Writing Process: No More Speechifying

I have a tendency towards giving my characters speeches, or speechifying, as Tommy calls it. And it’s no good. It slows the narrative and, in the end, offers very little about the character. It’s really just me using them for my soapbox.

“To the mighty and fine Apollo.” Fitz raised his glass. “I look out at that river of ice out your backyard and think about those giants of millennials ago pushed off into the Davis Strait and into the great Atlantic, some of them the size of city blocks, whole towns, buildings and all, tankers, battleships, luxury liners, the works. They’re an impressive fleet, an impenetrable flotilla at the outset, only to gradually break apart, one from the other, going out into the bay, the strait, the ocean, down past Twillin’. But then they all come apart, not just one from the other, but the thing from itself. These mighty giants go out on their quest, out into the great unknown, just to dissolve, become bits and pieces, and then the water, gone like that. Seems to me that they might have a fate more suitable than that.” He opened another beer. “We’ll have another drink with you, and then we’ll be off.”

Henry Miller on Writing Sex

Sometimes in the recording of a bald sexual incident great significance adheres. Screenshot (171)Sometimes the sexual becomes a writhing. Screenshot (104)Sometimes it is a fresco hidden in a sacred cave where one may sit and contemplate on things of the spirit. Screenshot (140)There is nothing I can possible prohibit myself from doing in the realm of sex. It is a world unto itself and a morsel of it may be just as destructive as a ton of it. It is a cold fire which burns in us like the sun. Screenshot (138)It is never dead.*

(From Arthur Miller’s On Writing.)

Henry Miller: Our Shell-Shocked Souls

A new world is being born, a new type of man is in the bud. The great mass of men, destined now to suffer more cruelly perhaps than man has ever suffered before, have become paralyzed with fear, have withdrawn into their own shell-shocked souls. Nassau2We neither hear, see nor feel, except in relation to the daily needs of the body. The body, which was once a temple, has become a living tomb.

Monster, robot, slave, accursed one – it makes little difference which term one uses to convey the picture of our dehumanized condition. Never was mankind as a whole in a more ignoble condition than ours. 20150925_001433We are all bound to one another in a disgraceful master-slave relationship; we are all caught in the same vicious circle of judge and be judged; we aim to destroy one another if we cannot have our way. 20160806_224416Instead of respect, toleration, kindness and consideration, to say nothing of love, we view one another with fear, suspicion and rivalry.*

(From Henry Miller’s On Writing)