George Saunders – Ken Craft

What Zen Archers Can Teach Us About Poetry

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Paul Muldoon (ex-poetry editor of some magazine or other called The New Yorker) has thoughts about young poets (age 9 to 99). He says their undoing comes when they think they know what they’re doing. If this happens, he says, they’ll most likely “disimprove.”

How do they reverse this trend (or improve from the get-go)? Muldoon’s advice, which he admits elicits head-scratching, is that they read Eugen Herrigel’s cult classic Zen in the Art of Archery. You have to allow yourself to go to a place of “innocence and ignorance,” to forget yourself, to give yourself over to a certain mysterious “it.”

If that sounds like something the too-busy-with-wonder-to-become-vain child you once were would be very good at, you’re right. I imagine, then, that there are no answers in books on how to write poetry or in poetry critiques or in the very expensive letters “M,” “F” and “A.”

I imagine, instead, that poets need only go out in the world and take it all in slowly and with an alien eye. Return to the word-of-the-year when you were a 5-year-old: “Why?”

Notice things about nature and people you stopped noticing long ago because you mistakenly assigned them to that category called “boring, everyday stuff.”

Muldoon’s point is that ignorance, a label we abhor and give to people we have little respect for, can be a good thing for poets. Why? Because in some respects little kids are ignorant, but in a receptive and innocent way.

Can adults reconnect with this inner child-poet and let poetry “be done to them” rather than trying too hard to do poetry themselves? You need only reread your favorite poems from the past and present to know that the answer is yes.

Oh. And Zen in the Art of Archery, of course.

Nota bene: Apparently, this goes for all genres of writing. As I picked up a copy of Max Porter’s Shy, I noted an interesting blurb from author George Saunder. It reminded me of this very topic. See if you agree:

“Max Porter is one of my favorite writers in the world. Why? Because he’s always asking the most important questions and then finding ways–through innovative structures and that inimitable voice–of answering those questions soulfully, with his full attention, in ways that make the world seem stranger and more dear (or more dear because stranger). He gives his readers, in other words, bursts of vision.”

Asks questions? Makes the world strange and dear? Sounds very Zen by way of Muldoon to me!

Here is the YouTube clip of a larger interview Muldoon offered.

Talking With George Saunders: Part 2

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In his most recent book, George Saunders quotes “movie producer and all-around mensch,” Stuart Cornfield, to make a point not only about movies but about writing – – “…every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way.”

Doesn’t seem like much, does it? But for writers, the twosome may be more challenging than you think. To entertain should not be taken lightly. And you cannot do it randomly, either. At the same time it must advance your story, meaning “randomness” is the enemy!

Often this calls for variety in your story, but again, you face the danger of variety for the sake of variety. Chekhov, Saunders’ hero in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, is a natural at this. Says George: “Chekhov’s instinct seems to be toward variation, against stasis. One of his gifts is an ability to naturally impose variety on a situation that a lesser writer would leave static.”

(OK, static sorts. Take a step forward and admit it. Or watch as Chekhov takes a step backwards, leaving you exposed.)

This brings us to these famous dictums for writers:

“Don’t make things happen for no reason.”
“Having made something happen, make it matter.”

You see, again, the relentless campaign against the random? A particularly contrary writer might wail, “But, hold on! Life is random, so why can’t I write random?”

Because, Saunders seems to be saying, writing is a controlled random – an exquisite, oxymoronic dance of sorts.

Thus, he writes, “In workshop we sometimes say that what makes a piece of writing a story is that something happens within it that changes the character forever.”

Tall, meet order.

To quote Chekhov (and Saunders does so, early and often): “Art doesn’t have to solve problems, it only has to formulate them correctly.”

Happy formulating, then. It’s what make writing such an enjoying challenge!

Talking With George Saunders: Part 1

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In many ways, George Saunders’ new book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, hits all my buttons. Chief among them is its use of short stories by four Russians — Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, and Gogol – to illustrate key points on the making and enjoyment of literature. I’ve been reading the Russkies since being knee-high to a praying mantis. Thus, being a Russophile (literary-wise, anyway) and a writer as well, I found myself doing something I seldom do with my books: annotating it as I went along.

Talking to Saunders, is what it amounted to, even though the odds of me ever attending his distant Syracuse writing class lie somewhere between slim and none.

I decided to share a bit here with other readers interested in writing and reading. First, I’ll provide the Saunders remarks that gave rise to some questions and thoughts. Then I’ll offer what I’d say if I were in Saunders class (if my classmates and professor kindy allowed, that is).

For Part 1 of who knows how many, here’s Saunders on one of the simpler “laws” of fiction. You know how laws get one’s ire up. Can you break them? Are they good laws? And what about the caveats, both mentioned and un-?

Saunders:

“Earlier, we asked if there might exist certain ‘laws’ in fiction. Are there things that our reading mind just responds to? Physical descriptions seem to be one such thing. Who knows why? We like hearing our world described. And we like hearing it described specifically (‘Two men in green sweaters were playing catch beside a wrecked car’ is better than ‘I drove through this area that was sort of bland and didn’t notice much.’) A specific description, like a prop in a play, helps us believe more fully in that which is entirely invented. It’s sort of a cheap, or at least easy, authorial trick. If I am trying to put you in a certain (invented) house, I might invoke ‘a large white cat, stretching itself out to what seemed like twice its normal length’ on a couch in that house. If you see the cat, the house becomes real.

“But that’s only part of the move. That cat, having been placed in that particular story, is now, also, a metaphorical cat, in relation to all of the other dozens (hundreds) of metaphorical elements floating around in the story.

“And that cat now has to do some story-specific work. Or, we might say, it’s going to be doing some story-specific work, whether it chooses to or not, by its very presence in the story; the question is what work it’s going to be asked to do and how well it will do it.” (pp. 27-28)

On the surface, there seems little to debate here. Of course a more detailed description makes a scene more believable. The writer’s skill of naming things alone counts for much in his ability to create a sustainable dream for readers.

The catch lies in how much description. It might be “easy,” as Saunders allows, to deploy spellbinding description, but the difficulty lies in when to stop describing. Readers, though they may love description, don’t have infinite patience with it. Ditto editors.

I recall, for instance, my first attempt at a novel umpteen years ago. One editor, kind enough to provide a handwritten response, lauded the description throughout but said there might have been too much (for one) and that it often came at the expense of plot, which she found weak.

Then there’s the famous rule of Chekhov’s gun (rifle, what have you). Once mentioned as hanging on the wall over the hearth, it best be used before story’s end. Which brings us to another tricky concept: which details must play a role in the story and which may not?

A gun is fairly obvious. Why bring it up in passing? But the white cat mentioned by Saunders above? Is it equal to the green sweaters also mentioned above? Almost any detail from a setting can be integrated into a future plot development, but I daresay this will hold true for only a few.

Bottom line: the writer has a problem. Two problems, actually. Yes, your writing is richer through description, but when is enough enough? Salt lends flavor, no one will deny, but too much salt can kill a dish. Put description in a shaker next to pepper, and there you have it.

Additionally, it seems a case of overthinking matters to wonder which objects in any given description must do some “story-specific work,” as Saunders states, merely by dint of their presence. What if the description is implying something about a character, for instance? Does that count, or must it be woven into plot?

All of which brings me back to my own writing precept: Nothing is as simple as it seems. Even if George Saunders calls it a “cheap, or at least easy, authorial trick.”