NGCW-Chapter 3

All exercises are taken from Alice LaPlante's  The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing (NGCW).

Chapter 3: Part III features two short fiction pieces, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien and Nebraska by Ron Hansen.

Chapter 3: Part III

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

1. How do the concrete details affect the story? At what point does O’Brien slip in some abstractions to good effect?

The concrete details of all five senses ground the seemingly commonplace Vietnam War story and create exciting fiction. O’Brien does exactly what Alice Plante suggests in the beginning of the chapter, “choosing your trees-and rendering them precisely-is at the heart of all good writing” (pg. 107). Details transform a generic war story into something concrete, memorable, and unique. The abstraction comes later in the story but the abstraction is also always bookended by details, bringing the reader back to the specifics of things that the characters are carrying and the specifics of the characters themselves.

2. Why tell us that Lavender is dead so early in the story? How does that impact the suspense? Why do you want to read on if you know that Lavender is dead, i.e. you know the whole story?

 The details of the story make the plot less important. The reader no longer wants to discover what happened but rather what Lieutenant Cross and essential the reader is going to learn from what happened. Lavender dies early so that Cross can reflect on his death and war in general. The suspense isn’t gone because the story isn’t about him but about Cross growing as a soldier, an individual and a man.

3. Notice that the full story has been told by the end of the third page. Then O’Brien goes back and tells it again, in more detail. Why structure the story this way?

It is the details in life that illustrate people’s true character and life’s true significance. The story is told over again to illustrate what Cross has learned and to make Lavender’s death mean something. Even the title of the story, The Things They Carried, is focused on the details of war and not the big picture. People say that there are only six real stories in the world and the purpose of a writer’s job is to illustrate the details that make them fresh and new so that the reader can think about them in a different way.

4. What is the story ultimately about? What happens at the end when Jimmy Cross burns the letters and decides to be a stricter leader? Is he merely facing reality, or is he substituting one fantasy (about Martha) with another (that he can control what happens to his unit by stricter behavior)?

The story is ultimately about choices and Cross burns the letters to make different choices than he did in the past. In a way, he stops living in his daydreams of Martha and tries to do his best for his soldiers. Perhaps he is substituting one reality for another but he is also trying to live without regrets. Years later, when he is an old man, he might realize that men under him would have died with or without the stricter rules but right now he wants to live knowing he did everything he could to save their lives. The army taught him rules and regulations and he wants to follow them in hopes that they will prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

Nebraska by Ron Hansen

1. How does Hansen manage to capture the entire region in just a few pages of text?

Hansen provides the reader with details about the land, the town, and the people who live there. There are no main characters or few characters at all but there are people who are citizens of the town. His details make them part of the landscape and important contributors to the image of Nebraska.

2. What are some images that spring to mind after you’ve read the piece?

I want to know more about the inhabitants that are mentioned on the last page. I want to know more about the “sixty year old man named Adolf Schooley” that is “a boy again in bed” and I want to know more about Mrs. Antoinette Heft who is “at the Home Restaurant…looking up at the stars the Pawnee Indians looked at.”

3. What techniques does Hansen use that you could ‘steal’ to make your own work more vivid and emotionally satisfying?

The technique of describing what the town not only has but also doesn’t have. Hansen points out that “an outsider is only aware of what isn’t” and then lists details that that the town does not have, like a bookshop, a pharmacy, and a picture show. The details of what isn’t there is just as important to capturing the essence of Nebraska as the details of what is.

NGCW-Chapter 2

All exercises are taken from Alice LaPlante's  The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing

Chapter 2: Part III features two short fiction pieces, Where are you going Where have you been by Joyce Carol Oates and Welcome to Cancerland by Barbara Ehrenreich

I highly recommend Welcome to Cancerland.

Chapter 2: Part III Readings

Where are you going, Where have you been? by Joyce Carol Oates

1. How does Oates define Connie’s character?

She is shallow and sexual yet somewhat afraid of her own sexuality. She rejects her role of a nice girl in lieu of a sexual persona that only comes out when she’s away from home.“She knew she was pretty and that was everything.”

2. How do you characterize the relationship between Connie and her mother? Is it one dimensional? Or is there something that keeps it from being flat and overly familiar?

They don’t seem to understand each other well nor do they want to. Here’s a line of how Connie imagines her own mother sees her in comparison to her sister June: “June did this, June did that, she saved money and helped clean the house and cooked and Connie couldn’t do a thing, her mind was all filled with trashy daydreams.” The relationship is more than one dimensional but not overly explored. To some degree, the mother is presented to the reader as a one dimensional character because she’s only interpreted through Connie’s eyes.

