At Intersections with Point of View

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

I’d like to revisit Alex’s June 26 post about point of view (POV), which I read with great interest because I, too, have been questioning POV with the two protagonists in my novel. (Background note: At the beginning of the novel, neither person knows the other, and each character is from a completely different socioeconomic background. Yet, in each chapter, they are physically situated in close approximation, and individually they struggle with identity issues and a haunted past. It’s not until later in the novel when their paths cross, that their friendship leads to powerful and dangerous complications. At least, I hope it comes across that way!)

The story is told with alternating POV chapters—the male, then the female character. When I began the chapters, I used third person close narrative for both characters, which felt rather natural for the male character, but awkward for the female. I had been struggling for months with her voice. I know what she thinks, believes and how she acts, but why wasn’t it coming across on the page?

I thought I knew her. I drew up what I felt was a fairly good character description as background to help get me inside her head. But on the page, her voice, her actions―her very being―seemed measured and pedantic. Then I experimented: I put her in first person, and suddenly, everything about her and around her seemed to come alive. I could see her struggles, her doubts, and her flaws so much more clearly. There was an immediacy and an urgency about her. I found her voice!

Does it matter whether I have alternating chapters with alternating POV? I think not, at least not right now. I’m also not concerned with transitions between the chapters, since the locations are common reference points for the characters. The other connective thread is that each chapter begins with a very short backstory, thus creating a type of second story that unveils the characters’ troubled past. Basically, I’m going with my gut instinct on what feels right for the character and then worry about how it reads once I revise and then workshop.

That said, I’m constantly trying to keep in mind Alex’s superb take away from Tom Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter―to “make each chapter do its part to tell the story and make each chapter interesting by itself.” Well said!

Sparse Space, Mighty Muse – Part II

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Are you making stereotypes of your characters? Are they predictable? If so, you need to give them a good hard shake and see what falls out of their pockets. If you’re lucky, you’ll find something deliciously odd, dangerous, or scandalous. The goal here, folks is surprise. And surprise for we writers is good, very good.

That’s at least one of the thoughts I came away with from my workshop with Danzy Senna at Skidmore College this summer (see previous post for Part I). In several of the sessions, we reviewed more than a few manuscripts that had some scintillating prose surrounding the character, but there was the predictable narrative that never got away from itself, e.g:

A compulsive young man spends his day watching and calculating every minute[okay, fascinating], but nothing every challenged his compulsive habit, and nothing changed about him or around him; a little boy places a bowler hat on his head to make himself invisible because life at home gets pretty scary [intriguing, let’s keep reading], but he keeps doing this, no one does anything, and that’s all that happens.

We’ve all done this! We get so into our characters and we love them, good or bad, but we don’t let anything happen to them to challenge them or transform them. Nothing pops out and hits them in the face. And to top it off, we may veer wildly off tone. Danzy explained this dynamic as the need to get a narrative strategy to help get inside your character, to get beyond the “clean and easy” (my term), and to get…well, “dirty” (her term). The idea, she said, is to get yourself out of your head.

She suggested reading some folk stories as a way to discover narrative strategies to strengthen your writing. “Notice the tone,” she said, “and study at the dialogue.” Using dialogue, she added, “helps you see more characters more clearly.” Folktales not only do this, but they use a framework that astounds not just us, but our characters, too. Here are a few that came out of that class:

• Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol’s "The Nose" http://h42day.100megsfree5.com/texts/russia/gogol/nose.html
• Italo Calvino’s Italian Folktales
• The Hebrew story about “the talking fish” that ran in The New York Times in 2003. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE0DE1F3EF936A25750C0A9659C8B63&scp=1&sq=Miracle?%20Dream?%20Prank?%20Fish%20Talks,%20Town%20Buzzes&st=cse

On another note, I should add that during my stay the faculty and my peers continued to expand our recommended reading list. Ah, that we should live as long to read all the good books our friends suggest! Here’s just a snapshot of several on my “to-read” list:

Novels
Bad Behavior - Mary Gaitskill
Letters to a Young Novelist – Mario Vargas Llosa

Short Stories
“Women in Their Beds” – Gina Berriault
“Hole in the Wall” - Etgar Keret

Non-fiction
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach


Enjoy!

