Shakespeare

Tonight. tonight,
The world is full of light,
With suns and moons all over the place.
Tonight, tonight,
The world is wild and bright.
Going mad, shooting sparks into space.

Yeah, I'm in Stratford, Ontario. Theresa is responsible-- not for me being here, but actually for my going to West Side Story, which, duh, I saw the film, so why go to the play.
But she emailed me and told me that if I was stuck in Canada (long boring story, no arrest, however, but that wouldn't be boring) I should see plenty of plays-- you know, Stratford is worldclass theatre-- really-- better than Broadway, I swear, and if you're in New York or New England or the Midwest, it takes only eight hours and a passport --

Anyway, saw West Side Story with a theatre-full of high school students, and it was wonderful, and they were wonderful-- they laughed at the jokes and applauded every number and gave the cast a standing ovation and restored my faith in live theatre-- they cried at the end and I was amazed to find myself crying too-- I mean, really, a 50-year-old musical based on a 400-year-old play based on a 2500-year-old myth (remind me about Shakespeare parodying himself in Midsummer), and here are a bunch of cynical facebook teenagers, and they LOVED it. And so did I (though I have always thought the funny Officer Krupke song should have been in the first half rather than after the tragedy). It's wonderful seeing plays surrounded by teenagers-- they are so REACHABLE-- they care. But of course, this story was told for them. And live theatre is made for teenagers-- reckless and intemperate and in the moment.

Anyway, thanks to Theresa for the sage advice and the calming down (I was a little panicky, just a little, when I thought the only way home involved a bus dropping me at midnight in downtown Detroit...) (okay, REALLY panicky), and I will be home eventually (after Midsummer Night's Dream, A Funny Thing/Forum, Macbeth... really, this is just the best theatre in the world, and so close!).
And here for you is more reason that Youtube totally rules:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRBtdrw88E&feature=related

Bernstein rehearsing Jose Carrera in Tonight. I can't help it... I love this song.

Alicia (still stuck in Canada-- did you know it's another country? You need a PASSPORT!!!) (Yes, I have a passport, but-- no, really, it's too boring to explain, and Theresa's already heard it all, and she's been really patient...)

Help finding a short story

I'm front-paging this for the selfish reason that I want to see if anyone knows the title or author of this story--
I remember an amazing short story (well, of course, not the title or author) where a little boy recently lost his mother. He has misplaced a beloved toy, and his father, not wanting him to feel more pain, hears him praying to God that the toy would be recovered. Well, Dad goes out and gets him a replacement toy and tells him, "I found it!" and the boy thinks his prayer was answered. Then Dad hears him praying to God that his mom will come back.

Great use of irony and pathos-- and "wrong thing for the right reason" action. (Anyone know this story? I'd love to use it in a class.)

Alicia

Foreshadowing with Recurrent Images

Last night on Mad Men, we saw a great example of foreshadowing by repeating images.* I want to briefly look at how they did it.

First, Lane (the miserly, uptight Brit currently running Sterling Cooper's offices) is given a stuffed snake in a basket. His bosses mean it to represent his promotion to head of an office in India. But because Lane knows he's being shunted aside, it's symbolic of power and failure all in one glance. This dangerous snake can't bite anymore.

Next, in the context of a private meeting to discuss business, Conrad Hilton shows Don a pair of cartoon ads featuring a mouse. When Don points out that nobody wants to think about a mouse in a hotel room, Conrad admits the mouse is his idea. We're meant to conclude that Don is better at this than the guy on the cover of next week's Time magazine, but the cartoon character mouse is also symbolic of something else, I think, something juvenile, something to do with immature -- as in not fully grown -- concepts.

Finally, Don attempts to explain his lack of greed by telling a story: Some snakes can go months without eating, and then when they finally catch a mouse, they are so starved that they can eat too quickly and suffocate to death on their meal.

That's it. That's his story. Snake eats mouse and dies.

We don't need next week's preview to let us know that the Hilton account will go badly because of Lane's poor stewardship, do we?

But here's the question I haven't been able to answer yet. When you have paired symbolic objects like this -- two snakes, two mice -- those pairings are not accidental. So. We also have two Genes. Grandpa Gene and baby Gene. This was a big issue in last night's episode. Young Sally is all freaked out because she thinks baby Gene is actually Grandpa Gene. Wakes up screaming, ditches her gift-from-Gene Barbie in the bushes, all sorts of troubled-child behavior.

And there's already a suggestion of immaturity with the mouse, and of death with the snake.

How do the two Genes fit in with the two snakes and two mice? Do they?

Theresa

*This isn't quite the same as motif (recurrent images or statements used to develop theme), leitmotif (pairing two unique items so that the presence of one always indicates the presence of the other -- think dun-dun music and the shark in Jaws) , ordinary symbolism (an object used to indicate an abstract idea), or "Chekhov's gun" type foreshadowing (which allows for no unnecessary objects, such as stuffed snakes in baskets). But those are posts for different days. :)

Anti-heroines

Remember our discussion of anti-heroes? I just discovered some anti-heroines!

