Creative Differences and Other Stories, page 9
Probably shouldn’t have said that, either, because she smiled and said: ‘The artist and the marketplace guy. How can we go wrong?’
I put her right: I would indeed take responsibility for the commercial side, but that didn’t stop me from being at least an equal partner in the writing.
She laughed. ‘I’m guessing you know the best place to eat, too.’
So we wrote a novel together. Every day I read her writing, saw her inner world and brilliance overlaid on something I had created. It was intoxicating—the best time I’d ever had.
And a couple of years later, we had a shared bestseller and a shared home. Writing had brought us together, and as long as I could find a way of keeping that going—even if it meant helping Emily write a novel that might never be finished—we’d have a reason to stay together.
There’s no better way to clarify and refine your working process than teaching others. And it’s a chance to put something back: I knew I’d been lucky. For the last year, I’d been involved in a mentoring program for emerging writers. My new student lived locally, and we met over coffee in Gertrude Street, at a buzzing place just around the corner from our house.
My first sight of her was unsettling. She bore a striking resemblance to Emily. It may have been the glasses: if you’d asked me to describe Emily’s I’d have struggled, but I recognised them on another’s face. She was shorter, almost as slim, I guessed a few years younger.
By way of introduction, she handed me a copy of Australian Book Review—open at an essay of hers.
I gave it back. ‘It’s okay. I assume you can string a sentence together.’
‘Sorry. I just wanted to know what you thought. It was runner-up for the Calibre Prize.’
‘Then you don’t need my opinion. My understanding is that you want help with structure.’
‘I guess I just wanted you to know that I can do something before I tell you what I can’t do.’
‘I know what you can do. You can write an essay. What you can’t do is write a novel. You get to thirty thousand words and it’s going nowhere.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Most writers can do short stories and big-story set-ups without thinking about structure. But it’s hard to sustain the second act without a plan.’
‘I’m sorry. You lost me with second act.’
‘The hole in the middle. The soggy centre. Boring the reader shitless. Boring yourself shitless.’
She nodded, then looked awkward. ‘Listen, I googled your bio and your partner is my teacher.’
I knew she was studying at the college. I wondered if Emily had noticed the resemblance.
I laughed. ‘Chinese walls.’
‘I’m okay. You can talk about me to her. But…are you sure?’
‘Can’t see how it would be a problem.’
5
Scott
‘Of course it’s a problem.’
‘Emily…’
‘Scott, she’s a difficult student. And she has a…strange relationship…with me. She moved from Toronto to study here, I think specifically to be in my class. There’s no way she picked you out by accident.’
‘Emily…’
‘I know—she got assigned to you…All she had to say was that she wanted help with structure, and who else was she going to get? And don’t tell me she didn’t know who you were. The Girl is her favourite book in the whole wide world. Supposedly.’
‘Emily…’
‘And now you can’t pull out. She’d know why.’
‘Emily…’
‘Don’t Emily me. I told you, she’s…stalking me. Which means she’s probably got an unhealthy attitude towards you too. The world doesn’t need another book about a literature professor and a student. Do you hear me, Philip Roth?’
‘Emily…’
‘I hear you. I hear everything you’re saying. I get it. But I know you. Stick to the mentoring. Don’t get…creative.’
6
Emily
‘Hey, where did you go?’
I’m trying to sound casual rather than demanding. Scott disappeared for a couple of hours, and I cooled off about Piper. Sort of. I’m streaming some Bach cello concertos and I’ve put stress-away oil in the diffuser.
It’s not Scott’s fault that he’s pushed a whole panel of buttons: giving Piper the help that I’m resisting, his careless wandering into a complicated situation, his casual occupation of my territory.
He tosses his cap on the bench. There are beads of perspiration on his brow. ‘Working,’ he says, as though he’s literally been sweating over a sentence. Scott’s idea of working is to walk to a bookshop, chat with the staff, soak up the adulation and walk home. ‘A bit of marketing, a bit of creative time.’
