I Call It Magic

(This was originally written as a guest blog and published through Bookworm Blues on Dec 7th of 2012 as part of a promotion for the Triumph Over Tragedy anthology created to benefit the victims of Hurricane Sandy. I'm reposting it here in case anyone missed it, and because I like to keep a copy of all my blogs in one place.)

When I graduated high school I had two career choices: artist or novelist. Yes, my mother was terrified.

Since I couldn’t spell and was awful at grammar, I took the art scholarship. In art school there were two types. Those who copied from other artists, photos or the real world—I called them illusionists, and those who could sit down and create beauty out of nothing at all. I deemed this to be true magic. I was never that good at true magic.

When I retired from art at the old age of 23, and began writing, I discovered the same sort of thing existed in literature.

I wrote stories that I made up. I constructed clever plots, colorful characters, twists and turns, tension and drama, but never did it seem…real. It lacked emotion. When I read what I wrote I was pleased. It was nice, but it wasn’t powerful. I didn’t know why.

Over the years I’ve read many novels that I found interesting, clever, even entertaining, but only a handful have ever hit me emotionally. Those are the books that stick, the ones I carried with me, and still do. These are the novels that made me cringe, laugh, and cry.

This was magic—real magic.

Somehow the authors managed to reach out from another time, another place and inject me with the exact emotion they intended.  This wasn’t just communication of ideas—that’s easy—this was jacking right into my non-verbal gut and uploading sorrow, concern, terror, and laughter. I wanted to be able to do that, but I didn’t know how.

I stumbled on the means one day when I we trying to write a very simple scene. Instead of inventing something cerebral, I looked in myself and pulled out an experience. I remembered something—something painful. I was terrified to write it, to pour myself into the page. Such a thing was embarrassing. What if someone I know reads this? It felt as if I was stripping naked in public. I told myself, I was only going to write it and never show anyone. I just wanted to see how it would come out. The result was astounding. I cried in the writing. I cried in the reading.

What I never expected is that readers cried too.

I realized then, that in order to get emotion out of readers, the author had to invest part of themselves. There needs to be a sacrifice, a little bit of a person’s soul invested into the work and that dash of honesty results in a powerful recognition. Readers immediately relate. They know this isn’t faked, this isn’t illusion…this is true magic.  

The more painful and embarrassing the memory, the more personal the thought, the more powerful the writing.

At first I expected the worst. I expected ridicule. Like kids in grades school, people would point at me and laugh. “Is this how you really feel? You’re such a looser!”

Oddly, it never happened. I was only the author. The events happened to a fictitious person, a character in a story, not me. I was the wizard behind the curtain, the hand inside the puppet that no one saw. It was my voice, my feelings set out exposed to the harsh glare of the bright lights, but I, as the author, was safe behind the mask. Instead of foolish, I was impressive.

People are fond of saying that pain fuels art. I many ways it does. Fiction is full of tension and conflict. The best way to prepare to write such, is to live it. Then reaching deep, you scrape out the honest truth, warts and all and put them on display. It isn’t easy. The process is often painful, humiliating, and depressing, but the end result is always stunning.

I think everyone—while not the same—are similar enough that we connect on the same levels, share the same feelings. When we read, or see something that registers so personally, so perfectly with something we would never share with anyone, then that becomes profound. In that understanding we see a tiny miracle. Someone else knows my pain. Someone else understands how I feel. I’m not alone, I’m like that character. This is what makes literature come to life, this is what makes Pinocchio a real boy.  It is the touch of the Blue Fairy.

I call it magic.

Champagne Wishes and Metro Dreams

It has long been a dream of mine to stumble across someone reading my book in public. 

I imagine I am on the Metro (the DC area subway) across from a person holding open a copy of Theft of Swords. I would be staring in disbelief, trying to gauge from their facial expression if they like, or hate, it. I will debate saying anything, concerned they will take offense, or worse, berate me for having written such an awful book and demand their money back. Finally I will get up, saunter over, and opting for subtle humor say, “That’s my book.”

Whereupon they will look up startled, and a bit annoyed, replying. “No it’s not. I just bought this.”

I will smile my most Great Gatsby smile, tilt my head ever so slightly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other in a humble manner and say, “You don’t understand. It’s my book. I wrote it.”

At this point I imagine the reader will appear confused, then a smile will grow. Their eyes will widen. “You’re Michael J. Sullivan?” 

