19 November 2008
Writing it out
Posted by Greg under: Writing .
One of the most valuable pieces of writing advice I’ve ever read was the suggestion of John Gardner in his Art of Fiction to write out - literally copy word-for-word - writing of authors you admire. I think Gardner’s suggestion began and ended with Joyce’s “The Dead”, but I’ve taken to doing it with pieces of writing I want to thoroughly pull apart and understand. It’s a different feeling altogether from reading the piece.
Below are the last seven paragraphs of I Capture the Castle. I think it’s the best ending of anything I’ve read in a while, even though from a plot as a checklist of events leading to a resolution point of view it’s kind of lacking. I think I understand a bit more about how it works so well now. I’m not sure if it works without reading the book, or if reading the ending without reading the book “spoils” things (I imagine not), but here it is:
Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with ‘I love you, I love you’ - like Father’s page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper.
There is a light down in the castle kitchen. Tonight I shall have my bath in front of the fire, with Simon’s gramophone playing. Topaz has it on now, much too loud - to bring Father back to earth in time for tea - but it sounds beautiful from this distance. She is playing the Berceuse from Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird’. It seems to say: ‘What shall I do? Where shall I go?’
You will go to tea, my girl - and a much better tea than you would have come by this time last year.
A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?
There was mist on Midsummer Eve, mist when we drove into the dawn.
He said he would come back.
Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.