Drive-Through PhDs and Other Career Choices

The fact of your having been editor in chief for six years of the book division of a scholarly publishing venture has not weighed heavily in your thoughts these past years until yesterday when, at a faculty meeting, you were informed that you were being assigned to teach the course Academic Writing in the Fall.  Your first reaction was the acknowledgement that to the person making out the schedules, the assignment made perfect sense.  You even found yourself nodding in agreement with the logic you'd supposed.  Things began to fall apart after that, the entropy achieving a rapidity that had you using the adverb "rapidly," as in "rapidly fell apart."

The designation of the course led you to understand that it was not at the graduate level, your more customary place for teaching.  Nevertheless, why shouldn't undergraduates learn how to prepare scholarly papers for journals; why shouldn't they in fact read and deconstruct scholarly journals; why, indeed, should they not wish to write things they might find homes for in scholarly journals.

The next plank to be removed from your already shaky platform was the discovery that, like so many of the words tossed about at the meeting, words such as "conversation,"  "window," "cognitive," and "returning learner," the designation of academic writing had nothing to do with publishing, such as your other courses do but rather with teaching individuals to write college-level essays, research papers, and term reports.

Having spent some time on line, examining various curricula at various institutions, you have reached an interesting juncture.  You cannot recall in specific numbers how many books you have published, nor how many essays, nor reviews.  You think the number of published short stories is thirty-two, but it could easily be more.  It is no stretch to say that you have, to use a buzz word from your own publishing background, been a "shirtsleeves editor" for at least five hundred book-length projects, an acquisitions editor for a few hundred more, all these numbers and history preamble to the wonder that you would sweat to get a grade of B in the course you are about to teach, such is the disconnect between the two worlds of teaching and writing/editing you inhabit.

It is one thing to be confident about a book project currently out in submission.  A number of publishers have already invited submission of the entire manuscript based on your proposal, and your literary agent is more than a little taken with the chapters of the novel you are sending her.  The vision of yourself with the academic tables turned is, if not hilarious, just a step short.

You vividly recall a time when a school chum of yours approached you one afternoon with the announcement, "We should be spending more time in the library.  We need to get ready for the PhD exams."  The vividness of your recall of that moment is because of the clear vision of the paths before you.  Less than four months later, a novel completed on legal-sized sheets of onionskin your father found at an office supply company he was auctioning off, you were headed for Mexico and a life that nodded respectfully to the library but which wanted no part of the PhD exams.

Interesting challenges now await you.  You think you remember what a topic sentence is, but just in case:


Topic Sentence



What is the topic sentence?
The topic sentence is the first sentence in a paragraph.
What does it do?
It introduces the main idea of the paragraph.

How do I write one?
Summarize the main idea of your paragraph. Indicate to the reader what your paragraph will be about.

Example:

There are three reasons why Canada is one of the best countries in the world. First, Canada has an excellent health care system. All Canadians have access to medical services at a reasonable price. Second, Canada has a high standard of education. Students are taught by well-trained teachers and are encouraged to continue studying at university. Finally, Canada's cities are clean and efficiently managed. Canadian cities have many parks and lots of space for people to live. As a result, Canada is a desirable place to live.

As one of your two mentors told you, "If you want to know how you feel about something, write a book about it."

That has become your study in metaphor for the PhD exam.

P.S.  Who knew the topic sentence was the first one in a paragraph?

Explaining the Explanations: Defensiveness Write Large

With RUE my prose is laden,
For the clunky prose I had,
For many an explanation,
That rendered my sentences bad...


It is sometimes difficult to separate the urge to explain in your stories and essays the way people think and the way things work and your goal of seeking the spark of connection, arcing between two or more seemingly unrelated things,  One editor you know has a kind of mnemonic, RUE, by which she means resist the urge to explain.  You find yourself trespassing on this boundary in an excess of enthusiasm for the actual way the thing or the person works.  You realize this makes your early drafts radiate the kind of smart ass kid in the front row, waving his hand, please, teacher, call on me, I know.  You want instead to capture the excitement of the awareness as opposed to the showoff writer, wanting to prove himself to the reader.

