Or if not fun, at least rich material for writers.
My most recent blog, Embracing Death, touched on this topic tangentially, but really, given all they can do for a story, funerals need their own focus. So, how can writers use funerals?
Burial rituals reflect culture, socio-economic class, and time period—without having to specify such things in the narrative.
Death Warmed Over by Lisa Rogak
Death Warmed Over interior
Within those broad parameters, many decisions need to be made. What if the relevant relatives disagree on things? Music, prayers, cost of the casket, who speaks at the service, what happens at the graveside. . . What if there is no grave? (The same could apply to memorial services.) Where will the body be buried or the ashes scattered? And so we have the possibilities of coalitions forming. Maybe these reflect already existing ties or loyalties.
What if the deceased person’s wishes to donate organs—or the whole body to a medical school—horrify the survivors? Who will have the final word? Will s/he just announce, or work for cooperation and consensus? And will that succeed?
Often a funeral will bring together people who haven’t seen and/or talked to each other in years. This makes possible happy reunions, but also the resurgence of past rivalries, jealousies, and grievances.
Heirs may start squabbling over their inheritances before the funeral even happens! And it doesn’t have to be millions at stake. In my novel Nettie’s Books (forthcoming), the hostilities erupt over quilts, stoneware pitchers, and a cake plate!
I often find the fun in funerals. My story “The Red Glove” features a drive-through funeral home in Maine. “Wanted” also features a father lying in state at Herschel Southern Drive-Thru Mortuary, resting peacefully behind plate glass.
What about you? If you’re a writer, have you looked on the light side of funerals, or do you write about their inherent tensions?
TAKEAWAY FOR WRITERS
As with other aspects of good writing, the stakes need to be high. What’s to be won or lost? And after you write the scene, ramp it up, push it to the extreme.
People have practiced death rituals as long as they have been people—and perhaps longer. Animals from elephants to crows observe the death of a comrade in particular ways, so why not pre-humans? Death is as important as birth—perhaps more so for writers!
Writing death is a fine old tradition, from the ancient Greeks (think Medea killing her children) to the Bible (e.g., Cane and Abel) to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The human fascination with death, dying, death rituals and what happens after death is well documented. I advise writers to steep themselves in death to have the material at hand when it is needed. To that end, I recommend any or all of the following books.
Death: A History of Man’s Obsessions and Fears
In this book, Wilkins vividly documents our worst fears: premature burial, posthumous indignity, bodily disintegration, being forgotten. The fear of being buried alive led to a proliferation of waiting mortuaries. Bodies presumed dead rested on zinc trenches filled with antiseptics and camouflaged by flowers. A complex system of cords and pulleys attached to fingers rang a bell in the porter’s lodge if the presumed corpse moved. Could a person be buried alive today?
The History of Death
Kerrigan starts with ideas of an afterlife. He addresses the issue of the demanding dead, ancient funerary rites, death rituals, and death present and future. The least demand the dead make is dealing with the body, which may be left for animals to scavenge. But gifts ranging to flowers for the burial to daily feeding of the spirit of the departed are common around the world. The ultimate is a demand for a sacrifice, ranging from a goat in Benin to the Indian custom of the widow throwing herself on the funeral pyre. Consider the demands inherent in Memorial Day ceremonies. How might your character feel about the demands of the dead?
Earthly Remains
Chamberlain and Pearson tour preservation and decay: bog bodies, mummified bodies, frozen bodies and more. Wonderful pictures throughout add richness to the written word. What would a person do, suddenly confronted with one of these bodies?
When We Die
Cedric Mims presents a broad view of the topic, and might be the single best resource. He covers everything from the definitions of death—and yes, I meant that to be plural—to causes of death, including suicide, euthanasia, and murder. Being stung to death by a scorpion happens about 1000 times a year, whereas more than 4 million a year die of accidents and violence. I especially like the section on the use and abuse of corpses. Writers can effectively exploit either the rare or the common.
The Oxford Book of Death
In addition to the more common discussions of definitions, attitudes, graveyards, and funerals, there is a section on revenants—i.e., whether the spirit of the dead can appear to the living, and if so why. Also, there is a section on epitaphs, requiems, and last words, for example, “Poorly lived, And poorly died, Poorly buried, And no one cried.” That alone could lead to a heart-wrenching story!
Remember Me
Last but not least, Remember Me is a fascinating display of modern variations on death and burial. She has a chapter on funeral mishaps, including the case of the tragic dove release. She talks about “green” burials to make bodies biodegradable, about turning ashes to diamonds, and being buried at sea. People have been buried in caskets shaped like boats, tomatoes, airplanes, and snakes—and there’s a whole subdivision on cars. If you prefer death lite, this book is for you!
With death, the first thought is likely to be emotional—sorrow, grief, mourning—or possibly glee, relief, or just acceptance. But as you consider death, remember the other aspects: the potential social, political, financial, or historical impact. And as Cullen says, “Death is a disruptive event; it interrupts planned road trips and imperils baby-sitting.” So don’t forget the inconvenience and irritation side effects. Be sure you are writing a well-rounded death.
By Paolaricaurte (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsClick here to comment.
