Story Sleuths

A WORD FROM THIS MONTH'S AUTHOR: Cynthia Lord

2011-03-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

Touch Blue went through many revisions. It took me quite awhile to find the story I truly wanted to tell in this book.

One big change the book went through was that when I first wrote Touch Blue, Tess didn't want Aaron to come. She resented that Dad was excited a boy was coming and that her family had to change.

That might be an understandable reaction for Tess, but I kept getting feedback from my critique partners saying they felt so badly for Aaron that they didn't like Tess. I tried giving her bigger reasons why she would feel that way, and I backed up the story so the reader got to know Tess first. But the bottom line was that I had given Aaron a more sympathetic story, which is very hard to overcome. A reader needs to identify with the main character, more than the other characters.

One day I asked myself, "What if Tess wanted Aaron?" It made all the difference.

I don't save many of my drafts, but here was an earlier opening.

Touch blue and your wish will come true.

“The sea likes to keep her secrets,” Dad always says, “but every day she lets a few go.”

At low tide, I find them. They’re never anything ordinary, like a snarl of rope, a broken lobster trap, or a long, frilly ribbon of kelp. Those things wash up in front of our house almost every day—as common as if they belonged between the huge, black-soaked rocks.

No, the sea’s true secrets are always surprises. Yesterday I found an iron teakettle, dotted with barnacles. On Wednesday I uncovered a little wooden jewelry box, empty except for two snails.

Today it’s a round bit of sea glass, just the bottom of a bottle.

"Thank you," I always say, because sometimes you don’t know for sure if something’s important or trash when it first comes.

Looking at this now, I see that it's evocative and a bit symbolic, but it doesn't show the reader what matters most or begin the plot. Here's how the book now begins:

Touch blue and your wish will come true.

“The ferry’s coming!” High on the cliffs, my five-year-old sister, Libby, jumps foot-to-foot. “Come on, Tess! Mom says we can run down to meet it!”

Across the bay the ferry looks small as a toy, leaving the mainland wharf. I’ve seen that boat heading for our island hundreds of times, but never with my heart pounding so hard.

He’s almost here!

When Rules won its Newbery Honor, I made my editor promise that she wouldn't go easier on me because of that award. As you can see from this photo of one of my revision pages, she kept that promise!

And I love her for it.

StorySleuths Tip # 102: Be willing to experiment with character motivation to ensure that reader's can identify with the main character.

NON FICTION ELEMENTS: Touch Blue (Post #4)

2011-03-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hi Heather,

As you know I read and write both fiction and nonfiction. I love a great story, but I also enjoy feeding my brain with facts about a previously unfamiliar topic. One of the best experiences of all is when the worlds of fiction and nonfiction come together, and upon reading a terrific novel I find both my fiction and my nonfiction brain sated by the experience. This is how I felt when reading Cynthia Lord’s wonderful book, Touch Blue.

An interesting article in the Institute of Children’s Literature discussed creative non fiction versus informational fiction. The article stated:

You might learn a ton of stuff from such a well researched piece of fiction – but the primary “job” of the piece will be to tell a great story. The facts will just add extra spice to a really good exciting story.

That “extra spice” is what I’m talking about—snippets of factual information that make me feel I got more out of a story than just high entertainment value. And I am not alone. As much as kids love story, they love facts, too. In her I.N.K Blog (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) nonfiction writer Linda Salzman says:

Kids love to learn about things that really happened. They are constantly asking “Is that real? Is that true? Did that really happen?” When you are reading nonfiction to them and you can answer with an unequivocal “yes” they are truly delighted

But I would go on to say that when you are reading FICTION and you can point to things that “really happen,” the outcome is the same—kids are delighted. And the delight is amplified when the facts are presented in an unobtrusive way that flows with the story. Consider these nonfiction nuggets in Lord’s book:

From page 59:
“Do you think God ever makes mistakes?” I ask
“Mistakes?”
“Like not giving cormorants enough oil to make their wings waterproof, so they have to stand there and dry them?”

From page 67:
“Lay it [the gauge] along the carapace—that’s the name for the lobster’s back.”

From page 70:
Dad reaches into the empty trap for the mesh bag of leftover bait. “Next we throw out the old bait, put in some new, and reset the trap. The bait bag hangs here in the first part of the trap—called the kitchen. The lobster comes into the kitchen to eat, and then he’ll crawl up this ramp and through this opening between the two rooms. The back part of the trap is called the parlor, and that’s where he gets stuck.”

Wow! In just a few pages I have finally come to understand why I always see cormorants hanging out by the Arboretum off the 520 bridge with their wings spread wide. I learned that the lobster’s back is called a carapace, and I understand how a lobster trap works.

What Lord has done so well is to insert these tidbits in a way that is completely inconspicuous—she has made them part of the story. Kids who are fact-hounds will eat this stuff up. Kids who are just in it for the story will come away with a knowledge they didn’t have to work for. There is a saying that “Everyday’s a school day.” As authors if we can expand a kids knowledge of the world by tucking interesting facts into a piece of fiction, we should go for it!

StorySleuth’s Tip #101: Go for the “extra spice”. Add nonfiction elements to your story, but be sure to do so in a way that doesn’t make the reader feel they’re being buried beneath a pile of facts.

DEVELOPING THEME: Touch Blue (Post #3)

2011-02-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Allyson,

I’m so glad you brought up the connection between subplot and theme. I had the opportunity to hear Cynthia Lord speak about theme a few years ago at the Western Washington SCBWI Conference, and I have often referenced my notes from her session when I need to work on theme.

In her presentation, Lord differentiated between subject and theme by saying that theme is what you have to say about a subject. She often phrases theme as a statement or question. For example, one of the subjects of her Newbery-honor book Rules is disability, and the theme she explores is “What is normal?”

She also explained that while themes may arise in a first draft, she doesn’t focus on them until subsequent drafts. Then, she looks for ways to enhance theme, which ultimately enriches the reading experience.

What process does she use to develop theme?

Subjects

First, she defines the subjects of her novel. Each story can have a variety of subjects. Some of the subjects of Touch Blue are friendship, belonging, luck, community, and family. These are the “big picture concerns” of the story, and in her SCBWI presentation, Lord urged writers to take the time to dig deep past the obvious possible subjects to unearth possibly more interesting subjects as well.

Aspects of Subject

Next, Lord spends time exploring different aspects and complexities of a given subject. As you noted, Allyson, belonging is a theme of Touch Blue. Here are some of the different aspects of belonging that I found in the book:

· Everyone knows you

· People say hi to you

· You know who to go to for help or assistance

· You know the history of the place or group

In fact, Aaron initially finds these first two aspects disturbing. On page 17, he says, “How come all these people already know about me?”

Thematic Question

Once you have explored various aspects of a subject, Lord says, you can develop a thematic statement or question. Ideally this question should not be easily answered but rather something that you can spend an entire novel exploring. I don’t know what Lord had in mind for the subject of belonging, but one question she might have pondered is “What happens when a new person joins a tight-knit community?”

The Shadow Side

While exploring a theme, Lord also looks at that shadow side of a subject. This could be the opposite of the subject or its absence. In the case of belonging, shadow aspects might include:

· People don’t accept you (Eben is mean to Aaron)

· People judge you (Mrs. Coombs’ comments on Aaron’s appearance)

· They know all about your business

· They gossip about you

· You can never get away.

One prime example of the shadow side is when the postmaster ask Aaron where he’s from, and Aaron hesitates before answering, “You mean right before here?” (p. 37).

Connecting Theme to Character

In her SCBWI presentation, Lord described how writers embed theme not only in plot but in character as well. As you noted, Allyson, in your discussion of subplots, Tess is the insider and Aaron is the outsider. Their interactions and experiences play off each other, providing readers with multiple views of the issue of belonging.

Using Setting and Objects

The other way writers can deepen theme, according to Lord, is by using setting and objects. The island community of Bethsaida provides a perfect microcosm for exploring theme. There are tourists and year-round families, long-simmering rivalries and an influx of newcomers.

Music provides another example of belonging. Aaron experiences acceptance through his music. When he plays at the Fourth of July picnic, he connects with the islanders. Unfortunately, the cruel note (“Go home! Oops, you can’t. Right, orphan?”) that he finds inside his music book also reminds him that he doesn’t belong.

Theme truly deepens a reader’s experience with a book, but it often seems a bit daunting when starting on a project. I really appreciated learning Lord’s process for developing theme through the revision process. Touch Blue provides a great resource for exploring aspects of subject and theme.

StorySleuths Tip #100: In revision, develop theme by exploring a question about one of your books subjects. Don’t forget to consider the shadow side of your theme. Plot, character, setting, and objects all provide opportunities to deepen theme.

SUBPLOTS: Touch Blue (post #2)

2011-02-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hi Heather!

I loved your post on BIG scenes. While I’ve found them challenging to write, I’ve never considered them as something requiring their own special attention. Thanks for the enlightenment!

And speaking of enlightenment, I attended a terrific lecture last week at the Seattle SCBWI monthly lecture series that changed the way I think about subplots. The lecture, titled WHILE THE CENTRAL PLOT SIMMERS: SUBPLOTS AND SECONDARY/SUPPORTING CHARACTERS, was delivered by Wayne Ude, author, and MFA program director for the Whidbey Island Writers Association. Using Pride and Prejudice as his example, Wayne pointed out the ways that subplots complement the main plot, serving as a mirror to the primary action and theme.

Curious to find out more I looked at what Elizabeth George had to say about subplots in her book Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life. Interestingly enough, George also mentions Pride and Prejudice, pointing out that while Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s relationship is the main plot of the novel, the other three significant relationships (Jane and Bingley, Charlotte and Mr. Collins, Lydia and Wickham) are, “winkles on the same blanket.”

George summarizes the use of subplots with these words:

Subplots generally rise out of a novel’s theme. As you create your character analyses, you’ll begin to make connections between characters. You’ll discover the similarities in what they’re going through or have gone through. You’ll see a common element that you wish to write about, and this will be your theme. Your subplots will mirror that theme.

Now to tie this subplot discussion into this month’s featured book, Touch Blue.

In an online interview with teenreads Cynthia Lord was asked the questions:

What message do you hope readers will take away after they turn the last page of Touch Blue?

And Lord replied:

Kids today live in all different kinds of families. As Tess says to Aaron, "You can belong in more than one place." I want readers to end Touch Blue with a sense of hope that no matter where you lay your head at night, you always belong to all the people you love and all the people who love you.

Belonging and not belonging is a recurrent theme in Lord’s novel. The main plot is Tess’s story. She very much belongs in her tight knit island community, but may lose that connection if her family is forced to move. Aaron’s successful integration into the community is key to Tess achieving her desire—staying put.

Aaron’s quest to leave the island is a subplot that mirrors the main plot. He wants to leave Bethsaida and return to his mother. His reason for wishing to leave, the theme of his subplot, is the same as Tess’s reason for wishing to stay on the island—they are each trying desperately to be in the place where they feel they belong.

Elizabeth George says about subplots, “If they don’t mirror the theme, they will not fit easily into the world of the novel and they will go clunk each time you’re writing them till you finally decide to cut them out altogether.” (63)

The take away for writers is this: If you find that your subplots feel false, consider whether or not they mirror the book’s main theme. And if you find that you have a terrific plot but no subplots, make them up! But start by asking yourself what situations you could put your secondary characters into that mirror the main characters greatest desire.

StorySleuths Tip #99: When writing subplots avoid clunkers by allowing the theme of the subplot to mirror that of the story’s main plot.

BIG SCENES: Touch Blue (Post #1)

2011-02-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Allyson,

I’m so happy to be back to StorySleuths after our hiatus this fall. I hope your writing has been going well.

This month, we’re reading Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord, which starts when Tess Brooks and her family bring a foster child named Aaron into their home on the island of Bethsaida, Maine. This is a story about belonging, family, community, and luck.

Speaking of luck, the timing for me to dig into this month’s book couldn’t be more perfect. Touch Blue features several “big scenes” similar to the scene I’m currently writing in my novel.

What is a big scene? Sandra Scofield, author of The Scene Book, describes big scenes as “scenes that have many characters.” These would include parties, weddings, holidays, and other gatherings.

These scenes are difficult to write, even for masters. Here, Scofield shares a snippet from a letter by Gustave Flaubert describing his challenge in creating a scene in Madame Bovary:

“Never in my life have I written anything more difficult than what I am doing now—trivial dialogue. I have to portray, simultaneously and in the same conversation, five or six characters who speak, several others who are spoken about, the scene, and the whole town… and in the midst of all that, I have to show a man and a woman who are beginning… to fall in love with each other…” (Scofield, p. 156).

A lot to accomplish!

Scofield says that big scenes take as much planning as “the preparation of a huge Christmas dinner, a school play, or any other event that has many components.” Who is there? Where are they? Why have they gathered? What are they doing?

Chapter Two of Touch Blue, Aaron’s arrival on the island, is an ambitious big scene. Let’s step through the scene beat by beat to see how Lord introduces the reader to the characters, the situation, and the island.

1. Libby and Tess arrive at the crowded wharf.

a. In a broad stroke, Lord shows us that the entire town is waiting.

b. Reaction: Tess is annoyed that Eben Calder is there. We get a quick introduction to the antagonist.

2. While Tess looks through the crowd, she hears snippets of conversation.

a. We get details about the boat (setting).

b. The unattributed conversation snippets give the impression of the crowd, plus they provide details about what is happening.

c. Reaction: Tess reflects on the Hamiltons’ move and its implications.

d. Her reflection leads her into a flashback that reveals background information about the plan to bring foster children to the island.

3. Jenna Ross says hi to Tess and they talk.

a. We meet a potential new friend for Tess.

b. The conversation reveals more details about the foster children.

c. Reaction: Tess doesn’t really like Jenna. (Introduction of a story layer)

4. The passengers disembark. Tess waits. She sees Aaron at last.

a. Great sensory and setting details emerge from the descriptions of the ferry and passengers (p. 12-13).

b. We get a first glimpse of Aaron through Tess.

c. Reaction: Tess is disappointed that Aaron has red hair (unlucky) and looks weak.

d. Mrs. Coombs’ also comments about Aaron’s appearance.

5. Dad introduces Aaron to Tess and Libby.

a. Libby throws herself at Aaron, a direct contrast to Tess’s more restrained approach.

b. Aaron’s response reveals his own hesitations.

c. Reaction: Tess is worried that this won’t work out.

d. More setting details come as the family leaves the wharf, passing a lot full of beater cars.

e. The scene ends with another wish from Tess—connection to the theme of luck.

The tension in the scene comes from Tess as she moves from a state of excited anticipation to disappointment and worry at Aaron’s appearance. The reader finishes the chapter wondering whether the living arrangements will work out for Aaron and the Brooks.

Chapter Two of Touch Blue is a great example of how much a big scene can accomplish. This chapter is nine pages long, and it provides introductions to all the major characters, establishes the setting, connects to several thematic lines (belonging, community, luck), introduces a story layer (Tess becoming friends with Jenna), establishes stakes, and builds tension.

While the scene is complicated, Lord keeps it highly focused, never letting us lose sight of Tess’s actions and reactions. Nothing in the scene is superfluous. Everything works together.

StorySleuths Tip #98: Sandra Scofield suggests breaking down a big scene into the same elements of a story: beginning-middle-end, with growing tension, a setting, and a shift at the end. Use beats to break the scene down into parts. Make sure that every element contributes something.

Congratulations, Newbery Honorees!

2011-01-18T13:07:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2011 Newbery Awards! We at StorySleuths were so pleased that two of our 2010 focus books received Newbery Honors: Jennifer Holm's Turtle in Paradise and Rita Williams Garcia's One Crazy Summer.

Both books feature fabulous characters, historical settings, and exciting plots. To celebrate the Newbery Honor awards, we have consolidated all of our postings, including author interviews, on both books here. We invite you to read our files for evidence of what makes Turtle in Paradise and One Crazy Summer such distinguished books.

Turtle in Paradise

One Crazy Summer

We'll Be Posting Again Soon!

2010-11-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

The StorySleuths are heads down in writing projects at the moment, but we're excited to resume blogging following the winter holidays when we'll be looking at Newbery Honor winner Cynthia Lord's newest novel, Touch Blue.

We wish you a peaceful, hopeful holiday season.

Happy reading (and writing!),

The StorySleuths
(Allyson, Meg and Heather)

ROOTING FOR A PRICKLY CHARACTER: Turtle in Paradise (Post #6)

2010-09-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Sleuths,

When Allyson and I met to discuss Turtle in Paradise, we were surprised to note the number of similarities between it and our July book, Karen Cushman’s Alchemy and Meggie Swann. Sure, a few hundred years and the Atlantic separate them in terms of setting. But look at how both books start: in each, the protagonist—a girl on her own—is sent away by her mother to live in a strange and unfamiliar location with relatives who don’t really want them. Furthermore, each girl is a smart, sharp-tongued character who must find a way to survive in difficult circumstances.

Prickly Characters

In fact, Turtle and Meggie Swann share a common outlook: they are brutally honest, funny, independent thinkers who come off as outspoken, impertinent, cranky or sensitive, depending on the moment. While I wouldn’t necessarily like to have either one as a houseguest (at least not the way they act at the beginning of the books), I do end up rooting for both. And from a writing point of view, let’s face it: given where the two characters start, the changes they go through as they find friends and establish themselves create a highly satisfying character arc.

Every writer wants to show character growth, so it’s not unusual to start a book with a character who has a little attitude. That attitude can go too far, of course. Once, when I shared a manuscript at an editorial conference, an agent cautioned me against making my character too sarcastic and snarky. So I started wondering how Jennifer Holm gets us to root for Turtle despite her “hard shell” (p. 99).

Bonding Time

In the book Plot and Structure, writer James Scott Bell says, “After conceiving a compelling Lead character, you must go a step further and figure out how to create an emotional bond with the reader” (p. 65). One tool authors can use is sympathy.

In contrast to mere empathy, sympathy intensifies the reader’s emotional investment in the lead… There are four simple ways to establish sympathy. Choose wisely. Don’t overload them, as it may make the reader feel manipulated. (p. 66)

Bell’s four ways of establishing sympathy are: jeopardy, hardship, the underdog, and vulnerability. Let’s take a look at each.

Jeopardy

Bell writes, “Put the hero in terrible, imminent trouble.” Turtle is traveling to Key West without her mother, and when she arrives, her aunt Minnie is shocked to see her. When Minnie learns that Turtle is supposed to stay with her indefinitely, she exclaims, “As if I don’t have enough already with three kids and a husband who’s never home” (p. 19). Any reader will sympathize with Turtle’s position as an unwanted burden.

Hardship

“If the Lead has to face some misfortune not of her own making, sympathy abounds,” Bell says. Turtle faces plenty of hardship, from her mother’s current and former employers, to the realities of the Depression. Life hasn’t been easy for Turtle, which goes a long way to explain her jaded outlook.

The Underdog

Says Bell: “America loves people who face long odds.” Turtle is the underdog in her new home. She’s the only girl among a gang of boys, a newcomer in a well-established community, and she is completely unaware of her extended family’s dynamics. Aunt Minnie’s son Beans is unfriendly at the start, describing Turtle as “some freeloading cousin from New Jersey” (p. 27). The boys won’t even let her join the Diaper Gang because she’s a girl. When Turtle succeeds in tricking the ice cream man into giving her a free scoop—something Beans fails at doing—the reader can’t help but cheer for Turtle.

Vulnerability

According to Bell, “Readers worry about a Lead who might be crushed at any time.” Turtle is vulnerable because fundamentally, she is a kid on her own. She and her mother have moved around a lot, dependent on working for fickle wealthy employers. Not only that, but Turtle’s mother, Sadiebelle, is less practical than her daughter. “Mama’s good at looking at the sunny side of life,” Turtle says early in the book. “Mama’s watched so many pictures that she believes in happy endings” (p. 10). Later, Turtle thinks “I don’t know what she’d do without me to figure things out” (p. 94). Turtle believes she must take care of her mother—and to make matters worse, Turtle doesn’t have a father to help out. No wonder she longs for the stability of a home (the Bellewood) and the security of a father in Archie.

Holm succeeds in establishing Turtle as a sympathetic character, despite her churlishness. Ultimately, the overarching question the reader has throughout Turtle in Paradise is “Will Turtle be ok?” The details that Holm reveals about Turtle’s family and background help the reader to see that Turtle is like her namesake. As Uncle Vernon says, “You know, the thing about a turtle is that it looks tough, but it’s got a soft underbelly” (p. 100).

And as for Turtle’s snappiness? Her impertinent remarks? Her witty comebacks? The things she thinks and says—the things I’d never say for fear of being impolite—those are the very things that show Turtle’s spunk and independence. While I sympathize with her situation, I like her humor, her attitude, and the fact that she says what she thinks.

StorySleuths Tip #97: Help readers sympathize with a prickly character by revealing her “soft underbelly” but also make sure to show the character’s spirit and spunk.

A WORD FROM THIS MONTH'S AUTHOR: Jennifer Holm

2010-09-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Sleuths,

We all know that even the most accomplished authors don’t always get it right the first time. We asked Jennifer Holm if she would be willing to share with us a sample of something she revised--sort of a before and after shot from her wonderful novel Turtle in Paradise. We were expecting some random paragraph from deep within the novel, and look what we got! Jennifer shared with us an early stab at the book’s opening paragraph. How cool is that?

Ladies and gentlemen, here for your viewing pleasure, the birth of an opening paragraph!

Jennifer Holm:

So, Turtle In Paradise is a book I worked on, literally, for years. I started it back in 2005. I can’t even find some of my really early drafts because the original laptop I wrote them on was fried when my husband spilled a cup of coffee on the keyboard. (Yes, we are still married.)

I should point out that I am a somewhat strange writer in that I love revising. (Probably to a fault if you ask my editor.) And Turtle went through a lot of revisions.

This is the opening scene from an early draft I found that was written in July 2006. At the time, the working title of the book was Turtle and the Conchs.

DRAFT July 2006

I’ve got my eyes closed. I’m pretending to be asleep.

Not that it stops Uncle Lyle from talking. Smokey’s been meowing the whole time, and even she can’t get a word in edgewise.

Uncle Lyle likes to talk. And talk. And he’s got an opinion on everything. He talks about how folks in the Dust Bowl wouldn’t be having so much trouble if they’d just move near some water. He talks about how he doesn’t trust President Roosevelt to get us out of this depression and that if you give someone money for not working why would they ever bother to get a job? But mostly he talks about how he can’t wait to get to Key West so he can hurry up and get back home to New Jersey.

Looking back, the problem with this version was that it was more about Uncle Lyle than Turtle. I loved the character of Lyle (let’s just say I’ve known a few Lyle-types in my life) and he really took over the early first drafts of chapter one. This ended up being more of a hindrance because Lyle was pretty tangential to the action in the book.

Final version:

Everyone thinks children are sweet as Necco Wafers, but I’ve lived long enough to know the truth: kids are rotten. The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it.

I stare out the window as Mr. Edgit’s Ford Model A rumbles along the road, kicking up clouds of dust. It’s so hot that the backs of my legs feel like melted gum, only stickier. We’re been driving for days now; it feels like eternity.

In front of us is a rusty pickup truck with a gang of dirty-looking kids in the back sandwiched between furniture—an iron bed, a rocking chair, battered pots—all tied up with little bits of fraying rope like a spiderweb. A girl my age is holding a baby that’s got a pair of ladies’ bloomers tied on its head to keep the sun out of its eyes. The boy sitting next to her has a gap between his two front teeth. Not that this stops him from blowing spitballs at us through a straw. We’ve been stuck behind this truck for the last few miles, and our windshield is covered with wadded bits of wet newspaper.

StorySleuths Tip #96: Don’t let your main character get sidelined! And when it comes to revision, remember that it sometimes takes huge changes to get the story where it needs to go. Instead of rewriting the same paragraph over and over—try something new.

Post #6: Rooting for a Prickly Character

Posted by Allyson Valentine Schrier

CHAPTER BEGINNINGS: Turtle in Paradise (Post #4)

2010-09-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Sleuths,

My intention for today’s post was to write about the way Jennifer Holm incorporates historical details such as references to Shirley Temple and Little Orphan Annie into Turtle in Paradise. Author of six historical novels, including two Newbery Honors, Holm has mastered the fine art of balancing enough detail to set a scene while not overwhelming readers with too much research.

However, we have written a lot about historical fiction over the last few months, and as I flipped back through Turtle in Paradise, something else caught my eye: the way Holm begins each chapter with a short transitional paragraph before launching into action.

Chapters are an interesting element of structure and form in that they exist in all novels, but they warrant minimal discussion in craft books. When chapters do show up in a writing book as a subject, it’s usually in reference to chapter endings. Here’s an example from the book Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham:

You end chapters at places which will hook readers. You do not devise your chapters to provide convenient blank spaces in between them for purposes of transition. (p. 118)

Multiple writing experts reiterated the fact that chapters should not end when characters go to sleep! A hook must be in place at the end of a chapter to propel readers forward. (For more about suspense and chapter endings, refer to Allyson’s April post about Blackbringer by Laini Taylor.)

But what about those chapter beginnings? What is their function? Is it the same as the opening of the book? Allyson’s last post on the narrative hook analyzed how the first chapter of Turtle in Paradise hooks readers with the Four Ws (Who is the story about, where is it set, when does it take place, and what is going on?). Jessica Page Morrell, author of Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, has a slightly different take on beginnings:

All beginnings matter. Stories, scenes, and chapters cannot simply commence; they must create a tingle in the reader, pique curiosity, and thrust the story and readers ahead with potency and punch. (p. 39)

The chapter openings in Turtle in Paradise both pique the reader’s curiosity and propel them forward. Let’s take a look at an example from chapter eight.

Maybe it’s because it’s only ever been Mama and me, but I don’t understand what’s so wonderful about having a big family. Someone’s always fighting, or not talking to someone else, or scrounging around trying to borrow money. Far as I can tell, relations are nothing but trouble. (p. 72)

What are the elements at work in this paragraph?

1. Character development. The first thing that strikes me about this paragraph is how much it reveals about character. It gives me a clear sense of how Turtle feels about living in close quarters with her extended family.

2. Voice. Here is another example of narrative voice in action, complete with attitude, opinion, and patterns of speech (“Far as I can tell…”).

3. Pacing. The paragraph provides a moment of pause, a break between the action that wrapped up in the previous chapter and the action that’s about to start.

4. Creating questions. Turtle’s attitude makes me wonder why she feels this way. What’s happening with her family? What kind of trouble are we in for?

And so I keep on reading, quickly transitioning from Turtle’s thoughts to the action taking place in this chapter. My curiosity is piqued, and off Turtle and I go.

All but two of the chapters in Turtle in Paradise begin in similar ways. And what’s really neat, if you’ll forgive the term, is the way I as a reader start to feel the rhythm and style of the story. After a while, I can’t wait to hear Turtle’s latest thoughts, such as this one from chapter thirteen:

In my opinion, the fellas who make Hollywood pictures are really just salesmen. Instead of peddling girdles, they sell thrills and chills, and folks eat them up. Not me, though. I’m no sucker. I know there’s no such thing as giant apes climbing skyscrapers or mummies walking out of tombs. But just try telling that to the boys. (p. 123)

Another revealing opinion. Another great transition.

I want to return to the question of chapter endings and the hook or question that propels the reader forward. Some books, such as the Goosebumps series or the more recent 39 Clues series, end chapters with big cliffhangers. Readers flip the page, dying to know who’s behind the door or what happened when the lights went out.

But some books don’t have big cliffhanger chapter endings. Books such as The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate tend to be more episodic, keeping action contained within chapters. On the scale between Goosebumps and Calpurnia Tate, Turtle in Paradise probably falls toward the middle: sometimes the action ends with the chapter, and sometimes the chapter ends without resolving the conflict, leaving the reader to wonder what happens next.

When chapters do end with resolution (the cat is banished, Slow Poke pays Turtle), then the next chapter opening absolutely must act as a hook to pull the reader into a new scene and new set of action, as happens in Turtle in Paradise.

StorySleuths Tip #95: A strong chapter opening is so much more than a simple point of transition: it can reveal character, develop voice and, like a hook at the end of a chapter, propel the reader forward.

Post #5: A Word from Jennifer Holm

THE NARRATIVE HOOK: Turtle in Paradise (Post#3)

2010-09-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Sleuths ,

Well, I should really have started off this post, as it has to do with the beginning. It’s about the way the author successfully grabs you and makes you want to read more. In her book What’s Your Story, Marion Dane Bauer says:

The beginning of your story has one primary job: to capture your readers’ attention so they will want to go on reading. A narrative hook will do this for you. It will grab your readers and pull them into your story.(70)

The narrative hook, she says, is simply your story problem. It is the reason you’re writing the book, and the reason that your readers are going to stick with it—they want to see how that problem is solved, especially if they’ve come to like the character and want to see her succeed.

A quick word about “the beginning”. What is that? By when do you need to hook your reader? By the first line? The first paragraph or page? In her book The Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, Nancy Lamb says, “At the most you’ve got two or three pages to hook the reader”. (35)

A couple of days ago I was chatting to a friend who’d just had a manuscript consultation with an editor at Henry Holt. The editor commented that my friend was trying too hard to get the story problem out there in the first few sentences of the story. My friend explained that she was trying to hook the reader. The editor assured her that if the writing is solid, and the story compelling, you have a few pages to do that. The first sentence, while engaging, doesn’t need to be the hook.

That said, it doesn’t hurt to have a riveting first sentence. In Turtle in Paradise, Jennifer Holm succeeds in writing a first sentence that makes you buckle up your seatbelt and strap in tight because you know you’re in for an exciting ride:

Everyone thinks kids are sweet as Necco Wafers, but I’ve only lived long enough to know the truth: kids are rotten. The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it. (3)

I love that! But while it pulls me into the story, is it the narrative hook? Does it tell me Turtle’s problem? Do I read that and know that she is a kid who’s being forced to leave home and take up roots in a strange place with people she doesn’t know? No, but it does give me an inkling that there are kids in her world who cause problems for her and for others, and she’s not very happy about it. The fuller problem is revealed over the course of the first chapter. But what this opening line DOES do is intrigue me and make me want to read more.

Marion Dane Bauer recommends that those first few pages in which you reveal the narrative hook contain what she calls the four Ws. Here is how they play out in Turtle in Paradise:

WHO is the story about?

Within several paragraphs we know who the main character is. She’s a young girl living in the depression era, and times are tough. Within a couple of pages we know her name is Turtle and she’s ten. Referring back to Heather’s recent post about voice—we know Turtle is snarky -– “I’m not sweet,” I said. “I slugged Ronald Caruthers when he tried to throw my cat in the well, and I’d do it again”. (5)

WHERE is it set?

Within several pages we know that Turtle is on her way to Key West to stay with her Aunt Minerva.

WHEN is it taking place?

Page 1 of the novel bears the words, June 1935. But even without those specifics, we know from story details that the story is set in an earlier time. They’re driving in a Ford Model A and travelling on a road that kicks ups dust. The pickup truck in front of them is piled with belongings (an iron bed, a rocking chair) and children who are clearly not wearing seatbelts. The baby in that truck has bloomers tied on her head to keep the sun out of her eyes.

Aside from era, we know the story takes place during summer by Turtle’s description of sticking to the car’s leather seats, the dusty road, the baby with the sun in her eyes.

WHAT is going on?

Within several pages we know what the story is about. We’ve seen the mean kids Turtle has had to deal with. We’ve met slick Archie and vulnerable Mama. We know that on Turtle’s journey she’s going to hit a few bumps in the road—literally and figuratively.

StorySleuths’ Tip #94: Create a story beginning users won’t be able to resist by opening with an intriguing first line, getting your narrative hook out there within a few pages and remembering to reveal Marion Dane Bauer’s Four Ws.

Post #4: Chapter Beginnings

Posted by Allyson Valentine Schrier

NARRATIVE VOICE: Turtle in Paradise (Post #2)

2010-09-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Sleuths,

How many times have you been at a writer’s conference where an editor says, “I’m looking for books with voice”? The editor might use the phrase distinctive narrative voice or authentic voice. Then, when pressed to explain what distinctive narrative voice is, the editor sheepishly shrugs and says, “It’s hard to explain, but I know it when I see it.”

Sometimes, it feels like there is an entire sense of secrecy built up around the concept of voice. You hear about it all the time, but no one seems to agree on what it is or how to get it. Here is a quotation I found in one of my writing books:

A strong, distinctive, authoritative writing voice is something most fiction writers want—and something no editor or teacher can impart. (p. 128, Self-editing for Fiction Writers)

Well, when I read Jennifer Holm’s book Turtle in Paradise, I thought to myself, “Here is a clear example of a distinctive and authentic narrative voice. I see it!” But what is that voice? How did Holm create it? Turns out, those editors weren’t lying. It is hard to explain.

Let’s start with a description of voice (note, I did not use the word definition). Author K. L. Going compares narrative voice to people’s actual voices:

Our word choices and speech patterns reveal who we are, where we’re from, and what we’re thinking…. The same is true for narrative voice. Your narrator can be revealed by what he chooses to say and how he says it. (p. 113, Writing and Selling the YA Novel)

A way of seeing

Eleven-year-old Turtle, who narrates the story, “sees things for what they are,” and she has no qualms speaking her mind. Take this commentary at the beginning of chapter twelve:

Everyone’s always saying that hard times bring out the best in people, but as far as I can tell, the only thing that hard times brings out is plain meanness. I left my shoes outside on the front porch last night, and some rotten kid stole them (p. 113).

She has her own perspective on the world, one that’s informed by her experiences, and she has no problem disagreeing with what “everyone says.”

Favorite phrases

The example above includes a couple of Turtle’s favorite phrases of speech, notably “as far as I can tell” and “rotten kids.” She also likes to say “it’s a fact,” “from where I’m sitting,” and “in my opinion.” Turtle has lots of opinions, and she shares them with authority and confidence. Returning to Going’s description of voice, Holm uses word choice and speech patterns to reveal Turtle’s character.

Metaphorically speaking

Given Turtle’s “see things for what they are” attitude, you might guess that the voice of the novel is plain and straightforward. It’s not. While Turtle is cynical and at times jaded, she’s also sassy and witty, with a wry sense of humor. She comes up with unique metaphors to explain her take on events and people. For example,

Mama’s always falling in love, and the fellas she picks are like dandelions. One day they’re there, bright as sunshine—charming Mama, buying me presents—and the next they’re gone, scattered to the wind, leaving weeds everywhere and Mama crying. (p. 6)

Metaphors such as this appear throughout the book, enriching the narrative with distinctive imagery and pleasing comparisons.

It’s important to note that the metaphors in the book fit with Turtle’s experiences and era. For example, about her mother, Turtle says, “’Mama’s head is so high in the clouds, I’m surprised she doesn’t bump into Amelia Earhart’” (p. 94). Every kid in 1935 knew about Amelia Earhart. It’s the perfect comparison, both showing us how crazy Turtle thinks Mama is as well as reflecting the time period of the book.

Gee, that's swell

While helping to reveal character, narrative voice also helps build a sense of the book’s time period and setting. The kids in the Diaper Gang don’t say things like “That’s cool,” or “That rots.” They say “gee whiz” and “aww.” Words such as fella, gotta, dough, gang, swell, folks, mama, and sugar all sound appropriate—even authentic—to the 1930s.

They call it banter

In fact, as I read Turtle in Paradise, I couldn’t help but think about a few classic Katherine Hepburn movies such as “Bringing up Baby” or “The Philadelphia Story.” It was more than the choice of appropriate words and historical details such as references to Little Orphan Annie. It was the wittiness of dialogue. Here’s Slow Poke and Turtle after Slow Poke rescues Turtle from the water.

“I thought you said you could swim like a fish,” Slow Poke chides me.

“A dead one,” I say, and cough.

“Honey,” Slow Poke says, shaking his head, “dead fish float.” (p. 68)

Slow Poke might be late to everything, but he’s got a quick wit, as do all the characters in Turtle in Paradise. This smart dialogue, which often ends on a perfect zinger, contributes to the overall narrative voice.

Short story writer Sylvia Watanabe wrote an essay on voice in the book Creating Fiction. After analyzing a story by Flannery O’Connor, Watanabe tried to “identify the specific aspects of a story’s voice.” These aspects, she says, include:

choice of genre, articulation of point of view, treatment of exposition and dialogue, selection of detail, use of language… and the handling of sonics (the sound and rhythm of the prose). Voice, it would seem, abides everywhere in the story. (p. 202)

Perhaps therein lies the issue: voice abides everywhere in the story. I saw one person summarize voice as “what you write and how you write it.” It’s the combination of word choice, attitude, phrases of speech, regional or historical details, and patterns of speaking.

The combination of all these elements in Turtle in Paradise work together to create a distinctive narrative voice.

StorySleuths Tip #93: When writing and revising, look for ways to use distinctive words, metaphors, dialogue, details and patterns of speech, as well as opinions and attitude, to enrich a story’s narrative voice.

Post #3: The Narrative Hook

CREATING MEMORABLE CHARACTER NAMES: Turtle in Paradise

2010-09-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Sleuths,

Whether or not you have finished reading Jennifer Holms’ marvelous book, Turtle in Paradise, you’ve likely already noticed the brilliant job she’s done choosing character names. There’s Turtle, the endearing main character. Slow Poke, a secondary character who plays a large role in Turtle’s life. Turtle’s cat, Smokey, who’s unfortunate name was chosen, prophetically, before her tail was ever set on fire. In choosing names such as these, Holm has honored several rules concerning the naming of characters. First, she has assigned names that are both memorable and fun, and that will appeal to her intended readership. Second, the character names have meaning. Consider Turtle, tough on the outside, but soft and vulnerable beneath, who literally comes out of her shell as the story evolves, discovering aspects of self and family. And the ever-tardy Slow Poke, who, upon learning that his true love, Sadiebelle has gotten married, comments, “Huh—too late again.”

Following another rule, Holm has been careful to select names that reflect the time in which the story takes place. When the story opens and Turtle is reminiscing about the kids that have made her life miserable, she mentions Josephine, Sylvia and Marvin—not Caitlyn, Maddie and Aidan. It turns out that if you do the math, these characters would have been born in 1923 (they are 12 and the story is set in 1935). Referring to the US Government’s Social Security site I found that in 1923 all three of these names appeared on that year’s top 100 baby names list. And looking at statistics for 1905 (around when I thought Aunt Minnie would have been born) I found that the name Minnie was #35 on the popularity chart for that year.

Holm has also taken care to choose character names that reflect the story’s location. In her Author’s Note, she points out that nicknaming was a tradition in Key West. She gives the Key West local residents names that are in keeping with that tradition. There’s the pair of best buddies Beans and Pork Chop, the baby Pudding, and the calamitous friend they all avoid, Too Bad.

We contacted Jennifer Holm (who wins the blue ribbon for Author Quickest to Reply to a StorySleuth’s Email!) and asked her a couple of questions about how she chose names for Turtle in Paradise:

StorySleuths: All the names in Turtle in Paradise shine with originality. Would you share a few thoughts about how you came up with the names you used in this book? Also, was it an intentional choice to have Turtle and Slowpoke have names that one can draw a strong connection between?

Holm: That's a great question. So ... "Turtle" was actually a nod to the historic turtling industry of Key West (green turtle soup, anyone?) Some of the names were inspired by Key West nicknames ("Beans" and "Johnny Cakes" and "Killie the Horse"). There's a man who grew up in KW who actually went around and catalogued peoples' nicknames. "Pork Chop" just sort of grew out of Beans (Pork Chop and Beans--they just go together!) "Papa" was actually Ernest Hemingway's local KW nickname. And finally, "Slow Poke" was more of a little tease for the reader to understand that he's always been chronically late ... and that sometimes being late has big consequences.
More on Choosing Names

There are plenty of web sites that offer tips about how to choose names. Two that I found to be particularly useful are the Tips for Writers section of the Baby Names website, and Anne Marble’s article Name That Character! at the Writing-World website.

And where do you go to choose names that help make your characters come to life on the page? I recall a lecture I attended years ago in which Jack Gantos shared one of his sources—graveyards. But you don’t need to walk amongst the dead to find terrific names for your characters, as there are fun and informative sites available online to both look for names, or generate your own.

The Baby Names site offers lists sorted not just by boy and girl, but even has a “cool names” option with categories like spooky names, names in sports, and top pet names. And there is the Social Security website already mentioned which not only lists popular names for a particular birth year, but can show you how a particular name has waxed and waned in popularity over time.

To generate names, take a look at A Barrel Full of Names, or The Seventh Sanctum name generator which generates names for specific categories like your fantasy character, your gnome or your princess.

StorySleuths Tip #92: When choosing character names do your research and choose names that are not only fun and meaningful, but that also reflect the time and location in which the story takes place.

Post #2: Narrative Voice

Posted by Allyson Valentine Schrier

Happy September!

2010-09-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Dear StorySleuths Readers,

All across the country, children are heading back to school. Summer vacation is over! We hope you had lots of time to read while at the beach, the pool, or in the backyard.

We'll be hanging on to summer a bit longer in our upcoming September read, Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. It's the story of an eleven-year-old girl sent to live with relatives in Key West, Florida. If you haven't yet read Turtle in Paradise, grab it for Labor Day weekend! It's a humorous, fast-paced tale, the perfect book for the last official weekend of summer.

We will be hitting a milestone here at StorySleuths at the end of September: our first year of blogging! We've read eleven middle grade and young adult novels, plus looked at eight picture books, uncovering 90 writing tips along the way.

As we plan for the next year, we thought it would be great to know a little bit more about you, our readers. Would you take a few minutes to tell us who you are, what you like about StorySleuths, and what you'd like to see in the future? You could either leave us a comment below, or if you prefer, complete a short survey (guaranteed not to take longer than three minutes!).

We're sad to announce that Meg has decided to take a leave of absence in the coming months. She has been an invaluable member of the StorySleuths team. Her schedule is booked this fall, however, due to teaching commitments. Hopefully, she'll grab her magnifying glass and join us from time to time.

In the meantime, have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! We look forward to discussing Turtle in Paradise after the holiday. (Oh, and for those of you who like to read ahead, we'll be looking at Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in October. What makes it such an engrossing read? One that kids just can't put down? We can't wait to find out.)

Heather and Allyson

Interview with Karen Cushman: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post # 7)

2010-08-10T05:28:00.000-07:00

We StorySleuths are delighted that Karen Cushman, in addition to being a gifted and prolific writer, is an articulate speaker about her own writing process. Having heard her present at the SCBWI Western Washington SCBWI May meeting, we—along with many others—hope that at some point she will write a book about writing for children. In the meantime, we asked her to respond to some questions about writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann, and she graciously agreed.

1. In your May presentation, you described your writing process as “getting the character from here to there.” You mentioned that on occasion you go back and add action to liven the story up, and we are wondering if you can think of an example where you added action to the story of Meggy to “liven it up.”

The scene in the print shop where the fine gentleman talks to Meggy about the baron and her ballad was at first a short, straightforward give-and-take, but there was no tension or drama in it. Adding more confrontational dialogue and a few actions and gestures heightened the sense of danger and Meggy's anxiety and made the scene much more lively.

2. In the webcast about your writing that was recorded at TOPS school in Seattle in May [NOTE to StorySleuths readers—unfortunately the interview is no longer available online], you mentioned that you find the names of your characters in many sources, including your imagination. One source you mentioned is a book about a queen’s expenses and the names of the trades people recorded there. As a “Meg myself, I’m wondering if Meggy had any special connotations for you? I also wonder if her surname intentionally echoes the image of the ugly ducking who becomes a beautiful swan?

Here's the first answer I wrote to this question: "I wish had thought of the duckling to swan metaphor. I might have made more of it. But I didn't. I played around with ideas for the main characters name to see what sounded and fit her best. She was Bessie Blount at first and progressed through many alterations until I hit upon Meggy Swann. I

liked the sound of it, and Meggy was born." But then I found this comment in an interview I gave about a year ago: "She was Bessie Blunt and then Meggy Blunt and then as I wrote about her, the idea of an ugly duckling growing to be a swan led me to Swann." So there you are. You cannot trust a fiction writer. We make up stories even when we're trying to tell the truth. So which is truth and which the story? Ah, that's another question.

3. You have done a fantastic job of creating characters that are memorable and distinct. Did you have a clear picture of Meggy before you started writing, or did she evolve as the story unfolded?

Meggy definitely grew and changed as the story unfolded. Somewhere about a year into it, I titled a draft "Feisty Meggy," and it was there that I began to make her less meek and pliable and more like the Meggy we know.

And her wabbling came about because she had to have a big, serious, important reason to want to be transformed. I began to research types of disabilities. I had to know exactly what was wrong with Meggy, even though she didn't. I decided she had bilateral hip dysplasia, looked into the effects of that, and practiced walking the way she might have in order to describe it as accurately as I could.

4. What changes and revisions in the text did your editor suggest? Were there changes that your editor suggested that you both decided, after considering them, not to make in the final text?

Dinah thought there should be more focus on romantic feelings between Meggy and Roger. "After all," she said, "Juliet was only 13." Ah, said I, but Juliet is fiction. And I quoted extensively from academic sources that estimated the average age of marriage in the Elizabethan era at 26 for men and 23 for women. Men, after all, had to be able to support a wife and family. And celibacy was the only truly effective means of birth control. So Dinah, with a sigh, gave in.

But she prevailed in her suggestion that I cut some of the description. I wanted to use rollicking, roiling words to describe every house, person, business, piece of flotsam or jetsam in the crazy, chaotic city. She convinced me that enough was enough.

And see also the answer to question 7.

5. There are such rich details in Alchemy and Meggy Swann that set the character very firmly in Elizabethan London. We are curious about the kind of research you did to accomplish this. Did the story change in any way as a direct result of the research you did?