Well, two.

Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles (sadly cancelled).
Gemma in Sons of Anarchy.

Anyone familiar with these?

Notice a certain similarity--
Both are older (older than 35 anyway). Not nubile.
Both are outlaws (one on the run from The Terminator, the other the matriarch of a motorcycle gang)
Both are highly sexual, though Sarah tries to deny that part of herself
Both -- this is probably REALLY important-- are mothers of teen or young adult sons who are the sons of murdered fathers, and are themselves in constant danger
Both are physically tough and emotionally resilient

Gemma (I like her MUCH more, not sure why) is actually based on Gertrude in Hamlet, though she's more Lady Macbeth-with-a-cause. (Sons of Anarchy is a modern Hamlet, btw-- Hamlet is Jax, Claudius is Clay.) But Gemma is ten times tougher than silly Gertrude.

Anyway, I wonder if you're more likely to be an anti-heroine if you're Of a Certain Age... and the mother of a son you love fiercely.

Anyone watching SOA?

Alicia

The myth of sentence variety

I was talking to an author last week, one I regard as a terrific stylist, and of course I had to drag her into my pondering of sentences. I asked, "What do you do to vary sentences?"

She regarded me with some confusion. "What do you mean, vary?"

"You know, make them different lengths, so you don't have two short sentences in a row."

She said slowly, "But what if I need two short sentences in a row? I'm not going to make a long sentence just because the one before is shorter."

"But what if too many short sentences in a row sounds too juvenile?"

"It would only sound juvenile if I wanted to sound juvenile. If I wanted to sound terse, it would sound terse. It's not the length of the sentences that I care about, but what they convey, and if what I wanted to convey went best in a bunch of short sentences, that's what I'd use. If not, I'd use sentences that do what I want."

I didn't bother to ask her about intro participial phrases, because I figured I knew what she'd say. If she needed a sentence to start that way, she'd start it that way. Otherwise not.

What's the point here? It's the meaning that matters. It's the effect that matters. Sentences should be designed to convey some meaning, and whatever length or opening creates that meaning, that's what writers should start with. Now of course, if the sound is wrong, if the sound of the sentences together detracts from the meaning (which is greater, of course, than just the surface meaning of the words in sequence), the writer should explore why and how to fix that-- if one sentence needs another beat, or if starting with a placement preposition ("In France,") would set the stage more efficiently. But the hard part is writing sentences that mean what you want them to mean, and putting them together in an order that adds even further meaning, and adding the connectives and keywords that increase the coherence.

Sentence variety is a minor consideration, if that. If the paragraph or passage sounds wrong, sounds repetitive, if the information is redundant, those are all reasons to revise sentences. And the lack of variety might be a symptom of one of those. But it's just a symptom-- lack of variety in sentences is not, in itself, a problem.

In fact, if you follow a mental set of rules (don't begin two sentences with the same word... don't have the same opening construction more than twice in a paragraph), you will very likely be depriving yourself of some important tools to make your prose stronger-- musical and meaningful.

Just keep that in mind-- if you want more poetic prose, read poetry to discover the useful poetic devices. If you want more musical prose, listen to music to get a sense of the musical devices.

And you know one thing both poetry and music have in common-- repetition. Yep. Repetition of words, phrases, and constructions.

Here's an example (from the immortal Smokey):
I don't care what they think about me
I don't care what they say
I don't care what they think if you're leaving
I'm gonna beg you to stay

I don't care if they start to avoid me
I don't care what they do
I don't care about anything else
But being with you being with you.

Now that "I don't care" repetition isn't just musically appealing (though it is). The accumulation of "I don't care" makes each stanza sound defiant, and more than that, establishes the stakes here-- the singer is choosing his girl over everyone else. He's telling us with the "I don't cares" what he is being warned, what will happen if he makes this choice.

Now there's art to this-- you see in both stanzas three "I don't cares" and then a capping line (one that, btw, finishes the last "I don't care," which adds to both the forward propulsion and the coherence of the stanza). That is, the identical sentence structure of the two stanzas (which is very common in popular music) connects the two thoughts, and also then highlights the distinctive final lines.

One thing repetition does is focus the attention on the non-repetition. You pay more attention to the change because you're used to the repetition. So, in fact, a repetition of phrasing or structure BEFORE an important thought will subtly let the reader know that it's important. (So again, if you want to hide a clue, don't put it in the "important" position-- put it in the middle and make the structure and/or phrasing repetitive-- the reader might "elide" over it and not give it too much attention.)

Here's a poetic example. TS Eliot, a master craftsman (oh, yeah, good thinker and all that stuff too), often used repetition at the beginning of stanzas to unify the stanza or connect it with other similar stanzas:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                              For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                              Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow           
                       For Thine is the Kingdom


(This is the poem that ends with "This is the way 
the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper."
It always reminds me of a friend's brother, whose 
ex-girlfriend broke up with him to start dating 
a more "suitable" young fella, one who worked 
in a bank. The brother said ruefully, "And that's 
the way the world will end, not with a whim
but a banker."
And I ask you-- which guy would you choose? 
The one who works for the bank? Or the one 
who can -- just like that-- make a twist on Eliot?)