Sparse Space, Mighty Muse, Part I

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Thanks to a generous scholarship I had an opportunity this past July to spend two weeks at the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Describing the experience is akin to trying to express what seeing Yosemite Falls is like for the first time. Okay, so maybe that’s not the best way to illustrate my point, but the enthusiasm it generated might measure similarly.

Perhaps the most potent aspect of the Writers Institute is that it is truly a writer’s colony. In the midst of life’s madness, this gathering is a place where you can forget having to make a meal or clean a dish (you eat at the university dining hall), and just dive into the writer’s life all around you--every day. I was one of more than 60 writers who stayed in the dorms on campus and participated in fiction, nonfiction or poetry workshops.

During the first week my workshop (18 to a class) was led by Danzy Senna (http://blueflowerarts.com/danzy-senna), author of the phenomenal Caucasia and the autobiography, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? The second week I studied under Howard Norman, whose novel, What is Left, the Daughter (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/books/review/Wallace-t.html) will have you eager to explore the epistolary form. We had workshop three times during the week and on the alternative days all the groups came together for an afternoon discussion with other workshop faculty and visiting writers, who included Ann Beattie, Russell Banks, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gaitskill, Rick Moody, nonfiction writers Jim Miller and Geoffrey O’Brien, and poets Henri Cole, Jayne Anne Philips, Mary Kinzie and Peg Boyers. In addition to small group discussions with these authors about the craft of writing, we heard them read from their latest works later that night, and then on Sunday evening, we participants held our own public reading.

As a fiction writer, I came away with ideas on how to further explore character, dialogue and story. Ann Beattie talked about how “short stories can be like plays.” She urged us to “use dialogue to create situations” as well as to expose the raw, the “unredeemable” character. Emerging writers can be timid about exposing the “imperfect” character, Joyce Carol Oates said in another session. She reminded us, however, that “all great art is based on conflict.” Simply put, she added, “If you don’t want to upset your mother or father, you won’t be a writer. You can be a nice person, but you won’t be a writer.”

Henri Cole’s reading of his poem “Black Camille” struck me with the utter significance of word choice and how I might apply the lessons of poetry to my work. “What are you now but a blood-red palanquin of plucked feathers and silk airing in the sun?” he read one night. In the hush of the auditorium, I understood then, that the words we choose are not just for their rhythm or sound, but for their absolute urgency. And, we know that takes time. But it’s worth it, isn’t it?

Stay tuned for more in Sparse Space, Mighty Muse – Part 2 next week…

Revising & Whatnot

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

I’m at that stage of revision where I’m taking workshop feedback on my short fiction and making decisions: Do I cut this sentence? Should I move this part up, move that back? What’s a better, stronger word? Does this make my character more authentic?

Revising can seem like trudging up a long hill you just slid down. But does it always have to feel so daunting? I guess it means you need to feel the pain to get to the joy.

Writing always seems so much easier, and with a few handy mantras by my side, I usually feel spurred forward. There’s the straightforward Nike slogan, “Just Do It.” Another one is my own: “It doesn’t write itself.” I admit, they are admonishments, but they work for me. So…why not put together something to help with revisions?

Here are a few ideas. See what you think, and if you have any more, please comment. I need some help up the hill!

• Start in the middle and see what happens.
• You’re more than halfway there.
• Tell me what it’s like to be that character in that scene.
• Read it aloud.
• At least there’s a story to work with.
• That wasn’t so hard.

Trying to Get Unstuck

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Earlier this week I got stuck in the mud. Over the holidays I started a story, and step by step I put my protagonist, “David,” in a pickle (purely intended, of course, and all as a result of the actions he took earlier). Faced with the consequences, he then had to make a completely new decision, and I was ready to wrap up the story. But I was leaving him without any options because I couldn’t decide what would happen next. He could certainly do something unexpected, but because he is a little boy, I couldn’t have him do something suddenly adult. What to do?

