THE WRITERS WHO CHANGED ME a guest post by Ariel Allison from She Reads

“The greatest part of a writers time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” – Samuel Johnson

Something odd happens to me in the months before I begin writing a novel. At some point after finishing one novel and beginning the next, I stumble across a book that moves me. I always feel the same after finishing one of these books: shaken, delighted, in awe. These books become landmarks in my own journey as a writer and their authors an unknowing mentor. While I read dozens of books between projects, there is always one that rises up and becomes the new standard for my own writing. Three books come to mind now, each having found me in that very moldable state prior to beginning a new work of my own:

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. This book was recommended to me while I was still in the concept stage with my first novel. An editor who knew my love of smart historical fiction suggested I give this thousand-page tome a try. I adored its intricately woven plot and abundance of historical minutia. I marveled at the creativity and top-notch writing. But there’s something else that Stephenson does very well. He gets you by the throat at the beginning and ending of every chapter and scene break. I won’t soon forget the opening line: “Enoch rounds the corner just as the executioner raises the noose above the woman’s head.” Who is this woman? Why is she being hanged? How can you not keep reading after a line like that?! Neal Stephenson taught me how to weave history and plot in a way that forces the reader to keep turning page after page.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I’d heard about this book for years before I finally picked it up. A long road trip with my family proved to be the perfect excuse to see what everyone was talking about. Five hundred pages and two thousand miles later I was completely changed as a writer. In my opinion, Setterfield writes mystery better than anyone else on the market today. Not in the traditional, Agatha Christie way, where the red herring is king. But in this fantastic, sprawling, intelligent, trust-your-reader sort of way that makes for epic fiction. Setterfield takes you on a journey and sets the most delightful traps along the way—not just for her characters, but for her readers as well. She never inflects her writing. Never makes it easy for us. Never assumes that we can’t follow along. Diane Setterfield taught me that readers are smart enough to figure it out, and if by some chance we don’t, even better! We will love you for the thrill of not having figured it out!

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I read all eight hundred pages of this novel in three days last November. She has two profound talents in my opinion. The first is that every scene, every character, every piece of dialogue in her novels serves a purpose. There is nothing superfluous. No dead weight. Every single thing matters. She may introduce a seemingly random character or plot thread at the beginning of the book only to build upon it so that it becomes the pivotal twist at the end. The second is that she takes her reader to the broken, exhausted, exhilarating point of every emotion. Whether writing a knife fight, a journey, a love scene, a homecoming, a betrayal, or even torture, she builds her scenes (none of them are short) until the page quivers with tension. Where a lesser writer would have mercy on the reader and cut the scene short, she takes it to the most brutal, unexpected, and profound conclusion. Her characters and readers suffer alongside one another. They weep together. They are redeemed together. Her devoted, almost rabid following is proof that readers invest themselves entirely in her work. Diana Gabaldon taught me to earn the trust of my reader by never, ever letting them off the hook. When I pick up one of her novels I know that I will be shaken and grateful at the end.

All of these are things I have needed to learn before beginning a new project. And I believe they are lessons that can only be fully grasped through the act of reading. I couldn’t have learned them in a classroom. I had to feel them first.

Question for you: what authors have changed you as a writer? How? What did you learn from them?

The Impatient Character a She Reads Guest Post

My biggest reading surprise of 2011 came in the form of Diane Setterfield’s gothic masterpiece, The Thirteenth Tale. Though published in 2008, I somehow managed to miss this novel until last summer when my family took a 1500 mile road trip. I packed five novels in the hopes that one of them would be good. I never made it past the first. And I’m not entirely sure if I spoke to my husband at all during that trip. I was consumed.

In her novel Diane Setterfield introduces us to Vida Winter, a prolific, reclusive author who chooses to tell her life story to a young biographer by the name of Margaret Lea. Vida Winter is one of the most memorable literary characters, and certainly the strongest female character I’ve ever read. She says something in the novel that felt so familiar to me that I’ve never forgotten it:

“My study throngs with characters waiting to be written. Imaginary people anxious for life, who tug at my sleeve, crying, ‘Me next! Go on! My turn!’ I have to select. And once I have chosen, the others lie quiet for ten months or a year, until I come to the end of the story, and the clamor starts up again.”

I have experienced that demanding character, but never so intensely as while finishing my recent novel, The Rule of Three.

For months a new story had been nagging at me, creeping in during those moments when my mind was quiet. A long shower. That stretch of thought before drifting off to sleep. The dream that comes in the stillness before waking.

