Published October, 1999

Even when everyone’s head is bobbing agreement, I just don’t get it.  Actually, I guess I don’t want to get it.

There are lots of reasons for writing.  As an ex-English teacher, I’ve taught most of them at one time or another:  get a job, say HI to Grandma, get a good grade on your research paper, make someone laugh, explain how the car accident happened, advertise the used Mustang, or to sell a million copies of a best-seller, killer novel.

I usually write to get something off my chest.  It doesn’t have to be something bad.  Just a thought that continues to roll round and round in my head like an old record stuck in the groove.  If I write it down, it’s stuck, tight.  I can walk around it, look it over, adjust it, wad it up and throw it away, or, if I decide I might want to, I can return to it—in my own good time.  But for sure, I’m no longer its slave.  The thought doesn’t own me anymore because I wrote it down.

Lately, though, I’m beginning to feel out of the groove.  A new reason for writing has taken hold:  the takeaway.  According to the ‘unwritten’ formula, it’s usually in the last line of the last paragraph, a pithy statement of wisdom.  It’s the steel-toed boot that kicks the reader, “Hey, dummy, this is what I’ve been trying to say.”  It’s the message that turns the corner of the mouth up in a smile and puts dreamy looks of love in eyes.  When you hear the reader sigh, you know they’ve reached the takeaway.

Millions of formula books collecting cute stories have created an inviolable recipe for writing.  Keep it short, one page, one small page with big type and large margins.  Keep it cute.  Make it wise.  Make the reader smile; he’s already depressed enough.  And just in case he doesn’t get it, finish with the takeaway.

This is the era of Uplifting writing.  We inspire.  We coach.  We change lives.  We tell of disasters where the maimed and injured were glad to be injured and maimed.  It changed their lives.  They want to inspire us.  On one short page,…with a takeaway.

Am I the only one?  Is anyone else tired of being inspired?  Is anyone else hungering for a long story that requires concentration and an easy chair for reading?  Does anyone else love the delicious dance of alliteration?  Who would be willing to read five pages just to come upon a Jabberwocky?  If Melville had needed a takeaway, would we have Moby Dick?

Am I the only reader who feels like the name of the game today is to guess the takeaway in the first paragraph and save yourself one page?  Am I the only writer who doesn’t want to uplift the world in 300 words or less?  Isn’t a description of a three-year old pulling gummy goo off the bottom of pink jelly shoes worth reading just because it makes your hands feel sticky?

At yesterday’s writer’s meeting, six readers smiled as they read Alice’s story.  Steve began the critique, “This is great.  But I’d shorten it up and add a takeaway.  That’s what’s selling.”  Five heads nodded.

Maybe I get his point.  But for my part, Alice, keep it the way it is.  You got six smiles, and we all felt the sandy, slimy mess between our fingers as we read.  If that’s not enough reason for writing and reading, I don’t know what is.