Archives for category: Dialog

Why he writes: a Q&A with novelist J. Adams Oaks

May 7, 09 //
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Don’t call me kiddo. I REALLY hate it. People been calling me that way too long. Fever and Ma and Uncle Spade all call me kiddo, and it makes me crazy. See how I ain’t smiling? People who know me, know that means trouble.

jeff

J. Adams Oaks is the author of the new young adult novel WHY I FIGHT

So begins the new novel by J. Adams Oaks, Why I Fight, which is already earning glowing adjectives (poignant, breathtaking, unforgettable – Booklist). It’s the story of a 12 year old bare knuckle boxer from a dysfunctional family, and from the pugilistic prose you might think Jeff is the type of writer to step in the ring with Papa Hemingway. But in truth, he’s more of a Faulkner guy, with a little Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marques thrown in.

I attended Columbia College Chicago ten years ago, where I had the great pleasure of watching the inception of the story that became Why I Write. The Fiction Writing Department at CCC doesn’t tell writers how to write, instead, they cultivate voice and foster the conveyance of rich imagery in prose. And did they ever cultivate the hell out of Jeff. His first book, more than ten years from inkjet to hardcover, is amazing.

This is part 1 of a two-part Q&A.

So what have you been up to for the past ten years?

Wow! So much. I’ve finally found a good balance of writing, teaching, and bartending to pay the bills. The novel, WHY I FIGHT, in its first form was my thesis for Columbia College Chicago. I tried working a 9-to-5 job and write, but that didn’t work, so I actually moved to Denver, CO into the house of my friends, Claire Fallon and Steve Kalinosky, who let me live with them for free as long as I was writing every day. I cranked out that first draft, then started bartending while I looked for a literary agent. That took me four long years during which I rewrote the manuscript and told everyone I met that I’d written a book and was trying to publish. I actually got referred to my agent through a regular at my bar!

What’s the worst job you had during that time?

I have to say for me personally the worst job I’ve had was the 9-to-5 cubicle farm job, commuting into The Loop into one of those beige buildings into an office with no windows at a grey desk. I never was a morning person, so  I pretty much spent my day yawning and waiting to get home to sleep. It’s hard to find your creativity doing that, you know?

why

Why I Fight

I’ve always had an aversion to the old dead white guys of the traditional cannon, because they were the ones I was being told I had to pay attention to and connected to the least. All through undergrad and grad school, I searched out the people that didn’t live like me, that didn’t write like me and who’s voices sounded nothing like mine so that I could really see how they found their own sound. I studied Spanish lit and Latin American writer, like Lorca and Borges and Garcia Marques. Later on in grad school, as I started to find my main character, Wyatt Reaves’, voice, I really started to pay attention to Sandra Cisneros and Junot Diaz and Herbert Selby for their powerful individual expression of singular voices. I also love reading in the morning before I start, reading to be inspired, to feel that feeling of “I want to try to do that!” so I’ll read Toni Morrison or William Faulkner or poetry or even a friend’s work until I just have to turn to my own writing.

Do you feel any different now that you can wander into a bookstore and find your work on the same shelves as writer’s you’ve admired your whole life?

Funny you should ask, because that’s what I’ve been telling everyone: “I just want to be able to walk into the local bookstore and see my novel there, then I’ll feel satisfied, feel relieved.” I’ll also say that I’m glad that Joyce Carol Oates wrote a Young Adult book, so mine can sit next to hers.

Like a lot of writers, you spent time studying your craft in an MFA program. What was the most important aspect of that experience?

Boy, I’ll tell you that for anyone looking for an MFA program, I really recommend checking them out to find one that works for you, because everyone has different needs. I was so impressed by Columbia College’s Fiction Department, which emphasized oral storytelling translating to the page and really find one’s voice as well as reducing the amount of pointless criticism and competition that can occur in other programs. The only competing I felt with my colleagues at Columbia was, “Man, I want to write something as good as that. Now how did she DO that?!?!?”

What have you learned in the years since graduating? How have you changed as a writer?

