The Power Of Silence

We’ve been discussing silence in my short story class.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I started reading Annie Ernaux several years ago. What is said in the absence of words, what is said between the white spaces.

Ernaux’s memoirs are full of trauma and pain—of an abortion, an ex lover, her mother’s death— written between the sparseness of her narrative that, on the surface might seem just a day to day account of her happenings. Like a journal.

Loss and grief are never mentioned but it exists everywhere in her work—hidden between the mundaneness of every day descriptions. Wholly unlike Didion, for example. 

Take for example, her experience with undergoing illegal abortion at a time when it was not a common procedure. 

She is at Mme X’s house, the lady who would be performing the procedure. Never does she use the words ‘fear’ or ‘nervousness’. Instead, she recalls vividly, the walk to the house, the people on the street—

she observes every detail of the house— the table cloth, color of pots, furniture.

This is how one feels when terrified. One might start to cook manically. Or start going for long walks. Or stare at a paper whisked away in the wind, polluting the otherwise pristine sidewalk. 

 

I keep telling my students, it is not what is said, but what remains unsaid that is crucial in a short story. Rather, you say by not saying. 

How important silence is. How powerful its sound.

I write this as I stare at a photographic series, Breathers, images by Jon Feinstein who made this series in tribute to his mother-in-law who had Alzheimers. 

They are only images of trees- in simple black and white. No high contrast. No noir filters. Elegant and unpretentious but so whole, so full. The trees stand— some stoic, some wilting, some full of grief— in witness to everything that it sees around it. In witness to Jon’s grief, loss and daily meditations. 

It’s not ironic that Ernaux often referred to her memories as images. Because images come from a more primal part of our brain. A more instinctive part that feels immediately without rationalizing.

They also remind me of Haneke’s film The Piano Teacher where Isabelle Huppert crushes glass in her pocket with her bare hands. Or, the last scene where she stands outside the building with a knife in her hand. The scenes in the film were so quiet, so insipid almost, that they leave you with a heartbeat, the sound of which you never forget. Just in the way I’ll never forget John Hopkins say, Good Evening Clarice, in Silence of the Lambs: his voice so soft like a whisper.

 Because in the stillness of those scenes there is a terror so large it is impossible to express in any other way

Melancholy, isolation, memory— these are everywhere in Jon’s trees. The grieving willow; the skewed tree half falling, the ones with thick strong trunks, the ones hovering over rooftops.

They are eerily taciturn

As Jon himself wrote, “they have seen and heard everything— and hang, breathing through it all. 

The images are not the dreamy landscapes you see on Instagram these days but like Ernaux’s memoirs, there is a diaristic quality to them. A truth. A sense of genuineness and realness.  Somewhere, you are distinctly aware that they hold something unspeakable.

The Craft of Short Stories

A student of mine asked me if there was any extra reading he could do to learn more about the craft of writing stories. Here was my response:

I wouldn’t recommend using analysis essays like you have for those college students whatever they’re called.

A structured MFA program will have a key component of studying literature. And what you learn, while reading is how to read like a writer, and not as a reader. So while you’re reading , your analyzing—what’s going on in a sentence. Which is what I’m trying to do with the pieces that I assign you guys to read. And what would also help is editing other peoples work that is workshopping your classmates work. It teaches you to read between the lines and teaches you what mistakes you must or must not do. I recommend this is the best way to go. As far as craft goes , I think we really need to address this in class on how to read writing like a writer and not a reader. I’m afraid this is going to ruin your reading experience for the rest of your life because you’ll forever be reading like a writer and never as a normal reader again. But c’est la vie so when you’re reading a short story, try to think about what is happening in a sentence. Analyze it. Meaning think about what is said and what is not said. Think about the language used , the words used. Word choice in short stories is very important. The right word can change the sentence drastically. And don’t worry no one gets it right the first time : it’s about revision revision revision. Think about how to keep your sentences, lively and fresh when you’re editing. Try and get rid of the tired words. Try and use less adjectives as possible, and instead be in the mind of your character .

Lorie Moore is a great one to study craft. Particularly Self Help.

Maybe jhumpa lahiri as well ——unaccustomed earth. William, Trevor is amazing also. Stylistically although this is not a short story have you read italo calvino’s Invisible cities ? it’s simply beautiful.
They’re almost like short stories are short prose poems. Very tight sentences. Very succinct descriptions. No wastage of words in space. The other thing I might recommend is taking a literature class for adults because you have a very different kind of conversation then you would if you went to a literature class with undergrads. It’s very important that you keep reading while you’re writing, although sometimes reading a writer who is very similar to what you do can be dangerous. You might get too influenced. But I’m glad you brought this up because I think we should spend a little more time on the same text and literally go through sentence by sentence and analyze what’s going on and why. Why does a writer choose to use a particular word ? Why does a writer choose a particular detail? For example, Alice Munro, when trying to describe a lower middle class house, describes the kitchen. And the way she described the kitchen is very subtle. So for example, in a rich person’s kitchen, you might find copper pots or Le Creuset, porcelain, etc. while describing a non-affluent home, she uses subtle examples, such as describing a lot of junk that has still been in its wrapping. She describes tacky things in the kitchen to distinguish between class.

Remember Chekov’s Lady with the Dog— how he describes going to the town of S. The descriptions of the mansion, piano playing somewhere. The workers.

All this creates a bourgeois world Chekhov means to portray.

