Letters From Alex

Creative writing is about weaving webs with storytelling and capturing the blood and guts of life on the page. It takes a few talents to do this well, both tangible and not. 

And a big part of it is just knowing how to put words together in the best possible way. Which words to use, where to put them, what kind of rhythm and emotion to breathe into each sentence. 

A great sentence can be a simple as this one from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, describing one of Gatsby’s all-night parties: 

In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.

Interesting that he used blue instead of green. And notice the rhythm of that last segment with the moths and whisperings and stars. We feel the magic. 

A great sentence can be even simpler, like this one from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved: 

In Ohio seasons are theatrical. 

That last word theatrical blows open our imagination, especially placed at the very end, rather than the more mundane arrangement: Seasons are theatrical in Ohio. 

Or a great sentence can be somewhat complex, like this one from Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Woman Hollering Creek,” where we lie beside a woman in a lonely marriage:

This is what Cleófilas thought evenings when Juan Pedro did not come home, and she lay on her side of the bed listening to the hollow roar of the interstate, a distant dog barking, the pecan trees rustling—shh-shh-shh, shh-shh-shh—soothing herself to sleep.

The sounds are summoned in our mind, and we seem to ease into sleep with that onomatopoetic: shh-shh-shh, shh-shh-shh.

A good place to see great sentences is in the winners of the monthly Gotham Twitter contest, where we give you a brief prompt and ask you to write a Twitter-length story (each winner getting a free Gotham class). 

Our winner for last September’s theme Loophole:

Dracula had one fang due to gingivitis, so theoretically Mina was just half a vampire, and this loophole allowed her to eat garlic smothered fettuccini. @carparelli22

Our winner for last July’s theme Staycation:

My couch is an all-inclusive resort. It has crumbs, loose change, your body’s fading imprint. The drinks are strong but there’s no ocean, just grief. @cararothenbergg

Our winner for last April’s theme Red light:

Framed in her neon showcase, Mihaela shifted in ill-fitting stilettos. She stared past leering faces with a fixed smile, thinking of her daughter in Bucharest. @ingridtruemper

In so few words, these writers have brought to life a whole world. That’s impressive. And you can probably do it too.

Alex Steele
President, Gotham Writers Workshop

I remember a restaurant in my neighborhood that looked very alluring. You would walk down a few steps and enter one of those dimly lit havens for the city’s elite. I heard that people like Paul McCartney went there; I perhaps felt too intimidated to dine there myself. Also, they served only raw food, though supposedly they took it to astonishing culinary heights. 

I also remember reading about the scandal that ended the restaurant, a story I recently revisited watching the documentary Bad Vegan. The owner was young and glamorous and had the savvy to run a Manhattan hotspot that specialized in world-class food and clientele. She was also a good person. She gave free meals to friends in need, including a writer acquaintance of mine who was struggling financially. 

Then she became romantically involved with a sketchy guy who wore Rolexes and flashed money and claimed to make his fortune in black ops and other things. The kind of guy whom everyone could see was bad news. And, no, he wasn’t even attractive. 

He scammed her into crime and out of money until she lost the restaurant and ended up in prison. 

What drew this woman-with-everything to this guy? Loneliness, low self-esteem, imposter syndrome? It’s not entirely clear even after viewing the doc. Not everything is knowable about people. 

Some of us may be more mysterious than others, but I believe there lies mystery inside pretty much everyone—things even those closest to them don’t understand. I feel that way about my wife and daughter, for example. And I bet they feel that way about me. 

When we’re telling stories, true or made-up, it’s a good thing to keep in mind. What is the mystery of a character—a hidden hole, an unseen flaw, a secret no one can know? The mystery doesn’t need to be explained (like Rosebud in Citizen Kane); it’s enough that it’s there. 

Do you fully understand Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights? Captain Willard and Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now? Celie in The Color Purple? Don in Mad Men? 
I’m reminded of another documentary, Jacob, about a guy who used to teach for Gotham, Jacob Appel—along with being a prolific writer, he’s a doctor, psychiatrist, lawyer, and tour guide with nine advanced degrees. I wrote about him here. The filmmaker is asking Jacob questions, attempting to find what drives him, what makes him who he is. Jacob, resistant to too much probing, says something to the effect: If you peel the onion too far, there’s nothing left.

Alex Steele
President, Gotham Writers Workshop

Syria. Yemen. Mali. Ukraine. War never stops.  

Writers do their best to bring us the human face of war, which they’ve been doing since at least Homer’s Iliad. Let’s hear from two of them…

Uliana Klimchuk lives in Kyiv. But as war loomed in Ukraine, she fled to Bulgaria with her family. Here she relates what happened when the war hit, as told to Grace Goldstein (daughter of Gotham teacher Laura Cahill) for Cosmopolitan:
 
I was feeling anxious, worried, everything that goes with war. I had a kind of anxiety attack. In those first few days, I didn’t know what I could do to help. I was even thinking that it would be better for me to still be in Ukraine, to be with my country and go through what everyone else is going through. Instead, I found my own way to help. I found Facebook groups like “Ukrainians in Bulgaria.” I found out that people are gathering, having strikes, and volunteering. So I did too.
 
I’m an official volunteer now with the Ukrainian House in Varna. We gather medicine, food, and clothes for refugees. People in Bulgaria bring us what we need.
 
Zamy Atlukhanova lives in Moscow. She was a Gotham intern a few years back while in the US on a Fulbright Scholarship. I’ve been texting Zamy to see if she’s okay, knowing she’s been protesting the war in the streets, risky business these days. Zamy told me this:
 
Last weekend I was at a monastery. We were sitting at the table, opposite three old women. One of them was talking about a house she had to build by herself because her husband passed away long ago.
 
“Oh, you’re another one of us,” another lady said, nodding knowingly.
 
“There will be more of us soon. With all these men dying.”
 
I don’t know if I am or ever will be able to show the sadness with which she said it. She sounded like a person who truly knows what the value of a human life is because she saw it disappear. And who knows that there is no glory in a war. There’s no grandeur.
 
There are just people. Dying. People are dying. Day by day.  Every single day of all those endless 31 days of war.
 
And my only wish is to stop counting. And hopefully, today. Right away.

Throughout April, I’ll be highlighting words from writers on war in my Thoughtful Thursday videos found on Gotham’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Join me if you like.
 
Peace, or so we hope.

Alex Steele
President, Gotham Writers Workshop