Okay, here we go. This is our sanding conference, so called. And I'm happy to welcome Zenzele Price, she is a sophomore here at Wesleyan. Zenzele, thanks for doing this. >> Thanks for having me. >> Zenzele, you're also a senior fellow here at the Shapiro Creative Writing Center, so you know this building very well. In the piece here, this is called the Corner Table, it's the beginning. Do you want to tell us what stage of composition this whole piece is in? >> Sure, I just completed the rough draft of the entire piece last night, so this is sort of like the rough draft of the rough draft. But, this is maybe the third page in the entire piece, which is about 15 pages long. >> I see, so other pages proceed this? >> Yes. >> I see, very good. Okay, well, what you've very graciously volunteered to do is to just go through this page line by line. And so you know the students in this class, they've had their whole drafts at this point critiqued by peers. But those are sort of macro level of concerns, and now, we're going to invite people to make very, very small sorts of changes. And they're the kinds of things that writers do for themselves all the time. But that I think can sometimes be helpful to see, just what other people have noticed about their language level decisions, their sentence level decisions. So students have already read this. And let's get going, okay? By the way, everything that I say in here is provisional. I'm hoping to just bring things up for you to question. And then of course, you make the decisions. So we were joking before. I have the pencil, but you have the pen. I will make suggestions, but the decisions should be ultimately, your decisions. Especially in a manuscript like this, which I have to tell you, has basically no mechanical flaws so far as I can see. Very often, one of the most important things to be looking for syntax and grammar, even spelling, those are obviously important things if you want people to take your work seriously and have an immersive experience. Okay, so here we go. I'm just going to read it out loud, and then I'll stop where I have anything to question. Can I get you folks anything to drink? Virginia asked. A minivan peeled out of the parking lot. Period, the family period. I like that fragment there incidentally. People sometimes wonder, you say a family, people sometimes when is a fragment useful, when is it important? It's usually a rhythmic thing. But the challenge all the time with a fragment is, is it really clear? To me, it's perfectly clear that this is an observation, that there's a family inside this minivan, so I think that works pretty well. The sun had not yet touched the flat Wisconsin horizon line, but she could feel the breeze shifting. Okay, so I sort of think of some of the things that I'm going to talk about, I'll sort of make a list in the margin of things to be concerned about. So one thing that I would question always is redundancies. Specifically horizon line. >> Yeah. >> What do you think I'm going to say about that? >> That it is redundant. >> Why? >> Because horizon implies a line. >> Yeah, exactly, and especially, I think the reason this might of come up in this particular moment is that, you're underscoring in a good way, you're giving us the setting of Wisconsin, and this is I guess a prairie kind of landscape. And that the horizon is especially flat. It's not as in Connecticut, for example, where you see the tops of trees everywhere you look toward the horizon. But since you've already said that it is flat, and it's the horizon, I think one or another of those words in there should go, because we know, you've made the point of its flatness. I would say flat Wisconsin horizon. Something like that, okay. The sun had not yet touched the flat horizon line comma, but she could feel the breeze shifting, that but wobbles for me. The implication of but is always that there's progression of the previous line, and then there's a clear turn that contrasts with it. The sun had not yet touched the flat horizon, Wisconsin horizon line, means to me that it's coming on sunset. But she could feel the breeze shifting implies somehow that breezes shift at sunset inherently. And that's not quite right. What do you think, what was that but really about? >> It's implying that although the sun hasn't gone down yet, the weather is changing, but those two aren't direct contradictory. >> Well, they don't need to contradict, they just to contrast a little bit. So if I were you, I like the idea that there's a turn here, but but implies a contrasting turn. You might, for example, a semicolon, instead of the comma but might work there. Because a semicolon implies a close connection, but also a contrast suggestion. However would be too strong, but is too strong. >> How about though? I think it has the same problem. >> Okay. >> Yeah, semicolon does not contradict the previous thing. You could also just have a period and a new sentence, there's nothing wrong with that. Okay, water, he said. I often would put the words ant.?, on a manuscript like this around the word he or she. Ant is short for antecedent. And do you remember what the antecedent is? >> I recall learning about it. >> The antecedent is, think of ante, the beginning. It's the thing that comes before a pronoun, to which the pronoun is referring. And it's very important thing I think that I find for a creative piece like this. You've often imagined things very clearly, and you see things. You know exactly to what you're pointing, but the reader doesn't necessarily. And that's why I think when you use a pronoun, such as he, she, it, they, them, that it be clear what that pronoun is pointing to. And specifically, almost all the time that that pronoun points to a noun that comes before it. That's what antecedent implies. So I want to propose to you a little pocket rule that I use. Imagine that the pronoun is referring to the most recent noun to which it could agree in gender and number. So I see water, he said, and then I go back in my mind, rather I go back on the page, and I look for a singular man. >> Right. And because I don't find one, I get confused. I think people often will want to introduce a he or a she or something like that, then say to the reader implicitly, hold on. The noun is coming. And the reader doesn't know that you're saying, hold on. The reader usually thinks, Zenzele thinks I know what that he refers to. And I don't so I'm confused. Do you see what I mean? >> Yes. >> So I think for the purposes of the pieces, I understand it so far. I think it's important for you, you seem to be withholding a little bit the identity of this character and that's important. So to me it would be clearer if you in someway identified him otherwise.

