In honor of the passing to another state of being of Geoff Cohen, one of The 24-Hour Room’s founding and most stalwart members, I’d like to talk about change. Geoff led our 10 ET/7 PT Flow reading sessions ever since we launched our read-aloud of Moby-Dick in the Spring of 2021, and he stuck with us for twenty-two books, though in recent months his health kept him in bed a little later and he didn’t manage to make it to our Zoom Studio quite every weekday at 7 am. Geoff was a brilliant and generous writer, reader, teacher and friend, and I’m grateful for his inspiring presence in our Studio, Lounge, Workshops and bulletin boards. It was a privilege to witness the gentle but insistent way that he fomented change. He died on June 10th, surrounded by his family, but I know he would want us to continue our discussion of books in his absence, so this afternoon, Thursday June 19 at 5 pm EDT, please join me in the Lounge to remember Geoff and think outside the box about an array of narrative spaces that harbor potential for change.
Change is an essential lens through which writers and readers can examine a story's plot. It’s perhaps the most fundamental way to keep a plot moving. A story’s not simply about what happens, which would be way too wide a swath, but those happenings that bring about change. But I’m most interested, just now, in pondering weirder, smaller sorts of changes changes that provide opportunities for writers to inject narrative dynamism that goes beyond plot.
World building: Does the place or situation change, or the rules of the game?
Character: Beyond coming of age, because we pretty much all grow up, right? what happens when characters grow wise, grow cynical, grow demented, go on Ketamine, forgive the unforgivable, lose all hope, or maybe fail to change in the expected way?
Time: When the flow of time isn’t smooth, changes reveal themselves more evidently. Did a decade or a lifetime or a minute just pass? Why did the writer cut from one moment to the next? Maybe to reveal some old reality as in fact entirely different than previously believed?
Reader engagement: How do writers trigger shifts in reader’s understanding of who's telling the truth, or of who's the hero and who's the antihero?
What about lack of change? Sometimes stasis can be as powerful and interesting and unexpected — possibly even more so — than change.
Please join me in The 24-Hour Room Lounge this afternoon to discuss change and remember Geoff Cohen. After the discussion, it’s Open Mic from 6-7 pm Et, and I’ll start us off by reading a short piece from Geoff’s first novel that was printed in Sundial Magazine.
Good writing. And Godspeed, Geoff, as you voyage into the unknown.
I am so sorry for your loss. May his memory be a blessing.