This is your self-admitted weak spot, the place you want to make sure you address with your blue pencil or your brown ink.  You don't have to explain it; the reader will get it.  In order to work yourself up to this level of surgery, you need to start by finding the place where the piece or the story truly begins, which is to say the place where the narrative moves forward without the push of necessary background information.  This is so much fun and does not involve your show-off tendencies and so, having found the place where it can start, you are already energized with the energy you want roiling around in the story or essay; you can then address the subjective issue of deciding where you have explained too much, where you can remove props, splendid analogies, or metaphor.  If it works as you hope, the results add a heaping measure of energy to your enthusiasm for the work; you can push the characters or the ideas around, let them interact and debate.  Ahead of you is the carrot you dangle for yourself.

The carrot is connection, by which you mean the sudden awareness either as you write or as you remove unnecessary furniture from the sentences and paragraphs.  Ah, awareness of what, you ask?  Awareness of some relationship between facts or events or characters that you did not know up front before you began writing this particular piece.  Of course you had the information but you had not seen the way the information linked with another bit.  This is the discovery you seek and for which you revise where ever possible, as many times as needed to produce that Eureka moment.

Coming to work on a piece in an off mood, where thoughts and efforts seem to congeal like rush hour traffic, you accordingly, sclerotic, you might say, invariably start explaining how things work and the trouble begins.  When you come back to such work later, you can see you have approached the work in an off mood.  You literally need to begin pruning to get the energy and enthusiasm back.  When they have returned to you, they frequently bring that most welcomed guest, connection, which you enjoy for several thoughtful moments before you rush off explaining again.

Walks at the Beach as a Cultural Emblem

The classified advertisements in which seemingly all sexual orientations reach out for romantic contact have appeared over the years in the literary journals such as the London Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, and our own redoubtable New York Review of Books.  You have followed them with the same devotion some individuals favor TV series, even to the point of using some of the circumstances or motivations in short stories, and rarely fail to skim them when a new issue arrives.

At times when you are stuck somewhere waiting, as in a barber or doctor or dental office, you wonder how successful the advertisers have been in their search for the romantic life, whether in fact some of them have been disappointed severely and thus disillusioned, as a dear friend of yours has become after engaging the online dating services such as E-Harmony and OK-Cupid.

After merging your in-print findings with some investigations of online services, one trait seems to emerge with great regularity, not only on both sides of the Atlantic but on this side of the Pacific.  It is a rare applicant who, in filling out his or her personality and attributes questionnaire fails to refer to herself or himself as "Enjoys walks at the beach."

You would think from this popularity of walks at the beach that there is some multicultural agreement that walks at the beach equals romantic activity which in its turn has become the beau ideal of romance.  Being fond of the beach and seeing it as an opportunity to walk dogs, you have presented yourself on numerous occasions over the years.  While it is true that you have seen some couples walking shore side, you did not see that many and those you did see did not seem to be enjoying themselves in any way you would call notable.  Equally true, you saw some attractive persons walking at the beach but with the few exceptions where you were stopped to be asked for directions, your walks at the beach provided you many things--ideas for stories, opportunities to conduct tricky conversations in rehearsal, working out lectures, working off the annoyance at rejection slips that seemed to you to have completely missed the point in their comments--but nothing even vaguely romantic.

It is natural to put one's self into the text of some of the classified adds, using attributes that were by all accounts accurate, neither guiding the metaphoric lily nor engaging in false modesty.  Tall, weather-beaten writer, editor, instructor, for instance; even tall, funny, weather-beaten writer, editor, instructor, Pygmalion in search of Galatea (but that was an extreme reach), yet never once did it occur to say loves walks at the beach.  Dislikes reading galley proofs, but sees the practice as a necessity.  Dislikes reading student papers on principal but has had so many gifted students that he has become unprincipled--that surely would get a notice in London.