These are subtle descriptions that you can use when talking about your various characters. And just by using one subtle detail, you will give us so much information about that person and his background. For example, if he starts talking about Bordeaux wine , you know that he comes from a certain kind of background right? But if you’re drinking bourbon, neat and slamming down a rock glass on the table you’re describing a completely different kind of American aren’t you? So think about how these little details affect the overall telling of a character. The clothes he’s wearing. The shoes. The hair. Mannerisms. Hope this helps.

Keep asking me questions.

Writing about Trauma with Detachment

Teaching my first creative writing class after a long time makes me realize that firstly, how much I miss it and secondly, how much nothing has really changed in student wisdom over the years

I found myself telling the students, the age-old saying of writing 101: show don’t tell.

We were doing an in class exercise about writing on a traumatic experience. I told them to write about the twin towers. Just a paragraph on how they felt when it was happening. “I was shocked,“ said one student.

I told her, why don’t you try taking the line out. What would you really do if you were shocked? Would you be eating nonstop? Calling your loved ones? Standing in silence?

Talk about those things.

The class I am teaching is called writing about trauma through the lens of detachment and sparseness. It’s hard enough to write about something that we’re so emotionally close to, but unless we have the distance, not only do we not have a intellectual understanding of the situation we will just sound as gushy has a mid morning soap opera.

Writing with detachment and sparseness does not mean to neglect emotions. In fact, quite the opposite. Writing with detachment is to embed the trauma within the silences of the sentences, and that makes it all the more powerful.

How would you do that then? Well first I would tell you to take my class but since you can’t I’ll just leave you with a small little hint : imagine yourself encased in a marble slab of stone, the weight of 50 kg on top of your chest. And I’m that situation try and write about the most horrific thing that is happening to you. We are reading Annie Ernaux who excels in this form. She is concise and goes about talking about her day almost in bullet points. But through that matter of fact style of writing, we get the emotions without the nostalgia. Duh charge through, and the importance of the situation is felt even more desperately. So try that. Try holding back in order to give more.

Tell me A Story

Write as though you’re explaining a concept to a five year old child. Assume that your audience knows nothing but do not over explain either— which is often a pitfall. Do not write an academic paper. Do not try to sound impressive. Be simple.

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Time and movement in stories

Today I want to talk about the movement of time in a story.

Pacing is important. If you are writing a story that takes place within a short period of time, you cannot dwell on every insignificant detail. Each word and sentence has to account for something.

For example: Your character has just woken up, hung over and is sad about something that happened the night before. A common mistake is to inundate the scene with descriptions that don’t matter.

“She woke up and made her way to the kitchen.

She opened the door and went inside . She opened the cabinet but there was nothing there. She opened another cabinet and took out a coffee mug. She filled hot water in the kettle and set it on the stove. When the water stop boiling, the kettle let out a whistle.”

What exactly is happening here?

What, if anything do we learn from this description?

This scene would have been different had these actions revealed. something significant about the character or given you an insight into an incident that had happened. Or, a precursor to something about to take place.

How about we wrote it this way:

“She woke up and made her way to the kitchen, not bothering to turn the light on.

She watched the smoke rise from the kettle, then disappear. It (the kettle). wobbled slightly—like her gait— on the hob where it was permanently placed. In all these years, she had never moved it.

Nothing remains.”

Do you see the difference between the two? Can you tell something or begin to understand the character in a certain way in the second example? It is not that you cannot add details, but it important to choose the precise ones.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between using the right word and the almost right word is the same difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Notice the physical space between one sentence and the next. It is deliberate.

The white space is your friend. It gives relief. Use the entire page as your canvas, just as poets do. Sometimes one single floating line, is a way to convey interiority; introspection. Unlike a synopsis which is a way of closing in, a single stray thought opens out the narrative.

Time breaks can also be done by using the asterisk ***. after a paragraph.

The Em Dash too acts as a breathing space between one word and the next. It allows for rhythm and lyricism. Do not be afraid to use punctuation to dictate to your readers how you want the sentence to be read.

Everything in moderation— the classic show don’t tell is a cliche but remember to be subtle. Remember the significance of silence. Important moments happen between these silences and white spaces. That is where time really moves.

Missing Me/ Tale of Two Cities

A sneak peek into what I’m working on at the moment:

Some cities have a distinct aura. Something special and secret. I call this a deep sadness. One that hovers over her like a lingering mist. There are only three cities in the world I have experienced this sadness: Genoa, New York and Calcutta. After seventeen years away, I’ve done something most Indians of my generation don’t do—return back home. When people ask me where I’m from, I always stumble. I say, I was born in Calcutta but I grew up in New York. They say you can be attached to a place but not the people . When I think of New York— I think of streets, the bathroom in a restaurant, the stoop I sat on one evening. I rarely think about people.  But I had no such memories in Calcutta. I remember scenes from my childhood like clips from a film. Sudden and brief. I realize now, Calcutta is like an aging beauty—decayed and crumbling, standing over her balcony with melancholy. Orhan Pamuk writes about this melancholy in his book, Istanbul. He calls it Hüzün. “It is the failure to experience huzun,” Pamuk says, “that leads him to feel it.”. If New York is where my sadness is rooted, Calcutta is the place where it was born. I am in New York what I could never be in the city of my childhood and I am in Calcutta what I have always been. Trauma and sadness, both, live in the body as well as is imbedded in the nooks and crannies of walls and windows of streets. To find your home  is to find yourself and this journey, this tale of two cities is a process of tracing memories and making memories: a construction and a deconstruction. Overlapping yet separate.