The Usefulness of Literary Analysis

I recently read a blog post (you can read it here) where the author commented on the attitudes some people have toward different academic studies. According to the author, fields of study like physics, mathematics, and biology–fields collectively known as “hard sciences” and based on reasoning and mathematical proofs–as more important and more factually true than the study of literature, which is seen as “soft” and therefore variable, indefinite, and downright false.

Now I admit that those who study literature (and those who create it) aren’t solving the mysteries of the universe, curing cancer, or creating alternative forms of energy. And I admit that you can look at a novel, poem, play or short story and draw many different meanings from the author’s comparison of blue curtains to the blue sky. And yes, fiction is, by definition, outright falsehoods. There’s no Hogwarts, the zombies aren’t coming for us, and in all likelihood Dante never visited all three realms of the afterlife.

But I don’t think that the English major is inferior to physics or chemistry or engineering. Far from it. I believe the English major fulfills a different role than the hard sciences. Fields like elementary neuroscience and evolutionary biology and botany seek to understand the physical world around us. Literature and English majors, on the other hand, seek to understand the human condition, to understand our collective soul. We’re focusing on a whole other dimension of existence, multi-layered and able to bring understanding and meaning to the lives of others. We make metaphor of life, turn it into art, show our darkest fears and our deepest desires in the struggles of characters brought to life through letters and words.

Isn’t that worthwhile in itself? To make people understand through a story not only themselves but the world around them? To feel empathy for a character, joy when they triumph and sadness when they struggle, because that character reminds a reader of themselves or what they want to be? I think it is, especially since reading and writing bring so much fulfillment to me and to the people I know who feel the same way I do.

Besides, the hard sciences may be solving mysteries and doing important work, but there is something that they lack, and that is the ability to identify with and inspire the masses. The theory of relativity will never be able to define an age like The Great Gatsby did, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will never have the same effect on our youth like Harry Potter did.

Sure, you can argue that the space race defined the sixties and seventies and that the Internet and technology defines us now. But let me remind you that those age-defining technologies were first dreamed about in a literature course or on a writer’s desk while his pen rolled across a page. From cell phones to space ships to the Roomba, all were first talked about and made awesome and terrible by some writer somewhere (especially if that writer’s name is Isaac Asimov).

And yet even today’s technology is influencing literature. Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress was as much inspired by the Internet as the blog and the webisode were. Several science fiction writers are now writing works on how social media and hacking are becoming a total part of our society and reflecting on that. And I wouldn’t do some of my best writing without technology.

So these fields aren’t competing with each other for superiority or totally exclusive. On the contrary, they merely handle different fields of our existence and feed each other occasionally. It’s like the relationship between bees and flowers: the bees get their food from the flowers and spread the pollen around so that the flowers can create new seeds. In this sense, they are helping each other grow.

So deride my English major anytime. I may not be solving some mysterious aspect about black holes or quarks, but I might just give you an idea someday on how to solve that mystery. And you may never be able to write your own homage to Edgar Allen Poe, but your work on cancer research or molecular genetics may give me or a friend some new idea for a future bestseller. It could happen.

What’s your take on this subject?

Spring Semester 2013 Wrap-Up Report

It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to really write about, but I have something now. While I moved out of the dorms on Tuesday afternoon, I did not recieve my final grades till just now, so I’m writing this post now which some of you may have been eagerly anticipating. Others of you may also care less, but I hope you read this post anyway.

So anyway, a whole semester went by a little too fast if you ask me, but I did very well. I got a 3.3 GPA, an improvement by 0.1 from last semester. I didn’t get all the As I wanted, but I’ll work for that this coming semester. I did very well in Creative Writing with an A and American Literature with an A-. I also met some really awesome professors and learned a whole bunch.

I also worked hard on finishing up The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones and I’m now waiting for the copyright. Also, thanks to my friend Matthew Williams, Reborn City is close to having its final draft finished, and Snake is getting its 3rd draft. I’m a busy guy, but with all this effort I’m putting in, I should have RC out by the holidays and Snake by summer 2014 (hopefully).

