Writing – The Craft of

Tension?

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

I’ve mentioned before how I usually know the ending of a story before I know anything else about it. I end up writing my way to the very last line, which is always there during the process.

I’ve also mentioned before what my theory is on stories. That they are all around me, and really, really want to be told and don’t care how they’re told. So if I outline, or talk about a story before I’ve finished writing it, then it’s been told. The story is happy and it goes away and I’ll never finish it. Which is why I’m careful not to talk a lot about a work in progress.

So this week, while visiting with my friend Jenni, we got to talking about the writing process and I realized that my two comments above are connected in a way. If I don’t know the ending, there’s no tension. If I talk about a story, basically tell it instead of writing it, there’s no tension. And without that tension, I won’t write.

That got me wondering if ‘tension’ is the right word. Could it be anticipation? Is it the mystery of the unknown? Not knowing the story, discovering it as I write it?

Well, what’s the definition of ‘tension’? Skipping over to an online dictionary I find the expected definitions of stretching and tightening. But then I also find this: ‘a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements’ and ‘an inner striving, unrest, or imbalance…’.

For all you artistic types out there (not just writers), isn’t that what it feels like before the project is finished? A simmering sense of anticipation, inner striving toward something unknown, and a lack of balance? These things, I think, are what drives someone to create. Would I take the time out of my busy life to write 100,000 words if I wasn’t striving toward fulfilling the anticipation, toward finding that balance? Think of the huge, heavy mental sigh you give when your creativity is captured on paper or canvas or even in your job.  I know I usually am overwhelmingly relieved that I made it to that very last line before the story escaped.

So I guess ‘tension’ is a good word. However, I read a blog post a week or so ago about how, when you’re struggling to find just the perfect word in your story, and nothing seems to work, to use the definition instead. I agree with that because the phrase ‘an inner striving or unrest’ explains the writing process, for me at least, much better than ‘tension’.

How does it feel for you, before you pick up the pen, the paint brush, the crochet hook, the garden trowel, the hammer?

 

A Body of Stories

/ Lisa / 5 Comments

I’m taking an archaeology class through Coursera and we’ve been asked to think about the ethical questions around excavating human remains. Do archaeologists have the right to uncover, study, archive, those remains? Are they preserving history for the future or breaking cultural taboos? And at what age does it become okay? For example, could I study someone who died ten thousand years ago? Five hundred? Twenty?

Someone once said a person is not truly ‘gone’ as long as there is someone to remember them. So is that the line we draw in the archaeological sense? If memory exists, remains shouldn’t be disinterred and studied? That question now moves the debate into the realm of stories, which of course, fascinates me.

I was lucky enough to know my great-uncle, who was in his late nineties when I was small. Quite the character, by the way. He told me stories about his grandfather and great-grandfather. Obviously I never knew those people. I have no emotional attachment to them. And yet I do have their stories, which keeps those long gone people alive in my mind. Gone, but not forgotten.

Does that mean I have a concern in whether their graves should be disturbed? Honestly, I’d hate to see disturbance because Cherry Creek, where they are buried, is very old. On the top of a butte, overlooking hills and fields of wheat all the way to the horizon. Other than that, I have no strong prohibition to disturbing remains in order to learn.

Back to stories. Does the excavation of an ancient burial site kill the stories? No; it may even add to them. And to me, the tale of a person’s life is far more valuable than an unrecognizable mummy, or a scatter of bones. But then, I’m a storyteller.

Disturbing the dead when it’s a cultural taboo, or when it causes distress is another matter. Those things have to be honored.

But I’d rather have stories left, to be shared, to be laughed over, then bones or ashes. Those may tell a future excavator where I lived, what I ate, how good my dentist was. But no amount of tests will tell those future excavators I yelled at a cougar. That will remain in the hands of a storyteller, most likely my son.

So I had this great-uncle named Stonewall Jackson (first and middle name). Jack was stone deaf. When my grandmother introduced Frank, the infant who would become my father, he said, “Friday? What the hell kind of name is Friday?”

And Friday he became. And all my other uncles and aunts ended up with lifelong nicknames, all because uncle Jack was deaf. That story isn’t in his grave. It’s in memories.

The photo below doesn’t show depth perception well. Cherry Creek is the top of a very steep, high hill.

Cherry Creek in winter

Cherry Creek in winter