Rachna Gilmore's Writerly Plarks*

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TIP -- COLOURING OUR CHARACTERS

2011-11-04T15:57:00.017-04:00

There are so many ways to develop and come to know our characters. Sometimes, oblique, odd questions can bring flashes of insight so the character comes into focus, clear and fully formed with shades of intangibles that somehow bring them to life.

Here are some random and tangential questions to ask – in no order of importance. You’ll probably think of others.

– What colour of clothing does your character best like to wear? What colour suits her/him best?

– What colour does your character normally wear? Why?

– What colour are the walls of your character’s bedroom? The bedclothes? The main rooms of the house?

– If your character were a colour, what would it be? (We’re not talking skin colour here.)

– What’s the colour of your character’s mood at the start of the story? At several points along the arc as the tension develops? (There’d better be some tension, and if there isn’t, back to the drawing board!) And at the end?

– What colour food does your character best like to eat?

– What colour explodes in the mouth of your character when she/he eats her/his favourite foods?

CHARACTER VS. PERSONA

2011-10-21T11:20:00.000-04:00

What is the difference?

The persona is what your protagonist projects, what image she cultivates and how she wants to be perceived. The character is what drives her inside; it’s what she lives with, or faces in the dark of the night.

An analogy might be this: the outside of a car is the protagonist’s persona. What’s inside – the engine – is the character. It’s the engine that moves a car forward.

Does your protagonist have a flashy sports care exterior, and a wimpy two cylinder engine? Is it a rough and patched car body, with a steady and reliable engine? Is it a shiny car, with strong, wild force inside? The permutations and combinations are endless.

So what’s inside your protagonist? What’s her true character like? Once you know that you’ll know what she’s likely to feel, think and do. You’ll know how her actions will move the story forward. But it’s also what’s inside – the character – that determines in part the kind of persona he/she feels the need to cultivate and project. Sometimes personas are cultivated to compensate for inner character vulnerabilities and weaknesses. So many possibilities...

WHAT'S IN A NAME? Part II

2011-10-08T14:07:00.061-04:00

Finding the right name for your character can be elusive and sometimes it seems you'll never find the one that fits best. Here are some tricks to try:

If you're absolutely stuck and can't unearth your character's name, the chances are you don't know your character well enough for him/her to reveal his/her name to you. Find out more about him/her, and then try again.

Another useful trick is to acquaint yourself with your character's parents. Why? Because it is the parents who usually name their children. If you know the parents, who they are, their personal values and habits, their conceits and preenings, their failings and fears, who they admire and who they abhor, their hopes...you will know what they're likely to name their kids.

Sometimes names just appear when you need them and you simply need to be awake to the possibility. Serendipity opens doors when you're searching. I recently found a name written on the sand on a beach in P.E.I. for a character whose name had eluded me. I tried it out, tentatively at first, and to my delight, it fit.

Here's another way of finding your characters' names: soak your subconsious with the thought of locating that name before you go to sleep. Maybe you'll dream up a name that is right. Maybe you'll wake just knowing it.

If you're not certain of your character's name, or even if you are, be sure to say the name out loud. Is it a name that fits your character? Sounds like your character? Is it easy to say or difficult to utter, awkward to roll off the tongue? The musicality of it needs to be pleasing to your ear -- or perhaps not pleasing if that is what you're aiming for.

Saying all your characters' names out loud will help you to spot inadvertent mistakes such as all of them sounding alike, or starting with the same letter, or ending with the same sound, or having the same number of syllables. Subsidiary characters names can be changed more easily, I find. Although at times I've found those difficult to change as well, if the character is adamant about it.

Saying your characters' names out loud is a great way, too, of finding a nickname. Nicknames often arise because the character, when a baby, couldn't pronounce her/his own name. That's how I came up with Nobby, for my character Zenobia in A Friend Like Zilla. Saying Zenobia out loud, and trying to figure out how baby might say it, helped me come up with Nobby, which fit my character just right. So right that she thinks of herself as Nobby and hates Zenobia. She is a Nobby, but not a Zenobia!

Another way to find nicknames is to unearth the traits and oddities your character displayed as a baby or a toddler. A nickname such as Speedy, for instance, might arise if a baby is particularly fast at crawling. Red, in my novel That Boy Red, got his nickname when he was a baby because his hair was red back then, although it no longer is. I'm not entirely sure how I came up with Gooley for Red's friend in That Boy Red -- it just came and it seemed right. But since his name is Graham, I suspect that he came by it because either he, or a sibling in his family, distorted Graham.

A last reflection: your characters do, of course, represent some aspects of you and your tastes. I like my characters' names to be spiced, to be unusual. Perhaps it's because my name is not the easiest to pronounce or to remember. It's an unusual name. It was an unusual name even in India, where I lived as a kid; I was plagued with mispronunciations even though at times I relished not having a common name.

Apparently it was an aunt who came up with my name -- I wonder if she had the sight? Rachna means creation, or literature.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? Part I

2011-09-26T18:09:00.001-04:00

A question I am frequently asked is: "How do you name your characters?" A better, perhaps more accurate, way of putting it though, is: "How do you find your characters' names?"

There is a difference: naming your characters has a subtle overtone of author as god/parent, naming his/her creations. Imposing it on them. Finding your characters' names, though, implies author as explorer, uncovering, discovering his/her characters' names. Which is part of discovering, uncovering the character.

Sometimes it's easy. Your character arrives with a name that somehow cannot be changed. You may also have a clear sense of who your character is, the ins and outs, the earthy, fleshy, obvious and subtle details that make her/him unique. But sometimes you have a name that is absolutely right and yet only a shadowy sense of that character -- in which case the name can be a gateway through which you come to discover your character.

Scully, in my picture book, A Screaming Kind of Day, arrived full-blown with that name. As I re-worked the story I questioned that name, thinking it wasn't really much of a girl's name. I tried to change it, but I couldn't because Scully was her name. That kind of clarity is a gift -- no, no, I don't mean a gift I have, but rather a gift that is visited upon writers at times.

When I'm not lucky enough to have a character's name arrive with such clarity and immediacy, I hunt for it in other ways. A great way is to have at hand a good baby name book. I have an old one from when my kids were born. It has a host of names from a number of cultural backgrounds along with their meanings.

That's how I found the name Calantha, for the main character in my fantasy novel, The Sower of Tales. I compiled a list of possible names, tried them out aloud, pondered their meanings, and this one fit best. Although Calantha means "beautiful blossom" and my Calantha is not beautiful -- oh no, she is dusty, bumbling and plain -- the name fit her. Maybe because the novel is about a world where story pods exist, and so the flower-like connection fits. There's a lovely synergy that happens when you've located your main character's name. Although I hadn't consciously selected this name for its Greek roots, I found myself selecting other names that fit this world, and they all seemed to be of Greek origin too. Even the names I completely invented -- my favourite being Xenyss, the inept Seer in Calantha's village, and one of my favourite characters -- sound Greek.

I found Dilly by searching through the internet for Punjabi names. I had a good sense of who she was, my main character in The Trouble With Dilly -- wildly imaginative, scatty, impulsive and erratic -- but I didn't know her name. I knew though, that her name would be a diminutive of a longer one, and so I wrote down a list of ones that I thought might fit. Dilbaagh seemed right, as it would clearly be shortened to Dilly. And Dilly was perfect for my character. At a school reading, when I asked what kind of person Dilly might be from the sound of her name, a boy replied, "Tangy." Dilly is just that -- tangy!

Finding Red's name in That Boy Red, was more of a challenge. The book is a middle-grade novel inspired by my father-in law, John's, anecdotes of growing up on a P.E.I. farm during the Depression. I knew I needed to write this as a work of fiction (see previous blogs for the whys and wherefores) so I had to find a name that fit my invented character. It was a slow, circuitous process, discovering my character; he needed to be fictional and not John, so I could be free to weave stories in and around him -- or perhaps let him show me his stories? I made a list of Scottish names and tried several. It wasn't until well after I decided on Red because it fit my imagined character (his real name is Roderick) that someone pointed out how apt it was for a fictional character inspired by my father-in-law -- because John had had red hair in his younger days. Red, now, his hair is brown --durrty bruhn, as Cat-less Granny, Red's grandmother, would say -- but still, that name fits him.

More tips on how to unearth your characters' names in my next blogpost on October 8th.

Character Development Tip -- The Body Repeats the Landscape

2011-09-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

"The body repeats the landscape. They are the source of each other and create each other." Meridel Le Sueur

Lately I've been thinking much about landscape, having recognized anew how forcefully and viscerally my landscape is the north shore of P.E.I. There is something at an energy level that ties me to that landscape; it's where I feel most at home, most grounded.

When I discussed this with a dear friend of mine, the fine writer, Deirdre Kessler, she told me of a conference she'd attended in Tasmania, "Sounding the Earth." Australian Aboriginal people have long known this concept -- it has been discussed and celebrated in Bruce Chatwin's book The Songlines. The essential concept is that the people and the land are one: we sing the land into being. What I hadn't understood until Deirdre followed through on this idea, is that the land sings you back.

The land sings you back.

The concept is so heart-stopping, so powerful, I lay awake the night after I heard this, expanded and lost in the beauty of the idea, overcome and humbled by the generosity of the land.

And I came to understand better my connection with my landscape. It's so visceral, it's so powerful, because the land has sung me back. There. In my landscape.

For years now I've collected rocks from the north shore of P.E.I. each time we visited. Small stones. It's been my way of linking solidly to my landscape. Of having a tangible presence of my landscape in my life.

So, how does this apply to writing and character development? Well, developing character is often a subtle process that leaps and darts beyond the obvious biographical data and information -- the facts -- that we accumulate about our characters. To know our characters, really know and understand their inner beings, their souls, we sometimes need oblique, tangential ways to slide in. Sideways glances.

So: what is your character's landscape? Where do they feel most at home? Where do they sing the land, and most importantly, which landscape sings them back, affirming their connection to that place?

When I thought about this, I knew that Red, my character in That Boy Red lived in his landscape. It was the south-eastern part of P.E.I., where he was born and grew up. It isn't as connected to the ocean; no, his landscape is the gently curved farm land where he lives.

Dilly, now, my character in The Trouble With Dilly her landscape is in part the urban world in which she lives, a bustling, concrete city. But it's also -- and I don't know how or why I know this, I just do -- a desert. A desert with beautiful sculpted dunes, curving and shifting with the wind, and wide open skies. Dilly has never been there. Not yet. But that is her landscape too. I don't know for sure where this landscape is, just that it is her landscape.

For Calantha, in The Sower of Tales, her landscape is the one imagined in the book. It is the world I envisioned, which strangely enough, is much like the hilly landscape of Greece. When I wrote the book, I had never been to Greece. It was a librarian who loved the book who told me that the landscape I'd described was eerily like Greece. When I did go to Greece, I saw it immediately -- it was completely and utterly familiar as Calantha's landscape. But for Calantha, her landscape isn't just the plains in which she lives -- no, it's the top of the Eastern mountain, where the Sower of Tales lives.

So, who is your character? Where is her/his landscape? Is it where she/he lives, or is it somewhere else? Where does your character sing the land? Where does the land sing her back?

Where is the landscape that tugs and pulls through a fine, pulsing, unbreakable link so she must and will find it, and so she must go back?

