Spoiler Alert!

Spoiler Alert!

Emily Penrose

Last week I went to the Utah Opera’s production of Pagliacci and Gianni Schicchi. I’m an avid opera-goer, having seen around 35 live operas. This was just another music and drama-filled Wednesday for me.

Before the curtain came up and the lights came down I found myself, along with much of the audience, pouring over the libretto. Inside the libretto were essays on the two compositions, their authors, and a synopsis of both shows. While reading over the cast list I was struck by how unusual it is in our culture for the audience to want to know the entire plot of a story before beginning. Spoilers are so expected that the libretto is there to facilitate last-minute research!

Spoilers, of course, serve their purpose. There’s nothing quite like a well executed plot reveal. I’m reminded of my first viewing of Fight Club, which was dramatic, unexpected, and thoroughly enjoyable. Yet I also remember my first opera, Don Giovanni, where my lack of foreknowledge of the plot hindered my enjoyment of other elements of the production. I couldn’t appreciate the singing, orchestration, and composition. I was too busy watching the supertitles, pouring over every line of recitative for fear of missing vital information. I couldn’t even appreciate costumes, lighting, and the set!

What a unique form of storytelling opera is! In the end, the plot is only another element in the whole experience, not overpowering the music or the mise en scene, but working together in beautiful harmony. Each element bolsters the others to make a deeply beautiful experience people will see over and over, even hundreds of years after the premiere.

In modern media, spoilers are held sacred for consumers. No one wants to walk into a Marvel movie knowing every twist and turn–that’s the fun part! But as media producers, this idea is pivotal. We can learn by example how to create interesting, emotional experiences for the viewer, reader, or what have you. How does the author create tension and drama for future plot points? How enjoyable is the work as a whole? Is it fun to read or do you only care about what is explicitly shown? Do the words sound clunky or fluid?

When you step back and view the work as a whole you can balance elements of plot, prose, characterization and other writing tools. Try thinking about the work as a harmonious synthesis of all elements, each of equal importance, rather than unequally emphasizing one part. Your plot may be impeccable, but imagine if it were supporting and harmonizing with your imagery.

And hey, maybe spoilers are important. But they don’t have to be make-or-break for enjoyment purposes. As a kid, I had the main plot twist of Shrek 2 ruined for me. When I saw the movie, it ended up not effecting my enjoyment of the movie. Is knowing the ending of the coming-of-age fantasy novel you’re reading really that important? Unless there’s some major genre subversion, the reader knows what to expect. So make the journey enjoyable!

Why I “Write What I Know”

Why I “Write What I Know”

Emily Penrose

Think back on your life. Go ahead, I’ll wait. First loose tooth, first day of school, first kiss… done? Welcome back. Now what do you think about the ubiquitous writing advice “write what you know”? I’ve been poking around the internet for a while now and this one is a popular adage for writers to refute.

“That’s ridiculous! Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m so boring, how can I just write what’s happened to me? Isn’t that an autobiography?”

“Tolkien never met a hobbit, why can he get away with it?”

Aside from the horror stories of creative writing teachers reading this rule as strictly literal (seriously, someone’s teacher only allowed the class to write what they had personal experience with), I shake my head at these writers and editors for their lack of imagination. Writing what you know is not a literal prescription for how to write. It’s a shortcut to finding your passion project.

The ideas that call to me are the ideas that I have some experience with–ideas that I “know”. That “knowing” is what gets me so excited about them. Even though writing is hard and life gets in the way, I need to return to these ideas and express them. They needle at me until writing is the only salve. The need spreads and eventually works its way into my writing.

In my high school drama class, there was a quote from Johnny Depp on the wall.

“With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s just not acting. It’s lying.”

I loathed this quote. The words bothered me. “I want to use my imagination and get outside of myself”, I thought. “I’m not lying when I act!” But over the years I’ve thought more about it. I finally figured out what Mr. Depp meant. Actors need to have an emotional core for a character or the performance will ring hollow. It will be a lie to the audience. It doesn’t have to be a big piece, just enough for you to build from.

Writers, likewise, ought to find an emotional core in their work. If your character does not act like an actual person, you aren’t writing what you know. Writers do meet people between their coffee-fueled writing binges, they know how people behave. If you’re not inspired by your project, you’re not writing what you know. And what a sad state to be in! I can’t imagine writing something only because it was marketable and I couldn’t care less for it. If a writer forces any facet of their work by not writing what they know, the reader will notice and disengage–hobbits or no.

Of course, no one ever truly “knows”. Not really. This is why we research, learn, and enhance our understanding. We read and we write and we talk to as many people as we can. Writing what you know, in this way, is only as useful as you make it. You could hear “write what you know” and start keeping an immaculate diary or you could think about the human experience, how you fit into it, and how your characters fit into it. What do you have in common? What is different? What makes this story different from your own? Is the situation similar to someone else’s that you have heard of? How can you change it to make it unique and interesting for your reader? Does it feel real to you? Does it spark passion that echos in your work?

And I bet if you thought about your favorite projects, you would find part of yourself in it–something that you “know”. You may find out you “know” a lot more than you thought you did.

Introduction

Introduction

Emily Penrose

I always knew about sign language. For never knowing any deaf people or seeing much sign language it was a peculiar standard to have.  In fifth grade my best friend and I poured over an ASL dictionary learning words fifth graders love–fat, sex, and other taboos. My school reference book had the ASL alphabet on the inside cover. Without trying I could fingerspell and tell someone to go to hell.

Then came high school. My school had a strong ASL program… for no particular reason. Sure, there was the Deaf School downtown, but we were in the suburbs. No other school in the district had two teachers for such a niche language (we only had one German teacher and one French teacher). I’d never considered any other language with serious intentions. It was always going to be ASL.

Despite my history with the language, I had never explored the culture–I didn’t know there even was a culture. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that ASL is unique, beautiful, profound language with nuance and complexity beyond what any spoken language can capture. I had no idea that Deaf (with a capital “D”) people had their own fascinating culture and intricate history. I certainly didn’t expect to be studying and writing about Deaf history ten years later!

This website chronicles my current journey writing a novel about the origins of Deaf Culture in America. On this blog I will post current research and musings as well as my odd “flavor of the week” obsessions. So button up your spencers, grab your smelling salts, and remember your antihistamines, we’re going deep into the dusty, oft forgotten, pages of the past!