I recall writing a scene from my newly finished novel. It was a particularly tense argument between my Hero (her name is Stella) and Opponent that took place in an old, Jazz-era bar. There they were, leaning across the table in a dark, corner booth, both of them reaching for a tattered envelope containing a long-kept secret. I paused for a moment, fingers lightly touching the keyboard as I mulled a piece of dialogue. And then…

In the far corner of the bar was a woman delivering a baby! Of all the strange and bizarre things, the character in my next novel had walked into my current novel and set up shop. I could see it in my mind, like a fuzzy TV station that’s been caught between two channels, superimposing one face, one story, over another.

Vida describes that sensation best:

“And every so often, through all these writing years, I have lifted my head from the page—at the end of a chapter, or in the quiet pause for thought after a death scene, or sometimes just searching for the right word—and have seen a face at the back of the crowd.”

I knew who this character was, of course. Her name is Martha. She’s a midwife. A mother. A diarist. A strong and capable woman if ever there was one. But in that moment she was an intruder. So I gave Martha her own notebook. I scratched down what she was frantically trying to tell me, and I politely escorted her from the premises. Then I shook off her specter and went back to the bar, and my characters bent in heated conversation.

The scene turned out well in case you’re wondering. As did the rest of the novel. But now it’s done. My mind, so battered after wrestling that story to the page, is finally rested. And Martha has renewed her protests, filling all that recently vacated space. It’s her turn. Tomorrow I will open her notebook.

There are other faces in the shadows behind Martha of course. A carpenter. A hoarder. A tattoo artist. They are waiting patiently. For now.

Questions for you: What was your biggest ‘reading surprise’ of the last year? Do characters stack themselves in your mind, waiting to tell their story? Or do they come to you one at a time? How do you fend them off until it’s their turn? Are you capable of writing more than one novel at once?

THE ART OF ENDING, a guest post by Ariel Allison Lawhon from She Reads

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning I wrote “The End” to a novel that has consumed my mind for over two years. This book, more than anything I’ve ever written,  has tested me as a writer. The premise, though compelling, was ambitious—almost impossible. And the structure a balancing act so precarious that the manuscript constantly threatened to tip over into chaos. It was no easy task to braid the narratives of three diverse, complex women while simultaneously staying true to the historical context of the story itself. Harder still was weaving those threads into a satisfying ending.

And this is what you need to know: I have failed to do so. I realized this upon waking the next morning, after sending the manuscript to a few trusted author-friends. My mind settled into that sense of dread known only to the writer who realizes she’s gotten the ending to her novel wrong.

In his book, The Anatomy of Story, John Truby has this to say about endings:

“A great story lives forever. This is not a platitude or a tautology. A great story keeps on affecting the audience long after the first telling is over. It literally keeps on telling itself.”

Three endings come to mind as I consider Truby’s words: Aibileen’s final reminder to Mae Mobley in The Help: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important;” Henry visiting Clare one last time, at the end of her life in The Travelers Wife; and Amir running to catch the kite for Hassan’s son in The Kite Runner. Each ending expertly built upon an adept weaving of structure, character development, theme, story world, plot, and scene construction. A good ending is the sum of its parts. More important than the opening, by far, it is what a reader takes away from a novel. And creating stunning endings is nothing less than an art form.

An art form I have yet to master.

Again, Truby has great insight into why some endings don’t work (mine included):

“The reverse of a never-ending story [is one] whose life and power are cut short by a false ending.”

My current ending is false. It is too small.

But the good news is that I know where I have gone wrong. And I know how to resolve the problem. That is the beauty of emptying the full story onto paper. It allows us to see the thing with fresh eyes and a renewed mind. It is part of the writing process—though a part only seen in places like this, where the bones of Story development are spread out and discussed.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go knit the ending of my novel back together. But this time it won’t take me two years.

Questions for you: how do you feel about the current ending to your novel? What novel have you read recently that had the perfect ending?

How it Feels: Guest Post by Ariel Allison Lawhon of She Reads

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“…in the end we will only just remember how it feels…”

– Rob Thomas, Little Wonders

There is a bookcase at one end of my living room. I refer to as my “keeper shelf” and were you to visit me (I hope you do!) you would find a motley assortment of novels. I keep my Harry Potter collection beside The Chronicles of Narnia. They’re not so different after all, full of magic and wonder and whimsy. I have Ann Patchett and L.M. Montgomery and Neil Gaiman. Kate DiCamillo. Marilyn Robinson. Leif Enger. Somehow The Book Thief and The Glass Castle ended up on the same shelf as a five-book collection by P.G. Wodehouse (bought, I might add, at a rambling bookstore owned by Larry McMurtry). A dusty and tattered edition of The Princess and the Goblin is held together by a rubber band and sits on the shelf farthest away from my curious toddler. It’s the copy my mother read to me as a child and I’d sooner give birth to a hippo than part with it. The Thirteenth Tale. Water for Elephants. The Night Circus. The Kite Runner. The Hunger Games. The Help. Watership Down. I own almost every novel written by Dick Francis and George MacDonald.

*sigh*

This collection of stories evokes something in me that I find difficult to express. It’s not uncommon for me to pass my bookshelf, run my fingers along the spines, and close my eyes. I summon the emotions I felt the first time I read them. Sometimes I even pull one from its spot and read a passage. I did this yesterday with The Time Travelers Wife:

“The curve of her shoulders, the stiffness in her posture say here is someone who is very tired, and I am very tired, myself. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and the floor creaks; the woman turns and sees me and her face is remade into joy; I am suddenly amazed; this is Clare, Clare old! And she is coming to me, so slowly, and I take her into my arms.”

Three years later and I don’t remember much of the plot, but I do remember how I wept my way through the last 50 pages. Audrey Niffenegger broke my heart and then patched it together with that last scene. My devotion for her novel is irrational.
For me, redemption is synonymous with The Kite Runner. I was quiet when I finished Khaled Hosseini’s stunning debut. I sat, book laid open in my lap, and felt something akin to worship—not for the author, but for the pure joy of seeing that kite lift into the air, and for what it meant:

“It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything all right. It didn’t make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight. But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.”

Every book on that shelf moved me. Sometimes to laughter. Sometimes to tears. I have felt rage and empathy and grief. I’ve even fallen in love a time or two. Yet I’d be hard pressed to synopsize any of my favorite novels. Character and Plot and Setting and Theme slip away with time. But I can pull any book from that shelf, dust off the cover, flip to a favorite passage and tell you exactly how it made me feel. And really, that’s all that matters in the end.

Question for you: what is it that you hope your reader’s feel when they’ve finished your novel? Can you describe, in a word, what the last novel you read made you feel?

Tell the Truth: Guest Post by Ariel Allison of She Reads

During the last few weeks I’ve been privy to several robust conversations concerning the role of Christian storytellers. At the heart of these debates is always the question of what we allow our characters to experience, and the responsibility writers of faith have in redeeming them.

Last Wednesday, Bonnie wrote in her post Transformation and Redemption in Story, “…redemption isn’t what we think it is. It’s better than that. It is a state of being that allows us to experience our fully aliveness. People don’t want to transform into churchgoers, they want to transform into wholly alive human beings with the courage to face difficult, even impossible odds…”

How often do we rush to redeem our characters? To make them into “churchgoers” as Bonnie phrased it. As authors (and readers) I wonder if we are so obsessed with seeing good come from bad that we sacrifice the terrifying and honest process that creates redemption.

Frederick Buechner gives a glimpse of that transformation in his book Wishful Thinking:

“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

I wonder what that would look like if applied to a character? What courage a writer must show to allow their Hero to savor his anger! And how deliciously uncomfortable for the reader to witness that self-cannibalism. Oh but what a revelation for every person who touches a novel like that!

So what about that responsibility of the Christian writer? Must we connect each dot and hold the hand of our reader as we lead them toward that redemptive revelation? Explain it with flow charts and the four spiritual laws? Isn’t that what “religious fiction” is supposed to do?

Frederick Buechner didn’t think so and neither do I. This from a lecture he gave to a Book of the Month Club:

"Maybe it's all utterly meaningless. Maybe it's all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we're in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us. Any fiction that helps us pay attention to that is religious fiction. The unexpected sound of your name on somebody's lips. The good dream. The strange coincidence. The moment that brings tears to your eyes. The person who brings life to your life. Even the smallest events hold the greatest clues." (emphasis mine)

That, I believe, is the responsibility of a novelist. Not to guarantee redemption, but to tell the truth. To show what it means to be “truly human.” Consequences and all.

Question for you: as writers do you find yourself tempted to redeem all of your characters? Or are you willing to let them fall for the greater good?

Fear of Fiction? A guest post by She Reads co-creator Ariel Allison

Lately I've been thinking about fear as it relates to fiction: both the writing and the reading. A

note showed up in my inbox two weeks ago from a

woman who wanted to know how She Reads could recommend a novel that wasn’t published in the Christian marketplace (this month’s selection, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH by Sarah Jio). She was appalled that the author (a Christian) chose to take

her work to the general market, appalled that there is mild language in the story, appalled that it has steamy content. It bothered this woman to no end that we would put our stamp of approval on a book that depicted the ugliness of human behavior. How could we encourage readers to “be entertained by sin?" She ended her note by saying that she would not read this novel, that she would encourage every Christian she knows to avoid it, and she prays that God will forgive us for what we have done. First I laughed. Then I groaned. Then I closed my e-mail and wandered away. I eventually responded (a post for another day) as graciously as I could. The truth is this woman has never read the book. She does not understand the power of story. She is afraid. I get that. What I don't understand is why we as believers nurture this kind of fear

in ourselves and in our readers. Why we seek out only those books that are safe. Or, in many cases, why we write them. (All the while, I might add, touting the merits of Lewis and his unsafe Lion)

