“Energy and Patience” – A Conversation With Author Jeff W. Bens About Style, Research, and Attention

Recently, I sat down with fiction author Jeff W. Bens, writer of the novels Albert, Himself and The Mighty Oak. We discussed his process, his connections to his characters and stories, and the importance of staying tuned into your gut and the world around you as an artist.

In your last novel, The Mighty Oak, you deal with ideas like passion and pain, following a character whose life revolves around something he has loved and has been passionate about since he was a child, and the tolls taken to sustain this dream. How do you yourself balance your writing and work? How can you ensure you aren’t putting too much pressure on a certain piece, and what keeps the pressure off of you as an artist?

Part of the problem for Oak is the response to his talent. Not a lot of perspective was offered when Oak was young and likely when it was the adolescent Oak would have shoved it away. So when for him the dream of a professional career is objectively gone, Oak is met with the choice to face a present that he is not prepared for or to con himself through drugs and fighting that the dream he’s lived inside is real. I don’t feel the need to counterbalance my writing. I’m engaged with the book until it’s done. Away from the desk, the book works in the background, alerting attention. Part of what keeps the pressure manageable is regularly getting to the writing itself, allowing the new information, the new insights, conscious or less apparent, into the work to see where they lead. Years ago, an 80-something writer slapped the table where we were having lunch and said about finishing novels, “They come when they come.” Perspective, too, keeps pressure in check.  

I know you like to keep a notebook on-hand. What does keeping a record like that mean to you as a writer, but also as a human? How do you find that it is similar and different to a diary? 

I usually carry a small notebook. If I don’t have my notebook I’ll use the notes feature on my phone but for me pen to paper is best. Napkins work great. Walking around, at a movie, on the bus, ideas arise from that aspect of mind that’s always engaging the world through the needs of the project. I want to get these down before they’re gone. In this way, these dedicated notebooks are wholly different from a diary. 

When you begin work on an idea, do you find that it typically starts from a place of wanting to share an idea or philosophy with the readers, or to investigate something you have been looking for more concrete answers on, perhaps more inwardly?

For me, idea, place, job and a wounded main character arise simultaneously from and as a feeling, a ground that the entire book will arise from. I call this the emotional world of the protagonist. It’s like mirrors to mirrors: everything in the book, including its delivery (language, point of view), reflects and is a part of everything else. This is helpful in keeping the work on track as it emerges, in making choices: if a choice, no matter how exciting to the reader in me, does not arise from or connect with this deeper ground of feeling, then the choice has to be reworked until it does or be discarded. The discard files for The Mighty Oak are thousands of pages in total. So too for this new one I’m writing. Wounded is maybe not the best term, but it points to something essential: that protagonists, like us, carry misbeliefs about themselves. Stories put increasing pressure on these misbeliefs, transforming them.

In The Mighty Oak, the character is referred to throughout the novel as “Oak”, despite the characters around him calling him by his real name, “Tim”. What does it mean to you, the writer, but also to the character’s psyche, that this detail remains consistent throughout the story?

In fact, some characters call Oak Tim, some call him Oak—it’s relational and contextual, just like with nicknames in life. But I get what you’re asking. In the narrative, Oak is always called Oak. For Tim O’Connor, whose physical size and physical strength have always been celebrated, Oak felt like the right way to go. And what happens when an oak gets blighted, gets eaten away from within?

I know you find a lot of use in good old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground research for a story. As you write, how do you find you’re able to balance the Capital T Truth with the actual “truth” in a fictional story?

The Mighty Oak took a decade to research and write. To step sincerely into a world that is outside our direct experience requires energy and patience. Some emerging writers get tripped up when the idea they pursue does not really connect with the sincere concerns of the writer in them but instead only excites the reader (or for movies and TV, the viewer) in them. I can come up with a bunch of broad ideas that I’d like to read or watch, but if they don’t arise from or connect with this felt sense of the writer in me, my gut and heart, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to sustain, to intuit the useful research. I heard a saying that there are a lot of forty page novels stuck in a drawer. (I have one myself.) I think this is why.

What helps to keep you inspired and hopeful recently? What can emerging writers seek out that might help to keep them grounded in not only the work but the world around them? 

I’d say get outside and off the phone. Look around, engage. For instance, I love banter. I can’t hear it wearing earbuds, can’t see its gestures bent over my phone. Find the places and jobs that interest the writer in you. There’s hope and inspiration in them.

Lastly, is there anything you’d like to share about what you’re currently working on?

I’m finishing a new novel, set in a narrow slice of Manhattan. As with The Mighty Oak, this new one explores loss and shame, connection and love. Hopefully has some laughs too.

Jeff W. Bens is author of the novels The Mighty Oak and Albert, Himself and director of the award-winning documentary, Fatman’s. His short fiction and essays are published widely. He teaches at Manhattanville University in Purchase, New York.

Read his article for LitHub: 

https://lithub.com/how-to-write-a-good-fight-scene/ 

Praise for The Mighty Oak: 

“Filled with memorable characters, pungent dialogue, and a lean, hard-bitten writing style, Bens’s superb novel brilliantly faces down traditional notions of manhood.” -Publishers Weekly, starred review, book of the day 

“The Mighty Oak is a gripping tale of perseverance, so full of insight and energy, you won’t want it to end.” -Justin Torres, winner National Book Award 

Praise for Albert, Himself: 

“This first novel offers a working-class view of the Crescent City and an unusually warm and touching human portrait.” –Booklist 

“Both vividly cinematic and lyrically elegiac… Bens’ debut novel is also a lovely tribute to the human struggle to make life meaningful.” -New Orleans Times-Picayune, featured review 

“Immensely touching.”  -Andrea Barrett, winner National Book Award