Read "Submerging the 'I'" by Chuck Palahniuk

awesome, still one of my favs !!

same here - love this one, should be a mandate.

this one, more than any other of the essays, impacted the way i string words together (in fiction, anyways) other than that, the one on metaphors, and the ones about crafting a story done to a story under construction, are the most valuable

Yeah, this is definitely one of those eye-opening essays that sticks with you and changes your writing, for the better, for good.

Even if you don't use the technique to the hardcore degree that Chuck does, it's still ridiculously helpful, if for nothing but becoming self-aware of using that pesky pronoun, and changing up your syntax every now and then. But, contrary to Chuck's essay, I don't think the 'I' is all that bad, because if you're always pushing yourself to hide it, you'll notice your syntax repetition with all the 'my' 'mine' 'me' etc. too.

Chuck certainly lays out all the information perfectly. It makes complete sense. And you feel this urge to go back through old work with a red sharpie and circle every damn one of those things. One of my favourites.

I haven't had time to really read the article much, but could someone give me an example of what exactly “submerging the I” is?
Like a before and after sentence?

I could. But I won't. Just read the damn essay. He uses his short story "Guts" as an example. If you take notice when reading "Guts", you'll notice that the word "I" is not used until page three, even though it's a first person narrated story. This story is an extreme case of Submerging the I, too. He doesn't even use Me/My/Mine etc very much until much later in the story. Only three times or something in the first 3 pages.

pigeon:

none of us really have time for anything but im still surprised to see someone actually ask that the free essay be paraphrased for their benefit. you genuinely can't take fifteen minutes out of your month to read an essay ? that's the laziest thing ive seen in a while hahaha

runner up was a few years ago: there was a kid who submitted a ten thousand word story to the workshop. he did his prerequisite five reviews but they were all short and, well, arbitrary. i reviewed his story for him and asked him to improve his own reviews. he said: The funny thing is, I loved to write, but I don't so much like to read. that explained to me why his story was so bad and i never read anything else by him.

Okay I read the essay. I still don't quite understand it though. In Guts, for the first three pages the narrator is recounting 2 other people’s stories, so he has no real need to use "I". But when he gets to his personal story he begins using "I". Not over using it, but still using it. So I was just wondering what a submerged vs. not submerged sentence would look like.
Sorry if I’m coming off as dumb. I’m probably just really missing the point of the essay.

"I'm walking to the kitchen to grab an apple."

Submerging:

"Walking into the kitchen, I grab an apple."

Yeah. And, as much as hiding the 'I' is good sometimes, like I said, if you become to aware of it your prose can just become stale, and you find yourself repeating the same syntax patterns. And often times, you're submerging the I by writing bad passive sentences. So, I guess it's a call you have to make when editing.

I think a pretty good example of submerging the 'I', not an over-the-top extreme version like "Guts, is the first chapter of Fight Club.

TYLER GETS ME a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden.

The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Tyler says "We really won't die."

With my tongue I can feel the silencer holes we drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases, and there's the tiny sonic boom a bullet makes because it travels so fast. To make a silencer, you just drill holes in the barrel of the gun, a lot of holes. This lets the gas escape and slows the bullet to below the speed of sound.
You drill the holes wrong and the gun will blow off your hand.
"This isn't really death," Tyler says. "We'll be legend. We won't grow old."

I tongue the barrel into my cheek and say, Tyler, you're thinking of vampires.

The building we're standing on won't be here in ten minutes. You take a 98percent concentration of fuming nitric acid and add the acid to three times that amount of sulfuric acid. Do this in an ice bath. Then add glycerin drop-by-drop with an eye dropper. You have nitroglycerin.

I know this because Tyler knows this.

Mix the nitro with sawdust, and you have a nice plastic explosive. A lot of folks mix their nitro with cotton and add Epsom salts as a sulfate. This works too. Some folks, they use paraffin mixed with nitro. Paraffin has never, ever worked for me.

So Tyler and I are on top of the Parker-Morris Building with the gun stuck in my mouth, and we hear glass breaking. Look over the edge. It's a cloudy day, even this high up. This is the world's tallest building, and this high up the wind is always cold. It's so quiet this high up, the feeling you get is that you're one of those space monkeys. You do the little job you're trained to do.

Pull a lever.

Push a button.

You don't understand any of it, and then you just die.

One hundred and ninety-one floors up, you look over the edge of the roof and the street below is mottled with a shag carpet of people, standing, looking up. The breaking glass is a window right below us. A window blows out the side of the building, and then comes a file cabinet big as a black refrigerator, right below us a six-drawer filing cabinet drops right out of the cliff face of the building, and drops turning slowly, and drops getting smaller, and drops disappearing into the packed crowd.

