VIRTUE AND VICE OF HISTORICAL FICTION

By Bonnie Stanard

Let's face it. The dead don't own anything, least of all their own story. And even if they wrote thousands of words when alive to describe their own life, it guarantees them no voice in history, at least not to those of us who believe only one truth—our own. But there are those of us who credit those voices from the past with truth, or more precisely, with relative truth (yes, that's an oxymoron, but you get the idea).

Historical fiction is controversial, and I look forward to participating in a panel discussion on the topic at the Aiken Book Fair on Saturday, November 13.

There are basically two camps of writers: (#1) those who do and (#2) those who don't try to stick to the historical record.

What Historical Record?

Writers # 2 jumble events, use purposeful anachronisms, disregard dates and places, and change personalities of historical characters. The Underground Railroad (set in the antebellum South) by Colson Whitehead is a prominent example with numerous historical inaccuracies (forced sterilizations, the 1930s Tuskegee syphilis experiment, a building with an elevator). Whitehead has been quoted as saying he was after "the truth of things, not the facts." Mmmm...whose truth? 

Is the historical record fiction?

One argument we make is to question the veracity of the historical record. Historians, who have studied this question longer that fiction writers, continue to revise the record as more data are discovered. An example is the revisionist view of post-colonial history. In the past, countries that owned colonies were lauded for bringing civilization to primitive cultures. Today the cheering has turned to criticism about the treatment of indigenous peoples. Do revisions suggest the record isn't true or to the contrary, does it indicate a honing toward the truth?

"History is but a fable agreed upon"

This is a quote that is ironically attributable to several sources, most often Napoleon. The point is that the historic record is one that is agreed upon by educated, knowledgeable people. We can argue that the truth depends on who is telling the story (the history of wars is written by the winners), but the stories are vetted by enlightened historians. Our age is one of uncertainty and doubt. Everything goes gray, but should we throw up our hands and say no historic truth exists?

To take a more jaded look

By flinging dirt at famous personalities, we attract an audience, not least of which are publishers and literary critics. We've been making money off of the imaginary weaknesses and/or faults of celebrated characters such as Marilyn Monroe, Einstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Sinatra. As Guy Kay wrote in TheGuardian, "These works can be ethically troubling but some are superbly imaginative." 

Free Expression

Does sticking to the historical record suppress free expression? What about the First Amendment? Should our courts decide what we can or can't write about? When our imagination conflicts with what is accepted as historical fact, which is more important? To stick to facts or go with our imagination and forget about the record?

When I'm writing historical fiction, I study documents, books, diaries, etc. about the place and time and use what I learn to write events, characters, manners, whatever pertains to a given scene. As I write, I feel as if I am time-traveling into a different era, and I try for an authentic experience.

The same is true when I read. I want to be entertained, but I want to learn about our past at the same time. Don't give me jumbled history. I want to think of the characters as my predecessors, and even if the history we study is shot-through with questions, it's better than one author's concept of it.

BEYOND REVISION

By Lis Anna-Langston

Sharon May wrote a great piece about revision last month. Revision is more than changing a word here and there was her point, and I agree. Great writing is rewriting. It also made me think about the rewriting after the rewriting. What about the piece that’s been hanging in limbo for months or, worse, the piece that’s been continually declined? Does it warrant a full rewrite? What if it’s even more nuanced? A lot of rewriting is intuition, craft, objectivity.

I had this piece of flash fiction titled: “afternoons. with kerouac.” For six months I sent the piece out. Nothing. Every editor passed. After half a year I pulled it from the submission queue. Taking an objective look, I analyzed every facet. Plot, pacing, tone, characterization. Is there desire, momentum, goal? Yes. Can I tighten the story? Um, no. At 405 words it was the most well-crafted flash fiction I’d ever written. A love letter to Jack, conceived and honed to perfection after a long cold winter listening to On the Road. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t figure out what. That bugged me. Unable to figure out the missing piece, I kept it out of rotation. Days later, I returned to the story. I sat down at my desk and reread it.

“What is this piece really about? What is really going on in this scene?” I asked myself aloud.

I made some quick notes. A girl and Jack and Neil in a small apartment. The narrator liked Jack, but she didn’t love him. I reduced the entire story to three lines, then to two lines, from two to one. Then I distilled the entire piece to a single phrase. Except I was back to zero. The piece really was about afternoons with Kerouac. I must have sat there for half an hour deconstructing every word. Finally, I did what every writer does: I went to get a cup of coffee. Driving down the winding road, the answer came. I drove back to my office and distilled it to one word. Sex. The narrator was having sex with Kerouac, even though it is never mentioned. I changed the title, sex. with kerouac, saved, and submitted the piece to literary journals with open calls. It was accepted for publication nine days later. So, what’s the takeaway? Well, clearly sex sells.

But that’s just snark. Even after all the line edits, plot changes, grammar, and punctuation, revision may extend beyond the rewrite. A simple revision can complete an entire piece and bring the story full circle. Elevating the mechanics of a complete rewrite to a single meaningful change can very often be the difference between a good piece and a great piece. You can make a change, but what you really need at that point is an elegant change. Sometimes that comes long after the original rewrite. Sometimes changing one word changes the entire substance of the piece. One meaningful change can shorten the distance from where you are to where you want to be.

