Updates from the Black Lagoon

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about the blog, essays, hiatus, maintenance, updates, writing

Hi everyone! I apologize for the lack of posts over the past two moths. Recently I’ve been wondering how I’m going to continue this blog in a way that makes sense for me. I intend to keep posting, but I think I’m going to take a hiatus for the rest of the summer, to work on a personal project of mine. In the meantime, I’m going to make a new page for the blog. Once it’s up, I’ll try to regularly post some essays of mine on it, in PDF form (once I learn how to make PDFs, of course). In the meantime, thanks for sticking around! I hope all my followers are having a great summer!

 

Cheers!

–EA

A Devastating Search

Tags

additive style, analysis, how to write a sentence, jitterbug perfume, stanley fish, tom robbins, writing

The additive-style sentence I’ve chosen to analyze comes from Part IV of Tom Robbin’s novel Jitterbug Perfume, published in 1984. It can be found on page 271 and reads as follows:

She made that devastating discovery immediately upon returning to her studio apartment, where the refrigerator made noises at night like sea cows ruminating, where the toilet sounded like the audio portion of a white-water rafting expedition, where fallout from fifty failed base-note experiments perfumed the peeling wallpaper, and where the Kotex box on the bathroom shelf was empty now, except for a couple of frayed and yellowing pads.

To put things in context, the “she” here is Priscilla, one of the main characters of this story, and the “devastating discovery” she makes is that she has lost a very important bottle of perfume—the best smelling perfume in the whole world, the ingredients of which may or may not also hold the secret to eternal life. A “devastating discovery” indeed.

What makes this sentence so great, in my opinion, is that Robbins builds Priscilla’s apartment for the reader by giving them a tour of it, in all its “devastating” glory. ‘This is the apartment our heroine comes home to,’ he says, ‘and finds that she has lost the most significant item in the story.’ He indicates the refrigerator, and then the toilet, and the fairly unpleasant noises that they make. Then he points out Priscilla’s “experiments” (she is trying, like so many different characters in the novel are, to concoct the ultimate perfume) and the remnants that they leave—peeled wallpaper and sort of funny smells. Then he takes us back to the bathroom to show us our heroine’s barren shelves and her feminine products that are “yellowing” (yellowing!) with age and disuse. Each element he adds is just as disappointing as the last one, and when considered all together they truly do make up a devastating picture. ‘This is where Priscilla lives,’ Robbins says. ‘She has lost The Bottle, and this is where she lives.’

A funny thing about the way Robbins give us this tour—the way he builds this place for the readers—is that it almost calls to mind a frantic search: the kind of search one might conduct if one has lost something really, really important (the word “immediately” lends the reader some of that urgency and panic). It speaks of Priscilla, panicked, going from place to place to place looking for that precious bottle. Checking in the most unlikely places—did I put it in the fridge? maybe it’s by the toilet? what about over here? maybe I should check in this Kotex box?—only to find her efforts are fruitless.

But the reader already had an inkling that her efforts were going to be fruitless; very early into the sentence, Robbins starts dropping hints that things aren’t going so well. The word “toilet” speaks volumes, I think. If you’re looking for the secret elixir of life in your loud and off-putting toilet, you probably already know that success is not at hand. Robbins keeps giving us hints that the search is futile—the “fallout of fifty failed… experiments” and the “peeling wallpaper” and the empty Kotex box are all omens that bode ill for Priscilla’s search—until finally it all ends with “a couple of frayed and yellowing pads.” The search is done (it was useless anyway) and so is Priscilla. All her perfume-related plans are dashed. Without The Bottle, she is stuck—as she was at the beginning of the novel—in her devastating studio apartment. She is as frayed as her pads.

It’s sentences like this one that make Robbins such great fun to read. Jitterbug Perfume is itself a sort of wild journey, but it is comprised of so many smaller, quicker journeys like the one Priscilla goes through here—from confident to devastated in a matter of mere moments. It’s wacky, it’s wild, and it’s utterly Tom Robbins. But it’s also, I think, a comical mirror held up to real-life and all its little journeys.

