Shit. What a story!

#3 A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. Why are some stories, movies, blog posts or e-mails better than the others?

To get more out of what you read, it helps to write. Welcome to book summaries with my concrete takeaways you can use as well. Previous book was The Scout Mindset. Help me to more readers by sharing or liking this post. 🙏

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George Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University for over two decades. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (Goodreads: 4.57, 7.8k ratings) was published in 2021 and is about four Russians (Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol) giving “a master class on writing, reading, and life.”

Saunders practices what he teaches; he has won several awards for his short stories and is also a winner of prestigious Booker Prize for his 2017 debut novel Lincoln in the Bardo.

Who should read it?

Everyone who would like:

• to understand what makes a good story, a movie, an article or a blog post,

• to learn about the art of writing,

• to get an expert insight of why and how good stories work and

• to read and watch better.

Top 3 takeaways

This book is beautiful. Saunders invites us to the backstage, and I invite you to think about one of your hobbies. Got it?

Now imagine a world class expert showing you all the little tricks that are hard to see. Imagine a master revealing the tricks of the trade and allowing you to disagree. Imagine a passionate teacher that gives you everything. How does it feel?

These seven short stories and a commentary will improve your understanding of storytelling; not only will you read books, articles, blog posts or watch the movies differently, but you will also start to think about your own writing in a different way.

Revision, precision and years of f*cking hard work. This is what it takes. Ok, let me calm down. What else do we need?

1. Good story = escalation + pattern + causality

My interpretation in a nutshell: A good story has well developed patterns, an intelligent causality and is always escalating.

If you’d set out to visualise this, you take Freytag’s pyramid as a base, ok, and then you show everyone you are no good in drawing by adding patterns and causality.

Freytag’s pyramid (1900) with additions.

"Always be escalating."

Besides reading Russian classics we also learned about escalation in primary school in Slovenia. Nothing new, is it? We all know it from page turners like Da Vinci Code and all the Netflix binge material.

That's all a story is, really: a continual system of escalation. A swath of prose earns its place in the story to the extent that it contributes to our sense that the story is (still) escalating.

The difference is in what way the escalation hits us; on the surface, or does it move us deeply? Similar to, hmm, wine: one hits different to another.

"Every story is a pattern story."

A story is a conversation between the writer and the reader. Should the writer annoy the reader, well, she will stop reading.

Good stories establish a pattern and "we expect it to recur. When it does recur, slightly altered, we take pleasure in this and infer meaning from the alteration."

Remember the last time you expected something to happen, and it in fact happened, but was slightly different than expected? I bet you felt good! In that movie, remember, you anticipated XYZ, so smart of you, it happened, but differently. Maybe you said ‘wow,’ touched his hand, gasped loudly or even cried? You kept it for yourself, because you are more of an introvert? Also fine! Bottom line: it made you feel.

Good, we now have patterns and escalation, and to win a Booker Prize (or at least your reader’s heart) you will need something amazing: causality.

Causality is what makes a masterpiece

You enter a room full of dominos, set in a long line. You push the first one, they collapse one after another, smooth as f.

“Beautiful as long as it lasted!”

You look ahead. There is another door; dominos again. (What will happen in this room? I know you know!) You push the first one and soon after the chain stops. Again and again.

“There must have been a retard at work here,” you think before you see another door… ok, enough.

Obviously "the problem is not in making things happen but in making one thing seem to cause the next." This is harder than dominos and requires a lot of hard work and probably talent?

Causality is to the writer what melody is to the songwriter: a superpower that the audience feels as the crux of the matter; the thing the audience actually shows up for; the hardest thing to do; that which distinguishes the competent practitioner from the extraordinary one.

2. A good story is a black box with perfect interior and an Answer

A story puts you in a big black box with a door. You will leave a good one changed, because what happens in there is “thrilling and non-trivial.” Everything in this box, each object, everything you take in your hands makes sense and is there for a reason. Every time you enter you discover and see things anew.

If I paraphrase Cornfeld (ibid.); in a good movie you will notice that every scene does two things:

1. it is entertaining in its own way and

2. it advances the story in a non-trivial way.

Writer is like an architect and interior designer; he/she first sets the structure, and then designs the interior. For “The Darling” Chekhov defines the black box:

Once upon a time there was a woman who became whatever she loved.

He then looks inside and becomes an interior designer:

Really? How about we test that supposition? Hmm. How to do that? Oh, I know: kill off her first love and present her with a second.

Reader will ask a question (what will happen with her second love?) and the story will answer. The structure (elements in the black box) will be specific and meaningful. Some stories will be revised a thousand times or the master will make it happen immediately, but only because he built hundreds of black boxes in decades (“Aljosha the pot” by Tolstoy).

3. Accept your voice and make it louder and louder

Saunders explains how he aspired to write like Hemingway, but after some time accepted that at most, he can only become a hemingwayish side-kick. He accepted he is George and hoped for the best:

This is a big moment for any artist (this moment of combined triumph and disappointment), when we have to decide whether to accept a work of art that we have to admit we weren't in control of as we made it and of which we're not entirely sure we approve. It is less, less than we wanted it to be, and yet it's more, too–it's small and a bit pathetic, judged against the work of the great masters, but there it is, all ours.

Let’s have a look. Say you need to rewrite this opening to a story:

The sun fell into Ann's window with a force that, lying in bed, she keenly felt on her wrist as she went to answer the phone. It was so early. Who could be calling so early? Outside there was a truck or bus going by.

How would you open? Saunders goes:

Jesus. Who could be calling so early?

This is his voice and I find it beautiful. Short and it makes me want to see the next sentence. But, please, it is not the right way, it is the right way for Saunders’ voice. Finding your voice is hard. You need to listen carefully and encourage it to grow louder and louder.

My personal experience / How did it change me?

This was a powerful; I already re-read a couple of the stories. I am not gonna lie, I did not like all of them first time. What helped me appreciate them more was when Saunders took me backstage, “Look there, do you see? This is why and this is how.” Sound structure and beautiful design.

As instructed I went and compared two stories from Tolstoy to see what 39 years of working on your craft does. And, my God, it does.¹

For my own writing:

• using the word “shit” is fine, because it’s a part of my voice,

• commitment to revise sentences, paragraphs and storyline is a virtue, not a problem,

• each sentence should help the reader to read on; read your writing (can also be a simple e-mail!) like a reader would.

Readwise notes

If you would like my notes, drop me a message, I will be happy to send them.

Closing remarks

My favourite book of 2021, a strong 5/5. A delightful, but also a humbling experience; it makes you appreciate how hard is it to build a good black box. And these guys had no computers! I learned a lot; mostly as a reader, but also as a blogger, writer of emails and a curious human.

Saunders teaches us a lot; I am grateful that I randomly found this book and got the chance to better understand the art of a good story. I hope I will be able to tell a good one.

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1. “Master and Man” published in 1895 compared with “The Snowstorm" from 1856.