Authors: Jerry Cleaver
Now, that's good, but it's also bad. Good because with determination anyone can master this craft, since most of it is mastering yourself and using what you already have. Bad because it's so familiar. You've been there, so you may feel you know more than you do. In the midst of a compelling story, you may
often
feel so connected that you think,
Ah. This is how it works.
You feel so strongly that you think there's nothing to it, that writing a story is just like life. Like life, yes. But not life itself.
Creating stories is a special craft—a special way of capturing reality on the page. It feels real, but it isn't. You can't just break off a piece of reality and stick it on the page. It won't work. It won't work because fiction is concentrated, heightened, intensified reality. It's the essence of reality. All reality doesn't contain such essence or truth, but all fiction must. You, the author, must create it. So even though you already have everything you need, you have to learn how to use it. That's craft. That's technique. That's what you get from this course. That's where we're going, after the theory.
STORY AS NEED
We don't just happen to have stories. We
need
them. The story process involves the kinds of experiences we
must
talk about, experiences we can't wait to tell someone, experiences we can't stand
not
to talk about.
If a man comes home from work, flops into a chair, and says to his wife, "I almost didn't make it home tonight," he's had the kind of experience he
needs
to talk about and his wife now
needs
to hear. "Some idiot," he says, "cut me off on the expressway. When I blew my horn, he gave me the finger, so I gave it back to him." "No!" she says. "Yeah, and the crazy bastard pulled alongside and fired three shots into our engine." Now, can you imagine having had such an experience and keeping it to yourself? Or being the wife and not wanting to know what happened? No. Stories are how we live, how we relate—how we
need
to live and relate. The story process.
This need isn't limited to our own experiences. It reaches beyond us to the experiences of others several times removed—experiences we haven't witnessed, experiences that will not affect us in any way. Often, experiences that we only hear about, and that we're dying to pass along to someone else.
Suppose the same guy comes home from work and says to his wife, "Wait till you hear what this guy at work told me his buddy pulled on his wife."
Now, that's not his experience or the experience of the guy who told him, but the experience of another person he's never met. Yet he can't wait to tell his wife about what this other guy pulled on his wife. And, again, she wants to hear—and I'll bet you do too.
"He told his wife he was going on a business trip, withdrew twenty thousand dollars, and went to Vegas. He ran it up to eighty thousand dollars—then, guess what." "No!" she says. "Yep. Lost every penny."
Now a common, but curious, thing happens. They're into this other guy's story, relating and connecting, but that's not enough. They want more, to go farther, to go the limit. That's what stories are about—getting the maximum, that concentrated, intensified dose of reality. So he says, "What would you do if I did that?" And how does she respond? She might say, "Wait a minute. That's not our experi
ence. We can't go into that," which might make sense in some way. But no, this is story. This is how we live. She doesn't miss a beat. "Castration followed by divorce," she says.
STORIES ARE US
(The story connection)
We live by stories—our own and those of others, real and imagined. It's how we relate and stay connected on the most personal and intimate level. We
need
stories, the story process, to maintain our balance and our identity. We don't think of it this way because we don't have to. We just do it. Story, the story process, is the active ingredient in all meaningful social interaction. Believe it or not, it's one of our deepest social needs.
HOW DEEP?
OK, it's a need, but exactly how deep a need is it? How far will we go to satisfy it? How much of an influence does it have on us, and can we find a way to measure it? Yes, we can.
I take you to the world of crime for the answer—heist crimes (banks, Brinks, famous jewels). Let's say three guys pull off the perfect Brinks robbery, except for killing a resistant guard in the process. Nobody knows a thing—no clues, no evidence. There's no chance they can get caught if they play it safe. They each take four million dollars and split for different parts of the country.
We'll go along with Eddie to California, where he hooks up with a woman and moves in with her. Everything is fine. No money problems. Life is great.
Except,
after a while, something starts eating at Eddie. He's pulled
this great robbery. It's part of his identity. But he's getting no recognition. He can't pull his money out of hiding, or it'll raise suspicion. So, he's got to walk around, feeling like all the other suckers who don't have the brains or guts to pull off a brilliant heist.
Sooner or later, he can't stand it. "C'mere, babe," he says, patting his knee. "What?" his girlfriend says, settling into his lap. "I got something to tell you." "OK," she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Something big," he says. "What?" "Real big," he says. "All right. Come on." "First, you have to promise, swear on your life, you won't tell another living soul as long as you live." "I won't. Never." "Well," he says, smiling. "Know that Brinks job in Arkansas?" "The twelve million?" she says. "The twelve million," he says, pointing to his chest. "What?" "I'm the guy." "What guy?" she says. "I did it—masterminded the whole damn job." "No!" she squeals. "Yep," he says, pushing out his chest. "Wow!" "Tell anyone, angel," he says, stroking her neck, "and I'll have to wring this pretty neck." "Hey, what do you take me for?"
