Summertime Reruns: The Joy Of a Slow Read

Maybe you have memories like mine, of waking to the delicious sound of voices at the kitchen table.

When I was a child my grandparents would come to visit, often at this time of year, and often arriving at night while I slept. They were retired, and always seemed schedule-less, beyond the basic schedules of grooming, coffee, meals and naps. Their days were all sabbaths, or so it seemed.

My mother would take time off from work when they came, so their gentle rhythms would, for a time, become our rhythms. When I woke, the voices coming from the kitchen were thoughtful and unhurried, filtered through chuckles and quiet pauses. I don't remember exactly what they talked about, but it seems like the topics ran more to the conceptual than the pragmatic. Politics, yes, but in broader terms. My sister and me, naturally, but about the sorts of people we were growing to be.

When we visited them it was the same, but at night, we would join them in the unfenced area between their house and those of two neighbors. We'd all set our lawn chairs under the clothes line, look up at the stars, and talk. My great uncle, who read a lot (I am getting around to talking about books), showed me constellations, and told me which stars were really planets, how unfathomably distant they all were. Curiosity and attention were my childhood luxuries, but in these slow moments, they became the order of the day.

I'm about a third into a book titled The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. It recounts her observations of a common snail that lived in a terrarium beside her bed during her year-long convalescence following a mysterious illness.

It's not a page turner, not in the sense we usually mean. There are no heart-stopping moments, no smoking guns.

It is wondrously compelling. Reading it feels like listening to voices at the kitchen table, looking at stars with my great uncle who read a lot. Forced by an illness into an abundance of unstructured time, Bailey received a message to pass on to us, that each moment, each detail, the tiniest creature is fascinating if we take the time to look. I treasure books that remind me that time exists, and that there is enough of it to allow for curiosity and attention.

"Every few days I watered the violets from my drinking glass, and the excess water seeped into the dish beneath. This always woke the snail. It would glide to the rim of the pot and look over, slowly waving its tentacles in apparent delight, before making its way down to the dish for a drink. Sometimes it started back up, only to stop at a halfway point and go to sleep. Waking periodically, and without moving from its position, it would stretch its neck all the way down to the water and take a long drink."

Annie Dillard writes books like that. Her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is all the permission you will ever need to lavish time on each microbe of creation.

"It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. In making the thick darkness a swaddling band for the sea, God “set bars and doors” and said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?"

There are other books that do the same. I pulled Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea from my grandmother's bookshelf when I was twelve. A bit young, perhaps, to begin thinking what sort of adult one wants to become, but I began to think of it then.

"I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible."

You may have noted that all these books are memoirs, not fiction, and for good reason. Fiction doesn't lend itself to leisurely exploration. Novels need things like conflict, suspense, and tension. Most readers, I'm told, skip over novels that are described as "meditative," or "contemplative." We want our stories to pull us through on a cord of anxiety. Yikes! Oh no! What will the character do now?

The only novel I know of that has managed to finesse the narrative arc in a voice straight out of those lawn chairs under the stars is Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. It's the reason I consider this the most perfect novel I've ever read, because its author understands so well:

"This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it." 

Now please tell us about the books that have inspired you to pay attention. Extra points if that book is a novel.

We love to read what you have to say.

The Joy of a Slow Read

Maybe you have memories like mine, of waking to the delicious sound of voices at the kitchen table.

When I was a child my grandparents would come to visit, often at this time of year, and often arriving at night while I slept. They were retired, and always seemed schedule-less, beyond the basic schedules of grooming, coffee, meals and naps. Their days were all sabbaths, or so it seemed.

My mother would take time off from work when they came, so their gentle rhythms would, for a time, become our rhythms. When I woke, the voices coming from the kitchen were thoughtful and unhurried, filtered through chuckles and quiet pauses. I don't remember exactly what they talked about, but it seems like the topics ran more to the conceptual than the pragmatic. Politics, yes, but in broader terms. My sister and me, naturally, but about the sorts of people we were growing to be.

When we visited them it was the same, but at night, we would join them in the unfenced area between their house and those of two neighbors. We'd all set our lawn chairs under the clothes line, look up at the stars, and talk. My great uncle, who read a lot (I am getting around to talking about books), showed me constellations, and told me which stars were really planets, how unfathomably distant they all were. Curiosity and attention were my childhood luxuries, but in these slow moments, they became the order of the day.

I'm about a third into a book titled The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. It recounts her observations of a common snail that lived in a terrarium beside her bed during her year-long convalescence following a mysterious illness.

It's not a page turner, not in the sense we usually mean. There are no heart-stopping moments, no smoking guns.

