Writing Across Gender

In his essay entitled, "First Person Female," author Jim Harrison discusses how he was able to successfully write in the voice of a woman. Along the way, he seems to suggest that male, heterosexual writers, in order to be able to write across gender, need to allow themselves the same emotional latitude that society affords women and gay men. I guess what he is saying is that men need to allow themselves to have feelings and emotions that perhaps culture has historically deemed as being feminine.

I can agree with that to a certain extent, but I think really, it just boils down to a writer being able to see things, or imagine things from another perspective other than their own. This goes for female writers writing from a man's POV, and male writers portraying women characters in their work.

I do think, too, that a writer needs to be observant of the world around him or her. In Harrison's case, he pointed to the women that he grew up with as being sources for his female characters. For fleshing out his female characters, he simply drew from his experiences with his mother, his aunts, and his dead sister. I know when I have written fiction, I have simply thought about people that I know, or have known, when developing characters. Admittedly, though, I don't think that I have yet successfully written anything from a woman's POV. I think mostly this is just because I am a noob writer and it's easiest to stick to what you know, which, in my case, is the male perspective.

So is There Really a Such Thing as Plagiarism?

I loved reading Jonathan Lethem's essay entitled, "The Ecstacy of Influence"; however, after reading it, I am not really sure where I stand on the issue of plagiarism. Reading the piece left me feeling like perhaps there really is no such thing. Or that the definition of plagiarism should be pulled in tighter so that it encompasses a smaller set of behaviors. The author seems to have a very loose attitude to artistic borrowing and makes a good case that it runs rampant throughout all artistic endeavors. He even seems to go so far as to say that it is the very nature of art to be influenced by, pay homage to, and mimic other artists.

One thing I found interesting was that Lethem mentioned his own first novel, Gun, With Occasinal Music. I loved this book and have read it twice. It totally made sense to me that Lethem would take the stance that he does on artistic borrowing since one of the concepts for this novel came about from a line that Lethem got from a Raymond Chandler book. The line ended with "the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket." Well, in his novel, which itself blends hardboiled detective fiction and sci-fi, animals are rapidly evolved so that they can talk and function as humans. So one of the antagonists in the story is actually a kangaroo wearing clothes who causes much trouble for the main character.

I have wrestled with the originality issue myself, before I even read the essay. I remember an argument with a colleague, a professional tech writer and hobbyist creative writer, where I argued that there were really not any NEW ideas. Anything that seems new is really only a twist on an old idea or a conjugation of existing ideas into something that appears "new." I had read somewhere that, depending on which scholar you believe, there are really only about a half a dozen or so plots that fictional stories can follow. Some number it as high as a couple of dozen.

After reading Lethem's essay, I have perhaps come to the conclusion that it is less important as a writer or other artist to try to come up with something new and original than it is to take the things that interest you and find new and interesting ways to show them or explore them. I remember when I once had a panic attack about a short story I turned in for a fiction workshop class. After turning it in, I began to wonder if I was guilty of plagarism. I sent a guilt-ridden confessional email to my professor explaining my concern (I took the song lyrics to an old Police song and tried to flesh out the basic song narrative into a short story), and her response was to relax and not worry. She assured me that there were only so many plot ideas out there and, especially in a six week class, it was hard to come up with "new" ideas. In the end, no one in my group even remembered the song or made the connection. Perhaps if I had read Lethem's essay before that incident, I might have been more relaxed about the whole thing. The story sucked anyway, and I was never going to get rich off of it, so what's the big deal, right?

Some Thoughts on Grammar

After reading Amy Martinsen's "The Tower of Babel and the Teaching of Grammar: Writing Instruction for a New Century" I felt a little relieved. In the essay, the author laments that grammar is not being taught in middle and high school like it once was. She wonders why this is and wonders what the future of writing instruction will be like if the trend continues. The reason I said I felt relieved is that I have always felt like I know how to speak properly and write proper English. However, whenever I take a course in writing or English, I feel pretty ignorant about the terminologies and the formal rules of grammar. Reading Martinsen's essay helped me realize that I am not alone.

In dealing with the problem of defing grammar, the author refers to the work of Bill Gribben, who arranges different definitions for grammar into 3 groups. Grammar I is what fluent speakers/writers unconciously/intuitively know about their language. Grammar II is the more formal knowledge of the rules and analytic techniques of knowing the language. Lastly, Grammar III is a sort of knowledge of appropriate usage. The essay asserts that most people are pretty good when it comes to Grammar I and Grammar III. It is in the middle category of knowledge that students are lacking. And this is where I find myself.

I also found the discussion of the psychology of grammar to be interesting. Studies have shown that students are afraid to break grammar rules and if they don't understand them well, then can regress to a more simplistic writing style to avoid any grammatical pitfalls. This saves them from looking ignorant or uneducated, but it paralyzes them from writing as well as they could. From my grades in literature and writing courses, as well as from feedback from co-workers, I know that I am a decent writer. However, if I did stop to think about what rules of grammar I do know, as well as fretting the stuff that I am unsure about, I can totally see how it would cripple me from ever writing a line again. At any rate, I hope that learning more about grammar will help me be a better writer and will give me more confidence it the realm of Grammar II.

Some Thoughts on Dillard's "Write Till You Drop"

After reading Annie Dillard's "essay entitled 'Write Till You Drop", I thought about what she means when she says at the beginning of the third paragraph--"Write as if you were dying." Certainly, if I were literally on my deathbed, I wouldn't want to be writing anything; I would want to be with my loved ones, enjoying time with them.

But in the context of the first couple of paragraphs I think I can see where she is coming from. In the beginning of the essay, Dillard talks about how each one of us is fascinated and captivated by a certain idiosyncratic slice of the whole continuum of possible things to know and experience. It is from that list of interests that no one else seems to have that a writer should search for subjects to write about. It is those things that a writer thinks should be said that no one else seems to be writing about that make good subject matter. She says that it is up to each individual writer to write about those things.

So in that context, the essayist is saying that if you died without writing about those particular things, perhaps no one else would. So her advice is not to write about subjects that a majority will love and be interested in, but write about those things that intrigue you.

Later in the essay, she says to go for it, give it your all, don't hold back. Don't save a line, a theme, and idea for some great work that you might write later. Use it in whatever you are currently writing. This made me think of how I get ideas when going about my business; driving to work, watching a movie, or even standing up on a pulpit next to my best friend as he exchanges vows with his bride. Many times in my life I have gotten a glimpse of something; an idea, a theme, a piece of doalogue and then have thought, "Man, I should write about that!" Sadly, what ususally happens is that I don't even jot the idea down in a notebook or anything, and just like Dillard said, it becomes lost to me. I really need to start keeping a small notebook with me for such times.