In the meantime, I’m going to be working in the financial aid office at Ohio State like I did last summer, and I’ll be writing when I have the chance. Plus I’ll probably be seeing plenty of movies and reading a lot of books, so expect reviews. And let’s not forget I’ll hopefully be getting a Kindle, so if you want me to read your books, better start bribing me now.

So here’s to the start of summer. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Snake: Adding Depth To My Characters

I’ve always wanted a snake in a basket. Yes I’m strange, but you already know that, right?

I’ve been busy lately. Exams, preparing for two summer jobs, and a recent addiction to Doctor Who, plus all my normal writing and editing obligations. I’ve been one busy guy, but I wanted to take a break to share with everyone how the editing job for the third draft of Snake is coming along, especially since the main aim of this draft was to add more depth and history to some of my characters.

So far, mission accomplished. I’m about halfway through the draft, I’ve written one of the two new chapters I meant to write, and I’ve gone into some depth into the characters’ personalities and history. I’ve definitely had some fun working on Allison, my heroine, exploring where she got her feisty attitude and seeing how it’s been affected by her ordeal. At the same time, I’m still searching for the right place to insert some more back story between my killer and the heroine, because there’s a lot there that I need to add in for the relationship to make sense.

Oh well, I have 54 chapters to go. I should be able to figure something out and insert those parts (and for those of you with your mouths open right now because I said 54 chapters, don’t worry because most don’t make it past five pages). And by adding all this character history, the characters become more real, their actions make more sense, and their struggles make them that much more endearing.

Except in the case of the killer. In that respect, you find the Snake more creepy and fascinating at the same time. At least that’s my take on him. He’s changed so much from when I first created him. He’s definitely not the same character I created back in June last year.

Well, there you have it. I’m going to hopefully do some more work on Snake tonight, but first I’m going to grab some dinner. Can’t edit on an empty stomach, am I right?

 

Critiquing For A Friend

I saw a friend of mine yesterday at the library a little after 2pm. He and I began talking about finals (the topic de jeur during this last week of the semester) and he mentioned that he had to write a short story for his history class based on some of the stuff he’s been learning in class. I offered to look at his short story and critique it if he wanted, to which he said he’d send it over.

This evening I took a look at it and I wrote a quick critique of it before e-mailing my friend. After I finished and sent the email, I thought to myself, Hey, that’s the first time I critiqued something for a friend that wasn’t required by a class of mine. I don’t count that one time my sister asked me to look at her speech as she was running for a position on the board of the youth group we both belonged to in high school, mostly because we couldn’t get past the opening without her disagreeing about my assessment of the opening. God, that was a long time ago.

“This blog post is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read online. Now your friend’s short story…”

Okay, enough rambling. Back on topic:

I’ve been in two workshop classes in the past year, and I had to do a similar assignment to what my friend did when I took a world history course my first year in college. I’ve looked at a lot of short stories, occasionally had to look stuff up just to understand what a certain word meant or what the action revolved around, and written close to fifty critiques for each story. I’ve seen bad short stories, I’ve read ones that absolutely floored me with their first drafts, and I’ve read one or two that confused me so bad that I mentioned how confused I was in the critique letter.

But writing for a friend…it’s an entirely different experience. You want to give them the best critique possible. You want to tell them their story has potential. You want to say they did a great job. You want to tell them it’s only a matter of time before they’re selling books in bookstores and receiving royalty checks. But at the same time, you have to point out flaws, you have to say that they should possibly rewrite the whole thing, and sometimes you have to tell your friend that, for one reason or another, the story stunk to high heaven and you absolutely hated it. It’s a very different experience than critiquing for classmates you don’t know that well, and finding a balance between kind to your friends and critical of the work is tough, especially if you’re sensitive to a friend’s feelings or there’s a chance that they may say their work is too high-brow and those who don’t like it or understand it are literary fools.