WRITING GENDER

By Sharon May

There must be numerous badly developed characters written by the opposite gender, considering there are lots of posts online of examples and spoofs of them. Both are comical. What I hope are beginning writers ask in writing forums how they can/should write characters of the opposite sex. All mean well, as they only ask so they can avoid stereotyping. But it makes me wonder what they think characterization is all about.

A few weeks ago when discussing this topic, a writer friend told me she liked Steven King’s works, noting the novel Gerald’s Game showed he could “write women well.” We didn’t discuss particulars, but the comment bugged me just a little. Why wouldn’t he? I really expect writers to be able to write any type of character as we are supposed to be observant. Of course, it is difficult to understand the opposite gender if we don’t spend time with them so we can listen and learn. If that’s not possible, we can learn through reading.

I think I write both male and female characters well. I don’t believe it’s because I’m a lesbian, though that does provide interesting opportunities to learn from both genders. I have no secret knowledge of either. Rather, my ability comes from my belief that we are all humans first. In fact, gender is not even the second defining trait of my characters. They are not interchangeable, but I wouldn’t have to change everything about a character to transform one from male to female.

Honestly, men and women worry about the same issues, have the same troubles, and pretty much want the same things. Yes, our languages may be different, and we may view the world differently because of biology and differing cultural expectations. We should be able to recognize gender in a character, especially if the writer understands society’s expectations in a particular time and place and the characters’ responses to them. (Unless of course, we are bending genders in our work.)

Recently, I heard that the actor currently playing James Bond in the soon-to-be-released version believes there should not be a female Bond because (and I paraphrase) “it would water down the character.” Is he really saying Bond would be less if a woman? I would have thought a female would become Bond. I supposed the actor thinks that Lady Bond would be having a shootout with the bad guys and gals, but have stop to take cookies out of the oven. Actually, I might find it more amazing if she carried out Bond’s feats while cooking, cleaning, and rearing children.

Let’s definitely not fall prey to stereotypes when writing characters who differ from us for any reason, not only gender. We should use common sense about character development. The gender may be different, but the writer’s task is the same: explore the character and their purpose for existing in your work, and then let him or her speak their truths.

MAKING MAGIC BELIEVABLE

By Bonnie Stanard

Magical realism (MR) incorporates the unbelievable into the world as we know it. In other words, we writers convince readers that magic is as ordinary as life. After recently reading The Erasers by AlainRobbe-Grillet, known for his ability to mix fact and fantasy, I took notes on how he did it.

TheErasers is a mystery novel about a murder. Descriptions wander with the perambulations of the protagonist—a police inspector named Wallas who has been called in to solve a murder. As he walks from the post office to the police station to what may or may-not be a murder scene, his gets lost, goes in circles, or in one case, ends where he began, which I admit, tests your patience. These geographic twists and turns are accompanied by a vague time line, though the entire story takes place in 24 hours.

Signals crop up suggesting there never was a murder. Witnesses provide vague answers to questions. The description of the murder suspect fits that of Wallas, the investigator. A clock stops at the beginning and starts up at the moment of a murder, which may or may not be the one being investigated. Ambiguity requires us readers to supply our own facts along with what is given. We think we know what's going on, but do we?

WRITING TECHNIQUES TO NORMALIZE THE FANTASTIC

Ideas I've taken from The Eraser that blur the lines of reality.

—Suppositions. As the inspector summarizes the situation to a police officer, we realize that his facts are actually presumptions. Nonetheless, the inspector takes action based on presumptions, though the question persists about what is real.
— Conditional verbs, e.g., could, may, might. In most fiction, these words are dead-weights that slow down the action, but in this instance, they add an element of unreliability.
—Recurring adjectives. To describe different people and/or places using similar adjectives allows a range of uncertainty. Doppelgangers are good.
— Unemotional narrative voice. In other words, when the tone is cool, calm, and collected, the reader tends to believe... even magic.
— Point of View. Without bending the rules too far, a careless approach to free indirect discourse POV allows different characters to provide biased views, deconstructing reality. The POV may blink, but not so much as to dislocate the narrative point of reference.
— Unclear antecedents. This is annoying, but I can see the point of it. There are times when I underlined the word “he” because it could reference either of two different persons. Lack of clarity sidetracks authority.
— Character ID. A close relative to the previous point is to delay referring to characters by their names in describing a given situation. Grillet uses terms like the man, character, customer, pedestrian. This adds fog to the scene, which launches doubt about the identity and/or nature of the character.

My favorite magical realism book is Life of Pi. Yann Martel's masterful writing will have you believing a boy on a raft after a shipwreck can survive with a tiger on board. (The book is better than the movie, which is also good.) Other MR books I've enjoyed are Love in the Time of Cholera; The House of Spirits; and Like Water for Chocolate.

An informative definition of magical realism can be found on Neil Gaiman's Master Class notes.

