An Evening with Oates (and my daughter)

As some of you know, I'm in the throes of earning my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. One of the good things about the process, and there are several, is working our way through the stories by a wide variety of writers that Joyce Carol Oates gathered for Telling Stories; an Anthology for Writers. (New it's $40, but my used copy cost me $8; I highly recommend getting your own copy.) We've been discussing Oates' theories on writing and her reasons for selecting these stories, so of course I was reminded of the time in October of 2010 my daughter took me to hear Joyce Carol Oates read from her work, speak about writing, and answer questions about the craft. I wrote about the evening in my now defunct LiveJournal. Since plans for publishing the leather-bound limited edition of my old posts have hit a snag, I thought I might share the story with you.

My oldest child, Alethea (I wish I had an icon of just her and me together), took me to hear Joyce Carol Oates last night.

"Do you like Joyce Carol Oates?" she asked as preamble to the invitation.
"Joyce Carol Oates, the breakfast of intellectuals?"
"You do know you don't have any grandchildren because I think that's hereditary," my daughter said.
"Does it help that I was quoting someone else?"
"No."

At length I was able to convince Alethea that though I've never read one of Oates' novels (thus blowing my creds as a 'serious' reader) I've always liked her short fiction and would love to hear her speak. I even promised to make a passable attempt to control myself in public. Thus, against her better judgment, my daughter took me with her to Keenan Auditorium at UNCW.

The program, which was hosted by the English and Creative Writing Departments of UNC Wilmington, consisted of Oates standing on a bare stage behind a simple lectern and talking for a bit about her life as a writer and the craft of writing, then reading one of her stories, then answering questions that had been submitted in advance by creative writing students to be read in stilted academic tones by an English professor. There was a reception of sorts and a book signing after, but the poor woman was so mobbed we did not stick around for the chance to say what everyone else was no doubt saying about appreciating the honor of meeting her.

I decided I liked Oates herself when she walked out on stage. Her blouse was teal, UNCW's primary color; a nice gesture toward her hosts. And she was carrying her purse – a largish, practical sort of bag – as though it hadn't occurred to her to ask someone to hold it and she was too conscientious to leave it lying about. She plopped the bag matter-of-factly on the lectern and pulled out the rolled pages from which she would later read before taking a moment to regard the audience with evident pleasure.

"This is exciting," she began. "I spend most of my life alone in my study obsessed, as all writers are, with structure or this or that or some other aspect of whatever I'm working on with only my cat, who is never impressed with me. So whenever I'm out in public and get to see real people who seem genuinely interested in me and what I have to say I'm always a bit giddy."

She spoke for a while about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. (Simplistic summary: Nonfiction conveys information while fiction conveys knowledge.) She told us it was impossible to ever say what a story meant; you can recount the events, but to be understood the story must be experienced. She used Shakespeare's "King Lear" as an example. She spoke of the differences between art from the heart, such as van Gogh's rich oils, and art from the intellect, which she called 'calibrated,' using James Joyce as an example. Anecdotes connected and illustrated these points. As she spoke she would occasionally make languid gestures that did not always seem to correspond with her words, as though directing our attention toward distant objects. My thought is she was indicating where these ideas she was sharing with us lay in the landscape of her mind.

The story she read was "Pumpkin-Head," the opening piece of her new anthology Sourland. It is a brutal tale – a story of brutal events that is equally brutal to the reader's expectations and emotions – Alethea and I were riveted by Oates' quiet, compelling reading. She lightly affected the accents of her characters, indicating without belaboring the differences in heritage and social status. The description of the violence was surreal in its poesy – the victim of sexual assault distancing herself internally from the event even as it was happening made more immediate through Oates' voice. (In discussing the story after the fact, Oates said that neither of the characters was wholly good or wholly bad. I understand her point, but gotta say I think one was a lot badder than the other.) Sourland is on my buy list.

One of the student's question asked her to explain or expand upon a quote of hers about writing. "Did I say that?" Oates asked. "I've been around forever and have been talking most of that time. I've said just about everything at one time or another. I have no idea what I meant by that."

