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1 book rec on writing

Murder your darlings

Write with intention

Toolbox, ages 9 to 99

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McCann Arena in Poughkeepsie can seat 3200 people and I sat among scattered fans to check out Army’s first scrimmage of the season. Army beat Marist in volleyball, but I am not writing to tell you about the match.

The venue was a huge gym with retractable bleachers on each wall, electronic mega boards in opposite corners. It was easy to see the score. The groundskeeper walked in with a large white dog at his heels, a beloved campus fixture a local explained.

I had stopped by the restrooms after the match. There is one way to enter and one way to exit. Last week I turned onto my lane and had to slow down, as a low creature stole across the front of my car. It tucked in beneath a white driveway gate which was lit and I could make out the tawny fur and snout of the fox. It had been some time since I’d seen it. A year, maybe more.

The red fox as it turns out is the Marist mascot. This particular fox must have his den nearby since it’s the same place I’ve spotted him before. I’m not much for premonitions, but I too am a creature of habit. At the library last week, I stopped by the Dewey 808 stack on writing and literature, then dragged over the wood stool. One book. I limited myself to one book because I have $3.60 in fines for books I still have out.

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In the volume I borrowed that day, author and writing coach Marion Roach Smith put down five pithy chapters on writing. Life in the Morgue, the last chapter, reminds us of the adage to murder your darlings. This idea, long held in the writing sphere, is to cut your special passages, favorite and fancy writing and scenes. Kill ’em. Unless they support your singular point of view or the storyline, they go. This theme fits the chapter title with her tagline, Editing is the perfect murder.

I want to share this passage with you. The anecdote is a page long and Smith writes about a class she taught which often included students from the artistic community of Woodstock, with perhaps “more poets and potters there than anywhere else on earth.” In one class, students shared what they are going to write. Three women who attended happened to be weavers: two sisters and a best friend. They explained that they were in her class to write the story of the recent death of the younger sister’s husband. They would do so “for one another, not for publication; it was how they chose to honor his life.”

The next week, the women arrived in class, each with her version of the death.

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But they had switched seats, the two women no longer cushioning the young widow. This time, she was last of the three, as first her sister read a piece about taking the call that no one wants to receive. Her sister was a widow. The best friend wrote of standing in the sun at the memorial, looking out over what would need to be the future for them all.

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And then the little sister read. Maybe she was thirty, married for only a few years, deeply in love with her husband, and after I tell you the next detail, you will never forget it, perhaps even thinking of it most nights, as I do, all these years later, when I climb into bed with my husband. The night her husband died, her sister stayed on after everyone else left. At bedtime, she asked her little sister how he had held her at night, and gently cupping one hand on her shoulder and the other over her hip, just as he always had, they fell asleep.

Marion Roach Smith. The Memoir Project, a Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life, 2011. Page 108.

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Smith closes the passage with this statement.

“That’s the kind of detail you never edit out.”

To write is to rewrite. To edit, revise, cut. Murder your darlings. Smith shows us what is essential.

In this TreeHouseLetter, I am sharing with you how the mind works: the scrimmage at Marist will disappear. There may be images of my daughter serving an ace, making a kill, the feel of the bright and loud arena. But these details are similar to many memories, over many years.

The Marist Red Fox and the fox at the end of the lane, the dog at the heels of the groundskeeper, the bathroom with its one-way-in and one-way-out coalesce and linger. I’m reading this passage about the young widow. We come into this world and we leave this world. The teacher remembers the widow’s story among many, hundreds and thousands of students.

The weavers of Woodstock came for one another, not for publication, because it [the story] needed to exist. The widow came to Smith’s class to get it down. Such writing takes on a quality of its own, and last night as I got into bed, I could almost feel the hand on her sister’s hip as I drifted asleep.

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FOOTNOTE

*Marion Roach Smith. The Memoir Project – A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life, 2011. 114 pages. (4.6 stars, 1500+ ratings) “The Weavers of Woodstock” is a section in Chapter 5. The message of the book: Write with intention. Have a purpose in all you write. I’ve read it twice. The objective of this passage is to share the essential detail. The first reading of the book, I took notes on each chapter but nothing captures the stories, anecdotes and life lessons as reading it again does. This is helpful for creative nonfiction writers, but it is good for anyone who wants to improve their writing. Her titles are like her writing, memorable and relevant to craft: (1) You Must be Present to Win (2) Galileo in Wal Mart (3) Having Sex with Roger (4) The Barbie-Bodied Book (5) Life in the Morgue. The taglines are as fun as the chapter titles, but no more spoilers. Want more? Then read the book. Libraries have it. Check out this link.