There Must Always Be Evil
How does good writing find an equilibrium?
A couple thoughts on this have come to me, ultimately in the form of a lovely tree. There is a fulsome, spreading top of the tree, then narrowing to specific observations and forms down the trunk and to the supporting roots.
First, there comes the broad overview. I will draw from something my first (and still brilliant) law partner, Terry Crumpler started doing many years ago. It is called ’TAYC’.
A superbly effective transactional (real estate, business, securities and the like) lawyer, he was and is naturally precise, yet that skill set does not just magically appear with each new file and case. Every matter must be molded, kneaded, massaged and shaped. And too, keep in mind, that kind of lawyer charges by the hour and must itemize and describe his activities performed on the matter within an hour or any tenth thereof. So the lawyer has to get his head in the game and do much analysis. Most of these kinds of cases are large and complicated. One missed jot or tittle and the case and its planned outcome can come tumbling down.
When Terry presents his bills to his clients, there is always at the end of the accounting, a 5% add-on which is headed ‘TAYC’. When queried on this, Terry would explain ‘TAYC’ means 'Thinking About Your Case’. He would go on to explain, “I think about your case in the shower, in the car, in the grocery store, everywhere, any time, all the time…”He has never had a client reject it or object to it. It is the power of active, substantive thinking.
And if we are writers, so must we. No, we are not presenting a due bill to anyone save ourselves but if we are creating something, then we are thinking about it all the time or we better be!
I had the privilege of hearing the great Joyce Carol Oates speak about her writing at last year’s wonderful (and pre-COVID-19 too!) Charleston to Charleston Book Festival. She is still actively teaching at Princeton, an octogenarian, a tiny lady who is prolific and successful and who, oh just by the way, loves boxing. Her ‘points of view’ are many and multi-directional. Among many observations and thoughts she shared was she spends much more time walking and jogging (she emphasized the ‘jog’ in jogging) and riding her bike and thinking about her next book than she does actually writing it. And most of this is before she ever puts the first words to paper.
So, ‘TAYC’ for us airing scriveners evolves into ‘TAMB’…Thinking About My Book. Makes perfect sense to me.
Hey Vernon, so where’s The Evil? Hang on. It’s coming.
Secondly, once we have our book in our head, now it is time to create and develop protagonists and antagonists. And here is where to me, the observation and creation of evil, of bad is so important. As the old song says, “Beauty is only skin deep but ugly is to the bone."
Recently, I’ve been party to a malevolent and hideously manipulated scene. I have a good friend who been betrayed, lied to, lied to some more, ripped off, pushed around, belittled and generally and totally trashed by an amoral narcissist whose selfish self-interest is the one and only goal of that rotten life.
There is very little I can do save try to be supportive and when asked questions, try to answer and respond to them honestly and calmly. This whole thing will in time pass but as always, there be scars that linger. It is part of the Human Condition.
But there is another part of this sad matter that is a quiet, weird positive to me. In observing and mentally ‘taking notes’ as to what is going on here in this dumpster fire, I am discovering and building character traits and characters that I can paint out of whole cloth. It is one thing to say they are bad; it is quite another thing to make them bad. And once you have gotten the devil into the details, you can create the positive as well. But I do respectfully submit, work the dark side first.
And remember, no good read from The Bible to Shakespeare is without these bleak and damned creatures.
Lastly, I also recall Oates said that as she goes about her thinking, before she begins to write, she knows both the beginning and the ending of her forthcoming book. And then, she says, she knits and connects them together. It sounds both plausible and improbable but I am working toward this goal on my next one. We will see…
So, get out there and think and observe and write!