So every stanza (this is, btw, near the end) 
starts with a "Between (this) and (that)" 
and ends with "falls the shadow". 
Is the repetition a problem? No, of course 
not-- it's the point. 
By repeating that formulation, the poet focuses 
on the connection and separation of the pairs, 
and the reader has to think, "What is
the shadow between the idea and reality?" 

And the precision of the repetition of the stanzas 
contrasts with the sudden insertion of those comments 
("For Thine is the Kingdom"). 

Yeah, yeah, that's poetry.  But prose can sing too, 
and you can use that "music" to draw attention 
to a conclusion, a striking metaphor, or a theme.

I'm not trying to get you to be repetitive. Rather 
I'm trying to refocus your thoughts onto what sentences are:
1) Units of meaning, and
2) Parts of bigger units of meaning (paragraphs and passages).

What creates meaning, what creates the effect you want, 
in sequence and in combination-- That is a good sentence.  
Paying too much attention to non-meaning factors (like making
the opening sound different) can actually detract from 
your ability to give the reader the experience
you mean them to have. 

Get the meaning right first. Know what that is. Know it 
inside you before  you write and before you revise. 
(It might help to free-write here before you start.) 
Then let your desire to communicate this to the reader 
guide you to the best preliminary construction. Then check
on the big things-- is this in the right point in the 
passage? Do you need some kind of transition to connect
it to what comes before? Is the sentence clear so the 
reader can get your meaning (or however much of it you 
want to convey right now)?  Is there some poetic or 
thematic thing you want to echo in here?
(And of course, if you're writing in character voice, 
are there any words or formulations that don't sound
like that character?)

Get that stuff right, and then I don't think the 
construction will worry you, because the sentence will
be meaningful and interesting and go well with the
 rest of the paragraph.
Alicia

The Words Not Spoken, The Steps Not Taken

I'm reading Stone's Fall by Iain Pears, an exquisitely talented mystery writer whose first book, An Instance of the Fingerpost, is a near-perfect clinic on first person narratives. This new book is gorgeously written in reverse chronological order similar to the movie Memento, but covering a much broader time span.

But I'm struck over and over again not by the structural pyrotechnics but by the simple way he incorporates missing details that lesser writers might just leave out. Instead, by referencing the words not spoken and the actions left undone, we get a richer, more complex narrative. This is not an author who merely watches scenes unfold in his head and then records where the characters are standing and what they are saying. This is an author who embraces the totality of events from every angle.

Here's the first place I noticed this technique, on the bottom of the opening page. We're at the funeral of a woman so old that the narrator, a friend from decades ago, didn't realize she was still alive until he read her obituary in the morning paper.

It was a fine enough service, I thought, although I was not an expert. The priests took their time, the choir sang prettily, the prayers were said, and it was all over. A short eulogy paid tribute to her tireless, selfless work for the unfortunate but said nothing about her character. The congregation was mainly freshly scrubbed and intense-looking children, who were clipped around the ear by teachers if they made any untoward noise. I looked around to see who would take charge of the next round, but no one seemed to know what to do. Eventually the undertaker took over.

The paragraph goes on to describe the plans to inter the body and the procession of pallbearers. But by that point, the main work of the paragraph has already been accomplished. Pears hasn't once referred to the deceased woman's family or close friends, but we all understand they are not present. It's probably the main point of the paragraph, and it's made so obliquely that an inattentive reader might fail to draw the conclusion.

So how does he do it?

That phrase, but said nothing about her character, jarred me right out of the otherwise mild and pleasantly correct catalog of details of a very old woman's funeral. Instantly I wondered why the eulogy of an old, rich woman known for her charitable works would not reference her character. Normally, we might expect such a eulogy to talk about her kindness, her warm heart, her empathy or her sympathy. That's the key signal: Hey! Wake up! Important things are missing here! Pay attention to what's being left out!

Then we get fidgety children and casually brutal schoolteachers. There's a sense of duty attached to their presence, but no real feelings of mourning. Then the service ends, and right at the point where a family member or other designated spokesperson would talk about the next steps in the process, no one steps forward. But Pears handles it so deftly that but for that earlier key signal, we might not reach the proper conclusion.

A lesser writer might have written something like,

While the choir sang, I looked for familiar faces but found none. Of course, she'd never had children of her own, but what about the rest of her family? I also couldn't find a single representative of her husband's family. Or her second husband's family. No friends. No one even close to her age. No one but the dutiful and the curious and a cluster of children from the charity school she founded.

