O, parentheses! I have n’er seen you so buttered across the page…
The use of parentheses (in addition to parenthetical commas) throughout Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse is a point of style that cannot be ignored. I went through the book and highlighted them all. Nearly every turn of a page bears the mark of my yellow highlighter and at least a couple of pages contain parenthetical statements that are nearly a page long (Again, this is in addition to Woolf’s use of complex sentences, laden with parenthetical clauses that are set off from the primary clause with commas).
Woolf’s parenthetical statements range from descriptions of what is physically happening in the scene while we are witnessing thought “(as she sat in the window” (27), to the clarifying “(James thought)” (4), to the fragmentation of the point of view character’s stream of consciousness “(so courteous his manner was)” (195). The narrative shifts perspective often and seeks to show the limitations of the individual perspective: how we see what we want to, what we need to, and what experience has trained us to. Use of parentheses is one aspect of how the complexity of syntax in To The Lighthouse mirrors the complexity of perspective and scene. I admire how this, coupled with the use of symbolism, figurative language, and parallel perspectives create a story about the complexity of the human brain and how that isolates us one from the other.
Despite this realistic view of human interactions, I was heartened to see a glimmer of hope in Lily’s awe after explaining the artistic choices in her painting to Mr. Bankes, a moment in which she sees a power in the world, “which she had not suspected, that one could walk away down that long gallery not alone any more but arm in arm with somebody—the strangest feeling in the world, and the most exhilarating” (50).
(The psychological depth and drama in this novel spoke to me in affirmation of some choices I’ve made recently in love, the decisions first to leave a relationship that was damaging and disparaging to him and me and then to embrace a love in which so many interactions leave me feeling as Lily did in that moment with Mr. Bankes. To be two individuals, solid in personal vision, willing to see what the other sees, to listen, and to love honestly! Reading this book affirmed for me that to love is my choice, and that loving is not about two becoming one, but about two becoming a stronger two through honest affection and attention each to each.)
O, but I digress! I’d like to close this admiration of Woolf’s complexity of syntax with an exercise, just to see how when I get to the point of sentence level editing, how my own work might change and also to try out some elements of style observed in Woolf.
Here are two paragraphs from my novel as they are:
Movement saved me. Forcing my body through space, even into new shapes. the movement of my legs over the ground. Breath and body flowing in asana. One foot. The other. Running. Walking. Forest inclines. Always one step ahead of despair.
I survived the men who maimed me. A bad tattoo. Tongue-lash. A belt. A fist. Seeming gentle, unwanted hands. Movement saved me from a body without space to breathe.
Here, I’ve played around with the syntax and punctuation:
Running, walking, forest inclines: movement saved me. Movement saved me from a body without space to breathe (a body I despised). Forcing my body through space, even into new shapes, saved me. One foot. The other. (Progress!) I was mostly able to stay ahead of (that monster) despair).
I moved passed the men who maimed me: a bad tattoo, a tongue-lash, a belt, a fist, an unwanted touch. Movement saved me from a body at odds with itself, hand that hid in pockets, between thighs, shy shoulders curled like the top of a question mark.
And now, I will set this aside and continue my trek through the second draft, coming back to it when I’m ready. To The Lighthouse is ambitious in subject and form and I do believe I will return to it again, and to Woolf, who has her sentences by the scruff of the neck, even when they are lengthy.

