If you prick us, do we not bleed?

Here’s a second question that helps us understand how readers and writers connect. Last week we looked at the connecting power of humor and laughter (“if you tickle us, do we not laugh?”). Now it’s time to share a little pain.

Shylock’s speech in Act 3, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice asks, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?” Shakespeare’s topic in this speech is the common humanity of Jews and Christians, but it applies to other groups as well.

Let’s leave the poison and dying aside for now, but think for a moment about one person drawing a little blood from another. “You may feel a little prick,” the lab technician warns us, or the nurse giving us an injection. The word prick comes from an Old English word prica. (Because Shakespeare and the Elizabethans loved naughty double entendres, you have to be on guard whenever the word prick appears in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, but at the moment we're not talking about laughter.)

To prick something is to puncture it lightly. That’s what the lab tech or nurse does as we sit and watch (or look away). We feel momentary pain. If you prick us, do we not bleed? Yes, if we’re human.

As readers, of course, we don’t expect to be reading along in a short story or novel and suddenly feel pain and begin losing blood because of something the writer has written. But when we are reading about characters in pain we often do feel their pain. The writer has drawn characters we care about, then has shown these characters in pain, and so we shed a little emotional blood. We suffer along with the characters, and I suspect along with the writer as well.

I have trouble remembering times when I’ve given my characters physical pain, or made them bleed. As for emotional pain and suffering, oh yeah I can do that. Here’s one formula—give your hero or heroine (or both) a taste of romance, let them begin to fall in love, and then bring in the trouble. Keep them apart, overwhelm them with distractions and misunderstandings, begin to break their hearts. If it’s comedy, we’re heading for a happy ending, but first let’s prick them and watch them bleed for 250 pages. Ah, that’s the ticket.

Ready for a surprise test? Of course not, but we’re writing about pain today. Here’s your test. Name your favorite fiction writer (only one). Then select your favorite book by that writer and hold it in your hand. Now close your eyes. When you open your eyes you’ll find yourself on a desert island. Are you alone? Of course not. You have your favorite book by your favorite writer. You’ve been wanting to reread it anyway. Here’s your chance. Don’t worry about food, you’ll love the tropical fruit and plentiful seafood on your island, but your only companion is your favorite writer. Open the book and begin to read. Prepare to laugh. Prepare to bleed. When you finish the book, just give us a call and we’ll bring you back from the island.

If sharing laughter is one of life’s great pleasures, and connects reader with writer, what is sharing pain? We can see the sharing of pain, the showing of compassion, as further evidence of our humanity. The pain does not give us pleasure. I’m not afraid of needles, but I don’t go out of my way for them (Hey, somebody want to give me a shot? I haven’t had one all day).

Pain is part of life, whether it’s physical or emotional pain. We should be willing to share that just as we share laughter. It makes us human, and keeps us human. What is wrong with someone who never laughs and never cries? Something missing there.

As readers we open a book, begin a new story, on board with the writer. We bring our humanity to the story. The writer depends on that! “If you tickle us, do we not laugh?” “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” These are rhetorical questions. We all know the answers.

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? This is the first of several questions I want to begin to explore, with the goal of understanding how readers and writers connect. The tickle question comes from Shylock’s speech in Act 3, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare’s topic in that speech is the common humanity of Jews and Christians. Shylock asks, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?” I’m intrigued by the mixture of tragedy and comedy in those lines, with laughter surrounded by bleeding on one side, and dying on the other.

If I put on my reader’s hat for a moment, and reflect on my favorite writers of fiction, I quickly discover that many of these writers do tickle me and make me laugh. Think of your own favorite writers. Do some of them make you laugh? Do you share their sense of humor? Do you share their view of the world? I’ll talk about Shylock’s questions about bleeding and dying at another time, but for now let’s listen to the laughter.

Laughter is one behavior that defines us as human. Laughter is best when we share it. There are few moments I enjoy more in life than sharing a good laugh. I may be in the audience, or in a small group, or at times I may be the one telling the joke or reading a humorous scene. The sound of laughter, sharing in that moment, is one of the best ways of bonding with others, right up there with sharing a meal.

