Editor Blog

Why We Do What We Do At Polyphony H.S.

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:27:37 +0000

A Letter to Grownups from the co-founder and artistic director of Polyphony HS Some time after April 15, 2010, the deadline for submissions for this issue, I met a friend and poet, Laura Van Prooyen, for a cup of coffee. During her days as a graduate student Laura spent a semester studying with the poet Heather McHugh. As I spoke with Laura about my work with Polyphony HS, she told me that morning what Heather once said about poetry. “Poetry is not our occasions,” McHugh said. “It’s what we do with our occasions.” I’m taking some liberty with McHugh’s statement—it’s at least twice-paraphrased—but I’ve thought much about it while putting the finishing touches on this volume of Polyphony HS. I have read every one of the 1, 076 submissions that crossed my laptop this year, and each one of them is a kind of testament to McHugh’s statement. It is easy, perhaps, to dismiss the occasions of the young—we have lived three and four and five times as long as they. How much can they possibly have gone through at fourteen? we ask. How much at eighteen? It is easier, still, perhaps, to dismiss the art of the young. This is as true, I think, for those of who have studied craft as for those who have not. How much can they possibly know at this age? we ask. Most of us know, though, that we are fools to dismiss their occasions of disconnection: the divorces and breakups and fallings and partings and dyings, small and large, and their occasions of connection as well: their births and crushes and loves and risings; these stories comprise their lives as certainly as they comprise our own. But we are even greater fools to dismiss their attempts at making art—at doing something with their occasions, for we cannot speak of our hope for a better world, we cannot speak of our interest in the human gain if, at the same time, with the same mouth, we dismiss the art of the young. Not every one of the 1,076 submissions that came to us this year made poetry, made art, made beauty of the occasions of their young lives, but the origins of these attempts—the beginnings of these seventy-nine published works in your hands, as well as the 997 pieces that aren’t published here—represent the occasions of the young. But here’s the thing: each of the 1,076 submissions we received this year represents an attempt of a teenager to make art of life, to put words—precise and beautiful—to the thing urging for release within. And in that way every submission we receive is something to be celebrated, something to be recognized, is some kind of triumph. And despite the ever-changing, ever-foggy, ever-uncertain world I wake up to every day, this single certainty continues to fill me with hope: there are countless young poets and writers out there who are looking for some poetic and literary value in their occasions, trying to turn the beautiful and lovely and dark and troubled occasions of their young lives into something that makes sense. It is this sense of the value and import and triumph of every submission that we expect our editors—all high school students from around the country—to understand when they sit down to edit and comment on the fiction, poetry, and nonfiction we receive from around the world. Through our National Editor Training (NET) workshops, our online editorial workshops, and through our continuing feedback to their editorial commentary throughout the reading season, we impress upon our editors the significance, the value, the triumph, of every submission that we receive. We expect our editors to honor that. We expect it. And yet, every day I am still surprised and delighted and heartened when one of our editors says something like, “I am ready to fight for this poem.” Or when I find something like this in the internal message box from one of our editors:

I'm not crazy about this one, but that's not because I don't like it. I enjoyed it the way I enjoy eating scrambled eggs. They taste nice and they do the job, but most of the time I'd rather have cake. Or a spicy burrito, or something. And maybe it's just me and that I'd rather get my teeth drilled than face bad line breaks, but the line structuring here bugged me considerably. Especially because it's supposed to be in an older style. But, back to the egg analogy, which is horrid but I'll stick to it anyway, regardless of the fact that most people don't go crazy for scrambled eggs, the writer made some pretty darn good scrambled eggs. Great language, and plus, the grammar's good to go. Honestly, I'm pretty much neutral over its acceptance, but I guess that typically means that other people reading it would also feel pretty much neutral about it. Which isn't the kind of feeling you want to get from poetry. That’s a response from a high school editor in California to the poem of a high school student in New York. And it’s as care-filled and thoughtful a response as dozens that come across my desk every day. This magazine started with limited funding from a reluctant source who promised the funding would be short-lived, and who warned me that “these things last for two or three years and die when the funding is pulled.” That was six volumes ago, three years after the funding was pulled. And though I wasn’t quite sure what impact Polyphony HS would have when we started it, I cannot be convinced that there’s a more important literary magazine in the world. And it’s as important to the thousands of young writers who have submitted to us since 2004, as it is to the hundreds of editors who have served on our staff in that same stretch of time. Purchase a copy of Polyphony HS on your nightstand or your dresser or on the cabinet in the dining room—somewhere you’ll see it every day. Read one story or essay a poem a day and see what some of the young minds and hearts are doing with their occasions. You’ll have read the issue cover to cover in less than three months. And when you’re done with it, put it in the hands of a kid who writes or a kid who reads—a kid with occasions. Or put it in the hands of a grownup—a writer or poet, maybe. Let her wonder over it. Let him wish there was something like this around when she was a kid. Billy Lombardo

Well, We Did It!