>> Right. >> The boy, the young man, whatever way. So to boil all of this down, write with nouns and verbs rather than pronouns. Look at your pronouns and question your pronouns. And always ask, is the antecedent of this pronoun clear? Okay, the clouds bunched together, bloated with gathering condensation. I think one thing to look for often in revision is truism.

Truism is saying something that's always true. >> Mm-hm. >> And that doesn't need to be distinguished, because clouds are gatherings of condensation inherently. >> Yes. >> I really like the idea that you're pointing at this particular moment up into the sky.

It gives us an ambience. But I want something more particular and needful at that point. >> Okay. >> There's going to be a storm, Virginia said, too quietly to be directed to anyone but herself. Just water, he said. He had heard her but he had not cared. That's really sort of a devastating line. I like that. Here, he had heard her, but he had not cared, all of those pronouns are clear at this point. >> Okay. >> For the first time, she got a good look at him.

Her heart just about stopped. Okay our students will know that from a previous course we have come up with a list of words always to consider cutting and the word just is a special everybody has their pet peeves, I think that just and words like it, tend to function as a slight approximations moving slightly this way or slightly that way and you want as much as possible to use the precise word that you want. I suspect you put that just about in their to inflect the language little bit in a direction of her voice, however. And I like that, I have to admit. So, this is an example of where we've talked in previous classes about grace versus clarity. And maybe grace versus, in this case, concision. >> Mm-hm. >> You want to have a sense of this person's voice. But I wonder if it's possible to use language here that is both concise and under literary compression, and also in some way inflected to her language. What do you think about that? What do you think about the just there? >> I'm not married to it. But I do agree, I had it in there because I felt that, that's the way the character's voice would describe that.

I don't feel like it takes away from the action. But, I'm open to hearing how it might. >> Yeah, yeah so an important time with any kind of rule that we've talked about. We've talked about it in this class. Any kind of rule that you have in your mind, I think.

For me, I always like to think of it as use it first and foremost as an opportunity to generate alternatives, not to force yourself to do it the way the rule says. So, if you have a teacher who is really pushy about the word just. And says cut the word just out every time. I think what that really means is rephrase it to yourself without the just, take a step back and choose.

Instead of saying I know what I like, I'm sure that it's right just think okay her heart about stopped versus her heart just about stopped and think about it and then make a decision, okay.

He was a young man by then. I want specificity. >> Okay. >> As much as possible.

The next couple of lines, he was a young man by then. That had never occurred to her. The then and the that, those are not nouns and verbs for example. I don't exactly know what time this is. >> Mm-hm. >> And I could use it. >> Okay. >> I could use detail on rather than, the word then here could be pointing to some previous time but I think you mean it to be pointing to this time right here. >> I do. >> So that's ambiguous to me. >> Okay. >> Yeah, pushing an ambiguities that had never occurred to her the antecedent of the pronoun that is not is not quite applying to me here. In general I get the meaning of it but I wouldn't know sentence by sentence.

She did not recall him as a person but rather a bundle of sensory details, nice. A flash in time, the smell of glue now I'm starting to get what's going my gosh this is her child, a clammy hand gripping her own, a sniffling nose. A tinny voice wailing in the other room. Wailing is very nice, all those sounds are really great. He just comes perfectly. Suddenly there is a baby in front of me even though this person is a young man already. In the other room, however, I would push on that. Specify what other room, can you say in the, I mean

when did he sleep, where were they living, were they living in a motel, did she give him up wailing in the back seat of the car or were they, other room is again points vaguely I want it to, I want a word that gives me specific.

