Want to be a Better Writer?
Learn to model what you read
At Aspen Words, a writing intensive I attended a few summers ago, David Lipsky had us read “A Model World” an essay by Michael Chabon. Chabon is a master storyteller. He’s won numerous literary prizes, including a Pulitzer. His resume is impressive. He knows writing. So does David Lipsky.
David is the author of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. You may have seen the movie based on his book called The End of the Tour. He teaches at NYU and is an artist in residence there. He’s a contributing editor to Rolling Stone. He’s a big deal.
During our time together, David had us workshop Chabon’s essay. Our group spent hours talking about how the piece was structured and the literary devices Chabon used.
We learned about callbacks, catalogs, modifiers, and transitions. We examined how Chabon used language to draw a visual image for the reader. Here’s an example, “The acid-free paper had a lifeless, creepy feel, like embalmed flesh and he felt bad about consigning Kemp’s words to it.” The time frame was pre-computers. Chabon wanted to convey the reverence the writer in his story had for the words he was typing and the guilt he felt over plagiarizing them. He didn’t just have the writer “put a piece of paper in the typewriter” or type on a “clean white page” he had the writer consign the words to “acid-free paper [that] had a lifeless, creepy feel, like embalmed flesh.”
I took pages of notes and wrote all over my copy of “A Model World” as we workshopped it.
Reading and workshopping Chabon was inspiring. On the plane, on my way home from the intensive, I wrote a short story using the structure of “A Model World” called “A Model Week.” I wanted to take a story I loved and used it as a model for my own writing. I didn’t plagiarize Chabon’s work, I simply attempted to follow his structure and employ some of his techniques to create an original work.
If you are interested in short form writing, take a piece of writing that you love and use it as a model to write an original essay or short story. I’ve included my essay below. It isn’t perfect, but I learned a good bit from writing it. And I’m incredibly proud of one or two paragraphs. If you want to read the inspiration, here is a link to a collection of Michael Chabon’s essays, including “A Model World.”
A Model Week
by Sandra O’Donnell
Anna
Anna had less than a semester to go in her MFA program. Tooling around the Internet, ignoring the pile of stories sitting at her elbow seemed the perfect use of her time. Before the end of the term, she had to make her way through reams of pages penned by disaffected twenty-somethings from exasperatingly low drama, well-to-do families that provided thin material for the angst-riddled prose they longed to write. Each worse than the next, she could only bear them in appetizer-size portions, a page or two at a time.
Her search for “there must still be good writing somewhere” returned 847,635 possibilities. She vowed to make her way through the entire list. The writing she’d been forced to read since taking up her MFA had shown microscopic evidence of that good writing, did indeed still exist. She invented a game for herself — ten links for one page of reading. Reading the work of her peers killed her soul, leaving her creativity buried, deep in an unmarked grave. Hence the search. She was 25 pages into a story about a milk-truck delivering lesbian, pondering the existence of actual milk-trucks, when she came upon the link for Aspen Words.
It looked idyllic. A supportive community of writers hanging together in the mountains for a week in June. She’d always wanted to go to Aspen.
Gazing intently at the images of gatherings from past years, it seemed everything her MFA wasn’t — convivial, stimulating, less suicide-inducing. These people didn’t write stories about milk truck driving lesbians, well maybe some of them did. But in the mountains of Colorado, those stories might seem refreshing and unaffected.
She checked the dates. The deadline was in less than two weeks. Surely, Jack wouldn’t mind if she went. Even though she’d only made it back home to San Diego twice this semester.
“Jack,” she sighed. “Lovely obliging Jack.”
Her eyes fell to the faculty link.
“Please,” she silently prayed. “Please don’t let any of my f’ing faculty be on this list.”
Anna was relieved to discover that in addition to a complete absence of any of her faculty, three of her favorite novelists would be teaching that summer. Real authors. Authors whose books sold. Her committee hated success. They turned their noses up at the slightest whiff of “commercialism,” the literary equivalent of a pile of sidewalk puppy poo a neglectful owner left for others to step in. At least two of the authors listed had been on the New York Times Bestseller list. A few had won major awards or had been shortlisted. Between them, they’d published over 25 books.