The Eyes Have It

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analysis, f. scott fitzgerald, how to write a sentence, sentences, stanley fish, subordinative style, the great gatsby, writing

The subordinating-style sentence I’ve chosen to analyze comes from chapter seven of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. It can be found on page 124 and reads as follows:

Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.

To put things in context a bit, in this sentence Nick Carraway, the narrator of the tale, has just realized that he—along with Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker—is being watched by someone in the apartment over George Wilson’s garage. The “other eyes” that he perceives belong to Myrtle Wilson: George Wilson’s wife and Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

The sentence begins with “the giant eyes…of T.J. Eckleburg” which show up time and time again in the story, and act as the metaphorical ‘eyes of God,’ which passively observe the characters’ sins and exploits. Although it is unnerving, it should come as no surprise that Eckleburg’s eyes are watching Carraway and his company—after all, they always are. But through Carraway’s perception we find out that Eckleburg’s eyes are not the only ones watching.

The phrase “but I perceived” acts as a hinge between the two parts of the sentence. It is this phrase that subordinates the first portion of the sentence (“Over the ashheaps…kept their vigil”). After those three words the focus of the sentence swings around and reveals to us a pair of eyes that will turn out to be more far important than Eckleburg’s are. The phrase that stands between the hinge and the reveal, “after a moment,” is also subordinate, although it is less so than that first clause. That “moment” is the pause before the curtain is opened, and the audience on the edge of their seats (an audience already unnerved by the God-like omnipresence of Eckleburg) sees the truth of the situation. It acts as a brief pause in the action, a breath to convey the moment of time that it takes the narrator to notice the second, and arguably more important, set of eyes.

And Myrtle’s eyes are more important, if not in the grand scheme of the novel, then at least in that one brief moment. And Fitzgerald clues his audience in to this with little phrases. “[P]eculiar intensity” stands out at first, as an intense stare probably should; if Myrtle were “regarding” the group in any other way it might not be so striking for the reader, but her gaze is intense enough to make Carraway notice—and even take him by surprise. Then, just as the sentence is coming to a close, Fitzgerald emphasizes the importance of the “other eyes” by making the reader aware of their proximity. While Eckleburg’s eyes are far away, in the background, Myrtle’s eyes are “less than twenty feet away.” Her eyes are intruding, intense, and now very close, and so the danger, importance, and urgency they pose to Nick Carraway and his company are highlighted.

And really, this is where all the trouble begins. After the “other eyes” are revealed to be Myrtle Wilson’s, the audience also discovers that she is staring at Jordan Baker, who she believes to be Tom Buchanan’s wife. This misunderstanding will eventually lead to the climax and denouement of the novel, in which Myrtle Wilson meets a tragic demise (as does another character who will remain unnamed). This sentence, really, is the hinge of Fitzgerald’s novel. It does a lot of work, and does it breathlessly, in one brief, blink-of-an-eye moment.

I’m Just Saying

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dialogue, said, style, writing

Recently I read a post over on Liesl’s blog. It was a post about “said”—how the word is used, often to the point of being overused. And I liked some of the stuff she was saying about the subject. I liked it so much that I started ruminating on the word and how I really felt about it.

Probably everyone remembers this thing, or at least one of its doppelgangers, from their elementary or middle school days. I certainly do. And the message it gives to young writers is well-meaning, even helpful at points: if you use “said” too much, your dialogue is gonna get boring. However, many people take that message as: DON’T USE “SAID” EVER. DON’T YOU DO IT. That was the message I took when I was just getting into writing, and I took it to heart (as I am wont to do with writing advice). I dropped “said” completely out of my creative writing vocabulary. But what I didn’t realize then, which I thankfully do now, is that a writer can’t effectively cut “said” out of their writing without sounding absolutely ridiculous. Consider:

 

“I’m leaving,” she screamed.