To be candid, that's not an entirely ineffective technique, even if it lacks Pears's masterful sleight of hand. A narrator who notices what's missing is an engaged and thoughtful narrator, and he's more likely to be interesting than the narrator who merely watches the scene unfold and records,

It was a pretty church with a small altar and vaulted ceilings. The pews were filled with school children from the charity school she'd founded. They fidgeted while the choir sang prettily, and their teachers clipped their ears to make them stand still. The priest gave the eulogy and talked about her many charitable works. It was a fine service, I thought, and at the end of it, the undertaker invited us all to the interment that afternoon.

Do you see how that works? It's a technically smooth paragraph with many of the same physical details as the Pears paragraph. But without the active mind of the narrator noting what's missing, the writing feels flat.

This is a technique Pears uses over an over to great effect. Look at how he focuses on what's missing here:

Not all journalists are editors, not all artists are members of the Academy. John Praxiteles Brock, my fellow lodger, was not then a success; his torment at having to look out every morning at the proof of unattainable glory in the next street was balanced by his desire to rub shoulders with the famous, who might assist him in his career. He would come home occasionally bubbling with excitement and pride: "I said good morning to Sargent this morning!" or "Henry MacAlpine was buying a pint of milk in front of me today!" Alas, it was rare that either said good morning in return. Perhaps his desperation frightened them; perhaps the fact that his father was a sculptor (hence his unfortunate middle name) of retrograde opinions and unpleasant temper put them off; perhaps they felt that youth has to fight on its own. Now he is more successful, Brock gives little encouragement to others, either.

Gorgeous, isn't it? Look at all the ways he uses negative statements and awareness of what's missing to paint a clear picture of this character. Can you spot them all?

A writer's work is as good as her powers of observation, and this includes a sensitivity not just to what is recordable, but to what is missing. Pay attention both when you're reading and observing, and ask yourself, What is being left out? How is it relevant? Because there's more to good storytelling than recording where the characters are standing and the words they speak. Sometimes the most significant details are those the characters leave out.

Theresa

In Which a Famous TV Writer Sees Things My Way

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this in my season-four Mad Men predictions:

I can't explain why, but I find Don's position the least interesting of all those set up for us last night. So, he arranged to have Betty's senile father move in with them. So, he prevented Betty's nasty brother from glomming onto Daddy's house and all its contents. So what?

This week, in only the fourth episode of the season, Betty's senile father fell down dead while buying peaches in the A&P. It's not too surprising, really. There wasn't enough meat on those story bones to sustain an entire season. Don is not engaged enough in his home environment for this to have made much difference to him. It was a flat conflict, and now it's done.

This was a mostly unremarkable episode (that is, entertaining and well-written, but without as many surprises or aha insights as we've come to expect). There were two powerful moments in terms of emotion and storytelling. First came when Betsy closed the door on little Sally Draper after learning of Grandpa Gene's death. Betsy is a lousy mother (except to that neighbor boy, Glenn, who alone of all the children can capture her attention). And poor little Sally Draper -- Don had better start setting aside a nice chunk of each paycheck for her future therapy needs. I don't know whether she'll end up in a drug-soaked commune or in a hospital on permanent suicide watch, but her parents clearly are grooming her for a tragic end.

The second powerful moment came when Sal danced the Anne Margaret commercial knockoff for his wife. Sal won't be able to keep that closet door locked much longer. He's losing the battle of Sal v. Sal by inches. He's one of the most interesting characters this season, a true tragic hero, and I can't wait to see what happens next with him.

We're being set up for more conflict between Don and Betsy over their mutual withdrawal from the home and family life, and Peggy is going to continue to surprise us as she emerges from her cocoon, and Joan's husband, if he continues on his current path, will not be long for this world. He'll disappear one day, and she'll serve a tasty "venison" stew buffet-style in that lovely chafing dish that was a wedding gift from the chief surgeon. Bye-bye, Dr. Rapist! Joanie, you simply must give us your recipe! (Okay, maybe not, but Joan is holding on to her job at Sterling Cooper for a reason. That's her safety net when her sham of a marriage fails.)

Theresa

For Alicia (and anyone else who wants to play along)

So, what do you think is the significance of all the singing in tonight's episode of Mad Men? We had three vocal performances -- Joan with the French accordion song, Roger in that disgusting blackface, and Paul with his college buddy. Do you think Pete and Trudy's charleston dance fits in with whatever theme they were trying to build with the music? It might have. Perhaps they were trying to make a point about the ways in which people perform. Not sure.

Also, Peggy + marijuana = win
Surely you like her better when she's stoned? I did. She had the two best lines of the whole night.
1 -- "I am Peggy Olson, and I would like to smoke some marijuana." (hilarious)
2 --
Smitty (in disbelief): Are you working?
Peggy (a little surprised): I think I am.


In the "I am always right" column, let's make a notation for Jane Sterling. Last week I suggested her look would change. Last season, pre-wedding, she wore absurdly tight clothing and unbuttoned her blouses enough to see inches of bra. This season, she's dressed in baggy sacks with jewel necklines, and "ladies who lunch" type hats. I thought her first dress, the black and white harlequin number, evoked the circus.

