Chris Orcutt, Writer

The first time I read John Irving's The World According to Garp, I choked on a Big Mac.

It was a cold March day 15 years ago, and I was in a McDonald's in Norwich, New York, eating lunch, when a passage took me by such complete surprise that I started choking.

Reluctant to suffer an ignominious death in a Mickey D’s, I dropped the book and looked around clutching my throat. Thankfully, an old-timer saw what was happening, jumped up from his seat and gave me the Heimlich (he was remarkably spry as I recall). The food dislodged. (Never mind where it went. Gross.)

What I was eating when Irving's book surprised me.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

"Something surprised me," I said, nodding at the book. "Something I read."

"Well, you probably shouldn't eat while you're reading then."

"Probably not, sir. Thank you."

As I sat down, I glanced at the book that had nearly caused my death. I realized that, while I didn't want to cause readers of my own writing to choke in fast-food restaurants, I did want to emulate Irving's ability to surprise them—the smile-inducing sentence; the word choice that evokes a gentle shake of the head; and best of all, the memorable, unexpected scene.

The hardcover version. I wore out my paperback.

From the first, what grabbed me most about the novel was its delicious unpredictability. Take the first line, for example. I can quote it from memory:

Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.

This was, and still is as far as I'm concerned, one of the best opening lines of a novel ever. The key word, of course, is "wounding." From time to time, I consider the dozen other words he could have used there, and I realize what a surprising and brilliant choice "wounding" was.  Stabbing? No, too specific, too violent. Injuring? No, too vague. What about "lacerating" or "contusing"? Afraid not. "Wounding" was, and still is, perfect. The questions that "wounding" raises, and doesn't answer, are what entice the reader to continue.

The famous Russian short story writer and playwright, Anton Chekhov, once said the following (I paraphrase): "If a gun hangs above the door in the first act, it must go off in the last act." As a student of Irving who has read Garp and one of his other excellent novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany, at least a dozen times, I'm convinced that Irving must have held Chekhov's view—at least subconsciously—because nothing gets wasted in the story. Every character trait, setting detail and conflict is important, they all build to the climax, and along the way there are hundreds of surprises.

Today, looking out my window and watching the shaking trees, I remember that fateful day in McDonald's when I not only learned to be careful trying to eat and read at the same time, but also the value of surprise in writing. Shortly after that episode, I wrote something on an index card that I've kept on a bulletin board ever since. It's a piece of advice to myself that I've tried to heed in everything I write. Many times I've fallen short, but once in a while I nail it, and here it is:

Put a surprise on every page.

It’s the surprises that keep me reading.

It's the surprises that keep me writing.

It’s the surprises that make life worth living.

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We live in a time of word saturation. Written content of all kinds—blogs, stories, articles, essays, this blog—is freely available for downloading, printing, emailing to friends, or, in the case of some of my former students, copying and passing off as your own work.

For a long time I was resistant to offering any of my writing for free because beginning at 21 years old, I was paid for my words. I was a reporter for a weekly newspaper, and later a daily, and each week I got a paycheck. It wasn't a lot of money, but even now, 17 years later, I can remember the disbelief I experienced when I opened up that first envelope and realized they were actually paying me to write. What I didn't tell the publisher was that I probably would have done the work for nothing. (Or maybe for 3 squares and a cot.)

This morning, I stumbled upon a fairly famous rant by American writer Harlan Ellison. I'd heard about this polemic of Ellison's before, but until I watched it, I didn't realize how much I agreed with it.

His main point: Writers should be paid for their work. What a concept. He's right, of course, and his vociferous defense of this principle is making me reconsider how much, and what type of, writing I offer freely myself. Enjoy.

My favorite line in the video is when he says, "Lady, tell that to someone a little older than you who has just fallen off the turnip truck."

Folks, that's a writer at work. I just hope someone paid him for this because I don't want him burning my house down for showing it.

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I never get sick. I mean never. The last time I was sick was three years ago with a cold, and just before that, a herniated disc. Which is why I don't know what to do with myself today because I'm sick.

But even though I was sick, I wrote today. You can count on it—on days that I don't write something for this or my other blog, NotWriting.com, I have written something, whether it be pages in a new novel, a scene in a screenplay, words for a business writing assignment, an entry in my private journal, you name it. The fact is, I write every day. Every day.

Yesterday, because I was confined to bed and didn't have the patience for writing in html on the blog, I worked in pencil on the synopsis of my new novel. That's the 1-page single-spaced document that will accompany my book to editors and film production companies. I dread writing the synopsis because a part of me feels that synopsis-writing has nothing to do with novel-writing, and that if a reader wants to know how it ends, I want to tell him, "Read the book."

But I did it. I wrote, just as I write every day, and I didn't do it out of a sense of duty or self-discipline. I did it because I truly love to write.

A Royal DeLuxe by a pool. That's it—no grand
metaphor, nothing. Just liked the picture.