Luckily my friend doesn’t aspire to literary stardom and even if he did, he’s a chill dude who doesn’t get emotional over critiques. But still, I took his feelings into account when I critiqued his work, and I hope he appreciates the critique and isn’t daunted or upset by what I had to say. (For the record I wrote a very positive critique and suggested that he rewrite the story from the POV of the sheriff character and do more showing and less telling) It was the first time I understood what my friend Matt goes through every time he looks at a chapter of Reborn City for me and tells me what he thinks, and what my friends and family go through when they review my work for me, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do a critique like this ever again, though I’m sure I might be asked in the future to look at someone else’s work, especially if it’s for class. If I am asked by a friend to look at his work though, I hope I’ll be able to do a serviceable critique that will help them with their work and with their writing over time. Because if there’s one thing writers can do for each other, especially indie writers, it’s help to make each other’s work better and make sure they reach wider audiences.

What do you think when you get your work critiqued or someone critiques your work?

We Are Not Who We Say We Are

Is that the creepiest title I’ve ever written for a post or what?

Today while editing Snake, I thought I’d listen to some music off of YouTube (I’ve still no handle on Pandora or Spotify, if that’s what you’re wondering) when one of those three-minute ads came up. Normally I skip those ads, but I decided to check it out once I heard that the man speaking in the beginning of the ad was a forensic sketch artist for the FBI (guaranteed to get my attention, right?). The ad is below, and I strongly encourage you to watch it before going any further.

Let’s go over something very interesting about this ad: when the women in the ad described themselves to the artist, they tended to focus on the features they disliked about themselves. The resulting sketches then embodied those aspects and didn’t really match the actual women. But the people they’d become friendly with prior to the sketching, when they described these women to the sketch artist, they tended to focus on what made these women beautiful, what these newly-made acquaintances liked about these women. The portraits therefore were very beautiful and more closely resembled the women.

This is the guy who talks to his mirror image. If you’re familiar with his anime, you know he’s got a lot of work to do on himself.

Now despite being a Dove commercial (and not even Dove chocolate), I found myself really liking this commercial. I also found myself remembering something from an anime I’d watched years ago, where a character had a discussion with a mirror image of himself while trapped in another world (typical of anime, right?). The character was told that he represented how he saw himself, while his mirror-image was how others saw him. They were very different representations of the same character, but they were still the same person.

And that got me to thinking. Yes, dangerous activity, but I think anyway. We all focus on different aspects of ourselves and aspects of others. When we focus inward and look at ourselves, we often see what we don’t like about ourselves. For me, it’s my constant battle with zits and keeping off the weight I gain because I can’t resist those sweets. However when we focus on others however, we tend to focus on what we like about them, especially when we like them. When I think of a couple of friends of mine, I usually think about their height that I’m so jealous of or their smiles, and that twinkle they get in their eyes when they do smile.

So what does that tell us? Perhaps that we focus on ourselves and point out what keeps us from attaining some measure of perfection that society expects from us, and that we look for the good in others because that’s what we want for ourselves. It’s a possibility, although it’s not a nice one. Perhaps it also tells us that while we’re critical of ourselves, we love seeing the good in others, because it reminds us of the good in others, or the good we’re working to attain. That’s certainly a better take on things, right?

It’s also very true of some of the characters in my stories. Take Reborn City, for example: my heroine Zahara Bakur sees herself as a timid girl who gets easily scared when violence rears its head and can’t be relied upon when the chips are down. Her friends however see her as a very innocent but very strong girl, close to her faith and resourceful when the chips are down. Who’s right? Both actually: Zahara is nonviolent and doesn’t like to get herself into conflict, but she’s also quick-thinking and her faith supports her when times get bad. In addition, she likes to see the good in everyone, which can be a real comfort when you’re in a gang and people tell you that you’re a waste of space. In her own way, she’s helping people, all without a gun.

