Authors

I Wanted to Feel What They Felt

/ still a dreamer

Once you become engaged more seriously in writing, you become much more observant of what you’re reading. It’s not that I am judging or critiquing as I read; I just seem to be much more aware of what is and is not grabbing me.

I just finished Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, recommended by a friend. I actually found it hard to finish; it was simply not engaging me sufficiently. And I know why.

It wasn’t the premise. The premise was excellent and intriguing – David is a doctor who delivers his wife Norah’s baby in a snowstorm at his own clinic, unable to get to the hospital, further away. A healthy baby boy, Paul, and an unexpected baby girl, Phoebe, who clearly has Down’s Syndrome, are born. It is 1962 – a time in which it was sadly common to “get rid of” such babies and put them in institutions. The husband, with weighty memories of a sickly sister who died at 12, asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the girl away to such an institution, telling his wife that the infant died at birth. Caroline brings the baby girl to the institution and cannot bear to leave her there; instead, she brings Phoebe home and secretly raises her on her own. And so begin lifetimes of secrecy and deception.

The potential is here for so many feelings – Norah’s juxtaposition of  joy at her son Paul’s birth, and sorrow in her unknown daughter Phoebe’s supposed death; David’s own loss and guilt; Caroline’s joy in becoming a mother, tangled with guilt; the later developing conflictual feelings between Norah, David and Paul as he grows; and the challenges in Caroline and Phoebe’s lives. So why didn’t I feel them?

In my humble estimation, it seemed the author wrote from a distance. There was plenty of description of what these characters went through, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to feel what they felt, and I didn’t. I wanted to spend haunted nights with Norah … I know what she did about her feelings, but I didn’t feel her heart. I wanted to feel Caroline’s conflict in a gut-wrenching way. I did not. And so it wasn’t until near the end of the book that I finally felt suspense and became more involved in possible outcomes, and that’s just too late. Overall, I was disappointed.

Granted, this is one woman’s opinion. True that I just came off reading a very powerful author, Barbara Kingsolver. But as I picked up E. Annie Proulx’ collection of short fiction, Heart Strings, I suddenly reconnected to the power of words and their ability to fully engage me, and I can’t wait to get back to this book.

Such things are always reminders of what a challenge it is to really write well, to really engage and touch a reader. Writing novels sure isn’t for sissies.

Some Authors Just Never Get Old

/ still a dreamer

Sometimes it seems like it will take forever to finish a book. No comment on the book itself, just a million distractions, some good, some bad. But how wonderful is it when you are reading an author you love to read and can finally come back to and re-immerse yourself in the story.

I am always amazed when people tell me they don’t like to read. I can’t figure out how that happens. I was most fortunate to be reading at a very early age, perhaps because I was being read to at a very early age. Whether my mother, grandmother or father – or actually even my grandfather sometimes reading us the Sunday comics! – it does seem that there was always someone engaging us in the magic of reading. For this, I am deeply grateful.

I am also deeply grateful that there are so many wonderful authors writing. One whom I’ve loved to read, though I have admittedly only read 3 of her novels thus far, is Barbara Kingsolver. When I first read The Poisonwood Bible, I was blown away. The storyline, the characters, the premise, the setting, but most of all, just how she wrote. So recently, I read The Bean Trees and reread Pigs in Heaven, more wonderful than I remember it.

I am sad to end one of Kingsolver’s books, though I have another one from that annual book sale awaiting me on the shelf, but I got the chance to peruse the many novels I’d chosen from the sale, and am starting The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Having shelves of books awaiting to be read is, indeed, an embarrassment of riches.

A Wedding in December – Anita Shreve

/ still a dreamer

I have read a number of Anita Shreve’s novels – some I have liked quite a bit, and a couple, really not so much. But I found this one, A Wedding in December, to be one of the most enjoyable. I honestly cannot tell if it’s because it’s so very fresh in my mind, or has just grabbed me with its very 3-dimensional characters and a slowly unwinding mystery, but it’s been a fast, entertaining, and absorbing read.

The characters are truly well drawn, but it is the way Shreve has ever-so-subtly introduced a secret, an event, that will weave throughout the book almost revealing itself in a shadow here, a whisper there, until it becomes a riveting focus towards the end of the book that also engaged me. Our characters, Harrison, Nora, Bill, Bridget, Jerry, Rob and Agnes all come with some regrets, their nature revealed gradually at what is both a reunion of friends from a school attended long ago and the wedding of two high-school sweethearts, Bill and Bridget.  She, who is also now fighting cancer,  and Bill met again, having once loved each other and been apart 27 years.

Agnes comes with a long-held secret of her own; Harrison, with regrets and longings. Nora, married to a brilliant poet, created her new life – the conversion of their home in the Berkshires to an inn – after his death, but she, too, has memories of the past and what never was. As the guests arrive and interact, their tales are slowly and quite skillfully told, at the same time dancing around the edge of the subject of their mutual friend – Stephen’s – death so many years ago. When they all become snowbound over the wedding weekend, and with some having too much to drink, many revelations come about.

Within the story of the characters at this event is a second story that Agnes is writing about the Halifax Harbor blast in 1917, killing 2,000 people during WW I. At times, jumping into the life of Innes Finch was disconcerting, and I found myself wanting to get back to the reunion/wedding. At other times, I was more involved with the secondary storyline, with Innes, his feelings for Hazel, and her sister, Louise. Agnes writing this story is also a vehicle for her to help resolve some of her own emotional issues.

