A guide for the perplexed
February 19, 2007 | 12:00am
It must be term-paper time again, because I’ve been receiving the seasonal slew of frantic messages  by e-mail and by text (ah, the price of going public) from hapless-sounding students beseeching me to help them with their term papers on my novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place. These people, of course, never read what I wrote in this space last year, or the year before that, nicely explaining why I can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t write their answers for them, even if I’m responsible for their present grief.
I do send them a stock answer, which I’ll trot out again in a minute, but these poor kids must be wondering why  for all the time and effort I put into that gentle brush-off  I didn’t just write an essay about the novel and its meaning, to put them out of their misery.
So, all right, for the umpteenth time, I’ll tell you why. I believe, first of all, that an author’s job is to write a story, not to explain it. If you have to explain something you wrote, that almost means that you failed (and maybe I did). Second, I’m also a teacher, and I think students should put a game and honest effort into figuring things out for themselves  or even by and among themselves, in a discussion group.
Writing an author to ask him what his work means may seem smart and resourceful, and I’m sure there will be many, more kindly disposed authors out there who will be only too happy to tell you what they think about their own work. But for me, relying on the author’s own interpretation comes awfully close to cheating; you didn’t learn much, you let someone else do the work for you, and you got an unfair advantage over those who had to think for themselves, or those who had to study works by dead, offline, or otherwise inaccessible people.
Sometimes it’s not what you ask, but how you ask it. If I see some evidence from the questions that the student has arrived at some basic understanding of the text and wants to engage me in a debate or discussion, then I might be that much more inclined to respond. If a student lays out an intelligent hypothesis and asks me to comment on it, I might indulge that, too  if I have the time. There are, indeed, a few questions I’m quite happy to answer, again time permitting, questions that have to do with the writing of the novel or of my stories, as opposed to what they mean.
The kind of question that makes me recoil is "What’s the plot of the story?" and "What does your title mean?" Some students also ask me to provide them with a virtual biography, or to tell them the most basic details about my life, which a simple Google search would have yielded in less than a second  not because scores of academics have written about me, but because I already put up all that information on my website, precisely to spare you and me the trouble of rehashing my poor-boy saga every other day.
But most of you have heard all this before, so let me try and be a little more helpful this time. If you’re a student perplexed by your homework in literature and desperate to submit a paper without actually cheating by plagiarizing someone else’s work, here’s a lifeline of sorts for you, a list of questions you can ask and try to answer yourself without rousing the work’s author from his or her well-deserved nap. They’re not the only questions you can ask, and some teachers may not be interested or may not believe in this approach, but it’s better than nothing, and  trust me  you’ll have something intelligent to say about the work should your professor decide that it’s your lucky day and choose you for recitation.
1. Who’s the author? What do you know about him or her? When and where did the author write the story or novel? What was going on then in that place, or in the author’s life? Take note that it’s often foolish if not pointless to draw a straight line between events or details in the work and those in the author’s life  in other words, the biographical approach can get you only so far, but at least you might get some insight into why and how the story or the novel was written.
In the case of Killing Time, I’ve made no secret of the fact that it’s partly autobiographical, like many first novels tend to be. Like my protagonist Noel Bulaong, I was born in an island village, grew up in Manila, became a student activist, was arrested and imprisoned during martial law, then worked for the government after my release. Many of the characters in the novel were based on, or composites of, people I knew. But I can’t and won’t say which parts are "true" and which aren’t; I made up a lot of things for that book  I was supposed to, since it isn’t a factual memoir (and even memoirs can be liberal in their imagination). The novel is based on fact, but in the end, it’s fiction, and what’s important is that the events in the book should sound and feel like they really happened.
2. What is the historical and social context of the events in the work? Where and when are these events set? What can be said about that time and place? This time, you’re not looking at the author, but at the story itself and its setting. Poems and even short stories can be very private and narrowly focused, but novels and plays are almost always set in a concrete place and a time period, for a reason that has to do with the narrative and the characters.
