Kate, You are providing an MFA level education in this series. It’s incredibly thoughtful and seamless how you pull together so many different sources and weave them into a useful lesson about writing. I feel like such a hack when I hear about the level of conscious thought you put into storytelling. It’s a true education.
Just the notion of framing as a device is so helpful and something I rarely consider in my writing - at least at a conscious level. Thanks for providing this series. I’m hooked!
Ben, I am so so touched by this comment. You know, I sort of set out to make this 'educational' and wasn't sure if it would achieve this affect. I try to ask more questions and provoke as a teacher than 'say what to do'...I hope this comes across as well.
You know, sometimes the layers come later in editing or other times they just emerge in the process and I play with something. Often, I go too far and have to cut that out :) (Or I don't and maybe confuse some people, but oh well.) It's fun and I hope you enjoy it, too! Thanks so much for this wonderful comment. Made my day/week/month.
Interesting about liminal spaces. Makes me think of a really good Substack by Shimizu Akira called Japan Ordinary Photos which I love. Akira posts photos every day. They show you images of the ordinary everyday aspects of life, which I find as fascinating as images of things that are "significant". Here's the link.
I also like getting lost. As you say, safety permitting (and sometimes getting a bit close to unsafe!) I have walked miles in the past, occasionally getting lost and having to find my way back to wherever I need to go. There's something about it that interests me but hard to explain. To do with being "somewhere else" I think. When I go on an unfamiliar journey by car I usually build in some "getting lost time". When I am on a trip somewhere I walk as much as possible. I like to experience places for the first time and feel that I am planting my foot somewhere that I will probably never come again. The planting of the foot feels like it has a permanence. I imagine a huge imaginary map covered with tiny dots showing where I have planted my foot. Not egotistical at all! 😆
Wonderful idea to plan ‘getting lost time.’ That would come in handy for me! This idea of planting your foot is also great. We have this map to scratch off countries we’ve been to on the wall, but I want it to be much more detailed. And this stack from Akira looks great! I will have a closer look. Thanks for listening and the interesting comments. ☺️
I tried to read How to read literature but found it a bit lightweight at the time, as I was also wading through a "serious" book on lit crit theory. Perhaps I'll give it another go.
I should like to read the transcript of this post, but just can't find it. Is there any chance you could put a direct link to it, Kathleen? Thanks
Thanks Terry. It only works on the web version. So the hyperlink only takes you there outside the app. On the web you can toggle toward the top of the post...hope that helps!! Let me know - I will see if there are Substack instructions.
*edit: Just under the player/recording on the web version, there are three tabs: Episode details | comments | Transcript
It seems that the transcript is available and very visible when looking at the web version on a computer or laptop, but not using a browser on a phone. Thanks for the extra info -- I saw that straight away when I looked on a laptop. Thanks!
I really appreciate what you are offering here with Matterhorn. When you said you have like a dozen books stacked next to you as you speak, I said to mysekf "I'm in the right place... let's go!". So thank you for what you are doing (I just became a paid subscriber).
I'm just starting to write a novel for NaNoWriMo (first timer!) and realized that my framing - the entryway into my story - is through a physical book. That is, my novel starts out with a character opening a particular book and finding a slip of paper with a note on it. That book becomes a frame. And the end will be about the closing of a different book, so an end frame if there is such a thing.
I love the idea for your frame, Emily. I find that kind of entry really compelling -- I think of the letter frame of Frankenstein and the clear flashback of Gatsby -- something that creates the parergon space. Intrigued! Good luck with the writing.
Thanks so much for the kind words and your patronage! It means a lot to me. I just love talking from stacks of books. I picked up the habit from one of my favorite professors who was also a poet - Michael Harper. His stalagmite piles were epic. Happy you enjoyed it.
EDIT: also, forgot to mention - the end frame! I think about this a lot and didn't go into it in this podcast. It could be another podcast subject. I think a good ending somehow speaks to the beginning. I'd love to look at some examples with you all. I like the way you are considering this as well.
Partway through so just making a comment as I'm listening (fascinated).
As a means of framing, I've recently been wondering about to what extent do I frame my own fiction in my Substack posts. Do I just lead in? Do I provide some context beforehand or after? Or no context/commentary. I'm not sure. 🤔 I know there's no right answer, but your words have made me think on this in this context.