And what's up with Don suddenly becoming a truth teller? That bit at the end with Roger -- "they think you're foolish" -- was a bit shocking. But was it out of character? I can't decide. He doesn't seem to mind laying other people bare. It's himself he must hide ----- and yet, there he was behind the bar with a stranger, telling about his childhood. Is Don changing?

Theresa

Let's continue our deconstruction of Mad Men, a/k/a the best show on television. Where episode one provided an emotional bridge back to season two, episode two sets up the coming conflicts in season three. So let's take a look at how the plates are spinning and what might make them crash. IOW, today's lesson is in how to set up the premises for conflicts and how to foreshadow coming events.

Ken Cosgrove v. Pete Campbell

The battle between Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove is already shaping up to be epic. Last week, we might have all thought Ken was a shoo-in. This week, we get mixed messages. First, we see Ken dominate the Patio cola meeting, surrounded by creative staff and taking command in every way. Then we see Pete, joined only by Paul and his Commie Pinko Facial Hair, flub the Madison Square Garden account meeting. Score one for Ken, right?

Not so fast. The head honchos didn't want the Madison Square Garden account, as it turned out, so Pete didn't actually lose anything. And Ken -- boyish, charming, easygoing Ken -- ran roughshod over Peggy during the meeting. Yes, they do tend to treat her badly, but Ken takes on an almost cruel edge when he attacks her objections to their creative choices. I liked Ken a lot less after that scene. He was far too condescending.

Then we have the obvious pairing of Ken and Don. Don echoes Ken's cutting remarks when Peggy presents her objections to him. I think we can read this two ways. Either we can assume that Don and Ken go together, therefore Ken will win the job in the end. (I suspect this is what the writers want us to conclude.) Or we can realize that Don's ego is too big to tolerate a clone, meaning that Ken is being set up for some conflict with Don later in the season.

I am leaning toward the second choice, both for the reasons already mentioned and because I think Pete Campbell is too vicious and ambitious to tolerate Ken getting ahead of him. I predict Pete will crush Ken, but it's going to take him some time to figure out how to do it, and he may have a few stumbles along the way. Don's going to get in on the game at some point when Ken rubs him the wrong way. Ken probably doesn't have the stamina for this kind of war. Should be interesting.


Peggy Gets It On

Okay, let me start by saying that the Anne-Margaret screeching scene was horrible to sit through. And then we had to endure a piece of it a second time, later in the episode when Don watched it. I kept wondering why the director let it drag on so long the first time, and why they repeated our exposure to it later. It seemed like overkill. Really, we get it -- the ad execs for the diet cola want something stupid in their commercials. Peggy sees how stupid it is, but the men are dazzled by what they perceive as sexy. We get it. Move on, already. Please.

But I think there's a larger point. The Anne-Margaret song is not just a prototype for an ad campaign, but a glaring example of how cultural perceptions have shifted since the Mad Men era. This particular type of infantilized female is no longer glorified as it was then. And thank god for that.

I read an article this morning about how the Anne-Margaret bit was used to propel Peggy toward discovering and accepting her own sexuality. There's certainly some truth to that. But what I find interesting is that Peggy, the most modern female in the show, reacts to Anne-Margaret's stupid flutterings just as this modern woman did. Anne-Margaret trivialized herself in that song. Peggy and I both are made somewhat squeamishly offended while watching it.

My response to the Anne-Margaret thing was to grunt and roll my eyes a lot. Peggy's was to get laid. Go, Peggy. Her way is more fun! We saw her experiment with her own sexuality in this episode -- singing in her mirror a la Anne-Margaret, stealing Joan's flirtatious line about the subway, hiding her own success to make the boy in the bar feel stronger. But in the end, she took what she wanted and then walked away. She's still the most modern woman on this show, and her flirtations are play-acting used to achieve her goal.

I expect we'll see a lot more of this type of behavior from Peggy as the season progresses. At the end of the second season, she confessed her pregnancy to Pete. Without that hanging over her head, without guilt dogging her every step, she's free to find a new path. (Anyone else notice the lack of Colin Hanks this season? He acted as Peggy's guilty conscience in season two. She doesn't need him anymore.) Peggy's arc for this season, then, promises to be one of character development, but I'm willing to bet that the stronger she gets, the more she'll take on the guys over things like that Patio cola creative. I can't wait for her to start winning a few.


Roger Is a Naughty Boy

Dude thought he could dump his middle-aged wife and marry a teenager, and everyone would just fall right into line with it. How shocked he must be to discover that women hate this kind of behavior. We haven't seen Jane the Child-Bride yet this season, but how much do you want to bet that when we do, she's no longer the wide-eyed poet version of the Anne-Margaret sexy-infant-woman? I predict she'll be trying to remake herself into a grownup. I predict demure necklines, society lunches, and a character who begins more and more to resemble Roger's first wife. And the more she resembles the first Mrs. Sterling, the less Roger will want her.

