Chapter 84: The Gong Show

Writerland is a newsletter from The Delacorte Review whose mission is to help writers tell the stories they need to tell.

* * *

When we last met my new students they had shown what strong writers they were. They’d displayed ease, grace and authority in explaining why they had loved particular stories. Bear in mind (and writers, please, do not forget this, ever) that when the writing is good it is not an accident or aberration; you don’t stumble into writing well; it’s who you are. The aberration is when the writing falls short. And that can be fixed.

Now came the next assignment and I was eager to see how successful they’d be in applying their gifts and skills to reporting and writing scenes. Scenes are the building blocks of all narratives (see under Wolfe, Tom: The New Journalism, 1973) and I wanted them to try their hands at storytelling that moved them away from the conventional forms of journalism. 

Their assignment was to find a place where drama could well occur, and once there capture a moment when something happened – an event, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, that placed pressure on the characters that revealed something about them. 

These were free to draw on any or all of the reporting techniques they’d acquired or learned in their core reporting classes: interviewing, observation, public records, archives. Five hundred to a thousand words. They had five days.

The stories began to land in my inbox. I was not surprised by what I saw. They were fine. But.

Gone was the sense of command, the assurance of writers who, seemingly without effort (we never want to see writers strain) conveyed just what they wanted to say. Instead, there was the equivalent of a lot of throat clearing, hemming and hawing.

I had seen this before and recognized the symptoms of what I think of as the Hesitation Blues: an abundance of description that did not necessarily advance the narrative (The park was filled with strollers some of which were blue and some of which were black and a few of which were red…); protracted scene-setting; and the inclination to insert themselves to justify their presence (I was on an assignment to find a story…). I knew just what they were doing because as a young – and not so young writer – I had done, too. I wrote long and descriptively, all the while not wanting to admit to myself  that I was hiding behind those many words, hiding from having to commit to what I wanted to say.

In his wonderful book “On Becoming a Novelist,” the late John Gardner drew on two examples from the work of Herman Melville to explain what he meant by the elusive goal of writing with authority, of writing that conveys without embellishment or hesitation a writer saying, “I know.” The first example was from an early work, “Omoo.” I have never in 30 years of teaching ever met a student who’d read “Omoo” and I have taught my share of English majors. There is a reason for this and you can find it in the book’s opening: It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land, and was the only object that broke the broad expanse of the ocean.

Gardner then offers what remains perhaps the most devastatingly writing critique I have ever read: “There is, I think, nothing actively bad about this writing.” He might well have suggested to young Melville that he chuck it all and go to law school.

Gardner then races forward to the moment four years later when Melville has discovered what he calls his “booming, authoritative voice.” This time he begins with three words: Call me Ishmael.

You know the rest of the song.

I mention Melville because I hate to think of young writers suffering from the Hesitation Blues and believing it happens only to them. In the years that elapsed between the publications of “Omoo” and “Moby Dick,” Melville had shed the writerly equivalent of what struggling athletes call “the yips” – the voice that tells you you will fail. Melville was 32 when “Moby Dick,” was published. Now he knew and when you read it you knew it, too.

So it was that as I read my students’ first forays in writing scenes I saw more “Omoo” than “Moby Dick.”  But I did not have four years to help them. This is a seven-week class. We were approaching Week Three. And so, I broke out the gong.

It’s a brass gong that collects dust until the time comes to clean it off, bring it to class, and hand it to the student whom I have volunteered to serve as referee. (Always good to have an auditor, who is free just to sit and listen. Thank you Alec!)

I’d assigned the others to come to class prepared to tell a story. Their proverbial “A-material” story, the best true story they know, the one they save to impress people with their skill at lively repartee. 

They could not write the story out; I didn’t want them to read. I wanted them to tell. The stories were to be three minutes long, four at the most. But here was the catch: they had a one-minute grace period to tell their stories without interruption. Then, at the 61-second mark, the referee was charged with striking the gong the moment the story flagged and with it, his attention. 