REVISION: A NECESSARY EVIL

By Sharon May

“I’ve just finished my novel. Do I need to revise it?” asks one more person on an online writing forum. I know where the inquiry is coming from. You’ve written for weeks, months, or years to produce a first draft, sweating over each carefully chosen word, which could be confused with revising. You’re dead dog tired, and a little bored with the project. You think you’ve given everything you have in your mind and soul. What more can be done?

Actually, more than we can imagine after we first complete a draft. Revising is as necessary as drafting in its requirement to step back from the manuscript and out of ourselves so we can re-visit our work objectively. Revision is decorating the room we just built because without paint and furniture, it won’t be a finished nor enjoyable space.

It is not editing, which should be a final pass for grammar, mechanics, and punctuation at the sentence level. Revising entails some work with sentences, but good writers reconsider plot and sub-plots, character development, organization, structure, themes, voice, coherence, cohesiveness, continuity, etc. The list is endless, meaning that revising is a lot of work and could take as long, if not longer, than drafting took. Who wouldn’t prefer to skip this step?

Proud of our brilliant moments, we really don’t want to take a hard look at our less than brilliant writing. We carry around enough doubt and want to avoid more. Instead of doubting ourselves, we should be proud that we recognized our weaker words and ideas, and yes, even mistakes. Not everyone can objectify their own writing and grasp it from the reader’s perspective.

I don’t consider myself good at revision. A few years ago, I finished my first draft of a novel in progress, and was at a loss. I knew I wasn’t done writing but I just didn’t know what to do. So, I found a professional editor who had worked for a company I’d be proud to have publish my work and hired her to do a developmental edit. It was not cheap, but the help has been priceless like the MasterCard ad says.

The editor asked questions and made comments that piqued my creativity. My reactions to her reading made it possible for me to see what the work in progress could become, which is the point of revision.

With that experience as well as joining Cola II Writers Workshop, I am learning how to see my writing from outside myself, without all the emotional attachment to the words. They really are just words. They may create a wonderful and beautiful mosaic, but they can be tinkered with and improved.

Don’t sell your work short. Revise to discover the best of what you have to offer the reader.

HERE ARE FOUR OF LITERATURE’S MOST POWERFUL INVENTIONS THAT YOU PROBABLY USE TO TELL STORIES, BUT DIDN’T REALIZE THE ACTUAL NEUROSCIENCE BEHIND THEM

By El Ochiis

I had an English professor who was considered an eccentric by New York standards; he collected shopping bags. His position was that each bag told a story about the store and the patrons who shopped there – that these containers for capitalism were a most interesting invention. Now this wouldn’t have been such an oddball thing save for the fact that he was as spendthrift as he was inimitable; he never shopped in these stores – merely using them to hold books he had checked out of The New York Public Library.

We waited each week for the bag and its contents therein. He never let us down with each introduction of something new in literature and writing. One week the professor brought a few books in his arms, sans a bag, and announced that he would be introducing us to literary inventions, through the ages, showing how writers have created technical breakthroughs—rivaling any scientific inventions—and engineering enhancements to the human heart and mind

1. Plot Twist - This literary invention is now so well-known that we often learn to identify it as children. But it thrilled Aristotle when he first discovered it, and for two reasons. First, it supported his hunch that literature’s inventions were constructed from story. And second, it confirmed that literary inventions could have potent psychological effects. Who hasn’t felt a burst of wonder—or as Aristotle called it, thaumazein—when a story pivots unexpectedly? That’s why holy scriptures brim with plot twists: David beating Goliath, parting the Sea of Reeds to escape an evil Pharaoh …

2. The Hurt Delay - this invention’s blueprint is a plot that discloses to the audience that a character is going to get hurt—prior to the hurt actually arriving. The classic example is Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, where we learn before Oedipus that he’s about to undergo the horror of discovering that he’s killed his father and married his mother. But it occurs in a range of later literature, from Shakespeare’s Macbeth to paperback bestsellers such as John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.

3. The Tale Told From Our Future - This invention was created simultaneously by many different global authors, among them the 13th-century West African griot poet who composed the Epic of Sundiata. Basically, a narrator uses a future-tense voice to address us in our present. As it goes in the Epic: “Listen to my words, you who want to know; by my mouth you will learn the history of Mali. By my mouth you will get to know the story. . .”

4. The Almighty Heart - This invention is an anthropomorphic omniscient narrator—or, to be more colloquial, a story told by someone with a human heart and a god’s all-seeing eye. It was first devised by the ancient Greek poet Homer in The Iliad, but you can find it throughout more recent fiction. The invention works by tricking your brain into feeling like you’re chanting along with a greater human voice.

THE ANATOMY OF A CHAPTER

By El Ochiis

Chapters tend to get little, if any, respect, yet, for most writers, they are a non-negotiable part of the novel-reading experience.  Unless you have a very good reason to not have chapters, you need them.  For me, as a writer, chapters and their titles are a necessity for creating structure within my novels and/or short stories. 

