Le Guin's Steering The Craft, Chapter Four: Repetition (excercise four, part two: structural repetition, and after thoughts)
Exercise Four, Again and Again and Again:
Part Two, Structural Repetition
So, I am in line down at Leo's, you know the dry cleaner, and this guy in front of me is talking about it. He keeps going on about how everybody has to know, you know, only I can't get what he is talking about, because he isn't talking to me and I am only hearing part of a whole conversation that must already have been going on before I was even paying attention. They might not even have been there when it started, or I suppose I might not have been, because they were in front of me.
Of course, I don't have any idea what it was, but I know it was on television and that it had been on the night before, which is something. Now, I am not all that interested, not enough to go and figure out what he is talking about, but he was talking about some part of the whole thing that he mentioned that did strike me, but I couldn't even tell you what it was after, because I was too busy making sure that I showed him the stains on my pants so that they would really get cleaned, and I had a belt loop that needed to be sewed back on, so I had to talk about that, and by the time I was all done, and by the time that Leo had asked about my Steph, my brain was in a different direction, of course.
Home that night, sitting around; television on hut not actually watching it. It's just on, and I'm doing things around the house with it as a sort of constant background noise. I stop sometimes to watch a scene or change the channel, or I will here something while I am not looking, like the line for that head ache balm where they just keep repeating "apply directly to the forehead" like some kind of mantra. But I stop to flip through the channels and I start to think if there is anything I might actually want to watch on right then, because I am not doing much anyway.
That's when I start to wonder what the show was. I mean, I just had this little thought about it, and wondered what it was, if it might be on. I tried to see if I could remember anything about it but the guy and his enthusiasm and the fact that it did sound interesting for some reason, even if I wasn't sure what that interest had been based on. Maybe that was why I became really curious. I mean, I had looked at like a hundred something channels and couldn't really find anything that I was all that interested in, so I went and decided to try to figure out the show he had been talking about, which started with me trying to look at listings for the night before.
The listings are too big, though, of course, and I realize that I am not even sure if I get the same network as him, or if he might even mean something he watched on television from the internet. And I start to just obsess and try to figure it out. I mean, I have to think that the reason is really because I had imagined it, right. It was like, I had a few small ingredients, little bits of things for what that show was, and I didn't have any real content, so I could make up that it must be the best thing ever. It had to be, right, for that man (who I don't know at all, who I just saw and thought, he looks smart and like he has similar taste to me, he certainly appreciates a good dry cleaner) and I heard him say something that I do not specifically recall, but the feeling of it sparked something in me. That had to be it.
I mean, I started to have to find out what that show was. Like every night I was flipping the channels and checking every show, and then I started to go online and read blogs of all these different online shows. It was obsession; I was obsessed. But I never found out, because how could I ever be sure. I mean, only he could know, right. And I was sure it had to mean something.
So, I am in line again, down at Leo's. I am waiting to bring in some shirts and a suit, then behind me, the guy is there, in line. I turn around. I look at him and I am going to ask, but then, what, "you were in here a few weeks ago talking about some television show. I don't remember any details, but I need to know what the show was..."
I never figured it out, I just got a library card instead.
Response
Okay, so part two took me a lot of work. Firstly, I could not think what to do and then I wound up just letting myself consider it and eventually just started writing. I think it is a bit of an interesting character study, though quite light on narrative. It is, in truth, probably closer to a lot of my stories than I would think, though maybe a bit less thought out in some sense. I did enjoy the consideration of that structural repetition, and am certain that I will think about that again. The idea of an event being a corner of the structure through its repeated use has a lot of different possible directions, and I can think how it could be used effectively in many different contexts, but I wanted to keep my effort here away from a more melodramatic tone. I mean, it can be meaningful to have two people share the same identical meal, for example, before and after a major trauma or event. Or one can create a strong horror narrative by beginning with an event that seems innocuous at first, but it becomes clear, through repetition, is actually sinister,. This could even apply in a more real world type story, for instance, a mother giving medicine to a sick child at the start of a story might be revealed, by the end when it repeats, as a symptom of the mother's own illness where she is actually poisoning the child. These are, of course, obvious examples.
Overall, I am quite excited that the work here is getting more serious. I am surprised I could get that much written, and I am likely going to wind up pulling this piece out and seeing what I can do with it in revision. I think that the direction that Le Guin is taking is interesting, and I am still placing this repetition into context of the earlier work. I do see how the movement here goes from thinking about linguistic and syntactic structures as similar (the sentence exercise coming in contrast to the punctuationless writing accomplished this), to considering the actual narrative and plot elements as similar tools. While I did think of those elements as things to work with as a writer, I don't think I had ever connected them in this way, and it opens up a huge amount of potential for me, I think, but at this point it is still a fairly fresh revelation, and one that will take some time to unravel and explore.