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:10:27 +0000

(Okay, I just spent 10 minutes trying to think up a dashingly witty intro, and this sentence is about all I’ve got.) Well, we did it! You did it! Woohoo! Volume VI is finally on its way, and you mind-boggling writers gave us a mind-boggling year trying to figure out what was going to be in it. Being a contemporary poetry junkie, I (foolishly) thought I’d seen it all - but regardless of how much Simic, Strand, Ashbery, and whatever other big poetry names I read, what I realized through editing this year was that there’s so much more to poetry I’ll never experience if I keep only reading the work of people 40, 50, even 60 years older than me. I’d missed the whole point. Poetry can and should be as big, as small, as old and most definitely as young as you want it to be. It’s a freedom, it’s a necessity, it’s a desperate attempt to make sure something, anything is snatched away safely from the jaws of time and space - but whatever it is, it’s not something you can catch and stuff into a box. The poems this year showed me a rawer, braver side to poetry that I was never expecting, and there were so many great surprises: a sestina that was the best I’d ever laid eyes on, a couple of adventurous prose poems, a piece so subtle it almost didn’t exist, an artsy rant that made me love it for its bad manners. That’s not to say that everything I came across was a “good” poem, but everything I came across did show me something about how our generation yearns to express itself, and why it wants to express itself in the way it does. You guys taught me so much about how to read and understand poetry for all that it can possibly be, not just what it has been. So, to all of you, thanks for the ride! That being said, “all that [poetry] can possibly be” doesn’t mean that any collection of words is a poem, let alone a good one. The large majority of the poems that needed more work weren’t suffering from a lack of creativity or potential at all- what they needed instead was just a better understanding of how to manipulate and communicate through poetry. Time for some tips! The three common myths I’ll be pinpointing concern misused redundancy/repetition, having description and imagery as the sole mission of a poem, and disregarding sentence structure because “poetry is art”. Myth: Repetition of important lines helps to emphasize the direction of a free-verse poem. Fact: Generally speaking, repeated lines are much less powerful than pushing the poem forward with new, constructive material. I used to be an avid hater of poetry. To tell the truth I can’t really blame myself; the one poetry lesson I remember having in school consisted of the teacher showing us how chorus-like repetition is an ubiquitous, extremely useful poetical tool. Generally, in free verse it is actually far from, except in cases where the attitude of the message or narrator needs a certain listless or exasperating edge. More often than not, well, what can a conspicuously repeated line say that you haven’t already said? They’re sort of like lazy dogs. They sit around not really doing anything, and they’re always in the middle of the hallway, preventing you from getting where you want to get. So try not to say something if you’ve already said it, especially in a genre where negative space and simplicity are prized. A key feature of poetry is that it “speaks against an essential backdrop of silence. It is almost reluctant to speak at all, knowing that it can never fully name what is at the heart of its intention”, as James Tate once wrote. Put words down sparingly, but suck out as much meaning from each word you put down, rather than putting words down generously and assuming that your general idea will be presented somewhere along the way. Before you put down any line, ask yourself the following questions: Does this line have a specific and irreplaceable role in both the immediate context and big picture? Does it contribute something that no other line contributes? Is it doing its share of the work in shaping the poem towards the final goal, or is it just along for the ride? (Of course, this advice is entirely applicable to catching redundant lines as well.) If the answers are yes, the precise direction of a poem will feel much more controlled and purposeful. Unlike listening to a pop song with a chorus, reading literature requires that the reader actively pursue a poem, not just passively intake it. Making a reader go through chorus-like repetitions doesn’t come off as catchy; a lot of times it feels more like the writer ran out of constructive things to say. The great thing is that really short poems, e.g. less than 10 lines, are just as legitimate as really long poems, so it’s totally fine if what you have to say comes off strongest in just a handful of words. It’s a much more powerful alternative than unnecessarily tossing in repetition or redundancy to make it longer. Myth: Detailed description and imagery are all you need for a good poem. Fact: Detailed description and imagery are all you need for a good photographic painting. A poem should communicate something. Description and imagery! They’re paraded as creative writing 101, and they certainly are in a sense, but they are by no means all you need to craft a poem. Of course, a great poem can be inspired by beautiful scenery or whatnot, but before even thinking about brainstorming phrases for detailed description or imagery, try nailing down exactly what inspired you about whatever it is you saw. It should be something less obvious than just the physical aesthetics of what you saw, e.g. the ideas it inspired, how it symbolizes something else, or simply the feeling that the sight gave you (and if that’s the case, try to dig beyond just “sad”, “angry”, “happy”, etc.). Make this the ultimate mission of your poem, and use imagery and description to cultivate and help push along this mission - but avoid making imagery and description the mission itself. Poetry is, at its heart, a form of communication, which is different from seeing a photo or painting. Details can be used to highlight certain sentiments, attitudes, or narrative direction, not just complete an image. An example:

