Learning from Eudora

This is the look of my day today (slightly behind Tuesday's list, but it is possible to catch up):


I am enjoying Eudora Welty a lot. She has a great gift for setting scenes and bringing her characters alive. Here's one thing I have noticed so far about her short stories: nearly every one of them begins with a character either speaking or doing something in a setting. In the very first sentence, she establishes the character and the place.

For example, the first sentence of "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" is: "Mrs. Watts and Mrs Carson were both in the post office in Victory when the letter came from the Eilisville Institute for the Feeble-Minded of Mississippi."

And "A Still Moment" begins: "Lorenzo Dow rode the Old Natchez Trace at top speed upon a race horse, and the cry of the itinerant Man of God, 'I must have souls! And souls I must have!' rang in his own windy ears.

And my so-far favourite, "Why I Live at the P.O." starts like this: "I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking 'Pose Yourself' photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up."

"No Place for You, My Love," starts out: "They were strangers to each other, both fairly well strangers to the place, now seated side by side at luncheon--a party combined in a free-and-easy way when the friends he and she were with recognized each other across Galatoire's."

For fear of this post starting to seem like an annotation, I just have to say that when I noticed this particular fact about Eudora Welty's stories, I took note. There is no running start here. No confusing period in which you don't know where you are or who you're dealing with. Nonetheless, she hasn't given away the game, either. I have struggled in my own writing with setting the scenes and, more seriously, introducing my characters. Watch how Eudora jumps in with both feet in the opening of "Petrified Man":

"Reach in my purse and git me a cigarette without no powder in it if you kin, Mrs. Fletcher, honey, " said Leota to her ten o'clock shampoo-and-set customer. "I don't like no perfumed cigarettes."

Right away you know that the speaker's name is Leota, she's a hairdresser, she's in her salon in the morning, wants a cigarette (which she keeps in her purse, alongside the powder), is good at asking for what she wants, and her customer's name is Mrs. Fletcher. It's also a good bet that they're in the South somewhere and Leota didn't go far in formal schooling.

Anyway, I love that ability to bring a story alive immediately. There is a lot of good craft "advice" in Eudora Welty's short stories. Today, I will read her as a teacher.