Saturday I had the pleasure of teaching two mini-workshops on dialogue at Hugo House as part of their Write-O-Rama fundraiser. I’m delighted that they met their fundraising goal (and more) — one more thing to love about Seattle is how many established and aspiring writers will turn up to support their community.
And oh my word, the energy! For 35 minutes each hour, everyone wrote wrote wrote. No real noise in the working spaces except the tap tap of laptop keys or the scratch of pen on paper. And breathing. I don’t often get to watch other people write, you know? It’s mostly a private activity. Fascinating to see how still people become, how focused, how intent. Many times, their faces lose all expression except a certain sense of inward distance in the eyes, so you know they are looking at the paper or the screen but seeing some glimmer of another world that is beginning to live inside them.
I imagine that’s how I mostly looked too, because in both sessions I did the exercise along with everyone else.
It was absolute pure fun. Marvelous to simply write well because I can, to let my expertise off the leash to run not because I have a contract, or a deadline, or a particular “goal,” but just for the joy of it. And there’s no denying that for me doing it well is a big part of that joy: all my years of work and practice have paid off in this way, that writing is sometimes nothing more than, I don’t know, some kind of extreme sport or something. That’s not such a bad analogy — because these days the writing channel is wide open, and so even an exercise draws from deep places. And yesterday’s writing felt like a precision run at speed down a gentle slope: not challenging in terms of the course, but a chance to see what kind of chops I have these days to just make something up and bring it alive in half an hour in a room with strangers.
I thought I might share this newest writing with you, just for… well, for fun. Genuine first draft, presented here exactly as it was when I put the pen down each time yesterday (although, oh, the urge to edit…)
The mini-workshop was about how to help convey emotional truth through the specific behaviors that accompany what we say, and that sometimes carry the real meaning of the moment. I’ve turned my teaching notes into a post and exercise over at Sterling Editing for anyone who is interested in learning a little more about this. And here’s the exercise:
Write a scene in which two people are having a meal together in a restaurant, being served by a third person. The conversation of the two becomes a breakup. Decide what kind of restaurant they are in, and what kind of breakup this is (lovers, partners, spouses, business partners, friends, etc.). Write from any point of view.
The goal is not necessarily to finish the scene, but rather to take the time to live in each moment, find the emotional truth, and then decide whether the characters’ words speak for themselves, or if you need to find a specific behavior to help convey the meaning.
And here are a couple of servings of stories that may or may not ever live on paper again. Who knows?
Enjoy.
Lily was already waiting when Cal got to Beth’s Cafe. Cal stood in the door to kick the snow off her shoes and watched Lily carefully line up the fork, knife and spoon precisely spaced on the paper napkin.
Uh oh, Cal thought.
From his place at the grill, Joey gave her a sympathetic look. She nodded, squared herself, walked to Lily. Lily sat up very straight as Cal approached.
Houston brought the coffepot and menus. “Not very hungry,” Cal said, and cuddled the warm coffee cup as if it could warm everything: the weather, the chill in the booth, the cold hard lump in her gut.
She sipped so she would not have to speak.
“How are you?” Lily finally said.
“Fine,” said Cal.
She took another sip. Lily began to organize condiments.
Cal said, “Look, I’m sorry. Really. I should have been there.”
Lily nodded as she lined up the salt and pepper.
“I really am sorry,” Cal said again, and she felt the quaver in her voice ripple all the way down to her hands, so that the cup clattered when she put it back down on its saucer.
Lily looked at the cup, and then at Cal. Then she gave Cal a smile; only a little one, but it was like the sun peeking out of the fog. The room got a little brighter.
Houston came back around. “You girls want anything to eat?”
“Make it up to me with a 12-egg western omelet,” Lily said.
“Oh, Lil,” Cal said. Lily pursed her eyebrows and huffed a little through her nose; a wordless It figures, sure, let’s not have what I want.
“What’s your name, little sister?” Johnny said to the waitress. Lars could see why: she wore her body in a way that made you imagine tattoos and piercings underneath the uniform, and her expression was cold.
“Her name is Star,” Lars said. “It’s on her uniform.” He knew he sounded sour and it made him feel small and desperate. “Great name,” he said.
The waitress gave him a knowing look.
“French, thousand island, blue cheese or creamy garlic,” she said.
“I would always rather have something creamy,” Johnny said.
Lars sighed. The waitress’ face didn’t change expression, but she walked away with a straighter back and a little more swing in her hips.
Johnny settled back in his chair. “So,” he said, with a smile that was — creamy, damn it, Lars thought, a fucking creamy smile that made him want to reach a hand across the table and either strangle Johnny or drag him over for a kiss.
“So,” Johnny said, “where would you like to go today?” He took a long sip of his iced tea and then wiped the moisture away with a drag of his beautiful wrist across his beautiful mouth. He never took his gaze from Lars.
“You’re busy,” Lars said.
“No, no. You came from LA. In a car,” Johnny added, as if it were a strange, amusing choice. “You didn’t come all this way just for iced tea and a tuna melt with fries.”
Lars reached for his glass and drank some of the tea. It gave him an excuse to look at the table. All those miles: across the mountains in the rain, the flat tire at 10 pm and the near-death experience with a trailer full of pigs. To sit in a diner with the air conditioning too high and a man who had none of the warmth that Lars remembered.
“I shouldn’t have just shown up,” he said.
“Well. You’re here now. So where do you want to go?”
Lars thought, I need to do this fast