About twenty years ago my father handed me a novel by an old Scottish storyteller named George MacDonald. In the years since I've collected many of his books. He reminds me of my father (the blue eyes and the wild beard and the high Scottish nose), now dead eight years. MacDonald posed a question in his novel that has stayed with me since that first reading:

"Do you love your faith so little that you have never battled a single fear lest your faith should not be true?"

Do we love our faith so little? As readers? As writers?

"Where there are no doubts, no questions, no perplexities, there can be no growth into the regions where he would have us walk," MacDonald goes on to say. Fear is not unique to readers it seems, but writers as well - particularly those of faith. Fear that if we tell our stories with unflinching courage they won’t get published. Fear that if we use strong language we will offend a reader. Fear of telling the truth. Fear of asking hard questions that we can’t answer.

Better to play it safe, right? Take the easy route? Slap a bonnet on it?

Writing honest fiction is a messy job. Flannery O’Conner says in her classic, Mystery and Manners:

“The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.”

I wonder what would happen if every writer of faith battled her “doubts, questions, and perplexities” right there on the page? Would we not produce fiction that is brave and true and terrifying? Flannery O’Conner did this very thing on her deathbed, as she wrote PARKER’S BACK, the story of a man tattooed on every part of his body except his back. In reality it is her story of questioning God’s sovereignty as she died of lupus. We see her surrender in the character of Parker, a man who first stands barefoot before a burning tree profaning the name of God (hello symbolism!) to a man who has a picture of Jesus tattooed on his back. Painful,

dirty, human stuff right there. Terribly unsafe.

The world needs us to take our fear by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Take Sarah Jio for example. She had the courage to tell her story in the wild and unsafe way it deserved. And because she did not pull her punches she later got an email from a reader who ended an emotional affair with an old boyfriend after finishing THE VIOLETS OF MARCH. This woman didn’t want to live with the same regrets and heartbreak as one of the characters in the novel. Would she have felt so compelled had she not witnessed that “ugliness of human behavior” on the page in front of her? I doubt it very much

My question for you today: as writers of faith what are you afraid of? And will you have the courage to battle that fear in story form? We very much need you to.

The Reading Rules - A She Reads Guest Post by Ariel Allison

Today's post is from Ariel Allison, co-founder and director of our sister blog She Reads.

I play a game with my children every time we sit down to read. I call it “The Reading Rules” because my four boisterous children need to be reminded what is(and is not) civilized behavior while reading a story.

Consider this recent episode:

Me: Boys, what are the reading rules?

Boy #1 (eight-years-old): No talking while you read.

Boy #2 (six-years-old): No asking questions til’ you’re done.

Boy #3 (four-years-old): No hitting.

Boy #4 (two-years-old): I pooped.

This, as you can imagine, sent the conversation straight down the toilet (pun intended). Spasms of giggles. One child plugged his nose and ran around the couch. Another flailed on the floor. But now they were inspired. And hyper.

Boy #1: And no picking our nose.

Boy #2: And no eating our boogers.

Boy #3: Boogers taste yucky.

Me: Please don’t tell me how you know that.

Boys 3 and 4 had, by this point, twisted off to the point of unmanageable and were sent to bed. It took an additional five minutes to corral the attention of the older two back to the task at hand: learning which of the four houses the Sorting Hat assigned Harry Potter. Even at this age, they are sensitive enough to plot that they rooted for Gryffindor. And of course, by the time we reached the end of the chapter, they were not disappointed.

What does this have to do with a literary blog you say? As a novelist, avid reader, co-director of She Reads, a national book club, and a contributor to Novel Matters, I wanted to suggest that my children are not the only uncivilized readers out there. Many of us could use a few Reading Rules as well. Here a few:

Rule #1: No Judging A Book Unless You’ve Read It

I confess I’ve done this. I’ve formed an opinion about a book based solely on reviews and how my fellow writers/readers panned it, even though I hadn’t so much as held the book in my hands. This rule can be tricky considering my role at She Reads. I have the opportunity to read dozens of books every month. And the truth is that I often find myself in the position where I do not care to finish them. But if I’m being honest, that does not put me in a position to judge the entire book – only the portion I’ve read. I could name more than one novel that began better than it ended. Or vice versa. Recently I was so irritated by the first line of a novel that I snapped it shut and haven’t picked it up again. By doing so, I disqualified myself from all intelligent conversation about that novel. So the rule that I apply to unread or unfinished books is to say, “I’ve not read the novel,” or “What I read didn’t interest me.” And I leave it at that.Any other judgment is unfair to the author and the book.

