Tell Me a Story

Whenever I tell people what I'm about to tell you, it feels like I've opened the closet door, and the skeleton has clattered to my feet. I hope you'll think only a little less of me when I confess: I listen to audiobooks.

In my English-major days, I never dreamt of it. That would be like skipping the book and watching the movie. Or like reading the Cliffs Notes for Moby Dick.

Only wait - I did read the Cliffs Notes for Moby Dick. I did it because I was cornered: I had five literature classes, and was assigned to read a novel a week for each one. If you know anything about my reading style, you know I might better have majored in Physics, because I was more likely to discover Cold Fusion than to read five novels in a week. Ever.

It was a similar desperation that drove me to audiobooks.

I was a young mom, with a home-based night job that kept me entering data long into the next morning, and then left me cross-eyed the following day. With a toddler. And no time to read.

A story-deprived life is no life at all.  And besides, something had to keep me awake so I could enter the data. For a while, it was a whacked out radio announcer named Art Bell, who interviewed UFO abductees and werewolves. But even Art Bell went to bed before I did.

Enter Blackstone Audio. In those days, you could go to their website and stream their books - for free, sometimes - over the internet, and they had authors like John Gresham and Maeve Binchy, and those two can keep you awake for hours. Free books, and they helped me stay up and make money. People have gotten hooked on cigarettes for less reason.

I eventually quit the job, but by then, my relationship with audiobooks was established. I found I could exercise and take in a Ray Bradbury story. I could clean house and hear what Malcolm Gladwell had to say.

I could light a candle, lower the lights, lay back in a warm bubblebath, and close my eyes while someone with a wonderful voice read me an absolutely delicious story.

Can you tell? I love that best of all.

Now that my life is busier than it ever has been, I need my audiobooks more than ever. Otherwise I'd starve on only the few minutes in bed I'm awake before I drift off to an exhausted sleep. In effect, I'd practically give up reading altogether. And a story-deprived life is no life at all.

Now Amazon has a nice little thing they call Whispersync, which allows me to read for those few minutes before I fall asleep, picking up right where the audiobook last left off, and then starting the audiobook in the morning right where I stopped reading.

But it's more than mere necessity, this vice of mine.

I'll tell you a secret: Some readers perform the character's voices in ways that make stories even more delicious. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss is like that. So is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Or The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski.

How about you? Do you listen to audiobooks? Got any favorites, any with wonderful voices?

Please do tell. I'd love to find another story for my candlelit bubblebath times.

Hunting Adjectives with Elephant Guns

Bonnie's post on Monday made me sit up and pay attention. Bonnie climbed into the bully pulpit for the sake of nouns, the building blocks readers use to create story worlds and those shadows we all hope to leave with our readers. (Sharon's post on Wednesday made me rethink my daily words, the ones I fling about recklessly. Thanks for that, friend. I am resolved to do better.)

And so I went a-hunting for adjectives as she had done. I found few extraneous uses, but they're there. I also admired strong nouns like never before.

This was such a powerful exercise that I've done the work for you. I've collected seven random samples from novels we've all loved. Some are more adjective-rich than others. I hope you'll look at these 50-word snippets and help me decide if any of the adjectives should be scratched, or if a more descriptive noun could have been used.

Remember, adjectives aren't the bad guys. We do tend to lean heavily on them in our writing. The trick is to use the strongest noun possible (cottage rather than house; beret rather than hat) to minimize the need to slow-down-the-action adjectives.

Yep, this is how writers have fun, so jump in!

[Note: I italicized the adjectives for you. I didn't italicize adjectives with linking verbs. That makes things messy but does show what a complex task lay before us each day. Also, I have missed a few or thousands.]

I finished reading the letter and closed my eyes. I was thinking, So many tears for Elder Sister, so much joy for me. I was grateful that we followed the custom of my not falling into your husband's house until just before the birth of your first child. I still had...Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See

We had been wandering for so long I forgot what it was like to live within the walls or sleep through the night. In that time I lost all I might have possessed if Jerusalem had not fallen: a husband, a family, a future of my own. My girlhood disappeared in...The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman

A day after the Evers funeral, Miss Leefolt's mama stop by for a visit. She live up in Greenwood, Mississippi, and she driving down to New Orleans. She don't knock. Miss Fredericks just waltz on in the living room where I'm ironing. She give me a lemony smile. I go...The Help, Kathryn Stockett

When he was pushed out by the rest of his family, the relief struggled inside him like an obscenity. It was something he didn't want to feel, but nonetheless, he felt it with such gusto it made him want to throw up. How could he? How could he? But he did...The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Restlessness rippled through the schoolroom like waves of wind through wheat. A teacher on a discipline rampage can be a fearsome thing; every student ever born knows that. But we never expected that kind of behavior from Morrie. Nonetheless he seemed to go out of his way to pick fault...The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig

The polar bears lies on his stomach, head and snout stretched in front of him. In repose he looks harmless--cuddly even, with most of his bulk concentrated in the lower third of his body. He takes a deep, halting breath and then exhales a long, rumbling groan. Poor thing. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Note: Some would have italicized polar bear, but when it's a species, as the animals in the following example, I prefer to read the two-word phrase as a noun.

The Stark River flowed around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane's heart. She rowed upstream to see wood ducks, canvasbacks, and ospreys and to search for tiger salamanders in the ferns. She drifted downstream to find painted turtles sunning on fallen trees...Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell

Did any of our authors go crazy with adjectives? Did they use adjectives when a strong noun would have been more powerful? Look at your own writing, too. Is this a new awareness for you? What are you doing this weekend? I'm going to a mineral hot springs with the family. Thanks for spending time with us. We so enjoy your company.

Getting Snarky at Donald Maass

Dear Mr. Donald Maass, sir,
We're discussing your book, Writing 21st Century Fiction, at Novel Matters today. If you've stopped by to see how much we loved the chapter on standout character, please go away now. My writing career is on shaky enough ground as it is. Being black-balled by a top New York city literary agent would shoot my career between the eyes. So, you just mosey along. Go to the corner and get something highly caffeinated or one of those famous hot dogs they sell on the street. Forget you ever heard my name, please.
Sincerely,
Patti Hill

Reader Alert: I’m a little cranky about this chapter.  In fact, I may sound snarky when I don’t  mean to. Yes, Maass says true things about characterization, but he also quotes his other books on writing. 

Hello? could we have something fresh here?

And he speaks in broad generalities, which sound suspiciously like he really is talking to genre writers. Like this:

A standout protagonist is one who quickly stirs in your reader high admiration. p. 79

Yes. No. Duh! This isn’t wrong. It’s just prescriptive. Are we all writing books about Boy Scouts? This is the kind of stuff I taught my fourth-grade students. Ack! 

(Oh my, this is snarky. So sorry.)

My pulse quickened a bit when Maass started a section on characters who lack conflict. This is a huge problem for beginning writers. They want their characters to be nice and not make the writer look bad for being able to think up very human things for their characters to do. The result is a boring story. As we talked about last time, the inner journey—conflict and all—is crucial to creating characters and stories reader can relate to. I was genuinely eager to hear what Maass had to say.  

Any character, whether wholly negative or naively positive or somewhere in between (My question: Has he left anyone out?), can be alive, alert, and engaged in life. But how is that conveyed to the reader? There are three key techniques: the use of observation, opinions, and self-awareness. P. 100

Maass uses Aibileen Clark from The Help as an example of a character who is a keen observer, especially of the white family she works for and full of opinions she can’t express. And who was more self-aware than a black woman of the south in 1962? Aibileen knew her place.

But Aibileen is not wholly negative or naively positive or anything in between.  She is human! I can hear her voice in my head. “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”  Her keen observations, opinions, and self-awareness are NOT add-ons. They’re who she is. 

(I didn’t like this chapter very much.)

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. The qualities Maass attributes to a well-rounded and interesting character are valid. They just wouldn’t, in my humble opinion, resurrect a poorly conceived character. I love a character who can see things I can’t and describe them in such a manner that makes me groan with pleasure. And I happen to like opinionated characters, too. They make me squirm and laugh, all as that character turns a mirror on me. As for healthy self-awareness, I’m reading a novel now about a man who makes note of his bowel habits in his journal. Too much?

Here are five nuggets you can take from this chapter:

1. Heroic protagonists need to show us that they’re human.
2. Stronger than surprise is selfless focus. Think Enzo in The Art of Racing in the Rain
3. Put as much planning and work into your antagonist as you do your protagonist.
4. Don’t skimp on your secondary characters, either. Give them a history and know them well.
5. Work on your characters until they fascinate you, then they will fascinate millions of readers.

I was going to continue this discussion on Wednesday, but that’s about it. Instead, I’ll share something I've learned from a master storyteller that has changed the way I populate my stories. I promise more of a take-away. Also, I will put my snarky self on the shelf--with that obnoxious elf.

And I’ll be reading ahead to see if Maass has anything more to offer us.

Was I too hard on Maass? Help me out here, what's the most important thing you do to develop human characters? From whom have you learned the most about characterization? Name a character who took your breath away. Can I hide at your house?

Book Clubs Matter: Guest post from She Reads: Melissa Hambrick

Every month, we tie a blindfold on one of our book club members. Then we spin her around in circles until she cries uncle, and send her topsy-turvy around the bookstore in a drunken stagger to pin the bookmark on the title. Wherever it lands is the book we choose.

Perhaps a bit extreme and slightly off the wall? Maybe. But choosing the perfect book for your club isn’t really a science, even though it feels that way sometimes. Everyone wants to get a turn—different people like different genres, and what is deeply literary to one may feel like slogging through mud to another. When one person loves a fun read, another might think it’s fluff. So an old-fashioned party game could do the trick in a pinch.

How do you discover those amazing reads that become book club classics, especially with Oprah now off network television? Here are a few things we’ve tried—maybe some will help your club come together:

Goodreads: A great website that connects you with fellow bibliophiles, Goodreads is the online equivalent of a friend pressing a book into your hot hands and saying, “You have GOT to read this.” On this site, I’m friends with several people who are in my book club, as well as friends from all over the country.  I’m even friends with a couple of authors now, after reading their books and giving them a nice review and rating. I can see what my friends are reading, and pick and choose from books they’ve read that look interesting. I’ve also been able to offer out questions to some of my favorite authors who come to Goodreads to do online chats…but so far, Ann Patchett has not taken me up on an offer to come join our book club here in Nashville, although I think we made a pressing case for it.

Online Book Clubs: Sites like SheReads.org and BeautyandtheBook.com (home of The Pulpwood Queens book club) are fantastic repositories for previously undiscovered authors and novels. Often, they offer author interviews and background about the book or author you might not read anywhere else. There are usually great giveaways and sometimes, as with BeautyandtheBook.com, getaways as well—like their annual Girlfriend Weekend. And couldn’t we all use that?

Other Books: For a while, we had a couple of rules for picking our monthly reads. First we said it had to be in paperback, because hardbacks were kind of pricey—and then that went by the wayside when everyone in our club ended up getting Kindles and Nooks. Another one of our rules that carried on for a while is that our next book had to, in some way, be a jumping off point from a previous book—either in theme, or setting. It makes for an interesting progression and great comparisons from month to month.

Food: Ah yes, part of the holy trinity of book club—the written word, inspiring conversation and amazing food. Although a book may inspire a menu, it’s possible to let your favorite foods inspire the choice of book, too. I’d also recommend The Book Club Cookbook (http://bookclubcookbook.com/) that pulls together two of my personal favorite things seamlessly. I think our club may soon have a themed dinner with recipes from some of our best-loved novels from the past few years using this book!

Bookstores: Our book club has been known to wrap up a wonderful evening by going to the bookstore as a group and wandering around. No one gets blindfolded. But once we get going, it’s hard to stop, of course—all of us girls and all of those books. It feels decadent. We’re like kids in a candy store. You might also consider signing up for newsletters or social media feeds from retailers big and small. For those of us here in Nashville, Parnassus Books (Ann Patchett’s new bookstore) sends out some great recommendations on their Facebook page, while I’ve also discovered some great new releases from Barnes & Noble’s emails.

Resign yourself to this: you’ll never make everyone happy. Few and far between are those books, like The Help, that everyone seems to love equally. More often than not, you’ll be a club divided—but isn’t that what makes for a great conversation? I’ve discovered some great authors and some of my favorite books by stretching myself beyond what I would have chosen on my own.

How does your book club make their reading picks?

As an added bonus of booky goodness, we've included a video of Ann Patchett on the Colbert Report (a nice American friend explained to our Canadian who doesn't watch TV what the Colbert Report is, but she still couldn't view the video because she lives in Canada. If you aren't in the US, likely you won't be able to view the video.) Enjoy!

The Book Club Phenomenon

Tuesday night is bargain night at our local Regal Cinema. For just five dollars you can see first-run movies, so our book club decided we would read The Help and go to see the movie the following week. Other book clubs had the same idea, apparently. A friend told me that her book club read the book and arrived at the movie theater to find that the showing was sold out. We quickly spread the word to "purchase your tickets early."

That night, I arrived thirty minutes before the 7:05 showing and saw whole groups being turned away. I sneaked past them, glad I'd stopped by that afternoon for my ticket. Inside was pandemonium. A friend flagged me down and I sank into a seat beside her. There were coats and sweaters draped over rows of seats, reserving them for friends, people calling and motioning to friends who entered and stood bewildered at the happy chaos. Our book club was scattered all over the stadium seating. There were single seats here and there, but it didn't really matter whether or not you sat with your book club because you were sitting near somebody in a book club that night.