The sky is white. The pallid light

hits here and there, crinkling your image

of the silver pencil canister. Your glasses

badly need cleaning, you realize. The apple slices

left on the counter have browned since you last

looked there, and it’s much too painful

to take them from their perpetual

solitude.

This is just a snippet of a poem, so we don’t know what the writer’s full mission was. However, we can sense something more complex than just the picture the writer presents. You don’t just picture the sky, the glasses, and the apple slices; through the specific wordings and phrasings of the description, the writer is actively herding the reader towards a specific feeling. However subtle they may be, the phrases “crinkling your image”, “your glasses badly need cleaning”, “the apple slices ... have browned”, and “perpetual solitude” sculpt the feelings of blighted or weak vision, prolonged time, and isolation. Farther on in this poem the writer ties together these feelings into a more constructive statement, but even in these few lines there is an added dimension, an added “mission” to the description that you couldn’t just see in a photo. It’s that slippery, more complex dimension that poets should try to capture in imagery, not just the physical details of the picture itself, however stunning they are. Myth: Poetry is about uninhibited expression, so correct syntactical, grammatical, and punctuational structures can be ignored. Fact: Generally, ignoring syntactical, grammatical, and punctuational structures in poetry is about as communicative as ignoring them in everyday speech. The great thing about poetry is that neither I nor anyone else can give a black and white definition of what makes a poem. So, really, if you want to write poetry and ignore SGP structures, there’s no reason why you can’t. But for poetry be accessible and communicative to others, there just can’t be distracting comma splices, missing periods, and fickle tense usage hanging around. There’s a simple analogy for this. If you’re going to have a conversation with anyone, you’re going to seem unfocused, clumsy, slightly rude and possibly even unintelligent if you purposely toss grammar down the drain. (If you want a poem to appear unfocused, clumsy, slightly rude or possibly even unintelligent, that’s of course a different matter - but in such a case the material and tone of the piece would also have to be in character.) Generally, to be able to speak honestly and coherently, a poem has to obey English conventions in the same way any other form of writing does, simply because funky or nonexistent SGP structures are distracting, and cannot convey the subtleties needed to make the tone feel human and genuine. Of course, there are always exceptions, like the ones I mentioned above. The trick with these exceptions, as I alluded to, is that the poem in its entirety must conform its entire personality to make wacky SGP usage appear natural. Basically, the stylistic identity of a poem should not have multiple-personality disorder; if it’s aiming to create a certain attitude with unusual SGP structures, then that attitude should be present in every other aspect of the poem as well, so that the whole thing speaks as one unit. For instance, if you’re writing a solemn, haunting sort of poem, dropping periods and using sentence fragments would appear distinctly un-solemn, and probably not coherent enough to feel haunting. However, dropping periods and using sentence fragments work much better in the following poem snippet:

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane

adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun

submerges the subject

noun is choking

verb disgraced goes on doing

there are adjectives up for sale

now diagram the sentence

- from “Tonight No Poetry Will Serve” by

Adrienne Rich

Part of the reason lack of punctuation works here is that the poet’s mission in these lines is to pinpoint a “sinister side” of sentence structure in a very stark way that is completely devoid of emotion or inflection. I mentioned above that the subtleties of SGP structures help create a genuine, human tone, and the poet exploits this by using the lack of SGP structures to make a distinctly raw, almost empty, “un-human” tone. So in cases where you want to create an extremely alienated or barren feeling to a poem, disregarding SGP could help you out - but in the vast majority of cases, just stick to English conventions. Some more notes: 1) You could write the bestest poem in the world, and still have it get rejected. An editing team is just as human as you are. We have our bad days, our grumpy moods, our times when we just can’t focus on a submission as much as it deserves because there are 20 jillion projects due the next day for school. Or, maybe your poem just happened to be the fifth one in a row popping up in an editor’s docket that had to do with cats, and that poor cat-drenched editor is so darn fed up with cats that you couldn’t even pay him to accept it. Don’t pay any mind to a rejection. Well, read the comments, but then go prove us wrong. 2) We’re all teenagers. We all have way more than enough heartbroken, love-dazed pop songs on our iPods. So if you can name a mainstream pop song that accurately reflects the style and/or material of your poem, we’re probably not interested. 3) Back to 1). Those icky things called final projects and IB/AP exams are just as much a part of your life as they are of ours. The truth is that a disproportionately huge amount of submissions comes pouring in right before our deadline, and it just goes according to logic that not as much attention and opportunity can be given to each one when a) there are so many and b) it’s the Nightmare Quarter of Testing. By all means, if you finish the final draft of a totally genius submission the night of April 15th, submit it - but if you’ve got good stuff earlier in the year, don’t wait until the last minute to send it to us. You face less competition that way. Keep writing, and keep submitting. We’re the next generation of the literary world - and that’s one big charge.

- Clara Fannjiang, Poetry Genre Editor

“A Fork in the Road”

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:33:30 +0000

One of the most important constants I have found in my time as a Polyphony HS editor has been that if the author does not know what they want to write, the final product will turn out poorly. This may seem obvious, but many a piece has come through the submission manager without meeting this criterion. Knowing what you want to write includes knowing what you want to convey to the reader, what your own strengths and weaknesses are, and what type of piece you wish to create. I will quickly focus on the last of these factors. In my opinion, nearly all pieces of fiction fit along a one dimensional scale. At one end of the scale is “character/setting.” This means a focus on developing complex and realistic characters that can be related to or giving the reader a great feel for a specific geographic region. The highest purpose of this type of piece is simply to use the power of language as a chisel to create a skillful sculpture of words. What the reader may take from that sculpture is secondary. Don Delillo’s “Underworld” is a great example of this type of piece (for those readers of last week’s blog, by the way, “Underworld” is a very strong title). Delillo certainly develops themes, etc., but he is really focused on the language itself and the world he forms. At the other end of the scale is “philosophy/ideas.” This means a focus on the overarching themes. The piece is trying to be convincing and didactic. The individual pieces are really not as important as the overall concept (which is somewhat ironic, given the following example). Most political writings fall into this category. Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (Amazing title) is a perfect example. The writing is not “pretty” and the characters have one dimension. But you will not read any ten pages of the work without knowing what Rand is trying to say. There are two caveats to the above points. First, almost all works lie somewhere in the middle of the scale. You should not try to force your piece to one side. Just know where it fits along the scale. Second, it is not necessary to know exactly what your goal is before you begin to write anything. Sometimes just a vague idea will do to get started. By the final draft, however, if you still don’t know the point of what you yourself wrote, it might be time to go back to the drawing board. I speak from experience, both as a reader of work that should have been better directed and as a common traveler myself from the conclusion of a piece back to the drawing board.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:06:19 +0000