I read somewhere—perhaps in an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin—that science fiction has both feet planted solidly in the science of today, that the fictional parts are pushing beyond those roots in a way that is both logical and plausible.
So when I read a blurb for CREATION: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself by Adam Rutherford, I immediately thought science fiction. According to Rutherford, we are radically exceeding the boundaries of evolution and engineering entirely novel creatures—from goats that produce spider silk in their milk to bacteria that excrete diesel to genetic circuits that identify and destroy cancer cells. Imagine what stories might be told in a world where such creatures are commonplace, where such engineering is taken for granted. Imagine the products, and the governmental involvement.
Creation by Adam Rutherford
Fantasy, on the other hand, is making it up out of whole cloth. Even so, it could draw on science for an idea. For example, another book I came across recently has such possibilities: TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT SEX DETERMINATION IN VERTEBRATES edited by N. Valenzueta & B. Lance. It contains articles by leading scholars in the field and reveals how the sex of reptiles and many fish is determined not by the chromosomes they inherit but by the temperature at which incubation takes place. Fantasy would be a story in which human sex is determined by ambient temperature. And perhaps it can vary as the temperature varies. And so forth.
Now, if you wrote a story about a world over-run by snakes and fish because of global warming, you would be back to science fiction. Ditto for a world in which the biological engineering described in CREATION results in changing many species to be temperature-reactive and put that in the context of global warming.
TAKEAWAY FOR WRITERS
Check out the latest in science and then let your imagination run wild!
I can’t imagine a writer without some tools of the trade, even if those are only a good dictionary and a thesaurus, preferably a good manual of style as well. I share a few of my favorite resources.
Somewhere in my public life, I mentioned that I collect dictionaries. I have whole shelves of them, everything from slang to carnival jargon to common usage during the Civil War to books of insults and dirty words. I ordered all six volumes of the Dictionary of American Regional English—and then thanked my husband for his birthday present to me.
Writers are readers, by and large, and also word collectors. We tend to fall in love with words. Some writers make a career of writing about words as well as with them.
As a writer, some of your best material comes from your body. Using all of your senses, every day will infuse your writing with rich details and believable depictions of events and emotions.
I’ll give you a concrete example. I love getting massages. In my story “Beautiful Bones,” published in the Connecticut Review, I conglomerated various massage experiences and settings to provide a detailed and sensuous description of a massage to accompany the recipients thoughts and anxieties before turning to magical realism at the end. I call this a case of direct application, in which a character is having the experience I drew upon to describe it.
But consider the use of indirect application: you could just as easily incorporate many massage moves into the description of a sex scene. Or consider the case of a waitress whose partner offers a foot rub after a long day at work.
For any experience,try to note as many of your senses as possible.
What happens when you are angry? What happens to your heart rate, breathing, stomach? Do you blush? Go white around the lips? Does your body tense? Which part(s)? What happens to you voice—everything from pitch to loudness to speed of speaking. Now consider someone you know well: how do you know when s/he is angry? What are the visual and auditory cues?
Food and drink are more than taste!
In fact, eighty percent of taste is actually smell. When olfactory cues are absent, people can’t tell the difference between bits of apple and bits of onion. And then there are the issues of temperature, texture, and spiciness. How complex is the experience?
For writers, everything is material.
Whether it’s a walk in the woods, giving blood, taking a taxi from the airport to a hotel, the frustration of tax time, or just being bored out of your skull, pay attention and use your experience.
Crows and ravens have been popular in myth and literature for centuries–Odin’s Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory or Mind) to Poe’s “Raven”–often with menacing depictions. Perhaps it’s because ‘murder’ has been the collective noun for a group of crows since the Middle Ages.
But I like crows! Every year they star in my autumn table.
Indeed, I like the entire corvid family of birds—crows, ravens, jackdaws, and rooks. I once took a two-week float and paddle trip through the Grand Canyon, and every campsite came equipped with a pair of ravens. Our guides warned us about their tricks. Even so, we were taken unaware when a raven landed a few feet away and started performing—hopping about, dragging first one wing and then the other in a beautiful raven dance. In the meantime, its partner was unzipping fanny packs and making off with bits of food and anything shiny!
Photo by Matteo Paganelli
The only one that seems to hang out near where I live is the American Crow, featured in the March-April, 2016 issue of Audubon, along with articles about Common Ravens and a corvid cousin the Eurasian Jay.
The articles provide fascinating glimpses of these bird brainiacs and the research that delineates their amazing abilities. Corvids are among the smartest animals on earth. They can make and use tools, play tricks, teach each other new things, and hold “funerals” for their dead. With only one exposure, they can form memories of human faces to be trusted and faces to be feared. Not only do these memories last for years, the fear response is taught to others born after the original exposure, and long after the exposed birds have died.
Birds are in the reptilian line of the animal kingdom (who knew?) but relative to their body size, corvid brains are comparable to primates. They appear to have cognitive abilities comparable to a four- or five-year-old child.
