Thoughts on writing, more 20 themes

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of St. Volusian

Physics final--I definitely didn't do well, but hopefully the rest of the class didn't either. I feel awful for saying that, but it's true. Your grades pretty much depend on how you do in relation to the rest of the class (at least for introductory science lecture courses). Is it any wonder we're all driven to competitive hysteria?

I worked on more of the Weiß Kreuz 20 themes today. Initially I had foolish ambitions of finishing the project, but apparently I can only write about 300-500 words at a time before I get stuck. (NaNoWriMo participants, please do not gloat. There is a reason that I admit I'm not at all a writer.) Am posting the first nine themes below (I revised some of the older ones, and it's been a while since I posted the first six, so I might as well repost). I sat down and took a better look at all twenty themes, and now have a very loose idea of what the rest is going to be, so hopefully I'll finish the themes by the end of the month. (Yeah, right.)

Also, some thoughts on the way I write fanfiction because it's been a while since I had a long introspective ramble on my LJ. >_> I kept thinking about it while I was constructing themes 7-9 and thought it was worth noting down. Shall cut to spare you the self-absorbed digression. ^_^

I think there are three main elements to the way I write:

1. The only creative writing class I've taken was this Writing & Imagination class at CTY in the summer after fifth grade. We actually did learn quite a lot--about protagonists, about plot structure and conflicts (man vs. man, man. vs. nature, man vs. self), about in media res, about use of tenses, about Shakespearean sonnets and found poems, etc. The main lesson I remember was that old adage, "Show, don't tell." I think I take this advice to extremes though. I am crippled by my inability to write directly about what I want to write about. Usually, the way I narrate a story is to visualize it and then to not write about what's going on as much as possible while still conveying the scene. I mean, the writing process to me is like a paring knife, and it's like playing some sort of game to see how much I can cut away while still leaving something of substance left. It's stupid actually because nothing moves in my writing; there's no development. I tend to visualize the fiction I read, and when I read my own, I see stasis. Of course, that's all very fine for writing drabbles, but occasionally, I have a story I want to tell, and I never seem to get myself to just write and say it. That's one of the reasons why I respect aishuu's writing so much because she has that directness that I can't, for the life of me, manage. Also, memlu because in some of her drabbles, she not only achieves that elegant conciseness I'm unconsciously aiming for but also tells a story in the process.

2. Another educational artifact: I went to elementary school in Texas, and the fourth grade level TAAS test (the statewide standardized exam) had a writing section, which required you to look at a picture and describe what was going on it. At first I tended to sum up the scene in one or two sentences (a rather journalistic approach, I would presume): "The boy bought ice cream after the baseball game" or "The two girls walked home together after school", etc. However, this approach doesn't allow you to write a descriptive passage of sufficient length. So I learned to look for details and build up careful descriptions, sentence by sentence, until I could ostensibly recreate the picture in the mind of a reader who hadn't looked at it. (I think once we actually did an exercise where we would read our descriptions to a classmate who would draw what they imagined from our passages and then compared their drawings to the original.) Ever since then, I've been obsessed with descriptive passages. It's terribly odd because I really enjoy "psychological" fiction, that heavily cerebral writing that focuses intensely on what's going on in the character's mind (Dostoyevsky is a good example), but what I come out with is mostly "descriptive". I mean, it's not that I don't write dialogue--I rather like writing dialogue-only stories, see section on "paring knife" above--but I don't write much about what the character is thinking or feeling. I write about his facial expressions, his movements and gestures--what he is and where he is and who he's with, but mostly external rather than internal. I have written stream-of-consciousness fiction (mostly the creative writing pieces I submitted to various English classes, which required you to try out the technique) but I've almost always adopted first-person for that. My third person voice leans heavily towards impersonal, I think. And oh yes, editing to add that while I'm mentioning favorite writers, I have to say that pornkings somehow does both at once: write externally and internally, excuse the inaccuracy of my terminology. Her fics always somehow submerge you in the character's mind but she also knows exactly how to construct scenes, that crucial moment in the interaction between characters. (I remember there was a particularly fabulous description of a dreamscape in a FMA fic of hers; I always remember that as the perfect combination between "psychological" and "descriptive" writing.)

3. And then, when it comes to the nitty-gritty stringing together phrases and sentences, I'm such a left-brain writer (that may be an oxymoron). I commented about this to worldserpent once. ::coughs:: Writing feels creative to me in the same way writing a mathematical proof feels creative (although mathematics has more constraints and is considerably more difficult). Each word is a variable or function, and constructing sentences and paragraphs is an act of algebraic manipulations--hm, maybe that explains why my fanfiction seems tautological and never manages to say anything new about the known characters (at least in my eyes, anyway). It's actually a lot of fun, although sometimes I wonder if it's not just some pretentious exercise in cryptology--seriously, writing the themes was like inventing riddles--or perhaps a more frivolous version of alchemical codes. It's a lot of fun, although I think from a literary level, it's kind of silly. I think a large part of that is another result of education. My high school was notorious for its English department, and I've grown to love dissecting and analyzing texts (I know, isn't it terribly cold-hearted of me?). Probably some part of my brain thinks that writing should be a reverse process of literary analysis: instead of revealing some underlying theme or element, I bury it instead. >_>