A wise English teacher once gave me some good advice about creative writing. He told me that the most important parts of a work are the title, the first line, and the last line. That is what the (casual) reader is going to remember. (If he is right, I am already 2/3 of the way through the most important part of this blog entry.) In this post, I want to focus on the first aspect of that triumvirate: the title. During my time as an editor at Polyphony, I have encountered many a good work that was encumbered by an unworthy title. In the case of a shorter piece, or one whose meaning is otherwise ambiguous, a lackluster title can even be the difference between a successful overall piece and one that falls short. But what makes a good title? I believe that the power of a title really comes down to two things: its pertinence and its creativity. A good title should reveal something important about the piece. It is not appropriate to add an abstractly good title to a piece simply because you always wanted to name your story “the son and the moon.” If the exciting/witty title has no discernible connection to the piece, it should not be used no matter how clever. Similarly, it is not advisable to reference a minute aspect of the piece in the title. Just because you think it makes the work should more interesting. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a perfect example of a failure to adhere to this rule. “The Goblet of Fire” does sound more intriguing than the correct title of the book (in my opinion, based on how Rowling named all the other books), “The Tri-Wizard Tournament.” Naming the book “The Goblet of Fire” is like naming the first book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat.” The title should apply to the piece in some way, preferably illuminating or highlighting the main idea. (Who is to say how many more books Rowling would have sold had she named them all properly?!) A good title will not just reference a key portion of the work; it will expand upon it in a surprising or insightful manner. “Treasure Island” is pertinent but does not add much to a reader’s understanding or enjoyment of the piece. We know from reading the book that it has to do with a journey to Treasure Island. The title does not provide a deeper insight or a clever phrasing of what is contained within. Titles that break the second rule can work, but they cannot be great. Shakespeare was a big fan of rule one; not so much of rule two. “Hamlet” is about, well, Hamlet. “King Lear” is about King Lear. From the above, it might appear as though the search for a great title is a hopeless quest. If Rowling and Shakespeare cannot pick a good name, you have to ask yourself, “are there any titles that ARE good?” I am here to tell you that although it is certainly a heady task, great titles have been achieved before. “Infinite Jest”, by David Foster Wallace, is a great title. It works on multiple levels. Most superficially, it refers to one of the main plot points of the novel, the search for the video titled “Infinite Jest.” One level above this, it connects the book itself with the contents of the tape. Furthermore, in an even higher realm outside of the work, it references the incredibly long length of the book and the less-than-conclusive ending at the end of those 1200 pages. “Gravity’s Rainbow,” by Thomas Pynchon, is another great title. It references the importance of missiles in the book itself as well as providing a unique and intelligent metaphorical phrase. Although I am graduating and will therefore be unable to experience the Polyphony submissions of the coming years, I will continue to read the publication. I am confident that the level of teen writing will only increase from the excellence I have already encountered. I am sorry that I will not be able to witness first hand this improvement in skill and, hopefully, after this post, titling. Seth Perlman, outgoing Editor-in-Chief

Observe and Tweet.

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 02:39:48 +0000

When the social networking site Twitter launched in March of 2006, teenagers received it with a resounding mixture of confusion and dismissal. “What’s the point?” and “I don’t understand it” became the most common response to Twitter-focused conversations in the cafeteria. But beyond the walls of high schools around the world, professionals—musicians, politicians, and actors—signed up to self-promote. A longtime fan of standard blogging, I found Twitter and fell instantly in love. Many of my peers scoffed at my new toy, and when asked why I “wasted my time” with Twitter, I had no response more eloquent than “because I like it.”

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Beginning writers take great pride in their individual spaces on the web, whether it is their Facebook page or their Gmail inbox, and I’m not exception. I meticulously plan each of my blog posts, always sure to use proper grammar and appropriate word choice. During my sophomore year, however, between final exams and the Polyphony HS submission deadline, I couldn’t find time to post. I had no new words to give my small virtual following. School had zapped my creativity, like it so often does during the busy months. I didn’t write for weeks. Even after school let out for the summer, though, I didn’t rediscover my stories or characters. It seemed they had left me, and the emptiness rested, heavy in my chest. Even the arrival of summer camp, the one event I felt positive could change even the worst situation, didn’t help. Disillusionment hung over me until a girl from my cabin asked for my help with one of her stories. The mild surprise I felt at discovering her shared desire to put pen to paper sparked something—a sort of warmth. I approached her story with my hypercritical eye, and that’s all it took. Her words filled the part of my brain that, for months, I had considered dead. I began a list of suggestions for her. I imagined possible subplots for her characters, too, though I didn’t write them down. I felt so in touch with the writer I had been just a few months earlier that I picked up my cell phone and tweeted. The first tweet was about the look on my cabin-mate’s face when she saw the long list of suggestions in my hand and the red pen marks all over her story. At first, I felt guilty, but as I continued tweeting about it, I found myself becoming more engrossed in the thoughts that may have gone through her head at that moment. I had begun a short story based on her reaction when I realized the power behind those 140-character status updates. Writing begins with casual observations, and Twitter allows people a place to publish them. Each tweet had reinforced my obsession with human emotion, which led to the creation of that short story. To a non-writer, careful observation may not seem so important, but I pray that other young writers don’t think that way. In elementary school, I always asked visiting authors where they got their story ideas, and the answer was always the same. “Everywhere,” they would say. Then, I considered such an answer a cop-out, assuming they didn’t want to share their secret, but now I understand. My story, which focused on the intricate relationship between stepsiblings, emerged from my cabin-mate’s disappointment. Ideas are everywhere, and taking careful note of the life around me helped me discover that.