Part Two, Structural Repetition
So, I am in line down at Leo's, you know the dry cleaner, and this guy in front of me is talking about it. He keeps going on about how everybody has to know, you know, only I can't get what he is talking about, because he isn't talking to me and I am only hearing part of a whole conversation that must already have been going on before I was even paying attention. They might not even have been there when it started, or I suppose I might not have been, because they were in front of me.
Of course, I don't have any idea what it was, but I know it was on television and that it had been on the night before, which is something. Now, I am not all that interested, not enough to go and figure out what he is talking about, but he was talking about some part of the whole thing that he mentioned that did strike me, but I couldn't even tell you what it was after, because I was too busy making sure that I showed him the stains on my pants so that they would really get cleaned, and I had a belt loop that needed to be sewed back on, so I had to talk about that, and by the time I was all done, and by the time that Leo had asked about my Steph, my brain was in a different direction, of course.
Home that night, sitting around; television on hut not actually watching it. It's just on, and I'm doing things around the house with it as a sort of constant background noise. I stop sometimes to watch a scene or change the channel, or I will here something while I am not looking, like the line for that head ache balm where they just keep repeating "apply directly to the forehead" like some kind of mantra. But I stop to flip through the channels and I start to think if there is anything I might actually want to watch on right then, because I am not doing much anyway.
That's when I start to wonder what the show was. I mean, I just had this little thought about it, and wondered what it was, if it might be on. I tried to see if I could remember anything about it but the guy and his enthusiasm and the fact that it did sound interesting for some reason, even if I wasn't sure what that interest had been based on. Maybe that was why I became really curious. I mean, I had looked at like a hundred something channels and couldn't really find anything that I was all that interested in, so I went and decided to try to figure out the show he had been talking about, which started with me trying to look at listings for the night before.
The listings are too big, though, of course, and I realize that I am not even sure if I get the same network as him, or if he might even mean something he watched on television from the internet. And I start to just obsess and try to figure it out. I mean, I have to think that the reason is really because I had imagined it, right. It was like, I had a few small ingredients, little bits of things for what that show was, and I didn't have any real content, so I could make up that it must be the best thing ever. It had to be, right, for that man (who I don't know at all, who I just saw and thought, he looks smart and like he has similar taste to me, he certainly appreciates a good dry cleaner) and I heard him say something that I do not specifically recall, but the feeling of it sparked something in me. That had to be it.
I mean, I started to have to find out what that show was. Like every night I was flipping the channels and checking every show, and then I started to go online and read blogs of all these different online shows. It was obsession; I was obsessed. But I never found out, because how could I ever be sure. I mean, only he could know, right. And I was sure it had to mean something.
So, I am in line again, down at Leo's. I am waiting to bring in some shirts and a suit, then behind me, the guy is there, in line. I turn around. I look at him and I am going to ask, but then, what, "you were in here a few weeks ago talking about some television show. I don't remember any details, but I need to know what the show was..."
I never figured it out, I just got a library card instead.
Response
Okay, so part two took me a lot of work. Firstly, I could not think what to do and then I wound up just letting myself consider it and eventually just started writing. I think it is a bit of an interesting character study, though quite light on narrative. It is, in truth, probably closer to a lot of my stories than I would think, though maybe a bit less thought out in some sense. I did enjoy the consideration of that structural repetition, and am certain that I will think about that again. The idea of an event being a corner of the structure through its repeated use has a lot of different possible directions, and I can think how it could be used effectively in many different contexts, but I wanted to keep my effort here away from a more melodramatic tone. I mean, it can be meaningful to have two people share the same identical meal, for example, before and after a major trauma or event. Or one can create a strong horror narrative by beginning with an event that seems innocuous at first, but it becomes clear, through repetition, is actually sinister,. This could even apply in a more real world type story, for instance, a mother giving medicine to a sick child at the start of a story might be revealed, by the end when it repeats, as a symptom of the mother's own illness where she is actually poisoning the child. These are, of course, obvious examples.
Overall, I am quite excited that the work here is getting more serious. I am surprised I could get that much written, and I am likely going to wind up pulling this piece out and seeing what I can do with it in revision. I think that the direction that Le Guin is taking is interesting, and I am still placing this repetition into context of the earlier work. I do see how the movement here goes from thinking about linguistic and syntactic structures as similar (the sentence exercise coming in contrast to the punctuationless writing accomplished this), to considering the actual narrative and plot elements as similar tools. While I did think of those elements as things to work with as a writer, I don't think I had ever connected them in this way, and it opens up a huge amount of potential for me, I think, but at this point it is still a fairly fresh revelation, and one that will take some time to unravel and explore.
Learning new things! That was an interesting example.
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