After reading and studying Jacqueline Kelly's book, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate the StorySleuths wanted to get to know her book (and her!) better. She gratiously agreed to answer a few questions for us, and to offer a StorySleuths Tip.
Thank-you, Jacqueline!
StorySleuths: There are such rich details in your novel that set the character very firmly in a place and time. We are curious about the kind of research you did to accomplish this.
J.K: Oddly enough, I didn't do that much specific research, because I've always been interested in the turn of that century, and I seem to have picked up details about it like a sponge over the years. For example, I love Doctorow's Ragtime. It's one of a handful of books that I re-read over the years, and it's full of rich period detail. I also got some information from my 80-year-old mother (I'm thinking of the strips of fly-paper hanging in the kitchen, and winding your hair in rags to create ringlets.) A friend of mine just recently gave me a facsimile of the Sears catalog from 1900. It's full of such wonderful stuff. How I wish I'd had it before I started writing the book.
StorySleuths: Following up on the first question, we wonder if the story changed in any way as a direct result of the research you did?
J.K.: Nope, not really.
StorySleuths: We wonder if there is a particular element of writing craft that you struggled with, and how you overcame it.
J.K.: I worried a bit about the level of language and vocabulary in the book, and I was occasionally tempted to simplify some of it. I'm glad I didn't, because teachers and librarians tell me how much they appreciate making their young charges stretch a bit.
So now I say, make 'em go to the dictionary!
StorySleuths: You have done a fantastic job of creating characters that are clear and distinct. We are curious as to whether you had a clear picture of Calpurnia before you started writing, or did she evolve as the story unfolded?
J.K.: I knew just about everything I needed to know about Calpurnia when she popped up on the first page. I could hear her voice in my head, and I knew what she was all about.
By the way, the first chapter was originally just a short story. I showed it to my writing group, and they all told me that I should turn the story into a novel. I was not happy to hear this as I'd never written a novel before, and it all sounded like such a huge project that I didn't even want to think about it. With their help and support, I got through it. I always tell young writers that they have to find or form a critique group that they trust, and then mercilessly mine and exploit its opinions.
StorySleuths: 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?
J.K.: I originally wrote a fairly long epilogue that told what happened to the family over the years. Unfortunately, several of the brothers would have gone off to WW I, which made the story end on a sad note rather than the tentatively optimistic note I wanted. My editor asked me to take it out before publication. Originally I wasn't sure about her advice, but now I know that she was right.
StorySleuths: Could you share one writing tip that you learned in the process of writing your book?
J.K.: I had trouble keeping track of plot during the writing of the book. Now I'm working on The Willows Redux, which is a sequel to The Wind in the Willows, one of my favorite books of all time. I got myself a large piece of whiteboard on which I map out various potential plot points. Very low-tech, but I find it terrifically helpful.
StorySleuths Tip #55: Take a break from writing to map out potential plot points on a large piece of paper or whiteboard. Many writers find this exercise helps them unclutter their story, uncovering and organizing plot points.
Showing posts with label Calpurnia Tate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Calpurnia Tate. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
SETTING IN HISTORICAL FICTION:The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Dear Heather and Meg,
I’m going to begin by sharing two anecdotes that, taken together, lead to the point about writing I wish to make as a result of a close read of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
First, when Deborah Noyes, writer and Candlewick editor, read the first five pages of my novel about a Mexican girl who had recently emigrated to the US, she pointed out that my main character seemed to be noticing things about her home country that only a tourist would notice. Aha!
Second, when working on a novel set in the mid-1920’s I was tickled to find a Montgomery Ward catalogue from 1924 at an antique shop in Seattle. In it I found all kinds of information useful to make the time and place in my novel feel more true to my readers. I learned that my boy character might wear navy blue serge knickerbockers and a checkered woolen cap. The lady running the shop in town might wear a Chappie coat with a jacquette blouse and a neat pair of two-strap patent-leather Slippers. Her hair might be styled in a Venetian Wave. There could be a nickel plated alarm clock by the bed—one that only needed winding once a week. And in the kitchen, a Windsor refrigerator which Costs less money! Uses less ice! And Saves more food!
The problem was, when I stuck these precious tidbits into my story, they sounded exactly like that—precious tidbits. Aha!
Here is the link between these two anecdotes. In Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, author Janet Burroway says, “If the world itself is in some way exotic, you will need to work in the opposite direction, to make it seem as familiar as the nearest mall.” (p. 131)
Whether I am writing about a different culture (the young girl from Mexico), or a different era (1924), the things I discover in my research are exotic to me. My job as a writer is to afford these things no more reverence or notice than the main character would. This boils down to an issue of how we treat setting. Again, I turn to Janet Burroway for a definition:
I went back and thumbed through my tattered copy of L.M. Montgomery’s classic novel Anne of Green Gables to see how she treated the “props of the world.” That book was written in 1908 as contemporary literature, or at least literature set in the lifetime of the author, who was intimately familiar with the setting. It is roughly the same time period in which The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is set. Here is what I found.