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

For the most part, the character sketches in The Book of Other People, edited by Zadie Smith, portray characters who are stuck and the writers do not offer the reader hope of their redemption. There is more emphasis on flaw than compliment or possibility. This is fine, I suppose; there is a reality in that. I like prose that is well-written, regardless of the author’s tone or the mood of the piece. It is fascinating to read characters who are corrupt and without redemption, and there is value in looking at the darker side of human nature. This anthology, a collection of character sketches, varies markedly in style, from comic book to straight prose description, and demonstrates a multiplicity of ways to create character. I’ve struggled with writing this paper, though I did come away from this book with (if not an epiphany), at least a reaction from that part of my brain that mulls over the questions regarding the why of my writing life. I’d like to look closely at a few of the sketches, before I share that with you. Three pieces that speak to the differing possibilities for creating character can be found in a closer look at David Mitchell’s “Judith Castle”, George Saunders’ “Puppy”, and Dave Eggers “Theo”.
“Judith Castle” is a first person unreliable narrative that relies on stream of consciousness and interaction with minor characters to demonstrate that unreliability. In seeing how Judith thinks throughout, the big lie we learn she’s been telling herself in the end does not surprise us. We see example after example of how she ignores the truth and constructs her own reality, how she justifies her actions, examples of her distorted perception of herself. Oh, but we are moved by how pathetic she appears in the end sitting in the lobby of a man’s office, a man who faked his own death to evade her, who she has constructed this elaborate fantasy of true love about. She is finally revealed for how pathetic and blind she is. We see her vulnerability, wonder if she is even capable of the truth, consider how the knowledge of it might destroy her and are moved to pity. The entire story is in Judith Castle’s point of view, yet we are able to see through her self-deceptions and delusions.
In George Saunders’ “Puppy”, we are able to see the lack of ability to see herself clearly that Callie possesses. We see this because we see her and her home through the eyes of the Marie, who is the second narrative voice in the sketch. We see the filth she lives in. We see the awful image of her hyperactive son tied up in the back yard. The point of view is third person limited omniscient and switches between being in Marie’s point of view and Callie’s. When Callie asks “Who loves him more than anyone else in the world loved him” (179) ,referring to her son who is chained like a dog in the back yard, we see the complexity of the situation for having seen both what Callie sees and how she lives and what Marie sees and how she lives. They are both of them pathetic in their own ways. Neither character sees herself clearly. We see both of them from the perspective of self and other.
Theo, the main character of Dave Eggers’ “Theo” is an allegorical character, a mountain that wakes along with two other mountains. He is one of two males in the trio and is heart-broken when the she-mountain, Magdalena, does not choose him for a love, but chooses the third mountain, Soren, instead. Theo has no specific dialogue and is painted without much specificity in form or nature. The reader is left to imagine him as we may, which works, since the idea is that Theo could be any man (or woman for that matter), “One day he discovered he was not satisfied. He wanted the full attention of love. ..He walked over glaciers and through unknown craters, he bathed in cold black lakes, and he caught flocks of birds from the sky and ate them with something like hunger.” The word painting is broad and there is a fairytale quality in word choice. There is no actual dialogue; any conversations that occur are summarized.
There are twenty three sketches in the anthology, all offering some variation on character creation. The very first pages of my novel were in third person. It took me several months to realize that first person was going to make for a more powerful voice. The narrator has to be reliable, of course, since the story is an honest reflection on her own transformation. I’m happy with that.
How did this book stir my musings about the how and why of writing? In a philosophical way more than from a point of craft. I do want to create characters who are real, flawed, but I’ve had enough of bleak “realities” regarding the various characteristics that make us human. I am interested in writing books that emphasize our potential without ignoring the reality that life is struggle and we are

