Day 278: Writing Exercise 3, Mark Twain

Time for a fun one! I've already investigated Twain's style several times before and I can tell you right now that his voice is so well developed it can be difficult to replicate. His stories rejected any traditional form, often reading more like snippets of journalistic interviews, travel reviews, or overheard stories from across the bar. Some of them were happy, some of them were sad, some of them made a fine point, but all of them were filled to the brim with his particular sensibilities. His sense of humor and his ability to capture a character through voice alone are what I'm going to try to capture today.

The sample I'll draw from is none other than 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.' This is one of his more famous short stories, and actually went by several different titles in different publishings, so if you've heard it by some other name don't be surprised. In this story the narrator is cornered by a man named Simon Wheeler, who tells a story of the infamous Jim Smiley, a known gambler who once trained a frog to jump higher than anyone else's for the sake of betting on him. As Wheeler describes the frog: 'You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted.'

And I think there in lies the secret to Twain's wit. His characters make these completely ridiculous statements as if they're totally normal things to say. The worst part is, there's no way to argue with Smiley, even if it doesn't make any sense. Who are you to say that a frog can't be modest yet gifted? There's really no way to make a point against it.

Another hallmark of Twain's writing I've noticed is his use of oddly specific numbers to catch a reader by surprise. He doesn't do this in the Jumping Frog, but he does do it in another favorite of mine, 'A Day at Niagara.' In this story the narrator visits Niagara falls for the first time and goes on quite the misadventure. At some point, he ends up going over the falls and says:

I am hurt all over, but I cannot tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done taking the inventory. He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus far he thinks only six of my wounds are fatal. I don’t mind the others.

There are a million little things I could pick out that make his style what it is. The way he jumps right into a story without warning. How he uses his humor to make a greater point, or the quintessentially American settings he makes use of. The way his stories seem to flow out all in one big breath. I don't think I can actually list them all without boring you to death. That being said, I do want to include the oddly particular number because that just cracks me up every time for some reason. I don't really know why, but it does. So for this attempt I'll do my best to replicate his wit through mimicry without focusing too hard on any particular thing, besides those two that I mentioned. I'll aim for about 500 words again. That seems to fit these exercises nicely.

As was mentioned in previous publications, this author feels there are a glut of untold stories from the bottom of a certain barrel in Eastern North Carolina. There along the coastal plains are many small towns covered in the mildewed air of the sounds, huge bodies of fresh water that some people seem to believe hold many kinds of fish, but I've never been able to extract any evidence of that myself. These people who insist on the fishes' abundance are not unlike swamp people in that they don't mind wading into the sounds in search of nutrients, bait, or even what they consider to be a good time. Mud is the lifeblood of many creatures there, including several species of catfish, which these people claim to enjoy catching with their bare hands. One particularly deranged man who I fraternize with from time to time once tried to teach me his ways. The results were as follows.

"Y'see, it's simple. They like to root into the sound bed and the banks, make a nice hole to hide in. All you got to do is search around for a hole with your foot like this. This right here."

He did something beneath the water, which was waist deep and the same temperature and color as old tea. I had waded out with my hands held high above the water but at that point a small wave crashed over me and I realized keeping dry was a losing battle. I couldn't see a single thing in the murk, but he insisted a there was a hole under the mud there. Having already seen several snakes, large snapping turtles, and most dangerous of all, other noodlers, I asked him if there was any chance that something other than a fish could be living in this hole.

"Oh, everybody asks me that," was his only response before his head disappeared beneath the water, presumably so he could stick his entire arm into that hole and rout the fish he claimed must live inside.

The water roiled as if a boiler had been turned on below the bed of the sound and I was forced to retreat several paces lest the top of my head (the only dry part left) get wet. Twelve minutes later he came up gasping for air, bleeding, and missing a chunk from his hairline.

"Where's the fish?" I asked.

"Almost had eem. Come on, there's a better spot down yonder."

The spot down yonder yielded the same furious battle, but no better results. In fact, not a single catfish revealed itself to us in the four hours of so-called 'fishing,' and so I must conclude that none live in those waters. I have smelt of old mud and tasted sound water in my mouth ever since. Please, dear reader, if one of these strange denizens of the sound ever asks if you would like to let a large fish latch on to your hand for fun, I must tell you that I believe it is all a trick. There are no fish, but there are enough holes in the mud to immerse you in the sound water long enough for it to leech into your brain and turn you into one of them. Don't fall for it.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley