An early memory: Part 1
I named him Charlie. That was the biggest mistake. I shouldn’t have given him any name. But how could I not? He was the biggest perch I’d ever caught. I knew we were going to eat fish for dinner that night; we always did, after grampa and I came back from fishing. Come to think of it, we had fish for all our meals when we were at the cabin. When it was time to clean the fish, grampa showed me how to whack them over the head with the big end of the knife. I thought this was mean, but soon didn’t feel too bad about it. When I realized that Charlie would receive this same treatment, I began to cry. “Please grampa, we can’t”, I begged. I cried as we cleaned the fish, and I cried as we fried the fish. I didn’t know which piece was Charlie, but I cried as I ate each peace that night for dinner.
An early memory: Part 2
I made the mistake of naming my biggest catch of the day, Charlie. Once he had a name, he became my friend. Once he became my friend, I got attached. I shouldn’t have given him a name. Grampa always made me help clean our catch, otherwise he would be out there for hours. I liked that he trusted me with a knife (and our dinner). He taught me well, and I will hold that memory and lesson throughout my life. After I named Charlie, we cooked him. I cried at the thought of losing my friend, and then cried harder at the thought of eating my friend. Where was my heart? I had tried to do the right thing, by naming and valuing my catch, but by then, I had become attached. Hitting Charlie over the head with the wooden handle of the knife was gruesome, thoughtless, and barbaric really. What was my grampa thinking, allowing me to give a name to the seemingly giant perch I had caught? He was teaching me the circle and impermanency of life. He was teaching me to only catch (and keep) what I will use. He was teaching me responsible consumerism. He was teaching me (the hard way) to not name my fish Charlie. Lesson learned.
Speech flavor, or sounding real:
“A-HEM”, she loudly exhaled, trying to get our attention. She wrote her name on the board, as she said extra loud and extra slow to the class, “I am Mrs. Ready, your substitute teacher for the day”. I rolled my eyes and thought; you’ve got to me fucking kidding me.
“Can I help you”, she asked, eyeing me suspiciously. “No, just browsing”, I said. She followed me throughout the store. I just continued to browse.
“Hey man, lemme get some Marlboro lights”, barked the woman barely old enough to inhale such toxins. “ID please, miss”, he stuttered in broken English. “Whatchu mean, ID? I’ve been in here before, bought smokes from some other one of your people”. “I’ve sold cigarettes to mean girls like you before”, he replied, “ID please”.
“Getcha ass down here, its time for dinner”. Her mother was tired of this daily fight to have a family dinner. By the time everyone gathered at the table, the food was cold, and mothers temper was hot.
Telling Talk: When to summarize dialogue.
Grades came home, and her mom was pissed. For nearly an hour, Anne listened as her mom went on and on, unleashing heaps of anger and criticism that filled their small house. Why aren’t you doing your work, her mom asked? Anne knew it wasn’t that simple. Anne did the work, and tried to explain that she did the work, but her mom wouldn’t let her get one word in. Anne slouched against the wall, as her mother continued on about embarrassment to the family, and failure to society. She doesn’t get it, Anne thought silently. Not long into her mothers monologue, words began to sail through Anne’s conscious, untouched, often as they did in her classes. She was failing her classes, just as her classes were failing her.
Three by Three:
Anne hates school.
Mom hates Anne.
Anne quits school.
Sarah is bored.
Sarah leaves town.
Sarah finds love.
Dad is gone.
Mom is mad.
Kid is disconnected.
The Skeleton:
He had always dreamed of running sub 4. Coaches had come and gone, like kids selling candy door to door. He wasn’t sure where to turn. One day after a long run, Kent found himself running strides at the park near his house. A group of young men were playing soccer. They could run forever, he thought. He ran a few laps around the edge of the soccer field, and began to stretch. One of the players jogged up to him. “We need a midfielder”, he said. Kent, who was feeling disheartened, decided to join the game. He quickly introduced himself to his new team, and was greeted with head nods and fist bumps. Suddenly he realized, it wasn’t the coach or the training he was lacking, it was the camaraderie of a team that he needed. He played midfield that day, and continued to meet up with the group every weekend after his long run. He wasn’t much of a soccer player, but he was a heck of a teammate.