In one of the books I was reading about Elizabethan England, I found references to the vagabond laws. I did more research on them and discovered that even players might be considered vagabonds or outlaws if they did not have some noble patron. And so Grimm and Merryman's troubles were born.

And in another book I found the term "dancing house." More research. I decided to add such a place to the narrative and that led eventually to Meggy's desire to dance and, at the very end, Meggy dancing.

6. Was there is a particular element of writing craft that you struggled with, and if so, how did you overcome it?

Plot. Always plot. I read about writing graphs and narrative arcs and such tools for enlivening a plot. They never seem to fit the story I am trying to tell. I seem to wallow in character and setting and struggle with a plot, with telling versus withholding, with hero versus adversary. I don't think I ever really overcome it. I take my characters and put them into a setting, lay out the trajectory of the story, and go.

7. As writers ourselves we often find ourselves going down a path in the story only to find out that it is not a place that enriches the story as we had hoped and so we cut it. Were there any scenes you wrote that you really loved, but they just didn't fit into the story?

I cut, not without a few tears, the first two chapters, which dealt with Meggy at her village home, the ride into London with her kindly Uncle Ott, and her first impressions of the town. Like this, when they begin to cross the bridge into London: [quote]

What woke her was the stink, a sour stew of fish, sewage, horses, and sweat. Short of Hell, she wondered, what kind of place would smell like this?

Or was it the cursing coming from her uncle on the wagon seat beside her...The wheels as they turned churned the mud and cow droppings on the bridge into a great mucky sludge.

No, it was the muck that woke her, she thought. Certes it was the muck, a wad of which flew up and hit her cheek. Yes, definitely the muck. She wiped her face with her skirt and looked around at the people, animals, and wagons crowded about me. “Is this London then, Uncle?” she asked.

“Ah, no, Meggy, my heart’s love, my lily-faced poppet,” said my uncle. “’Tis but the bridge, the gateway to the wonders that are London.”

“Somewhat unwholesome wonders belike, Uncle,” she said as the turning wheels splashed more muck onto her.[end quote]
Dinah convinced me this all was backstory and the story really started with Meggy in the little house in London bemoaning her fate,

8. Could you share one Writing Tip that you learned in the process of writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann?

Bring action to description. Don't just paint a picture of a scene but put someone doing something into it. Early on, for example, I had many paragraphs describing peddlers on the crowded streets of London. It was great description but lifeless. When I lessened the number of peddlers and had them move and shout and interact with Meggy, they came to life.

Thank you, Karen. For more information about Karen and her books, visit her website.

StorySleuths Tip # 91: With thanks to Karen Cushman: “Bring action to description. Don’t just paint a picture of a scene but put someone doing something into it.”

TRANSITIONS: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post # 6 of 6)

2010-08-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

In my own writing I am working on transitions—how do I smoothly cut from one scene to another within a chapter? How do I keep my transitions from bogging down the pacing? Here, I will point out a couple of techniques I noticed in reading Alchemy and Meggy Swann.

#1 Passage of time sets up a transition

On page 12, Meggy has been left by Roger to spend her first night in the skinny house at Crooked Lane. The encounter between Roger and Meggy ends when she, “pulled her cloak over her head and settled back into her nightmares.

The very next paragraph opens with, “Morning came at last, as it ever does.” From here Meggy goes on to experience her second day in London. By having Meggy fall asleep, then wake up, Cushman sets up for a transition from one scene to the next. She does this same thing again on page 34, where one scene ends with, “She slept again, feeling not quite so alone. And thus ended Meggy’s second day in the house at the Sign of the Sun.” The next scene begins with, “She woke to soft rain.” This quick switch from night to day prepares the reader for a change in scene while keeping the story moving forward.

#2 Change in location sets up a transition

When writing a first draft, when I want my character to move to a new location for a new scene, I find that I often show the physical movement from Point A to Point B. This movement serves to interrupt the story's pacing, slowing things down. Cushman demonstrates that the movement is not necessary—just put the character on scene in whatever the next location is. Here, on page 89, Meggy is at Master Allyn’s print shop. The scene ends with, “Meggy bade them farewell, left them to their troubles, and went home to her own.”

A less experienced writer might feel a need to show Meggy hobbling for home, perhaps tossing in a little inner dialogue or conversations with strangers along the way. Instead, Cushman’s next sentence is on scene in the next location:

Her father was seated at the table, a jug of ale before him. He looked up at her, his eyes as flat and black and cold as bits of coal in his pale face.

Another example takes place on page 141, where Meggy is home alone, confronted with just how sorry her lot in life is:

She blubbered and sniveled. Finally, damp and exhausted, she wiped her nose, tied her linen cap on tighter, and hurried from the house. There was one thing she could remedy.

The next paragraph opens:

She pounded the bear’s iron paw against the Grimms’ front door, but no one answered.

Here again, Cushman doesn’t waste time showing the character moving from Point A to Point B, instead she simply puts the character on location and keeps the story flowing.

StorySleuths’ Tip # 90: To change scenes mid chapter consider a quick shift in time or location to move the story forward without slowing down the pacing.

PLAYING WITH LANGUAGE: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post # 5 of 6)

2010-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Allyson,

What you said about details and about every word counting, Heather, got me thinking about the specific words that Cushman selected in writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann to (1) convey the historical time/setting, and (2) develop the characters.

Some of the unusual words, like “gallimaufry” (p. 4), “fishwife” (p. 4), and “kirtle” (p. 60), were in use in Elizabethan times but are not in common use today, while others, like “dampnified” (p. 4), “annoyous” (p. 10), and “tipsify” (p. 59), seem to have been created out of familiar words. They convey a feeling for another time by sounding old, even though they aren’t “real” words. They sound as if they could be real, though, because we recognize the root of the word, but the added syllables or suffixes are decoys Cushman has used to create the illusion of past usage.

Cushman also uses familiar words in unusual combinations to convey a feeling for the past and to delineate characters, such as Meggy’s repeated exclamation, “ye toads and vipers,” which opens the story and introduces Meggy:

“Ye toads and vipers,” the girl said, as her granny often had, “ye toads and vipers,” and she snuffled a great snuffle that echoed in the empty room. (p. 1)

Cushman uses the phrase “ye toads and vipers” to individualize Meggy while also filling in part of her backstory--noting that “the girl” had learned the phrase from her granny establishes the connection between them at the outset. And each time “ye toads and vipers” is echoed throughout the novel we get a familiar jolt of recognition.

During a presentation that Karen Cushman made to the Western Washington Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in May, when asked how she came up with some of the unique words that she used to push the story back to Elizabethan times, Cushman said that the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary was a rich resource, as were Shakespeare’s plays, “especially for the insults.” Also, she said, “I sometimes made the structure of the sentence a bit odd” to give the story a sense of both familiarity and distance.

Cushman’s message was to be creative and stretch the limits—but not too far. I can imagine her chortling over some wonderful constructions as she wrote Alchemy and Meggy Swann. One of my favorites is this enraged outburst Meggy addressed to Roger when he turned his back on her and began walking away during one of their altercations:

“Go then, you writhled, beetle-brained knave!” she shouted. “You churl, you slug, you stony-hearted villain! May onions grow in your ears!” (p. 124)

Storysleuths’ Tip # 89: Tackle the challenge of language like a giant jigsaw puzzle, searching in reference materials (and your own imagination) to find pieces that fit together to delineate characters and clarify setting, while avoiding overloading the text with arcane, awkward words and phrases.

EVERY DETAIL MATTERS: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post #4 of 6)

2010-07-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Meg and Allyson,

How many times have you heard an editor or writing teacher say that every detail in a novel counts? That every scene, action, description, sentence, word must contribute in some way, whether advancing the plot, deepening character, or establishing setting?

I’ve attended enough SCBWI meetings and writing conferences to have absorbed this writing edict, and yet sometimes, when I hear it proclaimed, I think, “Really? Every word? Every description? What if something extraneous slips through?”

Well, I had the opportunity this last month to compare a book where every detail matters to a book where some scenes seem, well, unnecessary.

Let’s start with the latter. I won’t name names. Suffice it to say that I picked up the latest mystery novel of a well-known author who has made a career writing fiction and non-fiction all set in a particular place, which I was planning to visit on vacation.

Now, part of the pleasure of this author’s books is the vicarious thrill of reading about beautiful settings, fabulous meals, and witty conversations, but I found myself wondering the purpose some of these scenes served. Why was the author spending so much time describing the gourmet five-course meal the protagonist ate alone during a layover? Would some detail show up later in the book? Would the character return to the restaurant later? Would he discover a clue there to help solve the crime? Alas, the answer was no. The restaurant scene had no function other than showing the character indulging in a good meal. The story would have functioned just as well without it.

I compare this to our July book, Karen Cushman’s Alchemy and Meggy Swann, where every detail seems to matter. Take, for example, the ballad sellers that appear on the streets of Elizabethan London. The first one appears on page 27:

“Come and buy,” a ballad seller called, “a new ballad of Robin Hood.”

This line is embedded within a long series of paragraphs describing Meggy’s first walk in London.

A ballad seller appears again on page 44.

“Come and buy a ballad newly made,” a passing balled seller called. “Mayhap ‘The Ballad of Good Wives’ or ‘The Lover and the Bird.’”

This time, the ballad seller is more than just one of many people on the busy street. The way he carries his papers in a backpack gives Meggy an idea about how to carry her goose, Louise, while also grasping her walking sticks.

Another ballad seller appears on page 74, and at this point, I’m beginning to think, “There were a lot of ballad sellers in London!” Soon, Meggy meets a ballad printer while on an errand for her father. And then Meggy runs into yet another ballad seller while standing outside the baron’s gate on page 130.

What a pleasant surprise (and yet not wholly unexpected) to learn, then, that the solution to Meggy’s problem relates to selling ballads! The way Cushman integrates details about ballad selling and printing, as well as Meggy’s skills with singing and language, make the climax of this story satisfying. The novel feels unified, a tightly woven tapestry where every strand counts.

Let me just conclude by saying that the ballad seller is not the only seemingly small detail that grows in importance in Alchemy and Meggy Swann. Look back at the book to references to the heads on the Tower Bridge and the issue about players needing noble patronage.

StorySleuths Tip #88: Make sure every detail matters. Look for ways to introduce important details early in the story and then re-introduce them throughout the book to create a unified effect.

ASKING QUESTIONS THROUGH INNER DIALOGUE: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post #3 of 6)

2010-07-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

In Meg’s most recent post about Alchemy and Meggy Swann she points to one of Meggy’s problems being her loneliness—she is alone in part or all of many scenes. As a result, much of the dialogue that takes place is inner dialogue—Meggy pondering, noticing, fretting. In looking at how Karen Cushman uses this inner dialogue I became particularly interested in the way that Meggy is continually asking herself questions.

As the story gets underway, on page 2, Meggy has just arrived at what is to be her new home.

“Darkness comes late in high summer, but come it does. Meggy could see little of the room she sat in. Was there food here? A cooking pot? Wood for a fire? Would the peevish looking man—Master Peevish, she decided to call him—would he come down and give her a better welcome?”

Over the following pages Meggy asks herself questions all the time:

• What sort of place was this London? (p. 6)
• Was Master Peevish coming down? Was he sorry he had given her so poor a welcome? (p. 7)
• What was she to do to quiet her grumbling belly? (p. 13)
•Would Master Peevish come downstairs? Did he even recall she was there? Would the boy in the brown doublet come back? (p. 13)

This continues throughout the book, and I think the thing that drew my attention to it is the fact that these questions often appear in clusters. This question-asking accomplishes several things. First, it gives me, the reader, a direct line to, and constant reminder of, Meggy’s problems. Second, it creates suspense. Each of these questions demands an answer. Sometimes the answer comes right away. Sometimes Meggy wonders the same thing over a series of pages and scenes leaving both herself and the reader wondering whether or not her question will be answered and her problems solved.

Further, questions asked by the protagonist allow both the reader and the protagonist to assess progress the character is making toward accomplishing her goals. Toward the end of the book, on page 155 as the story has nearly come to its conclusion Meggy wonders, “Was she so changed? Just when had that happened, and how?” These questions allow both Meggy and the reader to stop for a moment and ponder the answers, revisiting the path that led to the main character accomplishing her goals.

StorySleuths’ Tip # 87: Allowing the protagonist to ask questions can emphasize problems, create suspense and track the character’s progress toward realizing their goals.

CHARACTER TRANSFORMATION: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post #2 of 6)

2010-07-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Hi Allyson and Heather,

We’ve given 13 of our posts the “characters” label--we’ve examined antagonists, minor characters, contrasting characters, character development, character wants vs. needs, putting characters under pressure, and differentiating characters through dialogue, among other character-related topics. But no matter how many times and how many ways we look at character, it seems there’s always something new to learn about character from great writers.

One of the many qualities of Karen Cushman’s writing that intrigues me is the power and immediacy of her characters. I wondered: how does Cushman entice me to care so keenly about Meggy? In rereading Alchemy and Meggy Swann, I looked for clues that might help me portray vivid characters in my own writing.

In the same way that Cushman describes the setting of Elizabethan London using various ways (the five senses, contrast, lists, and language), she defines Meggy’s problems and strengths in various ways. Cushman uses repetition, dialogue, and the five senses to clarify Meggy’s problems, and she uses action, memories and dreams to clarify Meggy’s strengths.

FOR PROBLEMS

Repetition

Meggy’s first problem is that she is alone. Her opening exclamation is a response to her aloneness:

“Ye toads and vipers,” the girl said, as her granny often had, “Ye toads and vipers,” and she snuffled a great sniffle that echoed in the empty room. She was alone…” (p.1)

Farther down the page, “alone” is echoed:

She was alone, with no one to sustain or support her.

"Alone" is echoed again in the same paragraph:

Belike Louise was on her way back out of the town with the carter, leaving the girl here frightened and hungry and alone. (p. 1-2)

And it is reechoed again, at the end of the chapter:

The dark, the cold, the strange noises, the unfriendly man who had judged her, found her wanting, and left her alone— (p. 6)

The repetition of “alone” tolls like a bell, reminding us of Meggy’s aloneness.

Dialogue

Meggy has another problem: she’s hungry. Although we’re told that she’s hungry (“frightened and hungry and alone”), her hunger is emphasized as we listen to her interact with other characters through dialogue. She calls to Roger:

“You cannot abandon me here. What am I to do here? Who will tend to me? And fetch me things to eat?” (p. 11)

She adds:

“You will have to fetch me food.” (p. 12)

Hearing her desperate pleas for food in her own words emphasizes the intensity of her problem.

The five senses

By using the five senses to describe Meggy’s pain and sadness, Cushman engages readers directly—we see her tears:

…tears left shining tracks like spider threads on her cheeks (p. 2),

touch and taste them:

…she could not dash the tears away. They felt sticky on her lips, and salty. (p. 3);

hear her singing:

…she sang, but the sound of her trembly voice in the empty room was so mournful that she stopped and sat silent while darkness grew.” (p. 4)

and smell what comforts her:

she breathed in the familiar smell of goose and grew sleepy. (p. 6).

The strong sensory images connect us viscerally to Meggy.

FOR STRENGTHS

Action

Meggy’s transformations from hunger to eating, from loneliness to neighborliness, from pain to strength, all begin with action. Driven by hunger, Meggy sets out to buy food.

A rumble from her belly finally sent Meggy reaching for her walking sticks. (p. 24)

At the end of this venture she takes the initiative to introduce herself to the friendly cooper:

“Margret Swann, if it please you.” Then, surprising herself, she added, “Called Meggy, if you will.” (p. 31)

Meggy’s actions continue to get her what she longs for—friendship:

“Nay, you have a friend” (p. 57),

food:

She sat down at the table and feasted on chicken and apple cake (p. 60),

and strength:

"I will stand, Master Printer. I am not breakable, and I be stronger than I look." And to her surprise, she realized she was. (p. 87)

Memories

In addition to action, Meggy’s memories are sources of her strength. Memories of her gran give her empathy for others and “ease her spirit.”

Her gran, soft and warm and smelling of meadow grasses and ale, had cooed at her so and sung her to sleep. Meggy let the little girls snuggle up against her, which eased her spirit just as the drink eased her bones. (p. 51)

Dreams

Meggy’s dreams lead directly to her transformation.

In her dreams she danced and ran, but only in her dreams. (p. 29)

Suffice it to say, for those who haven’t yet finished the book, that transformation grows from Meggy’s actions, as well from the memories of her loving gran, and from her own dreams.

StorySleuths’ Tip # 86--Use all the tools in your writer’s toolbox to create complex and believable characters—including repetition, dialogue, the five senses, action, the character’s memories, and the character’s dreams, to make even radical transformation believable to readers.

IMPRESSION, ELIZABETHAN LONDON: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post 1 of 6)

2010-07-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Meg and Allyson,

Last month, we read One Crazy Summer, a work of historical fiction set in Oakland, California, 1968. Now we reach back in time with our July book, Karen Cushman's new middle grade novel Alchemy and Meggy Swann, to another summer. Here it's 1573 in Elizabethan London, a city described by the protagonist as "all soot and slime, noise and stink" (p. 2).

(Quick scheduling note for those of you planning your summer reading: This is the first in our series of six posts on Alchemy and Meggy Swann, which will culminate with an interview with Karen Cushman in early August. The StorySleuths will then spend the rest of August engaged in some summer reading of our own. We will return with a new book and fall schedule in September. To stay posted on our September read, please sign up for our newsletter .)

Cushman brings London to life in Alchemy and Meggy Swann, capturing both the specifics of the time period as well as the frenetic energy of an urban center in any time period:

... the streets were gloomy, with tall houses looming on either side, rank with the smell of fish and the sewage in the gutter, slippery with horse droppings, clamorous with church bells and the clatter of car wheels rumbling on cobbles. London was a gallimaufry of people and carts, horses and coaches, dogs and pigs, and such noise that made Meggy's head, accustomed to the gentle stillness of a country village, ache. (p. 4).

How does Cushman create such a vivid impression of Elizabethan London?

The five senses
Cushman's narrative descriptions include sound, sight, smell, tastes, and touch. Here are just a few examples from Meggy's trip to find her friend Robert (p. 42):

Sound: "Shop signs swung and banged in the wind..."

Sight: "... the afternoon was wet, with mist rising off the river."

Smell: "The girl and goose stood in the fragrant steam rising from an inn."

Taste: "The crust [of a pork pie] crumbled deliciously against her teeth..."

Touch: "... meaty juices bespattered her chin."

Contrast
Meggy's childhood growing up in the country contrasts sharply with life in the city.

She missed the scents of fresh ale and clean rushes and meat turning on the spit. This house stank of dust and mildew, and from somewhere, a foul reek like hen's eggs gone rotten. All in all it did not seem a place where people truly lived (p. 13).

Cushman uses contrast to differentiate between Meggy's expectations and her present experiences.

Lists
Visiting a strange city is often exhausting: there is so much to observe at any given moment. Cushman creates the sensation of busy, crowded streets with lists rather than dense descriptions.

Every corner swarmed with people: peddlers and rat catchers, toy merchants and dung collectors, silken-cloaked ladies and children in ragged breeches, all going about their lives, laughing, shouting, arguing, jeering, and jostling. (p. 26)

The list jumps from one person to the next, providing a wide scope of view in a concise format. The reader never feels bogged down in detailed description or superfluous information. Furthermore, the list also mimics the way an observer's gaze jumps from one thing to another.

Language
Cushman's choice of words also helps to convey the time period and location in her descriptions. Here is another list, this one of food:

...apples and pears, carrots and cowcumbers, fat salmon, pigs' trotters, chunks of cheese, and ginger cakes. (p. 30).

While I am unfamiliar with the term cowcumber, I assume it is an old-fashioned word for cucumber. The use of this word reminds me that the book takes place in another time and place.

The setting of Alchemy and Meggy Swann plays an important role in the book. Meggy has moved to London against her will, and she fears she will not survive in such a place. Cushman brings the chaos and vibrancy of the city to life throughout the book in a textured, almost impressionistic way through her use of senses, contrasts, lists, and language.

Tip #85: Lists, word choice, contrasts, and sense details work together to create a textured, lively impression of place.

Guest post by Monica Edinger--ONE CRAZY SUMMER: Attending to your audience

2010-07-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

Thinking about how engaging One Crazy Summer might be for teachers to read with children, StorySleuths asked master teacher and 2008 Newbery Committee member Monica Edinger to share her thoughts and experiences of reading the story aloud to her class. Her insights illuminate considerations we as writers would do well to heed. For more of her insights about books for children, reading, writing, teaching, and much more, check out her blog Educating Alice. (Photo is of Rosemary Brosnan and Rita Williams-Garcia with Monica.) This post may make you wish your children could be in Monica’s class!

When I received the ARC for One Crazy Summer around a year ago, I took a look at the flap copy and was immediately intrigued. The summer of 1968? Folks in Afros and black berets? A time and people that I’d yet to see much of in stories for the age group I taught --- fourth graders. Those I had encountered often felt overly earnest, their authors working hard to make connections to situations today, say linking the Vietnam War to our current engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Or they focused on familiar icons and events of the civil rights movement. This book looked different.

And so it turned out to be. During that first reading a year ago I fell completely in love with those three sisters, their story, and Rita’s poetic and elegant prose. Months later, after learning that I’d reviewed it for the New York Times, my fourth grade students asked me to read it to them. They were alert and insightful listeners --- laughing as Fern said yet again “surely,” curious about the Black Panthers (I showed them that photo of Huey with the shotgun), and moved (not upset) by the girls’ complex mother.

As I read and reread the book, on my own and to my students, I was progressively more and more impressed with Rita’s sensitivity for her intended audience. I've noticed that this is a particularly tricky thing for those writing for children. Some claim not to be aware of their audience while others seem too aware. Don’t you, I've ask some writers, think about your intended reader when writing? No, some of them answer, I only think about the story. But, I will persist, you clearly make decisions that affect that audience. You use one word instead of another. You consider what a young person will know or not know. Perhaps you do it unconsciously, but you do it. No, they will tell me, I just think about my story not about who will read it.

At the other end of the spectrum are those writers who over-think and over-focus on their young readers. These are writers who earnestly and always with the best of intentions, moralize and instruct all too obviously. One hilarious example is Lewis Carroll who talks down most cloyingly to his young audience in his Nursery Alice. One of my students did a wonderful parody of this with, of all things, The Golden Compass.

Rita, I feel, manages this tightrope just right. She respects her young readers, trusts them, and serves them beautifully. While not shying away from having Cecile tell Delphine about her sad and hellish childhood, she does it in a way appropriate for a middle grade reader. What it needed to be, but no more. Similarly, she doesn’t overdo the Black Panther information, giving them a taste, but no more.

This spring Rita visited my classroom and met with our faculty book group where she spoke of deep awareness and personal connection to the Black Panthers. Yet she was very careful not to allow that personal knowledge to take over the story --- she always kept it completely grounded in Delphine, just the way it needed to be for her and for the children today who would read the story. For more about our day with Rita, how I read the book to my students, and their own responses to it please check out this blog post of mine, One Crazy Day.

