EL170B Spring 2004
Fiction Portfolio Zoey Laskaris
Zoey,
I always turn to the fiction portfolios with interest, looking to see how entering the
freedoms of the full imagination will affect the writer who was successful during the
nonfiction unit. Sometimes making the transition to fiction can be the most challenging
for the writer who already has great stories right in her own life, at least initially, when
the writer thinks that fiction means having to let go of those great stories. And so, I was
not at all surprised that you felt off-kilter at the beginning thinking about how you could
possibly do justice to the characters and stories of your imagination. Of course the fiction
unit is ridiculously short—you barely have enough time to meet your character much less
understand them enough to write their stories with “all the tenderness and severity you
can muster.” (KA Porter) But your commitment as a writer really came through during
the unit—you wrestled with your imagination and your skills of writing scenes, throwing
yourself at it again and again until the genre began to reveal some of its secrets. Nice
going.
One of the most successful parts of this unit for you had to be in the in-class exercises.
What you read aloud in class and posted on the blog really shone—words and characters
and situations grab your jugular and you just write them with intense abandon, I’d say.
You might well want to keep working in the short forms—sudden and flash fictions,
prose poems—in the shards of stories and lives your pen reveals enormous insight and
compassion.
You are clearly engaged during class and in workshop, though I see that your workshop
group was not particularly helpful—that happens, especially if you are writing at a level
or a kind of fiction the rest of the group doesn’t quite understand. I think you have to
find your own peer group (and there are people in this class who can give you invaluable
feedback—you need to ask them. I see Becky as a kindred spirit, for example). You
might also use the blog to fuller advantage, posting to the Bits & Bytes page, or roaming
onto other writers’ pages and responding to their work. I think that you are in this writing
life for the long haul, Zoey, and so you have to make your own community—let’s talk
about this in conference.
Reflection
Of course you were “discouraged and frustrated “ during the early goings—if you hadn’t
been, I would have wondered! Fiction is as challenging as it gets and you will most
likely always feel as though you are a slave to this tyranny in much the way you write,
“For the first few weeks I gave a lot more to fiction than it gave to me.” I’m glad that
you felt some real accomplishment in the final story that you had that magnificent
experience of having a character come to life in your imagination so fully that he was
real, he stood there before you and asked you to follow him around a la Faulkner. That
you relaxed a bit and saw that you do not have to run away from nonfiction in order to
write fiction—that you can use the people and dilemmas of your own life much more
powerfully and effectively at times if you release them into the pages of your imagination
is an valuable revelation. You with your fabulous family stories and your imagination
and passion for writing—there’s no telling where you might go if you stay focused and
patient and committed to your writing.
Messing Around
In-class exercises -- “Camouflage” I do love the opening sentence of this piece and
wonder how it is that you can write like this in a crowded room with me giving you about
twenty seconds for an entire story: “The sky was stained crimson and gave off this
feeling of a fat girl revolution.”!
You take these pages for your own exploration—your reflection about your family and
sister and your own role—it was very moving and vivid. I think you should write a work
of creative nonfiction about your family—about you in your family. Perhaps you have
the first stirrings here of your final project?
In “Crash” you play around with short sentences to an interesting effect. “Fishing” is a
very promising poem, especially the lines, “ You flung me like a fish/From one side of
the boar/To the other side of your head.” Have you read Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “The
Fish”? I think it’s in Vintage.
“Ruby” You write a careful, colorful description here and then address her directly in the
final line—here I see the poet’s imagination and instincts.
Stranger Study—An intriguing use of a first-person narrator. Of course, now that we are
writing fiction, we can enter our subjects’ minds and bodies!
Reading Response
Salinger, eh? I like that you care about the writing so much that you type out the
paragraph, seeing how it feels under your fingers. I would like to see you keep putting
pressure on the sentences of other writers, looking hard at how they create the magic. In
Salinger’s case, it’s taking a look at how he gets Holden’s tone down through the rhythm
of the sentences, the choice of words, and the movement from sentence to sentence.
Keep sharpening those writer-reading skills; they will prove essential during the long
lonely hours of writing ahead of you!
Assignments
Re-Appropriation “Pandora’s Box”
Revised
I am drawn to your arresting image of hair bleeding with questions and frustrations. That
is incredibly fresh! I wonder, though, if you have too many declarative, defining
sentences marching one to the next.
Shea-like Story
This one reminds me of Pam Houston’s “How to Talk to a Hunter, the same kind of
drive, the same kind of idea. Let’s talk about your second sentence, how it is functioning
grammatically as a sentence.
Fantastic Scene “Familiar Fear”
We talked about this one in conference
I wonder if this story really wants to be a poem—as a story right now it is difficult to see
how this day differs from any other day? Does she awake like this every day, and is that
somehow the point, or is something else going on I can’t yet quite put my finger on?
And why do you mix the tenses.
Talk Story “Far From a Headline”
I responded to this one on the blog, so I won’t repeat myself here except to say that I
think it is very promising, especially your character in the shed. You write him with a
compassion and an understanding and a patience that brings him to life. I’m still
wondering about the choice to make your narrator first-person—it’s very difficult to write
a talk story from the first person and make it ring with authenticity.
Monologue “Dancin’ Beauties”
We’ve talked about this one too, about the fabulous opening but also the one-dimensional
quality of his character. Yes, he’s engaging, but no, he doesn’t yet feel quite real. I want
to sense something beneath the voice—the pain, the sorrow, the dilemma.
Short Story “PalmTree Tears”
Wow—this is a daring story for your first full-length one in the course. Your choice of
two narrators, one inside the character and one outside, is interesting and risky (why do
we need them both if you are really telling a story rather than making a point—why not
have many narrators here, all telling a shard of the story?) Some of the details of his
character and his interior voice are quite lovely—the feeling of the cement under his
feet—wow, that kind of detail works very hard for the story, and makes us feel as though
we are in a fully imagined existence. Promising. Let’s talk about the use of structure and
narrators—I imagine you want to keep working on this one. You clearly care
enormously for him and want to get his story right!
FICTION GRADE