by Lynne | Oct 27, 2014 | Uncategorized
How to Make Your Book Rise Above Others
I often get blog ideas as I read for enjoyment. It doesn’t matter whether I’m reading non-fiction or fiction, good writing is good writing. So what is good writing? When you can’t wait to turn the page; when you stay up half the night to finish; when you recommend it to your friends; when you give it a five-star review? All of those. Or when you read a sentence several times because it is so beautiful, so aptly said, so visual. Ahh.
Reading the latest book by Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has three mysteries out, I said “Ahh,” often. Many times it turned out to be a simile she used so sweetly. For example: “. . . the crowd sank back down like a half-baked soufflé, rising and now cratering.” Or: “. . . letting the story unfurl bit by delicious bit like a wide red ribbon coaxed slowly and dramatically off its spool.” Lovely use of language, and particularly artful use of similes.
As writers we all use similes, metaphors and analogies, but how well do use them? Haven’t you written, “blind as a bat,” “cold as ice,” or “light as a feather?” Bleh. Oh please, you can come up with better similes.
Now metaphors. They don’t use “like” or “as” or “than.” They get right to the point. “My mom is a witch in the mornings.” “Is a witch” as opposed to “Like a witch.” Gives you a different feeling, even though you know my mom is not really a witch, right?
An analogy is a bit more complex. It’s kind of like a simile, but stretched further. Sometimes a simile doesn’t make a lot of sense without more explanation, or could be misinterpreted. This is a fun example from the movie, “Shrek.”
Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No!
Donkey: They make you cry?
Shrek: No!
Donkey: You leave them out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprouting little white hairs?
Shrek: No! Layers. Onions have layers!
Since Shrek’s meaning wasn’t obvious to Donkey, he had to explain. Thus, an analogy. Analogies can but don’t need the words “like, than, as.”
Remember the old Miller Analogies Test? Mama Mia! I had to take it as part of my Masters’ Degree. Here are some questions. Fill in the blanks.
- ( ): Puccini :: Sculpture: Opera
- Cellini b. Rembrandt c. Wagner d. Petrarch
- ( ): Speech :: Coordinated : Movement
- predictive b. rapid c. prophetic d. articulate
- Scintillating : Dullness :: ( ) : Calm
- erudite b. boisterous c. cautious d. exalted
Good luck and don’t you dare ask me the answers.
The bottom line (ach, a cliché!) is that artful language can make your writing memorable.
by Lynne | Oct 21, 2014 | Uncategorized
“Picture” the Scenes
Years ago I saw a terrific IMAX film called To The Limit. In it was a scene I never forgot. A champion downhill skier was sitting on top of a mountain, skis and poles by her side. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her arms and upper body as if she were skiing downhill. She was picturing the course with its turns and moguls as she traveled down the mountain in her mind. She was teaching her brain to prepare for those bumps and 
curves by visualizing the course over and over. Something similar to muscle memory ie: when you play an instrument and your fingers seem to move on their own, almost apart from your brain.
This visualization technique is crucial in writing. Close your eyes. Picture the scene you’re about to compose. Perhaps it’s a cop getting ready to interview a suspect. From Val McDermid’s The Torment of Others, visualize Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan:
“Carol stared through the two-way mirror at the man in the interview room. Ronald Edmund Alexander looked nothing like the popular image of a pedophile. He wasn’t shifty or sweaty. He wasn’t dirty or sleazy. He looked exactly like a middle manager who lived in the suburbs with a wife and two children. There was no dirty raincoat, just an off-the-peg suit, an unassuming charcoal grey. Pale blue shirt, burgundy tie with a thin grey stripe. Neat haircut, no vain attempt to hide the way he was thinning on top.”
Picture the room and a man seated there through the glass. Visualize the suspect, very possibly a child molester, and feel Carol’s frustration at his very ordinariness, the exact antithesis of what she expects a monster to look like. Could she be wrong? Are we being misled by his description?
Follow Harry Bosch in Michael Connelly’s Reversal, when he makes a trip to Fryman Canyon Park, an unexpected natural enclave above the madness of LA.
“Fryman was a rugged, inclined park with steep trails and flat-surface parking and observation area on top and just off Mulholland. Bosch had been there before on cases and was familiar with its expanse. He pulled to a stop with his car pointing north and the view of the San Fernando Valley spread before him. The air was pretty clear and the vista stretched all the way across the valley to the San Gabriel Mountains. The brutal week of storms that had ended January had cleared the skies out and the smog was only now climbing back into the valley’s bowl.”
Harry has been here before and is familiar with the area, its quirky smog patterns and unpredictable weather. Now, so are you.
Visualization is more than “description.” It’s about engaging the senses (see an earlier blog I wrote about this) to get a visceral feel for the scene. Picture a brown leather couch sitting atop a Persian rug in front of a teak coffee table. Now give the couch history – every crack in the leather represents a different house it has lived in or a different person who curled up on its soft hide. It was loved, it was beaten, it was ruined. Even a couch can have personality. What does it say about its owners?