It is wondrously compelling. Reading it feels like listening to voices at the kitchen table, looking at stars with my great uncle who read a lot. Forced by an illness into an abundance of unstructured time, Bailey received a message to pass on to us, that each moment, each detail, the tiniest creature is fascinating if we take the time to look. I treasure books that remind me that time exists, and that there is enough of it to allow for curiosity and attention.

"Every few days I watered the violets from my drinking glass, and the excess water seeped into the dish beneath. This always woke the snail. It would glide to the rim of the pot and look over, slowly waving its tentacles in apparent delight, before making its way down to the dish for a drink. Sometimes it started back up, only to stop at a halfway point and go to sleep. Waking periodically, and without moving from its position, it would stretch its neck all the way down to the water and take a long drink."

Annie Dillard writes books like that. Her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is all the permission you will ever need to lavish time on each microbe of creation.

"It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. In making the thick darkness a swaddling band for the sea, God “set bars and doors” and said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?"

There are other books that do the same. I pulled Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea from my grandmother's bookshelf when I was twelve. A bit young, perhaps, to begin thinking what sort of adult one wants to become, but I began to think of it then.

"I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible."

You may have noted that all these books are memoirs, not fiction, and for good reason. Fiction doesn't lend itself to leisurely exploration. Novels need things like conflict, suspense, and tension. Most readers, I'm told, skip over novels that are described as "meditative," or "contemplative." We want our stories to pull us through on a cord of anxiety. Yikes! Oh no! What will the character do now?

The only novel I know of that has managed to finesse the narrative arc in a voice straight out of those lawn chairs under the stars is Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. It's the reason I consider this the most perfect novel I've ever read, because its author understands so well:

"This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it." 

Now please tell us about the books that have inspired you to pay attention. Extra points if that book is a novel.

We love to read what you have to say.

The Keepers

The weekend before Thanksgiving may be one of the worst times to hold a garage sale, but that's what we're doing on Saturday. We spent the last weekend digging and sorting and piling stuff into boxes. It's amazing the things we kept for years 'just because.' I emptied a five shelf unit that was piled with books two rows deep and plugged in all catty-whompas to make them fit. Now there are three boxes of great books that will hopefully get snatched up and treasured.

Of course, I kept several shelves of favorites which contain a mixture of both CBA (Christian) and ABA (mainstream) trade paperbacks. In light of our great discussions this week, I considered why I chose these particular ABA books and whether they demonstrated elements of hopefulness and transformation, which the CBA books did naturally.

Here is a selection of the ABA books I kept:
Peace Like a River, Shadow of the Wind, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Time Traveler's Wife, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Seabiscuit, Snow Falling on Cedars, Gilead, Pride and Prejudice, Water for Elephants, Jewel, The Miracles of Santo Fico, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Cold Sassy Tree

In these books I found characters who persevered, who revealed characteristics of God, who gave sacrificially, who gained new perspectives, who developed tolerance for others, who believed in a dream, whose faith was restored, who kept their word when it hurt, who didn't back down from a righteous fight, who protected what was good, who found the best in others, who never stopped loving.

Did I love each and every one of the characters? No, but they either redeemed themselves in some way or got their comeuppance. No unsatisfying, ambiguous endings here. In contrast, there are many books that I've begun and put down again. While I believe we should give a book a chance once we've started reading, we need to fine tune our discernment. I'm not referring to violence, language or sexuality, I mean when the book impacts your outlook on life in a negative way, it's time to listen to that inner voice saying 'enough!' Step away from the book.

BTW, right now I'm just getting into Marilyn Robinson's Home which takes place in the same town as Gilead during the same time period. I'm just now acquainted with the elderly pastor, his spinster daughter and her blacksheep brother. Their relationships are complicated, and I have a good feeling that they will come to an understanding and find closure in the end. They are the kind of folks I enjoy acquainting myself with. And one of them is vaguely familiar...

We know that CBA books include elements of hopefulness and transformation, but what ABA book has made an impact on you in this way? We'd love to hear!

First Things First

Welcome back to our 'Teeth and Bones Editing Contest'. Here's the scoop:

How to enter: Comment on the Novel Matters blog anytime between Monday, September 6th, and Friday September 17th. At the bottom of your comment type TABEC (short for Teeth and Bones Editing Contest). Only comments with these letters at the bottom will be eligible to win (we understand that not all our readers are interested in this level of editing, but would still want to be free to comment and discuss editing - that's the reason we require interested people to please use the TABEC letters at the bottom of their comments). The winner will work one on one with Bonnie Grove via e-mail. The winner will consent to having the first paragraph of the work posted on Novel Matters in a before and after comparison. This means the winner will agree to have the first paragraph of your WIP appear on the blog, first as it was originally written, then in its edited form.

I want to address a crucial consideration that can be difficult to face, or even consider facing, during the editing process: does your story start in the right place? And while it may not be the wrong place exactly, are you willing to do the major rewrite necessary to make the story the best it can be?