‘What are you working on?’ I ask.
‘Another concept. The more I do this, the more I realise that concept—premise, call it want you will—is what it’s all about. The picture ages while the man stays young; a boy wizard goes to school; Abraham Lincoln slays vampires. Get that right and it’s yours to lose.’
He’s not meaning to diminish what I do, just being insensitive. He realises a couple of seconds after he says it—the usual sequence—and attempts a save.
‘I’m talking popular fiction. I mean, Oscar Wilde was popular in his time. Like Dickens…’
‘You’re digging a deeper hole. I thought plot was the thing; now it’s concept?’
‘It’s all important, but the further you go down the track with writing a book, the less whatever you’re doing matters to the book’s success. Premise, plot, prose…proofreading. A misplaced comma won’t lose you any readers. That’s my insight from two hours of walking.’
I’m trying to find a way into the conversation to thank him for his help with my writer’s block, which I’d been intending to do until he sprung Piper on me.
‘Would you like to go out for a drink?’
He’s walking to the fridge but spins around like I’ve suggested we take a plane to Paris. ‘You got some writing done?’
I can’t not smile. ‘Uh-huh. Yesterday. While you were out mentoring.’
‘That’s fantastic. What?’
I’d started from the beginning, heading towards the ‘Will she leave?’ passage. But after a while, that moment was becoming clearer in my mind than the path towards it, and I decided to write it. Out of order. Like a planner.
‘Can I read it?’ he says.
He knows the answer.
‘Not ready yet.’
We’re sitting at a kerbside table, in the twilight of daylight saving, drinking Aperol spritzes from balloon glasses, and Scott is beaming. I’m trying to avoid spoiling the moment by telling him I’m not sure what to do next. I don’t want to end up like Suzanne, writing random bits that I can’t fit together.
‘It was good to write something I’m happy with,’ I say. ‘I’m thinking of it as a loosening-up exercise…a throwaway.’
‘What? It sounds like the core of your story.’
‘Maybe it’ll emerge again as I write, but I don’t want to pre-empt anything. If it happens, it happens.’
‘You’re hilarious.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll do anything to make the words come—write free-form crap, pop amphetamines—everything except the one thing that would solve the problem. Every other profession…architects…Beethoven outlined his symphonies.’
‘I thought he was the tortured genius.’
‘The best of both worlds. The agony of writing and a result at the end. And you don’t have to tell anyone. Like all the rest of the writers who want the world to think they’re inspired geniuses. “Oh, I just sit down and let the characters appear and take me where they want to go. It’s tough but it’s the only way.”’
‘What you’re mocking is exactly how I write.’
‘But you’re struggling with it. All I’m saying…’
‘I’m not going to do a beat sheet. If that means the story doesn’t fit together like some sort of Lego project—everything tied up with a bow at the end…’
‘You’re mixing metaphors.’
‘I’m just not as fixated on plot as you are.’
‘Ask any reader, ask a publisher, ask the producer who’s looking for something to adapt. They’re going to say “What’s it about? What happens?” The plot is the book.’
He waves to the waiter, ordering two more drinks to stop me leaving. We’ve become strident, students arguing the philosophy of writing, except that our whole lives are tied up in the outcome.
‘Here’s my advice,’ he says. ‘Take a break. Write something different. You’ve pushed yourself hard enough: give your subconscious time to work on the problem.’
‘Maybe. And I hear you about plot and planning and beat sheets. I hear you every time. The drink helped. Your being around helps. But if you want to teach screenwriting to novelists…I’m the wrong person.’
7
Piper
‘It’s easy to hate someone who doesn’t have a voice.’
I can feel myself sounding way too forceful. I’ve been psyching myself up for this mentoring session all week. Scott has that deep-seated confidence of the privileged white male. We’re in a cafe in Fitzroy, which was once a working-class neighbourhood. Now, it’s full of people like him. When I met with him in the same place a week ago, he’d been talking to a middle-aged couple at their table.
