The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform Your Fiction by Kiteley Brian

Author:Kiteley, Brian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2005-07-20T16:00:00+00:00

TIME

ERNEST HEMINGWAY ruined, for many, the old noble urge to compress time into capable summary with his effective and exciting scenes of action and dialogue in fiction. But summary, like its companion process, the essay, uses generalization in imaginative and exacting ways. Metaphor, the heart of language, is a hybrid of two conflicting images that nevertheless make sense and teach us something (metaphor is the leap of faith— a mountain looks like a sleeping bear, which tells us how to recognize the landmark and what to be wary of). The heart of fiction, likewise, is the pressing together of time, the folding in on itself of the stately, natural movement of life—the comparison of two different times. Fiction, at its basic level, makes a coherent myth out of time. Reality is an infinite number of different versions of the same events, seen at different speeds and from different perspectives. Fiction radically alters time to achieve order and shape. Notice how Walker Percy, in the paragraph below, does not try to connect certain sentences together in the fashion of most narrative. The connections are spatial or familial—the Garden district or his aunt and uncle. Narrative tends of work by way of dimly lit cause and effect. (Jack walks into the room. Jill screams.) Summary, like the personal essay, works more often by the say-so of the writer. It is a much more challenging and frightening kind of writing; it is also, when done well, much more satisfying. Summary is the opposite of show vs. tell—it is tell, tell, tell.

Here’s an example of compressed time from Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer:

For the past four years now I have been living uneventfully in Gentilly, a middle-class suburb of New Orleans. Except for the banana plants in the patios and the curlicues of iron on the Walgreen’s drugstore one would never guess it was part of New Orleans. Most of the houses are either old-style California bungalows or new-style Daytona cottages. But this is what I like about it. I can’t stand the old-world atmosphere of the French Quarter or the genteel charm of the Garden District. I lived in the Quarter for two years, but in the end got tired of Birmingham businessmen smirking around Bourbon Street and the homosexuals and patio connoisseurs on Royal Street. My uncle and aunt live in a gracious house in the Garden District and are very kind to me. But whenever I try to live there, I find myself first in a rage during which I develop strong opinions on a variety of subjects and write letters to editors, then in a depression during which I lie rigid as a stick for hours staring straight up at the plaster medallion in the ceiling of my bedroom.

This is an idiosyncratic paragraph of summary, I know. But the “plot” of this paragraph, which expertly uses time and distinctive description of place for the purpose of swift movement through space (the page) to achieve a goal (voice, irony, gentle illumination of character) is instructive.

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