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Back on my feet now, it would be easy to knock Twitter, but I don’t. My friends still say I’m indulging myself, publishing my thoughts on the Internet for an audience of strangers. My friends have asked who reads my tweets, and honestly, I don’t know. I have 71 followers, and I haven’t met most of them. But their anonymity isn’t important—their presence is. Not knowing them allows me to publish my tweets without fear of judgment, and although that was just as essential to my development as a writer as that first tweet in early July, but I won’t dwell on it. That’s a lesson for another day.

Shelby Brody

@shelbyiswriting

Developing a Voice

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:36:03 +0000

The ability to create a unique and captivating voice is essential. Voice is composed of multiple things: vocabulary, tone, sentence structure, connotation, etc. It’s how your words sound on paper. For example, say you are reading a story written in first person. As you read, you should hear the words in your head as if the narrator were talking aloud. Sometimes, it’s a voice you’ve never heard before, something the author created. Voice can also be third-person narration. This would be a reflection of the author’s style more than a reflection of the author’s character. Though the two are different, the skill necessary to create either is similar. Every author strives to generate a unique voice. It brings the writing alive. Creating a voice is tricky. If you hear the narrator’s voice in your mind, it’s easier for the readers to hear it in theirs. You can learn by reading other authors’ works, as well. Some classic examples are J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Practice, like with everything else, always helps, so I’m going to give you an assignment of sorts to help you practice developing a voice: Choose one of the following sentences as a starting point for developing a voice. The piece needn’t be long, just make it a sketch (300 words or so). Look for clues in the sentence’s intonation, word choice and sentence structure to continue the development of the voice. 1.) You simply must understand that I am no imposter. 2.) There ain’t nothin’ more beautiful than a noble deed. 3.) The tender clouds opened, permitting the dazzling sunlight to pour on to my glorious face. 4.) The rain, as it always did, soaked through my clothes and soiled my shoes, mocking me and telling me life could get worse than I thought. If you’d like to share, feel free to leave it in the comment box. Have fun!

The Journey To Find My Inner Writer

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:43:00 +0000

My middle school education was mediocre at best. All students were treated exactly the same. There were no grades, just checks and minuses. The more advanced students did the same work as the least advanced students. I left middle school not knowing what I was good at (or had the potential to be good at), and that was the biggest problem. If I’d known I had potential as a writer, I would have started sooner. For me, the thought process came before the writing skills. I had always prided myself on my imagination and creativity. This was what initially sparked my interest in writing. When I was twelve, I saw the movie, “Finding Neverland,” about J.M. Barrie, author of the novel, Peter Pan. The film is about the family who inspired Barrie to write the novel, and how he inspired them in return. One of the boys in the family, who Peter was named after, had a huge imagination. Barrie showed him how to put his imaginative thoughts on paper by buying the boy a journal to write down his every idea. After seeing the film, I asked my mom to buy me a fancy journal for my thoughts. Ever since, I’ve kept journals to record concepts for novels, or short stories, that I hoped to eventually write. I still wasn’t a full-fledged writer at that point. Stories fascinated me – I read more books than I could count - but I wasn’t sold on the act of writing itself until freshmen year of high school. We had just turned in our first essays of the year; my English teacher posted unclear sentences from each on the board. Our assignment: clarify them. I was immediately able to reorganize them in my head, and was first to raise my hand each time. After about the fifth one or so, my teacher stopped and addressed the class: “Wow. The one thing you guys should know about Rae is that she has tremendous strength as a writer.” This blew me away. In fact, it’s one of my most vivid high school memories; certainly one of my happiest. I had never really known I could write before then. After that, I really got going. I was writing all the time. Now, instead of doodling in my math notebook, I write. When I’m upset, I write. When I’m happy, I write. Nothing pleases me more than getting an idea and flushing it out on paper. It all plays out so clearly in my mind, kind of like a movie, but so much more personal and internal. My friends don’t get my obsession with writing, reading, and editing. When I get an idea for a story, I immediately grab my journal and write it down. After I read a great book, I have to tell an English teacher about it. Every creative piece I write, I have my parents and friends read. You can never stop developing as a writer, so I do the best I can to make progress. The great thing about writing is that it’s accessible. All you need is a pen and paper. You’re in charge of everything you write. And how often are you completely in charge of something

Getting the Write Reaction from Your Readers: Some Insights From Genre Editor, Rae Gray

