A New House

Posted by Lynne

I've never built a house, but I took a wonderful course on building a novel. When I was deep in to a revision of Life Without Summer, I took a course on story construction offered through Grub Street by the smart and talented Stace Budzko. It helped me then, but how was I to know that eight months later, as I delved into crafting my next novel, that things he taught me would flood into my mind with new relevancy.

The elements of our stories are not unlike those of a house. What we know about our characters--how they behave and misbehave--their desires, wants and needs are as important to the writer as the windows that allow light into the living room. Plot can be seen as the opening and closing of doors. Voice--the house's architectural style.

Having built and sold one novel already, I know that building a good foundation is critical to the novel's ability to stand out in the marketplace. For me, settling on point of view is an important first step in creating the right structure, telling the right story. Whose story is it? Which character(s) have the most to gain and the most to lose given the situations and complications I've chosen to write about? When I find the heart of the story, I know it. I love writing in two voices, so for me there is often more than one heart to consider.

At every stage of novel building it's important to use quality goods. For a writer, the raw materials are words. This time I'm finding it even easier to lay down the structure with care, partly because the more I write the more I fall in love with words. Though in truth, I'm confident, because I trust that even when a house is done, there is nothing wrong with moving a little furniture or hanging new curtains. Even brothers and sisters have been known to change rooms, and parents know when it's time to add a room over the garage.

Perhaps the single most valuable lesson I learned from Stace during that weekend in April relates to setting. I will be forever grateful to him for opening my eyes to the idea that setting can be compelling, not merely a backdrop "where characters do their thing". Whether you imagine the places in your novel as pleasing, forbidding or somewhere in between, setting embodies all the places that influence the way your characters see the world and how they respond to it.

Andre Dubus once said, "We enter the fictional world through memory". During my weekend course, Stace urged me to take every opportunity to pry, eavesdrop, stare, and otherwise gather the material I'd need to build a story. Little did he know that the perspectives he offered, I would remember, serving me well in my building projects down the road.

Why We Keep Reading...

Posted by Lisa

You haven't heard enough about Harry Potter. Really, you haven't. You may not be a fan. Perhaps you've never cracked open a book. Or you read the first and second books, then lost track, somehow, along the way. You might want to check back in; this phenomenon is worth studying.

The top reasons why Potter fans keep on reading:

1- We care about Harry. Who wouldn't? He's kind, orphaned, cute (bordering on Hollywood Hunk post puberty).

2- The setting is well woven and complete. Hogwarts, the school, is so real I close my eyes and I am there. Why? Details like the photograph of a wizard who demands a password from students entering their dorm rooms

3- It's unpredictable. Plain and simple. Readers love that.

4- It's unbelievably creative and unique. The author created the ideas of an invisibility cloak and a mirror that reflects your innermost desires - you mean those things don't really exist?

5- There is conflict and stakes. You-Know-Who. Oh, how that is lacking in some works of fiction (present company sadly included at times, I confess).

The writing has been criticized, but what IS good writing? Frankly, I don't know. It's not literary. But, nonetheless, the prose engages me; I turn page after page, letting minutes slip by unnoticed. I read Harry Potter as a reader. How can I not? But, I read Harry Potter as a writer as well.

As a writer of middle grade and YA to date, I look to Sarah Dessen, Lois Lowry, Jerry Spinelli, and Jack Gantos with awe; I learn from each of these writers each time I sit with one of their novels. They, too, keep readers reading. Isn't that our ultimate goal?

Knowing When

Posted by Lisa

The first fifty pages are strong. I think they are, anyways.
I've poured my literary soul into them, not to mention those early morning hours, late night hours, and recent sessions at my local bookstore cafe.

Lynne, Hannah, and Amy, it's up to you soon, to critique my YA novel, book number two, as it's close to being finished. My characters, sigh, have lived out their story. Turns out this final product, its plot and characters, are nothing as it started. But a novel evolves, doesn't it?

But there is one caveat...I never know, for sure, when it's done.

Heidi Pitlor, a brilliant editor, and lovely writer, spoke two years ago at Grub Street's Muse & the Marketplace. When writing her novel, The Birthdays, she said it was her husband who told her it was done. She'd been editing and editing, and editing some more. When he voiced his suggestion, she agreed, he was right. Her novel was done, and off it went to her editor.

I won't rely on my husband, I don't think. But I do question, at times, at the start, at the finish of writing sessions, if I'm on the right track. Should a particular sub-plot be expanded? Should another be eliminated? Is there too much weather (cold and icy snow in my New Hampshire setting) and not enough details about physical surroundings (buildings, objects, characters' possessions)?

It's hard to know since the is no right and wrong. But there is good and bad, and very good and very bad. Sometimes, it's hard to know.

Compelling

Posted by Lynne

Saint James Church lies on a hill as if God himself placed it there. Fluted spires reach toward heaven, the cathedral begs to go back home. Stained glass stories march around the whole of it, promising you there is something inside you, too, can have.

**

Saint James Church is parked on the hill as if god himself dropped it there. The steeple gestures toward heaven as if to say thanks a lot for kicking me out of paradise. Oval glass saints, stained bloody, wander around the outside of it. These martyrs have no power to tempt me inside.

Compelling. As writers, the word compelling is bandied about in workshops, online and in print. The dictionary definition is wonderful. The word compelling means to force or drive a course of action, to unite by force or to have a powerful and irresistible effect or influence. Understanding the word, compelling, as it relates to story building is complicated.

Until last Saturday, when I thought of the word compelling I thought about characterization and plot. Of course, the trouble that comes into a life must move the action forward, there must be powerful irresistible complications-- plot. The characters must be three dimensional, have depth and motivation.

Now, after a weekend course on story construction, taught by the smart and talented Stace Budzko, I think about setting in a whole new way. Compelling and setting were two words I wouldn't have put together before.

The opening paragraphs about Saint James Church are my efforts to complete an in-class writing assignment. Stace asked us to think of a place and write about it from two perspectives. The first perspective was to think of the place as pleasing. The second, forbidding.

This exercise freed me from what I would have to call an area of weakness in my writing. In the past, my descriptions of setting were merely a backdrop for my characters. I fear my descriptions were stale and predictable. Dare I say, boring to read?

Realizing setting is one more way in which to make my stories compelling, equates to a light bulb moment. I want my descriptions of setting to be at times a pleasing vantage point from which my story is told. At times it can and should be forbidding or somewhere in between the two extremes. At the least, setting should unite all the aspects of my story with force. I want places, locations, time, and seasons to ground my characters. Like in the House of Sand and Fog or Rebecca, I want my setting to have an profound influence on my readers, too.

Do you have any craft secrets that you've discovered along the way that have informed your writing? Any light bulb moments that could help other writers better understand the word compelling?