WE ARE ALL FICTIONAL OH NO.

Rawther ironically, the most useful piece of advice I've gotten from Butler's From Where You Dream is solidly stylistic. The white hot center doesn't enter into it. HORRORS.

I found it in Chapter 8, the Anecdote Experience, where Butler is doing a sharp bit of on-the-fly editing for his writing students as they try to describe a personal experience. It takes some brave writers to get up there with him, I gotta say. I wish I could say I'd have the courage to but....UM.
OKAY. MAYBE IN A MINUTE, PROFESSOR.

Anyway, it was a little revealing I think to hear Butler walk the walk like this. It made a lot of his WHITE HOT CENTER stuff concrete. And one piece of that advice really jumped out at me. You've all probably read this chapter and everything by now but I thought it deserved it own little bloggy spotlight:

ROB: Let his face turn to you. Let me see his face in the moment.
SANDRA: He is not surprised to see me.
ROB: OK, you have just analyzed his face. He's not surprised to see you. We're not seeing a not-there; what are we seeing?
SANDRA: He's looking as though he was expecting me to walk in.
ROB: You just analyzed it again. What do you reading the face? Because the little girl standing there perhaps rightly analyzes the look on his face, but what is it that's on the face she sees that leads her to that analysis? That's what we're after.
SANDRA: That's abstraction?
ROB: That's abstraction.


As I see it, there are two mad nuggets of advice here. The first is very important, and overarching: write through your characters, not at them. Let them tell us what they see and what they feel -- don't speak for them! LET YOUR PEOPLE GO, ETC.

But secondly, more specifically and
(I think) much more helpfully....DON'T WRITE WHAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. WRITE HOW IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I've already been catching myself with this. "She looked like she was trying to lift the rock." How can someone look like they are not doing something Laurel be more specific. Course, this isn't to say that this is never right, or useful. I mean, I think in negative actions all the time. But that's my own internal narration, like my character's internal narration. It is not THE LITERARY VOICE.

Ahhh jeeze, I went on for way to long here. What a surprise. In any case, tell me your thoughts! Is this bullpoo?

FYI, your intructor and his best friend, live, Tuesday (not Monday, as I previously may have told you)

(I'm just getting back to the blog after a haywire couple of weeks, and look forward to reading your posts this weekend - jb)

Writing Butterfield, the undergraduate writing community at UMass, proudly presents:

"Bo's Arts, The Powerpoint Presentation!"

UMass MFA candidate Jamie Berger will read from his book,

"Bo's Arts: Visual Interpretations of a Soft Dog".

The evening will include a Powerpoint presentation about

the making of "Bo's Arts"

and the art in the book

and the dog who led to the art show in San Francisco that led to the book that led to the Powerpoint presentation!

Mr. Berger will also discuss a new, groundbreaking genre: Powerpointalism!

Bo (the dog!) will be at the show, and both author and dog/muse will field your questions.

All this takes place on Tuesday, November 6th at 7pm in Butterfield Hall (room 007)!

The event will be catered -- free food!!!!

For more information, please call 413-577-0546.