The most telling line in the Roger subplot was when his wife and daughter confronted him in his office early one weekday morning. Roger went to pour himself a second cocktail, and his ex-wife scolded him. His reply? "You're not my wife anymore." Watch that line begin to resonate over the course of the season. Without the formidable first wife to check his less noble impulses and nag him into compliance, there's no way the ineffectual second wife can hold the reins. Roger will lose interest in Jane, and then his season-one shenanigans will look like child's play.

We'll see a lot of conflict between Roger's new wife and the other women on the show -- I wonder, in particular, whether last season's battle between Joan and Jane will get a rematch. Even without that, we'll have Jane versus the daughter (great foils for each other, by the way), Jane versus the first wife, Jane versus the wives of business associates. Oh, and can you imagine how awesome a cage match between Jane and Betty would be? This is going to be good.


Don Draper, Family Man (Yeah, Right)

I can't explain why, but I find Don's position the least interesting of all those set up for us last night. So, he arranged to have Betty's senile father move in with them. So, he prevented Betty's nasty brother from glomming onto Daddy's house and all its contents. So what?

There was that beautifully poetic moment when Don was watching the maypole dance, and he played his fingers against the grass. He was watching the barefoot dance teacher, and it was clear that if his wife hadn't been there, he would have been after that teacher like a dog goes after steak. But Betty was beside him, and his only recourse was to stroke the lawn and fantasize.

How should we interpret this? Is Don going to let Betty continue to act as a check on his behavior as he tries to be a family man? He didn't do such a great job of this last week when he fooled around with that stewardess. So maybe not. I don't know, what do you all think?

Theresa

Opinions Wanted

I need some examples of great dialogue from a variety of genres. Who do you think writes really wonderful dialogue?

Thanks!
Theresa

Sentence openings-- beyond words

In the wake of Theresa's provocative exercise about checking published work for PPPs (present participial phrases, Murphy asks:
...Uh oh, I was just thinking ( and that’s never good) what’s Alicia’s opinion on this? I mean, if she holds to her position that everything in grammar is there to serve a purpose - why can’t the purpose of PPPs be to switch up the monotony - or maybe infuse the prose with something a little different? That’s primarily why I do it.
Theresa and I generally agree, but we REALLY agree on this. I mean, we've had heated discussions that peter out because there's nothing to discuss and nothing to get heated about. We agree. PPPs, especially at the start of a sentence, are seldom eloquent and quite often ungrammatical, and we agree that starting many sentences with a PPP is something we see mostly in unsophisticated writers. (We keep blogging about this very subject, in fact.)

So we agree. We more than agree. We-- this is God's honest truth-- send each other examples of danglers we find in submissions. I know, I know. But really, "Chasing his tail, I called for Rover," THAT is a great joke. I mean, David Letterman should have a segment of Top Ten Dangling Participles.

But we also agree that even if you avoid dangling your participles (and really, the more participial phrases you have, the more likely you'll dangle many of them), PPPs are problems, not always, but often, and they become more of a problem when they're in a phrase, and even more when they're in an introductory phrase. (Much discussion from both of us in the participle thread here.)

So, anyway.
I mean, if she holds to her position that everything in grammar is there to serve a purpose - why can’t the purpose of PPPs be to switch up the monotony - or maybe infuse the prose with something a little different?

Well, the desire for that to be the purpose doesn't make it so. Maybe I want the purpose of my dishwasher to be washing clothes... but its actual purpose is washing dishes. (You know, I actually tried to make the purpose of "laundry detergent" to be "substituting for the dishwashing detergent I forgot to pick up at the grocery," and it was a disaster. I don't understand why this perfectly sensible substitute caused suds to spill out of the dishwasher and cover the entire kitchen floor a foot deep. Boy, what a mess.)

The purpose of the participle is to modify a noun with an action simultaneous to the action the noun is performing. (There are other parts of speech that end in -ing, btw-- a gerund is an verb-ing word that takes the role of a noun in a sentence-- Failing is my biggest fear. Getting lost is often the start of adventure.) That's it. The purpose is not to start a sentence any more than the purpose of a noun is to start a sentence. Sometimes sentences start that way, but almost any part of speech or syntactical element can start a sentence in English-- the English sentence is quite flexible.

But let's get real here. We all try to vary the openings of our sentences. No one wants to have six sentences in a row starting the same way. Sentence variety is a perfectly good goal. (I am going to be all pedantic and say that we should aim at making meaningful sentences that help the reader fully experience the action, and if we do that, our sentences will have plenty of variety. But I do notice that sometimes we have five sentences in a row starting with "he," and that's when we look for another way to open one or two of them.)

That is a valid aim. But the aim is not "varying sentence openings," really, is it? It's "making the passage read well," and how to accomplish that will depend on the passage purpose, your voice, the pacing, where you are in the scene (I bet at the end of a scene, your sentences might be shorter or longer), all sorts of things.