What an incredible phenomenon book clubs are! Twenty or thirty years ago, who would have thought that people would be excited to get together and discuss what they'd read? Since our club is new, I thought you might share suggestions about what works and what doesn't, and things to watch out for to ensure a healthy, long association. Here are a few suggestions of my own:

1. If possible, serve snacks that go along with the story. On the evening we discussed The Help, our hostess served pecan pie and peach cobbler. Southern desserts. Minnie would 've been proud. Just make sure it's not a hardship on the host/hostess and that the responsibility doesn't fall to the same people every time.

2. Remember that you're a book club first, and a group of friends second. Stay focused or the group will eventually lose direction and just become a social gathering. People who are serious about reading will drop away. Have plenty of fun, but make sure you read the book and come prepared to share your insights and opinions.

3. Most books include discussion questions. Use them. If the book you're reading is general fiction include the question, "What spiritual insights, if any, do you see. Do you think the author intended it?" Is there redemption, self-sacrifice or unconditional love? It is my humble opinion that the Creator of all talents, art and skills uses different forms of art to speak to people, whether or not the author/painter/sculptor/etc. realizes it. He's God and He can choose how to reveal Himself to us, and I have been touched by books and art that are not overtly spiritual.

4. Choose a variety of books. Broadening our horizons is good for us and you may be pleasantly surprised by a book in a genre you don't normally read.

5. If your group is too large break into smaller discussion groups and come back together at the close. With a larger group, you will get many differing opinions. In any event, the facilitators must be open and accepting, and able to keep the discussion on track.

6. Contact the author. Send a friendly letter or email (if it's a more approachable author) to introduce your group and say that you look forward to reading the author's book. Would they be willing and available to Skype a book club meeting, even if it is only for an introduction, or to be on speakerphone? It doesn't hurt to ask. If you feel comfortable, ask if the author would be willing to send bookmarks or a signed book for a giveaway or for your church library. Don't take it personally if they say no. They may receive many such requests.

7. Agree that if you didn't read the book, you remain silent during discussions. It's self-explanatory. Stay on topic.

8. Consider donating your books (as a whole) to a women's shelter or other group that otherwise could not afford them but would benefit greatly from the gesture.

9. Connect with an online group that specializes in book clubs such as www.shereads.org. or www.readinggroupchoices.com for interesting suggestions and great recommendations.

10. Post positive feedback on social sites but if you don't like a book, don't be critical. Keep it to yourself. Remember, it's somebody's baby.

These are only suggestions, and they will shift and change over the life of our book club. What suggestions do you have? What works for your club? What should a book club avoid or include? We'd love to hear from you!

To Bowl or to Write, That is the Question

I'd planned on doing a video blog today--a vlog?--for our book talk today, but filming did not go well. Alas, we're reading and writing today as per our usual. You're good with that, right? I thought so. So, here we are to discuss the chapter, "The Moral Point of View" in Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird. If you haven't joined our book chat before, we discuss this new classic from time to time, and you are invited to join in if you've read the book or not.

But you have to believe in your position, or nothing will be driving your work. If you don't believe in what you are saying, there is no point in your saying it. You might as well call it a day and go bowling. Anne Lamott

This is such an interesting chapter.

Talking about morals seems so old-fashioned. And preachy. If we're honest, we don't want to be either of those things. But writing from a moral position isn't being archaic or dogmatic. It's being honest, passionate, caring. I'm good with that.

I'm not suggesting that you want to be an author who tells a story in order to teach a moral or deliver a message.

There are plenty of stories around that do teach morals and deliver messages. These sorts of stories were read to us as fables and fairy tales as children. They definitely have their place. Who hasn't worried about crying wolf or touching a tar baby? Contemporary equivilents are--many times--memoirs: This is how I did it; I don't recommend it; go this way instead.

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park came out when I had a junior paleontologist under my care, my son Matt. I had to read it. What a premise! What a story! Until Crichton stops to explain what he wants his readers to "get" out of the book. It was like being thumped over the head with an apatosaurus bone. I didn't like the Left Behind series for the same reason. Too much explanation! The premise was there. Moral dilemma abounded. And readers, however affirmed they felt, were robbed of the power of story. We must expect our readers to step willingly into our shoes to see how we view the world's machinations. And grow or not.

As we live, we begin to discover what helps in life and what hurts, and our characters act this out dramatically. This is moral material.

In my first book, Like a Watered Garden, the heroine is suffocating under grief. And yet she has a son depending on her to do motherlike things. Enter my belief that what helps in life is to do the things that are right and justified before I feel like doing them, and, sometimes, my heart follows. So, in the story, Mibby prepares microwaved lasagna and shakes salad out of a bag for her son. One foot in front of the other. This is moral material.

When a more or less ordinary character, someone who is both kind and self-serving, somehow finds that place within where he or she is still capable of courage and goodness, we get to see something true that we long for.

Yes, yes, YES! As Lamott mentions in this chapter, we already know that the sky has fallen. We don't need anymore Henny Pennys. What we need to see is how people care for one another among all the broken pieces.

I just finished a junior fiction book, Crunch by Leslie Connor. The United States has run out of fuel for cars, so there is a huge demand for bicycles and bicycle repair. No problem, our hero and his family own the Bike Barn. There is one problem, maybe two: The parents are stuck hundreds of miles away and five siblings must take care of each other and the shop. Connor wrote out of moral certainty that families who are nurtured to care for one another in good times will fare better in bad. I was all teary-eyed when the parents returned and so very pleased at how the kids conducted themselves. Very reassuring.

So moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.

Here are some examples:

In The Help, Kathryn Stockett is morally certain that the black maids are worthy of love, respect, and a voice.

In Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks is morally certain that a classic education should empower equally.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee is morally certain that justice should be attainable for all.

In my latest, Seeing Things, I wrote with moral certainty that our faith is most eloquently voiced by surrender.

Christians write from a very strong moral center, and I'm not talking about writing against certain behaviors. I'm talking about the Christ follower so intimately knowing him and being known by him that s/he can't help but write passionately about redemption, forgiveness, and unconditional love--sometimes using those words and sometimes not.

What passionate caring do you write from? What examples of moral certainty have you gleaned from recent reads? What obstacles do you anticipate to writing from your passionate caring? Let's not be catty, but who does this badly?

"He Says ... or Does He?"