Visualize a woman. She’s not just a blond in a blue dress, wearing high heels and red lipstick. She’s a woman, teetering outside a motel room, black roots showing through the teased mass, blue dress torn at her hem, lipstick smeared like a clown. Picture her. There. . . there she is. You can see her clearly. You know her.
Write your scenes as if they were movies. Let us see what’s happening through your words. You’re the director. Direct.
by Lynne | Oct 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
Characters Are Unique Individuals
As a writer I understand the importance of dialogue. Not only can it liven up a scene, jazz up a narrative, but it can bring the characters to life. Dialogue (or monologue) is an opportunity to give the characters depth, passion, humor, and even history.
Through dialogue you can hear the character’s regional-speak (dialect), educational background, even political and religious persuasion. Voice, however, goes beyond dialogue. In a sense it uses dialogue to present itself to the reader.
I’m reading a book now called “Necessary Lies” by Diane Chamberlain. It takes place in rural North Carolina in the 60s and is written primarily in two women’s POVs, along with a number of other characters that they interact with. Each of these characters has a distinct voice. Even if the author did not label the chapters “Ivy” or “Jane” the reader would know immediately whose voice you were hearing.
Rather than tell you how to write distinguishable voices, I thought I’d use Diane Chamberlain’s actual words to show you.
“Ivy: I headed home down Deaf Mule Road where it ran between two tobacco fields that on forever and ever. I couldn’t look at all them acres and acres of tobacco we still had to get in. My fingers was still sticky with tar from that day’s work. Even my hair felt like it had tar in it, and as I walked down the road, I lifted one blond end of my hair from under my kerchief and checked it, but it just looked like my plain old hair. Dried hay. That’s what Nonnie said about my hair one time. My own grandma, and she didn’t care about hurting my feelings.”
What do we know about Ivy from this excerpt? She works a tobacco field, she’s blond, she’s not well-educated and she’s probably young. She has a grandmother who says hurtful things and most likely has a poor self-image. Now here’s the other POV.
“Jane: I pulled my car to the side of Deaf Mule Road, unable to see to drive. I put my head in my hands. I’d made such a mess of things. I’d wanted to help Ivy see why this could be a good thing for her, but I’d bungled it, just as I had with Mary Ella. How could I not bungle it? It was just wrong. The whole damn thing was wrong! There was no way to be honest with a girl about sterilization without making a mess . . .”
Ahh, Jane is Ivy’s social worker. She, too, is not sure of herself and her decisions. She’s young and new at this job and doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She’s well-educated but a product of her times. She’s got her concerns about the “eugenics” program in place at the time.
Both these women have very different voices. Even when dialogue moves back and forth between them without attributions, you have no doubt who is speaking. Their voices are clear and distinctive. So are their characters.
When you read, watch for “voice.” Can you distinguish one character clearly from another? Do they all sound (and think) alike? Without attributions, how much can you learn about the character simply from dialogue? If the answer is not much, then the voice is weak.
I welcome samples of strong (or weak) voices in your writing. Thanks.
by Lynne | Oct 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
Using Artistic License to Alter History
Writing historical mysteries is a juggling act. Writers must create a fictional plot with fictional characters around a historical time period with real people . . . and somehow suspend the readers’ disbelief.
Many writers of historical fiction choose a particular time period and stay with it. I’m thinking Anne Perry, Phillipa Gregory, Charles Todd. I, on the other hand, am intrigued by so many time periods, I skip around. Each of my mysteries takes place in a different place and time, which enables me to do the thing I love most: research. The risk, of course, is that I will know only a little about each time period as opposed to Anne Perry who knows a great deal about Victorian England.
Once I settle on a time period, I read and read and read about it. I visit the places in question, interview experts, historians, and read and read and read some more. By this time, I usually have a kernel of an idea for the plot and maybe even a character sketch or two.
Building fictional characters around authentic ones is key. Unless your character is transported from modern times to the past, he/she must act, speak, dress like the time period. In using real people from the time period, they must be as genuine to history as I can make them.
As the story develops and takes twists and turns on its own, I find I am bending the truth a bit – creating an “alternate history.” This is fiction, after all. The book I am working on now, “Pure Lies,” will be a totally new take on history. It is about the witches and witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and will provide a different motivation for the girls’ hysteria. The backdrop and many characters are authentic, but the storyline meanders considerably from what we know to be historically accurate.
The questions I ask take the form of “what if” and I let my imagination run free. It’s a rare writer that can devise a plotline that hasn’t already been done. But even a clichéd plot can be made new and fresh with unusual twists, powerful characters and exceptional prose.
As I put the final touches on “Pure Lies, I realize I am bending history to fit the story. That’s the advantage of fiction. And its strength.
As writers we all use similes, metaphors and analogies, but how well do use them? Haven’t you written, “blind as a bat,” “cold as ice,” or “light as a feather?” Bleh. Oh please, you can come up with better similes.
An analogy is a bit more complex. It’s kind of like a simile, but stretched further. Sometimes a simile doesn’t make a lot of sense without more explanation, or could be misinterpreted. This is a fun example from the movie, “Shrek.”