He tells his story. He has to, even though he could get the chair if they caught him. It's who he is. But he's safe as long as his girlfriend keeps her mouth shut. And she does—for a while. Until it starts eating at her. "Listen," she says to her best friend. "I'm going to tell you something, but you've got to promise on the soul of your kid, you won't tell a single person as long as you live." "I swear." "If this gets out, I'm dead meat." "I swear." "Between you and me—take it to the grave." "Sure." "Guess what my boyfriend, the one who can't live without me, the one I have to do everything for, guess what the won-derful son of a bitch did." "What?" "Pulled that big Brinks job in Arkansas." "No!" "Yep." "Wow!" "You can't tell." "Never."
And he's still safe—until the secret starts eating at the girlfriend's friend, and she has to tell someone—someone who'll keep his or her mouth shut just the way she did. And so it goes until word gets out and someone turns him in.
One thing that stands out in these heist crimes is: These guys always get caught. Why? Because they can't keep their mouths shut. None of us can. We have to tell our stories. We
need
to tell them. Stories are who we are. They're how we live. Without stories, we have no identity. We don't exist.
A perfect real-life example of this is a recent (1998) high-profile case. A fugitive, subject of a nationwide manhunt for over ten years, sent his story to the newspapers to be printed nationally. Even after it was printed, no one knew who he was—until his brother recognized the writing and turned him in. Ted Kazinski, the Unabomber. He had to
tell his story
—give his manifesto—to the newspapers. Why? One theory was that the Oklahoma City bombing was taking away his publicity and he was jealous and wanted to recapture the spotlight. Someone else's story was overshadowing his story, and this recluse
needed
to tell his story so badly that he risked life in prison to do so.
Most crimes aren't solved by detective work, but by someone tipping off the cops—passing on the story they
need
to tell. So, at the risk of his life, the Brinks robber tells his story: "Hey, look at me. I'm the guy who ..."
So, why do we have stories? Because we need them to maintain our identity, to express who we are. That's the
why
of it. The
how
of it,
how
stories fulfill our need, is what the craft is all about.
CRAFT
Craft is neutral. In chapter 1 I said that craft and technique can be used to write any kind of story—science fiction, fantasy, adventure, romance, mystery. It's worth saying twice. It's also important to realize that all genres can be literary. Here are examples of great books in different genres: Science fiction:
Brave New World.
Fantasy:
Ani-
mal Farm
and
Watership Down.
Adventure:
Moby Dick.
Romance:
Madame Bovary.
Mystery:
The Brothers Karamazov.
Whatever the genre, the story must be
complete,
or it won't get to us, won't give us what we want and need. Craft is what we use to create a
complete
story. The complete story is the most satisfying, not only for the reader, but for the author. It's the natural form, the most compelling, because it has the shape of our most meaningful experiences. We recognize and relate to it instantly. It reaches us before we have time to think. We connect whether we want to or not. It's impossible to sit and watch a good movie and not be drawn into it.
The complete story gives us what we seek in trivial experience and what we need to manage painful experience. It's easiest to see in extreme cases. (Fiction is about the extreme case—extreme love story:
Romeo and Juliet;
extreme fish story:
Moby-Dick
.) What we seek and need from experience is what the survivors and relatives of TWA Flight 800, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre wanted and needed. What they had to have to manage the experience. Know what it was? You hear the word on the news all the time:
closure.
And what is closure? Ever heard it defined? No. No newscaster has to tell us what it means. We all know in our hearts. That's fine—for life, but for fiction we have to pin it and everything else down as much as possible. After all, that's what fiction is about—pinning it down, going as deeply into it as possible.
What is this closure that we all need? It's a coming to terms, a final outcome, a putting to rest (as best we can). It's a way of dealing with a divorce, a death, a rape, a broken heart—a way of making sense of it, of finding a meaningful outcome—a way of living with it or dying because of it. It's not necessarily a happy ending. Some only find closure in the grave. And
it's the same in comedy as in tragedy.
Both must complete, finish, fulfill the promise of the story. Whether our tears are from laughter or sadness, the complete story must give us a
sense of completion in ourselves—for the moment. Then we go in search of another connection—the story connection.
THE COMPLETE STORY
So, what is this complete story, and how does it work? A good way to get a feel for it is to take a look at what happens when a story works— what does it do to us and for us? What happens, for example, when you see a terrific movie? What takes place between you and that story and you and those characters that makes you feel it's a terrific movie?
THE BIG "I"
Typical answers to that question are: It's escapism. It takes me away from my troubles. It tells me something about life. I relate to the characters.
Well, only one of those answers is true in all cases. Stories can be escapism, but what about
Schindler's List}
It helps you escape into the Holocaust. Would you like those troubles in place of your own? Stories can tell you something about life, but so does a sociology book. Which excites you more? You
relate to the characters.
That's the answer, and it's what makes a story real. Relating to the characters, OK, but how does that work? In what way do we relate to the characters? What form does this relating take?
Stories are like falling in love. Love is an emotion. That's what it's about—relating, connecting,
emotionally.
That's an answer. We're getting there, but it's not the final answer. Now we need to ask, Whose emotions are we experiencing? The emotions are in us, so they're our own in that sense, but they're coming from somewhere else. We're not
the only one having them. The emotions we're feeling are the emotions of the characters. What they feel, we feel. The better the story, the more we lose ourselves in the characters, the more we become them. If they're excited, we're excited. If they're sad, we're sad. We jump or cry out in fright when they're threatened.