Ohhh I am so new at serialized fiction and feel like a real student in this area - both as reader and writer. Would love to do something like workshop frames. If you are interested, you could send us a couple draft links for comparison in the chat (or on the Thursday comments). There's a lot more opportunity there but also it can get clunky as well. I had some ideas including extra hyperlinks, etc, but I thought I have a tendency to get carried away and so have left my frame for the fiction rather sparse on a weekly basis. However, even including a photo is a kind of frame (at the start). Would love more thoughts on this!
Yeah my brains been turning this over all day after listening to the rest of your podcast this morning 😍
So many frames, so many inlets and boundaries and thresholds...
I hadn't even thought of a photo, but you're right! I've been doing that from the start with my serialisation and -- of course! -- it's serving as a form of frame. Even the title and subtitle of the post are a form of this, too.
It's interesting to ponder context before or after and how that could influence the reading experience. There are times when I deliberately haven't done this (notably, The Bard: https://slake.substack.com/p/the-bard) because part of the point of that was to lead the reader down a path until the very end. But with the regular serialisation posts, I'm not sure. It could be that some people prefer some preamble, whereas others may not.
I’m going back to it now. Yes I like the way this post just dives into the text. As it is speaking to the reader directly, you feel pulled in at the start. You don’t even sign post subheadings and that makes us just go with you. I guess some people don’t like reading that way online and need lots of signposting (and sometimes I think it’s really useful). So I guess it’s also a balance of what you want to achieve artistically and appealing to your audience - whether niche or wide. Hmm more to think about :)
Yeah, good thoughts. I tend not to use subheadings, but then there's plenty of times when I enjoy it when people do. I think it depends somewhat on the type of post.
You may see a similarly structured post very soon ...
Like that - the LACK of a frame can also add something or lead your reader in a certain way.
I mentioned that Dubliners - Hongkongers project i had done. Well the Dubliners version I own (and is holding on by a thread to the spine) has original illustrations - one per story. We did a lot with these illustrations as a kind of preview frame. I guess with younger kids we teach them to preview books in this way as well. In this way, you start to think about the ideas and then either they are in sync with the language or you get a surprise because you saw it differently.
I'll take a closer look at your example later this morning! Thanks Nathan 🤗
OK, just brilliant. So much to think about. Love that you brought in Ali Smith, her framing is so rich and interesting. I love her books.
I may use your series to think about both my writing and Wolf Hall, since I'll be talking a lot more about Mantel next year and this is clarifying my thoughts.
Wolf Hall is framed by two quotes: Vitruvius on tragic, comic, and satyric scenes. And John Skelton's list of players for his morality play Magnificence. An Italian and an Englishman: prefigures the "break with Rome" that is the backdrop of the novel. Both frame Wolf Hall as a story about performance and roles. But also a bit of signposting: staging and character are going to be so important.
The first line: "So now get up." Cromwell, the man who will one day be the most powerful man in England beside the king, is a beaten-up boy, literally on the floor. The voice is his father, who does nothing to help him "get up" and put him on the floor in the first place. Cromwell is being addressed, shouted at, and so are we. On the first page, Mantel puts us behind Cromwell's eyes. He's not telling the story (there's no first-person narrative), he's seeing it, and we're seeing it with him.
This is brilliant, Simon. I would love to hear along the way how Wolf Hall fits in. As you know, I still haven't read it! It could be fun to think about your writing/Wolf Hall/the examples I use and then play with what has most meaning for you or consider the comparisons.
I haven't (yet) done a podcast on narration or narrative devices and I can see here how it fits into the frame so much as well. Immediately, there is an effect created by that narrative voice in the first sentence of any text, even if the voice changes, for example, by chapter. (i.e. As I Lay Dying)
Narrative devices are so interesting! I joke that Mantel invented a new pronoun: "He, Cromwell" which puts the reader a hairsbreadth from his neck. A deliciously uncomfortable and intimate place to be.