TRUST IN SERENDIPITY

2011-08-19T15:57:00.010-04:00

I love how the seemingly random events in your life can tie in so readily with what you're working on.

I love the coincidences that feed the characters we work on, the way we spot traits in people around us, just when we need to.
Last month, while in P.E.I., walking the beaches, I found myself thinking intently about a character I needed to develop. Sometimes a character comes full-blown, and at other times, it's a slow uncovering, a slow discovering, to find the heart of that character. In this instance, I had a viscerally exciting sense of the plot -- one that made me tingle with delight -- but only a vague sense of the character.

I've learned that it's best not to start to write a novel or story until I have a clearer sense of the character, because the character is what drives that story forward. If your character isn't true, the story will twist and distort in strange directions. If your character is true, pretty much all you have to do is follow her/him and write down what she/he does.

So as I walked the beach, I tried to give my character life, depth, warts -- tried to know my character.

And a name is so important. A name has to fit, to feel right on the tongue, to feel right in the gut.

On this day, I found some writing on the beach -- and oh, a name written there, that was just perfect for my character. I won't reveal what that name was -- if I talk too much about a novel when it's nascent, still so tenuous in my head, I tend to lose interest.

But I'm grateful for the serendipity that led me to the right name.

It's a wonderful reminder to be mindful, to be attentive to life, as it feeds the creation of art.

A Writer's Wise Words

2011-08-05T15:57:00.002-04:00

Here's a website worth checking -- JANE YOLEN'S -- in particular her words for writers. Wonderful words on the muse, on writing for joy, serendipity and much more.

SPEED VS. DEPTH

2011-07-22T15:35:00.000-04:00

"The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb." Sir Walter Raleigh

I've been thinking lately about how we're getting faster and faster as a society. We do more, we write more, we talk more, we multi-task. If we don't multi-task we're considered slouches.

I sometimes wonder if this is just more sound and fury than substance. Is this noise and busy-ness, dizziness, really necessary?

I've noticed that people are doing things faster. But I don't think that necessarily means they're doing things better.

Take writing. Is there a real pay off to writing faster? If we skim the surface of a lot of things we can produce more, but is it better?

Sometimes you need to slow down to plumb the depths. You need stillness to allow the deeper parts of yourself, the deeper and more profound aspects of life to surface.

Perhaps I need to slow down. Do less. Think more. Be silent more. Write less, but write deeply.

Yes, write deeply.

Some Sage Advice ... Including on Promotion

2011-07-08T15:57:00.004-04:00

Check out this blog, about the best and worst advice a writer, Michelle Gagnon, received. It provides a down-to-earth take on so many lunatic ideas about promotion, and also offers advice on what does work to sell books.

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2011/06/best-and-worst-writing-advice-i-ever.html

What I loved best was the second comment below the post: "The only thing you have control over is your writing."

In other words write your best. That is in your hands. Don’t waste excessive energy trying to promote to the point of insanity/vanity – that’s what self-published writers do because they prefer to put their energies into promotion than towards perfecting their craft. Maybe because they’re better at it? So don’t squander valuable thinking space and time with activities peripheral to what does matter – the writing.

For what it’s worth, here is what Michelle Gagnon cites from a report as being the most significant factors in book purchase:

-Recommendation from someone I know
-The cover
-Saw on a bestseller list
-Reviews you've read in blogs/online forums
-Reviews you read in magazines/newspapers
-Prominent display in bookstore

Most of those are out of your control. What you can control is writing your darndest.

TIPS ON WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION -- PART II

2011-06-24T15:57:00.004-04:00

More tips on writing historical fiction -- with the same caveats as in previous post:

8) Research into background can take time, so be patient. Sometimes, it can take ages to dig out one tiny piece of background detail – such as the appearance of a particular car during a particular year. It’s a detail that adds to the texture and truthfulness of the story without being essential to the plot, so you need to know it even though it’s entirely peripheral to your story.

9) Interviewing elders again, as well as experts, in round two or three of your research is helpful to pin down those pesky details because you can simply ask your tangential and arcane questions rather than spend hours digging them out. Call me lazy, but it’s easier and it’s much better, because you get specific answers to specific questions without wading through pages and pages of irrelevant information in order to find that one sliver of information you really need.

10) Visit museums that specialize in the era of your story. It’s a great way to flesh out your understanding of that era. It also helps you imbibe the right atmosphere. I went to the Cumberland Museum in Cumberland Ontario, which is about rural life in the 1930s. I found it helpful with many a detail but also to soak up the atmosphere of the time.

11) Look for books published by local Historical societies in the community you want to depict. I found self-published books by people living in Eastern P.E.I. and they were invaluable for the glimpses they gave me into everyday life in the 1930s. They weren’t necessarily brilliantly organized; often they were anecdotal, but there was enough there to help develop my understanding of the era, and help me see more clearly the “givens”.

12) Check old atlases and maps to help you find fictional names and place names. For example: I knew that the early settlers to P.E.I. – and John’s family in particular – came from the mainland in Scotland across from Skye. Many villages and towns in P.E.I. reflect this. In selecting my fictional names, I found it fascinating to search maps of Scotland for place names that would sound convincing in my novel.

13) If you are writing about a place that is well known, you might want to consider changing the names of the people and the places to fictional names. I set my story more or less in the area in which my father-in-law grew up, but as I changed the geography to suit my fiction, I decided I’d better use fictional names. Otherwise I knew there’d be Islanders coming up to me and saying, “That railway line was never there; you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” or some such thing.

14) I found it helpful to draw out a map of my character’s fictional home and farm so I could reliably and consistently remember how he’d get from A to B. I also made a map of the area in which my character lived – again, so I’d be consistent.

15) I chose deliberately not to include a map in my book, because P.E.I. is a small place and inevitably people would try and figure out where I’d really set it, and then point out inconsistencies.

16) The elements of good writing apply to historical fiction as much as to any other work of fiction. It’s essential, I think, for the character to be true and real so he/she takes centre stage and moves the story forward, rather than serve as a minuscule or peripheral adornment for your historical facts.

TIPS ON WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION -- PART I

2011-06-08T18:53:00.000-04:00

Here are some tips about writing historical fiction, the usual caveat being that there are no golden rules – these are just things (great catch all word that – things, although thingie is even better and a personal favourite!) that worked for me.

Bear in mind, though, that these tips are based on my experiences while writing my novel, THAT BOY RED which, although set in a particular era, is not woven around concrete historical events per se. This is a character-driven episodic novel following the exploits of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae, with historical details pertaining to the era – P.E.I. in the early 1930s – woven into the story.

1) Keep one notebook for historical research, another for your fictional notes. Meticulously record your research along with sources because you’ll forget from one draft to the next whether some detail you’ve inserted has been checked and verified.

2) You don’t need to do all your research before you start to write. At least I don’t – I can’t. It would bore me to tears to do nothing but research at the start. I find that instinctive leap and connection with character far more valuable and essential to writing fiction than getting slogged in a mire of research. For me it’s essential that the connection to character be paramount so the story sings and flows with inner truth.

3) The background and research must serve the story and not the other way around. One of the biggest flaws in historical fiction is when the reader’s attention trips over a chunk of explanatory information that the author has stuck in to inform. It always distracts from the story. When you write a story, you’re spinning a thread for the reader to follow – if there are nubs and knots that the reader notices, you stall the smooth flow of the story, break the dream that you want the reader to fall into when reading your book. A work of historical fiction should never serve to showcase historical facts. Nor should you be so vested in your research that you feel compelled to stick it in just because you’ve spent so much time digging it up.

4) One way to avoid chunks of information is to include information only when your character is thinking of it – but don’t have your character gratuitously think about something that’s a given, just to inform your readers. Don’t over-explain; trust your readers to infer what they need to.

5) Despite my caveats about not needing to do all my research up front, I found I did need to do some initial research in order to start writing THAT BOY RED with a certain degree of authority and ease. I needed to know what daily life was like for a young lad in the 1930s. If I were to write about a child getting up in the morning in the present day, I’d easily be able to create the sights, sounds, smells, textures and nuances surrounding that child. With THAT BOY RED I needed some of that basic knowledge so that when I started to write I wouldn’t stumble during the heat and flow of writing the story because of gaping holes in my understanding of the era.

6) Interviewing elders and experts was a great place for me to start my research. I grilled my father-in-law, John, and his older brother Martin, and all the other elders I could pester, with questions about the five senses from their childhood. I asked them what they’d hear first thing in the morning. Smell, touch, see, taste. I asked about the most striking images/memories in their lives pertaining to the five senses. I had to be specific – for example, I’d ask about the first sounds in the morning to fit what I needed for my story. This was a huge help in colouring and texturizing my knowledge of the era. I asked questions about daily routines and made copious notes to build my own instinctive understanding of the patterns of the daily life of my characters.

7) For me, the research tends to work parallel to the spiral of successive drafts until I reach the centre, the heart of that last draft. Sometimes you don’t know what you need to know until you write the next draft.

Tips on Writing Historical Fiction -- Part II will be posted on June 24th.

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR TALES: Spinning Family Stories into Fiction

2011-05-18T15:35:00.000-04:00

I am delighted to announce that my novel THAT BOY RED published by HarperCollins Canada, has now been released. Set in P.E.I. during the 1930s, it follows the adventures and misadventures of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae and his large and lively family as they struggle through bad weather, plunging crop prices and more during a particularly turbulent year.

This episodic novel is my first foray into historical fiction and it was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes about growing up on a P.E.I. farm during the Depression.

Family stories are like gold, but we don’t always recognize their value because they’re familiar. We often fail to appreciate the weight and charm of this rough ore, and the potential for refining and burnishing it into fiction.

Here’s how this novel started for me and one of the biggest challenges I encountered...

My father-in-law, John Gilmore, who is now deceased, lived in P.E.I. and my husband and I travelled there annually, treasuring our time on the Island and with John. Our mornings together were particularly special. In his small, brown kitchen, John would put on a pot of porridge, then he’d pull up the sides of the wooden table which he had built, so we could all sit comfortably around it. After we’d eaten, we’d linger at the table with our tea and coffee and just talk, talk and talk.

Often, this was when John would talk about his childhood – incidents both trivial and dramatic, some funny, some heart-breaking, and the general way of life back then. Being curious and sometimes frankly nosy – which I guess all writers have to be if we are to spin stories – I’d pepper him with questions. Perhaps I’d think to ask questions, as opposed to my husband, because the background wasn’t my given. In any case, pepper him I did, because I was fascinated by his anecdotes.

In part, maybe this was because my favourite books when I was growing up were the ANNE books by L.M. Montgomery, so anything about a bygone P.E.I. era carried charm.

But it wasn’t just that. John was a wonderful man, steady, deep, funny, and his anecdotes and his way of telling them reflected that. He also knew how to spin stories and jokes without getting bogged in irrelevant details; he knew how to pace it, and boy, did he know how to deliver a punch line. I wonder if people of that generation, who grew up without TV learned, almost by osmosis, the fine art of telling stories and jokes.

In any case, I loved his reminiscences about life on the farm, the bad turnip crop, the lost twenty dollar bill, the plane that landed in a neighbour’s field, and more.

