Perfectly Ordinary Characters

I once attended a seminar taught by a Hollywood screenwriter who said that her company was looking for Christian stories, but that, unfortunately, Christian writers usually wrote small stories about small characters. The conflict was generally internal and the story slow on action. Hollywood was looking for big stories with big characters. Small characters and small stories generally do not sell movie tickets or TV pilots.

I was reminded of this while revisiting one of my favorite how-to books, Stein on Writing by Sol Stein. He makes a very sobering statement: "I have seen talented writers hurt their chances of publication because they persist in writing about "perfectly ordinary people"...characters who are seemingly no different from the run of people we meet who do not seem in any way distinctive." He goes on to say that readers do not want to meet or read about the same boring people they know in real life. But what does it take to make characters extraordinary? Since as Christians we strive to insinuate God's truth into our world, shouldn't our characters be as real as we can possibly make them? And the real people that I know are pretty...normal. Maybe predictable. Even boring. (Did I say that out loud?) But come to think of it, while I love them, I wouldn't necessarily want to read about them.

How many times have you tossed aside a book after reading the first chapter or paragraph, because of an uninteresting hero/heroine? You saw a predictable character with no spark of anything that would make you want to follow them around for awhile. To remedy this in our own writing, Mr. Stein points out that, for the most effective characters, "their eccentricities dominate the reader's first vision of them." A great example would be the opening scene of Leif Enger's Peace Like a River when his father performs a miracle at his birth, commanding him to breathe. It is one miracle among many, we find. The dysfunctional family in Anne Tyler's book, The Accidental Tourist, refuse to answer their house phone because it could be bad news. At this point, I would like to point out that Anne Tyler's stories are about everyday people with lots of internal conflict, but they all have wonderful defining traits and quirks that make them memorable. The dog trainer in this story is another superb example.

So, the challenge is to give our characters some defining, eccentric characteristics that reveal something significant about them and also set them apart without presenting them as clownish or over-the-top. This requires that we know them so well that it seems only natural that this bit of information would manifest itself in that way and not seem contrived.

What characters do you remember due to some eccentric quality? What authors are especially good at accomplishing this? Do you have a character in your manuscript that displays an eccentric quality? We'd love to hear!

Subtext in Fiction

I hear it too - the swirling discussion that patters like rain on a roof - rain that never stops, though it may diminish to mist for a time, but will, invariably, begin to pour again. It starts in the book store or the coffee shop, or the writer's conference, or inside the pages of a book, and one person leans in to the ear of another and says, "Christian fiction?" And the answer comes, "What is wrong with Christian fiction?"

The question is so used now it's thread bare - but we use it still, because, most likely, no one has come up with a more useful answer. Recently I listened in on a roundtable discussion involving representatives from Christian retail stores. The host asked something like, "Is Christian fiction growing up?" The unanimous response was, "Yes!" (oh joy!) followed by a singular punctuating voice that said, "Finally!" (oh dear!)

It made me wonder, "How do they know? By what standard are they measuring this perceived maturation?" I've asked around, and while there is general agreement that the quality of Christian fiction is on the rise, no one could put their finger on any one measurement. And when I stumbled on a possible answer for both the question and the reason no one can point to it, I had to smile.

I smiled because the answer is one of the most difficult things in fiction writing to talk about - subtext.

Subtext is more easily recognized by its absence - oh blah, the story is flat and cliched - than it is by its presence -the words lingered long after I put the book down.

What lingered? The tight writing? The apt similes? The arching metaphor? No, the subtext. Charles Baxter says subtext is ". . . the realm of what haunts the imagination: the implied, the half-visible, and the unspoken." He also uses the phrase, "unspoken soul-matter".

Subtext is created by crafting together elements of story which point to deeper meanings than what is being played out on the page. Elements such as staging, dialogue, description, inflection, irony - yes the very things we use to create plot, we also use to create subtext. And it is wholly intended. It is crafted, meant to be there, lingering below the surface, unexpressed but as solidly present as the characters themselves. They are the invisible threads that hold the story together, make it compelling, and give it meaning.

In Gilead, Marilynne Robinson creates John Ames, a Reverend, elderly and ill who writes to his too young son about his life in hopes of imparting something of himself to the boy who will grow up without his father. Listen to all that is not said here:

"And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve."

The unexpressed yearning in this short passage caused me to lower the book to my lap and stare out the window, thinking for a long time. It made me want to call my children in from the backyard and hold them.

