The Seduction of Dirty Dishes

My Great Aunt Liz could clear a room faster than anyone I've ever known. Some dastardly uncle once said to me, "Go ask her about anything, the governor, her house, the birds this time of year. You'll see." So I did. A ten-year-old me went into the living room at Easter to ask her about her house. The question unleashed a tirade about politicians, the DPW, the governor's office, 'that idiot' at the selectman's office. One by one, everyone who'd been lazing in the room, sniffing the aromas of a Sunday dinner to come, stood up, and went to see about the mashed potatoes, or whether they could do anything to help setting the table, maybe even wash a few pre-dinner pots and pans. Within minutes, I was the only person left to listen, with my uncle giggling just outside the door. I'm a lot like my Aunt Liz. Ask me anything and I'll offer up opinions, most of them misinformed or uninformed. Keeping my opinions to myself is not one of my talents.

But, when it comes to writing, for me, the world is gray and three dimensional, full of viewpoints and unspoken realities and hidden agendas. A character might have an opinion, but if she shares too much of it, you might just want to get up and do the dishes instead of continuing to read. Bashing a reader over the head is never a good idea. You can't tell someone what to think, but you can set the scene, and the best you can do is lead them into some kind of intentional understanding, if you're lucky. Still, you can bet someone, many people, will misinterpret you. Because every story is different for every single person who reads it. If it weren't, book clubs would be borefests and you could read a book in a synopsis. Telling the reader what to think does no good for anyone. Unleashing tirades upon the reader is a good way to make her put down the book and opt instead to do her taxes.

I just read a fellow writer's initial chapter about a horrible, real-life event. In it, she told the reader about the horrible event. She said it was horrible. I don't need to know it's horrible, I need to feel that it's horrible. We need to be seduced by the writer--at least I do. And I know this isn't news to anyone. But sometimes when one is writing, one forgets not to tell. Not telling is so very difficult! Isn't it odd how the best part of telling a story is the part where you don't tell it? If only writing were so easy.

In the end, what I really want when I'm reading is for the writer to lead me down some dark deep hallway, and then catch me there, unaware. I may find myself say I saw it coming, and really have suspected it, but if I'd already known, I might not have read the finish to find out I was right. I may have been putting off other things, like those dishes in the sink, but I kept reading because I wanted to find out [fill in the blank].

We all want to be seduced by the writer, to be taken on a journey, where we understand or see something differently, even if it's as mundane as the way the dirty dishes look in the sink. My Aunt Liz also had cats with the same name (Dina 1, Dina 2, etc.). But the best part about her was she'd never tell you why. Instead, she'd tell you about that original Dina, the one who did the most terrible, awful thing...

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