“But you can’t,” he bellowed. “I won’t let you!”

“I have to,” she screeched. “And who says you’re the boss of me anyways?”

“I do!” He thundered. “And another thing–!”

“No,” she hissed. “I’m done.”

 

That was ridiculous. And that might be due in part to the fact that I made the dialogue up on the spot and it sounds like something out of a bad soap opera. But it was also because the two characters were communicating in increasingly bizarre and animalistic ways (honestly, who ever thundered about anything?). And there’s the problem: too much “said” is boring, but no “said” at all is just kind of crazy. So what’s a writer to do? There are a couple things I can think of.

First off, don’t be afraid to just use “said” every now and again. I promise it will not kill you, nor will it make your reader put down your writing and never go back. “Said” is fine, if used sparingly, or if you use qualifiers to spice it up a bit. “Said” suddenly looks more interesting if your character says something hotly or says it out of the corner of their mouth. “Said” is fine. But if you don’t want to use it, that’s fine too. You can use “cried” or “quipped” or “yelped” or, yes, even “thundered” if you want to. Just make sure the thing you’re using in place of “said” is purposeful. If you throw words like “proclaimed” or “marveled” around willy-nilly, they lose their potency. So use them, yes, by all means! But use them carefully. Or, if you don’t want to use “said” but you also don’t want to use any of its wacky cousins, try not using anything at all. Liesl brought up a good point in her post, that sometimes dialogue without any verbs or qualifiers can be really effective in places, and I agree. It can be hard to follow sometimes, but it makes things snappy and fast-paced, and really interesting to read (one of my favorite examples of this is in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited).  There are lots of options out there; experiment!

So, is “said” dead? I hope not. I like to think that maybe it’s just working part-time, and working with a lot of interesting partners.

I Can’t Even: Observing the Discourse Community on Tumblr

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blogging, discourse community, language, tumblr

OH MY GOD did you read that fic yet? I read it last night at like five am and OH MY GOD MY FEELS MY FEELS I CAN’T EVEN. WHAT IS AIR? MY SHIP. MY BEAUTIFUL OTP. I CAN’T CONTAIN MY CREYS RIGHT NOW. ASDFGHJKL; *FLIES INTO THE SUN*

Chances are you have no idea what I just said up there. You don’t, that is, unless you happen to have a blog over at tumblr.com, in which case that paragraph is probably crystal clear to you. Tumblr is rife with “crazy talk” like that, particularly when it comes to fandom blogs (blogs which devote themselves to one or more television show, movie, book, or other piece of media). These blogs have become what I think is one of the most interesting discourse communities out there today.

I got involved with tumblr a little over two years ago, and I was not exactly prepared for all the new words and phrases that I encountered as I scrolled through my dashboard (or “dash”, if you’re part of the discourse community). I would frequently find myself wondering what this stuff even meant. People would be yelling “I CAN’T EVEN” or worse, “I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO CAN.” They would talk about ships but not about boating, and they’d wail over their OTPs. They called Facebook users “peasants” and their favorite celebrities “life-ruiners.” It was pretty weird.

But eventually I started figuring stuff out. Ship is short for relationship and OTP stands for “one true pairing,” and usually these phrases are used to talk about relationships between fictional characters. (For instance if you want nothing more than Buffy and Spike to get together, you ship them. They’re your OTP.) And basically every other phrase they used was just to exaggerate things. You prefer tumblr over Facebook? Totally understandable; Facebook is full of peasants. You have an overwhelming crush on Jude Law? Well that makes sense. You crush on Jude Law has ruined your life. He’s a life-ruiner. That episode of Breaking Bad blew your mind? Sure it did! It filled you up with feels (feelings, for the layman); you can’t even. That’s what the tumblr discourse community is all about.

