Naseem Rakha, author of The Crying Tree, appears Saturday October 10th at 4 P.M. on the Wieden+Kennedy Stage, and Sunday at 3 P.M. on the panel “My First Book.”
The Stuff of Story
I watched Serena Williams’ tantrum on TV the other week. You know, the now infamous moment when during a crucial point during the US Open Semi-final against Kim Clijsters, a female line judge called a foot-fault on Williams, and all hell broke loose. My husband, son and I crept closer to the television as Williams turned and strutted toward the judge, shaking the tennis ball.
“No,” I said. “Don’t do this, Serena. Don’t go there.”
But she did go there, letting the demons fly, she told the beaver-shaped woman just where she was going to shove the chartreuse-colored tennis ball. The judge reported the verbal assault and within moments, the number-one-ranked player in the world was ousted from the match, struck down by the speed, velocity, and venom of her own words.
Across the court stood her opponent, Kim Clijsters, a former US Open Champ who had surprised the tennis world by returning to the game after taking two years off to be – of a all things – a mom. ESPN sports announcers did not treat Clijsters comeback seriously until she surprised everyone by winning. One by one, Clijsters sliced down her opponents with a surety and confidence that seemed to say – What’s the big deal? It’s only a game. You want to try something tough, try being a mom….
Mother’s around the world celebrated her wins, with dish-panned high fives. And we felt bad, cheated even, as we watched Serena come over to Kim, her hand outstretched, the match over. Kim looked disoriented and disappointed. She had been just two points away from winning on her own. Now the match was being handed to her like a lost button.
And that is when I realized I really am a writer. Because while everyone on the media was glomming onto this zeitgeist of anger for Serena’s “outrageous behavior,” I found myself drawn into the story and feeling empathy for all its characters: the fallen giant, the slighted heroine, the aggrieved victim, the reluctant referee. It’s the stuff epics: missteps, falls, and the ability to rise up again. Tragic leaders, unsung heroes, all of it played out on a tennis court named after a tennis champ that had died of AIDS. Hell, there was even irony.
I doubt if any of these thoughts would have occurred to me before I started writing fiction. But now that I do, I see that everything around me is a potential story. Articles in the newspaper, things I overhear at a coffee shop. Once, I walked down a street writing down every snippet of conversation I heard, then, I linked those fragments together into – you guessed it – a story.
There is no end to finding story, but what it takes at the very least, is a fresh eye. Instead of falling prey to judgments and stereotypes, writers have to look at everything with a different slant. Appreciating that behind every character there is a back-story, and that from back-story we can find conflict and build empathy and understanding.
That’s why I was so drawn to Serena’s gaff. Her back-story – a middle class African American girl growing up to challenge the elite white tennis establishment, is compelling. She’s spent her life trying to fit in, to behave, and be patient with other people while they tried to figure out how to deal with the twin-tennis powerhouse of her and her sister Venus. And yet, for all she has accomplished, there will always be this one defining moment played over and over on Tennis Channel reruns: the day Serena’s temper took her chance for another US Open title.
Does that shape a person? I don’t know. But I know it is the stuff of story.
That’s poor writing. “Mother’s” with an apostrophe, and “tennis champ that” instead of “who.” Oh, and ….no ultimate point.