Your story may be fascinating and bewitching, but humans aren’t meant to consume an entire 200-plus page novel in one sitting. It’s just too much to process. Chapters give the reader a chance to think about what’s happened in the story thus far and anticipate what happens next - helping you tighten your storytelling so that the readers stay on the edge of their seats. Thematically relevant titles connect to the story and give cohesion to your novels and stories:

“He disagreed with something that ate him,” chapter 14, Live and Let Die, Ian Fleming. 

“I Begin Life on My Own Account, And Don’t Like It,” chapter 11, David Copperfield, Charles Dickens. 

Writers tend to get confused between a chapter and a scene.  A scene happens when your characters interact with each other. The scene does not mean scenery. In other words, a scene is not the same thing as the setting or the location where the action takes place. The scene is the action. Each scene has a beginning, middle, and end.

A chapter, on the other hand, may contain one scene, or, it may contain multiple scenes. A chapter is not a scene. Rather, a chapter is a division in your book. It’s where you, the writer, decide to give the reader a chance to process what they’ve read while you rearrange stuff in the background: 

 “Nikki, the name we finally gave my younger daughter, is not an abbreviation; it was a compromise I reached with her father. For paradoxically it was he who wanted to give her a Japanese name and I – perhaps out of some selfish desire not to be reminded of the past – insisted on an English one.” - A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro.  In only two sentences the narrator has hinted at tensions between past and present, mother and father, England and Japan.

“Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father. It had been said so often that John, without ever thinking about it, had come to believe it himself. Not until the morning of his 14th birthday did he really begin to think about it, and by then it was already too late.” - Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin.  Deliciously clear language, yet, the content is about how brutal and controlling an inherited story can be, how the repeated words of others can predetermine the life of another. 

Here are some tips you can use when building out book chapters:

Start with action - try opening a chapter in the middle of a scene.  Shape around plot development – an unresolved conflict between characters, a new crucial piece of information, or an actual cliff, keep the reader engaged. Approach each chapter with a specific goal - One chapter might be focused on a chase scene; The goal of another might be introducing the hero; Use chapter titling to distill your focus - Chapter titles can be a summary not only of where the story has come from, but where it plans to go next.  Consider pacing – the chance for your main character to recap all that’s happened and plan what he/she will do next.; show a different point of view - Each new chapter can allow different characters to take over as the main POV and chime in with their view of an unfolding event; seek balance - mark the passages that are scenes, leaving the passages that are dramatic narration unmarked. Is there an imbalance between the two types of narration? If so, add some dramatic narration into scenes or vice versa.

Above all, be sure to give each chapter a purpose that ties into the bigger story.

 

WHITE AUTHOR, BLACK CHARACTERS

By Kasie Whitener

My characters are real to me and I think I’ve written them authentically. But how can I know for sure?

My own friendships have shaped all my characters and it’s from those relationships that I’ve written my main character Brian’s friends.

The topic of race is only briefly mentioned in After December but there are two scenes in Before Pittsburgh where Brian’s friend Chris is treated differently because he’s Black. The way Brian, Chris, Joel, and Jason navigate those experiences helps build their brotherhood.

In Before Pittsburgh, Brian needed his heart broken. Jada popped off the page for me. She was exactly who I wanted Brian to meet in grad school. She challenged him, confused him, and rejected him.

I had a beta reader, John, who grew up one of a few Black kids in his white suburb in the 90s, and he said the passages were all fine. But I sought my friend Len Lawson’s perspective after he made this observation to our SCWA diversity committee:

“Fictional characters of color, especially black characters, tend to fall either into two categories: in need of a white savior to rescue them or as the magical Negro savior to scaffold a white character’s enlightenment.”

I emailed him and asked if he’d be willing to have a conversation with me. It’s a difficult conversation to have. Even inviting John to read the piece and give me feedback was complicated. If the work was completely off base, insulting, or racist, they would say so. It’s hard to admit I may have written that. Hard to ask someone to tell me I had.

“Why did you make these characters Black?” Len asked.

“I didn’t. That’s just who they are.” Chris and Jada didn’t have to be Black. The novel could work with all white characters, but it wouldn’t be authentic for me or Brian.

Diversity and inclusivity are not a political climate. Asking for John and Len to review Before Pittsburgh and give feedback was not about virtue signaling or being woke. I asked them to review the work because I’m not Black.

I’m also not a lesbian. And since one of the characters in Before Pittsburgh is, I asked my friend Agata to read Abbie’s scenes and give me feedback. I’ve had white men read Brian and give me feedback on him because I’m female.

I genuinely want to get this right. My characters deserve my best work. My readers deserve my best work. Just as I’ve asked for help with dialogue, plot development, and dramatic tension, I asked for help with the characterization of characters whose experience is different than my own.

The scope of Brian’s relationships is what Before Pittsburgh is all about. The friendships he earns are what make him who he is. Just as my own friends have grown me up by sharing their lives with me. Experience is where authenticity comes from.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking input from diverse readers. We all have blind spots. It’s best to correct them before the book is published.

A PROFOUND PARAGRAPH IS A WORK OF ART

By El Ochiis

The great writers begin their stories with a killer hook which migrates into distinct blocks of text which section out a larger piece of writing – paragraph(s) —making it easier to read and understand. These blocks of text aid readability, setting the pace of the narrative, generating mood and helping to make characters three-dimensional.

