Ocean Vuong on choosing your words carefully

Last year, I read Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and was stunned by his poise: how he could write with astounding acuity and wisdom while bearing such weight of emotion. “There is poetry and there is the noveI,” I said at the time. “This book is both and neither. It is an ark for all that he has wondered at and those he has most cared for up to this point. Part memory, part reverie, but nothing like an autobiography.”

What a joy to discover Ocean was the latest guest on Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast. In a beautiful and tender conversation with the host, recorded at the On Air Fest in Brooklyn, he talked about how his heritage and family have informed his work. What really fascinated me was his perspective on language: how our careful choice of words can help us access one another’s true feelings and make meaning. We are all participants in the future of language, says Vuong.

“The body is the ultimate witness to love. We [in Vietnamese culture] don’t say we love you. Through the body and service, you articulate it through paying attention. Nothing can say I love you more than feeling it from somebody and I think this relationship is how I started to see words. I looked at them as things I can move and care for.

“My grandmother, mother and aunt would tell stories to recalibrate and make sense of their past. A story is carried in the body and it’s edited each time the person tells it. What you have by the time they tell it is a masterclass of form, technique, concision, imagery... This is what these women were giving me.”

He then asks: “What happens to our language, this great, advanced technology that we’ve had, when it starts to fail at its function and it starts to obscure, rather than open? The great loss is that we can move through our whole lives, picking up phones and talking to our most beloveds, and yet, still not know who they are. Our ‘How are you?' has failed us. We have to find something else. When you’re using language, you can create it, use it to divide people and build walls, or you can turn it into something where we can see each other more clearly, as a bridge.”

And I must mention this bit about following your own path. I am not an artist but as the child of immigrants who had quite a different outlook to me, it cut deep. “The first generation made it here, and to live at all is such a privilege that they’re happy, and even encourage you to put your head down: work, fade away, get your meals, and live a quiet life. And I think the second generation, the great conundrum there, the great paradox, is that they want to be seen. They want to make something. And what a better way to make something and feel yourself with agency than to be an artist? So, so many of us immigrant children end up betraying our parents in order to subversively achieve our parents’ dreams.”

It’s not enough to read this author. You need to hear Ocean’s voice to feel the fullness of his being. Please listen to the full podcast here.

Night moves

Fiction writing is intimidating. Perhaps I have spent too long pouring over reality and obsessing about truth to let imagination be my guide. But as a copywriter and scriptwriter it is important to have fun with language. We should take any opportunity to experiment and provoke new thoughts and feelings in our readers. And why feel anxious? Break it down and a story is words, sentences and paragraphs. Those are the tools of our trade.

So it was a pleasure to contribute to Ellen Crane’s marvellous Seed project on Instagram. It’s a simple concept: she assigns one image to three writers at a time and asks them to tell a story in 100 words or less. Each caption is a unique interpretation – suggestive yet revealing. If done well, it should trigger a what-happens-next wonder. I hope mine does that for you.

Want to have a go? Then email Ellen.

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Night came as we lay there, skin on skin, cocooned from reality in the valley. Our hearts beating for life beside one another. It felt like a tender caress. My caress. The kind that suspended time. It felt like the first time. But it wasn’t. My body could have been any-body. After little Naima passed, lust became a figment of all that I yearned for in D. Where did he go in those moments and to who? Or was it I that had transported myself, to my darkest fantasy. I had to know... The next day, I made the call. Seed by @amarofpatel. Image by @nangoldinstudio.

A post shared by Seed. (@the.story.seed) on Sep 9, 2019 at 6:42am PDT

Five ways to be a better writer by Stephen King

On Writing has been on my reading list for a few years now. For me, Stephen King’s allure stems from a slew of film adaptations I gorged on as a teen including Carrie, IT and Needful Things. And who remembers that Castle Rock Entertainment logo at the beginning of many of them into the Nineties? It definitely had me reaching for the nearest atlas (this was pre-Internet, can you imagine).

Maine was a fascinating place. Spooky, weird … all was not quite as it seemed. A far cry from Brighton seaside where I grew up. But back to the books… I did read one or two of them, I promise. Not quite the texts my English teacher was suggesting but there’s only so much JD Salinger and Graham Greene a young boy can absorb. King’s gift has always been his ability to spark the imagination with a sweet kernel of an idea, often a dark and suspenseful premise, and teleport the reader into that world.

On Writing takes an interesting approach to the subject matter. Part memoir, part handbook, we get a real sense of Steve the person and Stephen the author being formed in tandem. A few revelations along the way too, including his struggles with addiction. It all makes sense now, if you think about it. I mean, some of those ideas were quite out there. You can only find them on the edge. But King would dispute that. As he writes in the book: “Substance-abusing writers are just substance abusers – common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words.”

Anyway, I thought I would share some of my favourite bits of advice from On Writing. You will have your own so make sure you get a copy. It’s one to go back to again and again.

1. “THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH ADVERBS.”
This is a contentious one. Some people think that adverbs and adjectives are tools to harness to add description and colour. King says they are a sign of fear, that the writer is afraid he/she is not getting the point across clearly enough. I would say use them sparingly. The bestselling author has his gripes but he is not a pedant. He knows what is most important. Avoid muddying clarity with poor spelling and grammar, of course. However, "The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story."