Thank you, Monica, for this stunning and insightful post, which wraps up our StorySleuths focus on One Crazy Summer.

StorySleuths Tip # 84: Be aware of the audience and adjust the writing accordingly, but don’t overdo this so the writing becomes didactic or forced.

Poet Julie Larios on Joyce Sidman’s UBIQUITOUS: “a symphony of a book”

2010-07-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

The StorySleuths are once again overjoyed to share a review prepared especially for us by poet Julie Larios. This time, Julie looks at Joyce Sidman's book, UBIQUITOUS: Celebrating Nature's Survivors. Take it away, Julie!

Not only is “ubiquitous”* a good word to describe the poet Joyce Sidman lately (*Definition: something that is – or seems to be—everywhere at the same time), it’s also the title of her most recently released collection of poetry.

UBIQUITOUS: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors is the new jewel in Sidman’s impressive string of picture books over the last five years, all of which have garnered critical attention and praise, and two of which (Red Sings from Treetops and Song of the Water Boatman) have been named Caldecott Honor books. Beckie Prange, the talented artist who paired up with Sidman for Song of the Water Boatman, is back, illustrating what some people might consider daunting subjects for poets and readers (bacteria, lichens, diatoms, grasses!) as well as more familiar animals and plants like sharks, coyotes, squirrels, and dandelions. Homo sapiens put in an appearance, as do crows, ants, beetles and—one of my favorites— mollusks (“…the pink lip/of a pearled world. // Who swirled your whorls and ridges?”)

What could pull these seemingly unrelated subjects together into a collection of poetry? Well, it’s all there in the subtitle: These are nature’s survivors – tenacious, sturdy, prolific, adaptable, diverse and street-smart (meadow-smart , muck-smart, desert smart and saltwater-smart, too!) It’s a fresh and wonderful concept that’s been executed with elegance – and I do think “elegance” is the right word. The book is not as playful as Red Sings from Treetops, nor is it as serene as Song of the Water Boatman, nor as simple as This Is Just to Say. It isn’t a melody, as those other three seem to be; instead, this book feels positively symphonic. While each one of the poems might be said to function as part of a song line through the book, the non-fiction which accompanies each poem on the facing page is quite a bit longer and more densely packed. It provides deep harmony and variations on the theme. Think Beethoven for this book rather than Mozart!

That’s not to say that Sidman’s particular style as a poet has changed. She’s still got her signature range of traditional forms (for example, several concrete poems, which echo the shape of the object being described) and rhythms, metered as well as free verse, rhyming and non-rhyming lines. This time around, though, the diction is slightly altered. For example, one of my favorites, called “Scarab,” (shaped like the beetle it describes) is almost incantatory: - you’re there, in Egypt, along with the Pharoahs, worshipping:

                                                  Having
                                              found me, you
                                      are blessed. Born a grub,
                                  cradled in rot, I am Sheath-wing,
                                 beloved of ancients. You have never
                                  seen armor like mine. As the sun-god
                               rolls his blazing disk overhead, so I roll my
                               perfect sphere of dung across the sands….

(“Sheath-wing” is actually a translation of the word “coleoptera” – the scientific order to which beetles belong. Thank you, Joyce Sidman, for the look at etymology!) I was going to say that the diction and tone of the book are more serious, but that’s not right –they’re simply more intricate.

Have I said yet that teachers and non-fiction addicts will love this collection? On the page facing “Scarab,” the text provides readers with a whole slew of facts about relative size, length of time on earth, and traits which help it survive (did you know beetles have forewings that act almost like armor and allow the beetle to survive in just about any climate?) Added to this material, the illustrator provides a visual step-by-step of the insect’s larval stages. That’s what I mean about a symphony – all kinds of synchronic information to balance the melodic poetry.

Another strong poem (“Come with Us”) provides the song line for coyotes (canis latrans: barking dog!)

Come, come with us!

Come into the woods at evening.

Come canter across the cornfields,

Come slink in the dusk like smoke.

Come, come with us!

Come plunder the wind’s riches….

Meanwhile, on the facing page, Sidman tells us about the adaptability of coyotes to whatever helps them survive, such as a change in social structure or natural habitat (coyote populations come closer and closer now to suburban settings.)

Animals don’t get all the attention. Look at how deftly Sidman handles the anthropomorphizing of grass:

I drink the rain,

I eat the sun;

Before the prairie woods
I run…

On steppe or veld
Or pampas dry,

Beneath the grand
enormous sky,

I make my humble
bladed bed.

And where there’s level ground,
I spread.

“…my humble / bladed bed.” That’s the kind of phrase only a talented poet can write. Someone else might have written “My humble little bed” and the whole poem would have imploded into sentimental schlock. But Sidman knows how to hunt for the perfect word. “Bladed” snaps the poem right back into the natural world – razor-sharp, not sweet and saccharine.

Prange’s linocuts, hand-colored with watercolors (thank you, Houghton Miflin, for providing this information on the pub data page of the book! How I wish more publishers did it!) employ a whole new palette of super-saturated colors for Sidman’s words. The title page alone is worth the price of admission – bright purple, fiery orange, glowing gold, deep black. And the end-papers – well, all I can say about those is don’t pass them up. An illustrator’s note at the end provides an explanation for them.

The author, illustrator, editor and book designer haven’t left a single thing out of this symphony of a book – poems, non-fiction notes, a glossary, author and illustrator notes, and a gecko whose body stands out in relief on the front cover (and whose tail wraps around to the back of the book!) UBIQUITOUS is a singular intersection of language, visual art and science . It adds quite a nice touch to the shelf of Sidman books I’ve been collecting (and oh, it looks like another book, titled Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night is coming out just after Labor Day this year….hooray!)

Thank you, Julie, for once again sharing with us and our readers a deeper look into the world poetic!

StorySleuths Tip #83: Don’t think for a moment that non-fiction needs to be dull! Give a topic your own new, fresh take and create something unforgettable.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR: One Crazy Summer

2010-07-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

The StorySleuths were fortunate to be able to ask a few questions of the amazing Rita Williams-Garcia. Busy with her work as a member of the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and dashing to and from the ALA conference, Ms. Williams-Garcia took time out of her busy schedule for us, and we thank her. And now, some words from Rita:

1. We always hear that when writing historical fiction it is challenging to keep from including each and every incredibly cool tidbit gathered during the research phase. Is there one particular piece of information that you really wanted to plug in but just couldn't find the place for?

For sure! Actually, there were many that went into my “Unused” folder. I made a deal with myself, that if I found a place for any one of them, in it would go. The other deal I made was to not fish around in the “unused” folder. I’d have to come upon a place in the writing that begged to have the material woven in. Now, 1968 was a huge year. I kept a diary of one line entries--truth told, too many TV Guide entries--and it was hard to pick, so I remained close to the “Free Huey” movement. I desperately wanted to include Angela Davis and couldn’t do it as naturally as I would have liked to. And there were so many historical events from my childhood. This meant my recollections of Dr. King’s assassination which lead to the Eric Starvo Galt aka James Earl Ray manhunt; hearing Bobby Kennedy’s speech at the Monterey Peninsula Airport and taking a picture with him; more specifics about the Vietnam conflict, and Eartha Kitt being removed as “Catwoman” from the TV show Batman because of her anti-war remarks at a luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson--could not be used in the novel. I could always feel myself reaching to make connections and I’ll tell myself to “stay on story.” It’s part of my work song.

2. Are there any characters that changed significantly since your original concept, and if so, how are they different? Are there characters that started out in the story but got cut?

This time around I didn’t have to cut any characters, but their roles did change. The most significant change was Fern. I always intended Fern to be Delphine’s baby. I had an image of her, and her role was to bring out Delphine’s maternal instincts while hampering Delphine’s carefree childhood. I had given her a sweet little soul and Miss Patty Cake. But then, Fern was also the reason or excuse for Cecile’s departure. Her sweetness doesn’t really work on Cecile who won’t leap up to get her a simple glass of ice water. And then I saw and understood why: Like Cecile, Fern insists on herself even at birth. That there is something in Fern that wants to fly off the handle in a rage (although this has to be understood in her fist banging), whereas in Cecile it is overt. I had to make a confrontation between Fern and Cecile. Fern is the undoing of everything.

Sister Mukumbu’s role had changed significantly from the plan. Originally, Sister Mukumbu was to take on more responsibility and nurturing, but that would have been too convenient. As a result there was an opportunity to let Mrs. Woods step out into the story. That worked out well because I intended to have Hirohito’s father, a Vietnam vet turned Black Panther, more visible. Brother Woods’ presence was more logical, historical and I could go to my “Unused” folder for an “in scene” appearance with Brother Woods fixing the Go-Kart. But I saw this Japanese woman sitting with Delphine, Vonetta, Fern and Hirohito. She was naturally maternal, a strong but nurturing mother to Hirohito. She was the antithesis of Cecile, so good-bye Brother Woods. But also, my editor, Rosemary Brosnan’s questions about Delphine and sisters being on their own gave another opportunity to activate Mrs. Woods.

3. What did you start out with? Character? Story idea? The era?

Years before I even proposed the story, I knew I would write from my childhood years and that it would be a story not yet written. A few years ago it was time to propose stories for my contract and I already had JUMPED fully formed in my head. As I wrote my email to my editor, I heard, “RUN!” and saw this woman taking off, leaving her small children to struggle to keep up with her. I wrote a basic story idea about this woman who reunited with her children and was involved with the Black Panthers, but was on the run from Maxie, whose printer she had “found.” The names of the characters spilled out onto the screen without even taking a moment. And I knew where there names had come from and why Cecile left them. I heard Delphine say, “When Cecile left, Fern wasn’t on the bottle. When Fern left, Vonetta could walk but wanted to be picked up. When Fern left Pa wasn’t sick, but he wasn‘t doing well, either” (from my notebook). Then I asked, why does she say it this way, in a cadence? The answer: because she grew up hearing cadence. From where? From Cecile. And the images rained! Writing on the wall. Homelessness. The girls’ father, a lonely but loving man. A teen curled up around Milton and Countee Cullen in the stacks of a library. A finger pointing down and a voice yelling, “What is wrong with this picture?” This story was telling itself to me faster than I could write it.

My mind and pre-research frame of references were full: My cousins were involved with the Black Panthers. That my mother smoked and played smoky music. I had free breakfasts in the summer and a Sickle Cell Anemia shot, courtesy of the Black Panthers. Nikki Giovanni printing her own poems on her own printing press. That a Black Panther woman, who was probably just a teen said, “Little Sister, have you had your smile today?” And that nowhere on the news would I see her smile. Or George Jackson’s smile. Or the loving family man in Malcolm X who wasn’t a Black Panther, but whose assassination inspired the movement. I believe it was us, the children, the ones who were served who know what the world doesn’t. I wrote a lot before I could actually get to the business of putting my scenes and dialogue into chapters. I’d dream deeply, ask and answer questions. How is this so, Rita? Explain this to me.

4. Is there a particular element of craft that was particularly challenging for you when writing One Crazy Summer? If so, how did you overcome it?

I had to stop “telling” the story as much as I loved Delphine’s voice and point of view. I had to remove a good deal of telling by asking myself, “Rita, what happens when this is extricated?” If I didn’t do it, my editor (Rosemary Brosnan at Harpercollins) would strongly suggest it. I also had to give Delphine “the hook” and let her be in the scene and not tell us about it.

5. If there is one final edit you could make, what would it be?

It’s a small thing, but every time I come across it, I pause. At the end of “Everyone Knows the King of the Sea,” Delphine says, “I hadn’t cared if I never saw that grinning mammal again.“ This is correct because she is retelling from the past, but every time I read it I lose Delphine. I would revise to the incorrect, “I didn’t care if I never saw that grinning mammal again.” Told you it was small.

Ms. Williams-Garcia -- the StorySleuths thank you for sharing!

StorySleuths Tip #82: When writing historical fiction allow your reasearch to give the story flavor and texture, only including those actual facts that fit the story, rather than changing the story to fit the facts. From RWG's response above--wait for a place in the story that begs to have the material woven in.

Post #7: Guest Posting by Monica Edinger --Attending to Your Audience

CLIMAX AND DENOUEMENT: One Crazy Summer (Post #6 of 6)

2010-06-26T22:22:00.001-07:00

Dear Allyson and Heather,

I’ve been thinking about your post, Heather, and about how Williams-Garcia created an antagonist who AVOIDS taking action. Her decision to pit Delphine against such a resistant mother created a challenge with respect to the ending. How could the story come to a climax in which there would be some resolution of the tension between Delphine and Cecile, while still remaining true to the characters? A sugary sweet ending wouldn’t fit, but to have no mutual understanding wouldn’t satisfy readers either.

In Beginnings,, Middles & Ends, Nancy Kress says,

…the climactic scene must grow naturally out of the actions that preceded it, which in turn must have grown naturally out of the personalities of the characters.” (p. 108)

In the penultimate chapter of One Crazy Summer, “Be Eleven,” the protagonist and the antagonist confront one another. It’s a confrontation we’ve been prepared for, and expecting, and waiting for, since the first chapter, when Delphine and her sisters set off on the quest to visit the mother who had left them behind six years earlier, leaving Delphine with only a “flash of memory” that told her “Cecile wasn’t one for kissing and hugging” (p. 7). With Delphine, we wonder, “Why?

And finally, in “Be Eleven,” Cecile explains. Cecile initiates the scene with a tirade directed at Delphine, blaming Delphine for not calling her father when Cecile was in jail, Delphine responds:

I’m only eleven years old. And I do everything. I have to, because you’re not there to do it. I’m only eleven years old, but I do the best I can. I don’t just up and leave. (p. 206)

In response, Cecile opens up, sharing her own life story with Delphine. Delphine reflects:

Here was my mother telling me her life. Who she was. How she came to be Cecile. Answering questions I’d stored in my head from the time I realized she would not come back. (p. 209)

Delphine’s self-awareness grows out of these revelations: “….for what seemed like the first time ever, all I could think about was my own self. What I lost. What I missed" (p. 209). The information doesn’t change Delphine’s feelings—“I was still mad”—but it does give her information that she planned to take out “one piece at a time and look at” (p. 210), and it gives her Cecile’s understanding: “Be eleven, Delphine. Be eleven while you can” (p. 210)

About the dénouement, whose function is to “wrap up the story” after the climax, Kress says,

it may consist of a sentence, a paragraph, or a brief scene clarifying what happens to the character after she changes. (p. 112)

Williams-Garcia has created the perfect dénouement. After they’ve said their goodbyes at the airport, Delphine expects Cecile to walk away. But in line for boarding, Delphine reports:

When I turned to see if she had gone, she was standing only a few feet away. Looking straight at me. It was a strange, wonderful feeling. To discover eyes upon you when you expected no one to notice you at all. (p. 214)

And finally, there’s the moment we’ve been prepared for, and waiting for, from the first chapter:

We broke off from the line and ran over to hug our mother and let her hug us…..We weren’t about to leave Oakland without getting what we’d come for. (p. 215)

It’s a perfect ending—one that follows from all of the actions that preceded it and grows naturally out of the personalities of the characters.

StorySleuths Tip #81: Create a climax and dénouement that meet the standards of Nancy Kress--that logically follow the actions preceding it while growing naturally out of the personalities of the characters.

ANTAGONIST: One Crazy Summer (Post #5 of 6)

2010-06-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Meg,

We haven't talked much about antagonists in the books we've read so far, although we have meet some doozies (the Blackbringer in Laini Taylor's fantasy novel Blackbringer and Wendell in Marcelo in the Real World come to mind). The antagonist in One Crazy Summer is another doozy: Cecile Johnson, the mother who abandoned the three sisters when the youngest was still nursing.

We readers learn about Cecile through the eyes of our narrator, Delphine, who explains that the term "mother" is

"a statement of fact. Cecile Johnson gave birth to us. We came out of Cecile Johnson. In the animal kingdom that makes her our mother" (p. 14).

Delphine's explanation sounds fairly straightforward and unemotional, but we readers can't help but feel her underlying resentment toward her mother. What I found fascinating here was how the narration clues us in to the possibility that Delphine may not be a completely reliable narrator when it comes to her mother.

Then, of course, we actually meet Cecile when she arrives late at the airport to pick up the children. She looks "more like a secret agent than a mother," Delphine thinks, judging by the way her mother appears dressed in big sunglasses, a scarf, and a hat. We are still in Delphine's head, still seeing Cecile through Delphine's point of view. Is Cecile really so crazy? So horrible? So uncaring?

Rita Williams-Garcia uses Delphine's narration to create questions in the reader's mind before letting us see Cecile in action for ourselves. And when she does, her words and actions clearly show that Delphine's fears were justified. She exhibits no warmth toward the girls, just hustles them into a taxi and takes them home. She mumbles

"I didn't send for you. Didn't want you in the first place. Should have gone to Mexico to get rid of you when I had the chance" (p. 26).

While this statement confuses the girls, they are even more offended when they discover that Cecile has no food for them, offering them a choice between eating "air sandwiches" and walking down the street alone to order take out from Ming's.

What's interesting about Cecile as an antagonist is that she doesn't so much oppose Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern through her actions the way that Wendell in Marcelo in the Real World actively tried to thwart Marcelo. Instead, Cecile's inactions--her lack of motherly warmth and concern--leave the girls off balance and force Delphine to take on more responsibility than an eleven-year-old should have. She is an antagonist because she withholds the very care and emotional connection that the girls crave.

StorySleuths Tip #80: An antagonist can provide opposition to the protagonist through inaction by refusing to interact with the protagonist or withholding emotional connections.

Post #6: Interview with Rita Williams-Garcia

THE TICKING CLOCK: One Crazy Summer (Post #4 of 6)

2010-06-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

My kids’ last day of school was Thursday and already we hear that ticking clock. The first day of September is just around the corner and there is so much to do between now and then! The time constraint adds tension to the story of our summer, just as it does in literature with the literary device referred to as the ticking clock.

During a lecture at the 2009 SCBWI Western Washington conference, literary agent Michael Stearns spoke about the use of a ticking clock in novels to add suspense. In an online article titled Adding Suspense to a Novel -- the Ticking Clock, author Marg McAlister suggests that the main requirements to use this literary device are:

1. Plan to have something big happen at the end of the chosen period of time, with severe and unwanted consequences for the main character if he/she doesn't meet the deadline.
2. Choose a period of time during which the action of the story will play out – a day, a week, 39 days, a year – the time period doesn't matter, as long as the main character faces serious challenges to complete whatever is necessary in the time frame.

How does device work in One Crazy Summer? First, let’s look at the “period of time during with the action of the story will play out”. This is established before one even turns the first page—the title One Crazy Summer implies that there is a time limit being imposed. We are promised that something is going to take place over the course of a summer, and as the novel progresses, we see that time-clock ticking down.

And what is the ‘something big’ that is going to happen? The story opens with the girls flying to Oakland to meet, and get to know, Cecile—the mother who abandoned them for reasons that are not altogether clear to either Delphine or the reader. When Cecile collects them at the airport in chapter two it is apparent that one month may not be enough time to get to know this woman who seems determined to keep her distance. The ‘something big’ is that Delphine just may return to New York without having gotten to know her mother. She may never come to understand why her mother left three young daughters to be raised by their father.

As the story progresses we are made aware of time ticking, and with each passing day it seems less and less likely that the girls will foster any kind of relationship with Cecile. In fact when they have only been there for one day they are ready to go home:

‘I wanna go home.’

‘Me too.’

I knew which home they meant. I said, ‘We’re going back home in twenty-seven days’ (p. 60).

It is close to the end of their time in Oakland when Cecile gets arrested, and still Delphine has not gotten close to her mother:

If Cecile had been arrested when we first arrived in Oakland, I would have called Pa, and Pa would have made sure my sisters and I were on a plane back to New York. Nothing would have made me happier than to leave Cecile and Oakland back then. But we hadn’t gotten what we came for. We didn’t really know our mother, and I couldn’t leave without knowing who she was (p. 178).

It isn’t until the very end of their stay that Cecile reveals to Delphine the truth about her own painful past. And it is not until the day they leave that Cecile finally demonstrates the kind of care and compassion the girls have been looking for all along.

If Delphine had a lifetime to figure out the secrets behind her mother’s actions and establish a relationship with her, there would be no story. Having just one month to accomplish these things adds tension, and propels the story forward.

StorySleuths Tip #79 — Establish a period of time during which your character must accomplish his/her goal, demonstrate time ticking down, and make sure your readers know what is at stake if the buzzer rings before the goal is met.

Post #5: Antagonist

BRINGING HISTORY TO STORY: One Crazy Summer (Post #3 of 6)

2010-06-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Heather,

     I was drawn into One Crazy Summer partly because it's about the 60's, a time I vividly remember as a college student, participating in lunch counter sit-ins and voter registration in southeastern Tennessee. Although the Black Panthers were getting a lot of press for their political activities, I wasn't aware at the time that they sponsored social programs as well.
   So I was fascinated to read One Crazy Summer--not only as the story of three sisters and their relationships with one another and other members of their family, but also as a window into an organization that was far more complex and fascinating than I had realized at the time.
     In The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction, James Alexander Thom clarifies the difference between historians and historical fiction novelists. He says,

[Historians] have to point backward from the present and, bearing the authority of their profession, declare what they believe happened back then. Those who read the prose of a historian understand that they are looking back.

But we novelists, and our readers, aren't looking back to the time. We are in that time, looking forward. We are living in the historical moment, through the vividness of our stories, and looking to the future to find our outcomes. (p. 28)

Williams-Garcia takes us back to be in that time by embedding clues to the period throughout the book.

1. Clues in narration: A clue to the time period can be as simple as a single word, like the word now superseded by "flight attendant":

A stewardess rushed to our row. (p. 11)

2. Clues in dialogue: Williams-Garcia also uses dialogue to give readers historical context for the story:

"How can you send them to Oakland? Oakland's nothing but a boiling pot of trouble cooking. All them riots. " (p. 5)

3. Clues in description: Vivid descriptions clearly anchor the story in past time:

We sat at one of the two long tables. The classroom was unlike any I had ever been in. Instead of pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and President Johnson, there was a picture of Huey Newton sitting in a big wicker chair with a rifle at his side. (p. 69)

4. Clues in internal monologue: Historical information is also shared with readers through internal monologue:

I knew he meant her, Cecile, when he said Inzilla. I didn't know some of those other names. Only Huey Newton, the Black Panther leader, and Muhammad Ali, used to be Cassius Clay. (pp. 45-46)

Thom says,

As much as you can, you must be like someone who has lived there, because you're going to be not just the storyteller but also the tour guide taking your readers through the past. (p. 154)

Williams-Garcia is one awesome tour guide, using clues planted in narration, dialogue, description, and internal monologue to take readers back to a specific time and place in the past.

StorySleuths Tip # 78: When writing historical fiction, use clues planted in narration, dialogue, description, and internal monologue to take your readers back to a specific time and place in the past.

