The Magic of Writing

Writing has sometimes been compared to magic, most famously by Borges in his essay "Narrative Art and Magic." At the danger of simplifying this author, who does not need my assistance (the essay should be allowed to speak for itself), Borges argues that the logic of narrative is similar to magical thinking, in that we as readers and writers allow ourselves to make connections between images and ideas, connections that have no real basis in real logic or rationality. Writing represents a "reordering of the real," and good fiction makes sense the way dreams often make sense. 

The writing act itself also has parallels to what magicians do, in making the reader pay attention to certain things while ignoring others. The magician "reorders reality" through the power of suggestion and distraction, keeping the viewer's focus where he wants it to be. Of course, as Tennessee Williams suggests through his character Tom in The Glass Menagerie, whereas magic attempts to trick and entertain people, by presenting illusion disguised as truth, writing gives you "truth disguised as illusion."* We're speaking here, of course, of the truth as immortalized by Keats. Writers must be "truthful," but they do so by making up stories and fictionalizing reality to get at the underlying truth.

When I think of writing and magic, though, and all this business about the nature of illusion and trickery, I think of the difference in feeling in writing prose and poetry. For me, writing stories and other prose often feels like it involves the magical logic described by Borges. In writing poetry, though, it often feels as if the work transcends these ideas. Poems, at their best, feel not like an act of magic as we usually think of it, the magic of top hats and performance art, but real magic. Poetry is like word sorcery, making words do the impossible and, in doing so, changing the nature of reality.

*Play performances seem similar to magical performances as well. They entertain and enthrall us, and, if done well, make us forget that what we're viewing is an illusion. And the best magicians also know that magic is performance art; it must be dramatic, funny, and mysterious. I think it's also interesting that some magicians of the past were called "Professors," as if they are teaching the audience something.

**Neil Gaiman has some excellent stories and comments about magic in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. As he points out, magic is compelling in part because it makes us question the nature of reality, as do stories. 

On Overwriting

"Overwriting" exists as a curious problem for new and emerging writers, and for some experienced writers it remains a problem to be guarded against. Much of my own early writing, in particular some of the essays I wrote in the 1990s (see links at left) suffers from what I would now call overwriting -- that is, the inflation of language and description at the risk of losing the reader and losing the meat of a story. At its worst, overwriting calls attention to the language itself through flowery description and wordiness. At its best, and good overwriting perhaps only exists in postmodern fiction, overwriting calls attention to the idea of overwriting and the way that words can mask reality.

Overwriting is not simply writing too much or too long, of course. We may be tempted to call "Paradise Lost" an example of overwriting, but I'm not talking about that kind of genius. Just because something is long or difficult to read does not make it overwritten. I am talking about the way newer writers especially often give in to the temptations of language by "showing off" an adeptness with words and phrases. As an isolated problem, overwriting is not such a bad issue for young writers to have, as it reveals a love of language, and it allows the writer to practice expanding images, providing more detail and description. (Underwriting is a far more common and difficult-to-overcome malady.) But overwriting is absolutely something that must be worked toward solving and guarded against as a writer develops.

The problem with overwriting, and one of the central paradoxical problems of writing, is that the writer uses words to obscure real meaning. Often, overwriting arises from anxiety, or from a deeply held fear that the writer has nothing to say, that the story itself isn't good enough -- so he hides behind words.  So the irony -- and paradox -- of writing is that language itself sometimes gets in the way of what a writer is actually trying to say. Good writing works toward achieving a balance and harmony (just like good cooking) between the language and the story, so that the language works for the story and not the other way around. This does not rule out the possibility of beautiful phrases and images, those things that strike us in stories as "brilliant," because that, too, is part of the reason for the existence of writing. I continue to struggle against overwriting, and I think it's as much a confidence issue as anything else. We must learn to believe in the stories we want to tell.

Movie Quotes in Real Life

Lately I've been thinking about some of the quotes from favorite movies that I use every now and then in real life, usually to avoid saying something directly, or just to be amusing or mysterious, to see if the person I'm with recognizes the quote. This is a real-life version of oblique dialogue, used in fiction and movies when a character says something but means something else. As an example of oblique dialogue, in Deliverance (one of my favorites movies, but not one I quote from much), the Burt Reynolds character says early in the movie, "I don't believe in insurance. There's no risk in it."  Now, obviously, he's not really talking about insurance, except as way of insulting the insurance salesman Bobby (Ned Beatty) behind his back. He's really talking about risk, and  the line foreshadows the inordinate amount of danger the men soon find themselves in. In the film, you can tell the line is important in a poetic way, because Burt Reynolds pauses before he says it, just as he also pauses before saying, "Sometimes you have to get lost, before you can find anything."

Here's a list of a few of the quotes I actually use, and what they mean.  The lines may or may not be quoted verbatim, but it's how I remember and use them:

• "You're not going to act this way on the boat, are you?" (Jaws).  Everybody always quotes the "bigger boat" line, a fine line indeed, but this line, uttered by Brody when Quint abuses Hooper the first time he meets him, points to the human conflict in the story, which is really the center of the movie. This line is great for saying, "Are you always an asshole like this?" 
• "Do you have some jurisdiction here that I should know about?" (A Few Good Men). I use this line to say, "You're being bossy, and I really don't think you have any power, do you?"
• "Thank you for that fine forensic analysis." (Titanic).  Old  Rose says this at the beginning of the movie. It basically means, "Shut the hell up. You're boring us."
• "Who do you think you're talking to?" (Less Than Zero). James Spader says this line, and I always thought it was a cool moment. Even though it's a fairly ordinary thing to say, something you hear in all sorts of movies, it's not something you hear as much in real life, if you think about it.  I think in that way, the line symbolizes how much more assertive and conflict-oriented characters are as opposed to real people. And actually, this line, not really being oblique, is something I don't say in real life.  But I really want to.
• "Be nice." (Roadhouse). The other bouncers laugh at Dalton (Patrick Swayze) when he tells them to handle rough customers this way.  I think about this quote (though, again, this one's not one I say so much) whenever I'm dealing with difficult people or students who have problems. You can be assertive and stick to your own rules while still being nice. Yes, occasionally you must be less than perfectly nice when dealing with someone who's abusive or who takes a nasty tone, but even then, you can adopt a Zen attitude (remember Dalton's philosophical training) and remember that conflict is best dealt with by taking the anger out of the situation. Another saying of Eastern origin goes, "If something started in anger, it will end in shame." Being angry is sometimes productive, but usually it gets us nowhere. 
• "I am proud neither of what I have done, nor what I am doing." This quote, also from A Few Good Men, comes from a character who is struggling with a heavy moral dilemma, but I find it can be used in much more mundane circumstances and covers a lot of typical human situations. Most of us, after  all, are not proud of some of things we've done. It's best used for truly silly situations, though, like when you've forgotten to buy hot dog buns and you've resorted to using white bread for the hot dogs.