In that book, the main character Anne is picked up at the train station by Matthew Cuthbert who is driving, “the buggy and the sorrel mare.” (p. 10) No details are given about what the buggy looked like, because anyone living in that time would have known what they looked like.
When Anne is given chores to do, “she made her bed less successfully, for she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick.” (p. 39) At the time this book was written a feather tick was a common household item and did not bear defining.
When it is time for Anne to tidy up before going to the picnic she flies “to the washstand.” At the time the story takes place, indoor plumbing was not something enjoyed by all, especially not in rural settings. Because it is common, the author does not point to it as if to say, “Look! Notice this! I have inserted something factual about the place and time!”
And finally, when Anne recounts for Marilla her unpleasant day at school she says, “Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and held up my slate so that everybody could see it, all marked over.” (p. 103) There is no fuss made about the fact that she is working with a slate instead of pencil and paper, and no reference to its size or color is made, because any child of that time would have been intimately familiar with this object and it would require no further description.
In order to be true to her character and her setting a writer placing her story in the past needs to make as little fuss about her character’s interaction with everyday items as Montgomery does in her novel. That said I will add a caveat: when writing historical fiction I do believe that a modern writer needs, from time to time, to add a definition that a writer of that era would not have needed. If Jacqueline Kelly had chosen to have Calpurnia sleep on a feather tick, for example, she may have chosen to find a clever way to explain what one is (a cotton or linen sack filled with feathers and sewn shut, in case you are interested). The job faced by a writer of historical fiction is to add those definitions in an unobtrusive way.
Now, finally, I turn to my focus to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, a book in which I believe the author does a great job of setting the reader in a place and time that feels genuine because of the well crafted setting. There are places where she adds a definition that a writer of 1899 would likely not have, but I believe she does so judiciously, and in a way that feels true to the story. Apologies in advance for the lack of page citations—I read this on a Kindle and have not yet found a way to cite pages—anyone reading this who knows whether this is even possible – I would love to hear about it!
Kelly’s opening line leaves no question on the reader’s part about the time in which the story is set: “By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat.” (p.1) But throughout the story the props she uses, and more importantly her character’s interactions with them, remain true to the time defined in her opening line. Consider these quotes:
“We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns.”
While Kelly could have simply said, “We used kerosene lamps,” this would not have felt true, because a character of that time would not tell someone such a thing – of course they used kerosene lamps, that was all that was available to them. It would be like Rebecca Stead making a point in When You Reach Me of telling her readers that her characters used electric lamps. Instead, Kelly shows the characters using the lamps.
“The heat was a misery for all of us in Fentress, but it was women who suffered the most in their corsets and petticoats.”
Kelly, the author and the historian, wants her young readers to know that back in 1899 women wore corsets and petticoats, but rather than telling something which would have been obvious at the time, she slips it into a comment about the weather. She uses this technique again here,
“We went into the house. I managed to wash my hands and change into a clean pinafore without notice.”
She is sharing with us a tidbit about Calpurnia’s day in which she must change her clothes, slipping in the fact that the clothing for a young girl of that era was a pinafore.
Another time Calupurnia mentions clothing she says, “For once I was glad of the sunbonnet Mother made me wear to prevent freckles.” I suspect that if Anne had sported a bonnet on that buggy ride with Mathew Cuthbert there would have been no mention made of the purpose it served—to prevent freckles. Any girl of that day would have known why one wore such a hat. Here, Kelly is slipping in a bit of extra information to educate the modern reader—again something I applaud as long as it does not feel like such, and I think Kelly does an excellent job of it.
I could go on and on but will stop here!
StorySleuths Tip #54: To create a setting that feels true to the period of your story, treat objects now considered unusual with the same level of disinterest they would have received in their day. Be judicious when offering definitions, fitting them into an active use of that object.
I’m going to begin by sharing two anecdotes that, taken together, lead to the point about writing I wish to make as a result of a close read of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
Second, when working on a novel set in the mid-1920’s I was tickled to find a Montgomery Ward catalogue from 1924 at an antique shop in Seattle. In it I found all kinds of information useful to make the time and place in my novel feel more true to my readers. I learned that my boy character might wear navy blue serge knickerbockers and a checkered woolen cap. The lady running the shop in town might wear a Chappie coat with a jacquette blouse and a neat pair of two-strap patent-leather Slippers. Her hair might be styled in a Venetian Wave. There could be a nickel plated alarm clock by the bed—one that only needed winding once a week. And in the kitchen, a Windsor refrigerator which Costs less money! Uses less ice! And Saves more food!