We seldom get to try out our stories on an audience. It is a scary proposition. But the fear can be ameliorated when it feels like it “doesn’t count,” when it’s not our writing that’s being judged. 

The first time I tried this some years ago, the best writer in the class volunteered to go first. He did not last 62 seconds. He displayed, verbally, all the symptoms of the Hesitation Blues: So I was on my way home, and it was, late, no not that late, anyway, I was walking, and it was late and it was supposed to rain but it didn’t…

Student after student took their turn and as they did, the stories got a little longer. The referee in the class was a devilish fellow who took particular delight in striking the gong. Then came the last student. He was from Nepal and was the first in his family to attend college, let alone graduate school. He began. Sixty seconds elapsed. Then 90. 120. 180. The ref had his hand raised, ready. And that it was where it remained until the four-minute mark when the story came to a close.

Something had happened by the time it was his turn. The same thing would happen when my new students began to tell their stories.

The first, brave soul later admitted that she wanted to go first to get it out the way. She stumbled a bit out of the gate but appeared to have righted herself as she moved past the one-minute mark. She was gaining momentum when she began sliding into a digression that took her ever further away from the drama. She hung on for another 30 seconds or so before Alec, who clearly took no pleasure in his work, gonged her story to a close. 

The classmate who followed began well and appeared to be in good shape when, seemingly out of nowhere, she switched gears, leaving the promise of the drama behind to begin what felt like a whole new story. Gong, alas. Sorry.

Then came a story about a bar. Bar stories hold the promise of bad behavior, so we give them time to unspool. But this one began not in the bar but in adolescence, with envy directed at the prettiest girl in school. This girl, we sensed, was like the Chekov’s sword that appears in Act I but which we know will reappear with devastating effect in Act III. We knew the prettiest girl was there, looming, even after time had passed and we were transported to a bar in a different country. Things were going swimmingly for our protagonist when, yes, dammit, she spots her: the prettiest girl. Cue the sword.

That story began to change things. It was as if in hearing the bar story everyone gave themselves license to begin by saying, in effect, My story is about the time when…

Call me Ishmael.

There were stories about a leather coat salesman in Florence, a car accident on the road from Disneyland, a seance, a lot of missing money, a man on a Turkish beach with “wild boy” tattooed across his midsection, being lost under the sea, a house party that ends with a hole in the wall, a trial, a roommate from hell, a late night ramble that ends on a roof in Italy, a ski lift, an apparition. 

Alec sat poised, ready to strike the gong. But his work was soon done. 

Instead, at the close of each story, hands shot up. People had questions: Why didn’t you marry him? Were you scared? Did you dump your boyfriend? Your sister saw the ghost, too? Did your mom kill you?

I asked the students: Do you understand what is happening here? Do you understand that you have performed miracles – that with only the power of your words you have so transported people that they have felt a connection to your stories so profound that they didn’t want the experience to be over, and so kept it going a little longer by asking questions? Then I asked: How did you know what to do?

Their answer was simple: We listened to each other. We heard what worked and what did not and we altered things before our turns came.

The student who had gone first asked if she could have a do-over.

Of course, I replied.

She told her story again. This time she established a sense of place quickly, and with the story anchored moved us to the drama, never giving the ending away. We knew what was going to happen. No matter. The story felt new and fresh and when she was done we applauded.

Remember what you did here today, I told the class. But know that when the time comes to write your stories you will likely forget and fall prey to the Hesitation Blues. You will forget how you told your stories, and the ease with which you did it, how you drew on what you heard in your classmates’ stories and how in listening you were reminded of what you had known about storytelling all along.

Try to remind yourselves, even as you begin to forget.

* * *

Nothing good ever came from writers punishing themselves. We know writing is hard. We’re here to show that it doesn’t have to be torture. Writerland, The Delacorte Review Newsletter comes out every other week. Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.