My novel begins in the 1960s  a reference to the Beatles should tell you that  then moves to the period of martial law. Anyone wanting to understand the novel has to read up on martial law in the Philippines  especially if you were too young to have experienced it. (I sometimes forget that my current students weren’t even born in time for EDSA 1, and that martial law is more distant for them than World War II was for us.)
3. What’s the plot of the novel or the story? Never mind what it means, for the time being; before anything else, what happens in it? It will help to draw up a timeline  a chronological listing of events, what the characters do, what happens to whom, and why. What’s at stake in the story? What are the characters fighting for, and who stands to lose or to gain the most, and why?
Killing Time can be a bit confusing for people unused to reading novels because the plot goes forward and backward in time. To establish a timeline, you need to follow the main character as he grows up and moves from one place to another.
4. Perhaps most importantly, who are the most interesting characters in the novel or story, and why are they interesting to you? Do they reflect your own beliefs, values, or experiences? How?
There are several ways of describing a character  externally, in terms of their most obvious traits (gender, age, appearance, speech) and internally (in terms of their social and economic background and the way they think). It’s also important to know how they feel about themselves, about others, and about the world around them.
For me, the most important question to ask about characters is "What do they want?" What stands in the way of their happiness? What decisions do they make or what actions do they take to get what they want?
I’m not a particularly religious person, but I remember discussing a script with a film director once and saying that if we wanted to show a character’s most intimate moment, it wasn’t going to be in bed  it was better to show him or her in prayer, and to suggest to the audience what the character is praying for.
5. Lastly, what have other people said about the work? Granted, Filipino critics don’t write a whole lot about Filipino writing, and given the way academics today write about literature, you can barely make out what they’re saying (and that’s because they’re writing for each other, and not for you). But with a little help from Google, you just might stumble on an essay or a review that could help you form your own ideas about the work. (If you use such a reference, never forget to copy and cite the source.)
So you see, boys and girls, there’s a lot you can think about on your own, without having to waste your precious "load" money on frantic text messages to me, which will get you only this column-piece back in your e-mail.
E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and visit my blog at http://www.penmanila.net.
I do send them a stock answer, which I’ll trot out again in a minute, but these poor kids must be wondering why  for all the time and effort I put into that gentle brush-off  I didn’t just write an essay about the novel and its meaning, to put them out of their misery.
So, all right, for the umpteenth time, I’ll tell you why. I believe, first of all, that an author’s job is to write a story, not to explain it. If you have to explain something you wrote, that almost means that you failed (and maybe I did). Second, I’m also a teacher, and I think students should put a game and honest effort into figuring things out for themselves  or even by and among themselves, in a discussion group.
Writing an author to ask him what his work means may seem smart and resourceful, and I’m sure there will be many, more kindly disposed authors out there who will be only too happy to tell you what they think about their own work. But for me, relying on the author’s own interpretation comes awfully close to cheating; you didn’t learn much, you let someone else do the work for you, and you got an unfair advantage over those who had to think for themselves, or those who had to study works by dead, offline, or otherwise inaccessible people.
Sometimes it’s not what you ask, but how you ask it. If I see some evidence from the questions that the student has arrived at some basic understanding of the text and wants to engage me in a debate or discussion, then I might be that much more inclined to respond. If a student lays out an intelligent hypothesis and asks me to comment on it, I might indulge that, too  if I have the time. There are, indeed, a few questions I’m quite happy to answer, again time permitting, questions that have to do with the writing of the novel or of my stories, as opposed to what they mean.
The kind of question that makes me recoil is "What’s the plot of the story?" and "What does your title mean?" Some students also ask me to provide them with a virtual biography, or to tell them the most basic details about my life, which a simple Google search would have yielded in less than a second  not because scores of academics have written about me, but because I already put up all that information on my website, precisely to spare you and me the trouble of rehashing my poor-boy saga every other day.