Rule #2: Think Before You Review

This rule could also be stated “think before you request.” With programs such as Amazon Vine and mass blog tours, readers are now in a position to acquire books they would normally never purchase. Not a bad thing, but it’s easy to request a novel when there is no personal cost, only to toss it aside later or give it the dreaded one star rating because it fell outside the bounds ofpersonal taste. I could give you a list of novels and authors and genres that I go out of my way to avoid. I know not to read those books for review. To do so would be unfair. See Rule #1.

Rule #3: If You Don’t Like A Book Tell Us Why

There are few things less trustworthy than a book reader/reviewer who loves or hates every book. I’ve found some blog tour participants to be guilty of this and I would wager it has to do with workload. Much easier to slap up the book cover and a few sugar/acid coated thoughts about the novel. Yet honest critique is invaluable to an author. I believe that most authors go into publication already aware of the weak points in their novel. Thoughtful critique that mentions her thin narrative or contrived dialogue can help her hone those skills on the next book. To read that it was “awful” or “useless” or a “waste of time” (all popular review phrases) does little to help her understand or apply critique. Nor does it help to see a glowing but bland review. If we’re going to publically critique the work of another let’s be honest. And fair.


So what do you think? Do you agree or disagree with any of these rules? What others ruleswould you add to the list? For the advancement of civilized reading, please do share!

Getting Into Character-Guest Post by She Reads' Ariel Allison Lawhon

Ding! We have a WINNER! Thank you to everyone who entered the Find Your True Story Contest. I'm always inspired by the determination and commitment to the craft that I see in the writers who are a part of the Novel Matters community. I admire each of you. But, there can only be one winner, and that person is Tonya Couch! Tonya, your name was chosen at random as the winner! Congratulations. Oh, have I mentioned that I'm a very, very mean teacher? Did you know the last contest I held was called Teeth and Bones? Aw, that wouldn't bother you, right? heh heh. Seriously, congrats. I'm looking forward to glimpsing your work, and partnering with you to find the true heart of your story and crafting a killer "pitch line". Please contact me at novelmatters@gmail.com and we'll go from there.

To everyone else who entered, keep reading Novel Matters. We plan to have lots of these "pop contests" over the months and there will be more opportunities to win!

Now, heres our guest post from Ariel Allison!

~

On Friday Bonnie explained that strong characters are crucial to a strong plot. Yet any writer worth her

salt knows that compelling characters aren’t easy to find. They are often complex, moody, and elusive. This is certainly the case with Stella, the main character in my new novel. She is aloof, glacial, and stubborn. When it comes to writing her scenes, I have to press in to the story in creative ways.

I hope you don’t have similar problems with your Protagonist, but if you do here are a few things that help me get into character. Perhaps try one or two of these ideas the next time that blinking cursor makes you cross-eyed:

Return to your original inspiration. Do you remember when your novel was conceived? That flashbulb-in-a-dark-room moment? A glimpse. A certainty. I do. And when I get stuck (which happens with more frequency than I’d like), I go back to the genesis of my idea – a single paragraph in a news headline. That article gave me a Protagonist, a Setting, and a Plot. Itcan’t write the novel for me, but it still serves as a “true north” when I lose my way:

“Every August 6^th for more than three decades, an attractive older woman entered a Greenwich Village bar, a place that had been a restaurant back in the Jazz Age. She sat alone in a booth and ordered two cocktails. She raised one, murmured, “Good luck, Joe, wherever you are.” She drank it slowly, rose and walked out, leaving the other drink untouched.”

Give your character a theme song. Art has a subterranean root system. It is connected in ways the conscious mind doesn’t understand. Music and painting, poetry and dancing, writing and sculpture. They breathe life into one another. I recently heard this song and knew it was Stella’s mantra. It’s filled with anger and revenge and fire, just like her. Getting into characteris now as easy as clicking play.

Look her in the eye. My particular novel-in-progress is based on a real person. Because the events happened in 1930, there are few pictures of her available. But I did find one and I keep it near me while I write. She’s a complex character and the story she’s telling follows suit. It’s easier to hear her voice when I see her face. Your Protagonist may not be a real person but I bet you can find a good likeness. Print it out. Tape it to your computer. And let her speak.