Somewhere in the one hundred and ninety-one floors under us, the space monkeys in the Mischief Committee of Project Mayhem are running wild, destroying every scrap of history.
That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways.

With a gun stuck in your mouth and the barrel of the gun between your teeth, you can only talk in vowels.

We're down to our last ten minutes.

Notice how it's still obvious that it's a first-person narrated story, but the 'I' is fairly well hidden. The whole idea behind it is that no one wants to read something that is egotistical, or as Chuck says, "A hero story". Because, although we love a first person story for the intimacy level, it's boring if it's all I, I, I. I mean, we've got our own ego to worry about.

So, submerging the 'I' affords the reader the chance to become involved in the story faster. The other way Chuck builds authority, trapping the reader in the story, making them care, early on, is by sprinkling his little facts in there, or as he calls them, "Head Authority". This is all the stuff about bombs, and all those little fun-facts that make you think, well, yes, this narrator is the best person to tell this story, he knows what's going on, and therefore, you give yourself away to the story.

But yeah, I still think, over-done, this can be bad. Just as bad as using too many "I's". Craig Clevenger talks about it a little in his essay Night of the Living Syntax, and I think if you combine both of these essays you'll see a nice balance.

im just home late from work. (notice the "i" there. i meant it : ) im always home late from work. it's part of the dining industry. anyway, nice to see some great comments on this subject.

im inclined to agree with both examples. the idea isnt to replace all "i"s with my/me, or even to eradicate the "i", but rather to be less obtrusive as matt and dan underlined. it's egocentric. starting your first five sentences with "i" makes the story bland. even more so than using "that" too many times. or the word "just" a few times in the same sentence. the "i" gets annoying. there are exceptions of course. the first sentence of Kiss Me, Judas: I must be dead for there is nothing but blue snow and the furious silence of a gunshot. or [one of chuck's favorites] The Contortionists' Handbook: I can count my overdoses on one hand ...

good writing shows in the balance, but it's nice to have the minimalist perspective. make it more the reader's story than your story. rather than "I have termites in my floor boards", "There are termites in the floor".

Yep, you nailed it, Kabol.

By the way, the opening paragraph of Kiss me, Judas is pure bliss to read. Poetry in prose. God, I can't get enough of it. One of the best openings of a book ever. No doubt.

"[one of chuck's favorites] The Contortionists' Handbook: I can count my overdoses on one hand ..."

But Chuck has said that he would have preferred "You can count my overdoses on one hand"..

Just saying..

Yeah, but Chuck's a bit dodgy at times (see: Snuff, Pygmy et al).

Seriously though, It sounds too passive for an opening sentence to switch to the second person. Besides, unless you're writing solely in second person, I think it sounds a bit tacky, and is a bit of a cheat just for the sake of "submerging the I", to switch into that narrative POV.

Clevenger is in the money, especially in TCH. Chuck was silly to say that, really. But it's a personal thing, I guess.

Just sayin'.

Disclaimer: Chuck's essays in the workshop are some of the best craft essays I've ever read.

But this one, in my opinion, is a predilection gone wrong.

"We're too ready for a first person story to be boasting and bragging. A hero story."

Really? Doesn't this depend more on the story teller than the first person? 99% of the stories you hear in daily life begin with: "So the other day I was..." This will be a hero story from an idiot. But this will have you on the edge of your seat in the Irish pub.

He follows this first assertion with: "Still, the problem is--we hate that I." But the evidence he gives between is simply defending the first person over the third?

If people hate that "I" so much in story-telling, why has the memoir (essentially 250 pages of big fat "I,I,I,ME,ME,ME") been the fastest growing genre of the last 2 decades? (I can only support this opinion with library patronage).

And why is: "Call me Ishmael" probably the most familiar first line in American literary history? (Essentially: "hello, this is I").

This website features a story by Will Christopher Baer (Suffer the Fool) with about 12 "I" or "I'm" 's and 10 "me, myself, my" 's in the first paragraph.

I'm wondering if anyone on this website can honestly say that the "I" bothered them as much before they read this essay as it did after. It seems to me like somebody pointing out some white noise when you should be asleep.

"I" is abused by amateur writers, but that shouldn't make it as taboo as this essay does: "It's not until halfway through the story, on page 5, that we meet the narrator." (Poor Ishmael).
What this essay is really addressing seems to be the overuse of a noun. Most writers will crack the thesaurus to avoid using "storm" twice in three sentences, but have no trouble using "I" in five out of five. That's a problem. But I'm not sure if this essay addresses it accurately. Perhaps the most overlooked line of this essay is: "But that's just me."

Oh, fuck. I could not agree more with you, man. Though, I was trying to go for it in a non-offense way as it's a front page article, and Chuck enthusiasts seem to get up tight when anyone questions his ways.

You're spot on though.