This is by no means an abandonment of walks at the beach or, indeed thoughts of romance, but in so many ways it does not pay to advertise.  Walks at the beach, romance, writing--they are all things you simply do, take for granted.  Something either comes from them or it does not but in any case there is the pleasure of all three when they happen.

Time Will Tell

From the moment you engage the first paragraphs of a story, you could be yanked back into a particular historical time, scarcely aware of the forces and nuance involved.

In earlier times, writers were at some pains to yank you forward, into the very story you were reading, using their artifice to convince you what you were reading was an accurate representation of actual events, happening to actual persons.  Their principal device or artifice for achieving this effect was the epistolary or letter format, letters exchanged between the characters.  This had the then effect of a news leak today; the reader believes the material to be authentic, that someone or something is in some form of danger or, if not danger, on the verge of deception.

This discovery did not prevent subsequent epistolary writing nor did it forestall writers from moving to even more nuanced artifice such as stream of consciousness as a means of making the story seem more immediate and real.  These techniques are the literary equivalents of a scientist examining a segment of some artifact, tracking its elements, analyzing them.  They can be dated as carbon 14 or tree rings or even the enamel on prehistoric animals' teeth are dated, providing a timetable to their birth.

Even when the writer is in pursuit of a fantastic, future or imaginary world, the writer is in a sense using the tree rings and carbon 14 and mitochondrial dating devices of his or her age, thus simultaneously writing of other worlds and times while using techniques of the present moment.  A writer embarking, for example, on a restating of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would have in the tool kit words, terms, and concepts well beyond Stevenson's range; the writer would be writing of Stevenson's time or perhaps an earlier or later time but also of his/her time simultaneously.

The important thing to remember about story is its ability to encapsulate and transfer feelings, the emotions displayed and suggested by the characters and those intended to be sent forth by the writer.  Many conventions in story have changed.  This one remains.

When a Symbol Is More Than a Symbol

When a person uses an object often enough, the object becomes a symbol, possibly even a theme.

This vision of an object runs contrary to the famed argument that a cigar is sometimes merely a cigar, although had the cigar been mentioned only once or twice, the issue might not have arisen.

When a cigar is not merely a cigar, it is variously an object of great pleasure to the smoker but it may also be an annoyance to a bystander who is confronted with the second-hand smoke.  A cigar is also a sign of entitled male social standing and, likewise an accouterment of rebellious femininity.

An object is a thing, a concept, even a person.  A thing becomes an object when the viewer retreats from its fine-tuned specificity by calling it a thing instead of, say, a particular brand or type or shape of a cigar.  A maduro corona cigar refers to a darker wrapper of a cigar at least five inches long, more likely six. That thing, as in, you can't smoke that thing in here, is a negative objectification of a cigar.  A concept, similarly shorn of some or all its identity, morphs into that thing.  If you and I are discussing the inherent pleasures of an after-dinner cigar on the patio, you might be thinking an H. Uppman maduro Churchill while I might be visualizing and tasting a double claro panatella.  A person becomes an object when he or she is not seen any longer as an individual but as an embodiment of some quality such as sexuality, honor, courage, determination, pity, etc.

The metamorphosis from mere object to symbol or theme begins at the larval stage of specificity; one person, concept, or thing moves away from a unique and dimensional profile to become an exemplar of a thing.  This illustrates the duality within each of us:  We want our individuals at the same time wanting our things.  We want the person we bond with romantically to become a simultaneous series of objects or things with whom we can dial a particular concept as the mood strikes us, and of course if that person has a sexy reading voice, hearing that person reading Socrates can morph into sexual attraction, thus a symbolic twofer.

Stories of all genera and nature stress the awareness of the potential for conflict as reflected by the manner in which a cigar remains a cigar or becomes a representative symbol for a concept which one or more of the characters must call out, High Noon style for a shootout.