One day, as I listened to him, I felt that familiar tingle inside me, the fire of story, and my mind began to trip overtime spinning fictional stories around John’s anecdotes. I felt that charge inside me that told me here was a book I wanted to write.

I thought it over carefully before discussing it with John, to be sure I did want to write this book. I never for a moment considered writing this as a biography; it's just not my forte, and anyway, sticking to bald facts can restrict the creation of a satisfying story arc. Incidents from people’s lives don’t necessarily make for good fiction or drama. I needed to feel free to make things up, to add humour and drama as needed in order to create story and meaning through fiction, because that’s what I do best. I firmly believe that I can tell a better truth through fiction than through bald facts.

It’s telling the truth through lies.

I had another reason for wanting to write this as fiction. For a story to resonate and sing, it needs characters with flaws. That’s easier to do in fiction than in biography. It’s unsettling, disrespectful even – or so I felt – digging for and then dishing the dirt on people you love. No, it had to be fiction.

So I asked John if I could use his anecdotes to craft into fiction, making things up as I needed, using fictional characters. He immediately agreed; he was pleased and even flattered that I was interested enough in his life to want to do that.

One of the biggest challenges when writing fiction inspired by stories, family or otherwise, is to create characters that are your own so you’re not harnessed to, or restrained by, the real people who may have inspired them.

I knew I had to create a main character that was inspired by, but was not, John. I had to find, unearth, chip out a character of my creation – someone I’d know inside out – so I’d feel free to weave stories through and in and around him without ever wondering at the back of my mind if John might do that. I had to be completely free to give my character flaws – all kinds of rashes, warts and tics – without being hampered by how that might reflect on John. I had to do this for all my characters, for the members of my main character’s family.

It was more of a challenge at first than I thought it would be. My ideas developed and evolved, and my research progressed so that my sense of that time period began to be coloured in with more precise detail and vision (more on that later). But as I tried to unearth, dig out and know my main character, I still found myself, at times, referring back to John’s persona, wondering what he might feel or do in a fictional incident, trying to understand him as a young lad.

I knew I hadn’t yet nailed that elusive main character, but that I had to find him in order to write this book – a character who could be himself.

So I chipped away at it. Finding the right name was crucial. I tried several before I settled on Roderick “Red” MacRae. I was aware that people might make the connection with that other red-headed P.E.I. character Anne Shirley, but my Red was not based on her. When I tried to change his name I couldn’t, because that name fit him – and by the way, no, his hair is not red!

Slowly, Red came into clearer and clearer focus. When I was finally able to name his flaws and his scratchy warts with certainty and conviction – and with the affection one feels for one’s characters – I knew that Red was real.

I’m not sure when that exact moment occurred – it was gradual and organic rather than one blinding aha! moment – it was a spiral of ongoing discovery to the heart of the character. But I knew I was there when I found myself wondering if some trivial incident I had in my head was something Red had told me about, or if I’d heard it from John.

That’s when Red became fully fleshed. That’s when he took the helm of his story.

And that is when the writing began to flow. I just love, love, love the stage when I know a character so well that all I have to do is follow him/her and write down what he/she does. This happened many times with Red; somehow he had a tendency to veer off in unexpected directions, to do things I hadn’t thought about consciously but which, after I’d written about them, were absolutely true and right, sometimes making me laugh out loud.

My next blog post will explore some of the other challenges of writing historical fiction.

WILLIAM SAFIRE'S GREAT RULES OF WRITING

2011-04-29T14:31:00.004-04:00

I love this list -- it covers many basics!

~ Do not put statements in the negative form.
~ And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
~ If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
~ Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
~ Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
~ De-accession euphemisms.
~ If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
~ Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
~ Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

THANK YOU MRS. CHAUBAL – AND ALL TEACHERS WHO READ ALOUD TO STUDENTS

2011-04-15T17:14:00.000-04:00

In my previous post I wrote about the long circuitous road to my newest novel THAT BOY RED, and how it started with my love of a book, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, by L.M. Montgomery.

This is how I first met Anne...

It was a hot day in late Spring, in Bombay (now called Mumbai) India. I was a student in Standard Four – Grade Four. I went to a private school, one of the best in Bombay – Cathedral and John Connon School. There was a girls school and a boys school back then, although later the schools merged and became co-ed. The girls’ uniform consisted of light cotton dresses with faint grey and white pin stripes, and a sash denoting the house (red, yellow, green or blue) to which the student belonged. I belonged to Red House, so I had a red sash.

My class was large and particularly lively and high spirited – read undisciplined – and as we grew older, we became the bane of all the teachers in school. I suspect that the unfortunate teacher who drew the short straw and was assigned our class threw herself down on the floor drumming her heels in despair and then went on to develop unexpected tics and twitches as the year progressed.

But back in Standard Four, we hadn’t yet reached the pinnacle of our potential for mischief. My teacher that year was a western woman, Mrs. Chaubal, and she had a great knack of handling us. I haven’t the faintest idea if she was British, Irish, American or Canadian. To us kids, all westerners were simply from abroad, and they all had funny accents because, of course, we spoke impeccable and unaccented English. What I do remember about Mrs. Chaubal is that she was pale skinned and freckled, had reddish hair tidily arranged in a French bun – a source of fascination to me – and she was smiling, enthusiastic, and had stocky legs and thick ankles.

One morning, Mrs. Chaubal, gathered us together in front of her desk to read to us. Perhaps she thought a morning read would calm our high spirits, or perhaps she simply wanted to share with us a book she loved.

It was that morning – squirming against the other girls on the hard vinyl floor, the overhead fan whirring our hair, with the faint school smells of disinfectant, chalk dust and sneakers wafting around us – that I first met Anne.

I was hooked from the start. Mrs. Chaubal read with great expression and energy, and she was adroit enough to skip the long descriptive passages that she thought might make us restless. Each morning, she read a part of the book, and each morning our eagerness to hear the story escalated. We were completely still and rapt as she read to us.

When the school year ended and the book didn’t, I had to find a copy of the book to finish the story. I had to find out whether Anne ever forgave Gilbert and what happened next.

I hunted the second hand book stores I frequented, and where I spent most of my pocket money, to no avail. I couldn’t find the book in the library across the road, either. Finally, I discovered it in a new book store and I unhesitatingly spent my precious pocket money on a brand new copy. I devoured the book. I was delighted to discover that there were sequels and I bought all the sequels I could lay my hot little hands on, and read them again and again.

I was an avid reader, and I used to trade books that weren’t keepers for other books to keep myself supplied with reading material. But I never dreamed of trading my Anne books. They were friends to re-visit over and over again. In one of my infrequent fits of organization, I arranged and numbered my books in order of their importance to me. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES was number one. Inside it I wrote:

The grass is green
The rose is red
This book is mine
'Til I am dead
P.S.Even after I’m dead.

I didn’t at first realize, not even after I’d read the books many times, that the world in which the books were set was a real place. I assumed that Anne’s world was entirely fictional.

I can’t remember exactly when I discovered that P.E.I., the place in which the books were set, was real. Perhaps it was when I studied Canada in a Geography class and the name Prince Edward Island leapt out at me and settled with a satisfying click against the name I’d read in the books.

But I do remember that the moment when I realized P.E.I. was real was a light bulb moment.

I decided in an exuberant burst of joyful adventure that one day I would go there. And so I did, after I graduated from university...and met my husband...and was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes to write THAT BOY RED.

I don’t imagine that Mrs. Chaubal could have envisioned the far-reaching and life-changing impact she had on one small girl sitting in front of her, drinking in the words to the story she loved and shared with her students.

Perhaps you teachers who read aloud to your students don’t always get thanked. Perhaps you don’t hear about the lives you change – but be assured that you do change lives. If nothing else, you bring delight – yes, delight, the light – to your students.

Thank you, Mrs. Chaubal, where ever you are.

COMING FULL CIRCLE – THE ROAD TO RED

2011-04-05T12:00:00.002-04:00

My latest book, a middle-grade novel THAT BOY RED (HarperCollins Canada) will be out in bookstores in mid-April. Set in Prince Edward Island during the Depression the book follows the escapades – sometimes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising – of eleven-year-old Roderick “Red” MacRae, and his coming of age through a particularly tumultuous year.

Seeing this book in print feels in a strange and satisfying way like coming full circle. Like most authors, I am repeatedly asked where I get my ideas and about the stories behind the story. Sometimes it can be difficult to remember, so organic and convoluted is the process.

But the story behind RED is a long road that winds back to my childhood.

When I was a girl growing up in India and then England, one of my favourite books was ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L.M. Montgomery. I loved that book. I read and re-read it umpteen times, as well as its sequels, until the world in which it was set, Prince Edward Island, became as familiar to me as mine. Or perhaps more familiar in the magical way in which imagined and internal worlds can be more real than external ones.

I'm not quite sure what it was about this book that so gripped me, so worked into my inner being. Perhaps it's because Anne's world was so different from mine.

My world when I first met Anne (how I met her is another story, for my next blog post), when I first walked through the magic portal of that book, was Mumbai, a sprawling city teeming with people, hot, dusty, vibrant, a cacophony of colour and sounds.

Anne’s world was almost the polar opposite – rural, contained, peaceful, with familiar nooks and crannies, beloved fields, wild flowers, woods. I crossed roads with blaring traffic and a maidan – a field – to get to school, a field filled with people, the grass trampled by many feet. Anne walked through the woods, through Violet Vale to school. What were violets? What were mayflowers? I had hibiscus, boring, familiar old hibiscus.

I was fascinated by Anne’s cosy family life with Matthew and Marilla, the meals eaten together, the predictability and stability of chores. The satisfaction of contributing to the household. My parents, as upper middle class Indians, had an active social life and servants to do all the work. We children rarely ate dinner with our parents. (And dinner was always the evening meal; the mid-day meal always lunch.) I was wistfully envious of Anne’s chores – washing dishes seemed delightfully cosy and homey. So...pioneerish!

And I was fascinated by Anne’s climate. Oh, the magic of snow.

I’d never seen snow. My seasons consisted of hot, hotter and wet – the wet part being the monsoon, when you could count on rain every single day, and after which you could count on no rain every single day. The summers were dusty and dry, and only mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the noon day sun. And of course, children. If I went out anywhere in the summer, I’d collapse in a sweaty puddle – that’s right, sweat, no lady-like glow, never mind manly perspiration – under the fan when I got home. Anne snuggled into sweaters. I only ever wore a light cardigan on those odd winter days when the temperature dipped below hot.

The Anne books became beloved friends. They were a constant thread through my life when I moved with my family to England. And like all good friends, the books eased the longing and be-longing that such a seismic shift creates.

When I decided after graduating from University to come to Canada, the Anne books were my impetus for choosing Prince Edward Island.

It was there that I met and married my husband. It was there – during my fourteen years on the Island – that I jerked past my inertia and my fear of failure to finally embark on my dream of writing. It was there that I delighted in my first publication success – a book published by an Island press, and one that became a best-seller.

And this book, THAT BOY RED, my latest work of fiction – this book was inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes about growing up as a young lad in rural P.E.I. during the Depression.

I don’t think I ever dreamed or imagined when I was a girl in India – and my youthful dreams were wildly extravagant; I was not a parsimonious dreamer – that one day I’d live on the Island, marry an Islander and, inspired by my father-in-law’s anecdotes, write a book about a boy growing up on the Island, set in the era following Anne’s time.