But most of you have heard all this before, so let me try and be a little more helpful this time. If you’re a student perplexed by your homework in literature and desperate to submit a paper without actually cheating by plagiarizing someone else’s work, here’s a lifeline of sorts for you, a list of questions you can ask and try to answer yourself without rousing the work’s author from his or her well-deserved nap. They’re not the only questions you can ask, and some teachers may not be interested or may not believe in this approach, but it’s better than nothing, and  trust me  you’ll have something intelligent to say about the work should your professor decide that it’s your lucky day and choose you for recitation.
1. Who’s the author? What do you know about him or her? When and where did the author write the story or novel? What was going on then in that place, or in the author’s life? Take note that it’s often foolish if not pointless to draw a straight line between events or details in the work and those in the author’s life  in other words, the biographical approach can get you only so far, but at least you might get some insight into why and how the story or the novel was written.
In the case of Killing Time, I’ve made no secret of the fact that it’s partly autobiographical, like many first novels tend to be. Like my protagonist Noel Bulaong, I was born in an island village, grew up in Manila, became a student activist, was arrested and imprisoned during martial law, then worked for the government after my release. Many of the characters in the novel were based on, or composites of, people I knew. But I can’t and won’t say which parts are "true" and which aren’t; I made up a lot of things for that book  I was supposed to, since it isn’t a factual memoir (and even memoirs can be liberal in their imagination). The novel is based on fact, but in the end, it’s fiction, and what’s important is that the events in the book should sound and feel like they really happened.
2. What is the historical and social context of the events in the work? Where and when are these events set? What can be said about that time and place? This time, you’re not looking at the author, but at the story itself and its setting. Poems and even short stories can be very private and narrowly focused, but novels and plays are almost always set in a concrete place and a time period, for a reason that has to do with the narrative and the characters.
My novel begins in the 1960s  a reference to the Beatles should tell you that  then moves to the period of martial law. Anyone wanting to understand the novel has to read up on martial law in the Philippines  especially if you were too young to have experienced it. (I sometimes forget that my current students weren’t even born in time for EDSA 1, and that martial law is more distant for them than World War II was for us.)
3. What’s the plot of the novel or the story? Never mind what it means, for the time being; before anything else, what happens in it? It will help to draw up a timeline  a chronological listing of events, what the characters do, what happens to whom, and why. What’s at stake in the story? What are the characters fighting for, and who stands to lose or to gain the most, and why?
Killing Time can be a bit confusing for people unused to reading novels because the plot goes forward and backward in time. To establish a timeline, you need to follow the main character as he grows up and moves from one place to another.
4. Perhaps most importantly, who are the most interesting characters in the novel or story, and why are they interesting to you? Do they reflect your own beliefs, values, or experiences? How?
There are several ways of describing a character  externally, in terms of their most obvious traits (gender, age, appearance, speech) and internally (in terms of their social and economic background and the way they think). It’s also important to know how they feel about themselves, about others, and about the world around them.
For me, the most important question to ask about characters is "What do they want?" What stands in the way of their happiness? What decisions do they make or what actions do they take to get what they want?
I’m not a particularly religious person, but I remember discussing a script with a film director once and saying that if we wanted to show a character’s most intimate moment, it wasn’t going to be in bed  it was better to show him or her in prayer, and to suggest to the audience what the character is praying for.
5. Lastly, what have other people said about the work? Granted, Filipino critics don’t write a whole lot about Filipino writing, and given the way academics today write about literature, you can barely make out what they’re saying (and that’s because they’re writing for each other, and not for you). But with a little help from Google, you just might stumble on an essay or a review that could help you form your own ideas about the work. (If you use such a reference, never forget to copy and cite the source.)
So you see, boys and girls, there’s a lot you can think about on your own, without having to waste your precious "load" money on frantic text messages to me, which will get you only this column-piece back in your e-mail.
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