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...” Herman Melville, Moby Dick

There are some major strategies that those writers used to create compelling opening paragraphs - They can help you too: Create a mystery; Describe the emotional landscape; Build characters; Bring the energy; Start with an unusual point of view; Dazzle with the last sentence and Set up the theme. Melville has used at least six of them in his prelude to Moby Dick.

A scene can be constructed in any number of ways – it is up to the writer to break it down to the most dramatic effect – managing content.

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday.” Albert Camus, The Stranger

How a writer’s narrator sounds and thinks affects the rhythm and even the design of the paragraph – amplifying voice:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

A paragraph can set mood; Ask yourself, is mine introspective and thoughtful, or hurried and staccato? The length and type of the paragraphs can maintain or change the mood in a scene:

“The future is always changing, and we're all going to have to live there. Possibly as soon as next week.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide

“It was a pleasure to burn.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice.” Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

A writer’s first line should open up a rib cage. It should reach in and twist the reader’s heart backward. It should suggest that the world will never be the same again. Then, remembering that paragraphing is more an element of individual style than of grammar, and, it’s you who’s in charge of what a paragraph should do or what shape it should take, think holistically: What preceded this moment, and what must happen next.

We know that we can’t write like Tolstoy, Bradbury, Adams, Bronte, Baldwin or many of the other prolific scribes, so, how can we learn to create great openings, transporting them into even greater paragraphs? Well, a piece of advice that I hold dear was that motivation runs out pretty soon once we get to the nuts and bolts of the grind, but discipline, on the other hand, is about doing the task no matter what. Read and listen to the masters, then sit yourself down and write every chance you get – because, as Jodi Picoult said, “you can edit a bad page but not a blank one.” How will you orchestrate your story, using the paragraphing techniques above?

IT ALL STARTS WITH A GREAT SENTENCE

By El Ochiis

You think you care about what a book is about, but, really, you care how it sounds, even if that sound can only be heard in your head.

Words are lyrics for the eyes – a line of words where logic and rhythm meet. Good sentences should be as lucid and sincere as good cooking. Even people who can’t boil water for soup will find pleasure in reading this line from a recipe: Warm two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, then add the sliced onion. The verdict in the following sentence sounds fairer and truer in a way that those in life rarely are: Yesterday’s bread has less moisture and so makes crisper toast. Good writing is clean, full of flavor and a meal in itself.

Great sentences give a start to the beginnings of superb paragraphs which flows into extraordinary chapters, culminating to exceptional stories - a memorable sentence makes immediate sense but sounds just slightly odd:

A screaming comes across the sky. -Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. -Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)

Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. -Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)

Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. -Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. -C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. -Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories. - Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Orwell advised cutting as many words as possible, Woolf found energy in verbs, and Baldwin aimed for ‘a sentence as clean as a bone.’ Though some of this is true, none of it is a good way of learning how to write a sentence. More ethical demand than useful advice, it forces writers back to their own reserves of wisdom and authenticity. It blames bad writing on laziness and dishonesty, when a likelier culprit is lack of skill. If someone were to order me to make a soufflé, all I could come up with would be a gloopy, inedible mess – not because I am languid or untruthful, but because, although I have some vague idea that it needs eggs, milk, flour and a lot of beating, I don’t know how to make a soufflé.

A good sentence imposes a logic on the world’s weirdness, getting power from the tension between the ease of its phrasing and the shock of its thought as it slides cleanly into the mind and as it proceeds, is a paring away of options. Each added word, because of the English language’s dependence on word order, reduces the writer’s alternatives and narrows the reader’s expectations. But even up to the last word the writer has choices and can throw in a curveball. A sentence can begin in one place and end in another galaxy, without breaking a single syntactic rule.

Can you give your readers something that’s illuminating and cherishable, all on its own as American writer, Gary Lutz once lectured, because "Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”? -L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. When you get sentences right, everything else solves itself or ceases to matter.

THE SWEET INDULGENCE of MAGNETIC WRITING

By Kasie Whitener

My addiction to romance novels is well established. I read over 100 per year, mostly through Kindle Unlimited, all unapologetically shallow. I call them “candy.”

Some of the books alternate character point-of-view and the voice is so generic I lose track of who’s speaking. Yeah, they’re not exactly literary fiction.

What they do have is magnetism.

Magnetism is compulsion. Characters drawn together, excited by one another, a sense of urgency, need, and passion. These books must establish magnetism. It’s expected of them. Romance readers want characters drawn together, kept apart, and then united in something steamy and fulfilling.

Magnetism also has me choosing to read this book instead of doing anything else. Magnetism has me desperate for one more chapter long after midnight.

One hundred romance novels later and I know (I know!) there are a million reasons not to download the next book in the series. Award-winning books. Literary fiction that is changing the landscape of the craft. Elevating language, diving into unheard narratives. Just waiting to change me with empathy and craft.

And yet, I go for the candy. Like a junky.

This year I put myself on a diet. I took 12 books off my shelf and challenged myself to read one per month. Award-winning books like Pachinko, important books like The Sympathizer. Literary books. Top-of-the-craft books.