That's not at all what I took from the essay.

"If people hate that "I" so much in story-telling, why has the memoir (essentially 250 pages of big fat "I,I,I,ME,ME,ME") been the fastest growing genre of the last 2 decades? (I can only support this opinion with library patronage)."

A memoir is mostly written by people who already know the author; authority already established. And in my opionion, it also fits the format better to actually disconnect you from the one you know, who is telling the story.

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"And why is: "Call me Ishmael" probably the most familiar first line in American literary history? (Essentially: "hello, this is I")."

Well "You can count my overdoses.." is essentially the same thing to "I can count my overdoses.." or in this case "You can call me Ishmael" shortened instead of "I am called Ishmael".

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"This website features a story by Will Christopher Baer (Suffer the Fool) with about 12 "I" or "I'm" 's and 10 "me, myself, my" 's in the first paragraph."

That's missing the point in my opinion, "my" for instance would be a good substitute for "I" in many cases. You can't go without any of these words when writing a first person narrative novel, but you can choose when to use them and how to prioritize them. It's the same with authority, build it up before you can present something that otherwise would be hard to believe. Two tools that can have a great effect. But in the case of Clevenger, I think that sentence works either way, if you have a great sentence - it's great whatever the "rules" say. They're only tools needed when you think fixing is needed - in my opinion.

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"I'm wondering if anyone on this website can honestly say that the "I" bothered them as much before they read this essay as it did after. It seems to me like somebody pointing out some white noise when you should be asleep."

That's not really fair though, it was probably an "eyeopener" for a lot of readers and in that regard you would be right. Doesn't mean it didn't hit the mark though. It could be that you didn't know why some texts was not that attractive but didn't get why.

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What this essay is really addressing seems to be the overuse of a noun. Most writers will crack the thesaurus to avoid using "storm" twice in three sentences, but have no trouble using "I" in five out of five. That's a problem. But I'm not sure if this essay addresses it accurately. Perhaps the most overlooked line of this essay is: "But that's just me."

I agree, he's not telling anyone how to write! He's just telling what techniques he's using (and somewhat what he learned from Tom Spanbaur), and at the same time, he is experimenting himself..

I think this essay hits best on how to fix beginning of chapters that needs fixing, and if you reevaluate the places where you use "I" and how you could write it by submerging the I is a great source and a tool how to look at your own text even if it's not needed in every case.

Imho

Submerging the I too much can make your story too passive though. Too passive=boring.

ha, found it !!

for those of us who are premium members, we know that chuck did q & a sessions for most of his essays--he answered questions students asked about the monthly essay and assignment. for those just learning of this essay, this is what he stated when confronted by students about clevenger using the "i" in the handbook:

word.

Well, for some strange reason you got that last paragraph chopped up.. Here's all of it:

++++++++++++++++++

"About Craig’s story, he writes with such well-researched authority that he holds your attention. Most people who use the “I” a lot never achieve that kind of authority; they stay too obsessed with the narrator and forget to create the world and characters around that central voice. In The Contortionist’s Handbook, the narrator has such a compelling Body of Knowledge, about forging and drugs and mental health, that most of the time he’s talking about the world instead of himself.

As the “I Nazi”, I would’ve said: “You could count my overdoses on one hand.”"

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It would probably been a good idea if this was part of the essay. Even with the "I Nazi" comment this paragraph gives more balance to the whole thing.

I mean no offense at all. Reading about writing is my favorite procrastination for not writing, and Chuck's essays are in the top 1% for original, practical, advice. If you want to be a writer, join the fucking workshop. It's simple.

I just think this essay's central argument is wrongly attributed. And I'm pretty sure I'm not mis-reading it.

He's essentially advocating a sense of 'visceral realism' (to rip a term from Bolano's Savage Detectives)--that fiction works best when it is experiential. It's like placing the camera on the front of the roller-coaster: sitting in the audience, your stomach churns as it speeds around. He's not just saying cut a few "I"s--he's saying hide the story-teller to make it the reader's own story.

My argument would be that fiction works more through human empathy, and the story teller is generally a point of interest more than an obstacle.

The best example I could give would be movies. We sit there and watch 'others' on screen, knowing it's not our own story, but get completely emotionally involved anyway.

The essay is valuable in the sense of: don't overuse a word, whether it's "blue" or "mutt" or "menstrual." "I" is the same, but for some reason people overlook this. I just feel the case he builds around it is over stated and over quoted in the workshop, and too many people are pouring through their fiction playing a "cut the I" game, when there are bigger issues to deal with. Don't write an "I and I" rastafarian manifesto, but don't be afraid of the word either. All things in moderation.

I'm reading lots of comments about writing, instead of writing.

Submerging:

Instead of writing, I'm reading lots of comments about writing.