Her faculty frowned on publishing. They were in it for the art. Well, art didn’t pay the bills. Anna wanted to write books that would sell. Books people might actually read.
She clicked on the link for David Lipsky. “Wasn’t he the guy who followed David Foster Wallace around before he died?”
“Nailed it,” she thought reading his bio. “Not bad looking either.”
A plan began to take shape. She would save her writing. And, Sandra’s too. Inspired and quite proud of her new-found altruism, Anna abandoned her Google search and struggled through the final five pages of the lesbian milk-truck story.
Sandra
I had been laboring over a major problem with my memoir for months. The first two parts flowed brilliantly, but the third was clunky and disconnected. I’d spent enough for a plane ticket to Australia on Audible and Amazon buying memoirs, hoping reading or listening to other people’s prose would provide a jolt of inspiration for mine. So far, all they’d done was make me sad. Well, except for Felicia Day’s and Amy Pohler’s.
I’d been at it for so long Kim had begun to refer to my memoir by the rather lengthy moniker “the book that may not ever see daylight in my lifetime.” At first, joking and affectionate, the words now fall like a specter of doom, when he utters them, becoming an ominous warning.
In times of doubt, I turned to my one sympathetic ear, my writing partner Anna. Well, I did until she went to graduate school. Lately, our conversations were laced with laments.
“What does it matter? No one will read anything we write. We will never find an agent or a publisher. We will have spent the better part of the last three years of our lives doing what? Rearranging words like those stupid poetry magnets people used to keep on their frig to make them look smart? Don’t even get me started on the money. The sad fact is people aren’t looking for great stories. They are looking for books like The Nest, the literary equivalent of the Kardashian’s cable show.”
Since starting her MFA, she’d become pessimistic, bitter, and lately, a bit on the chunky side. So, when my phone buzzed across the table, and I saw her number, requesting we FaceTime, I almost didn’t answer it.
“I’ve solved our problem!” Anna was sitting at her desk, in her tiny cramped apartment, her back to the white IKEA bookshelves she and I built her first semester. After schlepping the boxes up three flights of stairs and nearly peeing ourselves laughing because we had to stop every fourth step to rest, we finally got the boxes inside. Assembling them was another matter. It’s a miracle they’d stayed together this long.
“We are going to Aspen Words! You are going to study memoir with Darin Straus. You read his book A Half Life and loved it. And I’m going to study fiction with Maria Semple. It’s in June. You need to get your application together.” She was happier than I’d seen her in months.
“What are you talking about?”
“A literary conference, in Aspen, in June. You, me, and other writers. And published authors. What could be better than that?
“How much is this going to cost me?”
I clicked send on my application, after the tenth pleading phone call and a series of berating FaceTime sessions with Anna. A juried competition with hundreds of applications, I doubted I’d be accepted. I doubted everything about my writing. At most, I’d be out lunch at The Lot and a few more hours spent laboring over my memoir.
Mid-April, an email dropped into my box from a Nicole I didn’t know with the Subject: Congratulations! Announcing I’d been accepted to Aspen Words and I’d be workshopping with David Lipsky. I groaned. The guy who followed David Foster Wallace around? Seriously? I reached for the phone to call Anna then hesitated. What if she hadn’t gotten in?
Confrontational bravery has never been my forte, so I chose the coward’s method of communicating.
SO: So, have you heard from Aspen Words?
AP: Did you?”
SO: Yep, I got accepted. You?
AP: In class, I’ll call you in an hour.
After a few minutes of deft conversational procrastination, Anna finally admitted she never applied. Her initial enthusiasm gave way to the relief of spending the summer not having her writing critiqued. Plus, she was pregnant.
“What! When were you going to tell me?”
“I just did. But you should go. It will be good for you.”
“I don’t know. It was one thing when we were going together. I’ll think about it, but either way, I’m thrilled for you and Jack.”
I vacillated for weeks, finally sending in my tuition in on the last day. Because it took me so long to decide, I missed the deadline for a room at the Gant and had to settle for a condo in Snowmass, which meant renting a car. It took me another half a day to figure out how to get to there. Delta and Southwest didn’t fly to Aspen, American and United did, but flights in and out were sparse. The closer it got, the more I regretted my decision to go. I blamed Anna. Sweet. Innocent. Pregnant Anna.