Post #4: The Ticking Clock

DIALOGUE: One Crazy Summer (Post #2 of 6)

2010-06-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Meg and Allyson,

I started One Crazy Summer knowing that the setting and time period—1968 in Oakland, California—would certainly make for a unique read, full of interesting historical details about the Black Panthers and Huey Newton. I had no idea it would also be so funny! The relationship between the three sisters is full of warmth and humor.

Take this passage of dialogue between the three sisters and their mother. Delphine, the narrator, and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern have just traveled to the house of their estranged mother, Cecile.

I spoke first: “We’re hungry.”

As usual, my sisters’ voices followed on top of mine.

Vonetta: “What’s for supper?”

Then Fern: “Hungry. Hungry.” She rubbed her belly.

The girls go around this subject a few times with Cecile in the same pattern, Delphine with a broad statement of fact, followed by supporting details from Vonetta and then Fern. At last, Cecile asks for the money their father had sent with them.

I crossed my arms. There was no way she was getting our money. “That money’s for Disneyland,” I told her.

“To go on all the rides.”

“And meet Tinker Bell.”

This was the first time we heard Cecile laugh, and she laughed like the crazy mother she was turning out to be. “Is Tinker Bell going to feed you?” (pp. 30-31)

This structure of dialogue takes place throughout the book: Delphine approaches their mother with a request or need, and Vonetta and Fern back her up. Williams-Garcia goes out of her way to highlight this pattern of speaking. In a moment of narration, Delphine reflects,

When my sisters and I speak, one right after the other, it’s like a song we sing, a game we play. We never need to pass signals. We just fire off rat-a-tat-tat. Delphine. Vonetta. Fern. (p. 77)

The girls riff off each other, so it’s important that Williams-Garcia establishes a clear pattern.

While the dialogue is interesting, funny, and witty, it also develops character. We can see the unity among sisters in the way the younger girls build on their older sister’s statements. The girls want the same things. They support each other. Here, they want Cecile to get them a television.

She said, “No one needs a television set.”

“We do,” I said.

“To catch our shows,” Vonetta said.

“Yeah,” Fern said. “To catch our cartoons.”

This is a rare case where Williams-Garcia includes dialogue tags for the girls. Many times, dialogue spins down the page without tags. In this next example, Vonetta and Fern gang up on Delphine:

“See, Delphine, you can’t tell us what to do,” Vonetta said.

“Surely can’t.”

“’Cause we’re going to the Center, and we’re going to the rally.”

“Surely are.”

“And we’re going to sing our song.”

“And do our dance.”

“And you can’t be in with us.”

Notice how quickly the dialogue jumps back and forth between Vonetta and Fern. Dialogue tags would simply slow down the back-and-forth between the girls. Williams-Garcia helps the reader know who’s speaking through a couple of directions. She tells us that Vonetta is talking to Delphine. The second speaker, though, isn’t Delphine replying. It’s Fern piping in, which the reader knows due to Fern’s signature word surely.

While I could cite many more examples of dialogue in One Crazy Summer, I’ll stop here. Suffice it to say that the dialogue works on so many levels: it develops the character of the sisters as a united group and as individuals; it shows their wit and spirit; and it provides moments of laugh-out-loud humor.

StorySleuths Tip #77: Look for ways to establish patterns of communication between characters as a way to show character on many different levels.

Post #3: Bringing History to Story

WRITING FROM YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE: One Crazy Summer, Post #1 of 6

2010-06-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut, a white girl in a working-class family. Like every kid in my neighborhood, all of whom were white, I had a father who worked, a mother who stayed home, and I went to St. Agnes Catholic Church on Sundays. There was confidence and comfort that came from being just like everyone else, and for the most part I was blithely unaware that anyone's experience was much different from my own, for even the books I read were about girls much like me.

As an adult looking back, how I wish that the librarian had been able to thrust into my book-crazy hands a copy of Rita Williams-Garcia's novel so that I could have begun at an earlier age to appreciate the experiences of a child growing up non-white, which were so different from my own.

Reading this book as an adult I was struck by the way Delphine noticed her own blackness. At the airport preparing to fly to Oakland, for instance, Delphine notices the ratio of black to white people.

There weren’t too many of ‘us’ in the waiting area, and too many of ‘them’ were staring. I’d taken a quick count out of habit. Vonetta, Fern and I were the only Negro children (p. 5).

This isn’t the only time Delphine counts the non-white faces. It’s something she and her sisters are confronted with on a daily basis as she describes here, when talking about their experience watching television:

The Mike Douglas show wasn’t the only place to find colored people on television. Each week, Jet magazine pointed out all the shows with colored people. My sisters and I became expert colored counters. We had it down to a science (p. 118).

What a terrific example of "show don't tell"! By watching Delphine and her sisters notice the world around them we discover just how deeply they are affected by it.

It was shortly after I finished reading One Crazy Summer that I came across a cartoon in the May 31 issue of The New Yorker (p.59), which smacked of Delphine's experience. The comic shows two men watching television, drinking a beer. One says to the other, “I actually saw ten gay characters on television this week—which almost balanced out the 2,174 straight characters I saw.”

And I recall a lecture delivered by Mitali Perkins back in April at the Western Washington SCBWI conference. Speaking about multiculturalism in children’s literature, Mitali commented that whenever she walked into a room she immediately noticed how many other people of color there were.

Whatever the minority experience one has, be it that they are black, gay, or from another country, they are acutely aware of being outside the majority culture in this country. It is so important that kids like Delphine have a book such as this to relate to, and that kids like me have a book such as this to learn from.

StorySleuth Tip #76: Whatever your experience is, there are kids out there that need to hear it. Even if you think you are a minority of one, tell your story.

Post #2: Dialogue

INTERVIEW WITH GRACE LIN: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Post #7

2010-06-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

After reading and examining Where the Mountain Meets the Moon last month, we StorySleuths had some questions about writing process and writing techniques that we couldn’t answer from the text itself. So we asked author Grace Lin if she would answer our questions for us, and she graciously agreed. We’re grateful for her responses, which we are posting below, as they gave us insight into the special considerations and challenges she faced in writing Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

1. Were all of the stories based on traditional folktales or did you write some from scratch?

The stories were a hybrid. A lot of them were based on traditional tales that I tweaked here and there, embellishing myths that were little more than a line. For example, at Chinese New Year, it is common to find pictures of two plump children dressed in red decorating doorways. These children are called Da-A-Fu. Why? I researched and only found a very short summary of them: they were two spirits transformed as children sent to destroy a green monster that was terrorizing a village. There were no details of how or why or what village, but it was enough to spark my imagination. So with that, I created the twin characters of A-Fu and Da-Fu in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon who destroy the Green Tiger.

2. At first it seems like the stories are independent stand-alones but clearly they are tightly interwoven--seemingly unimportant details become significant, minor characters reappear in larger roles--what process did you use to weave it all together?

Not a very organized one! Every time I wrote a story I would think, does this have a purpose with the rest of the plot? If there were at least 2 threads that could tie it to the larger story then I kept it. If there weren’t, I cut it. It was really just a lot of obsessive thinking.

3. We were so taken by the ending. We always hear that refrain that the ending should be a surprise, and yet inevitable. When Minli got to the old man and he would only answer one question -- wow! Of course! It was just perfect. We wonder at what point you knew what the ending would be.

I knew the ending about the questions before I wrote the book. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is very loosely based on a folktale called "Olive Lake," though I changed it quite a bit. In the folktale, the main character is only allowed to ask the God of the West a limited amount of questions, so the structure was already there! All the additional ending elements--Fruitless Mountain turning fruitful, etc, I had planned before I started writing as well--I like to have kind of an end goal so I know where I am going when I write.

However, one also has to be flexible as they write too! For me, all the storylines with the Book of Fortune and the Secret of Happiness came pretty late and those, I think, are the real heart of the ending.

4. What was your revision process like?

I actually enjoy revision. It's writing the first draft, that initial output, that kills me! And my editor, Alvina Ling, is not only my editor but a great friend so I really trust her opinions on my writing...and she understands when my writing is quite rough.

But I don't really have a clear organized process. I write the first draft the best I can, send it to Alvina and wait for her response. Usually she has a really good idea of what to do with it and then I get to work. I like the retooling of the story; I feel like revision is when the story really starts to sing. After my first draft of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon she told me I needed at least 10 more chapters and I should show the parents' side of the story. I cringed at the 10 more chapters but showing the parents' side was an idea of genius!

5. What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?

This was a very emotionally challenging book for me. I think the best way to explain why would be just to direct you to the speech I read at the Josette Frank Award.

6. Could you share one writing tip that you learned in the process of writing Where the Mountain Meets the Moon?

With Where the Mountain Meets the Moon there were so many story lines that I was afraid that things might get lost on the reader. So after each major change my editor had other people in house read it and I had other friends read it to make sure things were clear. I really learned the value of a fresh reader! Sometimes it's important to have someone who knows nothing about the story, someone who is not even a writer, read the story, just to make sure it hangs together--though I would suggest using them only towards the end—when you are fine-tuning, not at early draft stage!

Many thanks, Grace, for your writing and for your articulate explanations of how you researched, structured and created Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. We are looking forward to reading your books that are currently in the works—especially the two companion books to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon—Return to Sky and Needle at Sea Bottom!

StorySleuths’ Tip # 75: With thanks to Grace Lin: “Sometimes it's important to have someone who knows nothing about the story, someone who is not even a writer, read the story, just to make sure it hangs together--though I would suggest using them only towards the end—when you are fine-tuning, not at early draft stage!”

JULIE LARIOS ON MIRROR MIRROR: A BOOK OF REVERSIBLE VERSE

2010-05-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

Once again, StorySleuths asked poet Julie Larios to apply her wisdom to a book of poems that fascinates us—Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer. We are fascinated not only by the form of the poems, but also by their content—both Grace Lin, in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and Marilyn Singer, in her Mirror Mirror poems, use fairy tale stories and themes—but in very different ways.

Julie, an award-winning poet and the author of four poetry books for children, is on the faculty of Vermont College of Fine Arts, teaching in their Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children program. Julie has treated us to two wonderful StorySleuths posts focused on poetry books: Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Color and All the World.

Now we are delighted to share Julie's insight about Mirror Mirror, as well as one of her very own poems, with you.

Verses Reversed

I admit to having a weakness for poetic forms. They’re like all lovely vessels – glass pitchers, for example - that we pour liquids into. The liquid takes on the form of the vessel which contains it. Only with poetry, the vessel (the form) has the power to produce the liquid which fills it up.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds alchemical. That’s because it is. Poetry does have something of that ancient art at its core– it is, after all, based on transformation (what else is the art of the metaphor but the art of change?). When a good book of formal poetry comes along, one which fulfills the promise of turning a poem into more than just the sum of its parts – well, let’s just say I’m a happy camper when that occurs. And it occurs with Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer. The reverso is the vessel, and the poet fills it beautifully. Voila – gold! Here is what Singer says (in the afterword of the book) about reversos:

We read most poems down a page. But what if we read them up? That’s the question I asked myself when I created the reverso. When you read a reverso down, it is one poem. When you read it up, with changes allowed only in punctuation and capitalization, it is a different poem.

All of the reversos in Mirror Mirror are based on fairy tales. Nestled alongside gorgeous images of castle towers, wishing wells, forests and dungeons (the illustrations by Canadian artist Josee Masse do their visual mirroring job exuberantly and intriguingly, playing with split screens and shadows) the poems – two per double spread – read down at first, then get flipped to be read backwards. Here’s one of Singer’s nicely controlled reversos titled “In the Hood,” based on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. First comes the poem told from the point of view of Little Red:

In my hood,
skipping through the wood,
carrying a basket,
picking berries to eat—
juicy and sweet
what a treat!
But a girl
mustn’t dawdle.
After all, Grandma’s waiting.

That’s nicely done – a cute rhyme with a good control of the formal aspects of full rhyme (hood/wood and eat/sweet/treat) and meter. Nice, though not alchemical. Here comes the transformation: a second poem on the page, to the right of the first, told from the point of view of the wolf this time. It starts with the wolf contemplating getting to Grandma’s house and eating her up. But then the Big Bad Wolf spies the girl:

After all, Grandma’s waiting,
mustn’t dawdle….
But a girl!
What a treat,
juicy and sweet,
picking berries to eat,
carrying a basket,
skipping through the wood
in my ‘hood.

So nice! The voice is handed over from one character to another, the lines are read in the reverse order, and the reaction occurs - alchemy! In the first poem, reading down, the line “juicy and sweet” describes berries; in the second version, laid out in reverse, it describes the girl. The words “Grandma’s waiting” are sweet when spoken by the girl, but when spoken by the wolf, they become sinister. And there’s the double entendre of hood and ‘hood – one small apostrophe transforms the meaning of the word. If you think that sounds like a simple thing to do, try writing one!

Actually, several people did try writing one, over at The Miss Rumphius Effect in April. Here’s a look at what they did.

I even gave it a shot, but no gold: My contribution can be read in reverse, so I managed to make sense, but the meaning is not changed, there’s no transformation. I filled the vessel only part way:

The Singer

It’s a neat trick,
This slick reversal:
Can I handle
The movement, the tick to tock,
the click to clack of it,
the back to back -
I mean, the down to up?
I love the frown-to-smile of it,
The way that Singer sang it.
I’ll try it.

I’ll try it
the way that Singer sang it:
I love the frown-to-smile of it -
I mean, the down to up,
the back to back,
the click to clack of it,
the movement, the tick to tock.
Can I handle
this slick reversal?
It’s a neat trick.

Nice try, but no prize. I didn’t rhyme (except for a few internal rhymes) and I didn’t reverse the meaning. For Marilyn Singer to have designed an intricate form (shaped the vessel) and then filled it while also making sense, rhyming, creating a metrical beat, changing the meaning, often changing the speaker’s voice, then focusing all of the poems on fairy tales - well, taking on that level of difficulty really is the sign of a fine craftsman in her glory, having fun.

So give it a try! To inspire you, I’ll leave you with one more wonderful example; Singer’s reverso this time tells two stories of Beauty and the Beast:

A beast
can love
beauty.
A moist muzzle
can welcome
a rose.
A hairy ear
can prize
a nightingale, singing.
Beneath the fur,
look!
A soft heart
stirs
longing.

Longing
stirs
a soft heart.
Look beneath fur.
A nightingale singing
can prize
a hairy ear.
A rose
can welcome
a moist muzzle.
Beauty
can love
a beast.

StorySleuths Tip # 74: Don’t be afraid of formal restrictions! They can take you places you would never get without them. So be brave, experiment, push the boundaries, and have fun.

SCENE ANALYSIS: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

2010-05-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

Among other amazing friends and writers, I saw Julie Larios and Susan Fletcher at a Vermont College reunion yesterday at Golden Gardens in Seattle, and thanked them both again for their luscious contributions to the StorySleuths blog. Anyone who is new to the blog and has not checked them out really should take a peek at Susan’s post on fantasy and Julie’s on poetry in picture books.

Onward to today’s post, which is inspired by a recent critique group session where Cora Grubbs shared with us her approach to figuring out her current novel. She is going scene by scene, looking at how things are flowing and working, and mentioned that, in addition to other things, she is interested in ensuring that there is a value change in each scene.

Value change? She said it was something she’d learned in Robert McKee’s book, Story. Written for screenwriters and filmmakers, it is a craft book with enormous application to the writing of novels. I decided to check it out, and soon found the tidbit Cora had referred to.

On pages 257 – 260 in his book, McKee describes “The Technique of Scene Analysis.” While Cora is applying this five-step process to her own work-in-progress, I decided to apply it to Grace Lin’s marvelous book in an effort to understand more about Lin’s magic, while at the same time learning a technique I might try applying to my own writing.

Here it goes. McKee says, “To analyze a scene, you must slice into its pattern of behaviors at the levels of both text and subtext.” Text, in this case, means what is going on at the surface--what our characters see, hear, say and do. Subtext is what is going on beneath the surface—the character’s true desire, which is something he or she may not be aware of. McKee says, “There’s always a subtext, an inner life that contrasts or contradicts the text.” He points out that in a poorly written scene the author relies on dialogue to show the subtext instead of letting the subtext unfold organically through the characters' actions. He refers to this mistake as writing “on the nose.”

Here is McKee’s five-step process applied to a scene in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Note that in Lin’s books the chapters are very short, and are often just a single scene. For this exercise I am looking at Chapter 22. In the previous chapter Minli has discovered that a street beggar is actually the king. Here, she chases after him, finally catching up with, and confronting, him.

Step One: Define Conflict. In this step we examine the character driving the scene (character in this case could be a person, an inanimate object, a force of nature) and ask what that character wants in this scene. Next, look at the source of antagonism in the scene and ask the same question. McKee says, “If the scene is well written, when you compare the . . . desires from each side, you’ll see that they’re in direct conflict—not tangential.”

Now, looking at how this applies to Chapter 22:

The character driving the scene is Minli, and what she wants is to connect with the king so that she can seek his help in accomplishing her quest. The king is the antagonist. He does not wish to have his undercover identity as a street beggar uncovered. The protagonist’s and the antagonist’s desires are in direct conflict.

Step Two: Note Opening Value. Here we are looking at what is the value at stake in this scene. Values could be things like happiness, friendship, freedom, justice. Once we have identified the value at stake, we determine whether that value is in a positive or a negative state.

Naming a value is a challenge for me, and I resorted to looking online for a list of values. Perusing that list I came upon discovery. And I would say that in this scene, discovery for Minli is at a negative state. She wants to meet the king and get his help, but he is eluding her.

Step Three: Break the Scene into Beats. In a scene there are actions, which cause reactions. McKee says, “This exchange of action and reaction is a beat.”

1. In a panic, Minli chases the king—action. The king runs--reaction. Several times she thinks she loses him, but stays on his trail. He disappears behind a hidden door which leads to the palace garden.

2. Minli discovers the king cleaning himself of his beggar disguise. Minli drops to her knees – action. The king responds with kindness – reaction.

3. A parade of servants descend upon them. The king panics and insists that Minli hides – action. Minli hides, making herself as small as possible – reaction.

4. The king is confronted by the hoard. He insists that he has been in the garden the entire time that they were looking for him and demands that this evening they bring him dinner for two in the garden—action. Counselor Chu agrees to comply with the king’s wishes—reaction.

5. When the king insists on dinner for two he glances toward Minli—action. Minli catches his eye and shrinks out of sight—reaction.

6. The crowd leaves. The King invites Minli to come out of hiding—action. Minli crawls out—reaction.

Step Four: Note Closing Value and Compare with Opening Value. Here we move to the end of the scene, and determine whether the charge of the value identified in Step Two has changed or remained the same. If it has stayed the same, the scene has likely fallen flat.

In Chapter 22, discovery has moved to a positive state. As the scene has played out Minli has determined that the beggar is indeed the king, she has made contact with him, and he has invited her to join him in a meal and a conversation.

Step Five: Survey Beats and Locate Turning Point. Look at the beats identified in Step Three to trace the arc of the scene. McKee says, “Within the arc locate the moment when the major gap opens between expectation and result, turning the scene to its changed end values. This precise moment is the Turning Point.”

Beat 4, when the king suggests that Counselor Chu bring two evening meals, is a Turning Point. Minli’s expectation is that she should get to have a conversation with the king to plea her case. Here, the king indicates that he is going to be taking a meal with her, opening the way for her to tell him what she is after.

In summary, McKee says, “Ill-written scenes may lack conflict because desires are not opposed, may be antiprogressive because they’re repetitious or circular, lopsided because their Turning Points come too early or too late, or lacking because dialogue and action are 'on the nose.' But analysis of a problematic scene that tests beats against scene objectives, altering behavior to fit desire or desire to fit behavior, will lead to a rewrite that brings the scene to life.”

Here, I have looked at a scene that works. The conflict is clear, the beats each have an action and a reaction. The scene has an arc with a clear turning point, and a value, which transitions from negative to positive by the scene’s end. While I do not believe I would feel compelled to do this for every scene in my novel, I can see that it could be very useful in analyzing scenes that fall flat. Thank you, Cora, for turning me on to this!

StorySleuths Tip #73: When a scene is falling flat, consider using Robert McKee’s Technique of Scene Analysis to locate problems and determine how to best fix them.

DEVELOPING THEME: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon #5

2010-05-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Meg and Allyson,

When I wrote my previous posting on how Grace Lin develops Minli’s desire and motivation early in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, I thought a lot about the connection between character yearning and theme.

Elizabeth Lyon, author of one of my favorite books on craft, Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, says “Theme is your novel’s message.” She elaborates:

Less simply put, theme is the abstract equivalent of the protagonist’s universal need fashioned into a statement of what he or she has come to learn. The theme states the personal growth or character change that completes the inner story arc. It has not been separate from the plot but has entwined with it. (pp. 212-213)

Minli’s character growth and the lesson she learns as a result of her journey in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon illustrate Lyon’s point. Let’s look at how theme emerges in the novel.

Want vs. Need

Minli’s goal—what she wants—is to find the Old Man of the Moon to ask him how to change her family’s fortune. This desire drives Minli’s actions, and each step she takes on her journey moves her closer to accomplishing her goal. In other words, this desire is the external conflict that propels the plot forward.

However, as she travels, she also experiences emotional responses that, over time, reveal a conflicting internal need. As much as Minli wants to accomplish her goal, she also misses her parents back home. For example, one night, she can’t fall asleep:

With pangs of guilt, she thought about how Ba and Ma pushed her to go home early from the field, how her rice bowl was always the first filled, how every night when she went to sleep in her warm bed she knew they were there… (p. 159)

While she naturally misses the comforts of home and the security of her parents’ company, she also develops a new appreciation for them. Her encounters with the people she meets on her journey force her to think in new ways. The same night she thinks about her parents, she reflects on the orphaned buffalo boy she met in the City of Bright Moonlight.

The buffalo boy didn’t have [what Minli had]. Instead, he had a dirt floor, a pile of grass for his bed, a muddy buffalo, and a secretive friend. Yet her turned away her copper coin and laughed in the sun. Minli couldn’t quite understand it, and, somehow, felt ashamed. (p. 159)

Minli’s emotional reaction to the separation from her parents reveals what Elizabeth Lyon might call a “hole in the soul” (p. 207). And the encounter with the buffalo boy leaves Minli in a state of confusion, wondering how he can be so happy when he has even less than she does.

The internal need propels character growth. Minli’s confusion about the buffalo boy’s apparent happiness illustrates a step in her emotional change in the middle of her journey.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

In addition to using character growth to develop aspects of the theme, Lin also uses the cast of characters to build thematic echoes. For example, at the beginning of the book, Minli and Ma both suffer from discontentment and frustration with their life of poverty. Neither likes to work so hard all the time.

However, Ma’s discontentment is deep-rooted, and she is pessimistic that her fortune will ever change. Minli, on the other hand, is driven by curiosity as well as faith in the stories her father tells. Ma and Minli show two characters with the same problem but different outlooks.