As Katy points out in Wednesday's post, Elizabeth George and Elmore Leonard -- and many other experts on the writing craft -- opine that "said" is the best choice when seeking a dialogue tag, for the very reason that it doesn't compete with or interfere with the flow of the dialogue. And I concur. Does that mean I -- or they -- believe a writer MUST ONLY use the word "said" in writing dialogue? Absolutely not. Nicole, in her comment to Katy's post, said, "You know, "said" is boring. Repeatedly "said" is annoying." I agree. The point is not to ply the page with one "said" after another. It's to find a way to make your dialogue sing, to stand out from the masses, by writing dialogue that needs minimal attribution, and by employing action tags that don't simply replace dialogue tags for the sake of replacing dialogue tags, but that add to the story and character development.

Another writing book I'm partial to is Shut Up! He Explained by William Noble. Is that the best title ever, or what? In Chapter 8, He Says ... or Does He? Noble writes that Harold Ross, unpredictable and somewhat zany editor of The New Yorker, developed editorial rules for manuscripts. Noble writes (forgive the lengthy passage):

One of the rules ... was that a passage of dialogue is best followed by "said." Anything else --"shouts" or "exclaims" or "retorts," for example -- is just wasted motion. No verb, in other words, should substitute for "said." It got me thinking ... "Stuff it in your ear!" he ... said? Wouldn't "retort" be better? ... I thought further ... A writer should be able to phrase dialogue so the impact of the words would be clear. "Go to [hades]!" he shouted -- could be redundancy. "Go to [hades]!" itself is a strongly worded statement, and why do we need "he shouted"? Of course, maybe we don't need any modifying phrase at all. "Go to [hades]!" could stand by itself. No "shout," no "said," no nothing. The reader's imagination could probably conjure a fitting modifier.

Today, even The New Yorker allows substitutions for "said." Yet the rule shouldn't be dismissed because [it] ... had considerable merit. A writer should be able to create dialogue that doesn't rely on the descriptive modifier; the words a character speaks should carry the emotion in which the words are spoken:

"You-you aren't my dead uncle's long-lost great-great grandson!"

"Oh Everett, I love these children so ..."

In the first sentence do we need modifiers like he gasped, or he blurted out ...? Wouldn't he said work as well? Perhaps we don't need to say anything -- maybe that would work even better.

In the second sentence, do we need she purred, she whispered --? We could insert she said, and it wouldn't detract from the impact of the dialogue. Then, too, perhaps nothing at all would be even better.

There are no precise rules on when to use "he said," when to use a substitute, and when to use nothing ... Generally, however, we can say this:

"he/she said" is the basic modifier, and it should be used at least three-quarters of the time any modifier is used."

That is my belief, and the principle by which I write dialogue. I believe those 1% of writers that Katy mentioned in her post -- that 1% that outshines the average writer -- are not the ones that find a variety of substitutes for the word "said," but rather they are the ones who write dialogue so expertly that attributes are not simply unnecessary, they get in the way. Consider this passage from Kathryn Stockett's The Help:

My phone ring, making me jump. Before I can even say hello, I hear Minny. She working late tonight.

"Miss Hilly sending Miss Walters to the old lady home. I got to find myself a new job. And you know when she going? Next week."

"Oh, no, Minny."

"I been looking, call ten ladies today. Not even a speck a interest."

I am sorry to say I ain't surprised. "I ask Miss Leefolt first thing tomorrow do she know anybody need help."

"Hang on," Minny say. I hear old Miss Walter talking and Minny say, "What you think I am? A chauffeur? I ain't driving you to no country club in the pouring rain."

Sides stealing, worse thing you'n do for your career as a maid is have a smart mouth. Still, she such a good cook, sometimes it makes up for it.

"Don't you worry, Minny. We gone find you somebody deaf as a doe-knob, just like Miss Walter."

"Miss Hilly been hinting around for me to come work for her."

"What?" I talk stern as I can: "Now you look a here, Minny. I support you myself fore I let you work for that evil lady."

"Who you think you talking to, Aibileen? A monkey? I might as well go work for the KKK. And you know I never take Yule May's job away."

"I'm sorry, Lordy me." I just get so nervous when it come to Miss Hilly. "I call Miss Caroline over on Honeysuckle, see if she know somebody. And I call Miss Ruth, she so nice it near bout break your heart. Used to clean up the house ever morning so I didn't have nothing to do but keep her company. Her husband died a the scarlet fever, mm-hmm."

"Thank you, A. Now come on, Miss Walters, eat up a little green bean for me." Minny say goodbye and hang up the phone.

There's only one dialogue tag in that passage, yet it's not at all difficult to follow who's speaking. And the information gained by what's woven throughout the dialogue goes so far beyond what any dialogue tag could accomplish. That alone is my point, why I beat the drum so regularly about the careful use of dialogue tags.

We all want to rise above the masses. We all want our work to stand apart. Rules will never accomplish that. But Katy is 100% correct when she says, "An author who learns the rules takes a great first step away from amateur status toward publication. An author who learns when it's better than okay to break those rules makes great galumphing strides in the direction of art."

A Dialogue about Dialogue - A Novel Matters Roundtable Discussion

We'd like to draw your attention to a new feature to the blog--"search this blog" function has been added to Novel Matters to help you locate archived articles on Novel Matters. Give it a try! And keep coming back to discover new ways to engage in the conversation about writing and the writing life.

This month, the Novel Matters Roundtable is a true roundtable discussion. What follows is a transcript of the six of us in discussion about the topic of dialogue in fiction. We got a bit silly a couple of times, but that is how it goes whenever the six of us get together. We laugh a great deal. We sincerely hope you enjoy this transcript. When we were done, Patti Hill remarked, “It makes me want to have a retreat with all of you.”

Bonnie: Rich discussion this month on Novel Matters—I’ve noticed that dialogue has cropped up a number of times in different posts. Strong dialogue. Believable, driving plot, revealing. A tall order. When you sit down to write (or edit) a scene with lots of dialogue, how do you know your characters are ringing true? There is what is being said, and then there is conveying the manner in which it is being said, and the manner in which other characters perceive it’s being said.
Uh... What was I saying?

Katy: For me it's like being an actress, and getting into character. If I crawl into my character’s skin, take on the past that she has lived and feel what she must be feeling in the moment, then I can open my mouth and the words will come out. The tricky part is to inhabit more than one character at the same time, so I can carry all sides of the conversation. Sometimes I have to type quickly.

Bonnie: In theater that is called method acting. Method writing! I’d love to see you in action, Katy! So, for each character, you write an extensive history? Or how does that work?

Katy: Ha! I shut the door when I write - it looks too crazy. After I’d done my first novel this way, I discovered that Brandilyn Collins had written an excellent book on method writing, titled "Getting Into Character." She suggests writing very extensive histories by interviewing your characters, asking them questions and accepting as normal reality the fact that they answer back. I don't do it quite that way. I start off with just highlights of their past, because I know they will tell me more as the story progresses - and would do so even if it contradicted what I had already scripted for them.