Another student challenged her to defend Rape: A Love Story, which she did ably. However based on Oates' summary of the plot, it's not on my read list. I would get too angry and I've got to watch my heart rate these days.

Of interest to me was her response to a question about the characters in the story telling the story in their own voice. Oates quickly dismissed the notion of a story's characters being somehow out of the writer's control, speaking their own minds and finding their way self-directed through the plot. However, she emphasized, it is the writer's obligation to find each character's voice. She said one of the most damning criticisms is to have a reader say all of your characters sound the same; it means you as a writer did not take the time to understand who you were writing about.

Then, to preface or frame her point, Oates described her own upbringing. Her family had been working class and often below working class – aspiring only to have sufficient employment to provide for their own needs. She was the first in her family to not drop out to find a job to help the family, the first to complete high school. This opportunity and the experiences this opportunity made possible enabled her to become an intellectual. But through her background, her life, she knows that intellectualism has nothing to do with intelligence; intellectualism is just a manner of organizing thought. The wisdom of others is no less real because they lack the tools to compare and contrast or construct and defend a formal thesis. The writer is by nature an intellectual because the writing process, done well, is an intellectual process – a craft of carefully calibrated choices. Sometimes you are aware of the calibration process and make deliberate choices going in, other times the process is more organic, but even at its most organic it is still a deliberate intellectual act. As a writer to find the voice of your character, particularly if your character is not an intellectual, or even intelligent in the formal sense, you have to respect the wisdom of the character; respect who they are. Then as a writer you have to find a voice that is somewhere between their own 'unintellectual' thoughts and nature and self-expression and your own intellectual, calibrated writing process.

The craft, Oates said, is in using your writing skills to give your characters their own voice so they can speak as themselves.

My WIP has multiple personality disorder

I recently attempted to read a novel that presented a story from several different points of view. One chapter would show the action through the eyes of a banker trying to protect a young man. In the next, it would switch to describing the activities of the authorities trying to find the young man. Occasionally we learned of things that could only be known by the young man himself. I never finished the book. This does not happen to me very often. I found it just too difficult to keep track of who was doing what. This book was making me work way too hard.


Interestingly enough, in my WIP I am having a difficulty which would be overcome by telling the story from different points of view. The human characters in the Caribbean Adventure Series include a main character and his two side kicks. One of the sidekicks is a bossy girl who keeps butting in to tell the story from her point of view. After my experience with the novel mentioned above and having read the posts on Point of View by Shauna Roberts, I am determined to stave off my character's efforts to be in charge. I am the boss, after all ... aren't I?


I recognize that in the novel I recently tried to read, one of the problems is that the characters and their foreign names were too similar and so it was difficult for me to distinguish one from the others. I have read other books that have switched points of view from chapter to chapter successfully, although it still made me a bit uncomfortable. This discomfort is even more marked if I connect with one "narrator" more than the other.


Am I just too feeble minded to read books above a certain level of complexity? How do you feel about novels that purposely move between two or (heaven forbid) more points of views?


-- By Carol Mitchell
(Currently home in Ghana, but experiencing minor technical difficulties)

Avoiding point of view mistakes

When an author maintains a consistent point of view (POV), readers follow the story more easily. But it's easy for authors to slip out of POV; you'll find POV mistakes even in books by experienced writers.

A general guideline, one that I follow, is that each scene should have only one POV. That is, each scene should show the thoughts, emotions, and sensations of one character only, and those thoughts, emotions, and sensations should be reasonable for that character.

Following are some common types of POV mistakes, followed by an explanation of each. Christine is the POV character in each sentence.

1. Before climbing into the convertible, Christine put her luxurious, silky black hair into a ponytail.

Christine already knows what her hair looks like, so there's no reason for her to think about its color or beauty at this moment. The author needs to find a more natural way to reveal Christine's hair color.

2. Christine heard a click on the other end of the phone. How dare her father hang up on her! Her face reddened.

Christine can't view herself unless she's looking in a mirror. She may feel her face getting hot, but she can't see it. The fix here is easy; the author should reveal what Christine feels like rather than what she looks like.