There is a small but growing number of Christian fiction writers who have allowed their theology to move from obvious and stated, to the realm of subtext where - though whispered, and even unspoken, it speaks to the the soul of the reader with great efficacy.

It is difficult to discuss sub-text, but that shouldn't stop us trying. Can you point to a book that has lingered with you - spoken to you in whispers? Can you point to a scene in a book that spoke of something with such clarity without actually speaking of it?

Writers, how have you begun to use subtext in your writing?

And the Finalists are . . .

We are delighted to announce the 6 finalists in our exclusive Audience-with-an-Agent contest. We were pleased with the participation of both American and Canadian authors, representing a variety of genres, and loved poring through the chapters and synopses -- to play the role of agent and editor for a brief time. It was difficult to choose the 6 finalists, and we took our responsibility very seriously. We thank you all for your entries and wish you the best in your writing endeavors.

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We also thank agent extraordinaire Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Agency, who will read the finalists' submissions. This is an incredible opportunity for unpublished authors, and we thank Wendy and Janet Grant for their participation in this contest. Janet will read the finalists' entries in our next Audience-with-an-Agent contest set for the spring of 2010. So get your manuscripts ready and watch our NovelMatters blog for contest information.

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And now, the finalists are (in alphabetical order) ...

Broken Arches, Jean Knight Pace

Disenchanted, Janet Ursel

Kindred, Lori Benton

The Remarkable Love of Tony Campello, Connie Brzowski

The Watchman, V.B. Tenery

When Valleys Bloom Again, P.J. Davis

We offer our heartiest congratulations to each of our finalists!

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And now a word from Wendy ~

I have the distinct honor to be guest blogger on Novel Matters today in celebration of the closing of the Novel Matters Audience-with-an-Agent competition. Soon I will be receiving the final entries.

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Let me say a few words about contests first. There are many who refuse to compete -- whether it is in a baseball game, a beauty pageant or a writing competition. They'd argue that competition is fundamentally damaging. Yeah, well ... good luck with that. We live in a world with competition for almost any valuable spot. If you want to become an actor, an athlete, a musician or even an astronaut you're going to be up against stiff competition. The same with that job you're hoping to land. If life were simpler maybe competition wouldn't be necessary, but the reality is that if you are seeking to be published, the competition is intense.

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By sending your work to a writing contest you're saying, "I'm ready for the competition. Put my work up against my fellow writers' work and let's see how it fares." Bravo! That's the kind of attitude it takes to compete in this industry. And guess what? It's exactly what happens when your published book comes out. It goes to the bookstore shelf with all other books that made the cut and begins to compete for those few book dollars in the reader's wallet.

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It goes without saying that judging a writer's work is subjective. It's not like grading an algebra test. One story may take a grand prize from one judge and not even make the cut with another. The same thing happens with reviewers after you are published. That's why, when you are starting out, you want to get your work in front of as many eyes as possible.

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For those of you who entered and did not final: You are still winners. The bloggers of Novel Matters are some of the finest writers in our industry. They are influential and well connected. They've read your work and they'll be watching you. It's part of getting your name and your work out there. When you are published you'll find that they will be amazing cheerleaders for you. The competition was tough, but you offered your work for critical review. Huzzah!

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For those of you who made the final cut: Congratulations. I look forward to reading your work. I'm going to treat myself to a venti Starbucks and set an afternoon aside to read your entries. I hope I'll be able to give you some valuable (albeit subjective) comments.

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And if among the entries I see something I just can't put down -- something that seems commercially viable, told with a compelling voice -- I'm going to ask for more. Representation is based on far more than just a winning entry, of course. For me it's about a combination of the book and the writer. We represent writers for a whole career so it's akin to falling in love for a lifetime. I love what Henry Blackaby recommended in Experiencing God -- you look for where God's already at work and you come alongside. That's my philosophy for signing a new client. If I see God already at work in your writing and in your life, I want to be on your team.

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So congratulations to everyone who entered. I'm honored to be part of the process. May God continue to bless the work of your hands.

Staying Healthy in a Writer's World

This is my last post before the ACFW Conference in Denver. Are you going? I'll be there and I'd love to meet you. Please say hello.

And, we are two days (yes, just two giddy days!) away from announcing the winners of our first Audience with an Agent Contest!

Katy opened a great conversation on Monday. Writers tend to be passionate, wanting to squeeze the last minute out of their writing days. Not surprisingly, we get lost in our fiction worlds, and leaving is like saying goodnight after a lovely date. We want to linger with our characters. They're bolder than us and get out of the house more.