Have you ever been in this situation? Have you ever taken your main character on a wild ride, thoroughly enjoying it yourself, and then come to a curve in the road, only to ask, “Dang, what’s on the road beyond?”

I turned to a nifty little book I read about a year ago to help me figure out some possibilities. It’s called, Writing Great Short Stories, by Margaret Lucke, and I highly recommend it. Lucke breaks down all the aspects of writing the short story into easily digested bits with clear examples, tips and exercises. Lucke reminds us that “not every short story has a plot,” which describes my story exactly.

Lucke says while you may have a plot-less story, you still have to have a “story goal,” that is, your story must “evoke an emotion or mood, explore a theme, share an experience, or describe a person”-- all in an effort to “help the reader comprehend some aspect of the human condition.” In fact, each of the pieces of your story does not have to be “linked by chronology or cause and effect, but by similar emotional or psychological resonance or other things they have in common.”

She cites as an example Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, where the author tells the Vietnam soldiers’ stories by cataloguing the various items the narrator’s fellow soldiers brought on their missions, including not only objects such as matches, morphine, M-16 rifles, and M&Ms, but the intangible items, including guilt and fear.

That said, I’ve already got some possibilities for David. I’ve been inside his head for the last month, and I know how he interprets the adult world. I’ll stay true to David’s perceptions and just let the reader explore them, all the while leaving the reader (fingers crossed), with the sick feeling of what could have--and just nearly--happened.

In Search of...

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

I’m always on the lookout for devices that help me move the story forward and create authentic characters. Two presenters at the 2009 SCWW Conference offered good suggestions for doing just that.

Science fiction writer David Weber gave tips on how to provide backstory without the “dreaded dump.” Not being a science fiction fan, I was put off by the fact that Weber used examples from his series (not a good idea for any presenter), but the tips he provided were helpful and could apply to any genre.

Here are the ones I’m already trying to put to use:

• Use dialogue between characters to explore something that happened in the past;
• Create a flashback where your character can describe his or her feelings or experience;
• Use your character’s motivations or weaknesses to explore the past; this might be done using internal thoughts, but take care to not go overboard;
• Find ways that action scenes can be used to insert backstory; and
• Spread the backstory throughout the book rather than all at once.

Karyn Marcus, an editor at Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin, talked about how to spin a draft into gold, but the most interesting part of the discussion was how to find “your voice.” Her advice for voice is something we’ve probably all heard a number of times, but bears repeating: “Do freewrites and let go of your internal editor.” That’s the only way to let yourself explore what your voice is, she says. (I would add: Experiment and mimic various writers. I once mimicked a Joyce Carol Oates short story and really surprised myself.)

Marcus also noted some of her picks among various genres that have unique voices:

• Mystery: Any of the Chief Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny (“She uses a blend of point of view,” says Marcus. “I really feel like I know her characters.”)
• Memoir: Darkness Visible, by William Styron
• Creative Nonfiction: Many of Joan Dideon’s articles (Her pieces “play with perspective,” Marcus says.)
• Fiction: The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

If you found these tips helpful, what are you waiting for?

Creating the Lyric Essay

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

I recently discovered the lyric essay, which, as The Seneca Review defined it in 1997, is a “sub-genre that straddles the essay and the lyric poem.” The lyric essay, according to The Review, takes “an allegiance to facts” and merges it with poetic metaphor to describe an object, person or moment that is quotidian. For example, you might focus on a particular type of flower, a piece of animal bone in the desert, or like writer Joni Tevis does in the example below, a fossil.

With lyric essay, you’re essentially thinking and writing by association—as with poetry—and observing a symbolic act or observation, or a moment of epiphany. Outside of that it doesn’t conform to any standards, which, in my opinion, makes it very liberating.

As a writer who focuses on mostly fiction and thinks in terms of conflict and story arc, I have to admit, the lyric essay initially left me feeling a little like I was walking down a flight of stairs without rails. Unsteady, I was wondering, “Where am I going with this?” “Is this right?”

But after giving this form a try and studying some of the writers best known for this genre, I’ve come to enjoy putting motifs, images and metaphors together in a way that signifies a larger image rather than organizing words or images that “spell it out.”

