{"product_id":"naked-drunk-and-writing-isbn-9781580084802","title":"Naked, Drunk, and Writing","description":"The material is right there in front of you. You’ve known yourself for, well, a lifetime—and you finally feel ready to share your story with the world. Yet when it actually comes time to put pen to paper, you find that you’re stumped.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEnter Adair Lara: award-winning author, seasoned columnist, beloved writing coach, and the answer to all of your autobiographical quandaries. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNaked, Drunk, and Writing\u003c\/i\u003e is the culmination of Lara’s vast experience as a writer, editor, and teacher. It is packed with insights and advice both practical (“writing workshops you pay for are the best--it’s too easy to quit when you’ve made no investment”) and irreverent (“apply Part A [butt] to Part B [chair]”), answering such important questions as: \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e• How do I know where to start my piece and where to end it? \u003cbr\u003e• How do I make myself write when I’m too scared or lazy or busy?\u003cbr\u003e• What makes a good pitch letter, and how do I get mine noticed?\u003cbr\u003e• I’m ready to publish—now where do I find an agent?\u003cbr\u003e• If I show my manuscript to my mother, will I ever be invited to a family gathering again?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs thorough and instructive as a personal writing coach (and cheaper, too), \u003ci\u003eNaked, Drunk, and Writing\u003c\/i\u003e is a must-have if you are an aspiring columnist, essayist, or memoirist—or just a writer who needs a bit of help in getting your story told.\u003cb\u003ePart I:\u003c\/b\u003e Writing Down Your Stories  \u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   one\u003c\/b\u003e That Which Is Most Personal Is Most Common  \u003cb\u003e2\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   two\u003c\/b\u003e Hot Heart, Cold Eye: The Inconvenient Importance of Craft  \u003cb\u003e8\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart II:\u003c\/b\u003e The Personal Essay  \u003cb\u003e11\u003cbr\u003e   three\u003c\/b\u003e Elements of the Successful Essay  \u003cb\u003e12\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         KEEP IT SMALL | \u003cb\u003e13\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WHAT QUESTION DRIVES YOUR ESSAY? | \u003cb\u003e14\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         WRITE ABOUT THE MOMENT SOMETHING CHANGED | \u003cb\u003e15\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         BUILD THE ESSAY | \u003cb\u003e19\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         OUTLINE THE ESSAY | \u003cb\u003e22\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WRITE THE EPIPHANY | \u003cb\u003e24\u003cbr\u003e   four\u003c\/b\u003e What’s Your Angle?  \u003cb\u003e34\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         YOU HAVE A SUBJECT—BUT DO YOU HAVE AN ANGLE? | \u003cb\u003e35 \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         HOW TO FIND AN ANGLE | \u003cb\u003e37\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         HOW TO USE SETUP | \u003cb\u003e40\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart III:\u003c\/b\u003e Techniques and Practices for Essay and Memoir  \u003cb\u003e43\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   five\u003c\/b\u003e Tone: How to Assert a Specific Temperament  \u003cb\u003e45\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         ARE YOU FUNNY? | \u003cb\u003e47\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         BE A SCREWUP | \u003cb\u003e54\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         WATCH YOUR TONE | \u003cb\u003e56\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         FINDING YOUR VOICE: DO YOU SOUND LIKE YOU? | \u003cb\u003e59\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   \u003cb\u003esix\u003c\/b\u003e Image: The Luminosity of the Particular  \u003cb\u003e62\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         USE YOUR SENSES | \u003cb\u003e65\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         BUILD IMAGES WITH SPECIFIC DETAILS | \u003cb\u003e69\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e         THE DREAD NECESSITY OF INNER EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE | \u003cb\u003e75\u003cbr\u003e   seven\u003c\/b\u003e How to Trick Yourself into Writing \u003cb\u003e80\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         APPLY PART A (BUTT) TO PART B (CHAIR) | \u003cb\u003e82\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         WRITE EVERY DAY | \u003cb\u003e85\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         NO TIME TO WRITE? CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY | \u003cb\u003e86\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e         LOWER YOUR STANDARDS | \u003cb\u003e87\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   eight\u003c\/b\u003e It Takes a Village: Working with Other Writers  \u003cb\u003e90\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         HOW WRITING PARTNERS MAKE YOU WRITE | \u003cb\u003e91\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         HOW THE WRITING PARTNERSHIP WORKS | \u003cb\u003e93\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         TAKE CLASSES |\u003cb\u003e 96\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         JOIN A GROUP | \u003cb\u003e98\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         FEEDBACK: HOW TO GIVE IT | \u003cb\u003e100\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         FEEDBACK: HOW TO TAKE IT | \u003cb\u003e104\u003cbr\u003e   nine\u003c\/b\u003e Revising Rewriting Your Work  \u003cb\u003e108\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         STEP BACK FROM YOUR DRAFT | \u003cb\u003e110\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         FIX THE BEGINNING | \u003cb\u003e112 \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         FIX THE