‘Recognised me from a book event,’ he’d said airily. Just so I knew.
Today, I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m going to tell him what matters to me and what I want to write about. If that means the end of the mentorship, he can find someone else.
I loved The Girl. As the reviews said I would. I took their advice to look past the plot to the writing, which was just so clean and pure and evocative. Lapidary. I wanted to write like that: write prose like Emily Glass.
I discovered I could, more or less. Sometimes it was so like hers that I worried I’d be outed as an imitator, but I told myself that there was a difference: my writing would be in the service of something that mattered. I wrote a couple of short stories. But a novel was more difficult. Way more difficult. So I became a student of the master.
She helped me write a prize-shortlisted essay—runner-up, in fact—but didn’t share the secrets of writing something bigger. I don’t think she was holding out: artists, especially great artists, can’t always explain their methods. I guess they just feel they’re channelling something in the ether. But I figured that Scott, who’d watched her work, might be able to tell me more. I found him on the Writers Australia website, talking about structure and shape and turning points.
He smiles and responds to my statement about giving voice to the marginalised.
‘We’re only asking the reader to identify with the protagonist…They don’t need to like the bad guys.’
‘I get that, but…the people you’re calling bad guys…I want my books to be about them. I’m trying to change people’s attitudes, not to write…popular fiction.’
Scott affects a look of cartoonish incredulity. ‘Hold on: I was with you up to changing attitudes. But you don’t want your books to be popular?’
‘I’m saying I want to write literary fiction. I don’t want to demean the people and the issues I’m writing about by putting them into some thriller or romance.’
‘You want to write about oppression?’ he says. ‘So: racism, gender identity, disability…’
I feel a trap being set. But I answer honestly. ‘In general, yes. I don’t feel I can write about all those topics…I mean, I identify as LGBTQI but…’
He studies me for a moment, trying to work it out. I get his confusion. I’ve been thinking I may be bisexual, but I’ve never acted on my feelings for women, which are more emotional than sexual. Q for questioning.
Now, he smiles. It’s obvious that he sees himself as an authority, rather than just an author who’s sharing what they’ve learned. Pretty arrogant, considering he’s only been writing for three years and his solo book was a flop. Except…he’s the guy Emily chose to write with. And live with. I need to see him through her eyes.
‘Who reads literary fiction?’ he asks. ‘I’ll answer that for you. Not nearly as many people as the number who read popular fiction, which is why it’s called popular. And those who do read literary fiction—they’re cultured, sophisticated…in other words, latte-sipping inner-city lefties.’ He raises his coffee, which is actually an espresso. ‘Of which I am one.’
‘You’re saying I’m in a bubble?’
‘I’m saying you’ll be preaching to the choir. If you’re chasing prizes, that’s a good strategy, but if you want to change the world, you’d better write for the world.’
‘About serial killers and widowed doctors falling in love with women from…’
‘Iowa. Alberta.’ He laughs, and I sense that he actually wants to help, as well as score points. Or at least wants me to like him.
‘You can write anything you want if you keep the reader interested. Make your own decisions about appropriation, but if you don’t include minority characters, you’ll be accused of whitewashing your world. Just do your research before you write that girl from a Kenyan village.’ It’s a glib take, but he moves on before I can challenge him.
‘You hated The Girl, didn’t you? The story.’
‘I loved Emily’s writing.’
To my surprise, he smiles. ‘You kept reading. If it had been eighty thousand words of blank verse, you wouldn’t have stayed the course. I kept you reading. Nobody’s showed you how to do that, right?’
‘That hasn’t been the focus. We don’t go to classes to learn to write like J. K. Rowling.’
‘Because anyone can do that. The reason she sells millions of books and other writers don’t is because…she’s got a good marketing team? You’d think they’d be famous, then, wouldn’t you? What’s their latest non-J. K. Rowling success?’