Patti: Uh, is this the roundtable discussion going on? Is this the official start? Still waking up!

Bonnie: It has officially started, yes. Jump in!

Sharon: I don't have to shut the door, because I'm mostly home alone when I write. Which makes talking to myself all the more crazy. But I definitely do work out loud on my dialogue, and rehearse it over and over till I get it right. Because it's hugely important to get it right. When I'm not alone, I do a lot of whispering to myself. The point is, my lips are moving a lot, but it's often not because I'm involved in dialogue with real people, or real people who might happen to be in the same room with me. My family doesn't even question it anymore.

Bonnie: Katy, Love this. Reminds me of Arthur Plotnik’s guest post about Stage Business. The line he wrote that has always stuck with me is: "I love you," he told her. She checked her cell phone. No messages. "Love you, too." Sharon, I read aloud too. Not just dialogue, but especially dialogue. There’s authenticity to test, as you point out. I also listen to the character’s dialogue to ensure it’s unexpected, surprising, and interesting. I want my characters to say what they are saying without saying it in a way a reader would expect it to be said.

Sharon: Exactly, Bonnie. Straightforward dialogue can be extremely boring. I've read a number of manuscripts as contest entries this spring -- and a few books up for awards -- and I find this problem in the dialogue of novice writers all the time. Sub-text is a vital element to good dialogue in fiction.

Patti: Funny how so many of us have method-writing in common. And I agree, you must close the door if other people are in the house. If I don’t, hubby calls up from downstairs, “Did you say something?” Uh, yeah. Uh, no. That little contradiction reminds me of what’s so important in dialogue and deepens characterization. In good dialogue, the characters have opposing goals. One wants to talk about a new treatment for cancer. The other has already decided to forgo treatment but isn’t ready to say so. One wants to learn more about their relationship. The other would rather talk about anything else, so she talks about the high price of tomatoes. One is pleading for help, the other is squirming, changing the subject, interrupting, leaving the room. I’m not talking about arguments, but all of our characters want something, sometimes they want the same thing. They just go after it differently, and this shows up in dialogue.
I love writing dialogue.

Latayne: Recently I went back and looked at what I consider an exemplar for dialogue, The Help. Since it is all first person with multiple POVs, technically it's all dialogue. Stockett does a great job, I think, of creating distinct characters all participating in the same scenario. However, large sections of the book are each character's recounting of "quotation marks" dialogue where each recalls conversations. That's a bigger challenge for a writer, I think, when the narrator is already showing biases and distinct voice, and then conveys conversations.

Debbie: Maybe because I'm a visual learner, I love good movies (and some funny ones that wouldn't win any awards). When I sit down to write a scene, I 'see' it like it would play out in a movie from a script in front of me. I'm usually an onlooker, not a character, though I have to get into their heads. I'm a voyeur? :)

Katy: A voyeur that gets into people's heads. Sounds like a great plot for a movie...

Bonnie: ‘Being John Malkcovich’ is a movie about that very thing. Adult content—but an interesting movie if you like indie films.

Katy: I was thinking about the X-files, and that creepy guy that slithered through people's heater vents. Are we off topic?

Bonnie: Mildly. Just a titch. LOVED that episode. Creepy! Remember the toilet scene?
Okay, we should backtrack to Latayne’s excellent observations of dialogue in THE HELP—which was so clever, I’m not sure that it didn’t just sail right over my head.
I read THE HELP last year. I’ll have to revisit it and then interrupt, I mean, interject my (assuredly) intelligent observations.

Latayne: No, I’m not being clever. (But I’d love to be clever) I’m thinking through some of my frustrations with trying not to insert too much of myself into my narrator. Or dialogue. Or narrator’s dialogue. I hate this indecision.

Katy: Patti and Latayne both bring up what I consider to be the best kind of dialogue, the kind that tells the reader more than the characters themselves know, by use of cues other than words. It's one of the best ways a writer "tells it slant" that I know of.

Bonnie: Dialogue that is made up of non-verbals. Okay, Katy, you’re going to have to ‘splain that one more!

Katy: Non-verbals are the best part of dialog. What people don't say. (He says "I love you." She spoons sugar into her coffee and stirs.) Or, as Patti showed, what they say that has little or nothing to do with what was just said to them. A man tells his wife, "I'm worried about that lump in your breast." The wife says, "Do you think the blazer would look better than the cardigan?" and we know she would rather think about her breasts as fashion problems than health problems. Or she avoids the issue altogether and says, "Do you think it's too early to plant marigolds?"

Latayne: Remember a while back when we had a post about ways to insert “extra beats” of silence into dialogue? Like the verbal equivalent of a rest in music? That’s a non-verbal. Well, it’s a verbal way of conveying silence, which is by definition non-verbal. Right?

Bonnie: Okay, what about someone reading your dialogue to you? Anyone tried this? This is more difficult because while still writing the writer is still in don’t-day-anything-negative-about-my-stuff-or-I-will-cry-and-you-will-sleep-on-the-couch-tonight mode. Uh. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.

Patti: I’ve recorded passages, including dialogue, to play back. Especially if I wait a day or two to listen, the words come to me raw and stilted and wooden, all things that can be fixed during revision. Am I being too negative? Did I already say that I love writing dialogue? I meant it! It flies onto the page. I don’t do any attributions in the rough draft. I do my voyeur best to take dictation. The key is to really know your characters and what they want and what they want to hide. We all want to hide something.

Katy: Today I have a very sore throat and it hurts to read aloud. So I'm using an old trick I often use when revising: I get a text-to-speech program to read what I've written back to me. I like TextAloud because it adds the function right into Microsoft Word. It's not the same as "performing" the dialogue myself, but I do catch things that I can fix.

Bonnie: And all the coolness of living in the future when all librarians will be robots. So that rocks.

Patti: So, like, having a painful sore throat isn’t even an excuse not to write? What’s left?

Debbie: Katy, I've heard that those programs are a great way to catch saggy spots in your dialogue, or your manuscript in general. When we read aloud, we tend to put inflection where we want it, but the reader won't necessarily do that. The dialogue has to be written so that the meaning comes across clearly without it, maybe using tags. I haven't tried one yet, but I'll try the one you suggested.

Katy: Good point, Patti. And good point, Debbie. I started using it because I like to hear what I'm writing. That may come from my days reading to my sons, when I steered them toward books that were fun to read aloud. To my mind, if it doesn't crackle when read aloud, it just doesn't crackle. Dialogue, especially, should crackle. No matter the age of the reader.

Patti: As a reader, I love dialogue too. All that white space and the immediacy of overhearing a conversation that is making things happen. Rarely does anything so satisfying happen when I’m eavesdropping in real life. Dialogue is like stepping out of a forest, especially like the one in The Princess Bride and coming to an open meadow with lots of sunshine. It’s a place to sigh.

