47. Nature red in tooth and claw. The Law of the Jungle. Survival of the Fittest.
The score was 32-0 in about the third inning when they decided to call it quits. I was already out at the plate, with the pitcher ready to pitch to me and everything. "They were too scared to face you," the coach said.
The catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher from his knees, and it sailed over the pitcher's heads, into center field. A run scored. It was now 22-1, instead of 22-0. The Frankfort fans honked their horns and screamed for approximately ten minutes in excitement of scoring a run.
I was pitching, against this green team, and I was doing pretty good, only given up ten runs or so in the inning. I threw a passed ball, and ran in to cover the plate as the runner came in. I slipped as I got to the plate, and the freaking runner cleated me in the neck in his slide. I had to leave the game, but I made sure of his number. The next game, I got to face him again, and threw as hard as I could, trying to strike him out. I walked him twice in 8 combined pitches.
I played with the player who I had cleated a few years later, and I apologized to him at one point.
"It wasn't me," he said, "I was never cleated in the neck."
"Good," I said, "I apologize to you for your teammate that I did cleat then."
I think you need asterisks between vignettes here, otherwise your reader is scrambling to keep up but not in a fruitful 'alienating' or distancing way, just in a scrambly 'huh?' way.
ReplyDeleteLast vignette: are you changing viewpoints from cleated player to cleater? You have 'me' being cleated, and then you have 'I' cleating. Again, that's confusing, not distancing.
Still trying to figure out precisely what distancing is defined as.
ReplyDeleteI forgot the vignette asterisks there, that was a mistake that I didn't put those in.
DeleteI don't have an easy definition for distancing, or, of course, I would give it to you immediately. I teach it because writers should not have a naive idea about their relationship with the reader--they are in a dialogue and there is a relationship, and that means the reader is not a passive receptacle and the writer does all the work.
ReplyDeleteThe writer needs to develop techniques and ploys to enlist the reader in the writing process. Enter distancing.
Let me try a baseball metaphor. An unsophisticated observer of the game thinks that all the action is happening between pitcher and batter and that the other players are just standing around waiting for play to begin.
Many writers think they are the batter and the infield and outfield players are simply passive readers waiting for his words.
But a sophisticated observer knows that every single player on the field is getting physically and mentally ready for the pitch, is reviewing the game situation, the batter's and pitcher's strengths and weaknesses, the pitch count, the sun, the wind, the ballpark's quirks, the coach's signals, the manager's resources, etc.
So, the writer has to do more than hit the ball to a passive fielder. He has to think about those fielders and what they are thinking about.
What if he fakes a bunt and then swings away? Alienating! Forces players to play differently! What if he is notorious for not getting out of the way of inside pitches? Alienating! Forces the pitcher to risk a HBP. What if he points to the bleachers a la Babe Ruth? Alienating! Infuriates the pitcher (lucky not to get his head taken off next pitch!)
And so on. Writing is a game that has to be played from the inside.
Every technique a batter has for getting on base may have a writerly analogue for distancing. Not every PA yields a straightforward lovable HR; sometimes a player is valuable if given an intentional walk, though everyone hates those. Why do managers alienate us with them? Why don't they let their pitchers challenge the hitter?
ReplyDeleteKeeps us in the game, though, even if it's just to boo, especially when he comes out to wave in his lefthander.
I'm enjoying this and could keep going but I can see sometimes I have the reader as the fan, sometimes as the opposing team, but, hey, what am I if not the Alienator? I'm sure you'll work it out.