At dinner the first night, I learned you don’t go to Aspen Words for the food. The “BBQ” they’d touted turned out to be charred burgers and chicken swimming in sticky sauce. After making our way through the buffet line, we were directed to a table with our workshop leader’s name. Every time someone new joined our table, I tried desperately to match the name on their badge to the stories I’d read before coming, without success.
David joined us late. During dinner, he was quiet, reserved, and distracted.
He made a pitch for adding craft tools to our workshop time.
“We’ll still workshop everyone’s pieces, but after reading through your pages, I think you could all benefit from some craft work.”
We nodded in tepid agreement. No one was willing to take the lead quite yet. After a few minutes, he asked, “Do you mind if we continue outside? I need to smoke.”
Outside, cigarette in hand quiet, tepid David become animated, engaging David. He went around the table asking each of us who our favorite authors were. A question we should have been prepared for but weren’t.
“What do you like about her work? Really? Faulkner? Not O’Connor? What drew you to that book?”
Our initial session went well beyond the others, finally breaking up when Darien Strauss stopped by the table to get David. Still unsure about the week ahead, I looked longingly after Darien as they walked away.
We spent the next day going through the first few pages of “A Model World” an essay by Michael Chabon, from 1989 that I vaguely remembered reading in graduate school. The memory conjured a bout of painful nostalgia. But, craft with David was like nothing I’d gotten from graduate writing classes or in other workshops. David showed us how Chabon’s mind worked. Why he made certain decisions. How he built tension. I headed to lunch feeling a tiny bit smarter and hungry for more.
Not everyone found the morning quite as sating. The body language — arms crossed, face rigid, voice crackling in response — signaled irritation rising from strangled expectations. I feared an ominous line being drawn.
The opposition began slowly marshaling its troops.
“There was absolutely no excuse for the way he cut Emily off like that! I didn’t come here to spend two hours of our three-hour workshop listening to him pontificate. He’s so arrogant. Don’t you find him incredibly arrogant? No, what he really is, is a misogynist.”
Mild murmurs of “uh huh and “hmm” accompanied the mostly one-sided conversation. Few were willing to form opinions this early on.
Day two followed on the heels of day one. We continued our way through Chabon and by the break, I could see faintly glowing light bulbs over the heads of everyone, save one person. We were beginning to see it. The fluidity of the piece. Chabon’s transitions, catalogs, decisions. We jumped in. At first tepidly testing the water and then eagerly wading further into the discussion, gaining confidence as David guided us to the deep end of craftwork.
After the break, arms rigidly folded, voice stilted, the opposition spoke.
“I came here to workshop, not spend hours talking about craft and going over one essay. I have an MFA. I did all this in my program. I don’t need this!”
Nervous paper shuffling ensured. Furtive glances made their way around the room like a stadium wave.
David attempted to broker peace. “I’m happy to meet earlier with those of you who need the craftwork and find it useful. We can start at 8:00 and end at 10:30 and then workshop for the last hour and a half.” He was gracious, generous, and calm.
Slowly discussion began. Concerns about missing yoga half-heartedly aired. A few groans about the early start echoed around the room. No one wanted to leave the lone dissenter out on her limb.
I finally spoke up, “I am finding the craftwork incredibly helpful. And if David is willing to work with us an hour more each day which, is extremely generous of you by the way, then I’m going to be here at eight.”
That was all the rest needed. Eyes downcast, they sheepishly made their way to the craft side of the line.
I’ve learned that attending anything, especially a conference with lines drawn in the sand of expectation, is a sure bet for disappointment. Shit happens. People who are supposed to show up can’t. Life gets in the way. I didn’t get assigned to the workshop I wanted. I found myself in a room with someone whose work I was only vaguely familiar with until a few weeks before. I could have let eager anticipation turn to frustration.
