Get Out of the Jacuzzi

Why do I write?

The New Year is approaching, and it is time to think of setting my goals as a writer. Since the landscape of my world does not change until April, I try to schedule the mundane, tedious, and preparatory tasks for my new projects in the first three months.

March usually roars in like a lion dumping the last of winter’s trash. It sneaks out like a lamb tiptoeing into April, which is the beginning of spring in Northern Michigan. There may be a fickle snowstorm or two, but the crocus begins to bloom, the green spears of new grass pierce the black and white canvas, and winter dies in a whimper instead of a roar. New inspiration comes on the balmy breath of spring, tinged with a hint of ice, and old ideas are pulled out of the closet and given a new perspective.

April is going to be the month I climb out of my “box” as a writer. I am developing a plan to step out of the Jacuzzi and jump into the deep end of the pool. Since writers should be readers, I am going to read more and not just in the genres I like. I plan to venture into unfamiliar venues and raise my level of communication and understanding.

Writers today all seem to stay within their box. The author that comes to mind most frequently is Danielle Steel and I think John Patterson might be running her a close second. If you read one of their books, you have read them all. They developed a formula and the formula has become the driving force behind what they write. Gresham, Patterson, Sparks, are all great writers, but you know what you’re going to get. You might like the book, feel good or bad when it is finished, but there are no surprises, no questions unanswered, no mysteries to solve, no purpose to discover, or journey to continue.

Then there is Stephen King. He knows how to write, and I love his short stories. He does not write by formula, so you never know what you are going to get, but in his longer works he starts with a revved up engine and then halfway through the story begins to sputter and stall. It feels like he gets tired of his tale and instead of transporting his reader across the seas, he leaves them wading through the sand.

When I consider the works of great literature, I have noticed some things they all have in common. They appear to follow a pattern. The story, the purpose of the story, the atmosphere to be created, and how the story relates to the reader. Charles Dickens is a great example. On the first level, he tells a tale, a little verbose at times. He takes the ordinary and usual happenstance of life and makes it extraordinary and unusual. Compare his writing with authors writing today. How much of today’s popular literature will survive 100 years? On a second tier, the purpose of the story is a commentary on the world that he lived in. He reveals the panoply of his society and the effect its mores, practices, education, economics, politics, and traditions had on the people who lived in that world. There is “meat on the bones” of the characters he introduces. His soliloquy begs empathy as well as sympathy from the reader. Next, he creates an atmosphere through the sights, sounds, dress, and even smells of London in his time. The reader travels backwards from the hygienically advanced society of the 21st century into the poverty and filth of yesteryear, making us thankful for deodorant and Lysol. Finally, he entices the reader to compare and consider thoughts, ideas, and reactions in relationships to themselves. One realizes the advances made since Dickens’s times, as well as the losses we have endured moving into the digital age.

We live our lives at super-sonic speed, and our literacy, lifestyles and ethics break the sound barrier of what was once considered proper and acceptable. Single dimensional characters populate our literature. Antagonist and protagonist have become credit cards, plastic and palpable instead of complex and redeemable. We talk a lot about celebrating diversity, but we strive to conform. Human beings are multifaceted creatures, yet how many multi-dimensional, memorable characters are written for today’s readers?

Oskar Schindler from “Schindler’s List” was a reprobate, womanizer, carouser, a selfish, and egotistical man, yet he saved the lives of 1209 people, propagating over 6000 descendants. Schindler was not a good man, or even a great man, but he did do a great thing. What made him rise to the occasion? How did the writer capture the complex subtleties of Schindler’s character?

When I was in school, I read “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck. It has been over 40 years since I read that book, but the character of Cathy Ames still resonates in my memory and probably will until the day I die. In the first four paragraphs of Chapter 8, Steinbeck introduces the reader to Cathy without naming her or physically describing her. “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. . .And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul? . . .You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.” Wow!

Much of what is written today chase the elusive twins of fame and fortune, neither of which provide literary or moral quality to our lives. Books are produced on a production line. The stories are superficial, mundane, and plastic. Is that what our world has become? When a Dickensian writer is born, they attract a small audience because their vernacular is on a higher level, their characters are multi-dimensional, their ideas provoke deeper consideration, and their conclusions are not off the cuff, but thought through to the end.

I ask myself as a writer, do I want to write that great novel? Do I want to change the way the world thinks? Would I love to create a masterpiece? In 100 years, will what I have written be remembered and quoted?