A Wedding in December may not be the book that examines the deepest souls of its characters, but it does look quite clearly into how people deal with – or choose not to deal with – regrets and the longings for what might have been. What I liked about this book is that Shreve created characters that I really cared about as well as how things resolved for them. So important in a novel.

When the Title Doesn’t Fit the Story – Taming the Star Runner

/ still a dreamer

When I’m offered coffee, I don’t want tea. When I’m offered a ride, I don’t expect to walk. When I choose a book entitled Taming the Star Runner, with a number of horses on the cover, and a jacket liner which pumps up the story of a horse named Star Runner, I don’t expect a story about a teenage boy named Travis. But that’s what I got.

Taming the Star Runner  by S. E. Hinton is a coming-of-age story about a 15 year old named Travis, who, while he sees himself as very cool, is always on the edge of getting in more trouble than he can handle. After attempting to kill his abusive stepfather and doing some time, he is sent to live with his uncle on a ranch in Oklahoma. Here he meets, among others, a teen barely older than himself, Casey, rider and riding instructor, and then we finally meet who seemed to allegedly be a main character, her horse named Star Runner. Had I not been excited to read a story about this wild horse, who only first appears halfway through the book, I may have liked the story more. Or maybe not picked it up at all.

S.E. Hinton, deliberately using only her initials as an author, (lest it be realized she was a very young woman author), broke ground in the 60’s, writing about gangs. Her first published book was The Outsiders, written when she was 16. This story is similar in the sense that Travis is another angry, angst-filled teen, feeling unappreciated, isolated and ever on the edge of an emotional explosion. The story is fairly good, actually. Travis’ character is well-drawn, as are other characters, and the plot has some interesting twists and turns, even if, in my mind, they are not all tied up that well in the end. Still, this particular tale became more interesting for me when the powerful spirit of Star Runner was introduced and the girl who wanted to tame him.

Having read a number of Newbery-winning and other middle grade novels, and having learned what editors are looking for and what is being published nowadays, I can’t help but wonder if Hinton would have been published today. Or at least if she remained in her own writing style. Being mindful of what we are told at workshops, conferences, online, etc. I am sometimes amazed at how she worded things, switching tenses, using unmarked self-reflective dialogue in the same paragraph as lengthy descriptions, etc. It made me realize how much more refined the craft of writing – in this case, for teens – has become.

I don’t mean to sit and criticize S.E. Hinton for what she did – she brought a whole new way of life and type of character to light in her novels. They were groundbreaking, have become classics, and continue to resonate well with many readers today. I only wish the book had really been about what the title told me.

 

Where Do Story Ideas Come From?

/ still a dreamer

Back in December, I devoted a post to where ideas for picture books come from. With energy still running high from the NJ SCBWI June Conference, I feel inspired to expand that post. I’ll start with an example.

The photo below tells a story that may or may not have interest to you, but it definitely does to me. You may not even see the story right away. But stick with me. By way of background, I put food and water on my back porch for the 2 cats next door who are outside most of the time, and often visiting me. In time, a small tuxedo feral whom I’ve named Little Fee found the food, and now he’s a regular. I feed him morning and night, and he can graze whenever he’s inspired until I bring the food in. But who else is at the food bowl?

Well, if you know animals, you can look at the photo and know that it’s not just a cat. Towards the end of this past winter, when food sources were slim, I had two visitors who discovered the food – a young skunk, and a young opossum. While neither bothers me, I don’t need animals with lots of teeth or who can spray horrible smells on my porch. So I started bringing the food in as soon as it got dark. They left and found food elsewhere.

Feeling confident, now that it’s June, I started leaving it out a bit later again for when Little Fee comes around. So look again … and check that footprint. Here it is enlarged – Exhibit A. Based on my research last time, I’m pretty sure that I have a possum again. But he’s not the only visitor … I started noticing an increase in bird poop on my porch railing. Closer observation has revealed that a mama Blue Jay swoops down several times in the morning and late afternoon, takes a piece of food and flies away. She’s either feeding her young or eating it herself and regurgitating for her young.

For me, that’s a story idea. Three cats, a skunk, a possum and a Blue Jay all coming for dinner. I’m always enamored with nature, and this inspires me!

So where do story ideas come from? Always something of meaning and interest to ourselves. It can be something as simple as an observation of nature on our back porches, or something we’ve always wanted to know more about, or experiences or observations we feel compelled to write about. It’s when we are trying to write about “not us” that stories fall flat. We need to know ourselves, (or be willing to discover), and write from our hearts. So simple.

At the June Conference, I had a PB critique which inspired me to improve my story and rework my dummy. In a First Page Session, I got some suggestions that got wheels turning about really writing that middle-grade novel I only occasionally thought about. Where are those ideas coming from? My past, my love of horses, and all the information I’ve been absorbing over the last 7 years from helping an equine rescue and having friends who ride. The ideas are flowing as through an open faucet. I didn’t expect that from a simple First Page critique.

And in one workshop about breaking picture book rules, we split into 2 groups halfway through, and one of the two presenters, Alison Formento, gave us a writing exercise. What we participants wrote in such a short time was both amazing and moving to us all. And right there was another idea for each of us, because Alison had triggered our writing about something meaningful in our lives.

It all starts with an idea … what has meaning for you? What MUST you share with the world in whatever genre or whatever format or voice you choose? That’s where story ideas come from. And sometimes it can be as tiny as a muddy little paw print.