The Big Rush, or What I Learned from Sending a Story Out Too Soon

July 12, 2012 15 Comments

 

By Julie Wu

I stood outside Columbia’s main gate at 116th and Broadway with Professor K.  It was evening, after his fiction workshop, and he smoked as always, squinting and throwing his cigarette butts after the receding tail lights of roaring buses and yellow cabs.  He was, to me, the quintessential, old-fashioned writer–a Raymond Carver contemporary who had drunk and smoked away the decades, who lived by himself and told stories about his lady friend, a former escort.  Sometimes we went, with or without a bunch of my classmates, to a café to schmooze, but I was in a rush to study for an exam.  It was 1996, toward the end of my final semester of medical school–the only semester in which I’d been able to take a writing course.

“You should get published as soon as possible,” Professor K said in his ravaged voice.  “Because then, when you see your name in print, you’ll feel obligated to write more.  Now, as for the story of yours that’s most ready to go out as is—” He punched the air with his cigarette, and named one of my stories.

I moved to Boston for my medical residency.  Between shifts, I researched literary magazines and sent out that story.  Of course, Professor K and the rest of the class had given me critiques.  Several people complained that the story’s ending—the protagonist’s final choice, wasn’t convincing.  I changed a sentence here or there, and thought that should be enough.  I liked my story and the man had said, “as is,” so I sent it out.

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Substance vs. Style: Fanfare for the Common Word

June 11, 2012 18 Comments

By Julie Wu

There was a flurry of rustling as we all took out our Graham Greene essays for Freshman English.

“Now,” Mrs. B said, “Look through your paper and circle your favorite word.”

I scanned my words, hand written on blue-lined paper. The best I could come up with was “seldom.”

Mrs. B clicked back and forth in bright red pumps that matched her lipstick, nails, and sweater set.  She had no notes, and I wondered whether she was doing this exercise with us because she hadn’t prepared for class.

“What if I can’t find a favorite word?” a girl asked.

“Well, then that should tell you something,” said Mrs. B.

We took turns reading our words out loud.  I was embarrassed about “seldom,” especially once we got to my friend Margaret,* whom I’d known since we were seven and seemed to have been born with a preternatural facility for language.

“Actually, I have two favorite words,” Margaret said.  “They’re together in a phrase—‘uncompromising enmity.’”

We all stared at Margaret.  Mrs. B looked off into the distance, stunned.

Next, Mrs. B asked us to read our favorite sentences.  I don’t remember anything about mine, but Margaret’s not only included her favorite words, it also had an incredible structure—long, complex, ending with rhythmic dependent clauses: “. . . uncompromising enmity between blah and blah, blah and blah, and blah and blah.”

Holy smokes.  No wonder I didn’t consider myself a writer.

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Don’t Scoff at Sonata Form: the Human Structure of Song and Narrative

May 18, 2012 3 Comments

By Julie Wu

Ever been to a live performance of a Beethoven symphony?  What happened when it ended?  Did the audience A) Look around at each other, scratching their heads and wondering whether the piece was over, B) Fling their programs at the stage, demanding their money back and yelling, “I can’t believe I listened to that whole thing and it just petered out at the end and made no sense at all”, or C) Burst immediately into applause, even if they hate classical music and can’t wait to get to the rest room.

I’m going to guess you answered C.

Why is that?  Why is it that when you listen to a piece by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Haydn, even if you know little or nothing about music or music theory, you can tell when the ending is coming, and you feel, when the piece is over, that it is complete?

I’ll tell you why—these composers used predetermined structures.  They used structures a bit more complicated than the structures used by popular songwriters, but based on the same principles.  For those of you who have ever read a novel only to find yourself examining the binding to see whether the final pages are missing, as well as those of you who have ever struggled with writing an ending yourself, revising it endlessly, why not see what musical form has to teach us?

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What It Means When Your Reviewer is Mean, Unfair, and Totally Doesn’t Get It

April 24, 2012 17 Comments

 

By Julie Wu

You’ve been hit over the head: the totally unfair review.  On Goodreads, on Amazon, at a job performance evaluation.  It’s hard to feel that the fault is really the reviewer’s, but it is.  Believe me, I know:  I once gave the worst review in the world.

It was 1995, and I wasn’t reviewing a piece of fiction.  I reviewed, at a medical department conference, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.  The article that introduced metformin, now one of the medications most widely used for Type II Diabetes, to the United States.  And yes, I trashed it.  In an oral presentation, for about thirty or forty minutes.  Oy.

So I am well qualified to represent the baselessly unjust reviewers of the world.  Ask me a question, any question.

You:  How could the reviewer trash my baby, my so obviously beautiful work?

Me:   Excuse me, the actual piece of work is irrelevant.  The reviewer is coming from a place of deep insecurity.  [Read more...]

How to Fix a Flat (Novel Scene) in Three Easy Steps

March 29, 2012 13 Comments

 

 

By Julie Wu

So, there’s Tolstoy, and then there’s you.  And you have a problem.  You have that scene that doesn’t work, the one you keep tweaking.  That scene where your heroine, Marge, wanders through the fields and forests, reminiscing about the lover she lost in the Crimean War.*  Your mother thinks it’s beautiful, heartbreaking.  But your reader fell asleep reading it, your agent says it’s slow, and your editor says to condense it.  Dutifully, you cut the paragraph in which Marge, reaching the edge of a duck pond, tearfully unfolds an old newspaper.  But the cut doesn’t help, because now Marge has nothing to do and you needed the newspaper to describe the history of the war and its effects on the nearby city.

You undelete the paragraph and give Marge a gun. She shoots a duck and wraps it in the newspaper.  There: action and historical background combined.  Plus, now she’s outdoorsy and self-sufficient.  She gets to reflect on the tragedy of feeling liberated and yet having simultaneously killed an animal in the way an officer killed her lover.  And the past, symbolized by the newspaper, is being bloodied by the presently dead duck.  O Magazine will declare this scene, “Lyrical, gorgeously written, rich with metaphor,” and list your book as a top summer pick.

You have a vague sense that your scene is still pointless, is now ridiculous, and actually O Magazine would not even accept a copy for review.  But you can’t cut the whole scene because it has such important backstory, such beautiful writing, and incredible insight into war, womanhood, and the human condition.

Uh-oh.  You’ve got a flat.

Take it from me:  I’ve had plenty.

[Read more...]

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