A Note on Duopoly and a Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: Experimenting with Structure

This exercise/experiment was inspired by reading a very fine manuscript in progress for a writing friend. Within his manuscript he employs a series of letters exchanged between two characters. They are both characters who, for differing reasons, are more comfortable revealing their innermost thoughts in writing rather than in conversation. There are specific applications to his book, including the nature of his characters, that allow the letters to be quite effective, and indeed, he might be able to make even greater use of them in revealing the arc of change and growth the characters experience, not just in content but in voice.

This got me thinking. As I have talked about in the space before, I’m a very organic writer who pursues the stories and characters I am writing rather than lead them. One result is that a lot of revision for me is in discovering forms and structures that reflect and reveal my characters and their stories. So I spend a lot of time tinkering with experimental structures and moving things about. It probably isn’t a surprise then that one of my other great intellectual loves in architecture. The book I’m currently shopping around features a male protagonist who is a musician, so one large aspect of the novel’s structure I’ve settled on is to use and essential song structure as an organizing element. Thinking about my friend’s book, I’ve found myself mentally revisiting a couple of different epistolary novels, most notably Alice Walker’s famous book The Color Purple. I’m intrigued by how one can tell a whole story while remaining consistent with a structural decision like writing a novel through a series of letters. There are, of course, inherent restrictions. Things taken off the table for the writer. But there are inherent opportunities as well that the form supports. For example, what a natural way to demonstrate a character’s educational/intellectual ascendency through the language they use and the style with which they write. The Color Purple is a brilliant book on many fronts, but the potency Walker gets while staying true to the direct language of its characters because of its epistolary structure in genius. She allows readers firsthand knowledge of her character’s innermost lives, not just in what they share in their letters but in how they share it. Just one example that immediately comes to mind is how at a point when Celie has suffered so much loss that she loses faith in God, she shifts from addressing her letters “Dear God” and begins addressing them to people. Even restrictive structures can wield hefty returns.

The exercise (an obvious one): Challenge yourself with an experiment. Try rewriting at least two chapters of your novel (or two scenes of a story) in an entirely different medium, i.e. as letters, or journal entries, a ship’s log, etc. Give in to the structure you choose; wring as much out of it as you can. Even if you only view it as an experiment rather than a potential new form, when completed, what does the attempt reveal to you that you did not know before. That last bit, assessing what you have learned, should be at the heart of every writing exercise we attempt.

Happy writing. If you experience a break through, share it in the comments.

Addressing Duopoly: Voting to Preserve Democracy with Ballot Initiatives

A few weeks ago I inserted a podcast link that I’m going to share again, one that explores meaningful solutions to the political inaction that has mired our country for two decades. That inability to get even the simplest actions through Congress has a lot of roots beyond pure partisanship, including cultural shifts that have occurred and the impact of living in an era where cults of personality overtake commonsense. But the taproot is the current extreme of a political system that is a duopoly.

The term duopoly is one from economics, and it describes a situation where two suppliers dominate the market for a commodity or service. Think Coke and Pepsi or Visa and Mastercard. In the US we’ve always had a dominant two-party system, a political duopoly if you will; however, in recent years both parties have crept to their extremes. More importantly still, each party has a self-interest in keeping the opposing party intact and at its extreme as well. Both benefit from the duopoly. But when you spend all your time catering towards the extremes the middle gets abandoned, yet in reality the electorate overwhelming resides in that middle. Moreover, you create the system we have now where no one like politics or politicians at all and, as a result, they begin to lose faith in the entire democratic system. For an excellent primer that is much wiser than me, I again recommend that you listen to this podcast from Freakonomics Radio. It’s excellent.

Why am I harping on this now, you ask? Because the answer to the danger facing democracy is more democracy. If you’ve not already voted early, then I encourage you to familiarize yourself with your state’s ballot initiative. Several states have voting reform as ballot issues this year. For example, in Colorado it is Proposition 131, which calls for open primaries and ranked choice voting (two measures the podcast covers in detail). In Montana, we have CI-126, which would create open primaries, an important first step to reflecting the people’s will rather than the interest of the duopolies. Alaska and New Hampshire have already enacted some of the ideas discussed in the podcast, and the results have been fascinating. If these concepts are unfamiliar to you, here’s a chance at an education that can have important consequences.

These are state constitutional measure that can preserve real democracy and return to more commonsense elections.

That still leaves a doozy—the frickin Electoral College. I strongly suspect that what we will see next week will be another election in which one candidate loses the popular vote and wins the Electoral College vote. If so, it would be the third time in a quarter century when this has occurred and the desires of the people are ignored because of a compromise necessary to get past the Constitutional Convention. Yes, we could be stuck with an incompetent criminal as our president once again, one who has consolidated power and largely removed the safety rails of key checks and balances such that the bile that spews from his addled brain becomes policy. All because of the outsized power given to electoral votes from a tiny population place like my native state of Wyoming and because the absurd, racist history of counting enslaved people as 3/5ths of a human when calculating the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. For a useful history lesson that will leave you chanting to remove the Electoral College, I encourage you to listen to this podcast.

Okay, my PSA of the day is done.

Conference Time

It’s that time of year (actually a new time of year this year) for the Jackson Hole Writers Conference and the joy of working directly with writers on their manuscripts. I always look forward to this conference. And a side note to readers/friends from Jackson, I’m coming your way, text or call me if we can squeeze in a coffee or swing by The Virginian this Saturday evening at 7:15 for the annual conference book sale. Shameless, I know, but if you’ve read Man, Underground and would like me to sign it, I’d love to, and if you’ve not read it, well, then come buy the damn thing or stop in Jackson Hole Book Traders soon and pick up a copy.

And Some Music

Covers don’t always work. Actually they seldom do even when done by talented musicians. But here are two I like that have been on my radar of late, which probably suggests I’ve been going down a nostalgia rabbit hole (true!).