My wife thinks I'm freakishly self-disciplined, and to the outside observer, I can see why she would think this. Every day, around 5am if I'm deep into a project, I shuffle across the hall to my office and get started. But I don't do it out of a sense of self-discipline. In fact, I think self-discipline is a lousy motivator over the long-term. Self-discipline may get you to sit up in bed, but only love will motivate you to leave the warmth of that bed, get dressed and embark on the loneliest enterprise there is—writing.

Many years ago, I had a revelation in which I finally understood the oft-quoted line by writers and other artists: "Process, not product." You have to enjoy the process of the craft you're engaged in and do it for its own sake, not for the final product or its perceived rewards.

Since then, if I'm ever feeling down or lacking motivation, instead of trying to discipline myself to write, I make a list of what I love about it, and always topping the list is my love of what I call "the line."

"The line" is that one sentence, that one piece of description, that one snatch of dialogue that comes out of nowhere and surprises you. You, the writer, have no idea where it came from; you know it's good, that's all. And ultimately, I think it's that love of the line that keeps writers writing. You simply have to love language, and if you don't, nothing short of self-flagellation would make you do this.

Hemingway's posthumous memoir of his early years in Paris.

Each year, I'll reread a few books where the gorgeous prose inspires me: Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, T.C. Boyle's East is East, Nabokov's Lolita, and Flaubert's Madame Bovary (or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina—depending on whether I want to read about the infidelities of a French or Russian woman). And more than the characters or plot, what you're reading for is the love. To witness great writers' love for the art and how they expressed it.

I didn't feel well today, but I wrote. And I wrote because I love writing.

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Giving titles to your writing is a bit like knighting somebody. When you do it, the object of the knighting or the title-giving isn't intrinsically changed by the act; if the person's a jerk, he's still a jerk; if the writing stinks, it still stinks. However, what the title can do is make others take notice of something they might otherwise ignore, whether that something is an obscure person from Southern England or a boring book.

The best titles do several things simultaneously:

1. Arouse interest.
2. Encapsulate the story.
3. Include some kind of symbolism.
4. Become their own ideas.

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I'm pretty good at coming up with titles for my own work. If nothing else, they're often intriguing. Usually they're based on a catchphrase or a line of dialogue, or they're "homages" to other creative works I admire. Here are a few of my favorite titles of short stories of mine, and the stories behind them:

TITLE: "I Hope You Boys Know What You're Doing"

STORY: My friend Carl and I were doing some "landscaping" for a 98-year-old woman, which basically meant we would cut down anything living. At one point, concerned that we weren't doing a very good job, the old woman shuffled out onto the porch and yelled, "I hope you boys know what you're doin'!" Here it is, from the collection of the same title, on Google Books: IHYBKWYD!

TITLE: "You'll Be Fucked for the Rest of Your Life"

STORY: This is an Al-ism. Al is my inimitable father, and I got this title from a time when he gave me the talk. I was in high school, going out with a senior from Vassar, and my father became concerned that I might get her pregnant. So, loaded up on vodka and tonic, and after having thrown the cat in the pool ("He can swim fine..."), Al said to me (in a thick Maine accent), "Chris...if you get her pregnant, you'll be fucked for the rest of your life!"

TITLE: "Whose Van is that on Fire Out There?"

STORY: My friend Tony and I were in a deli-slash-video store when a man in overalls (I swear), stood in the doorway, clutched his overalls straps and boomed out, "Whose van is that on fire out there?" I went to the window (we were on the 2nd floor), and sure enough, the flames were about 20 feet high. Here it is, if you want to read it (or don't believe me).

TITLE: "Sonata for Knife and Violin in F Major; 'Revenge'"

STORY: This one came to me two or three summers ago when I listened to Beethoven's "Sonata for piano and violin N 9 in A major, Op.47 'Kreutzer'" about 200 times. I wanted to write a story about a homicidal violinist who kills with a chef's knife for the creative power it gives him. I wrote it in four "movements", where each movement has notes to the "conductor" in Italian. Sounds pretentious, but it's not. Oh, and the F Major stands for "majorly f-cked".

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As far as other writers are concerned, I'm interested in the stories behind their titles, as well as the titles that might have been. Here are a few examples:

TITLE: The Great Gatsby

ALTERNATES: Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires, Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-Hatted Gatsby, The High-bouncing Lover

TITLE: All the President's Men

ORIGINAL: At This Point in Time

TITLE: Jaws

ALTERNATES: Leviathan Rising, Great White, The Shark

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My favorite "title story" though, has to be for James Cain's noir masterpiece:

TITLE: The Postman Always Rings Twice

STORY: While writing this book and others, Cain had worked out a system with his mailman where he would ring once when it was good news (checks or an acceptance letter) and twice when it was bad news (bills or a rejection). The postman, he said, always rang twice, so he decided to name the novel for this and the frustration it gave him. There have been a few geniuses in American literature, and Cain is one of them.

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Well, there you have it. A couple hours spent writing about titles. I especially like the title of this piece because that's how I want to die—by redheads, baby.