And sentences are rhythmic and euphonious not in isolation, but in connection-- within the paragraph. And you know, just as where the paragraph is in the scene matters, so does where the sentence is in the paragraph. The first sentence in a paragraph might open differently-- more decisively, perhaps, or with a "time transition" like "Two weeks ago--" from later sentences.

(I must pause to point out that "euphonious" is a very un-euphonious word. It's like "abbreviation" and "monosyllable"-- they are not what they mean. :)

I must admit that I think sportswriters are often the best journalistic stylists out there, more conscious of voice and effect than the often leaden political writers. So I read Sports Illustrated not just for the sports news, but for the often powerful writing. Here's an opening from a recent article about Marc Buoniconti, who was paralyzed in a college game (yes, he's Nick's son):

Henry Mull was 13 years old then, poor and sports-mad and hardly intrigued by the long view. Who is at 13? So, no, he never thought about the odd ways lives can meld—not in the hours before his neck got snapped, and certainly not in the hours after. Strangers sliced the shoulder pads and helmet off the Middleton Junior High quarterback and sped him through the streets of Tampa to the hospital, where more strangers shaved his head, their voices and faces and hands fluttering while he lay terrified. His mother hadn't arrived yet. "Am I going to play ball again?" he asked. Now someone was pressing a metallic device to his head, now eight grim-faced people were holding down his arms and legs. Whatever anesthetic they used, it didn't take. The boy screamed when they screwed the first four-inch bolt into one side of his skull, just above the ear. He kept it up as they twisted in the second, screaming all the way into blackness.


Now I just chose that story because it's online so I didn't have to type it in. But like so many SI articles, this article has an elegant but vivid opening. See how concrete it is, the precision and yet relevance of the details (four-inch bolt, just above ear). Look at the powerful but familiar verbs: screwed, twisted. There are even some participles (though I don't think any participial phrases): screaming, fluttering (notice those are active, none of that being and having deadwood). (No, "pressing" doesn't count, in my estimation, because it's -- with "was"-- the progressive form of the verb, and doesn't count as a participle-- it's not a modifier but part of the verb. Not all -ing words are participles, only the adjectival ones.)

But notice that most of the sentences start with the subject and proceed pretty quickly to the predicate (verb):

Henry Mull was
Strangers sliced
His mother hadn't arrived
The boy screamed
He kept it up

Also notice most of those use transitive verbs which transfer the action to an object:
Strangers (subject) sliced (verb) the shoulder pads and helmet (direct objects) off

Why is that important? Well, first, the SVO is the basic sentence form in English (not in all languages). Also transitive verbs are usually action verbs, and action verbs, natch, make the passage feel more active. And direct objects keep the sentence concrete-- this is not purposeless action, what this subject is doing, but purposeful-- the action is being done to something.

What other openings are there?
Two sentences have transitions before the SVO-- very efficient:
So, no, he never thought
Now someone was pressing

These are efficient transitions because in a single word, they each convey a connection to a previous sentence. "So" makes a causal connection -- Because he is only 13, he doesn't think about this.
"Now" makes a time connection. The previous sentence was "then," before, and this is "now."

Let me point out that these single-word transitions serve to mask the opening without hiding it, so if you have too many "he" openings, this might be a good variation. :)

Then there are two questions:
Who is at 13?
"Am I going to play ball again?"
(I note that this ends with the quote tag he asked. The author could have started with that, and it would then be a standard SVO construction. He asked, "Am I going to play ball again?" The quote then is the direct object. You see how that simple, completely conventional switch, quote tag last, varies the opening by putting the object first-- and this is an object that starts with a verb. Elegant!)

Then there's one that is a compound sentence (two independent clauses), but the first clause has a OSV construction (whatever anesthetic is the object of they used). (And to complicate, the entire first clause is the antecedent to that pronoun "it".)
Whatever anesthetic they used, it didn't take.

So half of the sentences start with the subject. I bet you didn't read that paragraph and think, "All those sentences start the same!" That's because they don't.
Name
Someone else, plural
Someone else
The boy (not name)
Pronoun

So three sentences start with Henry, but not the word Henry. Name, descriptor, pronoun.

Two sentences start with transition words before the subject.

Two start with question markers (the relative pronoun-- who, and notice this gives a SVO construction for the question-- and the inverted verb-subject order -- Am I).

Not an intro participial phrase in there. (Or a trailing one, for that matter.) There's not even a prepositional opening, though there could be (prepositions usually indicate some time or space positioning): Just above his ear, they screwed in a four-inch bolt.

And there are no introductory dependent clauses, though again there could be:
When they screwed the first four-inch bolt into one side of his skull, just above the ear, the boy screamed.

So... does this paragraph work, I guess is the first question. I think it does, but what do you think?

And if so, why does it work? Why does the emphasis on SVO construction work?

I think that it's meant to be immediate, concrete, visual, vivid, experiential. The passage is meant to put the reader right there in the scene. So the sentence openings aren't cluttered with extraneous detail or -- this is important-- minor elements or actions. The openings are forceful and focused, because the purpose of the paragraph is to get the reader into the action.