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:40:32 +0000

As a writer, it’s very difficult to predict how readers will react to my work. I may think a certain piece is genius, while my parents, friends or teachers think it’s mediocre. Everyone perceives things differently. One reader may love it; another may not. As an editor, it’s partially my job to predict how Polyphony readers will react to the pieces I’m editing. This definitely factors in when deciding to accept or reject submissions. Therefore, it is also your job to consider how readers might respond to your piece. It’s tricky, I know, but thinking about it will make your compositions much stronger. Here are three key things to think about so you can get a feel for how readers at Polyphony might respond to your submission. 1.) Proofreading – There’s no running away from it. When an author doesn’t proofread, we know. Not only does it reflect poorly on their writing, but it also sends a message the author may not want to send: I don’t really care. If you truly care about becoming a part of Polyphony, sharing your work, and being taken seriously as a writer, you proofread. To be honest, it makes our lives a lot easier, too. 2.) Originality – This relates to just about everything: storyline, format, characters, title, etc.

Storyline: This is hard. Just about every story out there was somewhat inspired by another. You can take components of preexisting stories, but always make sure to add your own personal touches. This does not mean taking Twilight and making the vampire into a female, and the human into a male. Creativity is my favorite part of writing. Use it!
Format: Not every story needs to be in paragraph format. It’s not aesthetically pleasing. Switch it up! Maybe tell your story through dialogue, interviews, diary entries, letters, anything! The lovely thing about being the author is that it’s your choice. Just make sure your choices have reasons.
Characters: If I read about another high school girl who’s really pretty and good at everything, but nice and humble and neglected by the popular girls, I might puke. Have you noticed that this describes the lead character in just about every teenage novel, TV show and movie? Just ask yourself if your characters might actually exist in real life. Complex and unique characters make stories amazing.
Title: In many ways, the title represents what the author finds most important and/or interesting about their story. Your title can also impact the reader’s opinion of the piece. In general, it’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked. A mediocre title usually indicates a mediocre story.

Of course, there are more ways to be original than those listed above. For example, cut out clichés! We cringe when we see things like “needle in a haystack,” “two birds with one stone,” “life isn’t fair,” etc. Avoid them at all costs! 3.) Showing vs. Telling – While commenting on submissions, I often write things like “need more showing.” “Showing” is hard; even advanced writers don’t always nail it. But what exactly is it? We’ll start with telling. Unlike showing, telling is never subtle. It can be equated to describing an attribute: “She has long, curly red hair.” Showing would be depicting that attribute: “Her lustrous crimson locks swayed in the breeze.” See the difference? In general, showing is more active. It isn’t direct description. It’s often metaphorical. Also, showing can be more ambiguous and interpreted in multiple ways, whereas telling often has one meaning. Dialogue can be a good way to show the readers something, but you have to be careful because it can be telling, too. In general, show; don’t tell! These are the three problems that tend to come up most frequently in submissions. There are others of course, and even if you’ve mastered these three, that certainly doesn’t mean you have mastered the rest. Even the most talented writers are students. They take every opportunity they can to learn to write more effectively, and you should too! Lastly, whenever you write something, have other people read it before finalizing it. The people around you are one of your most effective resources. Use them!

Sunblock

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:19:39 +0000

Sunblock

Chicago is known for its biting winters. People save their parking spaces with lawn chairs. Ice lingers in the space between street and sidewalk, stained black with exhaust fumes. Snow falls in April, and I usually don’t mind, perhaps because I’ve lived here my whole life. There does come a time, however, when even I ache for a sunburn. Winter lasts forever in the Midwest. A change of pace wouldn’t kill anyone. Chicagoans would find just as much pleasure in complaining about a sudden shift in weather as they do complaining about the six-month winters, which only proves my theory. A day of 60-degree weather would please everyone, because come Valentine’s Day, most are ready for spring break trips to a tropical island somewhere.

I often receive horrified responses when I admit to enjoying winter. As a writer, I find the season invaluable. In my last post, I admitted to conversing with my characters. Usually, my characters appear to me in dreams or during passing periods, but between the months of November and April, while snow falls in sheets, my walks to school inspire me most. Because when I see a man racing against a blinking stoplight, two daughters in tow, stumbling across the ice, what am I as a writer to do but to invent a plot for him? So, he’s a teacher, unhappy in his job, barely pleased with his marriage. He wants to earn a graduate degree in music composition. He writes concertos while his Shakespeare class takes a pop-quiz. Perhaps it’s an exercise for the literature-obsessed, but without the need for a distraction during a freezing morning walk, I think I would always wait for my characters to find me. Does that make me lazy? Maybe, but my most enduring stories were born that way. Not all writers feel inclined to do this, however. I like to say that there are two extremes—the character writers and the situation writers. Certainly, someone can fall between these two labels. I do, at least. But situation writers can have just as much luck with the dismal winter months as character writers do. What screams plot more than a car skidding over an icy street into a lamppost or a bank or a person? Nothing. And oftentimes, the best characters arise from graphic situations like the one I just described. Yes, Chicago winters test the soul, but doesn’t the best art come from suffering? (Don’t worry. I’m half-kidding.) Only four weeks until spring break. Shelby Brody, Editor-In-Chief