This would be followed by a look of awe and the admission that they love it—they love it and have already mentioned such to their parent or employer who happens to be a major Hollywood movie producer. I will be invited to their swank penthouse in New York—all producers with an excellent track record of successfully adapting novels keep one for just such occasions. That evening we all dress in tuxedos and evening gowns and have champagne on the terrace where we discuss which actors would best play the lead roles, and would I be willing to fly out to LA to sit in on some casting sessions, as my input is highly desired.

That’s the fantasy anyway. The reality I suppose would be that the reader would glare, move away and exit the train at the next station whether it was their stop or not. If I was really unlucky they might find a transit officer.

Such fantasies as this are not uncommon among authors. Numbers on Amazon, and emails from fans all feel so ethereal, so illusionary. Seeing a person at random holding a copy glued to their fingers would add that elusive measure of reality. Somehow, such a sighting would be undeniable proof, the smoking gun, that it hasn’t all been a dream.

As ebooks become more popular, the odds of such a sighting dwindle. In today’s electronic-warming, the natural habitat of the paper-book-reader has shrunk to a fraction of its former size, and it would just be creepy to peer over an e-reader’s shoulders to try and figure out from the text what they're reading. So I didn’t think such an aspiration could ever become reality.

I have spoken of this fantasy of mine to others who all humor me.  Then I received this image in a text message:

It was from a friend and had the caption. “Saw on Metro today.”

I smirked and replied. “Is this fake?”

Answer: “No. I don’t know her.”

I wasn’t convinced and soon forgot about the incident.

A little over two months later I received this email:

Hi Michael,

In October or November I was taking the orange line from my job in D.C. to my apartment in NoVa. The previous day I had visited the MLK library in Chinatown and happened to come across what looked to be the first book in an interesting fantasy series--your Theft of Swords. I didn't know anything about it beforehand, but it caught my attention and I checked it out.

So there I was, reading on the metro when this complete stranger taps me on the shoulder and asks me if she can take a picture of me reading the book. You're from the area, so you're probably familiar with metro protocol. Occasionally you may share exasperated expressions with other commuters when you end up single tracking during rush hour, but otherwise everyone is pretty much off in their own world.

It was a bit jarring, but she rushed to explain that she was a friend of the author and that he had always wanted to see someone reading his book in public. I thought that was a very serendipitous encounter, so I let her take the picture. She thanked me and got off a few stops later.

Ever since then, I've been curious to know if you got that picture. I'm not sure who the woman was--I never got her name--but if I had toiled over six novels and spend countless hours writing and rewriting, I would be very happy to come across someone reading my finished work in public.

I tore through your second and third volumes and finished the series pretty quickly after that metro ride. I enjoyed them thoroughly, and I look forward to The Crown Tower.

Discovering the image and the sighting was genuine, I was shocked and happy, but also a little disappointed. As Archibald “Moonlight” Graham in Field of Dreams said: It was like coming this close to your dreams... and then watch them brush past you like strangers in a crowd.

At least I now know it’s possible. And in a way I sort of got my wish, even if it was vicariously lived. Most dreams are never fully realized, or never live up to the imagination, so maybe I’ll have to accept this sans champagne, version as the closest I will come.

But secretly, I still look.

Banter

 

 

Dialog is never written the way people speak. Mark Twain shook things up by inserting slang and bad grammar to add more of an accurate and realistic flavor, but even so, it wasn’t true to life. If you don’t believe me try a simple exercise. Go to a coffee shop and transcribe exactly what is said at the conversation at the next table. It will be something like:

 

“…I don’t know.”

“Well, you could say…ah…well. If you were to really think about it—”

“No seriously, I’m not going to—”

“Hold on, hold on! Just listen. Just yesterday I was—okay, wait—no—I mean—okay forget that...”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“No it’s not! He’s just—you know.”

“What?”

“So what I was going to say is this…if you were to…ah…you know—what’s that thing?”

“What thing?”

“You know—that thing. That we always—never mind. It’s just that—well before I get into this, okay—hold on—there was—no before that—I was at Target and…oh wait—no. That was Thursday right? So…let me think…ah…okay…god I don’t know why I can’t remember that thing. It’s driving me crazy.”

“What thing?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I just—it’s stuck in my mind now, you know?”

“I hate that. Do it all the time.”

“I know! It will drive me crazy now. I’ll be thinking about it all day.”

“You know what will happen? You’ll think of it two hours from now and—”

“Right.”

“You know?”

“It’s so aggravating!”

“Wait—what were we talking about now?”

 

Imagine trying to write a novel using this sort of dialog. As you can see, in 149 words the point of the conversation never establishes itself, because in real life so much of conversation is false starts, broken sentences, short hand, repetitions, and interruptions. Some of it can be clarified with inner dialog, but then you’re putting more words on a page and less substance. Readers aren’t any more inclined to enjoy reading a hundred erroneous words than listeners are interested in hearing them.

