presents “Two Voices” – a discussion about writing
by 2 writers, Alfred Brown and Anh Thi
| (male) ALFRED | (female) ANH |
(1) A favorite line: “Everything was fine until I got shot in the face.”It came to me, years before I wrote an entire poem around it, about a hard-boiled detective that got shot in the face. I thought it would make for a great opening for something. There’s a certain brutality and abruptness to it, that pairs nicely with the casual off-handedness of “everything was fine until” (which is usually in reference to a social outing and followed by something banal like “the valet forgot which key was ours” or “uncle Frank got drunk on eggnog and started talking politics”—being shot in the face would be more interesting, I think. (2) A favorite scene: When I was in junior high, I started writing a story about an adventurer that meanders about and meets people/creatures that waste his time, kind of in an Alice in Wonderland or Phantom Tollbooth way. In one scene, the character wasting the adventurer’s time wouldn’t stop wasting it until he solved a riddle. He said “There’s only one absolute in the world, what is it?” I believe I wrote that part without even knowing what the answer was, or the next line, which is how all of that story went and why it was enjoyable enough to keep coming back to write it. I wrote the adventurer’s line as I was at the same time thinking the question back to myself: “There’s only one absolute in the world?” And the answer struck me instantly, and the character confirmed it: “Yes! Exactly.” And then there was some reward of a trinket of mild thematic importance. That’s when writing is most enjoyable, when the story writes itself and you get to be its first reader. |
(1) A favorite line: “It was her mouth. Followed by full lips wrapped around tongue and teeth.”I liked that description of a vampire’s assets, along with the sexual connotations of it – a visceral way to introduce Raven. What is a vampire if not sexy and sexual? And what is a woman if not objectified by her parts? So it was perfect to introduce her by the part that makes her uniquely vampire and female.
(2) A favorite scene: “Memory is such a chameleon. It shifts itself into such elusive forms of the heart, to shadow the soul.” That was how I started a scene of a young girl remembering her friend who died of cancer when they were in first grade, by capturing her fleeting memories of Thy as she grows up. But it’s not Thy who’s important. It’s rather her memory and how it defines the young girl as she grows up. I end the scene with a repetition of the line I started the scene with. “From what I remember, Thy was my best friend. From what I remember, Thy is my hope, my self. Memory is such a chameleon. It shifts itself into such elusive forms of the heart, to shadow the soul.” I liked the way meaning shifts for that sentence, now that the reader has glimpses into what shadows our character’s soul – the elusive memory of her best friend. I hope the impact of those 2 lines resonates more because we get that memory plays tricks on people, and what we remember is more important about what it reveals about us, not about what or who we actually remember. |