Writing Advice from John Steinbeck

The Pearl – 2015

Steinbeck advice on Writing Advice

• If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”

1.

• Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

2.

• Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

3.

• Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theatre, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

4.

• If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.

5.

• Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

6.

• If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

Steinbeck’s Strengths as a writerAnd

His Style

• John Steinbeck is a very famous and important writer. But like anyone in any job or occupation he has strengths and weaknesses.

10 – EAL – 2015 Observations on: John Steinbeck’s Writing Style in ‘The Pearl’

• Not much talking / dialogue

• Using Metaphors

• Not realistic

• Old-fashioned language

• Describes family problems

• Lots of descriptive words / description

• Written like a legend

• Teaches a life lesson

The following strengths will be explained and attempted:

• Strength 1: Describing character / Using characterisation

• Strength 2 – Empathy for characters, especially the poor and overlooked people

• Strength 3 – Omniscient Narrator / Third Person

• Strength 4: Use of believable dialogue and dialect

• Strength 5: Simple, precise language

• Strength 6: Using third person to provide life lessons and analysis of events

• Strength 7: Using metaphors and Similes

• Strength 8: Describes family problems

• Strength 9: Descriptive language and a focus on setting

Strength 1: Describing character / Using characterisation

• Steinbeck’s most obvious strength is his description of characters when you first meet them. But also, the way he develops the characters through their actions, without us knowing exactly what is happening inside their minds.

• The next slide is an example, he tells us a lot about the character in just one paragraph.

Steinbeck’s description of the first appearance of Slim, the jerkline skinner.

A tall man stood in the doorway. He held a crushed Stetson hat under his arm while he combed his long, black, damp hair straight back. Like the others he wore blue jeans and a short denim jacket. When he had finished combing his hair he moved into the room, and he moved with a majesty only achieved by royalty and master craftsmen. He was a jerkline skinner, the prince of the ranch, capable of driving ten, sixteen, even twenty mules with a single line to the leaders. He was capable of killing a fly on the wheeler’s butt with a bull whip without touching the mule. There was a gravity in his manner and a quiet so profound that all talk stopped when he spoke. His authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, be it politics or love. This was Slim, the jerkline skinner. His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer.

Driving Mules with a ‘Jerk line’

There are two kinds of characterisation

• Direct characterisation

“It was very good - Kino closed his eyes to listen to his music”

This tells us that Kino thought the music was very good, in a direct way.

• Indirect characterisation

• “He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side.”

When Kino hits his wife Juana this shows us that he must be very stressed, and acting a bit crazy. Because we know already that he loves his wife and that he has not shown any violence before this happens.

Which type of characterisation does Steinbeck use the most?

• Direct?

• Or

• Indirect?

Lets make our own example

Strength 2 – Empathy for characters, especially the poor and overlooked

people

Key Books and main characters

• Of Mice and Men – Lennie and George – 2 poor men, one who is disabled

• The Pearl – Juana and Kino – 2 poor villagers

• The Grapes of Wrath – Tom Joad and Casy – 2 poor men travel along the road looking for work

• East of Eden – Samuel and Liza – husband and wife who try to survive in a war era america

Strength 2 – Empathy for charactersDescribe a sad scene to make your reader want your main character to succeed.

• “And he shut the gate quickly out of shame. And now a wave of shame went over the whole procession. They melted away. The beggars went back to the church steps, the stragglers moved off, and the neighbours departed so that the public shaming of Kino would not be in their eyes. For a long time Kino stood in front of the gate with Juana beside him” Page 16.

• Without explaining exactly what they felt or thought about this, everyone can understand how bad he would be feeling because of this very public rejection and shaming.

Strength 2 – Empathy for characters

Choose one of these events, or make up your own to describe, as a way of making your reader feel sorry for your main character.

• The main characters family kicks them out, and tells them not to come back.

• The main character publicly proposes to their partner, and the partner says no.

• Your main character is called up on stage at an event and is made fun of by a comedian.

• Your main character goes to make a speech in front of a large audience, and now words come out.

• Your main character steals something from a store and their photo is displayed on the window with the word ‘thief’ above it.