I’ve been there. Years ago, after hearing an announcement that the Dali Lama would be speaking at a college a few hours away, I decided to attend. It was a last minute decision. I got a late start. There was traffic. I cursed the gods and the other drivers for making me late. By the time I arrived on campus and was told the talk was sold out, my mood was anything but spiritual. Two others turned away from the box office, joined me in a sidewalk pity party. A passing state trooper overhead our tales of woe — we’d driven so far, we hadn’t found out till the last minute — and suggested that if we just wanted to see the Dali Lama, we could go around back where his limo was parked. It was better than nothing. At the rear of the auditorium, we stood a respectful distance away. A secret service agent headed toward us. We prepared for the inevitable — “this is a secure area, you can’t be here.” But instead, he directed us to a spot providing a better vantage. Our luck was changing. We heard thunderous applause permeating the walls of the auditorium. The door opened. His Holiness emerged. He noticed us, gave us a cheery wave. And then, he crossed the street. Bowing deeply, he took each of our hands in his and bestowed us with a personal blessing. After he’d driven away, we hugged. Three strangers spiritually bonded.
I could have turned around when the traffic signaled I wouldn’t make it there on time. I could have left when I found there were no seats. We could have let the officer or the secret service agent intimidate us. Thankfully, we didn’t. We set aside our expectation and rolled with the situation.
David Lipsky is not the Dali Lama. But the situations were similar. When I applied to Aspen Words, I thought I’d be going with a writing partner. After being accepted, I found out she never applied. Finding a flight to Aspen was a pain in the ass. Initially, I hoped to be assigned to Darien Strauss’ workshop. I got David instead. We expected a week of workshopping our pieces. David is obsessed with craft. I recalibrated. I was determined to stay open.
David is a frenetic experience. Always moving — sitting, standing, pacing the floor in untied faded Chuck Taylors. Smoking one endless cigarette. Lighting the next from the butt of the last. Raking his hands through slightly graying prep-school wavy hair. How do I know he’s a prep school kid? He teaches in basketball shorts from his alma mater and rumpled Izods. The son of privilege, he works hard to overcome this affliction, by replacing arrogance with humility, entitlement with generosity.
On a social level, he is polite to a fault. Peppering his talk with thank you, graciously accepting compliments, jumping to open doors, take coats, or clear a seat for a latecomer. In class, he is controlling and yes at times, borders on rude. Or at least, it can appear that way unless you realize as a seasoned teacher, he knows a group of twelve women can derail into meandering chatter faster than a runaway train, taking the class off the tracks, sending it plummeting into a river of wasted time. And he is painfully aware that an opinion is not constructive criticism. That in every class, there are people who will continue speaking long past their experience or insight expiration dates.
David is smart but not in an “I’m going to repeat the names of dead and well-known writers incessantly, so you think I’m brilliant” way. Did he pepper his talk with Nabakov, Proust, Cheever, Chekhov, Moore, and Saunders? Yes. But I soon realized the names mean something to him, beyond the street-cred one gets from simply spouting them. They are people he lives with, inhabiting the same literary house. He sleeps on their couches, rummages through their cabinets, and witnesses their heartbreaks. That week, he invited us into his home. The rooms were surprisingly messy, the surfaces a bit gummy, the ashtrays in need of emptying, but when I looked beyond the chaos, elegance reigned.
When the whistle blew on the last day, signaling the end, we stayed together, working until flights forced us apart. David was a few hours gone. An unforeseen last minute flight change had him packing while workshopping the final pieces. Before he left, he scheduled follow up calls for later that week, more unexpected and unrequired generosity. A flurry of pictures, hugs, thank yous and he was on his way.
“Keep in touch and send me your pieces after you rework them with your changes,” he threw over his shoulder.
We moved the workshop outside, finishing the last piece together, not wanting to leave the tightly ordered cosmos we’d created that week. Hesitant to breathe the air outside Aspen Words. Knowing when we did, reality would thin the heady oxygen-rich mix we’d perfected together. Turns out we were partially right. You cannot live in a creativity and inspiration bubble for very long. But you can take some of it with you. I certainly did.
“How was it?” Anna and I are having lunch at The Lot the week after I returned.
“It was great. I’m smarter. And, I’m a better writer.
“So, will you go back?”
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Sandra O’Donnell is the author of Your First Fifteen Pages. She’s read hundreds of queries and has a passion for helping writers create stories that connect with agents, publishers, and readers.
Note: This post previously appeared in Bonfires of the Sanities. It was moved to this publication by the author.