Sharon: I agree, Patti --- and love the analogy of the forest in Princess Bride, which is one of my very favorite movies. I can overlook other shortfalls in a novel if the dialogue is right. It must be snappy, straightforward only when it must be, and it must do so much more than deliver facts. Good dialogue is a must if a book is to have lasting value.

Bonnie: Princess Bride has the best, most quotable dialogue (so does the book).
Patti, you used the phrase “white space”. When I read that, I thought maybe dialogue serves the reader as a kind of “relief” from the density of the novel. Except when I say that it doesn’t sound right.... Maybe it’s like when you’re writing a lengthy part in the novel (and no dialogue), you ensure you use different sentence lengths, and even interject questions instead of straight declarations. Dialogue serves to enliven the readers experience.

Am I close?

Patti: All of that, Bonnie. The white space around the dialogue does give the reader a break from the slower pace of narrative, but that doesn’t give us license to have plodding narrative. Yes, read everything you write out loud. Vary sentence structure and length. It’s always a good idea to shake it up, or your writing will sound like a Dick and Jane reader. Nooooo!
~
And what about you, faithful reader? What have you learned about writing good dialogue? Do you act out in front of your computer? Do you remember that episode of the X-files? We look forward to continuing the discussion with you!

Wading and Plunking

There's almost nothing I'd rather do than fish. No kidding. I love it. For me there's nothing like being out on a lake in a little fishing boat with my husband. I never go without him, because, you see, we have this agreement. He doesn't iron his own shirts, and I don't bait my own hook. It's a wonderful agreement. Except that I've done a lot more ironing than he's done baiting in the past couple of years. But he told me just the other day he's going to Montana in June for business, and that he's taking me with him so that after the business we can spend a couple of days fishing. There's almost nothing I'd rather do than fish in Montana. I can hardly wait.

So Bonnie's post on Monday about "hook" vs. "invite" made me chuckle, especially when I went to the TBR shelf of my bookcase and found that Hooked by Les Edgerton was the very next writer's book I planned to read. It was right there beside Truby's book, The Anatomy of Story, which I stuffed back on the shelf after wading my way through the first two chapters a few months ago, underlining everything in sight, while simultaneously scratching my head. Like Katy, I do plan to read it. Really. I do. And soon.

But back to Hooked. It's a nice little easy-to-read, easy-to-follow book on beginnings, and nothing but. Edgerton writes, "...a story is a movement from stability to instability to a new stability." I like that. It makes sense to me, like simple math. And then he says, "What is different about today's story structure is that the first part of the equation--stability--has been shortened considerably and, in many cases, completely omitted ... Many times that period of stability is only implied." Well, he's the expert, but personally, I'd rather wade into a story than be plunked into it, as though I'd been pushed off the dock way out there in the deep end of the lake. There are genres where implied stability is perfectly suited, but the type of fiction I write and mostly love to read has more of a wade-in feel than a plunked-in feel.

~

Here are some of my favorite examples of wading in:

~

"Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that's what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning." The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

~

"Outside the airplane window the clouds are thick and rippled, unbroken as acres of land. They are suffused with peach-colored, early morning sun, gilded at the edges. Across the aisle, a man is taking a picture of them. Even the pilot couldn't keep still---'Folks,' he just said, 'we've got quite a sunrise out there. Might want to have a look.' I like it when pilots make such comments. It lets me know they're awake." What We Keep, Elizabeth Berg.

~

"Lying on her daughter's bed, Dottie Puckett heard sounds as if they were magnified a hundred times that day. She heard the usual things you'd expect to hear--an airplane, distant traffic, the air conditioning turning on and off. And she heard other things, too--a high-pitched motorized whine from somewhere nearby, the chatter of a squirrel outside the window, a tree branch brushing against the gutter, the coursing sound of water through a pipe, her own breathing. Sounds told you a lot. Today they told her that people and things were going about their normal business in spite of what had happened here at this house only three weeks ago. Though everybody thought she was mild-mannered and good-natured, Dottie knew that what she felt right now was closer to anger than anything else. Not that she was angry at the planes and cars and water pipes, for goodness' sake, but why is it, she thought, that I have to go on breathing in and out when Bonita is lying in a box a mile down the road?" By the Light of a Thousand Stars, Jamie Langston Turner.

~

"Likely it was only two dreams crisscrossing paths, one snagging on the other in passing, but somehow the face that walked by me this morning, not four feet away, got tangled up with one from my past. The way-back and way-faraway, all quiet and almost forgotten, got yanked up and placed alongside today, where two minutes before I'd have told you I was: in Boston. At the Public Garden. Not a stone's throw from Beacon Hill, where I live and work, and pay as much for my own private parking space as folks back home do for a decent slab ranch and enough acres for the dogs to tree themselves something other than city-soft squirrel ... And I swear time backstitched on itself, and at that very moment, I was barefoot--not with black pumps stowed under a park bench, but the right kind of barefoot. The kind of barefoot that went with the truck bed of a pickup. I was back with the wind standing my ponytail straight up over my head, the Blue Hole just around the next curve. And I was tracing my cheek where a kiss had just landed." Blue Hole Back Home, Joy Jordan Lake.

~

Contrast these with James Scott Bell's thrilling suspense novel, Try Dying: "On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alejandra, in the backyard of their West Forty-fifth Street home in South Los Angeles. As Alejandra lay bleeding to death, Ernesto proceeded to drive their Ford Explorer to the westbound Century Freeway connector ... Bonilla stepped around the back of the SUV ... placed the barrel of his .38 caliber pistol into his mouth, and fired." Plunked. Most definitely. With the former stability not even implied. And exactly how a fast-paced suspense novel should begin.

~

But back to fishing. I love to drop my line in the water and begin to entice; to wait as the bait lands, then sinks to just the right depth; to tug ever-so-slightly two or three times while the worm works its magic; to let it sink a bit more, then tug again. And then ... to feel the hit, to sink the hook, and reel in. I love it. Here is the writing equivalent to my fishing method from the opening to my WIP. "Grief, it is said, is a sea that ebbs and flows. Comes in waves that roll over the shore, then recede in a dizzying, lose-your-footing-in-the-sand sensation, leaving you unsettled but standing. Well. Whoever said that never felt the tsunami effect, the drowning, sucking, tidal wave of grief. I know, because I haven't come up for air in five days short of a year. A suffocating, black hole of a year, each day collapsing in on itself like sand too long unwatered. Eighty six hundred, forty hours; five hundred eighteen thousand, four hundred minutes; thirty one million, one hundred four thousand seconds of a smothering nightmare I can't wake up from. A long slow terror, like free-falling in the dark with no cord to pull. I don't plan to be here for the anniversary five days from now."