Oh, jeez. That is a hard one. I’ve learned so much by being active in a vibrant literary community like that in Chicago. I’ve been active in an astounding theater company called Serendipity that produces “2nd Story” which is a highbred a reading and a performance. You can check it out at www.storiesandwine.com. I’ve gotten to learn how to really stand in front of an audience and give my voice. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with one of the best editors, Richard Jackson, a truly talented man who understood how to guide me as a writer toward the strongest writing. He knew I needed to do all the work, when it came to page, letting me learn along the way through 4 FULL rewrites of the book! And the list goes on of what I’ve learned, because I feel like as artists we have to be constantly learning or we get stagnant.

How long did it take you to get to the heart of “Why I Fight?”  How long have you known this story was a novel?

You know, I think “the heart of WHY I FIGHT” was what told me it would have be a novel. At the time I wrote the very first scene, which I assumed was a short story, I felt like there was something much larger there, and if I listened carefully it would tell me what else it had to offer. I feel like Richard Jackson taught me to really listen to what the work demands and not force it into something it’s not. So to answer your question, I think that WHY I FIGHT was always a novel, whether I knew it or not….

You’ve been working on this project for a long time.  During that whole time were you ever tempted to abandon that project and focus on something else, or abandon writing altogether?

I never thought about abandoning writing. I’ve always known I’d do that whether it was seen by others or not, but there was a drive there to share my work with more people than just family and friends. I did work on this book a long time. I finished the first draft in 2000, and the reality is that it sat in a drawer for 4 years while I did the business of writing, that’s the other side of it people don’t really talk about enough. Art requires some serious drudgery as well as creation. I do think though that a writer should have more than one project going so that they don’t get sucked into the whole of that one work. I always seem to have 5 or 6 documents on my computer’s desk-top and I pop into whichever is taking my attention that day. The worst thing is to work on something that you can give no passion.

What gave you hope or confidence along the way?

It’s really the who that gave me hope. Everyone I work with on writing wants everyone else to succeed, so we are all pulling for each other. Not to mention, Mom and Dad. But I also have to say, writing is my career and a career just takes putting aside the insecurity and getting down to business, you know?

Where do you turn, outside literature and writing, for inspiration?

Everywhere! It’s the world. I carry a little journal with me all the time so I can write down a conversation I over hear on the bus or a description of a bit of graffitti I see or a name or an adjective that tastes good in my mouth. I’m writing all the time. That’s a blessing and a curse.

If you were to take a road trip to clear your head, what type of vehicle are you in, what’s playing on the stereo, and where is the road?

I don’t own a car, since I live in the city and take the train, so ANY car would be great! I’d love a sun roof and a really big stack of CDs including some great jazz, bossa nova and some surprises. That road would be heading toward water because I really really REALLY could use a little time at the beach. Sigh. But I’d have to take my journal with me, even if I was on vacation. I don’t want to miss anything.

What’s next?

I am working  on #2. It’s tricky to find time when I need to work on getting the first one out there, but I’m so glad to have something else to work on. It takes place partly in Spain, soooooo…. I’m thinking research trip is in my future, right? Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted.

Read more about Jeff at his site, buy his incredible book and look for Part 2 of the Q&A soon.

- DB

Book Description

Wyatt Reaves takes the seat next to you, bloodied and soaking wet, and he is a big-fisted beast. Tell him to stretch out like an X across asphalt and you’ve got a parking space. But Wyatt’s been taking it lying down for too long, and he is NOT happy.

Since he turned twelve and a half, he’s been living with his uncle, a traveling salesman of mysterious agenda and questionable intent. Soon, Uncle Spade sees the potential in “kiddo” to earn cash. And that’s enough to keep the boy around for nearly six years.

But what life does Wyatt deserve? Alcohol? Drugs? Bare-fisted fights? Tattoos? No friends? No role models? Living in a car?

If you’re brave enough to stay and listen, you’ll hear an astounding story. It’s not a pretty road Wyatt has traveled, but growing up rarely is.

