How To Get “More” Out of Literature

1. How To Get “More”Out of Literature Gary Lawrence Glendale Community College February 9, 2019

2. How To “Get More” • Concepts and Tools • Writer’s Mantra • Ten Questions to Ask • Literary versus Creative Writing Analysis • Apply Concepts and Tools: Sample 1 • Apply Concepts and Tools: Sample 2 • Reading Comprehension • And why it matters • Questions

3. ConceptsandTools

4. Write for the reader. Read like a writer. Read like a writer. Write for the reader. “Total Unified Effect” (Edgar Alan Poe, 1846, ‘Art of Composition”)

5. The 10 Questions • Who, what (happened), when, where • Which character changed the most? • Who told the story? • What words, phrases or ideas are repeated in the story? • What words, images or ideas are repeated in both the opening and closing of the story? • Is the story in chronological order or not? (list 5-10 scenes) • Describe the writing style. Does it detract or add to the story? • What sticks with you most about this story? • How did this story make you feel? • How does this story compare to other stories you’ve heard or read or seen?

6. The “Eleventh” Question • Literary Review/Analysis • What does this story mean? • Why? • “This story means (this – position), because a, b, and c.” • Creative Writing Review/Analysis • How did this writer make me feel, think, react the way I did? • Writing style creates physiological and other effects • How can I use that in my own writing?

7. Use the Same10 Questions to Write Better • Who, what (happened), when, where • Which character changed the most? • Who told the story? • What words, phrases or ideas are repeated in the story? • What words, images or ideas are repeated in both the opening and closing of the story? • Is the story in chronological order or not? (list 5-10 scenes) • Describe the writing style. Does it detract or add to the story? • What sticks with you most about this story? • How did this story make you feel? • How does this story compare to other stories you’ve heard or read or seen? “Reverse-Engineering” for Better Writing

8. Apply Concepts and Tools:Sample #1 “Chapter VII” Ernest Hemingway In Our Time 1925

9. “Chapter VII” While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell everyone in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody. -- Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (134 words) • Literary Review: What’s it mean? • Creative Writing Review: How’d they DO that?

10. Apply Concepts and Tools: Sample #2 “August Evening” Joyce Carol Oates Flash Fiction 1977

11. “August Evening” He drives a new-model metallic-blue Cougar with all the accessories including air conditioning and a tape deck and beige kidskin interior plus some special things of his own for instance a compass affixed to his dashboard, a special blind-spot mirror, extra strips of chrome around the windows and license plates, a glitter-flecked steering wheel “spin,” and in cold weather, a steering wheel cover made of snakeskin. In warm weather he likes to cruise the city as he’d done twenty years ago or maybe more except now he’s alone and not with his friends as he’d been back then. As if nothing has changed and the surprise is that not much really has changed in certain parts of the city and off the larger streets and he’s drawn back always a little expectant and curious to the old places for instance St. Mary’s Church where they’d all gone and the grammar school next door, the half-dozen houses his parents had rented while he and his brothers were growing up though he couldn’t name their chronological sequence any longer and one or two of them have been remodeled, glitzy fake-brick siding and big picture windows so it’s difficult to recognize the houses except by the way of the neighboring houses which are beginning to be unrecognizable too. There’s a variety store close by the school hardly changed at all where he parks to get a pack of Luckies and just as he’s leaving he runs into this woman Jacky he’d known in high school back before she was married and he was married and she’s in tight shorts that show the swell of her buttocks and her small round stomach and a tank-top blouse like a young girl would wear looking good with her fleshy smiling mouth and her legs still long and trim though a little bunchy at the knees. At first it almost seems Jacky doesn’t recognize him then of course she does and they get to talking and laughing and it’s clear she likes him looking at her like that asking him questions about his job and where he’s living now since the divorce and what’s his ex-wife doing, and then they get to talking about old friends and high school classmates, guys he hung around with, some of them they haven’t seen or heard of in years so you’d wonder are they still alive but better not ask. And gradually they run out of things to say but neither wants to break away just yet they’re smiling so hard at each other and standing a little closer than you’d ordinarily stand. Jacky’s the kind of woman likes to touch a man’s arm when she talks, and he’s thinking a thought he’s had

12. and probably she has too that the marriages by now are more or less interchangeable like objects blurring in the rearview mirror as you speed away but also it’s the warm lazy air smelling of soft tar from the streets and sirens in the distance or is it a freight train like those childhood sounds you’d hear at night… melancholy and sweet-sounding with the power to make your eyes fill with tears. And they see themselves off somewhere hurriedly undressing… and the frantic hungry coupling… and the orgasm protracted for each as in slow motion… and the sweaty stunned aftermath, the valedictory kisses, caresses, stammered words… All that they aren’t going to do but they’re locked together seeing it and Jacky’s eyes look dilated and he’s feeling the impact of it as if someone were pushing hard on his chest with an opened hand so the he almost can’t breathe. Honey was that sweet are the words he isn’t going to say and Jacky can’t think of what to say either so they back off from each other and she says “Take care” and he says “Okay – you too” and he gets in his car and drives off sad-feeling and excited and eager to be gone all at once – knowing not to bother looking for her in the rearview mirror, he’s accelerating so fast. “August Evening”-- Joyce Carol Oates Flash Fiction. Ed. James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. W.W. Norton, NY: 1992. Pp. 120 – 122. • Literary Review: What’s it mean? • Creative Writing Review: How’d they DO that?

