The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Reading with Two Brains

One of the great joys of summer vacations, especially as a teacher or a student, is the time to read, and to truly lose yourself in a book. But ever since I’ve gotten serious about my writing, I find I read with two brains. One is the reader, who drops herself deep down into the world of the story, journeys with the characters, hopes and fears with them and, if the author does his or her job right, can’t stop until the book is done. The other brain is the writer brain. She has a much tougher job, and she knows it. She’s clinical, analytical, and sits way up high studying, taking notes. She often tries to muscle the reader out of the way so she can get a closer look at the machinery behind the magic. She’s Toto to the reader-brain’s Dorothy, pulling away that curtain so she can reveal the wizard’s true self.

I’m always telling myself that the writer brain deserves to take a closer look. She deserves a chance to go for another ride on the book, to take her time and pick apart the language and the technique that swept the reader off her feet. But the reader, ever a bit flighty and always looking for the next magic moment, insists, “But I’ve already read that one! I want to try this one out! There are so many books, and so little time!”

My writer brain has gotten pretty good at catching things on-the-fly, identifying where a particular book or author has demonstrated special mastery. J.K. Rowling makes me want to turn the page the way Doritoes make me want to keep eating. Water for Elephants has an incredible opening scene. Lovely Bones demonstrates a brilliant and unusual use of point of view. Dickens creates unforgettable characters and writes fantastic dialogue. The Hobbit is a beautiful example of voice. I could go on and on.

“Yes, yes,” says my writer brain. “That’s WHAT they did. But HOW? HOW? That’s the most valuable part! I must have the chance for further study!” I wonder, if I let her have her way, would she be strong enough to take charge and analyze the way she wants? Or would my reader brain once again win the struggle, caught up in the magic spell of words, story and character that won her over in the first place?

Once, long ago in college, I had to do exactly that – analyze, analyze, analyze. I did fine, but I’m not sure I ever did it with quite this purpose – as the sorcerer’s apprentice, hoping to learn the master’s spells and tricks well enough to apply them to my own magic.

Have you ever re-read a book purely to analyze the technique in-depth? What book? What did you learn?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

The Epistolary Novel Reborn

A while back I posted on facebook about a blogged novel that a writer friend was working on called MURDERER’S MOM (murderers-mom.blogspot.com). The writer, Jan Bear, is in my critique group. I’d watched her developing her ideas for this book over the past year or so, but when she decided to dive in and start writing it one blog entry at a time, online, it leapt off the screen with a life and immediacy that it never had before. The immediate past tense vision and the intimacy of the blog format were the perfect fit. When I posted about Jan’s work, another friend, opera soprano Jennifer Wilson (www.jenniferwilsonsoprano.com) made the insightful comment that this form hearkened back to the old epistolary novels of bygone years (eighteenth century?).

Jennifer’s comment set me to ruminating a bit on the blog form in general and the way in which it seems to have revived the voice of letter-writing, albeit with a twist. Blogs have the length, contemplative tone, humor and individuality that used to be part of the lost art of letter writing. The difference – we now write not for the highly specific audience of one, but as if our letters were already intended for posterity, cleansed of all mundane details of daily life (one hopes!) and raised to a higher level by drawing conclusions about our world, engaging in humorous observations and waxing vaguely philosophical.

Perhaps email and facebook and twitter have irreparably altered the epistle as a literary form. Or perhaps it has merely shape-shifted into a new guise.

I wonder … are there any courses or books examining online content as literary form, the way we examine other genres? What defines it? What are its limitations, its strengths?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.