Okay, so here are some examples, a couple of my favorite excerpts. Now, keep in mind, I don’t think these excerpts do lyric essay full justice, for, at least in my opinion, this type of prose is sometimes best appreciated when read in full—and out loud or in a whisper:

A fern’s dark print on shale. Ribbed clamshells pressed into a cliff of pale limestone. The compliant trilobite in all its variations, every bump and ridge preserved these two hundred million years, yet still capable of revelation, like a pair of sneakers hanging from the power line, pedaling the silent air.

-- “Fossil,” from The Wet Collection, Joni Tevis

Dark. Dark, but alive. Energized, expectant. Turbo-charged darkness. When does the first note of precolor appear?…Flemish grays and now, almost, a blue, where two fat stars hang in the east—companions at the slow birth of day, midwives—I should know their names.

-- “July 9, 5 a.m.,” from Seven Notebooks, Campbell McGrath

Give it a try sometime, then check out Brevity (http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/) and The Collagist (http://thecollagist.com/), which both accept this intriguing form of prose.

Get Your Story Out the Door!

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

It’s easy to be daunted by the task of searching markets for your work. For sure, places such as Writer’s Digest offer great links to literary magazine Web sites, and there are probably more than a few services that you can pay to help you find a market to submit your work.

But if you’re looking for an economic alternative, let me suggest Duotrope.com. Listed among Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers” (http://www.writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009-markets/?print=1), Duotrope.com is a free, easy-to-use online submission tracker that I discovered through a writing friend. Check it out:

1. Go to Duotrope.com. You don’t need to sign up for an account to try it (but go ahead and sign up; it’s free, after all!).
2. Search for your market on the Home page: For example, if you’re writing historical fiction, in the Genre box you’ll click on Historical Fiction; if you want to search for literary markets, click on Literary, etc.
3. Go down and click through the options in the remaining dialogue boxes (eg., poem/short story, simultaneous submissions/submission via electronic or postal, etc.), or leave them empty if not applicable or you want to broaden your search. You can even search publications that accept submissions online, which saves trees, time and money, and who isn’t for that?
4. At the end, click Submit.

You’ll get a list of markets, along with titles and links to a Duotrope.com page that summarizes the publication, along with links to the publication’s official Web site. Once you’ve signed up and submitted your work, you can log onto Duotrope and add the stories or poems you submitted to the various publications. Just click Add Submission. It tracks all your submissions, which you can review all sorts of ways, such as by story/poem title and date of submission.

Be sure to also sign up for the weekly newsletter (see link at top of web page) and you’ll get a weekly email update with new market listings and re-opened submissions and upcoming deadlines for publications that have themed issues. This email does on occasion ask for donations to help keep the site up and running (it’s operated by a few published writers and former editors—see the About and FAQs links at the bottom of the site). It’s optional, but after the rush of excitement you get from having your own submissions tracker page and, you’ll want to send these folks a donation.

There are other search functions in the database too numerous to discuss here, so the best way to find out is to simply pull up the Web site and check it out yourself.

What you won’t find on Duotrope, however, are contests, and I welcome any feedback on this blog from someone who knows of a contest submission tracker.

Happy submitting!

Winter Weary Wake-Ups

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Need some fresh inspiration? Need a break from the winter blues?

With a simple click of the mouse, you can be connected to local literary events, hear and watch your favorite authors speak about the writing process, and much more.

Here’s some local stuff to get you off your duff:

• 13th Annual SC Book Festival: Come celebrate the book! Mark your calendar for this annual free -- yes free -- event, Feb. 27 – Mar. 1. Funded by the Humanities Council and the SC Center for the Book, this year’s festival features author Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent) as keynote speaker on Sunday. Special recognitions include Braille Literacy Awareness, the Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial, the Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings papers, and the 2009 Poetry Out Loud Contest. The C-Span Book TV Bus will once again be in the exhibit hall. Friday is the only day with fees for events, which include classes (register online), book appraisals and an opening night reception. See the full schedule at www.scbookfestival.org. Check it out!