Elizabeth Lyon says,

To produce unity and coherence, as well as one theme, don’t give each point of view character a yearning divergent with the protagonist’s yearning. Craft yearnings that are supportive and parallel, or opposite but related (p. 210).

The Moment of Epiphany

The theme becomes clear when Minli at last meets the Old Man of the Moon. She can ask just one question, and she must choose between her own question (how to change her family’s fortune) and Dragon’s question (why can’t he fly?). She catches sight of the word written on the borrowed line. It says, “Thankfulness.” That word tells her everything she needs to know. She poses the question about why Dragon cannot fly.

Ma reaches her moment of epiphany at the same time, as revealed in the story she tells in the very next chapter. Her realization is more explicit than Minli’s. Ma says, “For all the time that she had been longing for treasures, she had already the one most precious” (p. 254).

By showing two characters reaching the same conclusion, Lin allows readers first the opportunity to infer the book’s theme independently while then reinforcing it afterwards in a more explicit way.

Returning to Lyon’s explanation of theme earlier, where theme “states the personal growth or character change that completes the inner story arc,” we can see the change in Minli: she recognizes the fortune she always had in her own family, and that recognition leads to gratitude. Translated into a more abstract statement, the theme might be “Be grateful” or “The love of family is more valuable than material wealth.”

StorySleuths Tip #72: Theme emerges from character change or growth. Use emotional reactions, reflections, parallel stories, and secondary characters to build toward a moment of understanding or epiphany.

STORIES AS SCAFFOLDING: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Post #4

2010-05-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Heather,

Every once in a while an author scaffolds a narrative on a structural element that perfectly complements the content. Think Holes, scaffolded by Louis Sachar on the curse put on Stanley’s great-great-grandfather. Think When You Reach Me, scaffolded by Rebecca Stead on the mysterious notes left for Miranda. Think Secret Water, scaffolded by Arthur Ransome on the sketchy outline map given by their father to John, Susan, Titty, Roger and Bridget. Think Love, Ruby Lavender, scaffolded by Deborah Wiles on letters sent between Ruby and her grandmother. And now, think Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, scaffolded by Grace Lin on stories inspired by Chinese folk tales told primarily to Minli, but also, tellingly, to other characters as well. It’s these stories that I’ll focus on in this post, stories that enrich, enliven, deepen, and illuminate the narrative of Minli’s quest.

Each of the 16 stories is set off from the main narrative by a title, in color, bracketed by two colored medallions with mini-images from that story, introduced by a drop cap in color, and typeset in a typeface different from the typeface of the main narrative (I’m not savvy enough to know which typesets they are, and I couldn’t find the different typefaces identified in the book). Each story ends with a centered medallion, similar to those in the border of the full page illustration on page 186. These visual elements serve to separate the stories from the narrative and from one another, as well as to link them together with one another.

As the stories complement the text, together they serve to drop clues for Minli, for her parents, for other characters, and of course for us readers as well. As an indication of how important the stories are, they all have titles, whereas the chapters themselves are simply numbered and do not have titles.

I’ll focus on 3 of the stories-- the first (The Story of Fruitless Mountain), the third (The Story of the Dragon), and the last (The Story that Ma Told)--and on how Lin uses them to drive the plot, develop important symbols, and clarify character change.

Stories drive the plot

The first story, “The Story of Fruitless Mountain,” appears in Chapter 1. It kicks off the story action and provides the motivation for Minli’s quest.

Even before the first story appears in the text Lin prepares a story space for it. Lin preps readers for something special and important--something not only with the power to transform Minli’s life, but with the power to reenergize her father and even to make her impatient mother smile.

What kept Minli from becoming dull and brown like the rest of the village were the stories her father told her every night at dinner. She glowed with such wonder and excitement that even Ma would smile, though she would shake her head at the same time. Ba seemed to drop his gray and work weariness--his black eyes sparkled like raindrops in the sun when he began a story. (p. 3)

In addition, it’s clear that Minli has heard not only this story, but many stories, before:

"Ba, tell me the story about Fruitless Mountain again,” Minli would say as her mother spooned their plain rice into bowls. “Tell me again why nothing grows on it.” (p. 3)

“The Story of Fruitless Mountain” describes how Fruitless Mountain can become fruitful again--when “Jade Dragon is no longer lonely and is reunited with at least one of her children” (p. 8). Following the story, Minli asks, “Why doesn’t someone bring the water of the four great rivers to the mountain?” If it were that simple, there wouldn’t be much of a quest! Minli’s subsequent question, “How will Fruitless Mountain ever grow green again?” can only be answered, her father said, by the Old Man of the Moon.

“Someday, I will ask him,” Minli declared. (p. 9)

By the end of Chapter 1, Minli has set her course--based on information presented in the story.

Stories develop symbols

Chapters 4 through 10 are devoid of stories, focusing instead on Minli’s unannounced departure on her quest to find the Old Man of the Moon and on her parents’ desperate search for her. When, in Chapter 11, Minli frees a dragon who cannot fly and asks him his name, he responds with the third story, “The Story of the Dragon.” This story includes an important reference to a small prop--an inking stone--that has major significance to Minli as she searches for the way that Fruitless Mountain will grow green again. In The Passionate, Accurate Story: Making Your Heart's Truth into Literature, Carol Bly suggests using a small prop three times--once to introduce it to the reader, a second time so the reader remembers it, and the third time so it becomes a symbol for something important in the story. (p. 159).

Ma first mentions the inking stone in Chapter 1. When Minli’s father says that a man tired to reunite Jade Dragon with her children by taking stones from the mountain to the rivers, Minli’s mother cut in:

“My grandmother told me he was an artist. He took the mountain rock to carve into inking stones” (p. 9).

The inkstone is mentioned for the second time in the dragon’s story:

When I was born, I remember two voices speaking.

“Master,” one voice said. “This is magnificent--the dragon is almost alive!”

“Add more water to the inkstone,” another voice said. (p. 51)

Later in the dragon’s story, the inkstone is described in more detail:

“Clean the brushes and take great care with my special inkstone. It is one of a kind, the only inkstone that was able to be made from a rock my master cut from a mountain far from here. He never told anyone which mountain, so we can never make another.” (p. 53)

In addition, the illustration on page 50 above the Chapter 11 heading is of an inkstone, emphasizing its importance.

The inkstone is mentioned a third time when, at the end of her quest, Minli is the one who puts the puzzle pieces together, realizing that the inking stone is the connection between the Jade Dragon and her dragon child, who has returned to her.

Perhaps Dragon was born from an inkstone made of Fruitless Mountain, the heart of Jade Dragon. Then perhaps he was one of Jade Dragon’s children. And by bringing him to Fruitless Mountain, Minli had discovered how to make Fruitless Mountain grow green again. (pp. 269-270)

Stories clarify character change

The last story, “The Story that Ma Told,” illustrates the transformation in Ma, from her skepticism and rejection of Ba’s stories, to finally telling him one of her own. Ma described a woman whose daughter had left home to find fortune for her family:

For without her daughter, the house became too large and empty, and she was not hungry for the extra rice. As the days passed in loneliness, fear, and worry, the woman cursed herself for her selfishness and foolishness. How lucky she had been! ....The woman wept tears for which there was no comfort. For all the time that she had been longing for treasures, she had already had the one most precious. (p. 254)

Her story, told to Ba, describes her recognition of the effects of her own actions, and precipitates her apology to Ba.

StorySleuths Tip # 71: Consider scaffolding your narrative on a structural element, such as stories, to drive the plot, deepen the symbols, and clarify character development.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon # 3

2010-05-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

As I read Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon I paid close attention to the ways that Lin describes character, and demonstrates character development as the story progresses. I noticed the way that she both “told” and “showed” aspects of character. I will start with an example from the very beginning of the book:

Minli was not brown and dull like the rest of the village. She had glossy black hair with pink cheeks, shining eyes always eager for adventure, and a fast smile that flashed from her face. When people saw her lively and impulsive spirit, they thought her name, which meant quick thinking, suited her well (p. 2).

Here, the author is telling us what she wants us to know about Minli. Janet Burroway, in Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, describes a passage such as this as the indirect method of interpreting character. About this method Burroway says, "The advantages of the indirect method are enormous, for it leaves you free to move in time and space; to know anything you choose to know whether the character knows it or not; and godlike, to tell us what we are to feel" (p. 97).

But this indirect method is not without its disadvantages. Again, from Burroway, “The disadvantage of this indirect method is that it bars us readers from sharing the immediacy and vividness of detail and the pleasure of judging for ourselves" (p. 97).

The other side of the coin from the indirect method is the direct method—showing. This is achieved through use of dialogue, appearance, thought, and the one I will focus on here—action. Consider this passage from page 37:

Her words cut into Ba like slices from a knife but, even though his face was pained, he said nothing and continued to pack. His hands trembled as he tied the bag closed, but they were gentle when he put them on Ma’s shoulders. ‘Let us go,’ he said (p. 37).

Oh Ba! If I were not married, and if he were not a fictional character, I would marry him.

Here, Ma is her typical acerbic self, and Ba, stoic and gentle, does not let her get to him. There is a job to do, and he’s on it. As the reader, I appreciate that the author has not pointed to his actions and interpreted them for me. Instead, I have a direct connection with the character and because I am judging the meaning of his actions, I feel a closer connection with him.

And later:

‘So, I think Minli, like the secret word and the paper of happiness,’ Ba said, ‘is meant not to be found.’ He glanced at Ma and while she did not meet his gaze, she made no objection, either.

‘And, tomorrow,” Ba continued, gently, ‘we should return and wait for her to come home.

Again, Ma said nothing but barely, perhaps only because he was looking for it, she nodded. Ba nodded back at her and quietly took some rice and dropped it into the fishbowl (p. 87).

The actions are subtle, so subtle. The fact that Ma does not speak, speaks volumes. This and her slight nod show us, the reader, that her character is evolving. She is starting to understand the wisdom of her husband, and acknowledge that she is not always right. And Ba? He quietly feeds some of their precious grains of rice to the fish who had suggested that it was time to tell Ma a story. Ba’s action demonstrates again his unobtrusive nature. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Ma is changing, because to do so would be out of character.

StorySleuths Tip #70: Use both a combination of direct and indirect character development, allowing subtle actions on the parts of your characters to speak directly to the reader.

CHARACTER MOTIVATION: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon #2

2010-05-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Meg and Allyson,

Thanks, Meg, for kicking off our discussion of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. What a treat to hear a storyteller’s perspective of the oral storytelling nature of language this book!

In fact, the narrative voice flows so smoothly, that I felt immediately swept up in the unfolding of events. As I went back to the beginning of the book and looked for examples of writing craft to discuss, I realized that author Grace Lin establishes motivation and desire in very subtle ways.

What does the character want?

Ah, the question every writing teacher and editor asks. What does the character want? What motivates the character? Why does she do what she does? Why does it matter? What’s at stake? And why do we readers care?

Donald Maass writes about personal stakes in his book Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook:

Personal stakes are more than just what a hero wants to do. They illustrate why. Why this goal and the action that must be performed matters in a profound and personal sense. The more it matters to your hero, the more it will matter to your readers, too. (p. 40)

Lin uses the first chapters of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon to establish Minli’s personal stakes.

Problem

On the very first page of the book, we learn that the land where Minli lives is “hard and poor.” Because the land is so barren, Minli, her family, and the rest of the village, too, are also poor. This poverty is Minli’s way of life, however. She accepts it.

Minli’s mother, however, bemoans their poverty. She sighs

a great deal, an impatient noise usually accompanied with a frown at their rough clothes, rundown house, or meager food. Minli could not remember a time when Ma did not sigh (pp. 2-3).

At the end of the chapter, Ma exclaims, “What poor fortune we have!”

What makes Minli different, we learn, are the stories her father tells. These stories keep her spirit alive. She doesn’t see them the way Ma does, as useless. In fact, the stories stimulate Minli’s curiosity about the world. “So how will Fruitless Mountain ever grow green again?” she asks her father after the first story.

Minli’s belief in the stories also creates a sense of hope. Unlike her mother, she believes the stories are true. She believes, in a naïve, child-like way, that change can happen.

The problem then is not impossible. Lin makes sure to plant a seed of hope.

Worry

Although Minli is an optimistic character, the hard work she performs impacts her.

When the hot sun burned overhead, Minli’s knees shook from weariness. She hated the feeling of thick, soggy mud on her hands and face; and many times she wanted to stop in irritation and exhaustion (p. 11).

She returns home from working in the field one evening and notices her reflection in the basin of water she uses to wash up. “As she looked at herself reflected in the dark water, she saw Ma’s frown on her face” (p. 12). She doesn’t just see Ma’s frown, though. She also takes on Ma’s thinking:

Ma is right, Minli thought. What poor fortune we have. Every day, Ba and Ma work and work and we still have nothing. I wish I could change our fortune (p. 12).

Lin doesn’t reveal Minli’s age, but I assume she’s a pre-teen. She’s old enough to undertake a journey but certainly not yet a young woman. Minli’s reaction to noticing the similarity between her expression and her mother’s feels very appropriate for this pre-teen age. She notices the similarity, and she doesn’t like it. She wants to change their fortune because she worries she’ll end up like Ma, sighing and complaining all the time.

Desire

The combination of the problem (poverty) and Minli’s worry (that she’ll become her mother) ignite to fuel a desire (to change their fortune). Minli makes a rash decision to purchase a goldfish using one of her two coins. The purchase causes her parents to fight. Minli watches as her father sacrifices some of his precious rice to feed the fish. She realizes her mistake. She releases the fish into the river.

Minli watched it and sighed. As the sound faded into the night, Minli realized it was an echo of her mother’s impatient, frustrated noise. “Ma will never stop sighing unless our fortune changes. But how will it ever change?” Minli asked ruefully. “I guess it’s just another question for the Old Man of the Moon. Too bad no one knows how to get to Never-Ending Mountain to ask him anything." (pp. 27-28)

At this point, Minli’s desire is stronger. She understands her mother’s despair even as she dislikes it. She notices once again that her actions reflect her mother’s. But now she doubts that she or anyone else can do anything to change their fortune.

The promise of the novel

At this point, we readers are hooked. We don’t want Minli to become disillusioned and pessimistic. We don’t want her to turn out like her mother any more than she does. We want her to find the Old Man of the Moon. We want her to change her fortune.

You could say that Minli’s personal stakes transform at this point to our expectations for the novel. We want what Minli wants. Lin has accomplished what Maass described in the quotation above: “The more it matters to your hero, the more it will matter to your readers, too.”

StorySleuths Tip # 69: Use problems and worries to establish the protagonist’s motivation and desire.

WORD CHOICE AND ORAL LANGUAGE RHYTHM: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Post #1

2010-05-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Heather,

We are in for a delicious treat this month as we get to savor the tasty writing and rich story of the book we've chosen to focus on: Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. This is a book that I can almost taste as I read. You know that kind—where you want to speed up to get to the next page and slow down to savor each word? That’s Grace Lin’s gift—she leads me deeper and deeper into the web of her story while at the same time enticing me to reflect on her language and images. What a feast she has written.

There’s so much to look at in the first chapter, where Lin:

establishes a vivid setting
introduces a feisty main character
includes the first of 16 stories set apart from the narrative and main characters while concurrently interweaving with them
identifies the central story problem, and
propels readers headlong into the next chapter: “Maybe,” Ba said, glancing at Ma, “I should tell you that story tomorrow.” (p. 10)

But I’m not going to focus in this post on any of those elements.

A common thread in the two starred reviews of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is the description of Lin’s writing as particularly noteworthy. Jennifer Rothschild in School Library Journal says, “The author's writing is elegant…,” and Andrew Medlar in Booklist says, “With beautiful language, Lin creates a strong, memorable heroine and a mystical land.”

I, too, felt Lin’s language pull me into the story and engage me with the characters, so I decided to take a look at the choices Lin makes with respect to word choice and sentence structure--the building blocks that we, as writers, use in creating our stories.

ALLITERATION

Lin uses alliteration to bring harmony to her writing, starting off with the title, which includes 3 words with initial m’s: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. In addition, both Mountain and Moon have final n’s, giving the title unity and resonance. The main character’s name also begins with an initial M, linking her alliteratively to the title of the story. Minli’s impatient mother is referred to as “Ma,” another initial M. And the person who Minli decides to seek by the end of Chapter 1 has two initial M’s in his name:

Whenever I ask something important, people say, ‘That is a question you have to ask the Old Man of the Moon.’ Someday, I will ask him. (p. 9)

The predominance of the initial M’s in the names of all these characters introduced in Chapter 1 gives Minli’s mission a feeling of intentionality and purpose.

WORD CHOICE

Whereas alliteration gives Lin’s writing the feeling of flowing liquid, contrast gives her writing punch and bite. In the first sentence Lin selects hard words to emphasize the harshness of the setting:

Far away from here, following the Jade River, there was once a black mountain that cut into the sky like a jagged piece of rough metal. (p. 1)

Nothing could be harsher than the landscape described as “black,” “cut,” “jagged,” “rough.” But to top this harsh landscape off, it is smothered in dullness:

Crowded into the corner of where Fruitless Mountain and the Jade River met was a village that was the shade of faded brown. This was because the land around the village was hard and poor….Over time, everything in the village had become the dull color of dried mud. (pp. 1-2)

Nothing could be drearier, sadder, or more hopeless.

Yet in the midst of this dull brown village there was a brightness that Lin conveys initially through her selection of the image that describes the house where Minli lives, even before we meet Minli herself:

One of the houses in this village was so small that its wood boards, held together by the roof, made one think of a bunch of matches tied with a piece of twine. (p. 2)

Lin chooses the word “matches” as an image to describe the house, with the association of “matches” as something that ignites, that lights up, or enlightens, just as the child who lives there will add her own light to the dullness, the hardness, the poorness, of where she lives. Lin states this contrast clearly:

Minli was not brown and dull like the rest of the village. (p. 2)

Lin then selects words that connote light to describe Minli: she has “shining” eyes and a smile that “flashed” from her face. When Minli hears the stories her father tells her every night at dinner she “glowed” with wonder and excitement. She reflects some of her father’s light as he tells her the stories:

Ba seemed to drop his gray and work weariness--his black eyes sparkled like raindrops in the sun when he began a story. (p. 3)

and

...as he set down his chopsticks his smile twinkled in a way that Minli loved. (p. 4)

"Shining," "flashed," "glowed," "sparkled," "twinkled"—Lin chooses words foreshadowing the light that Minli will bring to the poor villagers in the dull brown village at the bottom of Fruitless Mountain, where “nothing grew on it and birds and animals did not rest” (p. 1).

RHYTHM

Even before Ba’s story begins, Lin writes in the rhythm of oral language. The first sentence itself echoes the rhythm of a fairy tale: “Far away from here…once…” (p. 1). The place and the time of the story are far away and long ago, and the story opens with a storytelling voice. Elizabeth Law said in her First Pages breakout at the Western Washington SCBWI Regional Conference a few weeks ago, “Get into the voice of your story on the first page.” Lin does.

A storyteller’s voice tends to run on without using commas to separate the words in a series, as is accepted practice in written communication. In this first chapter, Lin repeatedly writes without using commas in a series. Take this sentence:

The villagers had to tramp in the mud, bending and stooping and planting day after day. (pp. 1- 2)

And this one:

Working in the mud so much made it spread everywhere and the hot sun dried it onto their clothes and hair and homes. (p. 2)

How different those series would sound if punctuated: “bending, stooping, and planting,” or “clothes, hair, and homes.” The rhythmic storytelling voice continues into “The Story of Fruitless Mountain.” Describing the Jade Dragon’s four dragon children, Lin says:

They were large and strong and good and kind. (p. 4)

Although the stories that Lin includes within the context of Minli’s adventure are set apart by their titles and different typeface, they flow seamlessly together because the whole narrative is written in a clearly oral storytelling voice. As a storyteller myself, I’m intrigued and impressed by how beautifully Lin captures the sounds and rhythms of oral language and expresses them on the printed page. It’s a pleasure to read them silently, to feel them flow, and to “listen” to them echoing as I read.

StorySleuth’s Tip # 68: One way to write elegant, beautiful language is to use the sounds and rhythms of oral storytelling language.

WRITING GREAT PICTURE BOOK POETRY: All the World

2010-04-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Storysleuths is delighted to welcome back poet Julie Larios, to help us wind up Poetry month with a close look at the Caldecott honor book All the World. Julie previously contributed an insightful Storysleuths post focused on Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors. In addition to being an award winning poet and author of four poetry books for children, Julie, like our previous guest blogger Susan Fletcher, is a fabulous teacher and is on the faculty of Vermont College of Fine Arts, teaching in their Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children program.

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, wondrously illustrated by Marla Frazee, represents the kind of picture book I call irresistible – a fine-tuned, upbeat, read-aloud collaboration between author, illustrator, editor and art director. In fact, my basic question about this book is, “What’s not to love?”

The narrative of the book-length poem takes us through the day with one family (eventually opening out to grandparents and friends and neighbors) from beach to farmers’ market, and on to a cloud burst, a roadside diner, and an evening spent with songs, piano, harp, fiddle, babies – a “family” in the widest sense of the word. For any skeptics out there who think it might be too sweet for them, I say read this with a four-year-old and it will win you over. It is not over-sentimentalized. The rhythms are jazzy and the pictures are lively, and its read-aloud-ability is definite. I suspect quite a few parents are already into their hundredth go-around with reading this book aloud and yet not tired of it – for that reason alone, it has the potential to become a classic.

The real miracle of its read-aloud quality is that Scanlon wrote this poem in couplets, and (as anyone who has ever tried knows) it’s not easy to get away with a book full of couplets. Usually, the sing-song quality becomes irritating, predictable doggerel. But not with All the World. It starts

Rock, stone, pebble, sand
Body, shoulder, arm, hand
A moat, to dig, a shell to keep
All the world is wide and deep.

What seems to be working, for me, is the unpredictability of what comes next in each stanza. There’s no real reason that “Body, shoulder, arm, hand” should follow “Rock, stone, pebble, sand” – a lesser poet might have said something more defined about the setting of the story, making sure that the reader understood it from the text, something like “Beach shovels in our hands….” Doing that would have pushed the illustrator towards an illustration. But Scanlon resists the temptation to explain the connection (leaving it to be made by the illustrator) and that is masterful. I often tell my picture book students to trust their illustrators and to remove whatever text tries too hard to paint the picture. Scanlon knows how to do this.

So a couplet structure can work if the lines which follow each other are not overly predictable and do not push reader and illustrator one direction – if they open up the imagination rather than close it down. Another example of unpredictability, from the double-page spread near the end of the book where friends and family have come together for a night of shared music and song, is

Nanas, papas, cousins, kin
Piano, harp and violin
Babies passed from neck to knee
All the world is you and me.

Not only does Scanlon know how to follow one line with an unpredictable line (she doesn’t say “Someone plays the violin” – she simply implies it, and the illustrator runs with it) but she knows how to find unpredictable images within a line – moving a baby “from neck to knee” – that’s the kind of fresh image and lilting alliteration any good poet for kids would love to have written, because it’s a line that will stick in kids’ heads.