Just caught up with this one, another great episode! I first encountered the idea of borders and conflict zones, spaces of access and restriction in a postcolonial studies course with Dr. Carol Bailey. I have been enamored with the material and concepts of intersectionality and its existence in that narrow space ever since. And I really appreciate your statement comprehending that "humans interact with their environment to create culture, and intern, culture dictates our relationship with the environment" (somewhere in the last five minutes). I think of the novel "Ceremony" and the way Native American culture integrated with the land and the expanse of space through mythology and appreciation, creating a culture of sustainability, humility, and perspective, while capitalism, in turn, as a cultural reflex in western society, humiliates, exploits, and diminishes the environment. Thanks again DKW!
Thanks for checking back into it and the great feedback, Brian!
I don't know this novel but will have a look. Our discussion thread next week is about local literature and touches on indigenous literature, so may be connected there. That doozy of a sentence you wrote about it is certainly enticing!
Framing, funny... I thought a lot about how to post the FF08 image this past week (Eternal Tides) and almost added a digital frame to it (I have it mounted in a frame, of course), a passe-partout... because without it it's not the same. Great podcast, with lots to think about and lots of material to peruse! Thanks, Kate. Thumbs up for Melville and Dickens, too. I remember foolish me, doing a paper on Dombey and Son which, how to frame this, seeped from the canvas onto the pages of two notebooks full of scribblings about plot and characters, so many characters! I digress, left the frame.
I have to check Derrida. Thanks for all the links.
Loved every minute of this, Kate. I have lots to say about frames but can't collect my thoughts coherently at the moment. (After all, I teach Chaucer every year--framer extraordinaire.) But I'm very excited for this series.
Thank you, John! Chaucer, ah, yes...you could do so much with his work here. I read Chaucer so long ago and have only revisited sporadically. Would love to hear the connections along the way if they come to you. Thanks for listening.
Great tangent. Interesting to think back to how we formed our knowledge of and playing around with framing - then maybe question it again. Thanks for the great comment!
Kate, You are providing an MFA level education in this series. It’s incredibly thoughtful and seamless how you pull together so many different sources and weave them into a useful lesson about writing. I feel like such a hack when I hear about the level of conscious thought you put into storytelling. It’s a true education.
Just the notion of framing as a device is so helpful and something I rarely consider in my writing - at least at a conscious level. Thanks for providing this series. I’m hooked!
Ben, I am so so touched by this comment. You know, I sort of set out to make this 'educational' and wasn't sure if it would achieve this affect. I try to ask more questions and provoke as a teacher than 'say what to do'...I hope this comes across as well.
You know, sometimes the layers come later in editing or other times they just emerge in the process and I play with something. Often, I go too far and have to cut that out :) (Or I don't and maybe confuse some people, but oh well.) It's fun and I hope you enjoy it, too! Thanks so much for this wonderful comment. Made my day/week/month.
I’m so glad Kate. I’m amazed at the level of content and insight you’re able to pack into these episodes.
Interesting about liminal spaces. Makes me think of a really good Substack by Shimizu Akira called Japan Ordinary Photos which I love. Akira posts photos every day. They show you images of the ordinary everyday aspects of life, which I find as fascinating as images of things that are "significant". Here's the link.
https://hige.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=1hm9gb
I also like getting lost. As you say, safety permitting (and sometimes getting a bit close to unsafe!) I have walked miles in the past, occasionally getting lost and having to find my way back to wherever I need to go. There's something about it that interests me but hard to explain. To do with being "somewhere else" I think. When I go on an unfamiliar journey by car I usually build in some "getting lost time". When I am on a trip somewhere I walk as much as possible. I like to experience places for the first time and feel that I am planting my foot somewhere that I will probably never come again. The planting of the foot feels like it has a permanence. I imagine a huge imaginary map covered with tiny dots showing where I have planted my foot. Not egotistical at all! 😆
Wonderful idea to plan ‘getting lost time.’ That would come in handy for me! This idea of planting your foot is also great. We have this map to scratch off countries we’ve been to on the wall, but I want it to be much more detailed. And this stack from Akira looks great! I will have a closer look. Thanks for listening and the interesting comments. ☺️
Fantastic work as always 👌🏽Thank you for the mention. 💕
It’s a great post on Kowloon! And thanks 😊
I tried to read How to read literature but found it a bit lightweight at the time, as I was also wading through a "serious" book on lit crit theory. Perhaps I'll give it another go.