Since January, I’ve finished 10 romance novels, three fantasy fiction, and three books on my Off the Shelf list. Three months into 2021 and I’m 16 books in, which is good, and maybe the diet is working because by this time last year I’d finished 22 romance novels. At this pace, I’ll only finish 40 this year instead of 100.

And just typing that sends me into withdrawal.

What is it about romance? It’s the magnetism. I don’t write romance novels. There’s some love, some sex, in my books. But I’m not writing romance. There’s not usually a Happily Ever After. In my books, what “ever after” there is has been hard won.

But the magnetism. I want characters drawn to one another in that romance-y way. I want them to push one another, test one another, twist each other up and let go. Let. Go. And I want readers to feel the same way. Like they can’t put the book down. Like they’re going to throw it across the room and then chase after it to get One. More. Page.

I want to write the kind of magnetism that emanates from the page, pulls you into the sizzling words, and reads like fizzy Pop Rocks. Like chewy taffy in an addictive twist. And then settles over you like the melt of rich salted caramel in milk chocolate. So, you’re satisfied. Sated. Smiling.

I want to write magnetism. So, I study it. I’m working on my craft. One candy at a time.

FINDING WORDS to PUT MEAT on the BONES of a STORY

By J Dean Pate

After fifteen years writing radio and TV news copy (way back in my 1960’s smoking and drinking days) my default style years later still is bland, plain vanilla language mainly emphasizing activity. In working on my book, this default setting results in telling rather than showing characters and scenes. It may be good for radio newscasts but not for novels.

My storytelling is forthright but not exactly richly detailed.

Recently, I picked up a book I’d read in college, The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I was impressed with the words Hawthorne used to set the scene and describe his characters. The variety of word choices also had me using my laptop to find definitions to understand what he was saying.

Tracking down Hawthorne’s words set me to thinking. It might be useful to use the web or dictionaries, etc. to create a list of words specific to my story. From that I developed a thirty-minutes-a-morning routine of searching for words to help characters and events come alive.

As I worked along, the list grew into sections: descriptions of character, behavior, facial expressions or movements, desires, fears, habits, and thoughts. The exercise has been a helpful tool for identifying words I may have misused and replacing them with those more appropriate.

Now part of my routine includes reviewing the entire list each morning, which helps jump-start my writing.

The web, to me, is an easier resource than flipity-flipping through dictionaries or thesauruses, which I resist, especially if I'm unsure what I'm looking for. It’s easier to Google How do you say…than thinking of what you want to say then turning pages in a thick book for a word you think might work, discovering it doesn’t and being left with where do I look next?

If only Hawthorne had access to Google. Perhaps his phrases might have been forthright and accurate instead of rich but obscure.

Hope this is helpful.

MAKING the STORY COME ALIVE

By Sharon May

A friend of mine, who has read much of my novel in progress, loves the main character Lafe Yates. Once, he told me he saw a man whom he imagined looked like Lafe. My friend said, “He dressed just as I imagined he would. If only I could have heard him speak, I know he would have talked just like you wrote his words.” Ironically, I don’t describe Lafe in detail. But I have given readers enough to have a clear image of him.

Description is crucial but needs to be woven into the story, not plunked down wherever the writer remembers to add it. In my early writing, I would find myself describing for a while, particularly at the beginnings of chapters, only to realize paragraphs or even pages later I had left character development and plot behind, so I would stop describing. Thus there was no clear structure nor flow in the writing.

Realists believed everything and everyone should be described in minute detail if reality is to be recreated in words. Thus, 1,000 page novels. Most readers don’t need or want that much detail. At times when reading another author, I find myself skim-reading hunks of description that seem to go nowhere nor add to the story. Detail overload can be confusing and a mite boring, particularly for the 21^st century reader.

When describing, try for a balance in how much you guide readers to see the world your way and how much they are expected to rely on their imagination.

If you give lots of attention to an object or character, then the reader will place an equal amount of value on that aspect of the story. Readers can finish a work and wonder, “What happened with that teacup the author spent a page describing in chapter two?” If it has nothing to do with the story or theme, don’t give it much attention, no matter how brilliant your words.

Description also helps control the passing of time in a story. If you want the pace to be slow, more description can help create that sensation. Think Moby-Dick as Ishmael lures the reader onto the ship and out to sea, then dives deep into describing everything there is to know about whales and whaling. Hundreds of pages later, the story ends with a rush of plot. Melville’s pacing can make readers feel as if they have been on the ship for months looking for Ahab’s white whale. That is if the reader actually reads all of those words. Most don’t.

To 21^st century reader, every word matters. They usually expect concise but vivid details in a fast-paced read as they live in a world of sound-bites and media overload. Doesn’t mean you can’t describe all the teacups in your opus. Some readers love the challenge of lengthy books. I, for one, have read every word of Moby-Dick more times than I can remember. Just exposing my love of everything Melville.

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED USING INTERESTING WORDS TO MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS SOUND MORE INTELLIGENT?