Full circle.

Sometimes life is stranger – oh, so much neater, so much sweeter – than fiction.

A GOOD STORY IS LIKE A PERFECTLY DECORATED ROOM

2011-03-18T12:12:00.009-04:00

Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. ~Enrique Jardiel Poncela

True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.~Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"

These quotes resonate deeply as I’m still obsessed with the fine-tuning of stories while I twitch and fiddle with my picture book manuscript, THE FLUTE, due out this Spring with Tradewind Books.

It seems to me that a good story is like a beautifully decorated and harmonious room.

What you don’t notice is the work that went into it.

Imagine it – an empty room. Imagine the wall colours, the furniture. The floor. Will you pick carpet or wood? Or marble? Imagine the swatches you bring home and try out in every light, the arguments with your spouse and kids, the vacillating mind about which colours and floors to pick. Imagine acquiring the right pieces of furniture, the hours and days or weeks of shopping, getting it delivered, moving the pieces around until they look just right, arranging and re-arranging, then hunting for those accessories that please your eye. Why are they so hard to find? How can it take days to hunt down the perfect candlesticks? At last you've found them. You place them here. No, perhaps there. Imagine the mess as there's stuff everywhere and nothing looks right and you wonder why you bothered to start in the first place.

Oh, but then you find the perfect rug, only now the furniture isn't quite right, so you'll have to change that and find pieces that work in the new plan. Aaaaargh. But you love the rug and it's perfect so...deep breath. Here we go. Again.

Gradually, there is a sense of order. The furniture in place. The pictures on the walls. Which ones will you hang, and where, and how high? Now you look at the whole and perhaps there are a few too many knickknacks? Perhaps you need to take a few things away?

You’ll probably leave it for a while, so you can see it with fresh eyes, perhaps even consult others whose tastes you trust – maybe an interior decorator – if you haven’t already done so.

When you’re finally done, you fill in and repaint the holes in the wall where you nailed the pictures before moving them, wipe the smudges off the walls – those damn fingerprints and pencil marks – put away the ladders and tools, vacuum up the mess, straighten the pictures, twitch the ornaments just so and curse that this fiddling process takes so long. So damn long. Finally you decide that's it, or perhaps you must stop because you had a deadline...those guests to dinner...but you must find the right coloured candles, dust, shine, polish.

Oh, if only you could stop fiddling. Just that shift of an ornament here. A teeny bit there. No, it was better before. LEAVE IT, ALREADY. It's time to say DONE.

You're exhausted. But the room looks great. Everyone says so. When the guests walk in they exclaim and admire. So harmonious, so clean. The flow of energy is just right, do you know Feng-shui? They're charmed by it all. Oh, and they just love glow of the candles.

They don't know what you put into it. The time, the energy and angst. The fights, the fatigue. The agonizing over minutiae.

No, they don't know see the work that went into it.

Sound familiar?

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part V

2011-03-08T15:22:00.003-05:00

It Ain’t Over ‘Til the Fat Lady Sings

How do I know when I’ve finished reviewing the proofs?

When the fat lady sings.

That’s me screaming when the publisher tells me it's all over, that I can't make any more changes. When they pry my hot little hands off the manuscript.

Which is all very traumatizing.

And a huge relief.

And did I say traumatizing?

And a relief?

Upon which I go and sink my face into chocolate–lots of it.

And wine–lots of it, too.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part IV

2011-03-04T15:11:00.000-05:00

No Sentence is an Island

Ah, this is one to remember when you review your proofs. NO sentence is an Island (my apologies to John Donne.) I have, at times, fiddled endlessly with one sentence, to get it just right.

But there are several pitfalls to watch out for:

A sentence can be well-crafted, but not fit in your particular piece because it doesn’t flow from and into the sentences before or after. This can be because the sentence length is too similar to the ones around it, or because the cadence or music of the words just don't sound right. No sentence is an Island.

A sentence can be well-crafted, but that particular perfect phrasing may not be true to your character’s voice. It must reflect the character, or be consistent with the narrator's voice. No sentence is an Island.

A sentence may be well-crafted but does it inadvertently repeat words in the sentences around it? No sentence is an Island.

When reviewing proofs, or for that matter, during any stage of editing, it's important to resist the temptation to over-fix a sentence. To remember the context.

Or to employ another metaphor, remember to look at the forest, not just the trees.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs–Part III

2011-02-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

Over Fixing – A Common Pit-fall

One of the biggest problems I seem to have when I go through my proofs is over-correcting things.

Fiddling too much.

Often, as I read it through the proofs, I’ll change something. Something slight.

Later, when I read it over again, I'll change it back.

Then change it again.

Only to go back to the original.

If you know you’ve put in concentrated effort during all the previous stages of the work, then trust yourself, and don’t succumb to the temptation to make too many changes. Sometimes you can spoil a work by messing too much. Making the changes as elegant and slight as possible is a way of honouring your original vision.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part II

2011-02-12T14:49:00.006-05:00

In my previous post I talked about how crucial it is to read your proofs out loud.

One of the most important reasons for this is to make sure that your dialogue rings true.

Ah, dialogue.

When you read out loud, the pace of the dialogue, the pauses, become apparent. As does the phrasing.

More than likely, you'll find some places where your dialogue doesn’t sound quite right. It’s ineffable how you know, but you just do.

Here’s a way to try and discover where the problem lies: Try reading out the dialogue simply as dialogue, as you would in a play. No “he or she saids”. No descriptions of action in-between. Just dialogue.

If you can’t tell who is saying what, you need to fix your dialogue.

If the voice sounds stilted, if it doesn’t sound natural, the way someone might actually say it--if the flow isn't right--your dialogue needs fixing.

Also, try acting out the piece to see if you can get the dialogue to reflect the thoughts and feelings of your character--to show what he/she wants to convey, as well as what she/he wants to hide. In other words, the text and the subtext.

The Pains and Perils of Reviewing Proofs – Part I

2011-02-05T14:23:00.004-05:00

I’ve been up to my neck–no, make that my nose, or higher–in the quagmire of reviewing the proofs of my upcoming novel, THAT BOY RED (HarperCollins Canada) due to be released in April 2011.

Don't get me wrong–I’ve loved writing this book. I love the process of writing all my books. I’ve even loved re-writing this book, and working through the edits. I’ve relished spending time with these people, being in their world.

But.

But this stage is enough to make me pull out my hair–in chunks, if I had enough of it. It is PAINSTAKING this process. PAINFUL. A fragile and nerve-wracking time for any author for a number of reasons, not least because you know it’s your last chance to make changes.

And one of the grave dangers of this stage–oh, yes, dangers–isn't that you'll fail to spot minor errors, but that you that you will over fiddle and wreck what works.

Here’s the thing: each time you see your work, time has passed. You are different, so what you see and how you see is different. Sometimes you forget about the previous changes you'd made and the reasons for those changes (chances are you’re already deep into another work, or your mind is cleared of all details of this particular work because it's filled with life events).

One tip to help you catch what you need to as you review the proofs (this is helpful during any stage of the editing process) is to read the proofs out loud. I’ve mentioned this before. It helps at every stage, and this last stage is no exception, even if you’ve read your manuscript aloud many times before. Your ear catches things your eyes don’t, and you have the chance to hear (and see) how each sentence links to the ones before and after.

There can be a problem with reading out loud to yourself, though: when you don’t have an audience, the reading can stumble and stall, and trip and trick you into thinking something doesn’t work when it does. Or vice-versa.

So here are few tactics you can try to avoid the reading-aloud-to-yourself blues:

Read aloud, but slowly, as though you are reading to a class of kids.

Read aloud, but slowly and softly as though you’re reading to a kid sitting next to you on the couch.

Read standing up. When the diaphragm can take in larger quantities of air, it seems to help. If you find a part you stumble over, mark it, then try reading it again later.

Sometimes you’re stumbling because the writing needs to be fixed, but other times because you are in a hurry. I know. Because I change things back and forth and back and forth...a dizzying cycle.

My next several posts will continue to cover the pains and pitfalls of reviewing proofs–as well as how to avoid those pitfalls. I hope these suggestions will be relevant to any stage of editing.

Some Book Recommendations

2011-01-19T16:52:00.002-05:00

It's mid-way through January, and I suspect many a resolution has already been broken if not actually forgotten. At the beginning of the year, I like to think on the books I will read, anticipate the oodles of time I will have to indulge in the delight of losing myself between the pages of books. And reflect back on the books I read last year, often with some haziness because I tend not to have a very good memory -- perhaps because I prefer to read for the sheer pleasure of it, than to analyze.

About a year and a half ago, though, frustrated with my inability to remember which books I'd read -- or what they were about if I had read them -- I began to compile lists of books I'd read. I put them in two categories: ones I'd recommend and the ones I wouldn't. I wrote a brief description of each book, along with what I found particularly compelling (or not) -- which is a useful thing for a writer to do because it serves as a source of reference if I want to study a book to see how a particular situation, say point of view, or multiple narratives, was handled in a book that I deemed to be a success.

I won't go into the books I wouldn't recommend -- I don't see the point of it. I know how writers pour their hearts out into their work and it doesn't serve any purpose to include here a list of books that I thought were not well written (enough), or books that, although fairly well written, didn't delight me enough to be included in my list of recommendations.

Every writer I know reads a lot. One of the more delightful things about being a writer is that you learn through the sheer joy of reading, even when you don't know you are learning. It serves both the art and the craft of writing to simply read, read, read.

It helps, though, to read the best of writing so the subconscious mind isn't filled with reams of mediocrity. I think the mind tends to burp it up, if that is all you read.

So here is a list of just a few of the books I read recently that I'd recommend. This isn't a comprehensive list of all the books I read, let alone all of the ones on my recommended list; nor are they all recent publications. But these are books I enjoyed for a number of reasons -- some because of the brilliance of the writing, some because of the inventiveness of the plot, or striking voice, but all because they satisfied at a certain level. I haven't included the books I've already mentioned in previous blog postings. Most of these are children's books -- I read all over the place, adult fiction as well as children's fiction -- but I won't indicate which is which, because a good children's book is ageless. So, in no particular order:

Counting Stars by David Almond

Jackdaw Summer by David Almond

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Alice, I Think by Susan Juby

Nation by Terry Pratchett

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

A Thousand Shades of Blue by Robin Stevenson

Cockroach by Rawi Hage

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Something to Hang Onto by Beverley Brenna

The Gathering by Anne Enright

I, Coriander by Sally Gardner

Saffy's Angel
Indigo's Star
Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay
Caddy Ever After
Forever Rose

The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden
Granny The Pag
Carrie's War

END OF YEAR REFLECTIONS -- ON REFILLING THE BURP POT

2010-12-31T14:18:00.004-05:00

It's just another day, really, the last day of the year, and yet, because there is the ritual of changing calendars, it's an opportunity to reflect on the past year, come up with plans for the new year, and generally jerk out of the often automatic frenzied mode in which we seem to live much of the rest of the year.

So, when I think back to my writing this past year, I see all the books I was dying to write at the beginning of the year, but that I didn't get to. Yet.