13. Reading Comprehension And Why It Matters

14. Write To Be Understood: Write for the Reader The longer and more complex the word, the harder it is to read and process more prefixes and suffixes, more work for the reader take un-mis-take-ably The longer and more complex the sentence, the harder it is to read and process less punctuation = more references and dependent clauses = more work for the reader John loves Mary. John has a profound affection for Mary. Even though John is not normally given to a display of his deeper emotions, he allegedly has developed a profound affection for Mary, as compared to the more equable feelings he seems to have for Lucy, Fran and, to a lesser extent, Sue. The longer and more complex the paragraph, the harder it is to read and process reader has to hold ideas longer, wait for the end of the paragraph to “process” more work for the reader How the Mind Works Do the Hard Work So the Reader Doesn’t Have To Rudolph Flesch, “How to Write Plain English” Reading Comprehension Level (Flesch)

15. “Chapter VII” While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell everyone in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody. -- Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (134 words) Words: 134 Sentences: 10 Words Per Sentence: 13.5 Readability: 4.4 (Flesch Kincaid)

16. “August Evening” He drives a new-model metallic-blue Cougar with all the accessories including air conditioning and a tape deck and beige kidskin interior plus some special things of his own for instance a compass affixed to his dashboard, a special blind-spot mirror, extra strips of chrome around the windows and license plates, a glitter-flecked steering wheel “spin,” and in cold weather, a steering wheel cover made of snakeskin. In warm weather he likes to cruise the city as he’d done twenty years ago or maybe more except now he’s alone and not with his friends as he’d been back then. As if nothing has changed and the surprise is that not much really has changed in certain parts of the city and off the larger streets and he’s drawn back always a little expectant and curious to the old places for instance St. Mary’s Church where they’d all gone and the grammar school next door, the half-dozen houses his parents had rented while he and his brothers were growing up though he couldn’t name their chronological sequence any longer and one or two of them have been remodeled, glitzy fake-brick siding and big picture windows so it’s difficult to recognize the houses except by the way of the neighboring houses which are beginning to be unrecognizable too. There’s a variety store close by the school hardly changed at all where he parks to get a pack of Luckies and just as he’s leaving he runs into this woman Jacky he’d known in high school back before she was married and he was married and she’s in tight shorts that show the swell of her buttocks and her small round stomach and a tank-top blouse like a young girl would wear looking good with her fleshy smiling mouth and her legs still long and trim though a little bunchy at the knees. At first it almost seems Jacky doesn’t recognize him then of course she does and they get to talking and laughing and it’s clear she likes him looking at her like that asking him questions about his job and where he’s living now since the divorce and what’s his ex-wife doing, and then they get to talking about old friends and high school classmates, guys he hung around with, some of them they haven’t seen or heard of in years so you’d wonder are they still alive but better not ask. And gradually they run out of things to say but neither wants to break away just yet they’re smiling so hard at each other and standing a little closer than you’d ordinarily stand. Jacky’s the kind of woman likes to touch a man’s arm when she talks, and he’s thinking a thought he’s had

17. and probably she has too that the marriages by now are more or less interchangeable like objects blurring in the rearview mirror as you speed away but also it’s the warm lazy air smelling of soft tar from the streets and sirens in the distance or is it a freight train like those childhood sounds you’d hear at night… melancholy and sweet-sounding with the power to make your eyes fill with tears. And they see themselves off somewhere hurriedly undressing… and the frantic hungry coupling… and the orgasm protracted for each as in slow motion… and the sweaty stunned aftermath, the valedictory kisses, caresses, stammered words… All that they aren’t going to do but they’re locked together seeing it and Jacky’s eyes look dilated and he’s feeling the impact of it as if someone were pushing hard on his chest with an opened hand so the he almost can’t breathe. Honey was that sweet are the words he isn’t going to say and Jacky can’t think of what to say either so they back off from each other and she says “Take care” and he says “Okay – you too” and he gets in his car and drives off sad-feeling and excited and eager to be gone all at once – knowing not to bother looking for her in the rearview mirror, he’s accelerating so fast. “August Evening”-- Joyce Carol Oates Flash Fiction. Ed. James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. W.W. Norton, NY: 1992. Pp. 120 – 122. Words: 690 Sentences: 10 Words Per Sentence: 69 Readability: 18.2 (Flesch Kincaid)

18. Reading ComprehensionComparison • “Chapter VII” • Words: 135 • Sentences: 10 • WPS: 13.5 • Syllables: 169 • Syllables/Word: 1.3 • RCL: 4.4 (Flesch) • “August Evening” • Words: 690 • Sentences: 10 • WPS: 69 • Syllables: 925 • Syllables/Word: 1.3 • RCL: 18.2 https://app.readable.io

19. Questions?