But what about those times when it’s just ourselves alone with a book, an audience of one for the writer we’ve chosen to spend time with? We may not laugh out loud, or even smile, when the writer tickles us, but the connection has been made. The writer has given us characters we want to know more about, the writer has put these characters into action, and along the way we are on board with the story, ready to be tickled whenever the moment and the words are right.

We may not think about it at the time, but we have shared a moment with the writer, and, in a way, shared that moment with all those who read the same story. We have connected.

Let’s close with a laugh, shall we? William Goldman, the author of The Princess Bride, also wrote the screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In that film there’s a famous scene where the two train robber heroes, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, have been chased to the edge of a high cliff by a posse. Their only escape is a long jump into the river below. As they stare down at the distant water, Sundance, the Redford character, has a confession for Butch:

Butch Cassidy: Alright. I'll jump first.

Sundance Kid: No.

Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.

Sundance Kid: No, I said.

Butch Cassidy: What's the matter with you?

Sundance Kid: I can't swim.

Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

J.D. Salinger, we hardly knew ye

J.D. Salinger, best known for writing a sensationally popular and critically acclaimed novel over 50 years ago, and for never having appeared onOprah or The Tonight Show, or pretty much anywhere else outside of Cornish, New Hampshire, after he ran from his celebrity, died last week at the age of 91.

This news has been rattling around in my head in the five days since he left us (this time for good). My thoughts on Salinger keep returning not to the writer but to his most famous character, the narrator and antihero of The Catcher in the Rye, on his way home at Christmas from yet another dismal failure as a prep school student, but not going straight home, instead spending a weekend underground in Manhattan, searching, lost, the 20th century Huck Finn, and like Huck always on the move—Holden Caulfield.

Everyone who's read Catcher has their own memories. For me, it's summer and I've just graduated from high school. I'm in Saint Louis taking music classes and I've bought a copy of the book I've heard about and I'm sitting in a small restaurant by myself, reading Holden's account of his weekend in New York City.

The book's paperback cover promises that "This unusual book will shock you, may make you laugh, and may break your heart—but you will never forget it." True on all points, although the book gave me more laughs than shocks, and as for breaking my heart, that was something I would have to wait six months for, when my high school sweetheart ran off with a sailor (an event that Holden would probably describe as both "corny" and "crummy").

About six years later Holden is waiting for me again. I need to choose a subject for a master's thesis in English, and I return to The Catcher in the Rye. By this time I've taken just about every literature class I can and I'm armed with all kinds of cool analytical tools to dissect Salinger and his book. When I read the rest of his fiction I am struck mostly by the importance of family in the stories, and not so much parents as siblings. All the Glass family brothers and sisters drive most of the other stories. As for Catcher, it's Holden's sister, Phoebe, who means the most to him and ultimately saves him from his crummy lost weekend. It's for Phoebe that Holden returns home.

So I write the thesis and call it "The Value of the Family in J. D. Salinger." Having finished the project, of course, I move on to other writers, other literature classes, away from Holden andCatcher, although, as the cover says, you will never forget it. Or him.

Eventually I move on to teach college English in Seattle. You would think that I'd include Holden in one of the college English courses, but I never do. I don't know why, I just don't. When I board a United flight one snowy Seattle morning, on my way to a new life in Hawaii, how can I have known that Holden is waiting for me on Maui?

It takes a couple of years on Maui, but on a fateful afternoon at Baldwin High School, there I am in the dusty old book room and another teacher is telling me to "look around and see what you can find." I spy a modest stack of worn, abandoned paperbacks against a wall. I move closer for a better look, and of course it's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden's been waiting for me. Lucky for me, and lucky for my students, there are just enough copies for the one class that awaits a new book. The next day I pass out the old paperbacks, ask the students to open them to chapter one, and then I begin reading aloud:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Nobody speaks. I look up and the students all have their faces in the books. "Keep reading," one of them says. So I do. In the days that follow we live through that weekend with Holden Caulfield. By the time we finish the book the school year is almost over. No time to start another book. I collect some of the Catcher paperbacks (about half of the books have disappeared, and I know that the students who liked Holden best just can't give him up, and that's fine). I return the remaining books to the dusty old book room. They may still be there.

So that's it. I'm ready to move on. I look through the obituary and articles about J.D. Salinger in The New York Times, and I wish him well on his journey. As far as I know, Salinger never met Oprah. He never crashed a White House dinner. He never needed to be famous. But Holden Caulfield takes on the world for him. The book awaits.