Oh, if only I could be more efficient, the lament goes. If I were more efficient, my mind would pop from one idea to the next, with freshness and vigor and I'd have written more. It's inevitable, the self-flagellation. The regret.

And yet, there is the other side. That writing isn't a nine to five job. Stories take the time they take. Sometimes years of putting away before they fall into place. Several of my books have lain fallow as it were, for years, before coming to ripeness and publication.

And people write differently. The challenge is to find the way you write best, the way that works for you, and to make peace with it.

For instance, I know writers who are prolific, and they write in a way that is seemingly chaotic to me, with forays into multiple stories simultaneously.

But I can't do that. If I try and force a style of writing that isn't right for me, it's mind-splitting and ultimately, a waste of time.

For me it's important to take time to replenish the burp pot. Yup, burp pot. As in burp pot of ideas.

I sort of have this image of ideas simmering below the conscious mind, in a huge pot. And as you stir -- and often even when you don't -- ideas burp up.

That pot is filled with a stew of life experiences, the people you know, the books you've read, the things you've dreamed and done, your travels...

And sometimes, you just need to take time out to live. It all feeds that pot. Sooner or later, that mish-mash of life will burp up new ideas, fabulous ideas -- that is, fabulous to you ideas that you must write about.

So, my end of year reflection, while still tinged with regret for the books that didn't get written yet, also includes an acceptance that some stories take time, and that all the time I spent not writing was still feeding that pot.

Excuse me while I burp.

Second Draft Blues

2010-12-17T17:28:00.001-05:00

Ah, that painful process, where the euphoria of completing that first draft is swiftly replaced with loathing, fear and disgust as you re-read your peerless manuscript and discover it ain't so peerless after all. That it's more full of holes than swiss cheese.

Stinkier than limburger cheese or rotting gorgonzola, and twice as ugly.

A word of advice: relax. Accept that this is the process. It's a long, slow spiral of many drafts before you get to the heart of the last draft.

To use another image, writing fiction is a labyrinthine process, full of dead ends, sudden turns, obstacles and wrong turnings.

You can, as I often do, waste energy berating yourself with gems like, "If I were a better writer I'd get it righter first time around!"

I don't know any writer who does get it right first time around.

It takes the maze-like twists and turns to discover and uncover the story you want to write. It is all part of the process, so relax and enjoy it. It's absolutely necessary to take those wrong turns in order to find the right ones.

Often, that first draft is just scaffolding. Necessary to tear down, but absolutely crucial to build the stunning structure you will end up with.

Enjoy.

Book Recommendation on Writing Fiction

2010-12-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

From my posts below about debunking writing myths, it probably won't come as a surprise to hear that I haven't, by any means, read all the books ever written about the process of writing.

The best way to learn about writing, I think, is to just get on with it and write.

Oh, you need to read, of course; you learn from reading wonderful writers. That's a given.

But if you spend too much time studying writing, it can stymie your natural voice and natural skills and make you an imitator. Or trip you with too many theories and not enough practise. Or ensnare you in the convoluted business of studying writing instead of getting on with it. (I'm up on every procrastinatory technique, believe me!)

That said, here is an excellent book about the process of writing fiction. It discusses setting, character, plot, point of view, the shapes of a story, the process of editing, and much more.

I have a copy and when I get stuck over some writerly matter, this is my go-to book:

A PASSION FOR NARRATIVE by Jack Hodgins.

It is clear, insightful and comprehensive.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 3

2010-12-02T12:38:00.000-05:00

Here's another piece of advice writing teachers tend to hand out: always do a story outline before you write.

To which I say -- maybe.

Maybe you're the kind of writer for whom this is necessary; maybe this is the kind of story with so many convoluted and intersecting plotlines that you need an outline to keep things clear in your own head.

But maybe you'll find that making a story outline destroys any interest you have in writing the story. That an outline corsets your characters and prevents them from taking on life and leading the story in a direction that you'd never, ever planned, and yet is SO right.

If you do decide to make a plan or story outline, it is crucial to understand that it is just a guide and that it must never be followed slavishly.

I've written novels for which I've never done a story outline (not on paper, anyway -- although I always have a sense in my head of the arc of the story and how the tension must build) and ones where I've done fairly detailed outlines.

When writing fantasy or mystery, I've found a general outline useful because it's a way for me to keep interweaving plots, and the motives behind all my various characters' actions straight. (Yes, if the story is to make sense, every character must have a believable motive for his/her actions.)

I've also found an outline useful as a way to try and capture the feel or atmosphere of the story once I think I have it right. Usually, I will go for a walk (many walks, actually!) to pound out ideas, and to try and move the trajectory of the story forward in my head. Then I jot down notes -- snippets of ideas and snatches of dialogue as they come to me. Once I feel that I have all the pieces, and that they fit, and I have a sense of the atmosphere and the voice of the story, I may write an outline, just for the relief of knowing I have that as a reference in case I forget a small piece of motivation, or plot detail, or some such thing.

But inevitably, I have found that once I start to write the story will go off on a trajectory that I hadn't planned -- but that is right. Well, right enough for that draft, anyway.

Some writing teachers suggest making a chapter by chapter outline. Some writers I know do this.

You have to find what works best for you. I couldn't bear to do a chapter by chapter outline because it would bore me to death to write the story. I like to discover and explore as I write and if I have every event and detail pinned down in the outline, I think I'd find it a slog to actually write the story. I'd just lose interest in it. But that's me.

To outline or not is something each writer must decide for her/himself. It may even vary from story to story.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 2

2010-11-22T11:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a rule that writers taking courses are often told: Write about what you know.

To which I say, rubbish. Write about what you want to write about, what you're passionately curious about. Then do the necessary research. I have little interest in writing about what I know, because, well, why bother? Writing is very much a process of exploration for me and I don't have much interest in writing solely about what I know because there is no heat of the chase, nothing to discover and uncover.

Take my most recent novel THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY, for example.

It's about a girl, Dilly -- wildly imaginative, exuberant and impulsive -- who lives with her family in a large Canadian city above their family grocery and Indian food take out, and who plays hockey. I've always wanted to write about a girl who played hockey, but I don't know (or rather, didn't know) much about it. Nor did I know anyone who runs a grocery store.

So I did my research. I visited corner grocery stores in a variety of places to try and get the feel of them, to get Dilly's family store right, a sense of the layout and items they'd stock. The atmosphere and pulse.

I also spoke to family, friends and neighbours who knew about hockey, followed hockey games on TV and even went to local Pee Wee hockey game, and met up with the coach and a few girls who played in the team, to hear their stories and viewpoints. It was a huge amount of fun, and a wonderful glimpse into the hockey culture.

I also had to research Christmas customs in Hungary, immigration challenges for new immigrants, some aspects of Chinese culture, and much more.

It was all part of the fun, part of widening my view of life and expanding my horizons of interest.

I like to think this story is a quintessentially Canadian Christmas story, celebrating as it does cultural diversity and hockey.

But it would never have been written if I stuck only to what I know. For that matter, nor would most of the other books I've written.

Debunking Some Writing Myths 1

2010-11-12T12:03:00.002-05:00

A writer starting out is often looking for a set of rules to follow -- ones that will teach him/her everything she/he has ever wanted or needed to know about writing, and that will guarantee success, fame and fortune.

And of course, there are courses and books a-plenty with lists of rules about writing.

Here's the rule with which I start all my creative writing workshops:

There are no Golden Rules.

Each writer must find and discover her/his own unique approach to writing, find out what works for her/him.

You can learn the craft of writing -- well, aspects of it, anyway -- but no one can teach you the art of writing. You learn that by writing, by trial and error and finding out what works for you.

Finding the Right Voice -- Don't Show Off

2010-11-05T16:32:00.000-04:00

Part of good story-telling is finding the right voice to fit the story. Here's something to bear in mind: please let the language and words serve the story, not the other way around. Don't slaughter story at the altar of your writerly ego. (Oh, I know, it's tempting!)

For me, the best books are where the writer is invisible. Where I'm caught in the story, where wonderful phrases, if there are any, are absolutely integral and true to the story. Where the author isn't pirouetting around with flash phrases that stick out like a sore thumb, shrieking, "Look at me, look at me!" Or leaping about with grandiose phrases, no matter how lovely, with a cheesy, "Look, aren't I clever?"

Beautiful language can only take you so far. After a while, the reader's admiration can ebb into frustration and even downright hostility because instead of engaging with the story, the language sticks out its knobbly feet and demands attention and homage to the author. Perhaps in an attempt to divert attention from the lack of story?

So, don't show off. Let the tale flow, let the tale do its part.

This is not to say that beautiful language is not appropriate at times. But it needs to serve the story, it always needs to serve the story, not the other way around.

So...

Desert the delectable phrases

Eschew the urge to pontificate, with or without marbles in your mouth, no matter how stunning the marbles.

Say it plain.

Say it clear.

Writing In The First Person -- Some Common Pitfalls

2010-10-30T15:26:00.000-04:00

I've always loved writing in the first person because it forces me to get inside my character's heart, head and soul and to explore and delve into her/him and then become her/him.

But to write convincingly in the first person, you need to uncover and discover that character's voice -- come up with a voice that is fresh, distinctive and completely convincing.

Here are some common pitfalls I've noticed in books written in the first person:

-- having a generic voice. This might work in a third person narrative (well, only maybe, because let's face it, generic is blah, no matter what point of view you chose to write in) but it is particularly grating in a first person narrative. If it doesn't work and the voice is unconvincing, the book will fail to engage the reader even if the story is exciting.

-- tied to the generic voice is the lack of anything distinctive to make the character's voice singular. If you can't tell who is speaking without saying so, perhaps the voice isn't distinctive enough. And perhaps that points to a deeper problem -- maybe your character isn't distinctive enough. Maybe you don't know enough about your character to write convincingly from his/her point of view.

-- in writing for children, having a voice that is too old. Adults can often have trouble connecting with the child's inner vocabulary and intensity, and the rhythms of speech and thought.

-- using vocabulary that is too old for a child narrator.

-- using expressions that are too old for a child narrator. (Warning here: yes, kids today say "like" almost incessantly, but if you use it in a story the way a kid might in real life, it'll trip the reader and mask the story. The trick is to use it sufficiently to make the voice sound like a kid's voice, but not enough to annoy the reader.)

-- getting the rhythm and pacing wrong when writing from a child's point of view

-- getting the rhythm and pacing wrong for a first person narrative. A first person narrative has to sound like a person telling the story (aside: you can use a first person point of view to have the narrator tell someone else's story, not their own) and as such has to reflect the rhythms of that particular person's voice.

Sometimes it takes many rounds of edits to get that voice right. In the early drafts of my first children's novel, A FRIEND LIKE ZILLA I found myself writing in a voice that was distant -- it sounded like an adult looking back and remembering. I had a superb editor, Charis Wahl, who pointed this out. It took many re-writes to get that voice right, to make the voice of the main character, Nobby, ring true, and seem convincing and particular to her.

Some books are like that. Part of finding Nobby's voice and making it convincing, was getting to know Nobby and making her convincing.

And then there are books where the voice just comes to you. When that happens it's a gift. It happened with my picture book A Screaming Kind of Day. Scully was real to me from the get go. I had her voice clear in my head from the get go.