• South Carolina Arts Commission: This group hosts the annual SC Fiction Project, among myriad other programs and events, including grants. To subscribe to the free Literary Arts Bulletin, email: sbrailsford@arts.sc.gov or visit www.southcarolinaarts.com

• FundsforWriters.com: Fellow SCWW member C. Hope Clark writes this phenomenally smart, easy-to-use online writer resource. You’d be nuts not to subscribe to at least one of her free weekly e-newsletters, where there’s something for everyone—grants, contests, markets. Get busy! www.FundsforWriters.com

Hear, read or watch your favorite authors talk about their craft:

• Barnes & Noble Studio: Audio & video interviews w/authors at www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-studio/videos-podcasts/index.asp

• Powells.com: Written interviews with authors at www.powells.com/authors/interviews.html

• ReadersRead.com: More written interviews with authors, at www.readersread.com/features/

• The Book Beast: The ever revolutionary and former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown offers this site – musings on must-reads and new-reads -- on her new Internet venture, The Daily Beast. www.thedailybeast.com/newsmaker/book-beast

Hope these bring cheer to your winter writing!

Praise Song

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

The morning began with fierce cold. Nevertheless, people from the world over, bundled up in winter hats and coats, walked along the long stretch of grass from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. They had come to see a president being sworn in.

I was among these more than one million who gathered several days ago to watch history unfold. We were inspired, along with everyone else who watched from television sets, by a man who showed us that we all have something to contribute. That each of us can do something to make the world a better place to live. That we can achieve whatever we put our minds to.

So how does a writer do that? It starts by being you. By listening to your own voice and sharing it with the world. Inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander chose to speak of the every day man and woman, the past, the present. From her “Praise Song for the Day”:

“…A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed…

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing then of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of…

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.”

So, what inspires you today, dear friend? What song will you sing? What story will you write? Praise song, indeed.

EXERCISES to JUMP START "Show Don't Tell"

By Lisa Lopez Snyder
Columbia II Writers Workshop

Lately I’ve been focusing on exercises to help me show rather than tell something about a character, conflict or anything else in a particular scene. Here are a couple ideas I found useful:

1. First, write a sentence or two that describes the scene (and use action verbs). The sentences should answer the question, “What’s happening in this scene?”

For example:
John discovers his wife is having an affair with his best friend.

Then write this scene with dialogue, description, etc., as if you were watching it on film. Visualize it. Write without stopping. Look it over, then revise and revise.

For example:
Joan looked up from her book as John entered.
He slammed the door behind him. “What’s this?” he demanded. His hand shook as he held up the crumpled letter, his face red and feverish.
Joan let the tattered book fall from her lap. She felt her body freeze. “I--I can explain.” Her voice was thick and slow.

2. Another idea: Visualize your scene, then, without stopping, write down all the visuals and textures that make up the scene.

For example: tattered curtain, blue couch, crumpled letter, face turning red, open door, light rain, dark clouds, narrow hallway, steamed dumplings, rusted teapot, etc.

Then write a scene that connects these elements with your characters, using action and dialogue, and see where it takes you. Don’t feel you need to use everything you wrote down.

Lisa Lopez Snyder

From the Midwest to the Midlands

The smell of freshly-cut grass always evokes stark memories for me—mornings nudging thick brown earthworms with small sticks as they ooze their way across sidewalks after a hard summer rain, afternoons zipping around the neighborhood streets on my bike under the shady arms of red oak and maple sugar trees, evenings playing kickball in the cul-de-sac down the street from my house.

Those are some of the hallmarks of my Midwest childhood summers. But there is another one: it is my 12-year-old self sprawled on a creaky lawn chair on the back patio, notebook in lap, scrawling stories prompted by the tales of Tom Joad and his family as they loaded their meager possessions on a rickety car, leaving drought-stricken Oklahoma behind for the promise of jobs in California. Or writing poetry that mimics the same excitement that Robert Frost described when he passed the Mortenson's pasture – “Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb.”

Today what the smell of freshly-cut grass arouses is no different, except yes, the setting is different, and occasionally, it’s a notebook computer rather than the paper kind, in hand.