The virtue of the SVO construction is its efficiency in transmitting the experience and action. There's no distraction from that.

Other elements opening a sentence have many uses, but they can DISTRACT from the conveyance of that simple action/experience. That's fine... for some situations. For some purposes. For some passages. For some voices.
When?

Well, here's an excerpt from the wonderful Lemony Snicket novel A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning:

Their misfortune began one day at Briny Beach. The three Baudelaire children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley-the word "rickety," you probably know, here means "unsteady" or "likely to collapse"-alone to the seashore, where they would spend the day as a sort of vacation as long as they were home for dinner. This particular morning it was gray and cloudy, which didn't bother the Baudelaire youngsters one bit. When it was hot and sunny, Briny Beach was crowded with tourists and it was impossible to find a good place to lay one's blanket. On gray and cloudy days, the Baudelaires had the beach to themselves to do what they liked.

So why would he start the paragraph with declarative (though hardly simple) sentences? And then end with three sentences that start with introductory phrases and clauses (the last two properly followed by a comma, please note :)? None of these are participial phrases- one (When) is a dependent clause, and the other two are prepositional phrases (the This particular phrase has the implied "on"-- On this particular day).

Introductory elements like these "qualify"-- they impose or explain some condition usually. Now often they will also work in the middle or the end of the sentence (as I said, the English sentence is flexible), but we tend to put things first, before the main clause, when we want the reader to have that sense BEFORE reading the main action of the sentence. So if you want the reader to have the "gray and cloudy day" in mind first, you put it first. Look how automatically I put "if" clauses first-- "If you want the reader...." That's because usually (certainly not always) the main clause is so circumscribed by the condition, you need the condition first to get the right "feel" of the constriction.

Here's another:
A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most people live in denial of Death’s patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.
Eventually, Mitchell Rafferty would be able to cite the minute that he began to recognize the inevitability of his death: Monday, May 14, 11:43 in the morning–three weeks short of his twenty-eighth birthday.
Until then, he had rarely thought of dying. A born optimist, charmed by nature’s beauty and amused by humanity, he had no cause or inclination to wonder when and how his mortality would be proven.
When the call came, he was on his knees.
The Husband by Dean Koontz

Again, there are no PPPs. The blue-fonted phrases charmed by nature’s beauty and amused by humanity are past participial phrases, not present. They are descriptors, amplifying what is meant by "a born optimist".

Here's another, from A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini:
It was true. Mariam didn't remember. And though she would live the first fifteen years of her life within walking distance of Herat, Mariam would never see this storied tree. She would never see the famous minarets up close, and she would never pick fruit from Herat's orchards or stroll in its fields of wheat. But whenever Jalil talked like this, Mariam would listen with enchantment. She would admire Jalil for his vast and worldly knowledge. She would quiver with pride to have a father who knew such things.

Here, there are two dependent clauses here. No participial phrases.

Finally! I'm telling you, I have scanned lots of excerpts, chosen at random (I looked at Dickens and Faulkner too, just to get a sense of earlier novels, and found the same thing) and this is the FIRST introductory participial phrase I've seen, from A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin:
"Marty!" His girlfriend's snarl. "Be seeing you, Shiv." Still grinning, he walked backwards for a few paces, then turned away. Siobhan had headed straight back over to St. Leonard's to reacquaint herself with his file. An hour later, the switchboard had put through a call. It was him, phoning from a bar. She'd put the receiver down. Ten minutes later, he'd called again . . . and then another ten after that.

That's it-- "Still grinning."

What does that tell you? It tells me that in published works, introductory participial phrases are NOT a common way of starting a sentence-- which is just what Theresa's exercise showed.

How about trying this-- take a couple pages of a book you like, and highlight every introductory element, even the one word ones. And think about why the element is in the sentence, and why it's at the beginning-- what additional meaning does that placement create?

But don't stop there. Keep note of the many ways you can start a sentence. But the point isn't to vary a sentence for the sake of variation. If you look for the best way to convey the meaning of the sentence, you'll find the best way to order the sentence elements. It helps to know lots of different possibilities, to hear those options in your head as you write and revise. But don't strew them around. Consider the purpose of the sentence, its placement in the paragraph. (I notice that often the paragraphs above break into two parts, the first half with intro elements and the second half without or vice versa. That is, the same sentence might be ordered differently in a different part of the paragraph-- if it's introducing something, or making a conclusion, you might order it differently.)

The way we convey meaning in English is primarily through sentence order (and paragraph order, I think). So don't give up that tool by arbitrarily choosing sentence order on the basis of something other than meaning. Make the meaning happen, and I'll bet that your sentences will sound just fine.

(But I can't help but point out that introductory participial phrases seldom add much meaning. If they do, however, good! :)

So how about some examples of sentence openings that are meaningful-- and why you put this element there and that here.

Alicia