But regardless of whether the voice of your character is clear from the start or not, it's imperative, if writing in the first person, to make it convincing and unique and true to the character.

Creative Cross-Fertilization Part 2

2010-10-22T15:17:00.001-04:00

Following on my previous post on creative cross fertilization and specifically, the inspiration of music, here are some thoughts for writers: Try writing to music. See what it does for you. Try listening to a variety of music and see what best suits your story. Will your story change, or does your writing style change with different types of music? Is it different if you listen to classical as opposed to rock, or heavy metal, or folk, or blues, or blue grass? Here’s another thought: What is your character’s favourite music? Figuring it out offers a sideways glimpse into your character to flesh him/her out in a way that perhaps mere biographical details can’t. This might never show up in your writing, but you’ll know that detail about your character, and it’ll inform your writing. And what kind of music does your character hate? This too tells you something about her/him. Oh, and try this – if your character were a piece of music, which one would it be? When I started to ponder that, I decided that Dilly, in The Trouble With Dilly, would be Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, or perhaps Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto. Oh, both are my favourites! Red – a character with whom I’ve spent a great deal of time lately, as I’ve re-worked THAT BOY RED – might, I think, be Beethoven’s Pastoral. Or perhaps some East coast fiddle music. What music best represents your character?

Creative Cross-Fertilization

2010-10-15T15:01:00.003-04:00

Recently, I attended a concert at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans, performed by the chamber orchestra I Musici de Montreal, founded and conducted by Yuli Turovsky. They played some Mozart to start, and then the work of a composer I’d never heard of before – Modest Moussorgsky, called Pictures at an Exhibition, but with a twist. The screen above the musicians, showed an animated version of the art of Viktor Hartmann, a friend of the composer. It was Hartmann’s art that inspired Moussorgsky to write the music he did.

In the performance I attended, the art and the music came together, with the art cleverly reinterpreted with surrealistic flow and movement (animated, if you like) by the composer’s daughter.

I love the idea of art inspiring music which in turn inspired the flowing animation of the art we saw, all of which inspired me to write this entry in this blog.

It reminded me that any form of art inspires and stirs creativity. That exposure to other artistic mediums can enrich, inform, and enhance our own.

For example, when I was writing my picture book story, Roses for Gita, (a sequel to my picture book Lights for Gita) a crucial, and I think magical, scene in the story fell into place during a Suzuki violin concert in which my daughter was playing. The inward expressions of the kids as they made beautiful music together made me suddenly realize that music is a language of its own, and that a difficult character in the story Roses for Gita, Mr. Flinch, might just be reached through music. I had an image of him, this grumpy, cantankerous old man, playing the violin, his face inward and absorbed with the music, caught in its delight.

That image sent a chill through me and I knew it was right for the book.

In my next post on Oct 22th, I'll suggest some ways in which you can use music to enhance your writing as well as find out more about your characters.

The New Grown Up -- Catching Time

2010-10-09T17:10:00.002-04:00

Here it is, the cover of the newly arrived as a grown-up book, CATCHING TIME. Illustrated by the wonderful Kirsti Anne Wakelin. I've just figured out how to put pictures on this blog, and I had to show off Kirsti's fine work. I love the whimsy of Kirsti's art, the energy and movement.

It perfectly echoes the hurry and bustle of trying to catch time.

A New Book Is Born -- Or Rather, Grown Up

2010-10-07T18:41:00.003-04:00

I'm delighted to announce the birth of a new book. My picture book, CATCHING TIME illustrated by the wonderful Kirsti Anne Wakelin published by Red Deer Press/Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

The process of creation is an interesting and circuitous one -- there's the initial euphoria of creation, the doubt and loathing of the various and multitudinous stages of editing, the inevitable putting away...

This book was started in the nineties, fiddled with endlessly, forgotten, then rediscovered.

When I rediscovered it, I found that I loved the concept but that the story didn't work because the VOICE wasn't right. (I've posted before about the importance of voice.) It wasn't the voice of a child, and as such it didn't echo and resonate with the emotional core of a child.

Once I re-wrote the story in a real child's voice, it quickly found a home.

Perhaps it's curious -- or not -- that this story, about catching time, should have taken so much time to come to fruition. Time, that wily old trickster, at play again.

After the story was accepted by Red Deer Press, it still went through endless fiddling and editing, (I was fortunate to work with Peter Carver, a wonderful editor) repeated reading aloud to taste the ebb and flow of the words, before it was ready for print.

By that point, the book felt like a surly teenager I couldn't wait to see the last of.

And then...and then, the book comes back, all bound and printed, and suddenly it's like the surly teenager has grown up.

So a new book is born -- now as a grown up.

Brave Words To The New Writer

2010-09-23T12:52:00.003-04:00

Steven Heighton's post, A FEW MEMOS TO MYSELF is filled with sage, insightful, and tough advice to a writer starting out. It's something to read through periodically if you're new to writing, or if you're established -- maybe even particularly so if you're established -- to avoid the pitfalls of becoming, as he puts it, a careerist writer. I particularly relate to his advice on embracing oblivion. It ties into my previous post on how to keep the joy of writing alive.

It's a hard-headed common sense list to help you keep it real. Be tough on yourself. Be willing to take chances. Insist on taking chances. It's the only way to grow with your writing, for your writing to grow, and to safeguard and nurture your internal creative fires.

More on Writing With Joy

2010-09-20T12:15:00.003-04:00

When I first started writing, it was pure -- an acceptance of my lowly early apprenticeship status, an acceptance of how little I knew about writing, and a fluttering hope of being published but not expecting anything.

Now, twenty or more books later, in as many years -- oh, and a few awards and accolades too -- that pure state is harder to find.

My fault. It's when I get bogged down with outcomes, that the joy stalls. Bogged with thoughts of the publishing process (where to submit, etc), hopes for the success (big success -- hey, who dreams of failure, or even mediocre success?) of the novel or picture book, thoughts about the business side of writing and how to best get that book out there.

It's what I've heard the poet and author, Steven Heighton, refer to the secretarial side of writing, versus the sacramental side of writing.

There is a purity to the beginner mind -- it's more open to possibilities. It's less invested in measuring output against time, more open to exploration. That's where the joy is for me.

I need to periodically remind myself of that, even while I accept that the inevitable consequence of being an established author (ha! me established? I so don't feel it, even though that's how I'm regarded) is that the business side of things will keep intruding.

It's finding that balance. Not checking e-mail incessantly (who me?), not getting ensnared and entangled and lost in the countless distractions of the internet, or promotion.

Writing for the joy of it. Pure and simple. Sigh.

Round and Round It Goes

2010-09-17T23:14:00.003-04:00

Aaaaak! Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. That's the process of writing. It's a long, slow spiral to the heart of the final draft and boy, it is painful at times. Right now I'm going through another draft -- umpteenth -- of THAT BOY RED my upcoming children's novel for ages 8 and up, due to be released by HarperCollins Canada in April 2011.

It's been a joy, mostly, discovering/uncovering Red's world and the people in it. I've enjoyed reading it as I re-worked it, enjoyed being in his world, which is rural PEI during the Depression. I've enjoyed researching, fine tuning, expanding on characters, inserting the kinds of details that make the story seem to grow and continue beyond the pages of the book.

All requiring focus but for the most part thoroughly satisfying.

But.

Now.

Oh, now, I'm doing what is absolutely essential -- I'm reading it out loud.

And aaaaak!!!!!

I can't believe how the flow stumbles and fumbles in places. This is the stage where I feel frustrated, embarrassed and convinced I'm a crappy, crappy writer. Surely if I could write better I wouldn't find so many places where the language stalls, where the music of the sentences jar and clash instead of flow. Where the cadence flops and drags instead of swooping with ease.

Aaaaaak!!!!!!

It is completely necessary, this stage, to fine tune any piece of writing, because the ear picks up what the eye doesn't.

It is time consuming.

Thoroughly humbling.

And completely necessary.

Writing With Joy

2010-09-15T12:05:00.002-04:00

Contradictions are the spice of life, so here it is, something contradictory to the last post about opening a vein to write.

Sometimes it is like that, but I don't usually or even often wallow in writerly angst. If I did I wouldn't bother to write. Who needs the anguish?

I'd rather write for the joy of it. The sheer delight of discovering/uncovering story, the thrill of the chase, the joy of spending time with characters you love.

So what about the previous post? There are times you need to open a vein to write. It depends on what you're writing. Opening a vein to write is more about digging deep and not being afraid to explore the painful side of life, even when it's buried deep in you. And I do believe that if your stories are to ring true, you need tears when warranted. I weep when I write parts of my stories; they need to touch me if they are to touch the reader.

Opening a Vein To Write

2010-09-14T19:13:00.002-04:00

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

So true.

In a similar same vein (ha! ha!) Robert Frost said: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."

A New Idea Is Delicate

2010-09-05T18:58:00.002-04:00

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow -- Charlie Brower

I rarely share a new idea for a novel or even a picture book, until I've written the first draft. The delight of nurturing a new story, the excitement of discovery, the burning lust for what comes next, is for me somehow quenched if I talk about it. For me, writing is a process of discovery. If I talk about it too much, I don't want to write about it. I lose interest.

Not everyone works this way. You need to know what works best for you. I jot down ideas as they come, walk and walk and walk to pound them out (oh, and walk and walk and walk as I write, too, during and in-between drafts) but I don't want the enthusiasm for my fledgling ideas, that to me seem so exciting, so desirous of pursuit, to be flattened by indifference, or crushed or overwhelmed by input from others, however well intended. It's only when I have a fair idea of what I want that idea to be, of how it will grow (of course, that's not to say it doesn't veer off in strange directions once I start to write) that I can even begin to tentatively share those ideas with others.

Character Development Tip – Giving Your Character Warts

2010-08-31T18:51:00.002-04:00

Compelling plots pull readers into a book, but what most pulls me into a book and makes me want to stay, is a compelling character, one I come to care about – a character I can really believe in. I love the kinds of stories where the character’s actions and reactions ring completely true, so that you don’t feel the intrusion of an authorial hand thrusting the character in a plot direction that doesn’t ring right, that doesn’t silence the questions at the back of your mind – the questions like, Huh? Why’d she/he do that when he/she could’ve done...etc.

Part of fleshing out your character, making her/him compelling and whole is giving your character warts. Yeah, hair and all. Metaphorically speaking, not literally. Outside of fairy tales and formulaic books, you don’t really encounter characters without flaws.

Do you know anyone without a flaw?

Why should your character then, even if she/he is sympathetic, be without flaws? Without contradictions?

The flaws, of course, have to be convincing. Here’s a tip: the things we don’t like about people are often at the opposite end of the spectrum of what we do like about them. Weaknesses appear at one end of a continuum, at the opposite end of which are strengths. For example, someone who’s generous, may well want appreciation for that generosity, or resent lack of generosity in others, which, in a curious way, are ungenerous attributes.

Another example: a character who is committed and dedicated to a cause can also be stubborn and mule-headed in that very pursuit. My heroine Calantha, is one such case in my fantasy novel, THE SOWER OF TALES. Her passion for the story pods makes her ruthless in her disregard for those who don’t value them, makes her at times insensitive to all that’s peripheral to her cause. She is sensitive and empathetic about the story pods, but not always to the people around her who aren’t as invested in the story pods as she is.