In addition, the titular character of Snake is also very multifaceted, though he and the people around him are more aware of that than Zahara is. The Snake is certainly gentle to those he cares about and is capable of compassion, but to those who pose a threat to him or those he loves he can be very dangerous. He’s also aware that he’s mentally unbalanced and that he’s also quite possibly evil, but at the same time he wants to at least use his evil for a good purpose. My heroine Allison Langland, who knows the Snake very well, is aware of his evil, but is also aware that he’s actually a very good guy. He’s sociable, he’s self-deprecating, and he’s responsible. She has to reconcile this with the fact that the main character is also a vicious killer capable of torture and murder, but she prefers his good side, because that’s the side she sees as the real Snake, and it’s the side that she thinks is the true hero.

To put my metaphor better, we are all something like this. Good or bad, our own perceptions or other perceptions. We just have to act on those to really get to know who we are.

So what does this say about all of us? For starters, we are not the sum of our features or our flaws, and we are not the sum of what others see in us. We are a combination of those ideas of ourselves, and we are what we use all those ideas about us for. For Zahara, she is the girl who can bring light to people living in the dark, even if she hates anything involving violence; for the Snake, he’s a monster doing good in the only way he knows how, even if it damns him; and for me, I’m trying to lose the weight, wash my face at least once a day, and write stories that people empathize with. We’re all combinations of our own perceptions, the perceptions of others, and what we use those perceptions for. Once we figure all that out, I think we can achieve a level of peace and live our lives in a way that’s conducive to us and those around us.

I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time I’m getting ready for bed and I see that one zit on my nose or how much weight I’ve gained this semester.

The Events of This Week Are Giving Me Stress

I tell you, it isn’t even blogging about this right now. I had to have a bowl of ice cream with a side of cherry cola, watch a crime show on my computer, and then listen to two hypnosis MP3s before I felt comfortable to write this blog post. After all, a lot has happened this week: Monday we had the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Tuesday showed only false news leads and a bomb threat at Ohio State that, while it turns out to be just a false alarm, freaked out the entire school. Wednesday we learned that the Senate had voted down gun restrictions that 90% of Americans had said in polls that they wanted, particularly when it came to universal background checks. And this morning, I heard about an explosion at an industrial plant in Texas. Luckily that one was just faulty equipment, but still it freaked me out. It didn’t help that Cal State LA had its own bomb threat today. And then there’s a million memes floating around the Internet, each with a thousand positive and negative comments.

You can see why I’m stressed. I see destruction, carnage, and fear everywhere and only so much being done about it (or in the case of the Senate, nothing being done). It makes me worry, it makes me stress. This sort of stuff, in my opinion, shouldn’t happen outside of books and movies. And yet it’s happening.

But after all my stress relief, I realize that when I look back on this years from now, I’ll realize that I survived this horrible week, that afterwards I did great on my finals (I’m assuming, at the very least), and it can be a story I can tell my kids (I’m assuming I have kids at this stage) about bad weeks and that they go away.

Still…that doesn’t excuse the fact that two men (they do have suspects now, says the FBI, and sorry Jon King, they’re not “dark-skinned” as you thought) caused three deaths and several injuries. And the Senate placed reelection ahead of common sense solutions to gun violence, only passing a “privacy clause” for firearms and funding for mental health services (only the latter I really agree with, though I have a feeling its help will be limited). And the NRA probably played a huge role in keeping those solutions from passing, all in the name of their paranoia. I’m very upset, but I’m not going to let it get in the way of my life and living happily.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to do some editing work that’s long overdue. I need to do it and it’ll relax me, I’m sure.

Comedy Might Help Me

I’ve seen two comedians live at Ohio State these past two weeks, plus one episode of Saturday Night Live. One of those comics was Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. When he came to Ohio State, he talked about how he put the former of those two books in the humor section. Why? Because people will think it was funny, but as they start reading it, they’ll realize it’s a serious guide to suriving zombies and what not to do during a zombie apocalypse, even if it seems obvious. And he did it all by presenting his work as a stand-up comedy show.