Scanlon makes sure that each stanza contains the title of the book, and a list of natural and man-made elements that move the story forward chronologically.

Tree, trunk, branch, crown
Climbing up and sitting down
Morning sun becomes noon-blue
All the world is old and new.

And so a reader (or a reader with a listener on his or her knee) moves gently through the day. So do many peripheral characters in the book – for example, two ladies on a bike-built-for-two. They show up in one of the last spreads, on the page that shows all kinds of couples – mom and baby, Gram and Gramp, brother and sister, husband and wife.

This is a thoroughly satisfying book to read, to look at, to hear. It’s oversize and gorgeous, suitable both for the non-reader on someone’s lap and for an older child looking carefully at the detail –filled illustrations. I can’t wait to read it to my grandson, who (at two years old) already knows what how much fun a trip to the beach is (and who knows a thing or two about cloudbursts, too!).

Thank you, Julie. I can’t wait to read All the World to my 3 year old nephews when I visit them next month! To read more by and about Julie check out her blog, The Drift Record, which currently displays stunning photographs and a powerful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins in celebration of Earth Day. Scroll down to read a poem in which Julie uses only the vowel “o.” Lots of juicy word inspiration drifts in over there.

StorySleuths Tip #67: When writing poetry, Julie Larios says, “Avoid sing-song doggerel by opening up the imagination of readers, rather than by closing it down. Delight and engage readers by making your words, images, couplets, and stanzas unpredictable.”

LENDING FANTASY A SEMBLANCE OF TRUTH: Blackbringer Post #5

2010-04-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

We asked one of our favorite fantasy writers, Susan Fletcher, to wind up our month of Blackbringer analysis--and what a stupendous post she wrote for us. She not only clarified how to make fantasy believable, and demonstrated how Laini Taylor accomplished it, but she also shared some of the "inside story" about her own fantasy writing. Susan is the author of ten books for children and young adults, including the Dragon Chronicles, to be re-released next month, and a new fantasy novel out from Atheneum this fall: Ancient, Strange and Lovely. Susan is the author of one of my favorite novels of all time: Shadow Spinner. I'll share just one quote from that: "If we don't share our stories...we will all be strangers forever" (p. 132). Susan is also a gifted writing teacher and will re-join the faculty of Vermont College of Fine Arts this summer, teaching in their Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children program.

Lending Fantasy “a Semblance of Truth”
By Susan Fletcher

Nowadays, we use the term “willing suspension of disbelief” to talk about all kinds of storytelling. In the hands of a skillful writer, readers are willing, for a while, to forget that the events they’re reading about never actually happened--and, in the case of fantasy, couldn’t possibly have happened. For the moment, we are willing to believe.

I had forgotten, until just a second ago, when I looked up the source quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that “suspension of disbelief” originally referred to the supernatural in particular. I’m glad for the reminder. Because, while it’s hard enough to persuade readers to believe in our realistic stories, persuading them to believe in our faeries and vampires and dragons can take every ounce of craft that we can muster.

Here’s the original quotation, maybe a bit of a slog for 21st century readers, but I think it’s worth the trouble:

…it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural…yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
–Coleridge, Biographia Literaria

So how do we invite belief in our fantasy characters, our fantasy worlds, our “shadows of imagination?”

There are many ways. To name a few: creating rounded characters and penetrating their hearts; refining our fictional magic so that it has rules, limits, and a price; and the skillful use of concrete detail. Way too much to go into in a single post. So I’ll focus on the last one: detail.

Flannery O’Connor wrote:

...when one writes a fantasy, reality is the proper basis of it...I would even go so far as to say that the person writing a fantasy has to be even more strictly attentive to the concrete detail than someone writing in a naturalistic vein--because the greater the story’s strain on the credulity, the more convincing the properties in it have to be. (Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, p. 97)

Hear, hear!

Laini Taylor’s use of detail absolutely knocks me out. Blackbringer is fecund with luscious detail; she revels, frolics, delights in it. I’m going to check out a few examples now to suss out why they work so well. Because it’s trickier than just laying on one detail after another. It’s using the right details, in the most effective ways.

Fuzzing the Boundaries

Here’s an example from Blackbringer:

He … turned slowly, surveying the array of shining eyes that peered out at him from the encircling woods. Imps, nightjars, weasels, dryads, toads, all staring in awed silence at the spectacle of the caravans. (p. 56)

Okay, you’ve got your fantasy animals – imps and dryads – cozily cheek-by-jowl with your real ones – nightjars, weasels, and toads – as if they utterly belong together in the world. When you put the real animals in there among the fantasy ones without the slightest hint of distinction, the reader tends to accept the whole kit and caboodle. “Nightjars” is an inspired touch. I actually had to look it up. It sounds like a fantasy thing, but it’s not.

Here, Taylor does it again:

Most of Magpie’s knots were like that. She had saved such glyphs as footprint magic, scrying, fire husbandry, and hypnosis, to name but a handful. She had even rescued the sixth glyph for flight from oblivion, which had resulted in a funny little spell involving eggshells and rain. (p. 254)

I had to look up “scrying.” It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I couldn’t find it in my Webster’s Unabridged, but I did find it online. And is “fire husbandry” something the U.S. Forest Service does, or is it something way bizarre? “Footprint magic” has to be a fantasy thing. Did Taylor make it up? No – I found a reference to it on a website about the mystical arcane. I do know that hypnosis is real. But somehow, the melding of the familiar and the magical and the things I’m not exactly sure about…knocks me off balance. Fuzzes the boundaries between the real and the unreal. I feel myself losing my foothold in my familiar, daily world and slipping sideways into the faerie realm of Taylor’s fantasy.

There’s something else happening here, too: “…involving eggshells and rain.” Delicious! Eggshells and rain are both real, vivid and particular. But they’re so seldom associated with each other that, by their juxtaposition, they make the real seem otherworldly.

One more example in this vein:

As she greeted the others, her eyes kept returning to it. Chestnut pudding, corn bread, ripe red tomatoes, custard in fig syrup, soft blue beetlemilk cheeses wrapped in leaves, steaming stew, crispy fried squash blossoms… (p. 354)

Do people make pudding out of chestnuts? I googled it; yes, they do. Do they fry squash blossoms and eat them? Googled them: yes, they do. Corn bread, check. Ripe red tomatoes, check. Custard in fig syrup, why not? Stew, check. Soft blue beetlemilk cheeses wrapped in leaves? I dunno. They’re blue, they’re soft, they’re wrapped in leaves. I can see them. They’re surrounded by all that other real though sometimes unusual and whimsical food… Didn’t I just see them on the menu at Chez The-Next-Hot-Thing? Sign me up: I’m willing to believe.

A Tripwire of Smell

On to something new: sensory detail. Here’s a supernatural cake Magpie takes to the Magruwen:

Into his sulfurous cavern this small faerie had carried the scent of honey, tears, and lightning, of thirsty roots in future soil, of wind through wings, a fragrance long absent, but well remembered.” (p. 154)

Lovely! Again, we have the incongruous juxtaposition of familiar yet seldom-combined details. And the sense of smell.

In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman says,

Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the seedy mass of many years and experiences. Hit a tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth. (p. 5)

Using the sense of smell in fiction is the closest thing I know to actual sorcery. Evoking smell can override the rational and strike deep in the limbic brain, giving us emotional experience unfettered by analysis. Which comes in handy in the extreme when you’re trying to seduce your reader into believing in your “shadows of imagination.”

More smells in Blackbringer:

And yet here was an imp, smelling of graveyards and drains. (p. 40)

Graveyards and drains are like eggshells and rain. Particular. Vivid. Familiar. But, though graveyards and drains both hint at decay, they’re felicitously odd in combination.

Not to neglect the other senses, here is the sense of touch, when Magpie is magically transported to the Moonlit Gardens:

The sensation was not unpleasant. Like a swirl of moths, the brief curious touch of many soft wings, then it was over and Magpie was standing beside a river, her hands still clasped in Snoshti’s paws. (p. 226)

And the sense of sound from an enchanted knife:

She could hear a sound like the pure ring of crystal against crystal, a fluid and melodious chime that seemed to surround her. (p. 139)

Semblance of Truth

In the case of the supernatural cake, the imp, the magical transportation, and the enchanted knife, Taylor is not merely piling on great details. She’s doing something more: describing the fantastic in terms of the real. Another way to put it: assigning real-world attributes to things that never were.

I have done this a few times, myself. In Dragon’s Milk, I described a young dragon’s scales as “like a baby’s fingernails.” My upcoming fantasy novel, Ancient, Strange, and Lovely, takes place in an alternate near-future, so I was free to cast a wider net for detail without the risk of anachronism. The baby dragon’s molting skin is “microfiberish,” an ancient dragon’s thrum is “a Fender bass vibration,” and a baby dragon’s newly-erupted wings are “like, decorative. Not quite functional. Like a fancy hood ornament.” Anytime you can apply a specific, real-world detail to something fantastic, you nudge your readers a little way along the path to suspending their disbelief.

A final example from Blackbringer:

For a long time he held the crow immobile with one small finger of his mind and studied the Tapestry with the rest of it. (p. 161)

How do you describe in concrete terms something as amorphous as a paranormal psychic ability? Taylor’s “one small finger of his mind” is perfect.

Stealing from the World

When I began writing fantasy many years ago, I felt bad that I wasn’t one of those writers who could make up entire worlds from whole cloth. My imagination wasn’t up to it. Still isn’t. For that reason, I do lots of research and use whole great chunks of the real world in my fantasies. Elythia in my Dragon Chronicles is based loosely on medieval Wales. Kragrom is medieval Scandinavia. Eric Kimmel loaned me a beautiful coffee table book on the Vikings; some of my best details came from that: Wadmal and reindeer pelts. Combs made of walrus tusk. Buildings roofed with growing grass. There are three caves in my dragon books, the details of which I borrowed from three actual caves I’ve visited. Dragon’s Milk’s cave is a lava tube in central Oregon. Flight of the Dragon Kyn’s cave is Oregon Caves National Monument in southern Oregon. Sign of the Dove’s cave is Sea Lion Caves on the Oregon coast. The draclings (not coincidentally) resemble my old cat Nimbus, the way they thrum in their throats and knead Kaeldra’s legs with their talons.

I began stealing details from the real world because my imagination wasn’t up to the task of creating a whole world all by itself. But I refuse to feel bad about it anymore. Because O’Connor was right: Reality is the proper basis of fantasy—and to giving those “shadows of your imagination” a “semblance of truth.”

Thank you so much, Susan. You can read more about Susan at her website: www.susanfletcher.com.

StorySleuths Tip #66: Support fantasy writing with carefully selected details. Susan Fletcher suggests:
1. Setting natural details cheek-by-jowl with supernatural or made-up ones.
2. Sprinkling in whimsical details, or details that seem fantastical but are real.
3. Juxtaposing real and vivid details that don’t usually go together.
4. Using plenty of sensory detail (especially smell!)
5. Assigning real-world attributes to your fantasy creations.
6. If you can’t come up with great details on your own, research other times and places.

MIDPOINT: Blackbringer, Post #4

2010-04-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Meg,

As you said in your last posting, Allyson, Laini Taylor has crafted a page turner, with lots of action and story questions that keep propelling us forward. Here we are now in the middle of Blackbringer.

The middle can be a daunting stretch to write, which Taylor acknowledged during a talk on plotting at the Western Washington SCBWI Conference. (The full text from the speech is available on Grow Wings, Laini Taylor’s blog.) The middle, Taylor said, is the “drafthorse” of the story. It does all the heavy pulling: it must build tension, send the protagonist deeper into conflict, develop themes, deepen relationships, and set up the climax.

So how does Taylor accomplish these goals in the middle of Blackbringer?

The Midpoint

All of the action and suspense you described, Allyson, lead up to a big scene that takes place in Chapters 20 and 21, the scene where Magpie and her friends see the Blackbringer for the first time. This scene culminates in a battle that is sudden, fierce, and devastating. Magpie barely escapes—and she loses two friends to the darkness.

These chapters constitute the literal midpoint of the novel. They are the pivot point, the moment when everything changes. Robert Ray and Bret Noris say that the “Midpoint is the point of no return. From here, there is no going back” (The Weekend Novelist, p. 175).

Up until now, Magpie has only heard about the Blackbringer. Now she meets him face-to-face. Now she sees his power. Now she experiences his destruction. From a reader perspective, we’re hooked. We must know how Magpie will overcome such a tremendous foe.

All Roads Lead to the Midpoint

The midpoint can be a useful scene to identify when plotting where a novel might go. In The Weekend Novelist, Ray and Noris explain that the midpoint will “stabilize the structure of your novel” (p. 175). It gives you something to write toward.

The scene with the Blackbringer is the scene with the highest level of action and tension so far in the novel. The key players are present for the battle. And Magpie experiences what happens inside the darkness, for just a moment.

If you know the midpoint, then you can plot backwards to identify the steps that lead to that moment, as well as information or details that could be foreshadowed earlier. (By the way, go back through the earlier chapters to see how Taylor plants clues about important details like the Blackbringer’s tongue. She does a great job of foreshadowing.)

Likewise, the midpoint provides a pathway to the scenes that must follow. “Midpoint anchors two chains of events: one leading up to the midpoint action; the other leading away from it” (The Weekend Novelist, p. 180). Before the battle, Mapgie was a brash character who charged after her quarry without regard for danger. She had no sense of limitations. After the battle, Magpie changes. She is injured, emotionally and physically. She must deal with the loss of her two friends as well as the reality that the Blackbringer is fiercer than she imagined.

The Action Ebbs

Taylor uses the sequence of scenes in Chapters 22 through 28 to show Magpie’s emotional reaction to the battle. Magpie is in shock, and she has lost her confidence. The pacing slows way down. Just as Magpie needs to recuperate, so do we, the readers. As Taylor explained during her plotting session at the conference, pacing is a critical craft element to consider. Pacing that is too slow results in a plot that lags. Too fast, and the reader grows desensitized to action.

At this point in the novel, Taylor has hooked us as readers. There’s no turning back for us. She’s accomplished her first goals (building tension and sending the protagonist deeper into conflict). Now she has the opportunity to deepen character and develop theme while setting up for the climax.

The slower pace of Chapters 22 through 28 let Taylor reveal critical information to Magpie, which helps us to understand who she is and why she is the only person who can save her world. Ray and Noris say, “By midpoint, your reader is hooked into the story, and you can use the midpoint to reveal important details from the past” (p. 178). Taylor whisks Magpie off to the Moonlit Gardens where she meets her hero, Bellatrix, and learns critical information she will need for the next time she encounters the Blackbringer.

Wave Action

Although the action slows down in these chapters, Magpie becomes a deeper, wiser character. She learns what she needs to know about her foe and her mission. She is gathering the strength and intelligence she will need for the next battle. Like ebbing water that rises as it goes out, she will be caught up in the next wave, the big wave… the climax.

This section of Blackbringer provides a great example of how to build up to a critical scene and then slow the pace to show the protagonist rebuilding strength in preparation for the climax.

StorySleuths Tip #65: Identify a midpoint scene that you can use as an “anchor” to help in plotting through the middle section of the novel, providing opportunities for developing tension as well as deepening character.

SUSPENSE: Blackbringer, Post #3

2010-04-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Heather and Meg,

First, I need to congratulate you, Heather, on finding the time and brain-power to post about Blackbringer following a busy day at the Western Washington SCBWI Conference! Here it is a week later and I am still sifting through things in my mind, thinking about lectures I attended and how the tidbits I picked up apply to my own writing. Of course, I also heard some things that apply to our current book, and today will revisit Jay Asher’s session “No Bookmarks Allowed” as I look at Chapters 15 - 17 in Blackbringer.

The gist of Asher’s lecture was that if you keep your reader always wondering what’s next, they will never be tempted to slip a bookmark in place and close the book; they will be forever compelled to keep reading. Asher went on to explain how one achieves this, and it has to do with keeping lots of balls in the air. Lots going on. If you introduce a question in chapter one and resolve it in chapter three, you had better get another question going in chapter two so that when the first question is answered, the reader is dying to know the answer to the second one. The writer’s job is to create a series of overlapping questions so that the reader is always wondering about something.

Laini Taylor does a terrific job of this, overlapping questions, mysteries and riddles throughout the book. Reading her novel with this in mind, I am able to see clear examples of what Asher was speaking about.

In Chapter 15 Poppy shares with Magpie the whisperings of the trees: “The trees say the age of unweaving has begun.”
Magpie responds, “Unweaving? Unweaving what?” (p.148-149). Poppy has no idea. Neither does the reader. Hence, the reader has something to wonder about. Also, in this chapter, Poppy assigns a name to the creature Magpie pursues—Blackbringer. While the reader still doesn’t know exactly what the creature is, Poppy is answering a question that was started before the reader turned the first page—the question posed by the book’s title—Who or What is Blackbringer?

By the end of this chapter, then, the reader has had one question partially answered, and a new question asked.
(A quick aside here about chapter endings. During his lecture Jay Asher spoke about importance of writing chapter endings that beg the reader to continue. Notice how Magpie, at the end of Chapter 15, “slipped beyond her senses and lay still in a world of hot white light and knew no more” (p. 158). Am I going to keep reading? You bet I am!)

Moving on to Chapter 16, Taylor takes nearly three pages to answer the question asked in the previous chapter as we learn, from the Magruwen’s perspective, the definition and history of the Tapestry, and its Unweaving, which has been taking place over a period of many centuries.

There is yet another mystery solved in this chapter. First, let me hop back to Chapter 3 for a moment, where Magpie finds a knife buried in a skeleton’s spine. The blade is embellished with ancient glyphs and letters, “As for the graceful letters that spelled out Skuldraig, they were writ in the alphabet of a forgotten time and to her eyes seemed only an elegant design” (p.35). Here, in Chapter 16, the Magruwen explains to Magpie the meaning and history of the blade: “Skuldraig means ‘backbiter. That is its way” (p. 164). He goes on to explain that the blade which Magpie found thirteen chapters earlier is in fact the blade that the Magruwen himself forged so many years ago for his champion—Bellatrix.

Thus in Chapter 16 there are questions answered and mysteries solved, but there are new questions posed. For instance, when the Magruwen comes to learn that Magpie has successfully wielded the blade Skuldraig he asks of her, “Nay, but who are you? Who made you?” (p. 165).

It turns out to be a good question, and one that is not answered until until much later in the book.

Moving on to Chapter 17—what a suspenseful opening! Poppy is about to have her wings ripped off by Batch Hangnail who is suffering from a serious case of wing envy. The scene ends thus: “His fingers curled lovingly around her wing joints, and he began to pull” (p. 171). Right there Taylor cuts to a scene of Magpie and her crows flying to deliver to Poppy an acorn for her to plant. No way am I putting a bookmark to use! I need to read on and see if Batch Hangnail succeeded, and in turning the page I find my answer--Hooray! Poppy will fly another day.

Question asked—Does she lose her wings? Question answered—no she does not.

At the end of Chapter 17 a new mystery is opened when Queen Vesper’s lackey shows up with the message that Vesper requires Poppy’s assistance. Taylor writes,

Batch laughed and a vicious smile transformed his face. All traces of the woebegone sniveler were gone in an instant and he became, again, the predator that would have torn Poppy’s wings from her back without a thought. ‘Tell Queen Vesper that Batch Hangnail sends his regards.’ (p. 179)

Do I put in a bookmark? Nope. I want to read on and find out about the connection between Batch Hangnail and Queen Vesper.

Heather and Meg, I could go on, looking at this leap-frogging of questions and resolutions, but I will stop here. It occurs to me that what I need to do now is apply this to my own writing. I suspect that in places where my story seems to turn into a yawn-fest I might discover that, among other things, the reader is left without anything to wonder about.

StorySleuths Tip #64: Never answer a question for a reader without being sure to ask another. Keep them wondering!

INTERVIEW WITH PETER BROWN: The Curious Garden - Second Post

2010-04-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Peter Brown's inspiring keynote at the Western Washington SCBWI Regional Conference last weekend was titled "Questions (Not Answers)." The questions he focused on were:

What am I good at?
What are my goals?
How can I do my best work? and
What's my strategy?

By sharing his answers to these questions, he modeled for the 350 authors and illustrators who attended some of the ways he focuses on, and reaches, his goals.

So we StorySleuths decided to ask him our own questions, focused on the craft of writing, which he graciously answered. His responses are below.

StorySleuths: On your website, you posted an intriguing page of starts, all but one crossed out, for Flight of the Dodo. We're wondering if those are from real first drafts, or if they are created to make your point that picture books are tough to write (we're not expecting you to reveal any trade secrets!). We're wondering if you have a similar set of openings for The Curious Garden, and if so, what they were. How did you develop that important opening paragraph?
PB: The page of starts on my website was created specifically to illustrate my point that from many bad ideas came one good idea for the opening of Flight of the Dodo. The Curious Garden took such a long time to develop that there was never a page of starts. Mostly I tinkered with big story concepts in my workbook, and typing on my computer, until I had the major story arc resolved. Then I went back-and-forth between writing and sketching and gradually shaped the wording for each page.
StorySleuths: You say, "I usually do a lot of bad writing before I figure out how best to tell my story." Do you have previous drafts of The Curious Garden? We'd be interested in what changes you made as you revised the text.
PB: I'd rather not reveal the early drafts of TCG simply because the process took so long, and the story evolved so much over time, that the early drafts feel more like a different story entirely...a story I may end up developing into a new book some day.
StorySleuths: We've heard Maurice Sendak say that he completes the text for his picture books before starting the illustrations. Do you work this way too, or do you work on text and illustrations together?
PB: I work on the text and illustrations simultaneously. I usually begin by working through the text, and make notes for how I envision the illustrations that might accompany the words of each page. But eventually I hit a wall in that writing process and need to work through some of the sketches before deciding how to proceed with the writing.
StorySleuths: The Curious Garden is a very visual concept. Your Author's Note indicates that you were inspired to write the story by the lush garden that has developed on the abandoned elevated railway on the west side of Manhattan. Did the idea for the story emerge more from images you wanted to paint, or from a story you wanted to tell?
PB: It started visually, with me imagining beautiful, whimsical scenes of a boy in his own private city wilderness. But eventually I realized that I hadn't created much of a conflict, and so I began to figure out what was at the heart of the story I was trying to tell. After I worked out the big story arc I got into my usual pattern of back-and-forth between writing and sketching.
StorySleuths: What changes and revisions in the text did your editor suggest? Were there changes that your editor suggested that you both decided, after considering them, not to make in the final text?
PB: I worked on this book for about 3 years before signing it up with Little, Brown and Co., and then spent over a year working on it with my editor, Alvina Ling. It was such a long, strange process, that I can't quite remember all the changes that the story went through. But at one point, the book wasn't focused as much on the community theme, and in the pages where the garden was transforming the city we didn't really see many other people. The effect was that it looked like the plants were INVADING the city, which obviously wasn't the story I wanted to tell. So I decided that instead of just having Liam be the lone gardener, it would be much more powerful if he created a gardening movement, which in turn would better explain how the city could go through such dramatic changes.
StorySleuths: You can see from our post PASSAGE OF TIME: The Curious Garden that we were fascinated by the way you handled the passage of time in the story. At what point in writing the story did you decide to move the story so far back in the past and so far forward into the future (from the predominant action in the story)?
PB: I wanted to make this story seem as believable as possible. Nobody would believe that a city could go through such a dramatic transformation in a short period of time, so I really had no choice but to draw the story out over a couple of decades. But that passage of time also worked to show that Liam stuck with his gardening for the long term, which reinforced some of the other themes in the book.
StorySleuths: Could you share one Writing Tip that you learned in the process of writing The Curious Garden?
PB: I learned the power of wordless pages. TCG has four of them, and I think they were very effective in creating a peaceful, quiet, dreamlike setting. Wordless pages might not work for every story, but authors should remember that it is possible for them to write a wordless picture book (that could be illustrated by someone else). I think the exercise of writing a WORDLESS picture book could do wonders to improve an author's understanding of the medium.