So give your characters warts – more than one. Give them several. But make those warts believable. Make them such that they grow out of their strengths, that they sprout hairs naturally.

Giving your character warts makes them human, and it is that humanity that makes us, as readers, care about them. Because then they aren’t so different from us – they’re flawed, just like we are.

Book Recommendation – And Finding Your Character’s VOICE

2010-08-21T18:16:00.002-04:00

I recently finished reading Jessica Grant's wonderful novel, COME, THOU TORTOISE. I can’t remember the last time a book delighted me as much as this one, and made me laugh so much, even while it touched my heart and explored layers of thoughts/ideas on the wider scope of life. I won’t go into a detailed review of this book, but one of the things that I admired and appreciated so much about this book is the voice.

Voice. Some writers refer to voice as the voice of the writer – they speak of the need for each writer to find his or her own voice. I prefer to look at voice as the need to find your character’s voice.

I have written many books in the first person, precisely because it presents challenges, and offers opportunities, to explore and fine tune voice, the voice of your character. When you write in the first person, if you do it well, you have to crawl inside the head and heart and soul of your character, and if you are to be successful – as Jessica Grant is, in COME, THOU TORTOISE – you will create a voice that is unique and completely convincing.

Grant has created a wonderful, quirky (okay, so that is becoming a cliched term, but I mean it here in the best way possible) and completely genuine and compelling heroine in her main character, Audrey (a.k.a. Oddly) Flowers. From the start of the book, you are pulled into the viewpoint and world of Oddly, and you rejoice with her, laugh with her, grieve with her and see the world through her eyes. Oh, and you wonder with her.

I highly recommend this book – for the sheer joy of reading an accomplished and delightful book, but also for those wanting to explore concepts of voice. Read it to see how you create the voice of a character and do it superbly.

COME, THOU TORTOISE won well-deserved accolades as well as the Amazon First Novel Award. I look forward to reading Grant’s next book.

On the Shore of the Wide World -- Book Recommendations

2010-08-09T22:40:00.006-04:00

I love the kind of book that pulls me in, that creates such a compelling atmosphere that I buy into it completely. So completely that I have to blink, dazed and disoriented when I lift my eyes from the pages and return to my world. Enchantment. Books like these inspire and nourish, the ideas burble away in your subconscious and inform and fertilize your own simmering ideas. Good writing does that.

I've always loved beaches -- especially the beaches of PEI. There is a clarity, an openness that allows you to dream. And dreaming is essential to simmering and shaping stories. One of my favourite poems is Keats' WHEN I HAVE FEARS, especially the last three lines:

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
.... -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

The shore, that place linking land and sea, on the brink of openness, of oblivion -- where the clarity of the sky meets the dancing of the seas and the solid comfort of the earth -- is for me inspiring, cleansing and uplifting.

So it's perhaps no surprise that Helen Dunmore's wonderful book INGO, and its sequels, enchanted and delighted me. I won't go into a detailed review --I don't believe in spoilers, and besides, anyone inspired to read these books will want to form their own personal relationship with the stories. Briefly, a fantasy novel set in the Cornish coast of England, INGO speaks to and of the aching pull of the sea and creates a compelling world, the world of Ingo, the world beneath the seas. Characters, including Mer folk, are full blown and fascinating, but it is place -- the ocean -- that swells and sings. I loved the book and promptly went out to buy the rest of the books in the series -- all as fascinating as the first. THE TIDE KNOT continues the story, followed by THE DEEP and THE CROSSING OF INGO.

During the hot lazy days of summer, these books are perfect to read on the shore of the wide world, with the hush and roar of the sea in your ears. Books to set your imagination a-stir.

A Useful Link To Some Writing Basics

2010-07-30T17:52:00.001-04:00

Check it out: award winning author Tim Wynne-Jone's Eleven Things You Need To Know about writing. While no list of writing tips can cover everything you need to know -- the best way to learn how to write is simply to write and write and write -- this is a well-crafted list that includes some subtleties that are often overlooked in such lists.

Between Drafts of Novels -- Writing in See-Saw

2010-07-02T14:26:00.005-04:00

One of the essential things to do when writing a novel or picture book or poem, or any kind of writing, is to give it time to rest between drafts. The great pause. You need to let your manuscript rest after a draft to refresh your ears and eyes and heart and head, so that when you come back to it, you see it anew and can spot what doesn't work.

So what do you do while it rests, apart from fume, fret, fuss and twiddle your thumbs?

I've found it useful to work novels in see-saw. To embark on another novel while a draft of the first one rests. Many writers work on picture books between the drafts of a novel, or other smaller pieces of writing, but I find it works just as well to be plarking on another novel.

Here's the thing though -- for me it doesn't work to have three novels on the go. The see-saw metaphor is more apt than I realized when I tried it. Somehow it was awkward and imbalanced for me to have three novels on the go, even if I approached each one when the others were at rest. Two balance, three don't, not for me. It's okay for me to have two novels and some picture books fermenting and brewing inbetween, but I can't quite seem to have three novels taking up head space, not in stages of actual writing. It feels too full, as though there isn't room enough in my subconscious mind to burble and process away and then come up with new insights which seems to happen when I let my novels rest. Because, in a way, you're writing all the time -- at some level, your mind is processing the work even while at rest.

After I finished my first Dilly book, The Trouble With Dilly I started to plark on a novel That Boy Red, which is inspired by stories my father-in-law told about growing up in rural PEI during the Depression. It was a wonderful counter-balance to Dilly as it was set in a different time period, with a different voice. Then back to The Trouble With Dilly for editing, and once that book was finally off to the printers, I returned to That Boy Red, which will be published by HarperCollins Canada in April 2011.

And now that I'm on the edits for That Boy Red, I'm see-sawing it with the new Dilly novel -- at a different, earlier stage than Red, of course. Once Red is off to the printers, I'll start a new novel (even now brewing and sizzling in the back of my head) to see-saw with the new Dilly.

Character Development Tip – Reading Your Character (And some book recommendations.)

2010-06-18T13:33:00.001-04:00

Here’s another sideways, oblique way to get to know your character. Try reading your character – that’s right, reading. As in read the books your character would love. (Or for that matter books your character loathes.) Make a list of books your character would read and then read them, through your character’s eyes. You may never actually use this in your novel, except maybe in passing, but it will flesh out your character to you in a way that will come through in your writing. The more you know about your character, the more convincingly you can portray those subtle details that make your character seem real.

When I first started to plark with my latest Dilly novel (tentatively titled DILLY THE GREAT), I realized that I had to read books that Dilly might read, books that would have inspired her to be a detective. Yes, there’s a mystery in the new Dilly book.

So to start off, I re-read Sherlock Holmes – through Dilly’s eyes, of course – and I knew she’d get the gist but also find some of the language "weird and fussy and old fashioned" to quote her.

Next, I read some of Shane Peacock’s wonderful books about Sherlock as a young boy: Eye of the Crow and Death in the Air. I’d heard of them but hadn’t yet read them.

Well, I loved these books and I highly recommend them. What I found especially captivating about them is that London, where I lived years ago (no, not in Victorian times!) almost becomes a character. The details of gritty Victorian London are palpable. What is also wonderful about these books is the skillful way in which Peacock has extrapolated backwards from the adult Sherlock to create the young boy who will be that man. The boy is completely convincing, the character nuanced, and the events that shape him into the man he will be are poignant and fitting. I found the characterization more delicate and convincing than that of the adult Holmes, which is no small feat. Dilly, of course, loved the books too, and devoured them eagerly.

Next, I discovered other books related to Sherlock Holmes, ones I hadn’t heard of until I contacted some local librarians. Praise be to librarians! I so appreciate having a source to contact for information. I e-mailed several local Ottawa librarians to ask them if an eleven year old girl, a precocious reader, might read the original Sherlock Holmes books. They all said yes it was likely, depending on the skill of the reader.

Well, Dilly isn’t always particularly modest (sorry Dilly!) but she is a keen reader.

All the librarians mentioned Shane Peacock’s books, but one also mentioned books by Nancy Springer about Sherlock Holmes’ younger sister Enola. I’d never heard of these books but promptly got them from the library. (By the way, Nancy Springer's website is a bit rudimentary, but check it out anyway.)

What a find. What delightful books. Again, I unequivocally recommend them. There are several, the first two being The Case of the Missing Marquess – An Enola Holmes Mystery and The Case of the Left-Handed Lady – An Enola Holmes Mystery. What is wonderful about these books is that, as in Peacock’s books, London comes alive both physically and socially. In Springer’s books, as well, there are striking details of what it was like to be a girl/woman in that era. Telling details about the clothes women wore, their social conditions, and attitudes towards them -- women were considered to be irrational and hysterical and unlikely to be intelligent -- are woven seamlessly into the stories.

Enola is a thoroughly credible character, keen and clever and resourceful – but also vulnerable. Yes, Enola is Alone spelled backwards. I completely related to her intelligent struggle against the constraints and stereotypes of women in that era. Springer does an extraordinary job of weaving together mystery with character development, and showcases the lives of women seamlessly by using information that only women might know, such as knowledge of flowers, of fans, to have Enola unravel mysteries that her older brother Sherlock cannot. These books, as well as the others I found in the series, The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets; The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan; The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline are great as mysteries – clever without being too obvious, and filled with the kind of details of Victorian life that are integral to the plot.

Dilly, I might add, absolutely LOVED these books. She got the first book from Mrs. Springer’s second hand bookstore called Old Friends. Mrs. Springer firmly believes in letting Dilly read the books first because how else will she know if the book is a keeper? Dilly definitely considered the book a keeper.

So thanks, Dilly, for being the conduit for me to discover wonderful books I hadn’t yet read.

Oh, and I also found out more about Dilly as I read them but the bonus was reading books that delighted me as well as Dilly.

Character Development Tip -- Shopping with your character

2010-06-10T12:42:00.000-04:00

Sometimes your characters arrive full blown, and other times it's a circuitous journey of discovery to flesh out your character, so she/he feels fully nuanced and human. There's the obvious biographical stuff you write down or think about when trying to create characters, but that's a head on/from the head way of going about it. Sometimes you have to find your character sideways, through odd little activities, slip into strange crevices. One such way is to go shopping with your character. Yup, go shopping with your character.

I wish I'd come up with this idea, but I didn't. I first stumbled across this years ago when browsing the websites of other writers and I found this on Diana Wieler's website. She's the author of several YA novels including the wonderful BAD BOY, winner of the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature in 1989. I'd provide a link to the site, but it doesn't seem to exist any more and try as I might I can't locate it. Anyway, Diana Wieler's tip was to go shopping with your character, to buy something that your character would buy, then keep it beside your computer as you write.

I've done this several times and it's been a great way to really think about my character and to discover subtle aspects of him/her I wouldn't have thought of before, but most of all, to inspire me and keep me focused. For instance, for The Trouble With Dilly, I went shopping for Christmas decorations as Dilly does. I went to the dollar store -- great research to see what was available, and specific Christmas decorations I saw there worked into the story -- and I went hunting for the biggest box of shining Christmas glass decorations. When I located one, I bought it and kept it beside my computer as I wrote the novel.