3. Christine slipped on the black patent leather stilettos and teetered over to the shoe store's mirror. She looked fantastic, and the shoes were a great bargain. She pulled at the beads in her her bracelet. Was looking fantastic worth the risk of falling and breaking her ankle? John looked at his watch and wondered how much longer she would take to decide.

Christine can't know John's thoughts, only her own. The author can reveal John's impatience without shifting into his POV. He can look at his watch, frown, shift around on the shoe store bench, or speak brusquely, for example.


4. Later, Christine would be glad she had missed the bus. But now, as she watched the #22 South Broad rumble away, she thought only of how long she would have to stand in the rain before the next one arrived.

Christine can know only her present and past. The comment about her future is the author's thought, not Christine's. I would find this example less objectionable if it occurred in a story in first person. First person POV gives the feel of someone telling the reader about events that have already happened. The narrator can more easily jump forward in the narrative without leaving the past. Still, I think "if only she (or I) had known that..." sentences are better avoided. They don't advance the plot, and they pull the reader out of the story.

5. Christine turned the pages of the photo album. In every picture, her two-year-old self gazed somberly at the camera, while her soon-to-be-dead mother smiled broadly, giving no hint that just a few minutes earlier, when they had been alone in the nursery, she had soaked Christine's dress with her tears.

Christine was too young to remember this event. Either other people need to have been in the nursery and told Christine about it later, or the author must leave Christine to wonder about the spots on her dress and her mother's glistening eyes.

Have I missed any of your pet peeve POV problems? Feel free to provide an example in the comments.


The Novel Spaces blog now has permanent spots for its writers. Starting with this post, my posts will routinely appear on the 5th and 21st of each month. Thanks for visiting, and please come back on 21 July.

—Shauna Roberts

Up Close and Personal

Some stories put distance between you and the characters. Perhaps you never learn the main character's name, or the character's thoughts are never revealed. Other stories pull you strongly into the world and viewpoint of a character. Whether an author lets you view characters up close and personal or only from a distance is a choice, with no right or wrong. However, close distance—sometimes called "deep point of view" (deep POV)—can make readers like the story better because they personally experience events and emotions with the characters.

Deep POV is distinct from whether the story is told from first-person POV (each scene told only from the viewpoint of "I"), second-person POV (each scene told only from the viewpoint of "you"), third-person POV (each scene told only from the viewpoint of he, she, or it), or omniscient POV (third-person POV, but with viewpoints of multiple characters within the same scene). Although some authors view deep POV as a variety of third-person POV, it can be used with first-person or second-person POV as well.

Deep POV took me a long time to understand, and I still find it difficult to execute. At its essence, however, deep POV overlaps with that most basic rule of writing: Show, don't tell.

Rather than tell you any more about deep POV, I'll show you some example sentences and how they can be changed to reduce the distance between reader and character.

Mary wondered whether the cat was still in the house.
Distancing words: "Mary wondered whether," "the cat"

New sentence: Was Puff still in the house?

Mary could see Puff leaping in the air to catch a cricket.
Distancing words: "Mary could see"
New sentence: Puff leapt in the air and caught a cricket.


In the above two examples, we are in Mary's POV, so there's no reason to mention that Mary saw, smelled, tasted, heard, touched, thought, decided, or wondered something. Doing so only reminds readers that they are not truly experiencing what Mary experiences.

John felt as though he couldn't breathe.
Distancing words: "John felt as though"
New sentence: John couldn't breathe.


John thought he might throw up.
Distancing words: "John thought he might"
New sentence: John's stomach roiled.

John felt sad.
Distancing words: "John felt"
New sentence: Tears welled in John's eyes. OR Grief bowed John's shoulders. OR John picked up the phone to call Mary, then set it down and sought the comfort of his easy chair instead.

In these examples, the author tells us that John experiences an emotion or sensation. The revisions are more intimate: We see John's experience. In the suggested revisions for the third example, we see his response to his emotion, which also deepens characterization.


One could write a book on deep POV. (I'm surprised no one has.) I can't do the subject justice in one blog post. But I can list some warning signs that you aren't in deep POV.

