While reading "Chapter VI: Outlines" of Jon Franklin's Writing for Story, I had this strange sensation that the author was speaking directly to me. A true fighter of outlining, Franklin seemed to call out my resistance as a measure of literary and, perhaps, intellectual weakness. Initially offended by his pompous, cheeky declarations that all writers of merit from the last 500 years have used outlines, I found myself reconsidering his remarks once he gave some concrete, more relatable examples. Personally, I identified with his example of a writer who sets out with a great idea but only a vague concept of where the story will actually go. While it is easy going at first, soon the writer's progress slows, the details get confused, and the story line becomes muddled. A stubborn writer might plow ahead for a few hundred words more, a smarter writer would realized they've been "spaghettied." I definitely have been "spaghettied" uncountable times.
Looking back, I really do appreciate how Franklin addressed the problem of outlining. I think he acknowledges outlining as a very basic, yet frequent problem that seems to stump young writers. Specifically for me, outlines always seemed so daunting. The student examples that Franklin provides, however, illustrate that outlines don't necessarily need to be complex, just well thought out.
Finally, I found this section particularly helpful and relevant in light of our Personal Narrative workshops last week. Many of us, myself included, had problems discerning the true focus of our pieces. We tended to start telling the story in one place, then ending up somewhere completely different. I think we can definitely apply some of Franklin's outlining theory to our future work in this class. By thinking through our stories ahead of time and determining what exactly we want our readers to come away with, it will make the whole writing process a lot easier.
Questions to consider:
1. Did you find Franklin's authoritative voice commanding and reassuring or disheartening and stressful? Did he ever provoke an emotional response in you? If so, when and what was the response? My own feelings toward him seemed to fluctuate depending on how much I related with the different topics that he addressed.
2. In the section titled "The Moment of Truth" located in Chapter VII: Structuring the Rough, Franklin swears that if a writer begins his or her story at the end, working backward to fill in the transitory and preparatory narrative, it will be a hundred times easier to write. Have any of you ever written a story from back to front? If so, do you find Franklin to be right? If not, is this a tactic you are willing to try? Why or why not?
3. This book was first published in 1986. Do you find aspects of it outdated or irrelevant to what we know about writing for story today? Or, are the author's points so classic and concrete that they have, in a sense, become timeless?
Alaina—I had a very similar experience while reading this book. Franklin’s voice comes across as quite cheeky—apparently he wants to kill my babies—but at the same time, I trusted his authoritative voice. I recognized all sorts of “mistakes” I have made in my own writing—such as trying to polish while writing my rough draft and getting too attached to my initial wording.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the book is pretty ballsy—yet very instructive. He’s giving readers samples of his own work and then references different elements in both short stories, explaining why they were successful stories. Part of the reason I trusted him is that he showed while telling: in addition to his two short stories, he included writing samples along with every new technique he presented.
The chapter on outlining shocked me: I expected Franklin to feed me some kind of drawn out formula for writing my story. His outline is scarily simple yet precise. The idea of a story outline for a nonfiction piece is not at all instinctual for me—and yet it seems like it will actually help with accuracy and keeping the major conflict and framework in mind at all times. I’m excited to write/read others’ new pieces after getting some good insight from our new friend, Jon!
Hi Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found Franklin's advice useful to your writing, and I'm glad you re-focused my attention on his suggestion that writers begin at the end of the story. You mentioned how his advice could be particularly helpful to the writers in our workshop last week. Do you plan on reverse-engineering your personal narrative using Franklin's formula? The true test of validating his ideas are if we actually use them in our work. I'm inspired by your reading of him, and though I've got a bad attitude, I'll try see what his structure does for my piece, which does lack a central conflict-resolution narrative.
Elaine
Alaina,
ReplyDeleteI also had an experience quite like yours, in fact, Franklin inspired me. Not for a moment did I find his tone to be cheeky. He seemed to be laying himself out--admitting his mistakes, granted, he does so with his present knowledge that everyone, yes everyone, makes these mistakes. I don't find that to be cheeky at all, it's quite heartening. I'm often a self-doubter when it comes to my writing--especially when it is personal (which it almost always is) and seeing his past thoughts of self-doubt on the page and contrasting that with the confidence with which he writes in "Writing for Story", he gave me hope and a tool with which to improve in a concrete way.