ENDING | \u003cb\u003e114\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         FIX IN GENERAL | \u003cb\u003e116\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         FIX THE SENTENCES  | \u003cb\u003e121\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED? | \u003cb\u003e126\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart IV:\u003c\/b\u003e The Memoir  \u003cb\u003e127\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e   \u003cb\u003eten\u003c\/b\u003e Planning Your Memoir  \u003cb\u003e128 \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WILL YOUR IDEA WORK? | \u003cb\u003e129\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         USE REFLECTIVE VOICE | \u003cb\u003e134\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e         DO YOUR REASEARCH| \u003cb\u003e141\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         ORGANIZE YOUR MATERIAL | \u003cb\u003e144\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WRITE A DISCOVERY DRAFT | \u003cb\u003e145\u003cbr\u003e   eleven\u003c\/b\u003e What Goes In, What Doesn’t  \u003cb\u003e148\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         IDENTIFY YOUR DESIRE LINE AND OBSTACLES | \u003cb\u003e148 \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         DETERMINE THE PIVOTAL EVENTS | \u003cb\u003e151\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         DRAW THE ARC | \u003cb\u003e154  \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         STRENGTHEN THE ARC | \u003cb\u003e158\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WHY IT’S CALLED CREATIVE NONFICTION | \u003cb\u003e163\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         HIRE AN EDITOR | \u003cb\u003e164\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         CONSIDER A NONCONVENTIONAL STRUCTURE | \u003cb\u003e166\u003cbr\u003e   twelve\u003c\/b\u003e How to Write Narration and Scene  \u003cb\u003e168\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         THE USES OF NARRATION | \u003cb\u003e168\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WRITE COMPELLING SCENES | \u003cb\u003e170\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e         BRING YOUR MOM TO LIFE | \u003cb\u003e175\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         USE DIALOGUE | \u003cb\u003e180\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart V:\u003c\/b\u003e Getting Published  \u003cb\u003e183\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   thirteen\u003c\/b\u003e Words for Money: Selling Your Essays  \u003cb\u003e184\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WHERE TO FIND A MARKET | \u003cb\u003e188\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         HOW TO FIND HOOKS | \u003cb\u003e193 \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e         A WORD ABOUT RIGHTS | \u003cb\u003e195\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         HOW TO SUBMIT | \u003cb\u003e196\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         HOW TO HANDLE REJECTIONS |\u003cb\u003e 200\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         HOW TO HANDLE ACCEPTANCES | \u003cb\u003e202\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e         GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE | \u003cb\u003e203\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e   fourteen\u003c\/b\u003e Publishing Your Memoir  \u003cb\u003e204\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         FIND AN AGENT | \u003cb\u003e205 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         PREPARE TO OBSESS OVER THE QUERY LETTER | \u003cb\u003e207\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         PUT TOGETHER THE PROPOSAL | \u003cb\u003e209\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         YOUR NEW JOB: PROMOTING YOUR BOOK | \u003cb\u003e213\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         SHOULD YOU SELF-PUBLISH? | \u003cb\u003e215\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e         WHAT IF MOM READS IT? | \u003cb\u003e218\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS | \u003cb\u003e220\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e       \u003cbr\u003e   What You Get When You Write from Life  \u003cb\u003e225\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Appendix  \u003cb\u003e231\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         READING LIST | \u003cb\u003e231\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         USEFUL TEXTS | \u003cb\u003e231\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         WRITING EXERCISES | \u003cb\u003e232\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e         TRICKS OF THE (COMPUTER) TRADE | \u003cb\u003e241\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   Contributors  \u003cb\u003e243\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   Index  \u003cb\u003e244\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e   About the Author  \u003cb\u003e248\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Very savvy and smart and hugely entertaining.”\u003cbr\u003e--ANNE LAMOTT, author of \u003ci\u003eBird by Bird\u003c\/i\u003eADAIR LARA wrote a twice-weekly column for the \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e for twelve years, taught in the MFA program at Mills College, and won the Associated Press Award for Best Columnist in California. She leads sold-out writing workshops in San Francisco, CA.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003efour\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhat’s Your Angle?\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThere may never be anything new to say, but there is always a new way to say it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—flannery o’connor\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMy friend Stan Sinberg, then a columnist for the \u003ci\u003eMarin Independent Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, had a big birthday coming up, and he wanted to write about it. Of course Stan could have just blurted out to his readers that he was about to be forty and realized many of his dreams remained unfulfilled. But that would be the direct approach. In life, directness is good. In writing, not so good. It’s said that when Henry James received a manuscript he didn’t like, he’d return it with the dry comment, “You have chosen a good subject and are treating it in a straightforward manner.