✥ If you imagine your scenes as if you're watching a movie, you may be too far away. Put yourself inside the POV character, looking out of their eyeballs. The deeper you can burrow into their mind and body, the easier it will be to write from the character's perspective.

✥ You name emotions such as anxiety, anger, joy, or fear. For intimacy, show how the character responds physiologically or acts in response to the emotion without naming the emotion itself. Some writers recommend showing the physical reaction to an event first, then the character's thought about the event, and finally the action the character takes.

✥ You use "telling clauses" such as "he felt," "I heard," or "she saw." Instead, dispense with such introductions and show what happened instead.

✥ You provide information the POV character already knows and would not think about, such as her hair color or how to ride a horse or how mail is delivered in her time period.

✥ Characters' thoughts or dialogue reflect your perspective or knowledge. For example, a person from the Midwest sees a ship for the first time and describes it using the correct nautical terms. Or, a teenager thinks about his mother as "Jane Smith" instead of as "Mom." Or an average person knows the chemical composition of their prescription drugs.

✥ Characters' thoughts are in your authorial voice instead of in the voice they use for talking.

✥ Description stands on its own. When possible, provide description through your characters' physical and emotional interaction with their environment. For example, "Deanna's hair was the same bright copper that Mother's had been. John closed his eyes. She had been buried with a baby-smooth skull, courtesy of chemotherapy."


Can you think of other clues that an author may be unknowingly distancing the reader?


The Novel Spaces blog has some exciting changes coming soon. Our posting schedule will change as a result. I do not know when I'll post next, but the topic will be avoiding POV mistakes. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the new and improved Novel Spaces blog.

—Shauna Roberts

Picking Point of View

Picking Point of View
By Terence Taylor

The subject of diversity in writing came up in a discussion among friends and the question arose -- who can write what? Can men write real female characters? Can a woman writer really claim to know a man’s perspective? Can whites write about blacks or other minorities with honesty and vice versa? I understand that this, along with what’s called “multiculturalism,” has become a hot-button topic in some circles, though it’s one I dealt with often during my life as a black writer in television.

My second novel, BLOOD PRESSURE, coming out next year, has a white female character who is writing a book about Zora Neale Hurston confronted with that issue:

“The book’s about love and the creative process, how alike they are, how one can feed the other, but also kill it. It’s about art and life, but also about death, of a relationship and a dream. It’s from her point of view, because you need to see events through her eyes to understand them.”

“I heard that you’re working on a third draft -- do you think your problems have anything to do with being white and trying to get into the head of a black woman? Especially one of a different era?”

Her interrogator was a young black woman in jeans and a dashiki, a clipboard filled with notes in her hand. She’d obviously come prepared, probably as part of some college paper she was writing or a magazine article. Lori had fielded that question since she began the book, started it by asking herself the same thing.

“I wish it was that simple. If writers had to be limited to characters who are the same gender, race, age or anything else as themselves, we’d lose a lot of popular literature starting with several of Zora’s own novels written from a male or a white perspective.”

Her answer was so well honed, repeated time and again, in person and print that she wondered why anyone who’d done their homework would ask the question. Surely her reply had made it through the grapevine by now.

”No, my problem’s less with Zora, more with love. I’m having a crisis of faith in love, as I think she may have had at that point in her life. Zora found her way through it, I’m just having trouble following her lead.”

“To a new romance?” There was laughter.

“To a new book, but I think you do have to feel passion to write about it. How does the Cher song go? Do You Believe in Life After Love? I’m not sure I know. When I do, maybe I’ll understand Zora better...”

I’m with Lori, which I’m sure comes as no surprise. I say if we can only write from what we are, a lot of straight white males in Hollywood who've been writing black sitcoms and soap operas are going to be out of a job come Monday. Writers learn from research or experience, and either can be acquired by anyone. I’ve never been a thousand-year-old Moorish vampire, yet my agent and editor have convinced me that I’ve created a plausible one in my first novel, BITE MARKS: A Vampire Testament.