Sit with the story. A friend recently admonished me for over-thinking. I do this when I can’t get a grip on the narrative. I try too hard. “Allow yourself to sit with the story without writing a thing,” she said. “Just sit. And only when the story jumps on you are you allowed to write a single word.” I took her advice. And after three hours of uninterrupted silence, it worked. Staying up until 1:00 a.m. has never left me so energized.

I imagine that each of you have your own tricks for getting into character. Those who've spent time in the theater seem to be particularly good at this. If you have a tried and true method for luring your characters onto the stage, do share!

Buskers in the Marketplace - A She Reads Post by Ariel Allison

Today's post is a guest post by Ariel Allison from our sister blog, She Reads!

“I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, I will tell you a story, and then he passes the hat.”
– Robertson Davies

The above quote is scratched on a Post-It and pressed to the top of a notebook that I drag around the house. I am a writer in transit, my office moves depending on the needs of my family. One moment I’m banished to the bedroom, the next the dining room table. But the notebook moves with me, as does the reminder that as a writer I’m nothing more than a busker in the marketplace, hawking my wares to the passerby. Sort of like this fellow:

“I am a liar, see, and you’re not to believe a word of what I tells you.” The old man flicks a piece of straw from the edge of his rug. Grins. “Even if it is true.”

Off to the side, a crone plucks at the strings of a lyre. Her knuckles bulge with arthritis, but still the melody is hypnotic. The small crowd leans in to hear her music and his story.

“Most don’t believe me anyhow, sez my tale can’t be true what with the mermaid and all. But I knows what happened that day, just before the storm.” He pushes a tattered hat closer to the onlookers with one toe and continues in a sing-song voice, “Billy Gray took her by the milk-white hand, and he threw her in the main; since then a full-five-and-twenty-hundred ships have sunk along the coast of Spain.”

“Rubbish!” The voice rises from the back, a young man, not old enough for a proper beard. “That’s a fleet, old timer. Such a thing never happened in my lifetime. Or yours.”

“Get on with you, then. You’ve no knowledge of the times of my life. And no stomach to hear of Poseidon’s wrath upon losing his daughter. Run along home, little boy. These fine folk want to hear a story.”

A few scattered nods bob through the crowd and the old woman laughs, melodic, fingers never leaving her lyre. She sways to the rhythm of her own making, cords of silver hair dangling at her waist.

“See, this Billy was a shrewd one. The sea ran through his veins eight generations deep. Saltwater for blood. And he paid attention as a lad when the old men whispered over fires and too many pints, knew that when a white squall bears down on a ship, the only way to gain safe passage is with a mermaid on board. She’s duty bound to protect the ones in her care. If you can catch her.”

A tiny sprite of a girl inches from her mother’s side toward the rug where the old man sits cross-legged. Her voice little more than a whisper, “How do you catch a mermaid?”

“Ah, now, that’s a trade secret. Alls I can tell you is that to catch a mermaid you has the have the one thing she wants. And then she comes to you.”

“Surely no one believes this old codger? He’ll take your money and drink it at the pub. Mark my words.” The heckler pushes his way to the front and waves a finger in the storyteller’s face. “The merrow-folk are nothing more than legend.”

The old couple laughs, their voices blending like sea and sand. “Such are the words of the young and foolish. Isn’t that right, Maran?”

In answer she plucks a lonesome tune from the lyre while she sings:

I am the star that rises from the sea, the twilight sea.
I bring men dreams that rule their destiny.
I bring the dream-tides to the souls of men;
The tides that ebb and flow and ebb again –
These are my secrets, these belong to me. *

Even before her song has faded, hands are thrust deep in pockets, searching for stray coins. They clink like tiny bells as they fall into the hat.

“Thank you kindly, but remember, I am a liar, and you’re not to believe a word of what I say.”

The child steps onto his rug and drops a single coin into the hat. “Even if it’s true?”

The old man retrieves it from the dark fold, winks, and presses it into her palm. He folds her little fingers around the coin. “Especially then.”

“And your name, sir? You never said.”

“I was born a William. But my friends call me Gray.”

* Lyrics by Dion Fortune (1890 – 1946)

In Search of a Gimmick A She Reads Guest Post by Ariel Allison

On Monday Bonnie described how she knows an idea is book worthy. And on Wednesday, Debbie helped us see that breaking the rules can sometimes work to our advantage. And they got me thinking…about my mother.

Let me explain.

July 2010: my children sat on our dining room table watching my mother sort scrap metal. Mostly cut up cookie tins, random pieces of wire, nuts and bolts, that sort of thing. I was in the living room, timing how long before they got bored and wandered off in search of mayhem. (My children typically have the attention span of gnats) Three hours later they were still helping their grandmother arrange bits and pieces of discarded “junk” on a painted wooden structure. They asked questions:

“Tootsie,” (her choice of grandma name) my oldest said, holding up the innards to what I suspect was once a blender. “What about this thing-a-mah-jiggy?”