My Imaginary Friends

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:18:33 +0000

Tonight, my aunt Janet was reading an article in my high school alumni magazine about my second novel, and she asked me, “How did you come up with the name Avery?” I looked at her, blinking like my younger cousin had just shot me in the eye with a laser pointer, and I said, “That’s his name.” She smiled, and then I said, “I mean, what else was I supposed to call him? That’s his name.” I take my characters for granted. I treat them like old friends rather than like facets of my imagination. Maybe this comes from spending hours on end with them (in any given week, I talk with my characters more than I talk with my parents), but maybe not. Maybe it comes from the power of characterization, an element of fiction oftentimes abandoned (especially by young writers) in favor of an exhilarating plot. I have what I like to refer to as a two-track mind. While one half of my brain works to answer questions asked of me by my teachers, the other half is considering various sentence structures that could be used for a certain cliffhanger line in my latest story. While the left side of my brain takes a Chemistry test, the other half is conversing with the male protagonist of my first novel, trying to determine whether he smokes cigarettes or not. While I’m supposedly taking notes in Geometry, I’m slowly turning everyone in my world into a character, and as I’ve learned from experience, writers and their characters have intimate, borderline Utopian relationships with one another. In my first manuscript, my male protagonist is a twenty-year-old musician named Peter Scott, a dark-haired, outspoken romantic. He possesses every quality of a star-struck high school dropout, almost all of which are revealed throughout the course of the novel, but some of his more telling past experiences are kept quiet. Since first discovering Pete, I’ve spent hours getting to know him, and I oftentimes think that I know him better than I know myself. I certainly know him better than I know even my best friends. Only I am privy to the serious relationship he had with a girl named Melanie before he left his childhood home in Cleveland, Ohio, and I am certainly the only one that knows he lost his virginity to her in a field when he was sixteen, their bodies lit only by the dim headlights of his ancient Volkswagen. Characters are undoubtedly complex, sometimes as complex as the people I encounter on a daily basis. Each day that I spend with Pete, I learn something new. Every time that I write another chapter from his perspective, I realize that I didn’t know him as well as I thought. It once took me an entire day to discover that Pete didn’t drink his vodka with ice, that he smoked Marlboro lights, and that his romanticism stems from his love of pop music. Halfway through that day, I told my friend Adrian about my problem. “I’m ninety percent sure that Pete has a substance abuse problem,” I said, sitting down next to him in the fifth floor hallway. “Ninety?” he asked. “Ninety.” “Well, then why don’t you ask him?” To write is to play make-believe. “What?” “Close your eyes,” he said, “and ask him.” “Fine.” And maybe it was my desire to write about someone with an addiction to nicotine. Maybe it was my need to explore problems that I’ve never experienced first-hand. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because Adrian and I were alone in that hallway, and I felt safe with him. So I closed my eyes, and I asked Pete. And he said yes. So it came to follow that Pete spent a large quantity of his nights with a bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes, and I felt that I truly knew him inside and out. That trick Adrian taught me helped me to better understand character. Once Pete had a definite set of personality traits, it became easy for me to deduce (or to learn by working for hours with him) what alcoholic beverage he preferred (Absolut vodka) or what his favorite color was (blue). As a writer, I am also a manipulator. I take my characters and unwittingly place them knee-deep in the tide. I say, “Good luck finding your way back.” Once I’ve assigned them their basic characteristics, such as Pete’s impulsive romanticism, they’re on their own. It’s up to them to reach their goal. It remains my belief that once characters have been fleshed out to a certain degree, there is little that we can do as writers to convince them to approach their problems in another way. Once a character has been cast into the surf, there’s not much that we as writers can do but record their journey back. We may watch from the edges of our seats, our nails jammed into our mouths, but we are merely observers by that point. We’re simply along for the ride. Shelby Brody, Editor-in-Chief