It's true and you know it.

Our bodies pay the price. Sitting bones weren't meant to be parked in front of a computer all day. Hands weren't meant to endlessly tap on a keyboard. And a neurologist with a New York Times best-seller says multitasking is tough on creativity.

Personally, I've had my struggles with headaches and backaches. You name it; I've tried it. I'm still tweaking things, but here are the things that have helped the most. I hope you'll share what you've learned too.

1. I walk 2-3 times a day for 10 minutes. My physical therapist claims this keeps good blood and oxygen flow around my spine. My dog, however, suggests 4-5 walks a day. You'll have to set your own goals.

2. I stretch the medial nerves that run through my wrists. I had carpal tunnel release surgery seven years ago and still wear my splints for extended times at the computer. (They do not come in fashion colors!) For exercises, Google stretching exercises to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

3. I keep bite-sized veggies in the fridge. My personal preference is baby carrots. I'm hoping to turn orange before the end of my current WIP.

4. I take breaks to get off my bum that don't disrupt creativity. Katy had it right. Cooking works but so does meditation, prayer, and gardening. Red alert! Dusting is the death of creativity. So is the television. I learned this the hard way.

5. Since my husband developed heart disease, we're more mindful of eating a balanced diet. This used to mean eating something caramel for every chocolate delight I slipped past my gullet. And that was after I took a college-level nutrition class. Now, I choose my nutritional resources carefully and pay attention to my protein intake as much as my fiber or dairy. I feel better and more alert. To prove it, my eyes are open past 5 pm.

6. My husband works weekends 10 months out of the year, so we take two weekdays off. For some reason, it is harder for us to relax on a Tuesday or Wednesday than it is on a Saturday or Sunday. After many years of marriage, we've finally figured it out. Each week we choose Tuesday or Wednesday to be our sabbath. We're not legalistic about it, but it has helped us to say, "This is a special day. Let's give our hearts to God and kick up our feet." Try it. It's okay. You won't spontaneously combust--at least, we haven't yet!

7. The Bible is the mind of God in book form. I try to explore Him daily.

How do you keep healthy? Have you found a magic pill? Why is staying healthy so difficult? Is there a perfect chair? keyboard? desk? monitor? Is heaven our only hope?

You Mean I Have to Cook Dinner Too?

We at Novel Matters are wildly proud that two of our bloggers, Patti and Debbie, have new novels making their debut this month. The only dilemma is, which do we offer first as a prize to one of our readers? Turns out, this month the prize will be Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas. (Next month's prize will be Seeing Things by Patti Hill.) All you have to do to be eligible to win is leave a comment on one of our posts during the month.

Is there a writer on earth who hasn't, in one way or other, compared the production of a book to childbirth? Can we not see how cliche it's become to refer to a novel as "my baby," or to say we are sending our children out into the world when we really mean we are submitting our manuscripts for publication?

Maybe we see it, but the cliche persists for the reason all cliches persist: it's true, so very, very true.

For instance, one way writing a novel is like having children is that it is all-absorbing. You go to sleep thinking about your characters and wake up the same way. Day after day they disrupt your life, demand attention, wear your patience, and yet you love them, and the proof is that daily you submit yourself to their abuse.

The other way writing a novel is like having a baby is that you gain weight - at least if you're not careful.

My first time, I was not careful. For six months, we ate Hot Pockets for dinner. That's only a slight exaggeration. Sometimes my husband brought home hamburgers.

I am not a person who ought to gain weight on purpose, so when I began to write a second novel - on purpose - I figured I needed a better plan.

It turned out to be chicken breasts. Where I live, you can buy skinless, boneless chicken breasts in what they call "Family Packs." Someone at the store has assumed we all have enormous families, because there are about seven or eight big-enough-for-two chunks o' meat in there.

So the idea was, at the beginning of the week, to put all of those breasts into a Pyrex baking dish, dump a can of broth or onion soup on top, and bake. Then, throughout the week, we would have:

• Chicken tacos
• Chicken and veggie stir-fry
• Chicken wraps
• Chicken and bean soup
• Chicken Caesar salad
• Chicken over pasta
• Chicken surprise (Bet you've already guessed what the surprise is.)

It was worlds better than Hot Pockets, which I'd learned to dislike. And I didn't gain weight.