Crows are survivalists and exploiters who thrive in urban and suburban environments. According to the Audubon article, “The crows in your neighborhood know your block better than you do. They know the garbage truck routes. They know which kids drop animal crackers and which ones throw rocks. They know the pet dogs, and they might even play with the friendly ones. If you feed them, they probably not only recognize you but your car as well, and they might just leave trinkets in return.”
They’ve been observed putting hard nuts in the street to be run over by cars and then collecting the cracked nutmeats after. They cache food, hide their caches, and steal from each other.
A murder of crows may not sound as appealing as an exaltation of larks, but I find them more interesting!
TAKEAWAY FOR WRITERS
Why use tired images of crows in a cornfield or birds on a wire? When a mention of birds fits your story, infuse your writing with much more interesting bird behaviors!
So, given how smart crows are, how long will it be before these learn that I only want to take pictures? I’m waiting for the day they let me come close!
I once took a class titled “Writing Fiction Based on Works of Art,” taught by Susan Hankla at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School. I cannot share with you the great assignments from that class (those being the intellectual property of Susan Hankla) but I can discuss the concept.
Poets, musicians, painters, novelists, playwrights, sculptors—all sorts of artists—have a long history of drawing inspiration from something created in another medium. As a writer, think paintings, sculpture, architecture, music, and nature.
Several of my publications grew out Susan’s class assignments, what I am calling cross-over fiction. “The Naked Truth” started with a painting of a nude (not this one)
“Buddha Remote” started with a video display and “Not Mechanically Inclined,” a sculpture (also not pictured here).
By Michel wal (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Three images of Elvis inspired “Love Me Tender.”
Not this photo of Elvis, 1954. Photographer unknown (commercial work-for-hire) derivative work: Dockino (PresleyPromo1954.jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Writing cross-over fiction is a challenge and I urge you to accept it. Get thee to the VMFA, to other museums, to galleries and art shows, parks and the great outdoors. At the very least, find books of provocative images to stimulate and inspire your creativity!
What is at stake for your character(s)? If nothing important is at risk, why should the reader care what happens? Why read on?
The Dark Side of Apple Pie, Baby Food, and Bunnies
Virtually everything has a dark side. Finding it is well worth a writer’s time. One of the maxims for writing tension and conflict is to make a situation bad and then make it worse.If you can do this in an unexpected way, so much the better.
For example, a single strand of hair can tell scientists not only a person’s gender and ethnicity but also where s/he lives, what’s been eaten, and whether the person has been taking drugs or ingesting arsenic. Hair grows up to .02 inches (.5 mm) every day, so the record can extend over several months and tell not only what but when!
For another example, consider deadly diamonds. Commercial services are available to extract carbon from cremated human remains and turn it into a diamond using intense pressure and high heat. Up to 100 diamonds can be made from a single dead body. Consider the possibilities! Is it love? Or is it a way of flaunting the fact that she got away with murder? What if the dead body was the murderer and someone decides to present a diamond to the family of each of the victims?
If you think about it, you could find a dark side to the Air Guitar World Championships (September in Oulu, Finland) or the Woolly Worm Festival (October in Banner Elk, North Carolina).
What? You say your character is already starving? So, have him stumble into a potato field and eat green potatoes, sprouts, stems and leaves—which contain poisons that can be lethal. (Potatoes, like tomatoes, are members of the deadly nightshade family.) Bottom line: find the darkest side and make it even darker.
Everyone has a body image. It’s how you feel about your body and all its parts as well as how you think other people view you. Body image isn’t something you’re born with, but you acquire one pretty early on—starting with what family and friends say and do, and then from how what you see in the mirror compares to what you see reflected in the media and what your culture values.
People who accept the way they look and feel good about their bodies (most of the time) have positive body images. Beyond looks, body image is related to how you feel physically and what your body can do. Some say that a positive body image must also reflect reality. Consider whether this is what you want for your character(s).
It might be effective to have a serious body defect and/or distortion of perception. Interesting (to me) is that research indicates that (1) women of all ethnic groups have more issues with body image than men do, (2) women think men are attracted to thinner ideals than men actually are, and (3) men think women are more attracted to more muscular body builds than women actually are. In the extreme, distorted body images are associated with anorexia, bulimia, and exercise disorders. As a writer, consider the value of misery!
Although body image tends to be established early and to solidify during adolescence, it isn’t static. Artist’s self-portraits often reveal a great deal about how they view themselves at a given time. Consider these two self-portraits by the same artist, two years apart. What seems to have happened to body image?
I recently wrote a memoirin which I mentioned illness turning me into a person I never meant to be. All sorts of trauma can have that effect. Think of the opportunities!
Of course, we seldom live au naturel. Men have haircuts and facial hair, maybe lifts in their shoes, and other bits for more adventuresome tweaks—maybe hair transplants. Women, on the other hand, have haircuts and hair color, corsets or Spanx, shoe choices and jewelry, makeup, and all manner of accessories. In the extreme (my judgment), they go for tummy tucks, face lifts, breast augmentation (sometimes reduction) and so forth. What about your character? Recently, in the US, tattoos have been coming into their own. I was surprised recently to learn that Richmond, VA, is one of the most tattooed cities in the country.
Would your character get a tattoo? Why or why not? Where? What? Under what circumstances? Is the tattoo public or private?