Dilly was an engaging if distracting character to shop with, easily diverted by bargains and quick to lose focus. For the current Dilly novel I'm working on, tentatively titled DILLY THE GREAT, the dollar store came in handy again. Dilly fancies herself a detective so I went there and hunted down a plain black notebook, (not pink, oh no, or rainbow coloured -- that is something her best friend Olivia would go for, but Dilly is serious about this) and a magnifying glass, and I kept these beside my computer as I wrote the novel. The magnifying glass is a great distraction to play with, and oh, it's in the novel too, and plays a pivotal role.

Thanks Dilly, for the shopping trip, even if you stiffed me for the bill.

You don't always need a traditional shopping trip to find that inspiring item to keep beside you as you write. I have a novel coming out next spring, THAT BOY RED, with HarperCollins Canada. It's inspired by my father in law's stories about growing up in rural PEI during the Depression. It's fiction -- and oh, the first time I write from the point of view of a boy. So I went to the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum, which is a fascinating place to wander around, with many buildings, activities and houses showcasing rural life in the 1920s and 1930s. During one of my visits, there was a fair on, and I brought home a shingle with my initials burned on it, as well as a strip of braided rags for making a rug. Both kept me company while I wrote that story.

For the Sower of Tales I didn't go shopping because it's a fantasy novel set in a fantasy world. But during one of my local walks (I always walk to dream and pound out stories) -- which is a gorgeous one partway through woods, then out into an open field which, during the late summer and Fall, has masses of milkweed -- I picked a few stalks of opening milkweed because they remind me of the story pods in the novel. They're not exactly alike, because the story pods have five petals that open, whereas milkweed two, but the silky seeds are very like the seeds of my imagined story pods. So, during the writing of that novel, through the umpteen drafts, I kept the milkweed in a mug beside my computer, the milky seeds a tangible link to the world I was writing about. When the novel was done and published, I took that milkweed with me back to the field and released the seeds. Yeah, I know, a metaphor for letting go and releasing that tale to the world.

So if you're struggling with your character and want to know her/him better, go on -- go shopping with your character. Or find something your character would love and cherish. And thank you Diana Wieler, for that fabulous tip.

Useful Link With Info on Finding Agents and More

2010-05-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

Check out this blog, that of a literary agent based in San Francisco: Nathan Bransford
On the panel on the right are many questions and answers on finding an agent, submitting a query letter to agents, and Nathan's Ten Commandments For the Happy Writer, which is refreshingly down to earth. Bear in mind though, that much of his advice is applicable to the U.S. market. And bear in mind, too/two, my golden rule about all things writerly: There Are No Golden Rules. So take it all with a pinch of salt and enjoy.

Finding Your Character's Voice -- Writing Exercise

2010-05-16T12:47:00.001-04:00

When I was trying to get myself psyched up to get started on that first draft of my new novel, a sequel to THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY I could feel my character, Dilly, nudging and pushing wanting to be given voice. A great way to find the voice of your character is to write a journal account from her/his point of view. Dilly insisted on a blog. And so, here is what she said -- dated when she wrote it and with her original punctuation:

Feb 22.2010

Kierat said I should start a blog because that was better than complaining about her -- the her being Rachna Gilmore, who is supposed to be writing another book about me and she says she is but she hasn’t shown me anything yet even though I’ve given her about a million ideas and what does she expect me to do, write the book for her? Kierat says I should punctuate better, but he can just shut up because it’s my blog not his. But he says I should start by saying who I am, so here it is. I’m Dilly Ahuja and I’m eleven years old and I live with my mom, dad, brother Kierat and grandmother, Dadiji, whom I call the Great White Hen. I came up with that name because she’s big and bossy and always wears white which is what you do in India if you’re a widow and even though we’re not in India now – we’re in Canada – the Great White Hen still wears white because she’s a widow. Kierat says I should watch what I say in a blog because what if the Great White Hen reads it and I say, that’s not likely because my grandmother is really old fashioned and probably doesn’t even know how to turn on the computer let alone get into e-mail or blogs, and she’s always complaining about how I spend too much time on the computer playing games (I don’t) and stuff like that.

So I live with who I said, and we’re in *****. I’ve decided not to say where I live because Kierat says if I give it away we could be indund, no that’s inundated with lots of people coming up to take pictures of us and ask for autographs and I don’t think I’ll mind that and I’ve been practicing my signature, just a big D and then a scrawl like I’m famous and don’t have time to write it all out, but Kierat says it’ll be annoying for Mom and Dad although I think maybe if we had more people coming by the store would be busier, only Kierat says the store is busy enough and Mom has her hands full with the take out as it is and she would be really fed up if she had to talk to people who just wanted to know about the book.

So we live in a busy corner, and I’ll just use the fictional name that Rachna Gilmore, my writer, gave my neighbourhood, which is Tarrin Street, and my parents have a corner grocery store and mom also cooks for the take-out. She cooks Indian food, north Indian food, because my parents came from Punjab to Canada, and she’s a fantastic, amazing cook, which everyone says, even Mr. Perry, who loves her cooking and who used to live in England and eat in the best restaurants there, so he should know.

So the reason I’m famous is twofold. This is me being clear and organized because Kierat says I’m rambling only what does he know, because no one wrote a book about him because he’s nerdy and doesn’t do anything interesting only get great grades in school. Kierat is 15. But the reason I’m famous is twofold. First, I did something fantastic in the community (I’m not going to go into it here because Kierat says I should encourage everyone to read the book and if I give it all away what’s the point of anyone buying the book and reading about me?) and Mr. Paros, a local reporter wrote up about what I did with my best friends April and Olivia. And we all did this fantastic amazing benevolent thing for the community but it was my idea first, only I’m not just trying to get all the credit because I couldn’t have done it without April and Olivia and everyone who helped, but I’m just saying it was my idea first, only because it was. The other reason I’m famous is I’ve had a book written about me. It’s THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY and it was written by Rachna Gilmore. She’s a real writer. She’s really, really old. She says she isn’t but she’s over fifty, so she is really old. But she came to my school and back then I thought it would be cool to be a writer when I grew up and be famous and make a truck load of money and be stinking rich, only she said you didn’t usually make a ton of money writing so I decided I wouldn’t bother, but then she said I wrote really well, and then the school invited her back to do a writing workshop because all the teachers liked her and also the kids liked her, except for Brad who is lazy and didn’t want to write. So when she came back for the workshop she said I had tons of ideas, and I should write a journal but I couldn’t be bothered and I said I could give her my ideas and she could write about me and she got all snotty and said no thanks she’s got lots of ideas of her own, only when she read in the paper about me and April and Olivia and the fantastic benevolent thing we did in the community she soon changed her tune and said she’d write a book about me after all, so I told her all about it and she wrote it up, and okay she did a pretty good job, I’m not saying she didn’t, only I bet I could have done it better only I don’t have the time to do all the re-writing and editing she says you have to do if you want to get published so I guess it’s better all around that she wrote it because I’m busy enough with homework and helping at the store and playing hockey. That’s what I love. Playing hockey. I play with a house league so I don’t have time like she has to write it. The book, I mean. I’m not sure about the title, though because it sort of gives the impression that I’m trouble and she’s implied a few things in the book about me which are sort of not complimentary which is a bit of a cheek because I gave her the ideas in the first place.

Kierat’s reading this over my shoulder and he says I should be careful what I say about her, the writer, because if she sees this and gets pissed off she may not write the second book about me she’s promised to write. But I don’t think she’ll read it because I asked if she had a blog and she laughed and said no she can’t be bothered and what would she write about anyway, other than she parked her backside in a chair and wrote or went for a walk to hammer out her ideas. Only why she needs to hammer out ideas I don’t know, I can’t fathom (which means figure out) because I’ve given her all my ideas only she says she can’t just plunk them all down any old way higgeldy-piggeldy, there has to be a story arc. Whatever. I just don’t know why, if all she does is plunk her backside down on a chair and write that she hasn’t done my new book yet. It’s not like she has anything else to do, but she says she has, because she’s plarking with millions of other ideas and other stories. Whatever. Plarking is what she calls it – playing, working and larking. I think she’s just lazy, frankly, and no, I don’t think she’ll ever read this blog because I won’t tell her about it and anyway she says she can’t be bothered reading other people’s blogs because she has a life to which I say ha ha, if she has a life why doesn’t she blog about it and why doesn’t she get on with writing my other book?

Jumping Without a Net

2010-05-12T14:05:00.000-04:00

March 10.10

A visualization I often do before starting a first draft, or any other time I feel I need to free myself to write, is to imagine that I am climbing up a tall tree, right to the very top. Then I look down and jump. Down, down, down. There is no net below, but I always land gently on my feet. Disclaimer -- to be visualized only, not tried in real life!

Shivering into that First Draft

2010-05-12T13:53:00.000-04:00

March 4.10

Getting into your first draft, either starting or continuing it, is often like shivering into cold ocean water. You creep in, little by little, the tangy water brisk and chilling. But once you take a deep breath and at last plunge in -- for me, right up to my neck -- and thrash about to get warmed, it's absolute heaven. And you don't want to come out. One of my favourite places to swim -- the beaches of PEI, which are also wonderful to walk on for miles, and to dream stories.

The First Draft Procrastination -- Staining the Water Clear

2010-05-12T12:49:00.001-04:00

March 1.2010

I'm procrastinating getting started on my next novel. It's a Junior Children's novel for Grades 3 and up, a sequel to THE TROUBLE WITH DILLY which was released in Fall 2009. I love my character and her world and I'm longing to be absorbed in the thick of it, of being caught up in the white heat of writing where everything else fades and I'm in the centre of time's spiral, that still spot where time is unmoving and eternal.

And yet I'm putting it off.

Okay, so in part I'm putting it off because of fear. It's the fear that all writers have -- the fear expressed so well by William Blake (Songs of Innocence) of staining the water clear.

We all have in our heads a version of the story, a feeling of it that seems pristine and perfect.

By starting to write, I'm afraid I won't be able to do justice to that vision in my head, that I'll stain the clear water of that perfect vision. When I teach creative writing to kids and adults, I warn them about this, how often writers feel this way and how the only way to overcome this self-doubt and fear is to just start.

And yet I can't seem to follow my own advice. It seems I must go through a dance of self-loathing, longing to start, fear and darting about, punctuated with deep periods of intense thought lost in the story, and being distracted by housework for godsakes, which I loathe, before the fear of not starting overcomes the fear of starting. It's a struggle between the hot scratchy desire for that first draft to be as close to perfect as possible, and the cool, peaceful acceptance that it hardly ever is. It's a fear that perhaps can only be overcome by remembering that there are few if any near perfect drafts; that the writing process is labyrinthine, full of surprises and dead ends, and that it's all part of the process, and part of the fun.

Except, when you've had about twenty or more books published and others on the way, you keep hoping that by now you really should be skilled enough to have a fabulous first draft and the fact that you don't means you're a terrible writer and perhaps you should go and get a real job, except that you love what you do -- apart from the self-loathing and vacillating -- and once you get into it you'll be able to draw in a deep breath and be ALL RIGHT.

I will start soon. I will. I'll relax and embrace the imperfection, enjoy the process. I'll settle into the joy of the writing and let the judging of the first draft await my judging mind when the euphoria of finishing that first draft subsides.