[ephemeral]

Seems to me many authors and would-be authors habituate Mobilism, which makes complete sense to me. One thing we writers must always pursue is the quest to improve our talent. One method to achieve that objective is to read other writers. Another is to attend a workshop. I have done both, and prefer the former; workshopped writing reads exactly as you think it would. Learning from the best writers - or at least those writers better than you (me) - is an exercise with practical value. I view this series, should it continue beyond this initial post, to meld the best of both methods, academic and practical.

Our first selection is from Pat Murphy's, The Falling Woman. Snippet first, in medias res, my comments follow...

This daughter of mine was as cool as if she were encased in glass, shielded from the world by an invisible protective barrier. She was not unfriendly: during dinner she had smiled and joked with the others. But she seemed cautious, wary, and even when she removed her sunglasses, I could not begin to guess what she was thinking. I lit my cigarette, cupping my hand to protect the flame from the evening breeze, then shook the burning match to blow it out. Tony sat beside me, nursing a drink. I think it was his fourth.

In the corner of the plaza, not far from the table where the students played their interminable game of cards, a loincloth-clad Toltec priest was scraping remnants of flesh from the hide of a newly killed jaguar. A smoking torch cast red light on his bare back and shoulders; at his side, incense burned in a pottery vessel shaped like a jaguar. As he worked, he chanted incessantly, and his voice competed with the rock-and-roll tapes playing on Carlos’s cassette player.

‘Your daughter is a very nice young woman,’ Tony said. ‘I think she’ll fit right in.’

I said nothing. The priest chanted and the rock-and-roll band sang about love.

‘Did you have a nice chat when you took her around the site?’

‘Curious, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ He leaned back in his chair. The hand holding his glass of gin was propped up on one knee; the empty hand on the other. He was waiting. A moth was battering its head against the glass chimney of the lantern. I dimmed the light and moved it to the other end of the table, but the insect circled, found the lamp again, and continued its efforts to die.

‘I don’t understand what she wants from me,’ I said finally.

‘Didn’t you ask her that?’ Tony said.

‘I did. She said she wanted to dig up the past and see what was under the rubble.’

He nodded.

For a moment we listened to the slap of the cards, the low murmur of the students’ conversation, and the soft whir of the cassette player rewinding. The priest had stopped his wailing and I could hear the scrape of the obsidian knife against the hide. I realized that I was holding the burning cigarette, but not smoking. I took a long drag and exhaled slowly.

‘I don’t understand what she’s doing here,’ I said abruptly. ‘It’s all past history. I left her. Why should she look to me for comfort now?’

‘Is she looking to you for comfort?’

‘She’s looking for her mother. I’m nobody’s mother.’

‘Then she’ll figure that out,’ he said. ‘And then she’ll go. Is that what you want?’

I shrugged, unable to say what I wanted. ‘That would be fine,’ I said. ‘Just fine.’

‘All right,’ Tony said. ‘Maybe that will happen.’

We sat quietly for a while. The priest resumed his chanting, but the card game seemed to be winding down. Carlos had his arm around Maggie’s shoulders and the two of them were laughing a great deal. ‘She seems to have hit it off with Barbara,’ I said.

‘True. And having another person on survey isn’t a bad idea.’

‘I suppose.’ I frowned out at the darkness. ‘I wonder why she’s so wary. I suppose that’s Robert’s doing.’

‘Give the woman a chance, Liz,’ he said. ‘Just give her a chance.’

‘She seems bright enough,’ I said grudgingly.

‘That’s something.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘It was brave of her to come down here by herself. Is that what you’re waiting for?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not waiting for anything. I was just thinking that arriving unannounced seemed like the sort of thing that you would have done in her position.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ I admitted reluctantly.

‘I think I am.’

Carlos reached over to the tape player and the music clicked off. Carlos and Maggie headed off, arm in arm, on the path to the cenote, talking in loud whispers. John and Robin headed toward their huts. Tony poured himself one more drink. ‘You ever going to sleep?’ he asked.

‘Later,’ I said. ‘I’m not tired yet.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.

I shrugged and watched him walk away. I sat alone at the table....

Okay, unless you have read the novel (which I recommend) you know nothing re the characters and their motivations. In this case, you need not know the characters, for today's lesson is this: Excellent writers allow the unspoken and unsaid to convey their true meaning and message, even the text of their story.

For a few readers (me), the passage above scintillates for its brilliance because it causes readers to lean forward on their chairs, to give our attention, yes, but also our hearts, our minds, our intelligence. The story's meaning(s) and purpose(s) will not be dolloped out as in a cafeteria; we must find the author's intent and meaning within and between the lines, in what is not said as much as what is. In this instance, you want Tony to just say it, and for Liz to open up and say what she is dying to say... but neither character will - even if they could. iow, that Liz and Tony do not say to each other what they could and should - and what we readers want! - is true to the characters author Murphy imagined.

The next novel you read, remember this notion. If the sole element that engages your mind is the puzzle of who did what and how rather than why, then that novel is all surface. Shining, perhaps, but all surface. And no matter how brilliant that surface, it offers readers no layers or depth; it is all text, no context.

Writers strive to deliver a story, told well, that engages a reader's heart, mind, and soul. And time. Pat Murphy shows one method to achieve that goal.

Your comments and remarks welcomed.
ephemeral

Interesting read. Please continue the series.