Response to “An Early Memory: Part Two.”
ReplyDeleteI thought that you did a really nice job with this exercise, and I really enjoyed reading as your story caused me to vividly remember catching painted turtles in the pond near my childhood home, similarly naming them, and being absolutely devastated when they died from not being able to survive in captivity. Like your grandfather, I don’t recall my parents intervening in the process and explicitly judging / labeling what I was doing as “cruel” or “mean.” Instead, I suppose that I eventually decided that the turtles’ deaths were the direct result of capturing them and placing them in an environment where they could not survive on their own. Instead of explicitly influencing my behavior, I guess you could say that my parents implicitly taught me / allowed me to learn on my own that the ways in which I treated other living things had consequences. Your story makes me wonder if such a lesson would have been as effective if my parents would have explicitly approached me and stated, “Rick, what you are doing is wrong. You are going to kill those animals by keeping them in there, and that is bad.”
However, I feel that there are places in your writing that “take me out of the moment” and make your story feel too explicit and / or for lack of a better word, “preachy.” For example, you state very explicitly that,
“He [your grandfather, of course] was teaching me the circle and impermanency of life. He was teaching me to only catch (and keep) what I will use. He was teaching me responsible consumerism. He was teaching me (the hard way) to not name my fish Charlie. Lesson learned.”
Frankly, I don’t feel that such an overt, explicit commentary on the meta-lesson / meaning that you are trying to communicate via your story is necessary. In fact, as I have stated above, I feel as though this overtness stands to detract from the meaning of your story, potentially making it less insightful, powerful, and personally meaningful for the reader.
So, I would like to leave you with a question that I hope helps you revise (if you so chose, of course): How might you be able to express your intended meaning without explicitly telling the reader what sort of meaning / meta-lesson they are supposed to learn from your story?
Overall, this is really great work, and I hope that you expand this story in later writing
exercises.
-Rick Filipkowski
About when to summarize dialogue: Embarassment to the family, failure to society, wow that's harsh. Says a lot about this character that she's holding her daughter to "society's standards" whatever those are! My mom's version of this is, "you aren't doing enough to help the family."
ReplyDeleteLeaving Anne's problems ambigious worked for me on this one, as well as the three by three that followed this particular story.
If you chose to continue it, I wonder about what Anne does next, it couldn't feel good to keep living with a mom that won't respect her after she drops out.
Jessie
(added)
ReplyDeleteNot that she respects her now! She's totally on "society's" side. And it's structured like an argument, not like something she's willing to work with Anne within.
I, too, love the story of poor Charlie the perch. I quite enjoyed the childhood voice you first use. It is simple, yet a story unto itself. I am, however, more interested by the adult version, and I want to know more. I feel there is more story from the grown-up voice you use, like you're telling the story of Charlie to say something much bigger. It seems like an anecdote that gets told while characters are breaking up or someone had just died. I long to hear the bigger story.
ReplyDeleteTechnically speaking, I don't want to read the word "fish" so many times. I want more sensory detail, especially in the first version. The wisdom of an older person comes out with your nonchalant storyteller voice, but perhaps if you let the audience read between the lines more instead of telling us the point at the end. This is such a rich little tidbit, I could really see it get developed.
Your "telling dialogue" exercise is a really cool combination of formal dialogue and exposition. You pull off what a lot of people can't when you put word-for-word dialogue in the middle of a paragraph, sans punctuation. I can hear your characters saying it. Once again, though, I feel your last sentence is rushed. It feels like you're telling your readers "in case you couldn't tell, here's my point." I think it comes across just fine without that. Nice work. I really enjoyed reading your exercises, because they were new, but I could relate.