The Frozen Sea Within Us

 Franz Kafka, author of The Metamorphosis (among other things), said "a book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us." 
     Not known for his sunny disposition, Kafka nevertheless was keenly aware that a book can make us feel and think in equal parts and that a story's greatest potential is its ability to awaken the passions of our hearts as well as of our minds.

What Creepy Is

     I was watching a Twilight Zone episode with my daughters and afterward we had our standard debriefing.  The episode we watched leaned toward the scary end of the Twilight Zone spectrum and I've found that discussion and understanding often prevents bedtime anxiety.  My ten-year-old had been squeezing my hand pretty tight during the episode, so I asked if it was a little too scary for her.  "No," she assured me.  "I mean, it was a little creepy during the episode, but once I knew what was going on, it didn't scare me at all.  Things are creepier when you don't know what's going on."
     Now, the final explanation for all the creepy goings on in that episode ("The Hitch-Hiker") is a supernatural one and, in concept at least, no less scary than the rest of the episode.  But, as someone who tries to attain a sense of weirdness and creepiness in his own story-telling, my daughter's comments did highlight a crucial point for me.  Creepiness is all about not knowing, about not being able to explain something.  That, essentially, is what creepiness is.  Yet stories (or perhaps it's really readers of stories . . . or perhaps it's really publishers of stories) seem to demand an ultimate explanation.  As enjoyable as creepiness is for many, it seems intolerable that it should linger beyond the end of a narrative.  It's as if, if that were to happen, it would be to suggest that the world doesn't work properly.
     Many of us seem to read stories for a sense of closure or satisfaction that feels unattainable in our actual lives.  But I often wonder, isn't there something compelling, something enjoyable, maybe even something healthy, about facing our unease over things that are simply beyond our ability to control?

Two Kindergartners Discuss Vomit

     As I was washing my hands in the school bathroom the other day, I overheard this conversation between the two kindergarteners in the nearby stalls.  This was a co-ed bathroom for the kids.  I've changed the names to protect the innocent.

Adam: Sofie, are you there?

Sofie: Yes.

Adam: Do you know that some people drink vomit?

Sofie: Ack!  Really?

Adam: Yes.

Sofie: Do you?

Adam: No.  Well, I have.

Sofie:  Really?  Was it bad?

Adam:  Not as bad as drinking blood.

Sofie: Yeah, my blood doesn't taste very good.

Adam: Yeah.

     So this is a real conversation that trumps just about every fictional conversation I've ever read for a great opening, surprise twists and a universally accessible subject matter.  Can you capture the these qualities in a fictional conversation and not have it sound stilted or artificial?  That, I figure, is one of the great quests of the writer. 

The Voorman Problem

      Every now and then, I (or any writer, I suppose) come across a story -- a book, a movie, a play, whatever -- that I feel like I should have written.  Not exactly that I wish I'd written it, but more that it reflects a theme and/or style so close to mine that it's like the actual writer just got to it a little bit before I would have.  I felt that way about the movie Unbreakable, for instance.
     I've written a lot of short stories, very few of them published (yet).  One of those short stories that I would have written sooner or later has been made into a short film, one that was nominated for a 2013 Oscar Award.  It's called The Voorman Problem, and in it's twelve minute running time, it strikes all the best chords of weirdness and surrealism, and leaves behind a vast implication of cosmic terror.  Quite impressive all around, especially considering that it's a comedy (or so suggests the theme music).  It's available for download at all the usual places and well worth a twelve minute look.

The Thoughts of the Writer

     In a recent interview in The New York Times, the novelist Philip Roth had this to say: "Whoever looks for the writer’s thinking in the words and thoughts of his characters is looking in the wrong direction . . . The thought of the novelist lies not in the remarks of his characters or even in their introspection but in the plight he has invented for his characters . . . The thought of the writer lies in his choice of an aspect of reality previously unexamined in the way that he conducts an examination. The thought of the writer is . . . in the moral focus of the novel."

     There are traits of characters I've created that I identify with, that I wish I had, that I wish I didn't have, that I'm glad I do or don't have.  But do my characters speak my thoughts?  Well, in the most basic sense, they do; everything they say did come out of my head.  But do they speak my outlook, my beliefs?

     Mr. Roth, who has been writing and thinking about writing for a lot longer than I have, speaks to the largest and most compelling point on this subject.  Writers often (if not always) write because they feel they have something important to say and want to express that.  It's very tempting for readers to assume the characters themselves are the sole vehicles of this expression since they (the characters) are the things in the books most obviously expressing something.  But, truly, it's the way the world of the book interacts with a treats and leaves the characters that has the greatest meaning.  The characters are one of the tools that allows the entire story to express the writer's thoughts.