3. How does Oates create tension in the piece? What aspects of the piece are the most suspenseful, and why?

The mundane details of Connie’s life and character help create tension between her and Arnold Fiend. She is afraid yet mesmerized by him and the reader eventually feels the same way. He has an ostentatious car (a gold convertible) and a forceful way of speaking. He is a familiar stranger and his interactions with Connie create suspense in the piece.

Welcome to Cancerland by Barbara Ehrenreich

1. How does the writer avoid melodrama in this piece, which is about facing death?

According to NGCW’s author, a melodramatic piece is a work that is “characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization” and a sentimental piece is a work that is “falsely emotional in a maudlin way” (pg. 31). These types of pieces tend to rely on stereotypes and unrepresentative depictions in that they do not represent the complexity of a situation. For example, marriages and births are always depicted as happy while funerals are depicted as sad. Welcome to Cancerland is an excellent example of a short story/essay that avoids melodrama and sentimentality by attacking the corporate cult surrounding breast cancer survivors. “Cancer or no cancer, I will not live that long, of course. But I know this much right now for sure: I will not go into that last good night with a teddy bear tucked under my arm.”

2. Isn’t this a piece about fighting a sentimental attitude toward disease? In what ways is Ehrenreich saying the same things we read about in this chapter?

Ehrenreich points out that the cult of breast cancer surviving with all of its ribbons and relays for the cure is a false sisterhood that can be “judged as an outbreak of mass delusion” which celebrates “survivorhood by downplaying mortality and promoting obedience to medical protocols known to have limited efficacy.” This is a stellar rejection of sentimentality of a topic (cancer) that is very prone to sentimental and false displays that the corporate culture surrounding it actually exploits. 

NGCW-Chapter 1

All exercises are taken from Alice LaPlante's  The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing (NGCW).

Chapter 1: Part III features two short fiction pieces, On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion and Emergency by Denis Johnson.

I highly recommend Johnson to anyone who likes Jack Kerouac and Chuck Palahniuk. 



Chapter 1: Part III Readings
On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion

1. What do you think about Didion’s reasons for keeping a notebook? Do you agree with them? Why or why not?

Her reasons are to record how it felt to her. I agree because writing is a selfish and self-absorbed process. It’s all about my interpretation of the world and the notebook allows me to record what is significant. That’s why my notebook is useless to someone else and someone else’s notebook is useless to me, as she said.

2. What devices have you found best for generating notebook entries? Do you keep a traditional journal? Or do you find yourself jotting down odd notes, a la Didion?

I am trying to jot down more odd notes and to keep something small with me at all times so I can get into the habit of it. For now, I only have a 100 page mead composition book in which I write ideas from home. I also use it to develop story ideas and to take notes for these creative writing exercises.

3. Have you ever “mined” a journal or a notebook for fiction or nonfiction ideas? If so, how has the worked?

I sometimes write down things I heard on TV and use it later as ideas for flash fiction stories. It’s not so much mining because I do not take notes on the world around me (I would need something small and a habit of jotting to do that) but just referring. I hope to turn to mining in the future.

4. Do you agree with Didion that jotting down notes on what is happening around you is always, ultimately, about yourself? Why or why not?

Yes, I see all writing, at least non-sentimental/ melodramatic writing, as being an expression or a commentary of the world around us. There is always an element of what you’ve experienced or someone you’ve seen or observed and it is therefore ultimately about yourself, even if indirectly.

Emergency by Denis Johnson

 1. What is the story ultimately about? (It’s about more than just getting messed up on drugs.) What is the general feeling you take away from the story?

I loved this story and its brevity. It reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk and, when I looked up Denis Johnson online, I saw that Palahniuk is a big fan of him too. The general feeling I took away is the absurdity and inanity of modern life. A man gets stabbed in the eye, the orderlies who treat him the hospital are high, and a rabbit family gets killed, yet none of these events is the focal point of the story. They are just things that happen.

2. What purpose does Georgie play in the story? How would it be a completely different story if he weren’t in it?

I see him as a reflection on the narrator. The story would be completely different without him. I particularly love (can one particularly love?) this simple yet complex metaphor. “I could understand how a drowning man might suddenly feel a deep thirst being quenched. Or how the slave might become a friend to his master. Georgie slept with his face right on the steering wheel.”

3. Can you point out the ways that Johnson keeps surprising us? How does he play with our expectations and deliver something that feels fresh and urgent?

It feels like a collection of flash fiction pieces all tied in together with the same characters. There is no mulling over and considering, what does this all mean? The prose is not tired or boring. The events that occur are not analyzed, they just happen. Finally, when you think that it’s all over, they meet Hardee, a draft dodger. They drive him to Canada and, when Hardee asks Georgie what he does for a living, Georgie replies “I save lies.” This made me laugh out loud. It was so unexpected and refreshing. Brilliant.