Thank you, Peter Brown. Thank you for your memorable website, your stunning books (note StorySleuths readers: click on the sheep to hear them baaaaa), and especially for sharing your wisdom, experience, and insightful writing tip with us.
StorySleuths' Tip #63: Peter Brown says, "Remember that it is possible to write a wordless picture book (that could be illustrated by someone else). The exercise of writing a WORDLESS picture book could do wonders to improve an author's understanding of the medium."

WORD CHOICE & LANGUAGE: Blackbringer - Second Post

2010-04-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Allyson and Meg,

Like you, I read through Blackbringer without taking a single note. When I reviewed chapters eight through fourteen, several areas of craft popped into mind. I had just seen an interesting blog post by writer Alexandra Solokoff about Plants and Payoffs, so my first notion was to write about how Laini Taylor planted important details and information in these early chapters that payoff later on in the book.

However, having heard Taylor’s keynote speech yesterday at the Western Washington SCBWI Conference, I decided instead to look at word choice and language. In her speech, Taylor said that one of her goals is for the reader to get caught up in the story so that “the words melt away” and “the page disappears.” At the same time, she spends a lot of time thinking about word choice, because the words themselves build the connection between her view as the writer and the fictional world conjured up in the reader’s head.

One of the things I love about Taylor’s writing, both in Blackbringiner and in Lips Touch: Three Times, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, is the richness of her writing. She has a lyrical style, filled with descriptive passages, distinctive dialogue, and unusual metaphors. It’s clear, as she stated yesterday, that she loves words.

Let’s take a look at elements of language and word choice in chapters eight through fourteen.

DIALOGUE

How someone speaks reveals much about character, background, and geographical location. Of course, it’s challenging to replicate sounds in spoken words. However, when I read lines of dialogue in Blackbringer, I can practically hear the words in my head. Here’s a line from Calypso, the crow that watches over Magpie:

“Aye, worms. Shivered herself some, I ken. The lass has got magic in her she don’t know what to with” (p. 92).

Calpyso sounds British or Scottish, doesn’t he? His accent and diction come through word choice (aye, lass, ken) as well as sentence structure.

In fact, the way the characters speak helps to reinforce the geographical location of Dreamdark, which appears to be in Scotland, according to the map at the beginning of the book.

Swearing and Exclamations

In addition to conveying geography, language and dialogue also reveals something about the characters’ social class and education level. Lady Vesper, the fairy who recently moved into the Never Nigh castle as queen, speaks in calmed, measured tones when she first meets Magpie, the heroine.

Magpie, on the other hand, has lived the life of a gypsy, and she talks and swears just like the crows. When she grumbles about putting on a play, she says, “Let’s do this skiving thing so we can get on with what we came for” (p. 78).

Taylor creates an entire vocabulary of curses and exclamations: skiving, jacksmoke, skiffle, piff, flummox me, and irkmeat. While I don’t know exactly what these words mean, I understand the emotions they convey. After all, it wouldn’t do for the fairies and crows to use slang words from our own contemporary society.

Since I don’t know how “bad” some of these words are (after all, every child knows that there’s a progression of badness to our own swear words), Taylor helps me to understand how uncouth these words are. For example, on pages 105 and 106, Magpie brings her old friend Poppy to the caravan she shares with the crows. There, she realizes that someone has disrupted her bedding.

“What the skive?" she growled, flying to it [her bed] and not seeing how Poppy’s eyes widened in shock to hear her curse.

Clearly, skive is not the kind of word a young fairy normally uses, which we see through Poppy’s reaction—an excellent example of “show, don’t tell.”

NAMES

Fantasy writers set their works in fantasy worlds, complete with their own histories, geographies, vocabularies, and cultures. One way they build and reinforce those worlds is through names for places and characters. Here are just a couple place names that appear in these chapters: Issrin Ev, Dreamdark, Ismoroth, Pickle’s Gander, and West Mirth. The names are unusual and distinctive, and yet, readable. They tell me this is outside my normal world.

Taylor also provides her characters with distinctive names: Vesper, Talon, Nettle, Orchidspike, Calypso. The names seem to have some sense of order: many of the fairies in Magpie’s and Talon’s families have bird names (Robin, Kite, Covus, Shrike). Other fairies have plant related names, such as Poppy. The imps’ names are strange (Snoshti and Batch), while the crows’ names somehow reflect their gypsy-like existence (Calypso, Maniac, Pup, and Mingus).

I love the fact that I can pronounce these names easily—I find it frustrating to meet characters with seemingly unreadable names—and I also love the way some of the names—Magruwen and Bellatrix, for example—roll off the tongue.

It’s also interesting that the protagonist, Magpie, has a name that feels both of our own world and unusual, especially since the name gets shortened to “Mags.” I wonder if this was a deliberate choice on Taylor’s part to help the reader connect to the character. Maybe, since she doesn’t have a completely strange name, she feels more like someone I can identify with.

DESCRIPTION

The last area I want to address is in descriptive language. As I mentioned earlier, Taylor has a lyrical style, which provides an enjoyable reading experience. Take this passage describing two fops hovering around the Lady Vesper: "The gents, both frocked in frippery to rival the lady’s, their hair fragrant with pomade, gaped at Magpie (p. 78)."

On page 88, we see Magpie reacting to Vesper’s accusation that she smells like a crow. Magpie sniffs the feathers on her skirt:

They did smell like cigars, she had to admit, just like the crows did themselves. They also held a hint of wood smoke from their campfires, and the tang of rainy skies, and the strong coffee they favored in the morning.

Smell is difficult to describe. These two sentences evoke smell as well as memory and imagery.

The pages of Blackbringer are filled with many more passages of lyrical language. As a reader, I enter Gardner’s “fictional dream” where the “words melt away” paradoxically because Laini Taylor pays such close attention to word choice and language.

StorySleuths Tip #62: Help the reader slip into a fictional dream through word choice in dialogue, names, and descriptions.

POINT OF VIEW: Blackbringer - First Post

2010-04-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

Pat!
Pat!
Pat!

Dear Heather and Meg,

That is me patting us on our collective back for choosing Blackbringer as our April noveI, as I found it to be overflowing with lessons for writers, and I am not alone in this finding. Consider this little nugget from Betsy Bird’s Fuse #8 blog:

Laini Taylor’s balancing act with this novel should be studied intensely by those wannabes that want to break into the world of fantasy writing for kids. It’s one-of-a-kind and worth a taste. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. If you read only one fantasy book this year, read this one.

But what about if you are not a fantasy writer? Are there still any lessons to be learned from Blackbringer? Again, Betsy Bird:

Okay, but what’s the most important thing in any fantasy novel? The quality of writing, duckies.

And the quality of writing in this novel is superb—so much so that I read the whole thing making scarcely a note because I didn’t want to take time to stop, I was that absorbed in the story, that caught up in the mystery and the adventure and the world. Thank-you, Laini Taylor, for making my recent flight to Mexico feel like a cross-town bus ride. Blink. We were there!

When we agreed on Blackbringer as our April novel we chose to analyze it in seven-chapter segments, taking turns looking at some aspect of writing that really spoke to us in that portion of the book. Choosing what to discuss in these first seven chapters is like being given a gift certificate to the Secret Garden Bookshop and being forced to choose just one book. Do I discuss the excellent way she intersperses scene and summary, with scene being used to propel the action and summary to build the world (see the StorySleuths discussion on summary and scene)? Or do I spend time analyzing the distinct and consistent voice? The well-rounded characters? Ah well, in the end, I have chosen to talk about point of view.

My boys (ages 10 and 13) are familiar with point of view from video games. When asked how he would define first person my ten-year-old, Eli, said this, “First person is when you see everything through that guy's eyes. It’s good because you feel like the guy, but you miss a lot of stuff.” A great definition, I think, and very much like writing in first person from the “I” perspective where, because everything is seen through the protagonist's eyes, you are only able to see what she sees. About third person Eli says, “Third person is like you’re still seeing what your guy sees, but from farther away. It’s easier to skewer a guy on your lance from third person.”

Well, there you have it! It’s easier to skewer a guy from third person!

Generally in writing we speak about a third person limited, or objective, POV meaning our view is limited to how the world is perceived through the eyes of a particular character. Here, the story is told by a narrator instead of the character herself, which allows for the camera to be pulled back a bit, allowing the reader to potentially see things from a broader and potentially more reliable perspective. I didn’t ask my kids about third person unlimited, or the omniscient point of view, but to make sure we are all on the same page here—this POV is less commonly used in novels and is more of a storyteller voice—the omniscient narrator knows and sees things the characters cannot possibly see and know.

So which POV is used in Blackbringer? Well, here in the first seven chapters Taylor starts with omniscient narration, switches to a third person limited POV, changing the viewpoint character no less than six times, and tosses in a little first person POV for good measure.

But wait a minute—is that even legal? In Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, Janet Burroway says this:

Once you have chosen a point of view, you have in effect made a ‘contract’ with the reader, and it will be difficult to break the contract gracefully. If you restricted yourself to the mind of Sally Anne for five pages, as she longingly watches Chuck and his R&B band, you will violate the contract by suddenly dipping into Chuck’s mind to let us know what he thinks of groupies. We are likely to feel misused—and likely to cancel the contract altogether, if you suddenly give us an omniscient lecture on the failings of the young. (p. 54)

I believe that the contract will not be broken by a POV shift as long as it is done well, and with intent. Let’s take a peek at how Laini Taylor does just that.

Prelude: An omniscient narrator opens the story. This narrator stands in the distance, and knows things none of the characters present in the scene can possibly know, seeing well into the future: “For the rest of her life, when this child grew into a faerie with bright eyes and a laugh as loud and unladylike as a crow’s, that spot on her head would never lie flat,” and “Many of these creatures would be long dead by the time this babe had grown up and taken her place in the world.”

By opening with the omniscient POV Taylor is not only giving us important background information, she is setting the tone of the story. Imagine a movie opening when the camera is pulled way back, allowing the viewer to get a large-scale sense of the world in which the story takes place. This is an excellent use of the omniscient narrator POV.

Chapter One: Here, the camera moves in and the POV is a third person limited with Magpie as the viewpoint character: “Magpie Windwitch didn’t know many words, but she knew this one.” Magpie is the “she” about whom the narrator speaks. Using this POV the narrator is able to tell us things about Magpie that would be awkward to describe from a first person POV, like, “Magpie had a hunter’s respect for fear: it sharpened the senses,” and “Her own dragonfly wings were sleek as blades, many-paned like stained glass and as swift as any wings under the sun or moon.”

Taylor wants us to have a sense of the splendor of Magpie Windwitch. Using a first person POV it would be very hard to pull this off without causing Magpie to sound arrogant. Also, her choice of third person narrative allows Taylor to use language in a poetic way that would be impossible in first person as it would completely change the nature of the viewpoint character. For example, Magpie would never say, “Usually pity was the last emotion humans inspired in me, but something about those empty shoes tugged at my heart.” Stepping outside of Magpie’s skin, Taylor can describe Magpie’s emotional state in a way that feels true to both Magpie and the story.

Chapter Two: This chapter starts with an omniscient story teller voice. The camera is pulled way back as the narrator describes the scene, “Across the water in the hidden places beneath a vast city, a new thing was taking possession of the darkness.” As the chapter progresses the camera moves in closer, closer, and finally we are in a third person limited POV, this time from the perspective of the villain about whom we still know very little: “He savored the moment. As soon as he commanded the wind to expend its final fury in snuffing that dim ember, a new age would begin, and age of unweaving. An age of endings. The hungry one laughed, and began to speak.”

Chapter Three finds us back in a limited POV, again with Magpie as the perspective character.

Chapter Four: Again, we are in a third person objective POV, but this time the perspective character is an imp called Batch Hangnail. Consider this description: “Batch moved on, a pendulum of drool swinging from his lower lip.” Lovely! And just the sort of outside, reliable perspective you could not achieve were this being told from Batch’s first person POV. Toward the end of the chapter look at how Taylor expertly pulls the camera back as she describes the Magruwen’s long arms of smoke:

They grew longer and longer until they disappeared through the ceiling of the cave. Up they reached, across strata of earth and rock and root, through the bleached ribs of a dragon and a dark spring swum by water elementals and their imps, through layers of rabbit warrens and forgotten plague cemeteries, finally reaching the school vegetable garden.

Because Taylor opened her book with the omniscient narrator, we as the reader are perfectly comfortable when she temporarily steps outside of the viewpoint character’s perspective to broaden our view of the scene as she has done here, and does sporadically throughout the novel.

Chapter Five: We return to a third person POV with Magpie as the objective character. But then, we have a chance to pop directly into Magpie’s head when she takes out her bottle of ink and writes in her journal, thus giving us a quick blip of first person POV, “How I wish there was someone I could talk to about it!” I love this! It allows me to hear, in Magpie’s own words, about a deeper need. Yes, she wants to catch the snag. But here, because Taylor has allowed Magpie the chance to speak for herself in a first person POV, I as the reader have a sudden and deep connection with her. Up until now I have seen her as a warrior. Here, I see her as a troubled kid longing for someone to talk to who could really understand what she is going through. An excellent use of the first person POV.

The chapter progresses and we get to see a letter from Magpie’s parents which offers us yet another perspective, and then Taylor closes the chapter dipping into the head of the crow Calypso, “Calypso noticed a raven who lingered longer than most.” This demonstrates again the beauty of a third person perspective--it allows the author to show the reader things that that the main protagonist would have no way of seeing.

Chapter Six: We are back in Magpie’s third person POV, “Magpie heard the thunk of the ebony peg leg she’d carved for him. . .”

Chapter Seven: Hold on to your hats! All the while in a third person POV we start with the perspective of Batch Hangnail, shift into Poppy Manygreen’s POV, move into the perspective of Snoshti, drop into the perspective of a new character, Talon Rathersting, and finish with the camera pulled way back as Taylor closes the chapter with her omniscient narrator, “His father wasn’t coming back, and neither were his cousins.”

Phew! Omniscient narration, third person limited/objective, first person—Laini Taylor does it all, and she gets away with it because she does it well, and with intent. First person pulls us in close and gives us a sense of Magpie’s emotional truth. Third-person allows us to see things that Magpie has no way of seeing. Omniscient narration sets the story's tone and gives us glimpses into the future.

StorySleuths Tip 61#: Switch POV in a story only if you have a very specific reason to do so or you will violate your contract with your reader.

PASSAGE OF TIME: The Curious Garden

2010-04-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

How many times have you fallen in love with a book just from hearing its title? From the get-go I was curious: What could a "Curious Garden" be? The cover image intrigued me as well--what was this redheaded kid sitting on top of a tree doing, with an open book, looking straight out at me, surrounded by topiary birds and butterflies in addition to the real ones? Then when I opened the book, the endpapers posed more questions. Huh? Rocks? No garden here. But the title page foreshadows the whimsical garden, as the boy, having abandoned his book, now actively trims the luxuriant hedge. The title, the cover, the front endpapers, and the title page all led me straight into the story.

Mem Fox says,

At the start of a story we need to be as direct as possible. It’s a common sin to beat about the bush, and waffle on for too long. We should attempt to say who, when, and where in the first two sentences, and then begin to state the problem. We have to solve a problem during a story otherwise we have no trouble. Without trouble we have no plot. Only trouble is interesting.

Many picture books introduce the problem on the first page, then solve the problem in a short time frame. Such diverse books as Where the Wild Things Are, Ella Sarah Gets Dressed, and The Snow Day, for example, take place during the course of a day. A day, or two, is a reasonable and understandable time frame for a young child. But the problem introduced in the first spread (pages 2-3) of The Curious Garden is a big problem--it's the problem of a whole dreary city. And the boy is only a tiny little person--the only person visible--in the drab, smoggy city.

It's clearly going to take a long time for this little boy to solve the problem--and I wondered how Peter Brown would solve his problem of the passage of time--lots and lots of time--in the text of a picture book for young children. So as I read the story I focused on how Brown dealt with the passage of time. Of course the lush illustrations portray the passage of time, sometimes even in wordless two-page spreads, but I was also curious about how Brown clarifies the passage of time in the text.

Sometimes the time reference is in the beginning of a sentence. At the outset, Brown moves us way back in time, setting the story in a time of long ago with the very beginning of the first sentence: "There was once a city...." (p. 3) And when the story action begins, Brown identifies one particular day at the beginning of the sentence: "It was on one such morning...." (p. 4)

Sometimes the time reference is in the middle of a sentence: "So he returned to the railway the very next day and got to work." (p. 8)

And sometimes the time reference is at the end of a sentence: "Liam's time on the railway was finally interrupted by winter. " (p. 16)

Gail Carson Levine, in Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly, says,

In most cases, your story or book should end when its problem is solved, for good or for ill. (p. 75)

It takes a long time for the problem of The Curious Garden to be solved. On the last page, Brown clarifies how long: "Many years later, the entire city had blossomed. But of all the new gardens, Liam's favorite was where it all began." (p. 30) Many years--only 556 words--and Liam's children enjoy the garden as he prunes the gigundo tree that has grown from the dried up little seedling he discovered so many years before.

The days, the seasons, the years flow through this gem of a story--and the passage of time flows through the text, never clunky, never showy, but clear and steady so we never lose track of where, or rather when, the story action takes place.

StorySleuths Tip #60 : Hide references to the passage of time in different locations--not only at the beginnings of sentences or paragraphs. Try integrating them into the middle of sentences and paragraphs, or even at the end.

Interview with Deborah Heiligman

2010-04-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

When we selected Charles and Emma as one of our March books, I zoomed straight to author Deborah Heiligman's website and found there a gold mine of information about the background research she had done, all with primary sources, including her own travel to relevant sites in England. As I read Charles and Emma I had questions lurking which she graciously agreed to answer, along with sharing a StorySleuths Tip focused on the craft of writing. Thank you, Deborah!

Here are her responses:

DH: First of all, let me say that I am really so very impressed with your blog posts. Your analysis of writing is just terrific. I must admit that I think you know more about my writing than I do. However, I will do my best to answer your questions!

StorySleuths: It's clear from your website, from the Source Notes following each chapter, and from your Selected Bibliography (as well as from the text itself!) how much research you did. How did you decide when to stop researching and begin writing?

DH: Nothing like a deadline....I had a gun pointed at my head because the publisher really wanted to bring the book out before the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday. I had a pretty tight deadline for the first draft. Just thinking about it makes me sweat. But I do work best when I have a deadline. It was the all Charles and Emma Channel all the time for eight months, and then for a year and a half total.

StorySleuths: Starting from your original idea of focusing on the relationship between Charles and Emma, did any of the research you did change the story as you envisioned it, and if so, how?

DH: If I look at the proposal, I see that I was thinking of a much less narrative approach. More straight biography, with digressions to "tell" about the time period, the role of religion in English society, etc. But once I started researching, which meant reading primary sources, Charles and Emma just started talking to me and it became their story. The more I read the more I knew I wanted very much to let them and their lives tell it, and I wanted to stay out of the way as much as possible. Of course as you probably can tell, I fell madly in love with each of them, and with their marriage.

StorySleuths: On your blog you talk about "working through fear." Can you elaborate on this and share some of your strategies for working through fear?

DH: You're making me sweat again. Just remembering... O.K., I can do this. Breathe, breathe. YES, that was one of things I did. I learned to breathe.
Seriously, I had a lot of fear about this book. In fact, I had the idea for the book years before, and when I sent out the proposal and it got rejected (either once or twice, I'm not even sure), I was pretty relieved. I thought oh good, I don't have to do it. My main fear was: who was I to write about Charles Darwin? There are so many people who have spent their whole lives writing about Darwin... And Darwin was really my husband's "beat." But the story kept pulling at me, and when I told my soon to be agent about it, his eyes lit up and he said, "Let me see your proposal!" Then he kicked my butt to do it. So that was one way that I worked through the fear--I got a contract, and had a deadline, and I had that kicking my butt to Get It Done.
I also worked through the fear by talking about it with my husband and some really good writing buddies.
My husband was a HUGE support. He's a writer, too, (I'm not sure if you already know that) and he knew so well how I was feeling, so his support was priceless. But of course when you're a writer, you are really alone. (Sweat pouring down face.) I, however, HATE to be alone, so I manage not to be much of the time--. I am not afraid to reach out. The day I had to send in my first draft I was terrified. TERRIFIED. (Truth be told my editor had seen some of it already, and was very encouraging, but this was a whole draft and I was scared, really scared.) So I called my agent on his cell phone, and when he said "hello," I said, without preamble, "Will you hold my hand while I press send?" And he said, "Deborah, I'm at the doctor, I am on the examining table, I don't have any clothes on." And I said, "O.K., but could you hold my hand while I press send?" Now you know why he is completely worth the commission!
I also exercised. A lot.

StorySleuths: We read that one of your questions was where to begin the story. Did you face other challenges in writing the story?

DH: One of the biggest challenges was to have it be their story, keep it a STORY and still explain the science. And gosh, there was so much to explain! And Darwin did so much. That was huge--how could I not include this, that or the other thing? There was so much science and history, but I didn't want it to take over. So I had a mantra and that was that everything I wrote had to be "in service to the love story."

StorySleuths: Could you share one writing tip that you learned in the process of writing Charles and Emma?

DH: I learned so much about writing during the many drafts of this book. I really stretched myself in all ways, from the beginning of the process (reading only primary sources for the longest time) to the end (trimming away unneeded scenes, words, fat...). To give just one tip is hard, but I think it would be that when you are starting a new project, keep an open mind, and let your characters--be they real or fictional--dictate the form the story will take. Let content dictate form. I am starting a new project now, and it is going to be very different from C & E because my heroine is such a different person. I'm letting her tell me how to do the book.

We're eager to read your new project when it's published, Deborah, and we're so excited to learn that as of yesterday, you were able to get in touch with your next subject's great grandchildren! How exciting is that!
StorySleuths Tip #59: To quote Deborah Heiligman, when "starting a new project, keep an open mind, and let your characters--be they real or fictional--dictate the form the story will take. Let content dictate form."