Looking back at the above, it sounds a little self-denigrating. But I don't want to suggest that I'm desperately displeased with my writing because, well, I'm actually not at all a perfectionist about my fanfiction. It's one of the few things I can be so-so at without feeling guilty about it. Hah, Asian child complexes. >_> But I think the modes in which I write and the flaws that result tell me a lot about the way my mind works, although I'm not quite sure what. ^_^

Oh, and here are the themes (as always, feel free to turn this into a guessing game):

Note: set several years after the second season, doesn't take Gluehen into account (since I haven't watched it), may have been influenced by some canon material from the OVAs (which I haven't watched either, but have read summaries for)



I. Rebirth

These days, he wore crisply ironed shirts with tailored suits and shoes polished black. Even his hair seemed darker and more sober, combed back from his forehead--a broad forehead was the sign of leadership, murmured the family physiognomist--and his once-round eyes had turned old.

"Noriyama-/san/," he said, bowing low. Behind him, two unobtrusive men with hands in their pockets stood watch, a step out of hearing. He knew, as well, of two more men, invisible in the shadows, possessing sharper ears.

"Takatori-/san/," the other man replied, bowing in return. In unison, they sat at opposite sides of the table, under the white, soft fluorescent lights, and glanced benignly at one another. Behind him, the shadows shifted.

He no longer enjoyed anonymity. He touched the necktie at his throat.



II. Flower arrangements

He grimaced, as he cut the stems--snip, snip--in sharp angles, at the way his hands moved automatically around the drooping leaves and waxy petals. He watched his fingers move like delicate robotic tools, the graceful curve of his hand around the pale green stem as it placed another flower in the vase. He sat at the center of a ring of circles, shallow vases half filled with water.

A small bell tinkled, and he stood up, a ready smile on his face, scissors still clasped in one hand. "May I help you?"

The woman, petite with glossy grey hair wound up into a prim bun, tiptoed her way through the bursts of orchids and lilies and roses. She stopped before a small pot of miniature violets and reached out to touch a fuzzy, heart-shaped leaf. "How pretty."

He looked past her, still smiling. "They will look charming on a bookcase or a desk. Shall I wrap it up for you, madam?"

She did not answer, intently studying the small flowers. "What a ravishing shade of blue! What are violets in the language of flowers, sir?"

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"What is their meaning? You work with flowers, no?" She gestured at the tables covered with half-finished arrangements.

"Flowers, madam," he answered, ever gracious, ever charming, "are meaningless."



III. Identity

He woke up with a groan, with nothing but his now ragged leather coat, stiff and cold and stained. He rubbed at the pigeon droppings on the sleeve, combed through his long, matted hair, and opened his eyes blearily. It was a calm, cloudy sky, an indifferent sort of day, and he noticed, with some gratitude, that there were only a few people passing by his corner of the sidewalk this morning.

Still, it was difficult to disentangle his thoughts from theirs, and he muttered, "/Zut/--no, shit--does he think I'm, /nein/, damn, oh, stop it, stop it, stop it--"

A coin dropped as a man walked briskly by, and for one delirious moment, he saw himself: sharp, emaciated face; dirt-encrusted nails; dark, patchy coat covered with chalky blotches; leftover /lo mein/ stuck to the cuff of one sleeve. He grinned savagely and said, "They should take these eyesores off the streets; what is /wrong/ with our welfare system, and oh, when I'm president, I'll--"

He caught sight of his dilapidated shoes and sighed. A little girl in a neatly pressed plaid uniform ran up to him, crouched and asked curiously, her eyes soft and blue, "What's your name, Mr. Homeless Man?"

He glanced at her incoherent mind, loud but simple, and could not muster up a smile. "Clarice."

"But that's /my/ name," she exclaimed, as a woman ran up to grab her by the arm. "You can't have /my/ name, Mr.--"

"Clarice, I've told you to leave those people alone. They don't want to be bothered by little girls!" the woman scolded sharply as she dragged the girl away.

"He looked dangerous," he echoed, in a mocking tone, and laughed hoarsely.



IV. Wire

They kept him in a cell, with pure white walls and endless light, his arms wrapped around his chest in a permanent self-embrace. For weeks, he had not felt the pain of blades against his skin; instead he let his eyes roll back, and he screamed and screamed the frantic frenzy seeping through his mind. They watched him scream through their little white cameras and whispered to one another, a soft susurrus of sound that tickled its way into his ears and made him, just a little bit, more sane. He fell momentarily silent, then resumed screaming.

