Bucks professor of language
and literatureAllen Hoey stood
at the podium, speaking to a
crowd of well over 100 students
and staff members.
“The organs and viscera lay
in a heap beneath the opened
cavity but did not smoke in the
cold air for they had been cold
for several days. Removing
them had been a challenge
since the fascia and muscle
that held them in place were
frozen,” he read.
After Hoey concluded reading,
he looked at the audience.
It was eerily quiet for a spot on
a college campus.Afew listeners
visibly squirmed in their
seats throughout the reading.
Hoey smiled.
“If you’re feeling slightly
sickened right now, that’s
exactly what I want” he said.
The tension lifted and the audience
chuckled lightly.
Hoey, along with Jim
Freeman, another Bucks language
and literature professor,
and Dennis Tafoya, a Bucks
alumnus, took part in the
“Writing for Our Lives” forum
on Monday, April 12, in a segment
dedicated to exploring
the unique challenges and
rewards of writing novels.
The Writing for Our Lives
forum ran from April 12 to
April 16. Bucks alumni and
staff spoke about the reality of
writing for a living.
“The forum is a world service
for the college, the students,
and writing,” said Hoey.
Hoey read aloud from “The
Night Season,” a novel he has
not yet completed, that
revolves around a hunter witnessing
the butchering of two
women in the Adirondack
Mountains.
While the passage he read
described the field butchering
of a large animal, the fact that
the plot features a similar act
being perpetrated on humans
chills readers to the bone.
So why did Hoey choose to
write something he knew
would disturb his readers? “In
our lives we often confront the
darkness of evil and all we
have to put out against it is the
little candle of goodness coming
from ourselves” he said.
According to Hoey, evil
is more fundamental to
American literature than
to the literature of any other
nation. As an American writer
whose primary audience is
going to be American readers,
it makes sense that Hoey
would choose to write about
evil.
When Freeman spoke, he
said that it is important for all
writers to know their strengths
and their weaknesses. “A
writer has to know what he or
she has,” he said.
Freeman admitted that he
struggles with plot. His solution
is often to use what he
calls “a ready-made plot,” a
real historical event that can be
the catalyst for a fictional
story.
For example, his novel
“Ishi’s Journey” deals with the
struggles of a fictional Native
American attempting to preserve
his tribe’s way of life in
the wake of white Americans
settling in California.
Of course, cultivating characters
is also an important part
of the writing process. “You
need at least 12 archetypal
characters” said Freeman.
So where do writers get their
archetypal characters? They
take their characters from people
they know in their lives,
said Freeman.
He suggests that a college
professor may even base some
of his characters on students he
sees on campus. “We’ve gotta
write what works, and usually
what works is what we know.”
Tafoya took a creative writing
lesson at Bucks several
years ago, where he was a student
of Beverly Foss
Stoughton, a Bucks alumnus
and former teacher whose
memory the forum is dedicated
to.His appearance at the event
was a coincidence, as he wasn’t
aware that the event was
dedicated to the memory of
Stoughton, a former Bucks
County Poet Laureate.
Tafoya highlighted the
importance of teachers in motivating
students to follow their
dreams and to do what they
love. “Bev was the person who
gave me the confidence and
told me I had the quality to do
this,” said Tafoya.
Tafoya said that his focus is
on his novel’s characters. “For
me, character is where it
begins and ends,” he said.
The reason he focuses on
characters is because he finds
that when he puts two characters
in a scene together, the
scene will often write itself.
Tafoya also admitted that he
sometimes becomes frustrated
in trying to find what other
people will enjoy. “Writing is a
tension between the fact that
it’s self-generated and that
other people’s opinions matter,”
he said.
All three men stressed the
importance of doing research
for writing. “You can’t do too
much research,” said Tafoya.
Tafoya, whose works
like “Dope Thief” are
often set in worlds of vice
and sin, does part of his
research by exchanging
e-mails with ex-convicts
and former drug addicts,
by looking at porn, and
by learning how crystal
meth is made.
“If you start working in
genre fiction you’ll find stuff
you don’t want cops knowing
you’re looking at,” warned
Hoey.
Tafoya also added that
research can lead a story in a
new direction. “In doing
research, you find stuff you
didn’t expect to find,” said
Tafoya. “I frequently find
things I wasn’t setting out to
find.”
Freeman also said that writing
requires equilibrium
between ambition and humility,
which the other speakers
agreed with. “Writing is a constant
balance between aspiration
and rigid self-criticism,”
said Tafoya.
Getting other people to read
your work is essential. “You
have to trust your own judgment
but know that people’s
reactions matter” said Tafoya.
“Sometimes you can tell
when you’re cooking gas,”
added Hoey. “I’m inclined to
look at something and think
‘Oh, God, it sucks!'”
So how does someone break
in to the world of writing?
Tafoya placed some work
online and a screenwriter read
it and helped him get in touch
with a publisher. By using the
Internet, Tafoya was able to
make a career out of something
he loves.
The mere idea of filling the
length of a novel can be
enough to deter some potential
writers. The moderator,
Christopher Bursk, a Bucks
professor of language and literature,
with numerous published
poetry books, said “students
find a five-paragraph
essay daunting; imagine writing
a novel.”
The authors explained how
they go about writing such
extraordinary lengths.
Freeman said that he usually
writes 12 to 15 pages at a time,
while Tafoya said that he
always shoots for 80,000
words.
However, it is important for
budding authors to remember
that at any one time there are
many other potential writers
also trying to get their work
read by publishers. For that
reason, “when you’re trying to
break in, you really want to
keep it short,” said Tafoya.