Broken:Getting Workshopped Part II

Theresa was up first. When you’re getting workshopped, you can’t talk. Your work has to speak for itself. So Theresa sat and silently took notes while the rest of us sat around the table and discussed her story, talking about things like the relationships between her characters, the distinctive voice of her narrator, and the plausibility and implausibility of various aspects of her story. Dr. Bailey played referee, making sure our comments were clear, specific and rooted in the story. You can’t just say, “I thought there were way too many short sentences in this story." You have to provide examples from the text and explain why you feel the way you do.

Then I was up. “Broken” got a better reception than I’d expected. Everyone seemed to like the voice of my narrator, a carpenter named Alan Martin, and the story's specific woodworking details — details I picked up from working in my dad’s workshop for the past four or five summers — really seemed to add authenticity to the story. Someone remarked that they liked how Alan accepting a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Miller (the meddling old woman he’s working for) revealed the “duality of his personality,” because it showed that even though Alan was bitter and in a hurry to get the job done, he still had a heart.

It was only a rough draft, though, so of course there were lots of things to improve. I learned I needed to move key information up toward the beginning of the story instead of lumping it all in at the end — details about Alan’s divorce and his spirituality and the fact that the old woman is a widow. “So the reader knows what’s at stake,” Dr. Bailey explained.

Dr. Bailey emphasized how important it was for me to really bring out how Alan’s divorce impacted his life. “This guy’s in a world of hurt,” he explained. I really needed to show that on the page. He also noted that my title “Broken” was weak. It tied the story up with too nice of a ribbon. Too obvious, too vague. I agreed, but I haven't thought of anything better yet.

Also, everybody (it felt like everybody) pointed out one particular micro-mistake I made. It was just an instance where I was careless with my words. Instead of clearly indicating that Alan draped the old woman’s arm over his shoulder (because Mrs. Miller falls and breaks her ankle on page 8), I left out the word "arm" and wrote that Alan draped the old woman over his shoulder and accidentally created some King-Kong-like imagery.

All in all, the workshop was a really positive experience. I left class with a crystal clear picture of what I’d done right and what I’d done wrong. And I feel confident. After so much constructive criticism, I’m sure my next draft will be a much stronger version of Alan’s story.

Don't Use Words You Can't Pour Gravy Over:Tom Franklin Visits Susquehanna Part I

I finished reading Poachers, a book of short stories by Tom Franklin, last night while sipping hot chocolate at Charlie’s Coffeehouse. The book was so good the pages seemed to turn by themselves. It's a book that really pulls you into its world, that “vivid continuous dream” built out of the author’s imagination that Dr. Bailey's always talking about.

Franklin’s world is backwater Alabama, and it’s full of vivid characters you have to despise, pity and love all at the same time. The characters really drive his fast-paced stories. My favorites were “The Ballad of Duane Juarez” and “Dinosaurs,” but the whole book was great. So good, in fact, that I even recommended it to a business major who lives on my floor and she finished it before I did.

These past two fiction classes we took a little bit of time away from workshopping to read and discuss Poachers in preparation for Tom Franklin’s visit today. Every year Susquehanna brings six accomplished authors to campus to give readings and to speak to students. Tom Franklin is the first writer coming to campus this year as part of the Writers Institute’s Visiting Writers Series.

Today right after fiction class ended, my classmates and I headed over to the Seibert Faculty Lounge for a writers-only question-and-answer session with the author. Franklin introduced himself by telling funny stories about growing up in southern Alabama (not just Alabama, southern Alabama). He talked about how his parents got kicked out of their Baptist church when he was a kid for speaking in tongues, how they started their own Pentecostal church in their living room.

Franklin’s reading this evening was really great too. He read two short stories and the opening chapter of his new novel, Smonk. Afterwards he signed my two copies of Poachers (I bought an extra copy for a friend back home). He wrote his name in each book and then drew a little picture of an armadillo below his name, the only animal to survive all the poachers lurking around the backwater Alabama that exists in the pages behind the cover.

Don't Use Words You Can't Pour Gravy Over:Tom Franklin Visits Susquehanna Part II

Dr. Bailey had encouraged our class to ask Franklin lots of questions and not to be shy. “He’s here for you guys.” Even though most of us went to the Q&A just to listen, we ended up asking a lot of questions.

I asked Franklin a question I’ve been trying to decide for myself since I started Intro to Fiction — Should you know the ending before you write the story?

I’ve always found I have to know the ending or at least have to have a goal in mind in order to write a story. I’ve always felt like that kept the story focused and moving, but in class Dr. Bailey’s really been stressing to us that good stories are not driven by plot. They’re driven by character. I guess not knowing the ending forces you to let your characters drive the story.

Dr. Bailey says he never knows the endings to his stories when he starts writing. In fact, he says he can’t write if knows the ending, though he always concedes that some writers, like his colleague Susan Parabo, a writing professor at Dickinson, always have an ending in mind when they begin a story.

Franklin agreed with Bailey. “Endings are better if you surprise yourself,” he said and then went on to explain how Flannery O’Connor, while writing her story “Good Country People,” surprised herself so much with a twist in the plot that suddenly came to her that she wrote in the margin of her first draft: “Oh my God, he’s going to steal her leg!”