Once a week--they were not cruel--he was led down a white corridor to a door that let him into a sooty little courtyard fenced in by barbed wire. A woman waited just inside the door, her dress as white as the rooms within, and watched him with blank, benevolent eyes. He paced along the courtyard, noting the rubble of broken bricks, the dull green of weeds within the concrete cracks, the torn and twisted wire. The sky was gray and the sun shone luminously white behind the thick veils of clouds, but here, the ground was painted with faded yellow lines that crisscrossed and went nowhere. These shadows of colors fascinated him, and he tried to remember the color he liked best--

"No, don't touch that," the woman scolded as she snatched his hand back from the sharp jagged edge of the fence. "You would have hurt yourself, sir," she told him, taking a firm grip on his elbow. "Perhaps you should come back inside."

They strapped his arms back into the jacket. He started screaming when they closed the door behind them.



V. Fluid

/Today,/ he wrote in his journal (he still kept a journal after all these years), /I woke up to find the tree outside my window turned red overnight. I think it's a maple./

He poised the fountain pen against his cheek, oblivious to the ink slowly staining his skin. He crossed out the last sentence.

/This morning, I delivered arrangements of acacias and chrysanthemums for a cherished daughter's wedding, a bouquet of roses for a grandmother's birthday, and a corsage of carnations for a young girl's first dance./ He set the period and let the pen rest there, the edges of the blot forming rivulets along the fine fibers of the page.

Somewhere, beneath the pool of ink, lay the words he could not write: the father's last words, the grandson's frozen eyes, the first love's bright blood.



VI. Thoughts

Once a year, he returned to the /dojo/ where he learned how to kill. He bowed as he entered, knelt and bowed to the empty room, stood and bowed to the invisible opponent. His sword was not strapped to his back but held at his side, and he drew it deliberately and slowly from the sheath. With this enemy at least, there was no element of surprise.

When he exited, his hair was damp and his breath came in sputtering gasps, though he had not moved.

"Where did you go?"

"To clear my mind."

"That's not an answer."

He did not reply, his hands still clenched.

After an awkward pause, "Did it work?"

He swallowed an inarticulate cry of unspoken confusion, and he replied, his voice steady, "It never does."



VII. One night, the moon

He still woke from nightmares, his face drenched in sweat, his mouth half-open in a strangled cry, his arms reaching out for a phantom face. On those nights, he did not return to sleep but instead sat by the windowsill and read mystery novels until the sky glowed red. (His window faced east. The room was never dark on clear nights.) He imagined the blood and filth, the pale underbelly of the horrific human worm, revealed strategically until it was dissected into harmless pieces and anesthetized. He closed the book before the alarm clock rang.

Once he found himself clutching an old worn stuffed rabbit, one paw ragged with teeth marks, and instead of retreating to his seat by the window, he took a blade and opened each poorly-stitched seam. He disconnected the threads holding the button eyes, detached the simple embroidery of the nose and mouth, sliced the velveteen lining of the long ears into ribbons. He looked at the collection of cloth and soggy stuffing in his hands and watched it levitate away into the few shadows left in the room.



VIII. Colours

He now knew that Teiresias must have lost his sight one retina cell at a time. First, the focus: outlines merged and disappeared, the distance was but a haze of motion. Then, the peripheries: the tunnel that defined the limits of vision closed as if he were looking through a telescope at an alien world. Now, the tones and shades: no longer blue nor green nor gold nor violet. He discerned what few shapes were left visible to him in red, as if he had dripped blood into the vitreous humor of his eyes.

When he closed those slowly deteriorating eyes, he could see more clearly than ever before, time slicing itself apart into images slipped one by one into his mind. They were, however, black-and-white snapshots. All things considered, he thought, he preferred to keep his eyes open.



IX. Talents/abilities

The old flower shop was on a corner, next to the Chinese take-out place. Its doors were open, but the dust had been sitting on the step, unswept, for the past week. What was in the shop? Its shelves were well-stocked with roses and chrysanthemums, with carnations and orchids, with irises and daffodils. Its floor was well-occupied with pots of young bamboo, with huge bouquets of sunflowers, with piles of wicker baskets and thick ceramic vases. In a corner, a broom, a mop, a watering can. At the counter, a cashier, a pair of scissors, rolls of ribbons and cellophane.

Behind the counter, a small assortment of abandoned curios that customers never saw:
          black lacquered /tsuba/
          neatly folded list of 15-digit numbers
          tinted goggle lens
          unwrapped condom
          insurance bill stub with the Kritiker seal
          roll of wire
          unwashed gray wristbands
          glass vial labeled "diazepam"

TBC

Yours &c.

Comments

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

II. Flower arrangements is the outstanding one here. The end line is so chilling...

Really liked that, though I might have been tempted to use Youji instead of Ken (though Ken worked better than Omi or Aya would).

[troisroyaumes]

Thanks! Although, er, II is Youji. Ken is a different theme. ^_^ At least that was what I intended. ^_^ I suppose we were thinking the same thing after all. And whew, very relieved you liked the last line. (I had some second thoughts about it, but now am reassured that it works.)