However, a couple of recent events have me rethinking my plan once again:

1) I watched Julie & Julia, a wonderful film. Now I have Meryl Streep on my desktop wallpaper, I've got the soundtrack playing on iTunes, and I have a new desire to cook sensually and joyfully. But not lobster - this girl doesn't drop living creatures into boiling water, though she's happy enough to eat the results when someone else does. And not boef bourguignon - I do want to get my writing done as well.

2) In simultaneously cooking dinner for friends and finding a use for a gigantic zucchini I'd been given, I rediscovered the recipe for ratatouille. I'd forgotten how much I loved chopping fresh vegetables and herbs, simmering a big pot on the stove, tasting, adjusting seasonings, and tasting again. And to think that it was all vegetables! A person like me needs a lot of recipes for fabulous vegetables.

So I thought I'd put the question to you. No, I'm not asking for recipes (though I'd be loath to refuse them), but for your thoughts and best ideas for surviving well this life of writing stories. What difficulties have you faced and conquered - or not conquered? How do you keep your house decent, your family loved, your boss happy? Or maybe just: how do you keep your health?

Please, do tell.

What We Wish We Lost

After a stimulating week of discussion about what you’d like to keep, I want to turn our attention to those things we’ve written and published that we wish would go away forever.

When I was in my 20’s I wrote an article for a Christian women’s magazine. It was entitled “How to Squeeze More Time Out of Every Day.” It detailed how I had two children, helped run a political campaign, had several church ministry jobs, wrote books, baked my own bread, cooked everything from scratch…

What was one of my brilliant solutions to lack of time? It was to wean yourself back from sleep until you were only sleeping five hours a night. I did it, why couldn’t everyone else?

I look now at the photo of myself and think, how did somebody so young get so stupid so fast. I hate whoever wrote that smart-alecky article and think now that most normal women who read the article should have hated me too.

Oh, I wish that article was never written. Thank goodness it’s not on the Internet. That’s one big reason I love the Lord so much – He can wipe away all our sins and remember them no more.

What have you written that you regret?

Ever lost it?

Congratulations to Patti and Debbie on the release of their latest novels, Seeing Things and Raising Rain, which were released yesterday. Woo hoo, girls!

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We're so thankful that Debbie's home is safe from the fires burning in northern California, but our hearts go out to those who have suffered such devastating loss throughout the state.

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Debbie's post on Monday got me thinking about all that can be lost in disasters of any kind, but especially fire. Years ago, a fire claimed a U-Haul trailer-load of my family's possessions, which included my high school yearbooks, photos of the Beatles concert I attended at the Hollywood Bowl, and many of the drawings I'd done throughout my high school years. I can't imagine losing everything, as many are experiencing once again here in California due to the fires burning up and down the state.

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What about our work as authors? Ever "lost" part or all of a manuscript due to computer glitches, not saving correctly, or consumption by the demon that possesses your computer? I have. That moment you realize a day's work, or worse, has been irretrievably launched into cyberspace feels like stepping "off a cliff where the falling seem(s) never to stop" (to quote Elizabeth Berg) -- a huge sinking sensation at best.

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The story is told that Hemingway was traveling with his wife Hadley -- love the name! -- from Paris to Bavaria for vacation. Too late they discovered a valise holding a substantial portion of his unpublished writing was left on the train. It was never recovered. Apparently among the material lost was the manuscript for The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first major novel. He went on to rewrite it, even stronger than before, it's said. But talk about a sense of falling off a cliff! Okay, first of all that valise would have been handcuffed to my wrist, and secondly, it would have been handcuffed to my other wrist.

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I love the inspiration that comes as I write. Which is why I hate editing. It's like I'm suddenly straight-jacketed, with much of my creativity stifled. And I've never been able to recreate lost material. Hemingway may have done a bang up job, but not me. I try, but the magic is gone. Because of that, I'm that much more careful not to lose it in the first place! I have a flash drive that I save my work to (those days I actually remember to do it), but I never take it with me when I leave the house. My "back up" would be destroyed right along with my computer files should the unthinkable ever happen. But since meeting several years ago Katy and I have critiqued each other's work, sending chapters via email as they're completed. That gives us a safety net, knowing that if we lose a chapter, or our hard drive crashes, someone else has a copy of our work. In my case, I'd lose the notes I add to the end of my manuscript document -- the ideas I jot down in the middle of the night when my creativity likes best to frolic -- but that's nothing compared to losing the actual work.

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So what about you? Have you ever lost a significant portion of a manuscript? If so, how well are you at recreating a scene or a chapter? And how do you safeguard your work?