Physical life as the rest of that paragraph does. She had envisioned this moment. How could she help it? Each musing had ended with something broken, left her sweating in her bed. Something broken?

>> Yeah, exactly so the word, I'm just going to put it in our margin here. Look for vagueness. Always look for vagueness. It sounds good. It sounds emotionally like, well, like it's pointing to something. >> Yeah. >> But whenever you find yourself using the word something, that's an opportunity for you to say what that thing is. >> Right. >> What exactly had broken?

Okay, let's keep going. She didn't question that he would end up here. Here, okay, two states away from where she had raised him, I see. She didn't question that she would wind up in the town she happened to reside in. I wonder if we could maybe specify the name of the town. >> Mm-hm. >> The diner she happened to work in, >> Maybe specify the diner or that, you note. >> Mm-hm. >> And here in Baraboo, Wisconsin. >> Mm-hm. >> At Rita's diner, who knows? Or the table she happened to favor. It had always seemed to her. I don't know what the it is. >> Right. >> Right, if you use that rule it most recently could point to table and that's certainly not what you mean. Had always seemed to her an inevitability. I'm not sure what it is inevitability. >> Mm. >> I think what you're trying to say is that some, she always, She knew that someday she would meet her son again, or something- >> Yes. >> More, something that is fessing up about what's really being spoken of. She would have to answer him surely. Just as she would answer to the Lord when He chose to pluck her from this Earth. The one thing I would, okay, we could always cut just. >> Yeah.

>> We talked about writing with nouns and verbs, not adverbs and adjectives. So, it's reasonable I think always to be suspicious or just to ask yourself, whether the adverb is really necessary. In this case, surely, she would have to answer him, answer to him, that's very emphatic. >> Mm-hm. >> She would have to answer to him. Surely, to me is implied in the language there. >> Okay. >> You're going to have to do this. Surely, is a little spokenism, that is not quite to me, necessary, as a lot of adjectives, I think you'll find are. >> Mm-hm. >> So I would search for adverbs and question them. Specifically ask, is the work of this adverb already being done by the verb, I think would have to, I think it is. Or, in other cases, is the adverb there because the verb is too approximate? And then consider the possibility of picking a better verb. >> Right. >> Right, I think we've talked about this in our class. Okay, then I'll just go through this one more paragraph here.

She had envisioned this moment, let it play out in maudlin agony in her waking dreams for years. One small thing, you have the four years. English is peculiar, it's not the only language that's like this, but a special emphasis in English is on a placement of the words, with respect to other words. In Ancient Greek for example, you could put an adjective way at the end of the sentence and that doesn't matter because of the endings will match up. >> Mm-hm. >> Here, you say she had envisioned, and then for years, comes much later, but, see that phrase, for years, that actually modifies envisioned. >> True. >> It doesn't modify waking dreams, it doesn't modify maudlin or agony. >> Mm-hm. >> You know what I mean, or play out. So I think always keeping the thing modified, keep the modifier close to the thing modified.

And then one more things that I like, was to the thing modified.

This is a little trick I like to use. But she had not planned for it, because no matter how many times she had pictured this encounter at the bus stop, in the gas station, it, the ticket liner, the ticket in that should be in. >> Yes. >> Okay, there, we did find one typo in the ticket line of the theater, she never had anything to say. I think that the word, because, is something that a fiction writer, it's really useful to look for that word, look for, because, look for so, why, because. When you say, because, you're introducing an argument, you're giving the reader an explanation. What you could often do, is replace the word, because, with a period, and then a capital letter afterward. And what often happens then, is that you turn something from an explanation to an action. >> Mm-hm. So if I said that, Zenzele went to the store, because she was hungry. I'm asking for you to believe me. If I say, Zenzele went to the store period, she was hungry period, those are facts of the world. That is reality, that is, it's dramatization. So we talk about moving from summary to dramatization, from summary to scene, that's one way to do it. Here, I think it's interesting, I think I like the idea that you're expanding on her motivation.

And yet, agony in her waking dreams for years, but she had not planned for it.

Period, no matter how many times she had pictured this encounter, at the bus stop, she had never had anything to say. That, because, is implied. Do you know what I mean? And you don't ask for us to agree with you, you take your place and you say, I'm the god of this story. I made this woman and she's going, [LAUGH] I decide. And the reader accepts that implicitly, and the reader questions a little bit when start to go into, because and so. So that's all I got on one page. >> All right.

>> You should take or leave any of that. >> I will take much of it. >> Okay. >> [LAUGH] >> Thank you very much. [LAUGH]

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