The Re-re-read: Craft Talks on Classic Literature

Do you believe humans are masters of their own destinies? Or that an all-powerful creative force controls identity? In this week's episode, we'll see how the way we answer these questions shapes our stories and characters. Also, Alyosha gets his finger chomped.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

Having trouble portraying your characters as complex beings? Want to reveal their many layers over time, instead of in a boring info dump? Learn how Dostoevsky characterizes several people at once by having one character consider and reconsider another--just like real people do.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

How does money work in fiction? Must it always *really* mean something else, like power or virtue or the lack thereof? In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky shows how a specific amount of money can be just what it is--pure cash--while serving to drive the plot and reveal character.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

Are you looking for a new emotion to explore in your fiction? Are you tired of suburban ennui, unrequited love, and anger? Consider shame. Shame can jump-start your plot and enliven your characters by generating layers of morbid self-consciousness, leading to unpredictable, exciting, and cringe-making behavior. 

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

So you want to write a Big Philosophical Novel, but don't want to create pages of dry dialog representing various positions. Like Dostoevsky, you can lay out the human stakes of these viewpoints by staging a cringeworthy Simpsons episode in a monastery.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

No one likes a main character who's too good, right? That's because perfection (in the author's eyes, anyway) quickly leads to blandness. Adding a flaw or two really helps draw our interest. However, in the case of Dostoevsky's beloved hero, Alyosha Karamazov, the author isn't willing to give him any flaws. He just won't do it. But he does create interest in other ways, particularly through an astonishing childhood memory.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

Here we go, into the novel that, if pressed, I will say is the greatest of all time. And the very first sentence is...misleading? We quickly find that we're in the hands of a narrator who can't seem to concentrate, much less serve as a reliable guide to the events of the story. Instead of creating an intellectual puzzle, however, this narrator shows he's going to offer us something more important--insight into the fallibility and greatness of human beings.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

In our last lesson from Henry James, we consider the ending, which, according to An Eminent Practitioner of Literary Analysis Many Years Ago, no one understands. But we do! Because not understanding is the point, and it's what makes TOTS so very disturbing.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

Just like Henry James's sentences, fear is complex. Here's a close look at how James depicts the many shades of fear in a single sentence.

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social

Would "The Turn of the Screw" be better if James had embraced minimalism? Why does the narrator depict scary events in such convoluted prose? Or is the writing itself part of the story?

Ann Gelder on Bluesky: @anngelder.bsky.social