And eventually, I found myself slipping into the discourse myself. About six months into my tumblr experience, I saw The Avengers. And When I got home, I got right onto tumblr and said something sort of like: “AVENGERS WAS SO GOOD, OH MY GOD. I HAVE LITERALLY NO PLACE TO PUT MY FEELS ABOUT THIS MOVIE. AAAAAAH.” And in retrospect, that was probably not the most eloquent thing I could have said about my movie experience. Even so, the post got a few hits. People understood what I was talking about, and they agreed with me. I was part of the community. (For anyone who is interested I don’t really use ‘feels’ anymore. I’ve switched over to using ‘emotions.’)

Through my two years on tumblr, I’ve seen the discourse evolve a bit. Things shift a little bit from time to time. New phrases emerge, and sometimes they stick. But really, the thing that I think is so interesting about it all is that tumblr discourse is that this isn’t a discourse that has come from super high-and-mighty authoritative community. It came from a group of people who are just really enthusiastic about pop culture and media, and wanted a way to express what they were feeling without having to go into incredible detail about things. (Not to say, of course, that the tumblr community can’t go into detail about things when they want to. There are lots of very intelligent and eloquent people on that website, and man can some of them write.) They’re just a group of people who are enthusiastic about what they’re seeing, and can’t wait to scream about their feels.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, But It’s Definitely Not a Girl

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comic-book films, comics, essay, feminism, movies, my writing

Hello readers! I’ve decided I’m going to make a different sort of post this week. Yesterday I took part in an Academic Conference that was sponsored by my college, presenting a research project about the representation of women in comic book films. I was fortunate enough to receive an overwhelmingly positive response, and a lot of interest in my topic. A certain person took interest in reading more of what I had to say on the topic, and so I told her I would post the essay that sparked the more extensive research project here on my blog. The essay focuses on the often problematic representation of women in the niche genre of comic book films, and suggests that these trends can be reversed (in this particular genre, but ultimately in the film industry as a whole) by giving more female filmmakers the chance to make female-led comic book films. I encourage you to take a look, if you care to. The essay in its entirely is under the ‘read more’.

Absolutely? The Adverb Struggle

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adverbs, writing

Recently, a friend came to me asking to look over a personal essay for her. She had gone to someone else beforehand, and wasn’t too pleased with a piece of advice that they had given her.

“Let me know if this has too many adverbs in it,” she said when she handed me the essay. “I don’t feel like it does, but they told me to get rid of them anyway.”

Well, I read the paper. And it was a lovely paper. I really hope she gets a good grade on it; she did a splendid job. But that request resonated strongly with me, and I’ve been thinking about it since.

In the past, I too have been told to eliminate—not just limit, but eliminate—all adverbs from my writing. Which would be understandable if the writing were academic, but I got the advice in a creative writing course that I took in senior year of high school. And, I mean, ugh. Eliminate all adverbs? What a pain. But I was a self-conscious high-schooler, clutching the first draft of a short story in my hands (with every adverb circled in red pen) and I thought what I always thought when I got writing advice: They’re right. I’ve got to fix this. I’ve got to fix this now.

So I took the rule as law, and cut adverbs out of my life. And some things changed for the better. My writing became more concise. Because really, how many ‘very’s does one story need? The same goes for all those other little filler adverbs like ‘really’ and ‘actually’. But often I felt like somethings was missing, especially when I wrote dialogue or described characters’ actions. It didn’t suffice for me to say that my character turned her back and said something, but if she turned her back and said something icily? Well, that was worth more of a look.

So I started sneaking them back in. I tried to limit myself to two, maybe three adverbs a page. And I felt bad doing it, but also deliciously good, like I was doing something dangerous. I felt like an addict—an adverb addict.

Now, a year later, I’m not scared of using adverbs anymore, and I certainly don’t think that they should be eliminated. They play an important role in writing, when used correctly. So when I was reading my friend’s personal essay and her adverbs were well-placed and relevant, I did not hesitate to tell her “Don’t worry about the adverbs. You’re fine. They sound fine.” And they did sound fine.