Have you ever wanted to shake someone and say, “Just get to the point?” or “please, organize your thoughts and get back to me?” In essence that’s what writers often do, because authors are in just as much a hurry to get on with the story as the reader is.

Watch a talk show sometime. Notice how fluid the host tends to be. They don’t repeat words, pause for long periods to think, have too many false starts, or use phrases like: you know, ah, okay, um, well. The guest does. The guest, who most often is not a polished public speaker, stumbles constantly. So do people in the wild. People in their natural habitat aren’t prepped, aren’t conscious of trying to sound intelligent or even rational. In the rush to stay current with the stream of thought flowing in the mind, crap just pours out in high gear.

Writers, like professional speakers make an effort to clean up the language. Ninety percent of the “ahhs, you knows, ums, and just plain …s” are removed.  Also people tend to get to, and stay on topic—unlike in real life.

This is the first way in which dialog fails to mirror reality, and I for one would not advocate altering the trend. Realism is nice up to the point but becomes a liability where it begins to harm the work. The question is, where do you draw the line?

In an effort to tell a story, writers are prone to streamline too much. Not that I think they should introduce more “you knows” in dialog necessarily, but it’s just as bad to write just-the-facts Dragnet dialog (or for the younger generation Law & Order?):

“He asked me out on a date at ten forty-five last night.”

“Where were you?”

“We were at Arby’s.”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes.”

 

Okay, so don’t write dialog so accurate that it’s boring, and don’t stick to the script so tight that you lose all flavor or realism. That’s all fine and good, but I actually assume everyone knows all this already. The actual point of this post is that I think there is still something else missing—an element that makes dialog sound and feel more real and entertaining.

If you listen to people talk, or just pay attention to conversations you have, you might discover they are very different than what you read in books or hear on Law & Order. You might not even be able to figure out what’s missing. It never occurred to me either until I started thinking about comments made about my own writing.

 

Readers almost always comment on my character’s banter. I am praised for the clever back-and-forth witticisms—the jokes the characters throw at each other even in dire circumstances. Some have even asked how I do it. The truth is—I don’t do anything. I’m not writing banter. I’m just writing how people actually speak. I’m starting to wonder if the people I talk to are different from the norm. I hope not. I’d hate to think everyone else is locked into the dire and ultra-serious Law & Order dialog (where laughter has been outlawed), but that might explain all the commercials for anti-depressant drugs. 

Some people certainly are more witty than others, but even the slow and humorless make attempts at being funny, using bad puns, drawing silly analogies from books, throwing out an appropriate movie quote, (which is always followed with, “where’s that from?”) or taking advantage of a perfect set up for a too-funny-to-pass-up insult. This is the language of dialog. This is often what makes talking to people a desirable thing.  

It doesn’t matter if the conversation is casual or serious. Unfortunately I’ve spent a good deal of my youth in funeral parlors group-grieving for hours. Some of the funniest, most spontaneous jokes erupt in such an environment. This is one of the reasons why I think The Big Chill has some of the most believable dialog of any movie. Likewise, in moments of fear and dread, I and my friends, and sometimes complete strangers will make jokes. Sometimes—oftentimes, this is the best means of handling the stress.

 

But all too often I don’t see that depicted in movies or books. The writer is so intent on showing tension, and moving the plot that humor is ignored. This is especially true in regards to villains. Villains are evil, and the best way to display their wickedness is to eliminate the ability to be funny. Funny people are nice. And yet, one of my all-time favorite villains is the Mayor Richard Wilkins III from the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. More than any other villain, he felt real, and rounded, because he was pleasant and funny.  Something about a happy, funny antagonist makes them far more threatening than a more two-dimensional “evil bad guy.” There is the impression that the character possess a greater intelligence and self-confidence, and that’s scary. 

 

Still I get the sense that works that contain humor are considered “comedies” and classified as less serious, more frivolous. I find this strange since what makes a written story powerful is its reflections of real life, and so much of our lives are filled with humor. I’ve actually found “serious works” silly in their false depictions of reality for this very reason. Fantasy is often hampered by its need to be seen as serious, and one of the ways writers try to achieve this is by populating their stories with overly stern personalities living in harsh worlds. Still, I would imagine even the most poor, starving people make jokes about their situation. Laughing is sometimes the only thing a person can do that doesn’t make them cry.

So I really don’t write banter. I just write the way people speak. Then again, maybe I just know a lot of witty people.