I should like to read the transcript of this post, but just can't find it. Is there any chance you could put a direct link to it, Kathleen? Thanks
Thanks Terry. It only works on the web version. So the hyperlink only takes you there outside the app. On the web you can toggle toward the top of the post...hope that helps!! Let me know - I will see if there are Substack instructions.
*edit: Just under the player/recording on the web version, there are three tabs: Episode details | comments | Transcript
It seems that the transcript is available and very visible when looking at the web version on a computer or laptop, but not using a browser on a phone. Thanks for the extra info -- I saw that straight away when I looked on a laptop. Thanks!
This is good to know, thanks.
I really appreciate what you are offering here with Matterhorn. When you said you have like a dozen books stacked next to you as you speak, I said to mysekf "I'm in the right place... let's go!". So thank you for what you are doing (I just became a paid subscriber).
I'm just starting to write a novel for NaNoWriMo (first timer!) and realized that my framing - the entryway into my story - is through a physical book. That is, my novel starts out with a character opening a particular book and finding a slip of paper with a note on it. That book becomes a frame. And the end will be about the closing of a different book, so an end frame if there is such a thing.
I love the idea for your frame, Emily. I find that kind of entry really compelling -- I think of the letter frame of Frankenstein and the clear flashback of Gatsby -- something that creates the parergon space. Intrigued! Good luck with the writing.
Thanks so much for the kind words and your patronage! It means a lot to me. I just love talking from stacks of books. I picked up the habit from one of my favorite professors who was also a poet - Michael Harper. His stalagmite piles were epic. Happy you enjoyed it.
EDIT: also, forgot to mention - the end frame! I think about this a lot and didn't go into it in this podcast. It could be another podcast subject. I think a good ending somehow speaks to the beginning. I'd love to look at some examples with you all. I like the way you are considering this as well.
Partway through so just making a comment as I'm listening (fascinated).
As a means of framing, I've recently been wondering about to what extent do I frame my own fiction in my Substack posts. Do I just lead in? Do I provide some context beforehand or after? Or no context/commentary. I'm not sure. 🤔 I know there's no right answer, but your words have made me think on this in this context.
Ohhh I am so new at serialized fiction and feel like a real student in this area - both as reader and writer. Would love to do something like workshop frames. If you are interested, you could send us a couple draft links for comparison in the chat (or on the Thursday comments). There's a lot more opportunity there but also it can get clunky as well. I had some ideas including extra hyperlinks, etc, but I thought I have a tendency to get carried away and so have left my frame for the fiction rather sparse on a weekly basis. However, even including a photo is a kind of frame (at the start). Would love more thoughts on this!
Yeah my brains been turning this over all day after listening to the rest of your podcast this morning 😍
So many frames, so many inlets and boundaries and thresholds...
I hadn't even thought of a photo, but you're right! I've been doing that from the start with my serialisation and -- of course! -- it's serving as a form of frame. Even the title and subtitle of the post are a form of this, too.
It's interesting to ponder context before or after and how that could influence the reading experience. There are times when I deliberately haven't done this (notably, The Bard: https://slake.substack.com/p/the-bard) because part of the point of that was to lead the reader down a path until the very end. But with the regular serialisation posts, I'm not sure. It could be that some people prefer some preamble, whereas others may not.
I’m going back to it now. Yes I like the way this post just dives into the text. As it is speaking to the reader directly, you feel pulled in at the start. You don’t even sign post subheadings and that makes us just go with you. I guess some people don’t like reading that way online and need lots of signposting (and sometimes I think it’s really useful). So I guess it’s also a balance of what you want to achieve artistically and appealing to your audience - whether niche or wide. Hmm more to think about :)
Yeah, good thoughts. I tend not to use subheadings, but then there's plenty of times when I enjoy it when people do. I think it depends somewhat on the type of post.
You may see a similarly structured post very soon ...
Like that - the LACK of a frame can also add something or lead your reader in a certain way.
I mentioned that Dubliners - Hongkongers project i had done. Well the Dubliners version I own (and is holding on by a thread to the spine) has original illustrations - one per story. We did a lot with these illustrations as a kind of preview frame. I guess with younger kids we teach them to preview books in this way as well. In this way, you start to think about the ideas and then either they are in sync with the language or you get a surprise because you saw it differently.