I think the trick to adverbs is to not be ornery when using them. No one wants to read a sentence with twenty-six consecutive adverbs in it. That would be adverb overload, and it would be annoying. I think you just have to kind of treat adverbs like cupcakes—as a sweet little treat to use every now and again, when the occasion calls for it. If it will make your sentence or paragraph more poignant, then by all means go for it. But if it doesn’t need it (and you’ll be able to tell if it doesn’t need it) then get rid of it. And try to keep your use of little qualifiers like ‘really’ or ‘very’ to a minimum, because they don’t really add much substance to anything.

And that’s about all I can think of to say about adverbs. Choose them wisely, use them sparingly, and everything should go swimmingly.

Poetry and Song: Parallel Lines

Tags

analysis, poetry, songwriting, style

The other day I was talking to a good friend of mine, and he told me that he was going to do some casual research about poems that also act as songs. I thought it was a neat idea, and I told him so, but beyond that I couldn’t think of much to say about it. There’s always been such a tricky line (no pun intended) between poetry and songwriting that makes it difficult to talk about, at least for me. Which is why I thought I’d muse about it a bit this week.

It’s always been an unspoken belief of mine that our modern equivalent of the poet is the songwriter. One can certainly poke holes in that argument, but there are parallels there that undeniably exist between the two. Rhyme and rhythm play into both, certainly. Poetry can tell a story, just like songs can. But that’s just on a surface level. It’s the similarities in how we perceive poetry and song that are really interesting to me. I think of some of the great poets of the 19^th and 20^th centuries (and earlier!). Their work, once it gained popularity, was widely circulated through newspapers and books and magazines. Is it not the same way for songs? Really great songs get played over and over again, until almost everyone knows the words. Sometimes I wonder if poems got the ‘overplaying’ treatment that today’s songs do. Picture if you will two early 20^th century gents complaining: Another reading of “Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock?” I was sick of hearing it two months ago.

When we think of great songwriters, it is easier to compare their music to the works of the great poets. Great songwriters can blur the lines between lyrics and poetry. But, as many people are more than willing to point out, not every songwriter is a great songwriter.  Today’s radio waves are rife with crummy lyrics; think Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” or Rebecca Black’s insufferable “Friday.” But what I think many people fail to grasp is that there are also some really bad poets out there. Just because some fellow in the past put pen to paper and wrote a poem does not make him a peer of Keats. (Don’t believe me? Have a look at this guy; it might give you a laugh.) Bad poetry existed then, and people made fun of it just like people today make fun of crappy music.

Another interesting thing about today’s songwriters is that often their songs are inspired by the poets of the past, and often pay tribute to them with their music. For instance, Mumford and Sons’ first album “Sigh No More” is sprinkled through with lines and imagery from Shakespeare, and Lana del Rey’s song “Body Electric” includes nods to great American poet Walt Whitman. I think it’s so neat the way that these two mediums can intermingle and create something so great.

But I’ve gotten a little off-topic here. I think perhaps the most important parallel between the poetry of yesterday and the music of today is the emotional responses that we get from it. Whenever I’ve talked about poetry in other classes, something that comes up in every discussion is how poetry makes us feel. Poetry is supposed to evoke emotions from its readers and listeners. And song does much the same thing; we listen and we feel. Songs can make us laugh and cry, just like poetry can. And maybe that’s not the kind of similarity my friend was talking about the other day, but that’s what I take away from it.

Lost in Translation

Tags

language, style, translations

In this class we talk a lot about the impact of word choice, of spacing, of punctuation. We talk a lot about the use of language, and what it can do. But I know for a fact that when we’re talking about language, we mean the English language. And why shouldn’t we? That’s kind of the language we all speak. But I was thinking the other day about translations…

I’m a big dork for Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. I’ve never read the whole thing—I don’t have the patience for it—but I have read certain passages. And I liked what I read. But it’s come to my attention lately that there are at least seven (and possibly more) different translations in English of Hugo’s original French manuscript. Some translations are better than others, obviously, but it’s the number that really got to me. Seven different translations! That’s crazy. That’s seven different people taking Hugo’s words and language and interpreting it their own way. I’ve read authors’ and literary analysts’ comparisons of different translations, and the differences are often very subtle, but they’re certainly there. And that made me wonder; are we missing something when we read a translated novel? Are there nuances and ticks of language (so laboriously included by the author) that are utterly lost when the original text is swapped out for English?