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having trouble sleeping? Disenchanted with life, your writing, your sneakers? Are you between writing projects, suffering from a peculiar brand of postpartum depression that only writers of long works understand?

If so, you may suffer from In-Between Syndrome. Ask your doctor if alcohol, bipolar meds, or a gun may be right for you.

The other day I finished the fifth, and what I hope will be the last, draft of my newest novel and sent it off to my agent for her comments. Every time I finish a book, I find myself moping around for the next two weeks, saying things to my wife like, "I feel lost," or "What do I do now?"

Invariably, Alexas makes the mistake of trying to be rational with me. "You're always happiest when you're writing," she chirps. "Why not start a new project?"

Thanks for the tip, bitch.

The upside to In-Between Syndrome is that I have time to do some entries on my blogs (like this one) and update my websites in general. The downside is that I begin to wonder if shooting myself or being mauled by wild dogs would be so bad.

Regardless, I'm back for a while. At least until I start writing again.

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the past year, I've become obsessed with the writers of paperback noir/crime/sleaze novels from the late 40s through the 60s.


Having now read at least 100 of them (no small feat, considering how difficult they are to find), I can say with authority that these guys knew better than any other authors of their time (and today, for the most part) how to hook the reader and keep him hooked.


And yes, the covers were eye-catching, but as titillating as they were, they weren't enough to keep men reading if the story sucked.

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A recently republished Gil Brewer novel, available at Amazon

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This skill of keeping the reader reading is known as narrative drive or "the threat or promise that something is going to happen." Given the number of titles that came out around this time, it's amazing that these authors achieved such variety within a fairly common framework.
The general plot structure, which each author tweaked depending on his style and the quirks of the story he wanted to tell, was as follows:

A competent man, usually with a drinking problem, is either a stranger to town or stumbles into an unfamiliar situation.

Usually on page one, he meets a femme fatale, a sexy and often younger temptress. The woman draws him into her web with a tale of how she is trapped by her circumstances, but with his help, they can kill the guy in the way (the overbearing husband) and keep the loot (a bag of money, gold, or an insurance policy like in DOUBLE INDEMNITY by James Cain).

The two of them then engage in crazy animal sex in every place imaginable. The man is now hooked on the woman and will do anything she wants. He convinces himself that he'll be able to get the money and the girl, if he can only commit the murder perfectly.

Most of the time, though, the guy's drinking gets in the way, and there's always some annoying twerp/blackmailer that catches on and comes in towards the end to foul things up, so they have to kill him/her as well and screw it up.

The temptress then double-crosses the competent man who helped her and absconds with the money, sometimes killing the man herself.

As I said before, that's the framework. There are dozens of variations on this structure. Mind you, I'm not making fun of it; in fact, I'm working on a novel of my own that follows a similar structure.

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A Gil Brewer novel I'm seeking

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What amazes me is this: even though I've read dozens of these stories and know how they'll end, every time I find myself hoping, and in some cases believing, the pair will get away with it—that they'll have each other and the money and get away with killing the schmuck who usually deserves it.


And every time, it ends badly for them.


The fact that I continue reading when I know, every time, that it won't end well, is a testament to the skill of narrative drive these authors possessed. I can't tell you how many nights I've lain awake well up to 2 or 3am reading one of these sons of bitches. Here are my favorite authors in this genre:


1. Gil Brewer
2. Charles Williams
3. Harry Whittington
4. Jim Thompson (his work went well into the 70s)
5. Hank Janson

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Another title I'm seeking for my collection

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And in case you were trying to think of a nice little gift to buy me (friends & relatives, listen up), I'm looking for the following titles to add to my collection:


TALL, BLONDE AND EVIL by Greg Hamilton

SNOW BUNNIES by Joan Ellis

NAKED ON ROLLER SKATES by Maxwell Bodenheim

NUDE ON THIN ICE by Gil Brewer

SATAN IS A WOMAN by Gil Brewer

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my novel, in which a competent stranger shows up and a sneaky vixen tricks him into killing her husband...

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 08:00 PM | Permalink

(Note: The following was meant to be posted back in July, but due to technical difficulties, it’s appearing now for the first time.)


On July 17, Mickey Spillane, creator of the infamous Mike Hammer PI series, died. He was 88, and by all accounts he lived a pretty cool life.


In addition to writing several bestselling novels that readers adored, Spillane played a mystery writer on the 70s TV show Columbo, appeared in several commercials for Miller Lite beer, and married a hot second wife, Sherri Manilou, who posed for the cover of his novel The Erection Set.

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There are far better obituaries about Mickey out there, so this entry won’t detail his accomplishments. Rather, I’d like to talk about certain ideas on writing that he espoused (or suggested through his work) and what I learned from him. For lack of a better name, I shall call these the “Mickey Principles.” I believe that all of us aspiring mystery writers can learn a lot from old Mickey.

Continue reading "His Pen Was Quick" »

Posted by Chris Orcutt at 08:00 AM | Permalink