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

I chose to read Man Walks Into A Room by Nicole Krauss because History of Love had stirred me to writerly adoration and because the blurb I read promised a good story. A thirty-something college professor disappears and is discovered wandering the dessert. Turns out he has a tumor pressing on his brain that causes total amnesia. When the tumor is removed, he doesn’t regain his complete memory. Though he is thirty-six, he can’t remember anything past sometime during his twelfth year. I was not disappointed by the intellectual quandaries posed regarding memory and identity in this novel, and though the ending disappointed my romantic ideals, I understood it and it led to a way into discussing a relevant element of craft in this novel: the minor character and how time spent there can simultaneously develop the main character.
You see, as I’ve been writing the second draft of my novel, I’ve felt some guilt about not paying enough attention to some minor characters, particularly Eve’s mother, Eve’s friends Dani and Cindy, her Aunt Linda, and her son. It was in thinking about how in the end of Krauss’ novel the story seems to be as much about Samson’s wife Anna that I began to take notes about how to round out my own minor characters.
When Man Walks Into A Room opens, Anna is the loyal, loving wife who, though her husband can’t even remember meeting her anymore, still wants him. For much of the novel, Anna is present only as an image of desire that crosses Samson’s mind and that he doesn’t even know what to do with. Those moments, what he sees when he thinks of her and what she says when he calls her (or doesn’t say) connect the moments at the beginning and end of the story where she is present in the narrative, make up a character arc that parallels and deepens Samson’s own development.
The first time he calls Anna, after leaving her, from the research facility where he is a willing guineau pig, he calls her Annie instinctively.
“Where did I get that? Did I ever call you that?”
Silence. “No.”
“You don’t like it.”
“No, I do. It’s what my brother used to call me.” Samson couldn’t remember a brother, man who shared her eyes or mouth. That Anna had never mentioned her brother made Samson jealous, as if he were an old lover whose photograph she’d kept.” (Krauss 109)
At this point in the novel, Samson has left Anna. She is trying to move on with her life after being rejected by Samson, who doesn’t seem to want to know the people and events he forgot. It is ironic that it is Samson who, in a fear panic, reaches out to Anna. We don’t know exactly what is going through Anna’s mind in that “Silence” because the story is told from Samson’s point of view, but we empathize with her, we can imagine how difficult it must be to not be remembered by your own husband, to still have the memories in your head that he has lost.
Right before Samson gets the memory implanted, he reaches out to her yet again. In fact, every time he doubts or is afraid or alone, he thinks of Anna. This time, Anna speaks “clear and steady” (140) and after he’s told her that he missed her, asked if she missed him, then apologizes, she says, “It’s not a question of sorry. It happened and now we need to move on” (140). In this moment, he wants to remember her for the first time, wants to know if “he was the sort of person who took [her] elbow when cars passed on the street” (140), but he doesn’t ask and she says quietly that she has to go, then there is a long pause, after which she says, “Frank misses you” (140). Anna is present in the beginning of the novel and there is a three page epilogue at the end of the novel that is written in her perspective. For most of the story, though, she is an idea that Samson keeps returning to, trying to understand. This different but parallel suffering is just as important to make the theme of isolation meaningful as is the characterization of Samson, the main character.
Anna, Ray, Donald: they have intact memories and we only know the details about them Samson sees, and what do we find in? They are facing the same struggle Samson is. They are all trying to find ways to connect with others so as to ease their own isolation. Ray wants to transcend the limits of the mind and develop a way to transfer memories from one person to another in order to achieve true empathy. Ironically, Ray is a man deeply concerned with his own self-care. He maintains a diligent exercise schedule, eats the purest foods, and is vigilant about sleep. These seemingly meaningless details demonstrate his desperation. Is this multi-billion dollar science project fueled because he can’t reconcile himself to his own feelings of loneliness? It seems so, the way he lives like a robot, in a sterile, empty home.
So how can I use my acknowledgement of how the characters surrounding Samson make his struggle human, universal, more real to answer the discontent I’m feeling with how I’ve developed my own minor characters? As my book is a first person narrative, their heads are off limits (as in Krauss’ novel), so like in the case of Samson, it is through Eve’s eyes that we will see them. The answers to how to develop each minor character will vary and form was I write and revise. I have at least identified that in order to render Eve with more depth, she needs to consider a few people more closely, I (writer) need to give them a bit more space to speak, and in at least one case (Dani’s) the relationship needs to be reconciled..Minor characters will be a revision goal all its own, I think.

Buy my books here. 

Interested in hiring me as a coach to get you boosted with your writing goals?
Find free resources and information here.
Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone