Category: writing

Revising after Rejection: Re-Seeing, Re-Listening, Re-Hearing

~ Chris Cocca ~ 3 Comments

Like most necessary things, writing is hard.  Communicating mental images or flashes of memory or triggering smells with tools that are, themselves, none of those things, takes work.  Doing so in ways that makes sense not just to you but also to readers takes even more work. 

I submitted some things to a great journal a few months ago.  Even though the work I shared wasn’t ultimately accepted, I’m quite pleased with the feedback.  Having given myself some time and space, I’ve come back to the piece they particularly liked with new eyes and ears.  (Revision is always, literally, re-seeing.  But it’s also re-listening and re-hearing.)

I greatly appreciate what the editor here is saying, and the time he took to say it, and the time he and the rest of the team take thinking deeply on these things:

We are writing with mixed news. While we are not accepting these poems, your submission made it through multiple editorial rounds. We particularly enjoyed “[title redacted]” with its exploration of anxiety and attempts at self-soothing. Our main concern, ultimately, was that there were moments when the piece felt too expository. We’d love to see the entire piece rooted in the wild imagery of the last third of the poem.

We recognize how much talent and skill went in to your submission, but we can only publish a small percentage of the work we receive. In the final round of selections, we start looking for the smallest of reasons–reasons in line with our own personal tastes–to reject a manuscript. This part of the process, we understand, is so very subjective. So we want you to know that while we are not accepting this manuscript, we were pleased with your submission, it was a joy to read, and we hope we’ll see more of your work in the future.

One-Minute, Spoiler-Free Positive Review: The Crimes of Grindelwald

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

There are some Harry Potter purists who are going to be upset by what this film does.  “It shrinks the Wizarding World.”  “It seems to change some backstories.”  “It makes so-and-so older or younger than we thought!”  “Rowling is too good a writer to contradict her own canon.”

In other words, people dedicated to a certain vision of the Wizarding World may be tempted to treat this the way certain Star Wars fans treat Solo and The Last Jedi (I’m not talking about misogynist fanboys triggered by strong female leads, but about people who get upset when their hallowed continuity gets ruffled).

I had just graduated high school when the first Potter book came out, and I was 27 when Deathly Hallows was published.  That is to say, I have no romantic childhood allegiance to any of that material.  For me, it’s always been middle-grade fiction, sometimes intensely exciting, often vexing.  It’s not as good as people a decade younger than me think it is.  (Star Wars is not nearly as good as most of its fans think it is, either.  But Rouge One was a great film, and I thoroughly enjoyed Solo.)

Grindelwald, to me, is something else entirely.  It is grand in scale, epic in scope.   Its politics are timely (never forget that Ron and Harry couldn’t be arsed to care about elf-kind), and its villain seductively human.  (That Johnny Depp may actually be a villain in real life could be part of that, and no performance, no matter how great, can undo the problems with Depp if the allegations against him are true).  Its plot threads, with one exception, are convincingly developed and come to a satisfying head.  Its struggles, with one exception, are believable.

I can’t say more (even about some of the casting and narrative controversies) without giving plot points away.  So I won’t.  From a technical and artistic standpoint, this is, for me, the best entry in both wizarding franchises.

And Hufflepuff is the best. 


Joan Didion and Betty White

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

This is from some time ago (early 2015).

Last week, before I knew she was the new face of Celine (also, before I knew was Celine was), I shared Joan Didion’s “At the Dam.”  I was taught this essay, and I teach it.  Not because Joan Didion is fashionable at the moment, but because it’s really good.

Flavorwire’s Elisabeth Donnelly has an interesting piece up today trying to take the pulse of the growing Didion-as-icon trend.  Donnelly quotes Haley Mlotek in what feels like an especially prescient observation:

As she puts it, citing Joan Didion as your idol says that:

…we’re cool, that we’re educated, that if we are not young and white and slender and well-dressed and disaffected and sad and committed to the art of writing as an arduous and soul-sucking process that must be endured yet Instagrammed simultaneously, then we will be, at least, as close as possible to those identifiers even if it kills us.

Fair? True?

We’ve also been doing this with Leonard Cohen.  Citing him as your idol signals different things, but the desire to look back and hold up great talents in their later years is nothing new.  We do it, of course, with Betty White.  We probably would have done it with Bill Cosby.  I for one am not sure why we don’t do it with Dick Van Dyke or Marianne Faithful.

Head’s up: New York Magazine, a mere four hours ago, has issued a warning that loving Joan Didion is a trap.

This Sentence Has Five Words (Practical Advice on Better Writing)

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

A good and very practical demonstration on what the ear wants from the late Gary Provost:


“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.”