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYou can’t just come out and say what you have to say. That’s what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New York, spills peanuts all over the place (back when the cheapskate airlines at least gave you peanuts), and tells you about what his boss did to him the day before. You know how your eyes glaze over when you hear a story like that? That’s because of the way he’s telling his story. You need a \u003ci\u003egood way\u003c\/i\u003e to tell your story.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAn \u003ci\u003eangle\u003c\/i\u003e is a way to tell a story. It is to the essay what a premise is to a book, or a handle is to advertising, or a high concept is to a movie (dinosaurs brought back to life for a theme park!). It’s a gimmick or twist or conceit that grabs the reader’s attention long enough for you to say what you want to say. Think of the angle as the Christmas tree. Once you have that six-foot pine standing up next to the piano, it’s pretty easy to see where the decorations go. Without the tree, what have you got? A lot of pretty balls on the floor. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eRemember Stan, who had a big birthday coming up? He needed a new way to take stock of his accomplishments when he turned forty. The first few lines establish the angle in Stan’s humorous twist on the subject:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eListen, I can’t spend a lot of time on today’s column because there’s a lot I have to do. See, today’s the last day I’m thirty-nine years old, and there’re all these things I always wanted to accomplish before I turned forty. Like get married. Always wanted to be married before I turned forty.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eStan’s angle was that he had to realize all his dreams on that final day of being thirty-nine. No problem with the marriage thing (“I’d had my eye on this woman who came into the health club most mornings at eleven”), but he also had to write a novel (“Fortunately, I have a couple of ideas”), and acquire kids, a house, a horse, and a piano. He was going to have a busy day. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAngles are half the battle, so when you find one it’s often almost not an exaggeration to say you are practically done, except for the typing. Stand up, stretch, and go eat the leftover chicken in the fridge. Angles make the rest of the piece easy, because often what follows is the easiest thing in the world to write: a list. You just have to come up with your points and pick an order for them. Notice that Stan’s account of all the things he needed to do before turning forty is such a list: he could start with the piano, and then talk about kids, and the piece would still work. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eYou Have a Subject—But Do You Have an Angle?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen a writer talks about having an idea for a piece, he usually means not that he has found a subject to write about, but that he has found an angle. When I wanted to write about mothers and their middle-aged daughters for \u003ci\u003eMORE\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, I had a \u003ci\u003esubject\u003c\/i\u003e. When I proposed a piece about how daughters start to take it easy on their mothers in middle age, I had an \u003ci\u003eangle\u003c\/i\u003e. Even when an essay is a chronological narrative—here’s my story of life as a black woman in America—finding an angle will sharpen it, as Zora Neale Hurston did when she began, “I remember the very day that I became colored.” Note the surprise in that statement: People don’t become colored; they discover they are. An angle always has an element of surprise—that’s the thing that makes it new. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOnce I assigned a class to write about the same subject: Barbie dolls. Everybody returned with a different angle. One woman said \u003ci\u003eshe\u003c\/i\u003e was a Barbie doll, another talked about how the pressure of keeping Barbie well dressed turned her into a shoplifter, a man said he pretended to hate Barbie—burning her hair off over the gas jets—but was more drawn to her than he let on. A student named Lisa Pongrace found her angle in a remark she happened to make in her first draft: \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBarbie is regarded to be the standard of feminine perfection, yet Barbie isn’t perfect at all-her arms don’t even bend! She carries out a tray of frosty beverages, balancing it on the two bamboo poles they’ve given her for arms. She can’t even curl her fingers.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eLike the outline of a narrative essay, the angle lets you know what to put in, what to leave out. Now that Lisa knows that her piece will be on Barbie’s imperfections, she will focus the next draft on that. If she talks about Barbie’s stunning array of careers, for example, she might observe that a flighty resume hardly demonstrates seriousness of purpose. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eusing conflict as angle\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes your angle is bringing conflict into the piece when it needs it. It’s not enough to write a piece about how much you like to spend the day in bed. You always have to tell us what’s stopping you, or the piece will lack tension and thus have the gripping quality of a Hallmark card.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOften, of course, there is no trouble. The trip was wonderful in every respect, the new boyfriend is heaven sent, you are floating in a sky-blue pool in a Caribbean resort, and your only source of distress is that the tiny umbrella from your drink fell in the water. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOne fix is to bring into the piece something or somebody who’s preventing you from doing what you want to do. If I want to write about how I nervously arrive hours early for a flight, maybe even get a hotel room at the airport the night before just to make sure, I have a topic, but where’s the tension? Who cares when I like to get to the airport? So I bring in someone with the opposite point of view—in this case, my husband, Bill, who prefers that last-minute swan dive into the 747 as it pulls away from the gate. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is why, incidentally, columnists always cast their partners in the straight man role—to be the “You can’t do that” obstacle. You can use the same technique. Bring in a friend, a boss, or a mother (mothers are fabulous for this) to oppose you. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow to Find an Angle\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you’re struggling to come up with a compelling angle, here are some techniques and resources to try out. An interesting angle can come from any of the following sources.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ethe daily paper \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI collect newspaper clippings that offer promising angles. One is a Miss Manners column with the headline, “A Move to Abolish the High School Prom.” For anyone wanting to write the story of her own high school prom, there’s an angle right there. Who cares if everybody has a terrible time at the prom? We had to go through it, and the next generation should have to, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003esomething you hear yourself say aloud\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was having Thai food with my friend John when I remarked to him that my husband, Bill, and I kept all our finances separate. “We don’t even have a joint banking account.” My friend stared as if I had lifted a door in my skin and revealed a howling wilderness where sunshine and a lawn should be. “It doesn’t sound romantic, but it is,” I rushed to assure him. “We’ve practically never had an argument about money.” When I heard myself saying that, I jotted the idea on my napkin: “Divvying up finances like college roommates can be romantic.” That statement contains surprise, so it makes a promising angle.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003etalking the piece through with someone \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m not sure where to start, I seem to have two separate problems, the ending seems weak, what the hell is my epiphany?” and so on. If you don’t have a writing partner, follow that other human you live with around the house. “See, I’m trying to write about the plane crash that killed my whole skating team after I missed the flight, and I never understood . . .” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYour housemate can yawn, or keep folding the towels, shaving, or even watching TV—it doesn’t matter. It’s what you hear yourself saying that does the trick. A few years ago I’d been trying to find a way to write about a dark painting my mother made that showed my six siblings and me at the swimming hole in Samuel P. Taylor Park in Northern California, near where I grew up. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“She painted in all the shadows,” I commented to my husband, Bill, as I hung the painting in the hall, “but I remember all the sunlight.” \u003ci\u003eBingo\u003c\/i\u003e. Angle. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ewriting the last paragraph \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou can sometimes coax out an angle by writing a final paragraph, an exercise that’s just to help you think. I do this often. In this paragraph you type, “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here. What am I saying about my high school reunion? Am I trying to say this? Or that?” Just as when you talk a piece through with someone, if you force yourself to focus on what you’re driving at, you find you know—or your typing fingers do. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ea remark you made in an early draft \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA student of mine set down some thoughts about being confined to an apartment in Iran with her sister one long summer when their father was on assignment there. When she wrote, “The closer we were kept together, the more we grew apart,” she had her angle. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSimilarly, my former writing partner, Ginny McReynolds, a college dean, said in a piece about lesbian potlucks, “It’s like so many other things in the lesbian community. For many lesbians, putting a lot of energy into something that is traditionally female seems wrong.” Angle! If she used that angle throughout the essay, she’d talk about the potluck, but also add other examples of lesbians balking at makeup or housekeeping or fancy clothes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ea quote \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI read a magazine piece in which the writer muses, “I wonder: Do health concerns simply represent a more mature way of hating your body?” That’d be a good angle on the current obsession with health. Or, if you are just moving in with someone, you could play with a remark Robert Kaplan, a psychologist practicing in Oakland, made: the amount of our furniture we bring with us represents how much of our past we’re willing to give up on, share, or ignore. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI read somewhere about a mother with a sick baby who says at one point, “It’s all very hard, but there’s a lot of collateral beauty along the way.” That would be a good angle for a piece, as would this line from Salman Rushdie’s book, \u003ci\u003eThe Moor’s Last Sigh\u003c\/i\u003e: “Every child creates the father she needs.