Praise for WHY I FIGHT

“A breathtaking debut with an unforgettable protagonist…His painful and poignant story is a wonderful combination of the unlettered and the eloquent.” –Booklist (starred review)

“For male reluctant readers.” –Kirkus Reviews

Where does it come from?

April 12, 09 //
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That’s a question about creativity raised by the film “Starting Out in the Evening.” It follows an aging and mostly forgotten literary novelist who is forced from his routine when a young graduate student enters his life, ostensibly to research her thesis. It is a wooden and stilted film with some (mostly) unintentional awkward moments, though it does achieve a sort of grace by the end. The last thirty minutes are wonderful, and Frank Langella patiently builds a character, whom he proceeds to allow time to dismantle block by block.

I’m not a film critic, so I’ll stop with the analysis. What I should talk about is the subject…this is a film about the writing process, and, ultimately, the origins of creativity. Where does it come from? How do we channel it? The film doesn’t provide any real answers beyond the only one that someone who makes up stories can give: writing is just something you do.  Asking why and from whence is for critics and English teachers. What matters is the process, which is what this film dwells upon and also what makes it interesting for writers.

Roger Ebert seconds this notion of the naivite of interviewers who ask the same old questions for which novelists and screenwriters have no real answer beyond what they think might sound good in quotes. About the graduate student who is interviewing Langella’s character, Ebert notes:

Soon she is discovering what every interviewer learns from every novelist: He doesn’t know what anything in his books “stands for,” he doesn’t know where he gets his ideas, he doesn’t think anything is autobiographical, and he has no idea what his “message” is. I am no novelist, but I am a professional writer, and I know two things that interviewers never believe: (1) the Muse visits during, not before, the act of composition, and (2) the writer takes dictation from that place in his mind that knows what he should write next.

Ebert’s two statements offer some of the truest understanding of the process as it works for me. Viewers who aren’t writers might drift off, but this film will raise interesting questions for anyone who spends a large portion of their time making up stories, tapping the keyboard with a limited idea where they are going and little to guide them beyond the faith that a story will eventually reveal itself if you are true to your compulsion and if you hang on long enough.

Tension, context and subtext in dialog

November 7, 08 //
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A friend once told me that every conversation that takes place in a screenplay should be an argument. It’s advice he heard from a writing teacher, and I think it’s basically sound. I’d replace the concept of an argument with the more general notion of tension. It doesn’t have to be direct confrontation, but there should be something at stake beyond the exchange of words.

The key to tension is subtext. In my limited experience rewriting for a director interested in on of my scripts, that is one thing he has emphasized: strip all your dialog of all explanation and description. After all, that’s what the director and actors will add visually and through the sound and the way that they deliver the lines. What should be left is only the subtext. And that subtext should be laid on a foundation of tension.

Here’s a scene from my latest script where I feel like I get it right:

EXT. ROADSIDE OVERLOOK

Coyle and Lilly sit at a picnic table with a view of the ocean. They share a sack lunch. It would be a lovely spot in season, but now there is gray skies and drizzle. They are hunched under their rain slickers. Lilly looks dejected.

LILLY

Your girlfriend going to pick you up?

COYLE

How do you know about that?

LILLY

Everybody knows.

COYLE

It’s not serious.

LILLY

I know what it is.

COYLE

Can we talk about something else?

LILLY

What else is there?

Coyle can’t answer. They eat.

COYLE

You want me to walk you home?

LILLY

Better not. Sally doesn’t like you.

COYLE

I won’t say what I think of her.

LILLY

She’s a good person.

COYLE

So you want to stay with her then?

Coyle stares at her, chewing. Lilly looks at the water.

COYLE

Because if that’s what you want, I’d like to know. I’m working hard trying to make things right.

Pause.

LILLY

She’s a good person. She’s not Mom. She’s not you.

Coyle looks at her long and hard. She risks a quick glance into his eyes. He nods.

LILLY

I better get going.