2. THE KEY TO GOOD DESCRIPTION BEGINS WITH CLEAR SEEING AND ENDS WITH CLEAR WRITING, THE KIND OF WRITING THAT EMPLOYS FRESH IMAGES AND SIMPLE VOCABULARY.”
In other words, avoid cliches. King loves the hardboiled detective fiction of the Forties and Fifties. Master exponents such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross MacDonald. Two brilliant examples he gives are: “ It was darker than a carload of assholes (George V Higgins) and “I lit a cigarette [that] tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief” (Chandler). Have fun with it.

3. MAKE YOUR DIALOGUE “TRUE TO LIFE”, NOT ONLY TO “A CERTAIN WAY OF LIFE”.
Writing good dialogue is art as well as craft, we’re told. In the book, King includes an extract from Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool and praises the author for his “street poetry”. The ability to make their talk so real that the reader feels they are eavesdropping on an important conversation. Through a seemingly inconsequential exchange, Leonard skilfully introduces Chili and Tommy as players and possibly phonies. But he’s smart enough to not give the game away in a shot.

4. “THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ARE THE HARDEST THINGS TO SAY.”
This is a really fascinating point. We think of words as being the tools of expression. A means to convey how we feel. But they can also “diminish your feelings” as King explains. He is making the distinction between what is said and what is meant. As the philosopher Confucius wrote, “Words cannot express all words.” Or as WH Auden put it, “One notices, if one will trust one's eyes, the shadow cast by language upon truth.”

So choose your words carefully, dig for them, use your instinct if you must, but don’t become too attached to any particular ones you find.

5. “YOU CAN’T AIM A BOOK LIKE A CRUISE MISSILE.”
An obvious one but impossible to overstate. Share your world, your life experience, in your own way. “One cannot imitate a writer’s approach to a particular genre, no matter how simple what the writer is doing may seem,” says King. “People who decide to make a fortune writing like John Grisham or Tom Clancy [two other film adaptation favourites] produce nothing but pale imitations, by and large, because vocabulary is not the same thing as feeling and plot is light years from the truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.”

From the vaults – Stranger in a strange land

Fiction isn't really my forte but after mentoring at the Ministry of Stories, working on more scripts for clients and discovering genre-bending series such as Wormwood, I have begun to question my own limitations. And what a feeling. It's healthy to embrace whatever you think you are least capable of. 

A while back, I went on a two-day Master Class presented by The Game Changer. The aim was to develop a new wave of original filmmakers, producers and writers from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Over one intense weekend they held sessions on new perspectives in characterisation and unconscious bias, directing your vision, building emotional intelligence, presenting ideas and finding funding

The most inspiring part for me was the directing workshop run by the intense yet charismatic Burt Caesar. He took us through the principles of narrative and how to work with actors to convey a story on set. Then it was time to put theory into practice by writing a two-scene short in about 30 minutes. He gave us a choice of five prompts:

• Stranger in a strange land
• Be careful what you wish for
• Can you judge a book by its cover?
• What you reap is what you sow
• No good deed goes unpunished

I chose the first.

Unfortunately, only a few of us got to read out their scripts.

So in the spirit of growth, it's time to share.
 

SCENE I

The sun beats down on a lifeless body in the back yard of a Nebraska chop shop. Rodents, ants, spiders and other creepy crawlies scurry across the ground. It is a sweltering, unforgiving noon.

The body begins to move…

Drifter: "Ah … not again. My head."

Voiceover: Hey, you wanna hear a funny story. I have this problem.

I know what you're thinking. Guy gets loose, has a few drinks next thing you know … he's face down in the middle of nowhere.

But this is different. This happens to me EVERY night. I mean every goddamn night. And I always end up in some filthy ashtray of a town, trying to pick up the pieces. 

Drifter looks in his pockets for clues about the night before. But all he finds are coins and sand.

Drifter: "Wait, why am I wearing overalls?"

He slowly gets to his feet, still groggy, tripping over random metal bars, tyres and a sodden bag.

Drifter: "I need to get outta here. Wait, where the hell am I? Vinny. Call Vinny. He always knows what to do. He'll straighten things out for me."

Drifter stumbles to the nearest doorway and begins to get his bearings. He feels quesy. After a few wrong turns he finds the toilet and throws up. Violently.

Camera cuts to Drifter's bloody hands as he splashes water on his face and looks up at the mirror. His eyes finally open. Confusion turns to panic.

Drifter: "No, no, no…"

SCENE II

We open on a phone booth as Drifter tries to call Vinny. He barely makes it past five fumbled digits before the line goes dead.

A little girl, young and brash, taps him on the shoulder.

Girl: "Don't waste your time, buster. That phone hasn't rung since the Fifties. It makes a good restroom, though. If you're desperate n'all. But I guess you know all about that.

Drifter: "Beat it, kid. This ain't the time. Wait … where the hell am I?"

Girl: "That's a good one, greaser. Heavy night, huh."

Drifter: "Look, this is stimulating but I need to call my friend asap. Get a ride to my kid's birthday in Salt Lake City."

Girl: "Buddy you are s$%^ outta luck. That's a way and there's a big storm coming. Hey, I thought your kid passed years ago."

Camera pans to Drifter. He's confused and distraught.

Suddenly, a creaking door swings open and a grizzly stranger appears. Shotgun raised.

Stranger: "You can't hide forever, boy"

CUT