And she’d take it. Set it against the emerging picture. Stand back. Pull at her earlobe. “Maybe. But don’t you think it would frighten someone if we used that for her eyeball?”

“I think it would be fun.”

“Right you are.” As a mother of six, she has learned not to second-guess the creative instincts of children.

Back and forth like this for hours, until a woman’s face emerged from the flotsam and jetsam of discarded objects. Once satisfied with the results, she nailed the pieces in place and christened it with a name. (“Wink” in case you’re wondering)

Viola! Art on my dining room table.

I took mental pictures the entire time. My boys with their grandmother. Learning. Being creative. Playing with dangerous metal-cutting tools. Fun times.

Fast forward to October 2010: I’m working on a new novel and I’m struggling to put the pieces together. It feels like a disjointed heap of mental junk. There might be a picture in there, somewhere, but I can’t find it. So I call my mother.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She laughs. “You must be on the right track. I almost never know what I’m doing. I just know what I like.”

“But how did you know you were supposed to do this. Of all the art you could have made, why tin collage?”

“I found my gimmick.”

“Gimmick?”

“People stop and look at my work because I have deviated from the expected boundaries. A Jazz Quartet made from clipped metal. A man proposes through the medium of cookie tins. Essentially, the same story told in a different way.”

Even though my mother didn’t give concrete advice on the specifics of my novel, she gifted me with something far more important: she helped me understand my gimmick. Some refer to it as a brand, but in reality the semantics don’t matter. We’re all trying to tell the same stories in a fresh way. And, thanks to her, I understand my method a little better.

What about you? Are your stories oil on canvas? Stained glass? Perhaps paper mache meets steam punk? Do tell!

The God of Story - A She Reads Guest Post by Ariel Allison

I think of him first as a storyteller, this Jesus of mine. That might sound sacrilegious to some. He is after all Savior and Redeemer. Lion and Lamb. But to me, I would not know him as any of those had he not spoken to me first in the gentle whisper of story. Given half a chance, I would sit at his feet and listen even now. I’d follow him through those dusty streets. Stop and ponder in that crowded marketplace. Or lounge on a grass-filled hillside. Prodigal sons and lost coins, rich fools and fig trees, talents and tares – I would cross my legs and sink to the floor, chin on hands, to hear his stories. So kind of him to write them down so I can read them at my leisure.

This has been a long year for me. And I find myself grappling with Story. I am a student, learning and listening. Over and over again I return to the parables. And I wonder what they mean to me as a writer.

Spend any time in Christian circles and you’ll eventually hear this: “Jesus knew how important stories are. That’s why he spoke in parables.” Those thirty short anecdotes sprinkled through the first four books of the New Testament are the subject of countless sermons. Yet I’ve never

seen them used to teach the craft of storytelling.

Several weeks ago this realization led me to a friend, a former NFL player and PHD in Biblical Studies. The book he handed me weighs more than my two-year-old.

“Do I need a doctorate to read this?”

He gave me a cheeky smile and a bone-rattling pat on the back. “If you want to understand the God of story, this is the book.”

Turns out, the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery is a fascinating read – if you have time to absorb all 1058 pages. Sorry to say I skimmed. My interest then, and now, lies in a mere two pages beneath the heading of “Parable,” a portion of which reads:

“The narrative qualities of the parables are a virtual case study in the “rules” of popular storytelling as we find them in folk narrative, including a reliance on archetypes…Only one of the characters (Lazarus) is named, yet as we encounter the characters of the parables we sense that we have known them already. They

are universal types, possessing the traits that we and our acquaintances possess. Never has such immortality been thrust upon anonymity. We do not need to know the name of the woman who first loses and then finds her lost coin: she is every person. The family dynamics of the parables of the prodigal son and the two brothers whose father asks them to work in the vineyards could be observed at any family’s breakfast table… We come to realize that it is in the everyday world of sowing and eating and dealing with family members that people make the great spiritual decisions and that God’s grace works.”

And that’s the power of story, isn’t it? To see ourselves in the narrative. To squirm and wrestle.

To celebrate. I find it interesting that overt religious references in the parables are rare. Jesus never inflects his images, never says, “Oh, by the way, that bit about the Prodigal Son is really about you and God. Wanted to make sure you caught that.” Instead, he lets me see my reflection in the story. He leaves me to wonder which part I play.