A no-huddle approach to writing

Richie’s wife, Noelle, was the one who began asking a series of questions about the Colts and their no-huddle offense, and while Richie was patiently explaining to her how it works, and why Peyton Manning was dancing around before the play and shouting things and gesturing to his teammates like crazy, that’s when I got this brilliant idea that writers can have their own no-huddle approach to writing. At least I think it might be brilliant, although I haven’t told anyone about it. Until now.

Richie and Noelle had walked down the street to my place to watch the AFC championship game between the Colts and the Jets, with a trip to Miami and the Super Bowl awaiting the winning team. The Jets and their rookie quarterback had jumped out to an early lead, but here came Peyton and the Colts at the end of the first half with a touchdown to make it close again. Richie and I assured each other that the Colts would take care of business in the second half. Richie opened another beer and began to explain the no-huddle to Noelle during halftime, and that’s when it hit me, “The Great No-Huddle Approach to Writing.”

To appreciate the no-huddle, you have to think about the old huddle approach first. We’ve all seen it a million times. Eleven guys huddle in a circle; the quarterback calls the play; they break the huddle and jog to the line of scrimmage. Kind of dull. You see one huddle, you’ve seen them all. If hockey players stopped skating and huddled up before each charge down the ice, the fans would riot in protest. On TV they usually don’t even show the huddle, preferring instead to show a replay of the previous play, or a closeup of the coach, or the cheerleaders (Richie’s favorite).

I think some writers do this too. Before they write even one word they go into a huddle, with themselves, and decide how they’re going to tell the next story, or start the next chapter.Yikes, some writers even outline, and readers are lucky they don’t have to sit through that exercise! Get on with the story, the readers insist. And while one writer is outlining, the readers slip away and look for another writer who has a story ready for them.

But the no-huddle? Now there’s an intriguing approach to football, and to writing. Think of it as a form of improvisation. Instead of huddling up to call the next play, the Colts offensive players line up immediately. Then Peyton Manning goes into his act, surveying the defense, looking for weaknesses to attack, then calling out signals to various Colts players, who shift positions and force the defensive players to join the dance and do their own shifting. Some of Peyton’s signals are real, and some are decoys. It’s all rather cerebral. Manning has been called the most cerebal quarterback ever. When will the center hike the ball? Who knows? Only the Colts. They have 40 seconds from the end of the previous down (or 25 seconds after the ball is declared ready for play). Even the 25 seconds is an eternity.

Here comes the truly difficult part. For me, at least. How can the no-huddle offense inspire a no-huddle approach to writing? I believe that the key component is improvisation. The writer is like Peyton Manning standing in the shotgun, surveying the territory ahead. Where shall we go with this story? Let’s move some of the characters around first, prepare them for the action. The play clock on the scoreboard is winding down—20 seconds, 15, 10, 5—time to hike the ball. Time to begin the action. As Hamlet says, “The play's the thing.” Now the quarterback has the ball, the writer has his fingers on the keyboard, and the action begins.

Here’s the fun part, in a football game and in writing fiction.Players, and characters, begin to interact in unpredictable ways. The writer, like the quarterback, must be ready for a little chaos. If the football play, or the story, begins to break down, it’s time to improvise. Like the quarterback, the writer still has choices, although they are different from what they had so recently expected. Like the quarterback, the writer must never panic. Protect the ball, protect the story. Guide the team, and the story, on the path to a happy ending.

Speaking of happy endings, the second half is a great one for the Colts. Richie and Noelle and I are louder and more joyful in the words we shout at the TV screen. Noelle even makes a few enlightened comments about the Colts offense; Richie has coached her well. Peyton and the no-huddle offense put on a clinic for the poor Jets, and in the end there is no doubt which team deserves to go to the Super Bowl.

After the game, Peyton appears at the press conference in coat and tie, appearing unscratched and totally together. But when he speaks he says he’s grateful that he has two weeks until the Super Bowl. He needs the time because he’s tired. His mind is tired.

Of course! It’s not easy being the most cerebral quarterback ever. And it’s not easy guiding a story from beginning to middle to end. At the end you just want to give your mind a rest. Take a couple of days off. Like Peyton, you've earned it.