Max Brooks uses comedy to get works about us sold. How weird is that?

People tell me I’m a funny guy.

Or that sometimes I tell good jokes.

Okay, they tell me I can tell a good joke every now and then.

Occasionally.

Once in a blue moon.

The point is, I’ve seen enough stand-up comedy to know how to do it myself. Occasionally I’ve even done my act in front of friends and fellow dorm residents. Usually I get some laughs, and that encourages me. In fact, last night I invited a few friends to my room and put on a show for them based on my own angry sarcasm and my experiences writing horror and how troublesome selling indie horror can be.

Did they laugh? Yes! They laughed, and offered me some good advice that I proceeded to act upon. The result: plenty of laughs.

Could this be the key to selling my work? Through laughter.

So I’m thinking, if I can’t use the horror persona of a creepy but brilliant writer to sell my work, why not be a disgruntled comedian on a stage? It could work.

So this summer I’ll practice, and then I’ll take the stage. Maybe I’ll even get a few laughs and some sales, especially if I use YouTube. One can hope, at the very least.

What do you think? Do you think comedy can help me with my writing?

Happy Birthday to the true home of the Jewish people. May you last for ages to come.

Oh, and before I forget…Happy Israeli Independence Day. The State of Israel was founded 65 years ago today, becoming a beacon of hope for Jews everywhere. It is also one fo the most prosperous, green, technologically advanced and democratic nations in the Middle East (and in Israel, you can say otherwise without getting jailed for it) and I hope it lasts for another 65 years or longer. Happy Birthday, Israel. You’re doing great these days.

Some Thoughts During Holocaust Remembrance Week

This week at Ohio State University is Holocaust Remembrance Week. Like last year, I am giving a small speech to commemorate this sad occasion at OSU’s Jewish organization, OSU Hillel, during the Friday night service. Since I know most of you won’t be at Hillel, I’m posting my thoughts on the subject here. If there are any grammatical errors or misspellings that I missed, please forgive me, it was not my intention to leave those there.

I hope you enjoy reading this and that it affects you positively. Thank you for reading.

***

It’s been nearly sixty-eight years since the Holocaust ended and Adolf Hitler committed suicide, signaling the end of the war in Europe. The war left millions dead, millions more displaced, and thousands of questions unanswered, many still unanswered. The most important question though, at least for those of us who commemorate the estimated thirteen million dead, is how could the Holocaust happen?

As one of my majors is History, and my focus is on the war in Europe, I could go into all sorts of reasons as to why the Holocaust happened. I could go over for hours on the “Stabbed-in-the-Back” legend, Germany’s political and economic conditions during the Weimar era, Hitler’s underlings meeting at the Wannsee to determine the Final Solution, quotations from Mein Kampf—but the one reason I’d like to focus on can be summarized in one simple word: dehumanization.

Hitler made numerous insinuations about the Jews of Germany and the rest of Europe. However one thing that remained true of every insinuation, and that was the Jews were less than human, as if they were monsters with barely human form. As more people came over to Hitler’s side, more and more people were willing to see the Jews and all those that Hitler deemed “sub-human”, as not a human being like them.

And once you see something as non-human, it becomes easier and easier to discriminate against it. First the Jews and all “sub-humans” were discriminated against. Then legal measures were taken to turn “sub-humans” into second-class citizens. And then the “sub-humans” were turned into slaves. And finally, cattle to be slaughtered and thrown out with the trash. Such is the value of things considered less than human. It took the efforts of many Righteous Gentiles, risking their very homes, security and lives, to see past this illusion of inhumanity and protect many thousands from the gas chambers Hitler had built for us. If more had thought like the Righteous Gentiles, perhaps more people would’ve survived the Holocaust.

