The Surprised Writer
By: Remington Write
Tags: Ideas, Metaphor, Writing Tips, Reading, Writing

The Google assures me that it was Robert Frost who dropped this pearl: “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader”.

Actually, the whole quote is “No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader; no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader”. I can recall only one story that I wrote with tears streaming down my face. That story got savaged in workshop, so I’m hesitant to ascribe too much credence to that part of Robert’s maxim. In fact, the only time I’m in a position to confirm the truth of the second bit is from the other side of the keyboard and then only if there’s some way to find out if the writer was in fact surprised.

That said, a lot of what I write seems to swerve into territory I did not intend.

When I first got this whacked-out notion to write stories, I was under the impression that I needed to have that baby mapped out before I stuck the first two words together. This resulted in very little writing. Plenty of pacing, not much writing.

The piece that had me dripping tears onto the keyboard? I had it choreographed to the final period. I knew exactly where to put each word, each punctuation mark, each pause, and each paragraph break (of course I’m exaggerating; I’m a writer, darling). However, I did plan the life and breath out of that story. That wasn’t its only problem but it sure was what those readers disliked the most. Or at least what they told me loudly and repeatedly.

The writer, Steve Lattimore, teaching that class told me that my next story would be my break-out story.

Why did I abandon my careful mapping on that next story? Who knows. Steve may have had something to do with it. Or maybe I was sick of pacing around the apartment trying to plan the whole story. At any rate, I started that story with the image of a homeless guy I’d seen sleeping on a steam grate in the snow. I built the main story about someone not unlike myself at that time, younger and prettier, but not all that different. I didn’t know where I was going. I wrote six sentences and deleted four. I wrote two sentences and rewrote both. I kept at it, going in whatever direction the story seemed to want to go. And as I was coming to the end of the story one perfect closing sentence floated up from whatever mysterious place where perfect sentences wait to be stumbled upon.

I was high for days after that. I was hooked.

Now I simply wait for the ideas to float up, the opening sentences, the what-if scenarios. I just go on about my business and let those puppies come to me. And they do.

But the puppy that comes yipping up to me, eager to get his feet onto a page, isn’t always the puppy that you read about. In fact, sorry puppies, but that initial idea that floats up — even when it’s a very good idea — isn’t usually what survives the process of writing the actual story.

For example

My family of origin may not talk to me (it sure takes the stress out of the holidays, let me tell you) but generations of aunts, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, and Mom and Dad have left a treasure trove of ideas. Often it’s things they said that we, the kids, weren’t necessarily supposed to hear.

I was making the bed several days ago when Mom paid a visit — you know, in my head — and left me with this gem: Remingtons don’t cry.

Some PBS documentary I’d seen years ago included Rose Kennedy spouting that same nonsense about Kennedys. Know what? I bet they do cry. The gods know they’ve got plenty to cry about. I can tell you that no matter how often Mom whipped that one out, well, Remingtons did and do cry.

The piece started out light-hearted and easy on the snark (for me). I’m just tooling along, enjoying the ride when someone gave the wheel a hard turn, and the next thing I knew I was going down some very old, dimly lit streets. Streets I tend to avoid. Suffice to say that by the final couple of paragraphs this Remington was close to crying.

Not what Remington expected. I wonder — and you can tell me — was it what you expected?

The surprise isn’t always good, though

This type of seat-of-the-pants writing has its downside. The start of each piece, including this one, has me feeling as if I’m standing at the edge of a vast field with a shovel. Somewhere out there, I think over to the left a bit near that row of trees, is where I plan to emerge. I start digging. Yep, that’s me tunneling underground, blind and nearly directionless, but still valiantly aiming for that row of trees.

My morgue file is filled with wrong turns. I have been known to toss out four, five, even eight pages of — to me — really great writing that went in the wrong direction (but nearly everything that does land in the morgue file gets another chance so it’s never wasted effort).

After all that, do I emerge anywhere near my row of trees? Occasionally. Even fairly often. I did this time and with next to no pacing around the apartment first. Of course, this time I didn’t have far to go and was pretty confident of my destination. I suppose that means that I’m not surprised and so, according to our friend Mr. Frost, you aren’t either (although the number of metaphors I’ve managed to throw into this mix is surprising).

But often enough I emerge from my dark tunnel, look around and discover that I’m nowhere near those trees. Instead, I climb out of my hole, brush the dirt off my hands, and discover I’ve somehow found my way to Shangri-la or some other mythical paradise. Because the best writing — of which I still aspire to — is mythical. It is mysterious and defies the gravity that holds other, lesser writing down. It floats. And as mystified as we readers are by these feats of literary derring-do, I bet the writer is even more amazed.

At least I hope so.

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