Think about it. Think about all of the foreign authors who have written universally adored, “classic” pieces of work. Hugo’s Les Miserables comes to mind, of course, but so does Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Think of how many translations there must be of their original works out there today. Perhaps you’ve read one or more of them. I’m not saying, as many purists do, that you absolutely need to read a story in the original language to appreciate it. The themes and characters in such stories are universally beloved for a reason; they speak to us all, whether in a foreign tongue or not. But in a class that’s totally devoted to questions of style, one has to wonder whether the little details (those details that we’ve learned mean so much!) often get lost.

And it works both ways. Once, in a high school French course, I watched a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, spoken and sung entirely in French. And I had to wonder whether the French language could accurately show off that deeply clever Shakespeare-ness the way English could.  The iambic pentameter was certainly lost, as French has a completely different spoken rhythm. But were other things lost too? The entendre and wordsmithing that Shakespeare is still so renowned for, was that as present as it could be? I couldn’t tell then, and probably still can’t, since my French isn’t as good as I’d like it to be.

I don’t really have any defining answer to conclude this post with. I guess it’s just something to think about.

A Question of Mastery

Tags

A Dash of Style, noah lukeman, style

While talking about and analyzing rhythm and emphasis this week, I started to wonder if maybe things like that can come naturally to people. Noah Lukeman always talks about what “Master Writers” can do in A Dash of Style, implying that a truly skilled writer could probably just pound out a couple of sentences with perfect rhythm and emphasis, exquisite use of punctuation, and a deep underlying message to the reader encoded in the words. I’m exaggerating here, of course. No one can do that right off the bat, even a “master writer.” Or can they?

I know sometimes I have a streak of genius. I’m writing, and suddenly an amazing sentence just kind of happens. Out of nowhere, the words just fall into place in the most beautiful way, and it sounds exactly how I want it to sound. It’s a rare thing, but it certainly happens, and it feels great.  And I wonder whether a really great writer can sustain that rare (or at least rare for me) perfection in writing.  I think about all my favorites—Neil Gaiman, Tom Robbins, Daphne du Maurier, and the rest—sitting down to their typewriters or computers or notepads and automatically letting loose with streams and streams of absolutely artful prose, each word they put down shining like a well-polished gem. Because they’ve been taught for so long how to do it right. Because they’ve been writing for years and years and years. Because they’re “master writers.”

But I don’t think that’s really possible.

I certainly think that one can learn techniques for good writing, can be taught how to write stylishly, and can hone their craft with years and years of practice. I certainly think that one can become a “master writer.” However, I think that Lukeman (and other authors of other writing textbooks, if we’re being perfectly honest here) mislead us in that he makes us think that a “master writer” automatically equals a perfect writer.

Guys, writing is hard. I think that even a master could attest to that. Finding the right words, the right punctuation, and the right order to put it in is not easy. I personally have struggled with a sort anxiety about my writing, and trying to make it absolutely perfect on the first go. It used to stress me out so badly that it made me not want to write. I still struggle sometimes with my perfectionism in writing, and I see other writers around me struggling too. Which is why I think most writing textbooks should place a little more emphasis on the drafting process. It’s a very crucial part of writing, I think. First drafts are for getting the words down on paper, maybe with one or two stroke-of-genius sentences here and there. It’s the second draft, and a third, and a fourth that one can use to play around with word choice and punctuation and sentence structure. Drafting, I think, is what makes writing seem truly masterful.

Now, I’m not saying that Lukeman is wrong necessarily when he tells us that “master writers” know what they’re doing. I’m certain that they do know what they’re doing. But I’m also certain that they’re not doing it all at once.