And I learn from this, tapping my thoughts onto a hard drive while my babies sleep. That’s what it means to show instead of tell. He doesn’t have to elaborate. I am shown the holy in the routine: planting and harvesting, a wedding invitation, baking bread, lighting a lamp, traveling to a distant town. The parables teach me to trust that readers understand the unspoken language of story.

“A final folktale feature of the simple stories Jesus told is their reliance on archetypes – master images that recur throughout literature and life. We think at once of such motifs as lost and found, robbed and rescued, sowing and reaping, sibling rivalry. Often these archetypes tap deep wellsprings of human psychology.”

Master images. Master storytelling. Simple and profound and, honestly, beyond the reach of my current abilities. I wish I could say that I fully understand how to apply the literary tools found in the parables to my own writing. But the truth is that I’ve only scratched the surface. Yet even as I struggle to learn this craft, he says, “Come, let me tell you a story.”

Nurturing Readers

It's crunch time for your submission! Get your entry in by this Thursday, April 15th! We're so excited to have received a number of entries already, but where is yours? Polish up and submit. We can't wait to read your work!

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Today's post comes from our sister blog She Reads. Ariel Allison Lawhon is the author of eye of the god, and co-founder of one of the most innovative book club groups on the web.

Readers are fearless people. Each time they open a book they take a risk. They risk disappointment with our literary offering. They risk being offended. They risk caring for imaginary people who suffer great abuse at our hands. They risk boredom. They risk being changed. They risk – dare I say it – wasting their money. And yet they read. Your novels and mine. There should be a Pulitzer or a Nobel for those courageous souls who venture between the pages time and time again.

Yet I fear that in today’s publishing climate we’re taught to exploit these dear readers rather than nurture them. We’re taught how to collect them on various social media outlets but we’re not educated on how to earn their trust. As both a reader and a writer, here are a few things I’ve observed:

Do No Harm. I am baffled by the things writers post on their blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Things best left in the bathroom, the bedroom, or not said at all. A single inappropriate comment can alienate a reader for life. The same holds true for intense political and religious views. Before clicking “update,” consider whether that comment is worth losing a reader.

Seek Friends, Not Fans. Does this sound familiar: “Author became a fan of Author and suggests that you become a fan as well.” I get several of these e-mails a day. From authors I don’t know. Whose books I’ve never read. Who friended me on Facebook (it seems) for the explicit purpose of spamming me with unwanted updates. One author sends these fan requests repeatedly, though I’ve ignored them each time. What this says to me is, “I think of you as a customer and I want to sell you something.” No one likes to be sold.

Yes, I know that a Facebook profile can only hold 5000 “friends” while a Fan Page is unlimited. So may I offer a few reader-friendly alternatives to this dilemma? Let an actual fan create your fan page. (I hear a horrified gasp from publicists nationwide) Although this option means you have no control over the content, it becomes a legitimate page for fans. Or if that is too unnerving, go ahead and create your own page but let readers find you. Real people who have read your book. And liked it. And want to hang out with you online. Another option is to send the fan request only to people you know. Friends and family readers you’ve communicated with in the past so that there is a context for your request.

Forget the Platform, Build Relationships. May I conjecture that the best use of social media is not to find readers but to keep them? There is an author/blogger who I’ve read for a number of years and truly respect. I found her on Facebook, sent a friend request, and we have slowly built a friendship. While I don’t expect an invitation for Christmas any time soon, she does a great job of maintaining an author/reader relationship. I suspect she treats all her readers with the same respect. And my response to her warm professionalism? I sing her praises online and off.

Write a Great Book. In this age of guerilla marketing seminars, we have lost the most effective way to gain and keep readers: write a breathtaking novel. The kicker is that this takes time. A lot of time. More time than most of us are willing to spend on one project. More time than most multi-book contracts allow. Which reminds of what Anne Lamott says about novel writing:

“Well, novels as you know are a lot harder than stories or essays--it takes close to 3 years, and you never quite know what you're doing. I really try to commit to my characters, and capturing each one's voice and truth, instead of committing to a finished novel. It can be a nightmare for a lot of the process, because you're trying to keep so many plates spinning in the air. So I just try to get a day's work done everyday."

And speaking of Anne Lamott, one of the most loved authors around, she doesn’t even have a website. To the best of my knowledge she doesn’t engage in any social media. She simply writes books, and does that very, very well. Not every writer makes that choice (or should) but she proves that we can make writing the main thing and still keep an audience. I’ve yet to meet an Anne Lamott fan who stopped reading her books because she’s not on Twitter.

So, your turn. Is my take too extreme? Too unrealistic? Must authors – as we’re told – beat down a reader’s door? Or is the better approach to be invited in?

What are the best ways you’ve found to care for your readers?