Derek Sikkema
A novelist, disillusioned by the intense focus on rhetoric in public schools, grapples with the desires of his publishing company until a gregarious rhetoric professor tries to give him some advice. Approximately 1,700 words.
God damn these repetitive guitar chords. My eyes flicker from my laptop to the speaker far above my head. Why is everything always written in a C-major chord? Because people like it, Professor McKinley chimes in my memory. How do people know what they like anyway?
It’s raining outside, and a dull chatter has filled the Starbucks. I look to the clock in the lower right of my laptop screen. It’s been five hours at about one page per hour, so, like, three hundred more hours to go.
Greeeeeeaaaaat.
Does Penguin want more or less satire, more or less California in Trey’s character, more or less smog in New York City? Marvin from the English 104 workshop isn’t helping at all. It’s too judge-y. What the hell does that mean? Of course, Marvin’s own piece is ‘a perfect product.’ See how it looks at all the points of view instead of just one?
I sigh, stretch my arms over my head, and look out at the rain again. Beautiful day in Rhode Island, the weatherman said. Never trust a weatherman. I crack my neck, and my fingers return to my laptop, clicking away at the keys.
“You wear a suit to the office here.”
Trey looked up from the black and white two-piece, his eyebrows furrowed. “What?” he said, the California drag in his voice heavier than he would’ve liked.
“In New York, you wear a suit to the office.”
My thoughts interrupt my writing.
Why am I criticizing New York when I’ll be sending this novel to a publisher based in New York? Will they
appreciate the satire? Can I even call it satire, or am I just calling out New Yorkers for their bullshit? Won’t most of my readers be New Yorkers? How am I supposed to know what they want?
I slam the backspace key. The blinking cursor flashes back through the text.
“What’cha writing?”
I jump and look up. A short, stocky man with combed over grey hair, wet from the rain, and a long black coat has sat down in the chair across from me, a Starbucks cup in hand. His grey eyes glint behind his wire-frame glasses.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
He laughs and faces me, and I lean away. His eyes are sharp.
“What are you writing?” he inquires with a grin.
I shake my head and look at my laptop. My fingers reach back to the keyboard. “Why do you care?” I say.
The man snorts, but a chuckle hides within it. “Well, someone’s snippy.”
“It’s a novel,” I say, lifting my hand dismissively. “And I don’t really know how to write the damn thing, so just–”
“Ah,” the man interrupts. I glare at him and his wide smile. No manners, this guy. “Struggling with the editors?” he says. “I hear a lot of writers do. It’s a wicked problem, after all.” He laughs, looking like I’m supposed to get a joke. I just look down at the last word I wrote. Heavier. An adjective. God, I hate adjectives.
“Maybe,” the man says, adjusting his position, “I can help. I’m a rhetoric professor at Brown, across the way. Name’s Scott Peters.”
A rhetoric professor. God help me.
“I don’t care,” I say, my eyes fixed on my laptop. I type gibberish to seem busy. Sdhfjksdflkshioejrou.
The professor’s smile evaporates. “Ah,” he mutters, drumming his fingers. “Another creative writer who thinks
rhetoric ruined his writing?” My left hand tightens to a fist. The professor shakes his head. “Sorry about that,” he says, lifting a hand as a sign of surrender. “Really am. Lots of people thought, you know, kids, they have ideas. We just organize them. Writing a paper, it’s writing a short story, just–”
“Well, they were wrong,” I mutter. I fiddle with my mouse, just as I did for three hours when I sat down to write an essay on Holes in 6th grade. It was returned to my desk. ‘C.” Mr. Hart’s disapproving headshake.
“Work your transitions,” he had said.
I sigh, thinking back to the novel in front of me. My head shakes. “Transitions, commas, five paragraph essays,” I say, “Just about killed writing for me.”
The professor nods, his glasses glinting, and he chuckles. “Did for me too, friend,” he replies. Then he laughs and rubs his chin. “Shocks me every day that I’m a rhetoric professor. But, see, the field’s growing. And getting better.”
The song changes overhead, but it’s still in C-Major. I scoot to my laptop. “Yeah, well,” I reply, my back slumping, “leave me out of it. I’m a novelist.”
There is silence then. My fingers rest on my laptop’s keyboard. Just imagine that he isn’t there, that he’s got up and left. He drums his fingers on his armrest and takes a long, sucking sip from his drink. I growl deep in my throat. The word heavier glares at me. What does Penguin want?
“Think about it like a wicked problem,” the professor said, “what your editor wants, I mean.” I still stare at my laptop. I don’t stop him though. How did he know?
He chuckles. “Wicked problem. Technical term in rhetoric, meaning that you don’t know what impact every
little thing you do is going to have on your audience. When your editor reads, he or she is taking in your design, layout, sentences, sound, all these little things. Too many things for you to think about, Mr. Novelist.” He laughs again.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. He guessed what I was thinking about. I look at him. He’s leaning back in his chair, stroking the side of his cup.
I tighten my lips. At least with him, I’m not going at it alone.
“So?” I say. He looks at me. His grey eyes widen. “What do you do about the wicked problem?”
The professor smiles. “Embrace it,” he says.
I suddenly smile and start laughing. Embrace it? The hell does that mean?
“Do your research,” the professor says. “And then let it go. You can only do so much, and eventually you have to write the damn thing. Editors, readers, the audience and all. They’ll accept it or they won’t. They’re discourse communities. It’s what they do.”
I rub the back of my neck and look up, still smiling. “Discourse communities?”
The professor sips from his latte and drums his fingers on the armrest, and then he sets the latte down. “They’re groups of people that talk about the same things in the same ways. Problem is, you’re either in them or you’re not. And only the people already there can decide that.” He smiles and waves a hand. “Same thing
with editors and readers.”
My eyes fall to my laptop. I think back to sixth grade. Red marks dance across my Holes essay. Eighth grade, I work on a paper for hours every night. Two weeks. It’s tossed back to me. B-. 5/10 in conventions. Ninth grade,
Ms. Kelvin writes a list of unusable ‘dead’ words. Over a hundred of them.
“What else you struggling with?” the professor asks. I look to him. My smile has evaporated. His hands are folded across his lap. He’s smiling. My head falls as I take a deep breath. At least this professor is better than Marvin. It’s too judge-y.
“Workshops,” I say, shaking my head. The professor chuckles and reaches for his latte, and my brows
furrow. “What’s so funny?”
“I knew you would bring that up.” The professor nods, lifting his latte. “Creative writing workshops could learn a lot from rhetoric.”
Learn from you? I think. Learn that every essay has to have five paragraphs? Every detail introduced by ‘for example?’ Every extra detail has two extra sentences of comments?
My eyes fall. I hit some keys to sound busy. jsdfhsdkdfhs.
“Workshops,” the professor continues, “bring out the worst in writers like you. They treat stuff like product, but it’s a process.” I scowl, the smile reversing. “All the nitpicks about structure and plot…you people gotta worry about arrangement a little less.”
“You people?” I look at him. He’s fiddling with his tie. His smile vanishes. I point at him. “You killed writing for all those kids,” I hiss. “You took dumps of red marker on all those papers. You’re why I can’t write straight sometimes. You’re everything that’s wrong with writing.”
He straightens his tie. His glasses glint. My body stays tight. He lifts his latte and drinks the last of it. Finally, he clears his throat.
“I’m trying to make that right,” the professor says. “As best I can.” He nods at me. “What you’re working on…it’s a process. You’ve got tools. That’s all. No always right or always wrong. Just tools for effects.”
I scoff and run my hand through my hair. “Get out of here with your relativist bullshit, man.”
“That’s not it,” the professor says. “But, on that lovely note,” he stands, “I ought to head back.” I shake my head, scoot up to my laptop again, and hold backspace to delete the random letters. Then a card jabs towards me. My eyes follow it up the arm of the professor. He’s smiling again. “My card. Come by my office sometime.”
I swipe the card from his hand. He nods and turns away, and I jam the card into my pocket and look to my laptop. Heavier. That damn adjective.
Maybe Penguin likes adjectives.
My brows furrow. Where did that thought come from? I shake my head. Why would Penguin like adjectives? Adjectives tell.
Adjectives tell.
I am sitting in ninth grade again. Ms. Kelvin’s list of ‘dead’ words is growing. My vocabulary. It’s all showing up in red marker. She taps the marker against the word ‘great.’ “Boom,” she says. “Just killed ‘great.’ Now I won’t see it in your papers. Remember, adjectives tell.”
Back in the coffee shop. My fingers freeze over the keyboard. I blink a number of times. My hands tremble. I’m thinking like the people I hate. The composition teachers who almost ruined writing for me.
No always right or wrong. Just a wicked design process.
I chuckle. Crazy old man.
Maybe Penguin wants crazy.
My hands leap to the keyboard, and I start to write.