Letters to a Young, Middle-Aged, or Geezer Writer, XXV

Okay, they seem to be saying to you, Here we are, at your request.  Now, you going to give us a clue about why you called this meeting?

Well, you say, drawing the e's and l's out long enough to collect some thoughts, I figured we'd all hang out for a while, exchange some witty dialogue, maybe trade some gossip about a character who's not here yet, maybe even a remark or two about politics, then drip in a note about what a cool story this is.

Un, no, they tell you in near unison.  We're all members of the character's union; we don't hang out or give props to the author for casting us in such a cool story.  Our contract says we get a story or we're outta here.

But, you insist, I provided good snacks--get the early reference to lobster roll--and I provided air conditioning somewhere in there, didn't I?  Listen, you plead as you scroll through the scene on your computer.  Ah, here it is:  "The air conditioning purred away like a well-fed hummingbird, dispersing any traces of the torrid blaze of the sun outside."

You listen, they tell you.  We've been meaning to talk to you about that metaphor.  You've got to quit screwing around.  Get something going pronto or we're gone.  Capisce?

Couldn't happen to you, you say; you're not referenced in this; you're always on story, right?  You never hit soft spots in your work, right?

For many of us in the trenches, this scene is replayed with some regularity, meaning it must be faced and coped with in one draft or another and on a regular basis.  

Speaking for the "us" in the "us" in the above trenches trope, it is business as usual, the ongoing attempt to keep defensiveness and the need to explain well out of our work, banished in that dump site where all the props, useless foundations, and unreliable effects of our everyday thinking must ultimately be sent.  

We have enough on our hands as it is; telling a story in an effective manner--so that it produces an emotional reaction--quite naturally seems easy because it is supposed to seem easy.  Naturally you would think it easy; you were supposed to think it was easy.

It is only easy if you become aware on a word-for-word basis how difficult it is, then tell the story in spite of, perhaps even because of the difficulty.  That's how we got you into this business in the first place--making you think is was so easy that you could do it,too.

Letters to a Young, Middle-Aged, or Geezer Writer, XXIV

There is an order of dramatic events in story that at first blush may seem to come at whim, either the whim of the characters or of the writer.  This order has its origins in what the major character wants and how this character behaves in service of bringing these wants to resolution.  Each time that character appears in a scene, he or she brings expectations relative to the final outcome.

All characters come into a scene with some degree of expectation, perhaps dread or anticipation, perhaps even curiosity.  A character without some tangible expectation has no business in a particular scene.  It is literally enough for you to say John, a minor, minor character, who will be in the scene, dreads the scope of the scene which could be say a faculty meeting or other arrangement where individuals tend to talk at great length about themselves as opposed to the agenda for the meeting.  John has, through his dread of the coming meeting, bought his way in.  Everything John says will reflect his being here under a measure of duress-regret-unwillingness.

This vision of characters having an expectation in a forthcoming scene is the basis for what they say, which is what dialogue is.  If you don't know what a character is doing in a scene, that character will not sound convincing, but even more to the point, will not sound as though he or she knows why you've got him there at that moment.

Dialogue is not conversation, not even when the characters are conversing.  Some expectation or misinterpretation or misunderstanding is waiting close at hand to pounce.  In the better scenes and exchanges of dialogue, characters may become so eager or frustrated or preoccupied that they reveal/betray some hint of their true agenda.

When I was a low-level employee at the night office of The Associated Press, nestled in a corner of the Los Angeles Times building, there was a sign in place at every reporter's desk.  It read:  "There has never been a better verb than said."  This adage can well apply to fiction as well; said is a neutral word, one the reader takes for granted unless it is inelegantly or inexpertly repeated to the point of distraction.  Elements of story such as dialogue may be used to create a relevant effect, but think about this:  the best effect of all in story is the plausible sense of story, a sense we take in the same way we take in breath as we read.  We do not need someone to explain to us why we breathe any more than we need someone to explain to us what story is and what it means.