I'll take a closer look at your example later this morning! Thanks Nathan 🤗
🤯
So good. So much to ponder.
(I checked and you read it and commented 😉 I'm sure you'll remember when you see what it's about)
OK, just brilliant. So much to think about. Love that you brought in Ali Smith, her framing is so rich and interesting. I love her books.
I may use your series to think about both my writing and Wolf Hall, since I'll be talking a lot more about Mantel next year and this is clarifying my thoughts.
Wolf Hall is framed by two quotes: Vitruvius on tragic, comic, and satyric scenes. And John Skelton's list of players for his morality play Magnificence. An Italian and an Englishman: prefigures the "break with Rome" that is the backdrop of the novel. Both frame Wolf Hall as a story about performance and roles. But also a bit of signposting: staging and character are going to be so important.
The first line: "So now get up." Cromwell, the man who will one day be the most powerful man in England beside the king, is a beaten-up boy, literally on the floor. The voice is his father, who does nothing to help him "get up" and put him on the floor in the first place. Cromwell is being addressed, shouted at, and so are we. On the first page, Mantel puts us behind Cromwell's eyes. He's not telling the story (there's no first-person narrative), he's seeing it, and we're seeing it with him.
This is brilliant, Simon. I would love to hear along the way how Wolf Hall fits in. As you know, I still haven't read it! It could be fun to think about your writing/Wolf Hall/the examples I use and then play with what has most meaning for you or consider the comparisons.
I haven't (yet) done a podcast on narration or narrative devices and I can see here how it fits into the frame so much as well. Immediately, there is an effect created by that narrative voice in the first sentence of any text, even if the voice changes, for example, by chapter. (i.e. As I Lay Dying)
Thank you for your wonderful comment!
Narrative devices are so interesting! I joke that Mantel invented a new pronoun: "He, Cromwell" which puts the reader a hairsbreadth from his neck. A deliciously uncomfortable and intimate place to be.
Keep up the great work!
Maybe I will include a guest to discuss 👀
Not a bad idea! 😁
Just caught up with this one, another great episode! I first encountered the idea of borders and conflict zones, spaces of access and restriction in a postcolonial studies course with Dr. Carol Bailey. I have been enamored with the material and concepts of intersectionality and its existence in that narrow space ever since. And I really appreciate your statement comprehending that "humans interact with their environment to create culture, and intern, culture dictates our relationship with the environment" (somewhere in the last five minutes). I think of the novel "Ceremony" and the way Native American culture integrated with the land and the expanse of space through mythology and appreciation, creating a culture of sustainability, humility, and perspective, while capitalism, in turn, as a cultural reflex in western society, humiliates, exploits, and diminishes the environment. Thanks again DKW!
Thanks for checking back into it and the great feedback, Brian!
I don't know this novel but will have a look. Our discussion thread next week is about local literature and touches on indigenous literature, so may be connected there. That doozy of a sentence you wrote about it is certainly enticing!
Framing, funny... I thought a lot about how to post the FF08 image this past week (Eternal Tides) and almost added a digital frame to it (I have it mounted in a frame, of course), a passe-partout... because without it it's not the same. Great podcast, with lots to think about and lots of material to peruse! Thanks, Kate. Thumbs up for Melville and Dickens, too. I remember foolish me, doing a paper on Dombey and Son which, how to frame this, seeped from the canvas onto the pages of two notebooks full of scribblings about plot and characters, so many characters! I digress, left the frame.
I have to check Derrida. Thanks for all the links.
Loved every minute of this, Kate. I have lots to say about frames but can't collect my thoughts coherently at the moment. (After all, I teach Chaucer every year--framer extraordinaire.) But I'm very excited for this series.
Thank you, John! Chaucer, ah, yes...you could do so much with his work here. I read Chaucer so long ago and have only revisited sporadically. Would love to hear the connections along the way if they come to you. Thanks for listening.
Saved, for later listening!
🤗 Great, no rush!
Have a good start to your day!
Great tangent. Interesting to think back to how we formed our knowledge of and playing around with framing - then maybe question it again. Thanks for the great comment!