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI found an angle for a piece about the messy apartment I shared with my kids when I read the following quote, attributed to Herbert Muschamp, in \u003ci\u003eHG Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e: “We want a place for everything, but not necessarily everything in its place.” My piece began, “The upended picnic cooler serving as a fourth chair in my kitchen illuminated what Herbert Muschamp must have meant when he said . . .” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003esurprising remarks you hear\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI once heard a woman say, “I’ve got four sisters and am always amazed that I’m the only one who remembers all family events exactly as they happened.” Another woman I know, referring to a crooked curtain rod in her entryway, commented, “That’s the kind of thing it takes a year and fifteen minutes to do.” Both of those are good possible angles. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow to Use Setup \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSetup\u003c\/i\u003e can be another effective way to structure a piece and is thus a kind of angle. In setup, you begin the piece with the opposite of where you want to go. (We saw a bit of this in the last chapter, when we talked about constructing an essay by working backward from the epiphany.) \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHere’s an example of how setup works: One day \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e columnist Jon Carroll was attending a wedding reception and he realized he was boring the bride he was talking to. Naturally, any such bad moment has potential, but a major metropolitan paper doesn’t hire people to turn out columns that say, “I had a troubling experience the other day that I’d like to tell you about.” In order to write about that moment of humiliation, Jon set it up by starting with the opposite: how nice it is, as a celebrated Bay Area columnist, to be recognized and admired:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNice wedding last weekend. Very fine pizza; always a plus at a wedding. Lovely couple. Sweet music. Chocolate wedding cake-why doesn’t everyone think of that? Fans. I don’t mean to be immodest, but try to stop me. I am standing there in my extremely lovely Italian suit (the kind that causes people to involuntarily finger the sleeve and say, “I had no idea that you owned a suit like that, or at all”), eating a nectarine and gazing benignly into the mystic . . . \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThen the fall, which appeared near the end of the column: \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI look into Shana Morrison’s eyes. \u003c\/i\u003e[\u003ci\u003eThe bride was Shana Morrison, the daughter of Van Morrison.\u003c\/i\u003e]\u003ci\u003e She is looking at me with devastating politeness. She is waiting for my rap to end. She’s done this before-her father has a lot of really old fans with obscure enthusiasms. I am the old guy at the wedding. My face is close to hers, and I’m sure my breath smells of whiskey and cigarettes and denture cream, though I’ve stopped using the first two and have not yet started the third. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eJust as Jon wrote about humiliation by starting with how famous he is, Betsy Carter, in a piece in \u003ci\u003eGlamour\u003c\/i\u003e, wrote about hanging onto people by first talking about throwing things out. “When in doubt, toss it. That’s pretty much how I live my life. I have been known to throw away paychecks and dump IRS forms. The only thing I seem unable to shed is people.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThere’s no reason for us to know Carter threw out her checks—what do her feckless accounting methods have to do with anything? Those details are there to set up the contrast—throwing out versus keeping—that gives the piece its structure. Without it, you have the direct approach again: a writer tugging on your sleeve and telling you how she likes to hang on to people, from ex-husbands to dentists. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAnother example? Virginia Woolf began a piece called “Professions for Women” by talking about how easily she became a writer: “When I came to write,” she said, “there were very few material obstacles in my way.” Writing was a reputable occupation, she said, the scratching of a pen disturbed no family peace, and paper was cheap. She quickly sold a piece about a Persian cat that brought her into disputes with her neighbors. “What could be easier,” she said, “than to write articles and to buy Persian cats with the profits?”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA lot, it turns out. That was the setup. The rest of the piece lists the harsh obstacles that impeded the woman writer in her day. If she had started by saying, “It’s hard for a woman to become a writer,” and then just listed the reasons, we’d have no surprise.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhen you become aware of setup you see it everywhere, especially in the movies. When my husband, Bill, and I watch war movies, and a weary soldier leaning on his rifle starts talking about that little farm he’s going to buy when this is over, we look at each other and say in unison, “He’s dead.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSetup:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e The dream that shows how much the character has to live for. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePayoff:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e Oops. Where’d that grenade come from?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOkay, that’s a joke, but it’s one that leads into the next chapter, on tone and humor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ten Speed Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303509315813,"sku":"NP9781580084802","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781580084802.jpg?v=1767733437","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/naked-drunk-and-writing-isbn-9781580084802","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}