~

I understand completely where Bonnie's coming from when she says, "But 'hook?' If I recall, it ends badly for the fish. I prefer 'invite.' Semantics, right?" Right. She'll be happy to know that, often, for the fish I catch it's not an unhappy ending, because I typically catch and release. Especially in Montana. And that's what I like to do with my readers. Catch and release--but hopefully not to swim completely away. I want them to stay in the pond with me, so the next time I cast in, I might draw them back.

~

And speaking of lines, I laughed and laughed over Dina Sleiman's comment on Katy's post Wednesday. "I got my nose pierced last year, and it's so freeing because no one expects me to be normal anymore." I love it. It would make a great opening line for a novel. And, Dina, for that line I'd like to send you one of my novels. Just email me with your address and tell me which one you'd prefer.
~

Everyone else, leave a comment telling me what you think the "anniversary" of my novel deals with and your name will go into a drawing for a copy of Lying on Sunday or Every Good & Perfect Gift, winner's choice. Be specific with your guess. And creative.

The Yawp and Ugh of Substantive Editing

Teeth and Bones Editing Contest:
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)You many enter as many times as you like over the two weeks. Each comment counts as an entry (but don't forget to type TABEC at the bottom of each comment).
Winner: One winner will be announced on Friday, September 17th at 5:00 PM pacific time.The prize: A teeth and bones edit of your first chapter and synopsis by Bonnie Grove. The edit will be on the substantive level (the overall concepts, characters, and themes, etc. of the novel). It will be Bonnie's teeth on the bones of your manuscript.
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. 


Awhile back, Kathleen Popa reminded us of the glory of Yawp – Walt Witman’s name for the primal seat of deep human truth present in every person. Her post nudged us to remember that exposing the primal yawp; this deeply experiential humanity is fiction’s goal. Yet, as we chip out our stories and arrange them on the page, we often meet not a yawp, but an ugh of failure. The brilliant images that will not flow from mind to fingers without transforming into cliché somewhere near the wrist. The aching metaphor that tangos in the imagination but flaps like a fish on dry dock when it meets the page.  Yet we press on. We must keep writing the story – it’s fire in our bones. As Ray Bradbury tells us, we throw up in the morning, and clean up at noon.

And when noon arrives, we meet with another type of primal noise making; the editing variety. Somewhere on the pages, in the midst of our vomited yawps and ughs, there is a glorious, original, shining story. If only we can find it. Cue the editor.

Authors need editors because authors most often jump to the second level of editing, the line edit without first working on the comprehensive level. The level of editing that, as The Editorial Department tells us, focuses on: matters of story and content, including plot, pacing, story structure, characterization, dialogue, and anything specific to the target genre or age group. (Yikes!)
Author line edits are helpful to the process, but without comprehensive editing (also called substantive) line editing can be an act of polishing poop to a high sheen. Sure, it isn’t always a poop polishing exercise, but because authors lose perspective with their own work – are you willing to take the chance? Nicci Jordan Hubert is an extraordinary editor I’ve had the joy to work with. On her blog, she explains the three categories of projects she works on.            

As an editor, I typically encounter three categories of projects. One: The overhaul. In this scenario, a book is well-intentioned, but in need of serious renovations. When I am hired for a project like this, it’s [time] to pick up a hammer and nails and help build the house. Sometimes I even have to do some demolishing [. . .]

Two: The Make it Work. In this case--the least desirable of the three--my job is to simply make sure the book isn’t horrible, but also, to not cause too much work on the part of the author. In other words: the author is typically either famous enough that s/he doesn’t want to put in the work, or the project isn’t considered worth fussing over.  

But then, there’s the glorious third category: The Fine Tune.  In this scenario, the book, in its original form, is already very good. My job is simply to be a confidant, a sounding board, and a brainstorm partner for the author. I get to help the author find ways to make a great book EXCELLENT.  

If you visit the link to Nicci’s site, you’ll notice that she aligns my work with the third category – the fine tune. So, ask me if I got slammed in editing. Go ahead, ask. The answer is: Big time. By the time Nicci finished putting me and my novel Talking to the Dead through our paces, I’d re-written my fingers to the nub. Ugh. But without those edits, without Nicci coming in and saying, “Bonnie, these scenes sound like preaching.” And, “Bon, the ending is flat.” And "B - what's up with this character who isn't doing anything important?" I would have never tapped my Yawp. I needed my editor to help me dig in deeper and truly sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.
Large level editing doesn’t necessarily equate to bad writing. It may be painful to hear that your novel needs a new ending, or that sixteen scenes need a complete rewrite because you have to drop a character and combine his workload with an existing character’s which means you have to go track that character’s entire arch. But. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a writer. It doesn’t mean your story can’t achieve its potential.

Uber publisher and hands on editor Amy Einhorn tells the remarkable story of how she acquired her imprint's second big hit book after The Help.   

Originally I rejected it. It had a different title, the main character didn’t appear until page 150. I knew by page 90 that I was going to reject it because the storyline was a mess, but I loved the writing so I read the entire thing. Editors never read entire manuscripts if we know we’re going to reject them – we simply don’t have the time. 

So then I wrote a rather lengthy rejection letter saying she’s a wonderful writer but the story’s a mess and I thought that was it. On to the next thing. But I couldn’t get the story – mess and all – out of my head. So a month later I called the agent, who hadn’t sold it (again, messy story), talked to the author on the phone to make sure she’d be on board with my editorial changes, and bought it – and then sent her a 17 page editorial letter. We ended up doing four major revises on the book – it’s completely different than when I first bought it. And I’m so glad I persevered. It’s a wonderful, wonderful novel.

Any author who has received an editorial letter from an editor knows that 17 pages of notes are enough to induce a three-week Valium jag. It is ugh to the nth degree. 17 pages is a crazy amount of work. It’s starting back at the starting line. It’s feeling like a complete failure. But together, the editor who believed in the author’s Yawp, and the author who trusted the editor’s skill, produced a novel that has not only sold very well, but has become a favorite of many women around the country. Anyone know the title?

The contest we are running on Novel Matters isn’t a true substantive edit because I won’t be reading your entire manuscript. But the things I’ll be suggesting to the author will be on the deep cutting substantive level. The winner will feel teeth on bone – and will be challenged to either cry out an ugh, or allow the rise of the powerful Yawp to transform the story into the unique, meaningful novel it was always meant to be. 


Tell us about your editing experiences - what works for you? What doesn't? How have you dealt with large scale changes? Or, if you haven't done this step yet, how do you think you will approach them when the time comes? Remember, you can enter the Teeth and Bones Editing Contest as many times as you like - but be sure you use the abbreviation TABEC on each comment so I can keep track!