‘I’m sure you’re right. I just don’t want to write about…’
‘You can write about anything. A tiger in a lifeboat. A chimpanzee in the family. A woman’s struggle to decide whether she’s bisexual. Contemporary fiction, it’s called. The challenge is to make it interesting. Compelling.’
I just nod—he’s in full flight now, possibly messing with me about the bisexual thing.
‘I’m going to give you an exercise. Tell me what you’re writing about.’
‘I don’t have anything right now.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to, for this mentorship?’
He’s probably right. I’m starting to understand what Emily sees in him. A practical foil for her genius. And, not to make too much of it, but in a world where most of us are low-key and insecure, his enthusiasm and assurance are kind of attractive.
Maybe he guesses what I’m thinking, because he gives me a big smile. ‘Your punishment is that I get to choose. I want you to write a good scene…I know it’s a movie term, but if you think in scenes you’ll learn to do show-not-tell, and I’m sure you’ve been told to do that, told not shown…I’ll show you. A good scene has conflict, drama, and results in some change. Anything else will read as flat, unnecessary.’
I want to push back with an example that proves him wrong, but, again, he doesn’t give me time to think.
‘So here’s yours. It’s an inciting incident, something that kicks a story off. A terrorist has shot a random person in the street.’
‘Shit. I mean, sorry, but I really don’t want to do crime…’
‘Let me reframe. A freedom fighter has taken the only path left to deliver justice for his people—his oppressed people. Against the beliefs he’s been raised with, against the law, against his churning gut, he’s carried out this terrible act. The cops don’t know any of this yet, but there’s the bad guy you want to turn into a hero.’ That big, confident grin again. ‘Go and write it for me.’
8
Emily
For a moment, I’m disoriented. I’m setting up for my afternoon class at the old convent, and Piper walks in. Piper belongs to my college class, not this community program.
‘Can’t get enough of you,’ she says. The line sounds prepared. But if she’s enrolled, there’s nothing I can do. People can sign up at any time. I have a dozen regulars, including two men, one of whom joins us on video from the forensic psychiatric hospital. Even he isn’t writing a crime novel.
I introduce the newbie, and she mentions the essay prize. As far as I know, no one else in this group has even been published. Their welcome is effusive.
We only have two pieces to workshop, and I’m stretching the discussion to fill time when Piper offers to read a piece.
‘Same rule as my other class,’ I say. ‘Submit a week in advance so I can give it the time it deserves.’
‘Oh, this is just a little exercise my mentor gave me,’ she says. ‘It’s popular fiction. But I’d love to hear what the class thinks.’
Everyone wants me to make an exception for their new classmate.
She hands out copies—three pages, single-spaced—and reads aloud. I blank out her voice and read at my own pace. The subject matter is a million miles from what I’m used to from my students.
Piper has a guy with a gun, a terrorist, killing an unsuspecting citizen and going through a bit of anguish about it—the sort of anguish you might have if you broke up with your boyfriend. From high school. The class is full of praise: lively, so different, like my guilty-pleasure reading but literary. Only Greg, our ‘not guilty due to mental illness’ man has a criticism.
‘It’s very good writing. I wish I could write like that. But it doesn’t feel true to me. Killing a person is a big deal, not just legally. All the details stay with you. If you haven’t done it, it’s hard to know what it’s like. I suppose most readers won’t know either. And I guess if you do know what it’s like, you’re not going to say that on Goodreads.’
I wonder what Scott will think. I hope he hates it as much as I do.
I walk home, hoping to clear my mind, but Piper’s piece is gnawing at me. Thanks to The Girl, I know a lot about that kind of writing: in fact, it’s the only kind of writing that I can talk about with the authority that comes from success. I’m drawn to helping Piper make it better, or at least showing her how it should be done. It’d be comfort writing for me. And Scott did suggest I work on something else.
