Craft Notes
“At least I was able to penetrate into the mysterious and magical belly of a movie star”
As a novel about sexuality, told in what Mailer had thought was a style imbued with sexual energy, The Deer Park had offended his original publisher, who dropped it in page proofs; ironically, Mailer found himself changing some of the phrases to which the publisher had objected, not on moral but on aesthetic grounds. “Fount of power” for female genitalia became “thumb of power.”
In “The Last Draft of The Deer Park,” in Advertisements for Myself, Mailer offers a comparison between the first three pages of the page proofs and the published version, five pages in the middle, and part of a later page.
Even so, the stylistic changes did not make a style most critics could praise. Some thought the style was terrible, a “blistering” criticism. “Having reshaped my words with an intensity of feeling I had not known before,” write Mailer, “I could not understand why others were not overcome with my sense of life, of sex, and of sadness.”
—Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers by David Madden (The book is sadly out of print, but can be found cheap used. This is the rare craft book that should be of use to both traditional and unconventional writers. I originally found out about it from Jeff Vandermeer’s blog.)
With so many of the people that read this blog being interested in less traditional forms of writing, I’m sure this is a kind of problem we’ve all had. It’s happened often enough to me, most recently with the novella I’ve spent the bulk of the second half of this year writing. I used a large amount of several kinds of repetition through the manuscript, and some of the early readers of the book absolutely hated it. It was a complicated balancing act in revision to see where in the book they were right—and they were right a lot, especially since, like any stylistic move, repetition can be used as a crutch to avoid writing hard parts of fictions—but there are also places where I’m sure that I’ve made the appropriate choices, and I’ve left those mostly be. It might take a long time to know for sure, but in the end I believe in what I’ve done so far, trusting that my own intense revision process will keep leading me toward the best choices.
What about you? Ever have an experience like Mailer had with The Deer Park, where the stylistic or technical devices you used fails to convey to readers your own “sense of life, of sex, and of sadness?” If it happened before publication, did you revise away from the aesthetic choices you’d made for the story, or did you stick with them? If it was a published work, do you think it was a problem of your own failed authorship or of publishing in a place that got you the wrong readership? Or both? What then?
Tags: David Madden, Norman Mailer, Revising Fiction
Man, I love this book! Got it on the shelf right next to me. It’s language is a head rush. American Dream is even more sexual and thrusting (sorry, but true)
Stylistic choices are a sign of maturity (or self esteem) in a writer. You have your reasons, go with them. I don’t think that type of writing should listen to focus groups. An editor maybe, or maybe not…commit is my thought. Maybe it turns out solid or not. If not, try again.
Fail better
I like turtles!
I like turtles!
i like the idea of committing, going, as they say where i grew up, “whole hog,” whatever that means
at the same time, i feel like style is where, as matt says earlier, so many writers hide. so, in a way, stylistic choices can be the sign of immaturity (or lack of self esteem, lack of commitment) in a writer. style, wrongfully used, is a shortcut, a template.
i think it all has to do with the reasoning, the grounding and philosophy of style. sometimes style is empty; sometimes style is the only way to get the idea across. i feel like the ability to discern is the sign of maturity in a writer, knowing the when, how and why of it. or if it not knowing, than intuiting.
i like the idea of committing, going, as they say where i grew up, “whole hog,” whatever that means
at the same time, i feel like style is where, as matt says earlier, so many writers hide. so, in a way, stylistic choices can be the sign of immaturity (or lack of self esteem, lack of commitment) in a writer. style, wrongfully used, is a shortcut, a template.
i think it all has to do with the reasoning, the grounding and philosophy of style. sometimes style is empty; sometimes style is the only way to get the idea across. i feel like the ability to discern is the sign of maturity in a writer, knowing the when, how and why of it. or if it not knowing, than intuiting.
I like what James says–“i feel like the ability to discern is the sign of maturity in a writer, knowing the when, how and why of it. or if it not knowing, than intuiting”–and at the same time I agree with Sean, to an extent. While I think there is a LOT of empty style/language out there, I also know that there are things in my own work that I have been doing for years that only recently became truly successful.