Word of Mouth - Guest Post by Ariel Allison Lawhon of SheReads

Please welcome Ariel Allison Lawhon from our sister blog SheReads. She's talking Word of Mouth as a marketing phenomenon. It's a wonderful post, and it kicks off a week of talking about the other side of marketing - not the author breaking her back to promote (and that happens), rather organic marketing that springs up spontaneously. Welcome to Marketing Week!

Word of mouth sells fiction. We know that. It’s

drummed into us at marketing workshops and writer’s conferences. Some statistics go so far as to say that 80% of novels are sold on word of mouth alone. Yet no one seems to really know what that means or how to utilize it.

Does a well-orchestrated blog tour equal word of mouth?

A marketing campaign?

Can it be organized, duplicated, or harnessed?

May I suggest that true word of mouth is far more elusive and organic? It is spontaneous. And it leaps from the chest of a reader when they close the book and realize they were moved, as novelist and Rhodes Scholar Christopher Morley so aptly puts it:

“There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love, and like that colossal adventure it is an experience of great social import. Even

as the tranced swain, the book-lover yearns to tell others of his bliss. He writes letters about it, adds it to the postscript of all manner of communications, intrudes it into telephone messages, and insists on his friends writing down the title of the find. Like the simple-hearted betrothed, once certain of his conquest, “I want you to love her, too!”

Word of mouth, I believe, originates with one foot in the author’s world and one in the reader’s. They are equal participants in the phenomenon (which should come as good news to all us writers slaving away in the spare bedroom with stale coffee and a second-hand PC). For instance, the most talked about novel in the last two years is undoubtedly Kathryn Stockett’s, The Help. While most people know of her instant success, few are aware that before landing an agent, much less a publisher, she worked with an independent editor for over a decade. Kathryn Stockett did her part, enduring the “grueling” process that spanned five years and “I-don’t-know-how-many-drafts” until The Help was perfected. That degree of dedication to the craft and to the characters bleeds onto the pages of her novel. And it got people talking.

I borrowed The Help from my sister while snowed-in over Christmas and read it in two days. The moment roads were clear, I went to the bookstore and bought a copy for myself. Since then, I have recommended it countless times, all the while displaying that besotted expression Mr. Morley describes above. (Can we have a moment of silence for that chocolate pie? Best revenge ever.) And I am only one of countless readers that responded with such enthusiasm. In a recent interview, Amy Einhorn, publisher of The Help, had this to say about the role readers have played in the novel’s success:

“It’s been incredible how well the book is doing, thanks in big part to the hand-selling of booksellers, and the word-of-mouth recommendations from readers. It’s nice to see that at the end of the day, with all the marketing bells and whistles that we all try, this is what it all comes back to.”

The argument can certainly be made that advertising, promotion, and marketing thrust a book into the public eye, creating a bigger mouth, of sorts. However, the only thing that can explain the long-term success of certain novels are the love-struck readers who buy copies for friends and talk about it every chance they get. And while we as authors can not control marketing budgets, reviews, or publicity, we can control the quality of our work.

Honestly, it makes me a little uncomfortable to think about how long Kathryn Stockett spent writing her debut novel. I have to wonder if I’m willing to, as Anne Lamott says, “Commit to my characters and capturing each one’s voice and truth, instead of committing to a finished novel.” Will I invest five years in a story that may never see publication? That sort of dedication is difficult to muster in today’s publishing climate. Yet when I ponder the books on my shelf – the ones that truly moved me – and I learn the stories of angst-filled writers crafting them over long periods of time, I realize that I love those books because the authors did as well. Loved them enough to slave over them.

And that leaves me with two questions.

As a reader what novels got your mouth moving? Why?

And:

As a writer, are you willing to spend years – and possibly invest in outside editorial help – to

create a novel that will inspire similar devotion in your future readers?

Take Your Character to Lunch Day

I'm going to share some quotes with you, short snippets from two of my favorite novels. When you have read them, you will want to know the characters who said these words. You will want to read their stories:

"Truth. It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life. Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling."
— Kathryn Stockett in The Help

"...and at the table next to her was a little boy in a soccer uniform sitting with his mother who told him, The plural of elf is elves. A wave of happiness came over me. It felt giddy to be part of it all. To be drinking a cup of coffee like a normal person. I wanted to shout out: The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world!"
— Nicole Krauss in The History of Love

See what I mean? Don't you want to know what might have happened to somebody to make her so passionate about truth that she feels it on her skin? Or why another person might jubilate over such an ordinary moment of time? In a few words whole characters have materialized in all their mystery and complexity. Wonderful, isn't it?

I read passages like these and determine to create story people just as rich. And then I look at the character creation sheets they pass out at workshops:

Place of Birth:
Height:
Favorite Color:

Questionnaires like these might help me track certain details so I don't turn the blue Toyota that drives through Chapter 6 into a green Honda by the time it arrives in Chapter 14. But by themselves they do little to help in character formation, not if what I'm after is the texture of a human soul.

For that, I might want to take my character to lunch. Sure, I'll ask her place of birth and favorite color, just to break the ice. But eventually I'll want to know about her childhood, and I won't let her get away with a simple answer. You know characters, don't you? She might answer, just peachy, when I suspect it wasn't, not living in the town she lived in, with a brother who ate salamanders on the back porch... So I study her body, searching for clues. I lift the cuff of her gabardine jacket to reveal a tiny tattoo on her wrist, a salamander swimming inside a teardrop. "Tell me about this," I say, and then wait out her silence while she looks away and studies her fingernails, till at last she tells me about the summer day when she was ten.

Once the ice is broken, any character will spill her guts if you listen. She wants the story to get out; otherwise she never would have brought it to you in the first place.

Let it go deep enough, and this gut-spilling will give you a story-tellers dream come true: characters with histories and scars, attitudes and points of view, and the little spark of something that makes us stand in wonder at their uniqueness, their transcendence.

And all of these things will lend a priceless quality to your novel: subtext. It's the way your characters say the things they say, the things they never say or always say, that tells us that there is more to this story, an untold past that the reader may never know but only guess at.

One of the best books I have ever read on the creation of story-people is Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins. Here's a bit of what she has to say:

"Understanding the use of subtexting in dialogue is particularly difficult for inexperienced writers. Often a new novelist's tendency is to use WYSIWYG conversation because he has not yet grasped how to convey meaning without actually saying it. Since novels call for at least some dialogue in the majority of scenes, a lack of subtexting presents a major problem for a story. When a novelist learns how to employ subtexting effectively, dialogue that had once been lifeless and on-the-surface is transformed into vibrant interchanges between characters, pulling the reader into the story."

I'll bet you've found some vibrant characters in your own reading. Why not share snippets from their stories that made them leap from the page?

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