We often think that the events of the war couldn’t possibly happen today. Sadly, we are so wrong. As we all too well know, minorities in this country such as African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans were discriminated against for years, and even amendments to the Constitution haven’t totally brought those with darker skin to the same status as whites, whether it be educationally, economically, or socially. Stereotypes keep well-qualified workers away from jobs, and can even lead to them being imprisoned simply because of their race.

In addition, women the world over are given second-class status, and any actions to rise above that status can get them beaten, imprisoned, committed to insane asylums, or even executed, all in the name of “morality and modesty”. Even in countries where this is not the case, such as America, women still aren’t equal to men in the eyes of the Constitution, and their voices are often drowned out by government officials who do not represent their interests.

And we all know that many people in the LGBT community still lack the rights of straight people. In certain countries homosexual activity can get you jailed or killed, and even in today’s air of equality, there are those who will stop at no end to keep the LGBT community in the place they are now, simply because they are different.

One of the greatest teachers of Judaism, Hillel the Elder, taught that “what is distasteful to you, do not do unto others. That is the whole of the Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.” By “it”, Hillel does not refer to the Torah or commentary, but the lesson that we may derive from this main truth. So when you go out tonight, remember that you would not like to see happen to you, don’t wish it or perform it on others. And if you see someone less fortunate than you, don’t look down on them, but ask yourself, “How can I help this person whom I might be like if I were in a similar situation?” And then once you’ve thought about it, act upon your conclusion. That is the whole of Hillel’s teaching. It was applied by the Righteous Gentiles during the Holocuast, and it can still be applied today, by you and by me.

Thank you and Shabbat Shalom.

Snake: A Third Draft Is Needed

I had a bit of a revelation last night, but I haven’t been able to share it until now. So without further ado, here’s my revelation:

Last night I was watching the second episode of the new TV series Hannibal, which for those of you who don’t know is a prequel to the Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon. As I watching it I was seeing all these little things they were doing to develop the characters that the author of Red Dragon, Thomas Harris, hadn’t done when he originally wrote the novel. It struck me then that I had committed a grevious error in my own serial killer thriller, Snake: I hadn’t gone into any sort of character development whatsoever.

I hadn’t gone into the pasts of any of the characters, only focusing on the events of the story and what immediately precipitated those events. I had not gone into any detail on why the Snake was so twisted, why the female lead was so defiant and spunky, why the villain was who he was, none of that! I’d left it all up to the imaginati0n of the reader, but now I realize that might’ve been a mistake. I mean, the reasons why we emotionally invest in characters is that we want to know them, not just what they do in a story.

So I’m going to go over the manuscript one more time and see where I can add in more character development. Perhaps then I know it’ll be ready for publication. Heck, my beta reader’s on board with it, so why not?

I’ll let you know how things go after the third draft is done. Hopefully it’ll all go well.

Learning To Do Flash Fiction

I’ve only attempted to write flash fiction once in my life, back in high school. The attempt did not go very well: I was barely able to keep the word count under 1000 words, and the magazine I sent the piece to didn’t like it, something about the twist at the end. I have not attempted to do any sort of fiction under 1000 words since.

However lately I’ve been thinking of trying again. After all, if I can make a meaningful statement in a Facebook status, which is usually less than 100 words, why couldn’t I do a piece of flash fiction? Luckily my creative writing class was having a small lesson on flash fiction this evening, so I got experience from one of the best teachers at Ohio State University. Using examples we had to read for homework, my teacher taught us some things about flash fiction and then left the room to give us time to write our own stories. When he got back, I was eager to read my story to the class. He suggested a change, but then said I had the form down. Considering my first attempt was such a disaster, this was a much-needed piece of encouragement.

So now I’ll touch up the story I wrote in class and write another one that’s been sitting in my disturbed head for a little while. I’ll see if I can get either of them published in a magazine and then post about it here. Wish me luck, folks. I’m embarking on a bit of an adventure for myself, and in less than 2000 words to boot. (speaking of which, this post is 277 words. Who’d have thought?)