By El Ochiis

I was studying abroad when an opportunity to intern at a publishing house, presented itself in the form of a requirement from a professor who had a reputation for his dislike of foreign students – his position was that they suffered from an ignorance of intelligent language above common words. Shifting his cigarette from the right side of his mouth to the left, with a flick of his tongue, he would emphatically state that American writers wrote so relentlessly about themselves, it exhausted him. Rumor was if he liked your writing you got a letter from his spouse, a noted editor – a shoo-in for that internship. 

“I take offense to Professor Brodeur’s opinion. I need to pen an essay filled with such uncommonly smart words that it will greatly annoy him,” I announced to Julien, a former student who has gone on to achieve some writing success, offering him my first draft.

 “This is brilliant. He WILL send you to his wife – she is more torturous than he, but in fewer words,” Julien announced, making edits with a pencil he kept behind his right ear. “But, you can raise it to the height of greater intelligence with a few more unusual words."

I took the points Julien made, incorporated them, and, submitted the piece.

One week and a day later, I was summoned for an interview lunch at the Centre Pompidou by Madame Lilou-Arlette Brodeur.  

I arrived half an hour early; I was nervously anxious. Then, I saw her; she flitted through the passageway on black-tipped Chanel sling-backs, moving with the aloofness of a pedigree feline. Laying a leather-bound diary on my backpack, she summoned a waiter. The Centre Pompidou, at that time, was frequented by artist and writers who could barely afford a cup of coffee, wait staff would be a stretch.

My black, torn jeans with the Janis Joplin and John Coltrane patches, topped off with an even blacker Harley Davison tee-shirt and worn cowboy boots were in stark contrast to her couture.  

She placed some crisp francs into the hands of a man walking by, instructing him to purchase a café au lait, fixating her eyes over my head, at something more interesting, finally resting a momentary gaze on me:

“An agelast, apropos,” she spewed, with a French accent, scanning my essay, taking the steaming cup from the gentleman, pushing it towards me.

I thought I recognized some of the terms she was using as the ones Julien had added, but she spoke them with such a precise French accent; I wasn’t sure – this was interesting and scary.  

“I Conspuer a bioviate.” she reasoned, flicking her cigarette in the saucer of the still warm café, opening her book in a manner that let me know I was either being dismissed or she was departing. 

I tried to give the impression that I wasn’t completely dumbfounded by smiling and nodding – I wrote stuff down in the pretense of astute notetaking. Her faint smile told me she wasn’t displeased. But, were those interview questions or stark criticism of my writing?  

 “Hiraeth, logophilic, n'est-ce pas?” she affirmed, rising, checking her watch before retrieving a piece of paper from her diary, scribbling an address and phone number, pushing it at me. Then, she sauntered off. 

I ran all the way to Julien. I breathlessly retold him everything that happened.   

“I think I got the internship, but I couldn’t understand how she was using some of the words you added – the woman is odd.” I exclaimed, holding out the notes I’d taken.

 Julien perused my badly scribbled handwriting. 

“She was saying that you’re a person who rarely laughs (agelast) - she suspects it’s because you only wear black (atrate). She spits in contempt (conspeur) at people who are long-winded with little to say (biovate) – she feels that the essence of your piece was about the homesickness of a place that you can never return to, or never really existed (hiraeth) - you have a gift for words (logophile),” Julien surmised with the confidence of a cryptographer. 

“How do you know this?” I asked, incredulously. 

“I read one of her favorite books – the words I added to your piece were from a book she edited entitled Interesting Words You Should Slip Into Your Writing To Make Your Characters Sound Much More Intelligent – it’s great that she didn’t quiz you,” Julien chortle. 

Can you, as a writer, write a scene for a novel, short story or an essay using words that have no English translation, or interesting words that would help your characters sound smarter in any conversation? Here is a place to start: https://www.dictionary.com/e/keep-classy-fancy-words-listicle/

 

 

 

 

 

 

A NEWBIE in HISTORICAL FICTION TERRITORY

By Sharon Ewing

My retirement goal was to write a historical fiction novel. In my naivete, I couldn’t imagine the path from essay writing to historical fiction being a difficult one. After all, I’d been complimented often on my writing skills. However, not long into the process my ego became as deflated as the unused blow-up mattress in my attic.  

Although the main character was based on my great-great grandmother, I had no idea what she looked like. Also, I knew precious little about daily life in the 1860s. The lure of writing this story was initially driven by the excitement of digging into mid-19th century history. Faced with fleshing out my characters, I realized I had downplayed the need for imagination and creativity. That observation sent me back to analyze characters in the novels I’d read and enjoyed.

Learning about the 19th century proved intriguing, but the facts in my head were nonfiction. To transform this information into a story with all the minute details of daily life required a change of writing style and a new mindset, another setback. I began imagining my characters in a movie. This helped me make the necessary transition.

Research, research, became my mantra. The more I wrote, the more I realized I needed to know. I composed on my lap-top, while my i-pad became my research assistant. I’d hit roadblocks and take hours reading about the election of a president in the 1800s. How did presidential candidates campaign at this time? What was the mood of the city? What issues concerned various ethnic groups? How did they resolve the tensions that arose? What did an ordinary day look like? I began to envy writers of science fiction and stories in present day. Maybe it would be easier if I quit and just wrote a fairy tale!