You may have heard that many stories actually start on the third chapter. Cut the first 3 chapters and you cut the fluff and get down to the action. You'll never miss them. I've had to do it myself, and it's really painful to amputate what represents many months of work and research to perfect the story. But this advice doesn't work for every genre. Opening with the action doesn't fit every story, so we have to consider who is giving the advice, which 'how-to' book we're reading and the type of fiction that particular author writes. I had this experience at a writers conference when I submitted my proposal for critique to a well-known author who writes exceptional thrillers and his advice to me was to cut away to the action. Do away with the first five pages. Start with the tension high, place the protagonist in the thick of things. Before I followed his advice, I submitted that same proposal to an editor at the conference who did not agree with the suggested change. He pointed out that it wasn't the same type of story, and happily, he liked it just fine.

At least in literary or upmarket fiction, the place where your story begins isn't always where the book should start. Most stories are linear - the story starts at the beginning and finishes at the end, but that isn't necessarily how the story should be told. Consider Water for Elephants, with its opening sentence establishing the protagonist is near the end of his life, as does Marilyn Robinson's Gilead. There is determination and urgency in telling the story from the perspective of a life having been already lived, looking back at how it all unfolded, for good or ill. That's putting the character into the thick of things emotionally, driving the story along.

I recently read Olive Kitteridge, which has a unique way of telling Olive's story. It's not written from beginning to end. Every chapter is written either from Olive's viewpoint, or from someone who knew her, revealing different aspects of her character in their interactions with her. The story begins with her husband's perspective instead of Olive's, which I think sets the tone for the book. I can't say that I truly enjoyed the book, but it was worth reading for the unique structure and the characterizations. (language & subject matter warning)

A word of caution: Some writers start with prologues, but these are not generally met with enthusiasm by editors. I'm sure there have been some excellent books that opened with prologues, but none come immediately to mind. So, if you have a smash-up prologue, go for it. Just don't make it a deal-breaker. Some writers get around the whole prologue issue by placing the first chapter or opening scene out of sequence with the rest of the story. It could work. It probably has.

Personally, at least for upmarket fiction, I feel it's imperative to consider your book as a whole, look objectively at what point in the story it's understood what the protagonist wants or must overcome, and begin there. Readers will only invest themselves in a book when they respect the protagonist and feel the goal is legitimate, and when this is expressed early enough to maintain interest. That kind of story is worth the rewrite.

Let us know what you think & for a chance to win that critique!

The Shape of Story

A big 'thank you' to all who posted comments to Andy Meisenheimer's post on Friday, and a huge 'welcome' to folks who stopped by for the first time. Did you know that we will choose one lucky person to win a copy of Latayne Scott's Mormon Mirage? Every time you post a comment, your chances multiply.

I just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What a great story and what a creative way to have it unfold! This story about the German occupation of the Channel Islands is told exclusively through letters exchanged between the characters after the war is over. It handles a weighty and horrific topic in an approachable style by using the distance created by the use of letters and by interjecting subplots which lightened the tone, at times cutting away to a budding romance and points of humor. If it had been written any other way, I don't think I would have finished it, but I'm a lightweight. The right- or the wrong - book can leave me with bad dreams. (Like The Historian - shiver! I stopped reading a third of the way through.)

This unusual story structure led me to consider the art involved in the shaping of stories, and how it can both enhance and hamper a reader's enjoyment. Take, for example, The Time Traveler's Wife. The main character travels through time unexpectedly and against his will. As an adult, he travels back and meets his future wife when she is only a child. Later, when she meets him as an adult, he doesn't know her. At times it was a mental workout to keep up, but it was worth it. (I offer a word of caution about the sometimes gritty content.) If I put the book aside for too long, I had trouble picking it up again, like dropping a string in Cat's Cradle. But I was invested in the story enough to see it to the end, and the structure was intriguing. The flashbacks weren't there to provide backstory - they were the story.

By contrast, Isabel Allende's Zorro is largely narrative with limited dialogue. She had an interesting and very human perception of the man behind the legend, but I kept wishing she would show me instead of telling me. Hmmm...

Story structure should take into consideration the nature of the story and should be complementary. For example, Gilead is written in the form of a long, rambling letter full of wisdom (along with regrets) from an elderly father to his young son. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is told in the first-person viewpoint of an autistic teenager, using the charts, maps and diagrams he uses to break down his world into comprehensible chunks, along with prime numbers for chapter headings. Some stories are more suitable as allegory (The Screwtape Letters) and some are best recorded as diary or journal entries (The Princess Diaries). Structure should never get in the way of or detract from story.

While having a great story is, of course, the most important part of the equation, having an interesting or unique structure can greatly enhance it. How important do you think story structure is, and what are some interesting treatments that you have read? How much of story structure is art?