She crumples up her paper lunch bag. She picks up her board and wetsuit. She nods at her father and then begins walking along the highway toward town. The wind kicks up.

COYLE

I love you, Lilly.

The wind is strong and she either doesn’t hear or she doesn’t care to respond.

I feel that is a scene where the tension is palpable. Here is the context: Coyle is the father, Lilly is the daughter in foster care. Sally is her foster mom. Coyle’s trying to get her back. But he’s also sleeping around (the girlfriend mentioned at the beginning), carousing, drinking, getting dragged into an unsolved murder case and generally doing a lot of things that will make it harder to get Lilly back. Lilly knows this. Knowing the context of the scene makes a lot of the dialog more clear, but I also think that context shows up as tension and subtext in the actual exchange. You don’t need that context. As a beginning writer, I found that I was continuously adding too much context in the form of description and explanation. Now I struggle to strip things down to the bone. I think this particular script is loaded with good tension and subtext. We’ll see when I send it to contests if it does as well as my other scripts.

One other note about adding tension to dialog. You have to be careful. While it’s always a good idea to ratchet up the tension on the page, you also have to learn when to turn this sensor off. When you wake up obscenely early in the morning like I do, the world you’re building inside your head is blurred with the one in which you actually live. It’s never a good idea to add tension and subtext to your daily conversations. Sometimes I’ll be sitting with my wife or daughter and chatting and that little voice in my head will remind me that I should be adding tension to the conversation. And I’ll say something that pisses them off. Not a good idea.

Do you read your stuff out loud?

July 19, 08 //
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I don’t know how many times over the years that I’ve recommended to writer friends and fiction writing students to read their work out loud. Not only will you catch every typo and grammar glitch, but you’ll be able to hear the ring and rattle of the words in your head.

Now that a tiny bit of screenplay success has me focusing all my writing efforts on scripts, you’d think I would have carried this bit of advice over to this other medium.

Right now I’m revising  a script with a healthy dose of feedback from producers, hoping that they’ll pull the trigger and decide to make this film. This script features a very, very long eulogy delivered in the first scene. The extended monologue up front breaks all the conventions of filmmaking, which is one reason I’ve had such good feedback. It’s a well written speech, if I do say so myself. And it doesn’t slow down the film at all.

You’d think I would have read this eulogy out loud before now. I first penned this scene almost two years ago. I’m on draft 7 according to the file name on my Word document, but it’s more likely draft 20 for this specific scene. And I’ve never read it out loud. Until now.

It’s early morning, and I affected my best cheesy Irish accent and read the scene. I’ve sliced it down again and again, and they seem to think it’s still too long. It’s half its original size. I read it out loud, and I cut it some more. That was the first time I’ve ever read an extended passage from one of my scripts. This in a medium that is mostly dialog.

Isn’t that ridiculous?  That should be your first step upon revision. Read the whole friggin thing. I wonder how often we ignore our own platitudes.

Morning dialog

July 13, 08 //
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Cats that wake you at first light are useful. Suddenly you’re stumbling to the garage with a cup of cat food, bleary eyed, wondering where you are. You walk past where the Mac is charging on the counter, and suddenly you’re sitting on the front porch typing (or more likely deleting) dialog on your script rewrite.

When you’re a working stiff writer, you cling to the fringes…5 am, 11 pm…to get you work done. Especially when you have a family that deserves your time, and a job that conspires to take more than its share.

Of course, you’re always thinking about your work…in that critical meeting where you should be taking notes, when you’re watching your kid play in the fountain. My wife used to ask me what I was thinking when my eyes glazed over. Now she asks, “You’re thinking about your latest script, aren’t you?”

So now it’s seven on a Sunday morning and I’ve got a good couple hours under my belt. And I’m starting to mutter to myself, uttering the dialog exchange in my head, trying to approximate the affectation and genders of the characters. Anyone watching me would figure me insane. If you work on a script long enough, this just happens. Lines slip out whenever they will. It’s kind of like when my 4 year old daughter has conversations with her imaginary siblings.