Antagonist? Oh yeah, I needed at least one to create tension and interest. I couldn’t forget story arc and those other story elements I preached about in writing class, along with grammar, punctuation, and word choice. I remembered reading once how a famous author edited his work 35 times before submitting it for publication. Although nowhere near that number, some days I felt I was on the grammar merry-go-round, praying for the music to stop so I could get off. I developed more sympathy for my past students than they would ever believe.  

My growth in literary skills and perseverance can only be attributed to perseverance and the writers who willingly encourage me along the way. While some days the process is painfully difficult, I know the end result will be worthwhile. I also know I will never again downplay the amount of sweat, tears, and research needed for producing a well-written piece of work. Nor, I hope, will I every overestimate my own skills and need to eat another piece of humble pie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CREATING STORIES OR ARTICLES THAT PULL READERS IN. WOW, HOW CATCHY.

By J Dean Pate

One of my favorite writers, Columbia’s Bill Fox – Southern Fried — would bore-in and magnify and magnify again, peculiar traits of his characters. Then he would stretch them through misguided desires or conflict into hilarious episodes that kept readers turning the page.

For me, it is a struggle to bring my characters and story to life because of being stuck in exposition mode from my days as a broadcast news writer. This leads to results at times that read like I’m writing for speed readers because I want to get the story over with, because TV copy is short.  

“Once upon a time flip … everything was good flip … (oh my god, I must fix this so I’ll add in) . . .  and as she held him tightly Angelica knew in that moment she and Raoul would spend eternity …  sigh/throb…together.”  — Yay, Yahoo!!!

My writing group has been helpful with suggestions. And I have found several books to help me find my way. 

Mystery writer Jane Cleland recommends plot twists to keep readers wondering, “What happens next?”

Whether they be mysteries, a memoir or literary nonfiction, she says the story needs to pivot and turn to avoid boring readers. She says plot twists, reversals and dangers should be counterintuitive, grounded on emotion while utterly unexpected. The goal is to create intrigue and credibility by presenting evidence. Readers need to trust you are revealing emotional truths through believable incidents.

She offers the following questions as guides for developing effective TRDs:

· What does the reader expect to happen next?

· What else could logically happen? (Twist)

· What is the opposite of the readers’ expectation? (Reversal)

· Could something emotionally, physically, or spiritually frightening or dangerous occur (Danger)

· Does the TRD surprise the reader?

· Will it add tension or intrigue?

· Is it credible?

Plot Twists, Reversals and Dangers from Mastering Plot Twists, Jane K. Cleland, Writers Digest 2018 ISBN-13:978-1-4403-52331

GET BACK in the GAME: NaNoWriMo STARTS TODAY

By Kasie Whitener 

It’s that time of year again! November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for those of us in the know, and all over the country writers of every stripe are preparing to dedicate 30 days to generating 50,000 words. 

Of mostly unusable garbage. 

In repeated conversations on our radio show, Write On SC, Rex Hurst and I have discussed the merits and risks of NaNoWriMo. Specifically, that it’s a great habit-building exercise. Every year when November rolls around, I look forward to getting back to the habit of writing every day. But NaNo is such a frenzy and the goal of getting to 50,000 words is so difficult, that a lot of what I write will probably not be any good. 

I’ve completed five NaNoWriMo projects, getting to the 50k mark with four of them, and so far, none have become viable. 

I did take my original project, a vampire novel called “Seduction of an Innocent” – yeah, I know, terrible title – and use it as base stock to cook up Being Blue. This novel should have been my first one. I queried it, approached agents with it, even considered self-publishing it. But it’s still not ready. That was 2012. 

Last year, I tried my hand at romance. Listeners of the show know I binge read romance novels, sometimes as many as five per week, and yet that’s the only NaNo project I failed to finish in November. When I did finally stretch the pitiful work I’d done to its conclusion and gave it to a few beta readers in April, I swiftly tucked the 60,000-words-of-wishful-thinking into the proverbial drawer. Where it shall remain. I heard crickets from the betas which should tell you something about the merits of that work. 

In any case, I plan to try my hand at NaNo again this year and I’m excited (again!) at the prospect of playing the game. I’m a “pantser” in that I write by the seat of my pants beginning only with a general idea of where I want to end up. It’s usually a scene in my head, a concept, that I’ll chase all month, attacking it with a variety of word weapons. 

Instead of NaNo being a productive time for me, it’s more like an extended freewrite. An unscripted game in which I play, 2000-words at a time, scenes that are swirling around in my head. The dull scenes. The breakfast scenes. The ones that a writer needs to know but that never make it to the reader’s view. 

From those scenes, I’ll plan the novel. I’ll ask what I really want the book to be about. What story am I really trying to tell? I’ll decide what research I need and what books I should read to get me ready to really write that story. Then I’ll write it. 

NaNoWriMo is, for me, about two things: 1) getting back to practicing every day, and 2) establishing rules for the new literary project. Game on!