Cheever’s narratives rarely end ‘happily ever after’. Why might a writer choose to make their characters suffer?

Writers may make their characters suffer to make a story more engaging; it can add drama and create suspense. If a story is constantly happy and playing it safe, the reader will get bored, as it will become too predictable.

For years there has been a debate about the limited number of plots in existence. But the idea that every story could be categorized into a plot stereo-type means that writers have the pressure of trying to create something that is ‘new’. Having a character suffer provide the writer with the opportunity to play with the outcomes. 

As readers, seeing how a character overcomes the pit-falls thrown at them and/or develop throughout the story keeps you turning the page, because you want to know what happens. As children we are told the character live happily ever after, that good overpowers evil. But as we leave the comfort and safety of fairy tales, we encounter stories in which the characters have to overcome situations that are real. By making a character struggle through, the writer is showing the reader the realities of the real world, however if the character succeeds, the writer is also giving the reader a little hope.

I think the last line of The End, the last book in A Series of Unfortunate Event by Lemony Snicket sums up why characters sometime have to suffer.

'It is almost as if happiness is an acquires taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.'

From Email to Poem...

I wonder about the weather -
I have to go out - and its seems
Get wet.
I am debating it - from the safety of my bed -
While working - supposedly -
Anyway -  the point -
What's it like with you?

Is your writing a 'Letter to the World'? Why? How?

The question of private and public writing is an ongoing debate; surely if you write something down you have to be aware that there is a chance it could end up in the public’s eye, even if you don’t want it to; and once it’s out there you cannot take it back.

John Cheever split his writing throughout his life by writing short stories for publication but also by keeping a journal for himself.  However shortly before he died he gave permission for his journals to be published, blurring the boundaries he had originally created.

Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, has been described as writing ‘without the thought of publication’. She never agreed to her poetry being published posthumously. I wonder how she would have felt when William H. Shurr went through her letters and found ‘new’ poems.

Personally I have a journal, but the thought of someone other than myself reading it scares me; what if they make assumptions about me, not to mention the embarrassment. But with my prose and poetry I can see them as letters to the world. I write to be read, even if that is only by one person.

I believe when you write a letter you put part of yourself inside, you want to show the receiver how you are feeling or what you are experiencing. It is the same when I write, through my style of writing and the subject I am showing the reader a little part of my world.

It does not matter whether (a writer) writes about any recognisable social or political subject as long as the quality of the writing exceeds any such expectations. Agree/Disagree

James Lovelock writes:  ‘Metaphors are more than ever needed for a widespread comprehension of the true nature of the earth’

As writers we can hide messages and morals in our work; but metaphors can be interpreted in different ways, so the reader may come to different conclusions to what the author had intended. It is also possible for a reader to find metaphors that the author didn’t necessarily plan to insinuate. This links to the Death of the Author Theory; the idea that once a text is written the writer has no control over interpretations of it.             

However it can also be argued that part of an author will be present in everything they write. Their own views of society and politics may affect how they develop a character or the underlying issues in the story. 

As writers we have the power to make issues accessible, we can challenge a reader’s view point. By using metaphors the reader can choose to take the subject at face value or explore it in more depth.

In Metamorphosis by Kafka, Gregor Samsa is turned into a cockroach. The reader can either take this at face value, Gregor just wakes up as a cockroach one morning for no reason; or the reader can view the story as a metaphor about the struggle of living with a disability.    

But if the writing itself is not engaging, it will not be read and analysed. Then its subject would not matter because it would go unnoticed.

C

I fear it.

The idea of it residing within;

The ticking bomb, waiting to claim me.

The terrorist the doctors try to talk down,

But they approach in tanks - 

Use drones to try and cure me.

But success is not always the end game,

There is always collateral damage;

I fear it will be me. 

Why are John Cheever's stories 'uniquely American'? What would make a story uniquely British?

John Cheever’s writing has been described as ‘uniquely American’. But what does this mean? It could be referring to the use of American English or Americanisms or maybe the presence of the ‘American Dream’ within Cheever’s short stories.  An example would be O City of Broken Dreams, the Malloy family choose to leave everything they know behind and move to New York so that Mr Malloy can try and make it as a script writer. Although obstacle after obstacle is placed before them, they still believe that it is possible for them to achieve their dream.

So if the ‘American Dream’ often features within American literature what makes a text uniquely British? I believe class is an element that English authors integrate in to their stories. Whether it is a key element such as in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which it triggers conflict between suitors or creatively interpreted, such as in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, where it is shown through the distinction of ‘pure blood’ and ‘mud-blood’. Class can define a character, or be used as an issue the character has to overcome or defy, for example Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist where Oliver is rescued from the poverty he is born into.

Whether class is the catalyst for the story or hidden within the text, maybe its presence is simply highlighting our own dream; to fulfill our potential, to overcome the barriers placed before us and to prove that we can surpass our origins, entitling our self to self-worth.  

        

Where are you from? What have you read? How does this impact upon your writing life?

If you walk into the house I grew up in, you will be faced with numerous bookshelves. Living in such an environment makes it surprising that I refused to read until I was eight, and even then I much preferred being read to. Reading was something I did before going to bed; the rest of the day was taken up with playing, and as I got older the dramas of teenage life. But occasionally a book would come along that stole my attention from the world. One such book was Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson; I lost count of the number of times I got it out of the library, or how many times I asked for my own copy.

I had been creating stories for years, wanting to escape reality, but one day I decided to start writing, wanting to follow in my great grandmothers footsteps. My dad told me that if I wanted to be a good writer I would need to read more that romantic teen-fiction. So my adventure with books truly begun; from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott to Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the list is still growing. But with every new book I learn something; by knowing what is already out there I can create something new.

Then hopefully one day I will be able to join my great grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor with my own name on a cover; well that is the dream anyway.