Let’s create our own

Strength 3 – Omniscient Narrator / Third Person

• Steinbeck uses an omniscient narrator, which means a narrator that knows everything. Including everyone's names, how everyone is feeling, and even why people do things.

• It is a kind of third person writing, which means that instead of writing from the perspective of someone, we learn about them from their actions.

Let’s create our own

• Convert scenes from first person to third person:• 1)• - I ran out of the bank and I was scared, because the

police might be able to catch me.• -2)• - I saw a beautiful man, and wanted talk to him, but at

the last moment I got scared and didn’t do it.• 3) • - I sat down to the exam and realised that the essay

question was the one I had practiced 95 times, I was so happy, but could not make any noise.

Strength 4: Use of believable dialogue and dialect

• The focus of Steinbeck’s dialogue is to keep it simple, short and believable.

The boss said suddenly, 'Listen, Small!'....'What can you do?'

In a panic, Lennie looked at George for help. 'He can do anything you tell him,' said George.

The boss turned on George. "then why don't you let him answer? What you trying to put over?'

Strength 4: Use of believable dialogue and dialect

• In ‘The Pearl’ dialogue is used only sparingly.

• “What will you do now that you have become a rich man?’”

• “Kino,” she cried shrilly.

• “Open it,” she said softly.

This makes the times where dialogue is used more powerful because it seems more important, like the words are bursting from the otherwise silent characters.

Strength 4: Use of believable dialogue and dialect

• Let’s search for dialogue in the novel. Open to Chapter 4 and scan the pages, counting how often dialogue is included in the text.

Let’s create our own

• Choose one of the following accents or dialects (ways of talking) and try to create believable dialogue for them:

• Irish Truck driver• Teenage American• South African • Old British person• Australian Bogan• African American rapper• Italian Opera Singer• French Chef• Japanese tourist

Strength 5: Simple, precise language

• Try to use short simple sentences to break up your writing, and provide clear explanations for what you have been describing.

• “It captured the light and refined it and gave it back in silver incandescence. It was as large as a seagull’s egg. It was the greatest pearl in the world.”

Let’s create our own

• Describe one of these things:

• - The Pearl of the World

• - Juana’s breakfast corncake's

• - The doctor’s office

• - Kino’s canoe

• - An empty oyster

• - The Pearl Buyers’ office

Strength 6: Using third person to provide life lessons and analysis of

events • “The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right.

Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.”

• “But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.”

• “The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.”

• “Every man suddenly became related to Kino's pearl, and Kino's pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy.”

Let’s create our own

Provide a life lesson or piece of advice that relates to the following events:

• A young girl learns that there is evil in the word when she sees someone murdered.

• A man realises that spending money can not make him happy.

• A elderly man realises that the most important thing in his life was when he was in love.

• A woman learns that her child is more important to her than anything else.

Strength 7: Using metaphors and Similes

• Metaphor: ____a____ is ____b_____

• Simile: ____a____ is like ____b_____

• An example from Chapter 3:“The town is a thing like a colonial animal.… the nerves of the town were pulsing and vibrating with the news."

Let’s create our own

• Metaphors:

• The sky is ___________

• The wife looked at her man as a __________

• The lake is _____________

• Similes:

• The man was crazy, he was like a __________

• The moon was covered, like a _____________

• She loved him like a _____________________

Strength 8: Describes family problems

• Having a family, makes a very clear and simple shorthand of relationships.

• For example:

• The husband, does hard work outside of the home, is stubborn, makes mistakes

• The wife, does hard work around the home, cares for children, tries to solve husbands mistakes

• The child, prefers one of the others and patterns themselves after one of the above traits

Let’s create our own

• Draw a diagram of the relationships in your story

Strength 9: Descriptive language and a focus on setting

• In ‘The Pearl’, the town becomes a character, due to being described so well, and in so many different ways.

• “The town lay on a broad estuary, it’s old yellow plastered buildings hugging the beach. And on the beach the white and blue canoes that came from Nayarit were drawn up, canoes preserved for generations by a hard shell-like water-proof plaster whose making was a secret of the fishing people.”

Let’s create our own – Describe this beach