Nothing Up My Sleeve
Ah, spring break – a weeklong period of rest and diversion from the requirements of classes. So what did I do? Read, of course!
Well, all right, I did other things too, but I want to tell you about something I read over spring break: Now You See It, by Richard Matheson. The story is one of murder and stage magic, told in a style that is pure Matheson. I definitely recommend it.
Along the way, Matheson talks about magic behind the scenes, and explains its essence like this: the magician tells her audience that she will do some amazing thing and then does it right before their eyes. There’s a trick to it, of course, and they all know it, but she hides it from the audience by taking their attention and focusing it where she wants it through the whole process.
It’s a lot like writing. The writer’s “amazing thing” is a compelling story that unfolds before the reader. The magician’s trick amazes because she appears to do something impossible, such as make someone vanish into thin air. The writer’s story compels because the writer manages story tension and reader expectation to keep the reader involved and turning pages.
The magician’s trick is surprising because the audience sees it happening but cannot see how it is accomplished. This is much the same for the writer. The writer provides all the clues needed to understand what is happening in the story, but surprises the reader by how they come together. And all the clues have to be in the story or the reader feels cheated, like finding out a magician is using trick photography or CGI. To invert the much-abused statement attributed to Chekhov, if the writer wants a gun to go off in act three, it better be on the wall in act one.
The writer does not have mirrors, lights, music and attractive assistants to help him, so he must focus the reader’s attention through details.
On the table Blake found a lighter, a pen and an apple.
None of these items have much description and the reader is free to imagine them however she wants. The reader also realizes that none of these objects are very important to the story as a whole. That changes if anything happens to one of the objects. If Blake takes a bite from the apple, it becomes more important and the other objects become correspondingly less important.
On the table Blake found a lighter, an apple and a well-chewed bic pen, missing its cap.
The pen now gets the most attention, and the reader knows it is important, if only because it tells her something about the person who owns it. The reader expects to see the pen’s owner chew on a pen at some point, or at least pick up that particular bic pen and keep it with him.
The reader expects the pen to be significant because it was given more attention. But what about the apple and the lighter? They are in the story as of their first appearance, and the writer is free to use them again. Perhaps before the scene is over, the pen’s owner retrieves the well-chewed pen, possibly even covering it with a well-chewed cap from his shirt pocket, but leaves the apple and lighter on the table. Blake then takes the lighter in a way that doesn’t draw much attention to the action.
Blake swore and cursed his fate. It would take weeks to sort this mess out and that meant dealing with people he never wanted to see again. Blake sighed, set down his glass, slipped the lighter into his pocket, and went back down the hall. He might as well get started.
Blake now has the lighter, and while the reader knows this, the reader, like Blake, is more interested in the Blake’s problem and how he is going to resolve it. This way, the writer is free to use that lighter in a later scene, say to light a fuse or burn an important document, and isn’t cheating.
The magician says, “Look at these chains! They’re so thick and strong, I could never break them.” And it’s true, she can’t. “Look at these locks! They’re so solid there’s no getting through them!” And there isn’t. It’s true. But she doesn’t tell you to look at clamps that the chains are holding, the ones that give her just a little more space than you can tell from your chair. She doesn’t tell you to look at the bolts holding those clamps fast, especially not the three weak ones, strategically placed.
The writer says, “Look at this pen! I’m telling you so much about it that you know it’s important!” It’s true, that pen is important. But while you’re thinking about the pen, some character walks off with the lighter. You see him do it, but you don’t realize how important it is until that lighter reappears later.
This is only one of the ways writers handle expectation and surprise, of course, but since I’m comparing writers to magicians at the moment I shouldn’t say any more. After all, a good magician never reveals his secrets.