My only complaint has ever been the generally held belief in Hollywood that straight white men can write anything for or about anyone, while minorities are almost always channeled into writing what we are, as if we couldn't possibly understand the minds of anyone but ourselves. In the early nineties I often gauged whether or not I wanted a job by how soon I was asked, "Can you write rap?" -- as if only a black writer could hold the secret to that magical rhythm, like a cereal box leprechaun protecting his Lucky Charms...

I spent most of my early life on Air Force bases and Catholic schools, in France or the South. As a black man raised in a mostly white middle class world, like our president, I grew up with and around white people, only occasionally others, and took them all for granted. It was wonderfully demystifying. My parents maintained a sense of identity in us, in that I always knew there was more difference between us than just skin color, and that we had a history of our own, even if it wasn't always defined.

As I left that limited world to live in black suburbs in Ohio and Queens, most of the adjustment I had to make wasn't racial as much as across class lines, struggling to understand shifting value systems as I moved from suburban middle class to urban working class neighborhoods.

I had to learn, not to be black, but that were many ways to "be black" and that I was one of many black kids like me, not from “the 'hood,” whose parents had been raised to leave home and to rise as high as they could. Over the course of her adult life, my mother completed her college degree and taught, my father left the military at the rank of major after 20 years to complete college, get his MBA degree at Columbia, and go on to a successful business career. I worked in television after graduating college, and again found myself "surrounded by white people" at work in seventies and eighties New York, but with a difference -- this time there were others as well.

I’d grown tired of having blacks and whites at home and my high school in Queens tell me I wasn't “really” black because I was "articulate" and liked rock and roll. In the work world of my first job, on a “multicultural” kids’ TV show called ”Vegetable Soup,” I met actors, writers, and producers of all races who were also considered outsiders, people who let me be who I was -- once I’d figured out who that was. I became increasingly aware of the way the world worked and politicized, grew my hair into African twists through the eighties to make it clear who I was when I walked in the room, no matter what I sounded like.

There was the occasional black friend or co-worker who'd grown up in all black neighborhoods in New York who had more difficulty with being in a "white" world than I did, and whites who "didn’t know" how to talk to me. I found that black people who’d never spent time around white people had the same misconceptions as white people who'd never spent time with blacks. Both viewed each other with either extreme suspicion or attraction, and each imbued the other with a kind of magical mystique, whether positive or negative.

Because of my upbringing, I feel that I see the positive and negative in all members of any race, and bring that to my writing. Because of the work I did in kids' TV, I’m extremely conscious of the power of images, and try to stay aware of what I’m saying as I build and balance characters. If a writer’s depicting a fully realized world with a wide range of characters, he or she shouldn’t be judged on any one character as their idea of a particular race, gender or other group.

The characters in my first and second novels are of many races, genders and inclinations, good and bad, as is the population of the city I live in. I tried my best not to represent them as what they are, but who they are, which I think is the ultimate responsibility of any writer. In the best writing, I don't think characters should “transcend” race (a condescending phrase in common use, more than a little patriarchal, as if it should be a compliment to tell me, "You're not like them...") but that their character, personality and actions should be made more important or memorable than their race.

In suspense, I don't think of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter as representing whites, though I know he is white. In horror, I don't think of Clive Barker's Daniel Robitaille in Candyman as a bad black man, though his race is essential to his story. Both are fearsome figures, who happen to be white or black, neither personifies his race. Their ethnic identity isn’t ignored, but who they are as individuals, as well-drawn characters, is the thing we remember.

If a writer does a good job of fully representing an individual of any race they've done a great job. If they create a shallow stereotype, positive or negative, (one more black computer kid genius in a wheelchair, or wise beyond her years teen hooker with a sassy street attitude and I will puke) they should not write about those people. They don't know them.

Ultimately, writers can always fool themselves into thinking that they’re doing a better job than they are. In that case, your readers will tell you if you’ve failed. I'm not talking knee-jerk censorship over a “controversial” character from someone who’s never read the book, but signed the petition to ban it, I'm talking about sincere critique.

I can only hope that when they do, we can listen, and do better the next time.