For instance, there were kinds of sentences that I didn’t have the stories for, because I was writing the wrong kind of stories–Or rather, because I was trying to force my language into an idea instead of letting the ideas come from the language. (At least that’s how I diagnose the problem today.) But if I’d given up on writing that kind of language–which was, for years, a failure–I might not have gotten to the stories I’m writing today. So that kind of commitment to what was in some ways a series of failures did eventually pay off. Hard to know which one will and which won’t, of course. (And that still doesn’t excuse me for inflicting the failures on so many innocent friends and readers.)
I like what James says–“i feel like the ability to discern is the sign of maturity in a writer, knowing the when, how and why of it. or if it not knowing, than intuiting”–and at the same time I agree with Sean, to an extent. While I think there is a LOT of empty style/language out there, I also know that there are things in my own work that I have been doing for years that only recently became truly successful.
For instance, there were kinds of sentences that I didn’t have the stories for, because I was writing the wrong kind of stories–Or rather, because I was trying to force my language into an idea instead of letting the ideas come from the language. (At least that’s how I diagnose the problem today.) But if I’d given up on writing that kind of language–which was, for years, a failure–I might not have gotten to the stories I’m writing today. So that kind of commitment to what was in some ways a series of failures did eventually pay off. Hard to know which one will and which won’t, of course. (And that still doesn’t excuse me for inflicting the failures on so many innocent friends and readers.)
Isn’t all writing style though? Or by “style” do you mean “flashy style’? Using simple sentences is a style too.
Isn’t all writing style though? Or by “style” do you mean “flashy style’? Using simple sentences is a style too.
Absolutely, Lincoln. Basically, I’m talking about any choices you make, and writing in “simple” sentences is a choice too that may or may not be the right choice for a story. That being (possibly) wrong is what I think I’m trying to get at in this post.
I think most good sentences that look simple are anything but.
Absolutely, Lincoln. Basically, I’m talking about any choices you make, and writing in “simple” sentences is a choice too that may or may not be the right choice for a story. That being (possibly) wrong is what I think I’m trying to get at in this post.
I think most good sentences that look simple are anything but.
i’d agree with matt here about the deceptive simplicity of a good sentence.
i definitely wasn’t saying “make everything simple” or “mature writers write simply” — simple declarative writing can be as empty as flowery, labored writing/
i’d agree with matt here about the deceptive simplicity of a good sentence.
i definitely wasn’t saying “make everything simple” or “mature writers write simply” — simple declarative writing can be as empty as flowery, labored writing/
David Madden in Revising Fiction (of which I have three copies here on the shelf) refers in his examples to a whole host of books. Not stopping at Madden, I suggest everyone go get all of those books and read them and then figure out how to get their way back again to where they had started from.
David Madden in Revising Fiction (of which I have three copies here on the shelf) refers in his examples to a whole host of books. Not stopping at Madden, I suggest everyone go get all of those books and read them and then figure out how to get their way back again to where they had started from.
Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers by David Madden: http://rapidshare.com/files/283802154/Madden-rf.rar
Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers by David Madden: http://rapidshare.com/files/283802154/Madden-rf.rar
zzzzzzzzzip?
zzzzzzzzzip?
Matt, I think you made a great point when you wrote, “I was trying to force my language into an idea instead of letting the ideas come from the language.” I think that even though language is our greatest materials as writers, it’s easy to become wrapped up with other concerns and lose sight of that.
I also agree with James point about discernment. I think though that when you take risks in your writing, it can be more difficult to decide what is best until you’ve really gained some perspective to fully understand the choices you’ve made. For readers who aren’t privy to those internal decisions, it can take some puzzling. So the response might just be a lack of understanding, but it might also be that what you’ve done isn’t working. It can be a tough call sometimes.
Matt, I think you made a great point when you wrote, “I was trying to force my language into an idea instead of letting the ideas come from the language.” I think that even though language is our greatest materials as writers, it’s easy to become wrapped up with other concerns and lose sight of that.
I also agree with James point about discernment. I think though that when you take risks in your writing, it can be more difficult to decide what is best until you’ve really gained some perspective to fully understand the choices you’ve made. For readers who aren’t privy to those internal decisions, it can take some puzzling. So the response might just be a lack of understanding, but it might also be that what you’ve done isn’t working. It can be a tough call sometimes.