The problem was, when I stuck these precious tidbits into my story, they sounded exactly like that—precious tidbits. Aha!
Here is the link between these two anecdotes. In Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, author Janet Burroway says, “If the world itself is in some way exotic, you will need to work in the opposite direction, to make it seem as familiar as the nearest mall.” (p. 131)
Whether I am writing about a different culture (the young girl from Mexico), or a different era (1924), the things I discover in my research are exotic to me. My job as a writer is to afford these things no more reverence or notice than the main character would. This boils down to an issue of how we treat setting. Again, I turn to Janet Burroway for a definition:
setting involves everything that supports and impinges on your characters. The props of the world—artifacts and architecture, infrastructure, books, food, fabrics, tools and technology—create and sustain identity. (p. 131)The details of setting and the way our characters relate to them dictate how true the story will feel to our readers—is this the main character’s experience? Or is it the experience as told through the filter of a middle-aged white woman living in rural Washington in 2010?
I went back and thumbed through my tattered copy of L.M. Montgomery’s classic novel Anne of Green Gables to see how she treated the “props of the world.” That book was written in 1908 as contemporary literature, or at least literature set in the lifetime of the author, who was intimately familiar with the setting. It is roughly the same time period in which The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is set. Here is what I found.
In that book, the main character Anne is picked up at the train station by Matthew Cuthbert who is driving, “the buggy and the sorrel mare.” (p. 10) No details are given about what the buggy looked like, because anyone living in that time would have known what they looked like.
When Anne is given chores to do, “she made her bed less successfully, for she had never learned the art of wrestling with a feather tick.” (p. 39) At the time this book was written a feather tick was a common household item and did not bear defining.
When it is time for Anne to tidy up before going to the picnic she flies “to the washstand.” At the time the story takes place, indoor plumbing was not something enjoyed by all, especially not in rural settings. Because it is common, the author does not point to it as if to say, “Look! Notice this! I have inserted something factual about the place and time!”
And finally, when Anne recounts for Marilla her unpleasant day at school she says, “Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and held up my slate so that everybody could see it, all marked over.” (p. 103) There is no fuss made about the fact that she is working with a slate instead of pencil and paper, and no reference to its size or color is made, because any child of that time would have been intimately familiar with this object and it would require no further description.
In order to be true to her character and her setting a writer placing her story in the past needs to make as little fuss about her character’s interaction with everyday items as Montgomery does in her novel. That said I will add a caveat: when writing historical fiction I do believe that a modern writer needs, from time to time, to add a definition that a writer of that era would not have needed. If Jacqueline Kelly had chosen to have Calpurnia sleep on a feather tick, for example, she may have chosen to find a clever way to explain what one is (a cotton or linen sack filled with feathers and sewn shut, in case you are interested). The job faced by a writer of historical fiction is to add those definitions in an unobtrusive way.
Now, finally, I turn to my focus to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, a book in which I believe the author does a great job of setting the reader in a place and time that feels genuine because of the well crafted setting. There are places where she adds a definition that a writer of 1899 would likely not have, but I believe she does so judiciously, and in a way that feels true to the story. Apologies in advance for the lack of page citations—I read this on a Kindle and have not yet found a way to cite pages—anyone reading this who knows whether this is even possible – I would love to hear about it!
Kelly’s opening line leaves no question on the reader’s part about the time in which the story is set: “By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat.” (p.1) But throughout the story the props she uses, and more importantly her character’s interactions with them, remain true to the time defined in her opening line. Consider these quotes:
“We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns.”
While Kelly could have simply said, “We used kerosene lamps,” this would not have felt true, because a character of that time would not tell someone such a thing – of course they used kerosene lamps, that was all that was available to them. It would be like Rebecca Stead making a point in When You Reach Me of telling her readers that her characters used electric lamps. Instead, Kelly shows the characters using the lamps.
“The heat was a misery for all of us in Fentress, but it was women who suffered the most in their corsets and petticoats.”
Kelly, the author and the historian, wants her young readers to know that back in 1899 women wore corsets and petticoats, but rather than telling something which would have been obvious at the time, she slips it into a comment about the weather. She uses this technique again here,
“We went into the house. I managed to wash my hands and change into a clean pinafore without notice.”
She is sharing with us a tidbit about Calpurnia’s day in which she must change her clothes, slipping in the fact that the clothing for a young girl of that era was a pinafore.
Another time Calupurnia mentions clothing she says, “For once I was glad of the sunbonnet Mother made me wear to prevent freckles.” I suspect that if Anne had sported a bonnet on that buggy ride with Mathew Cuthbert there would have been no mention made of the purpose it served—to prevent freckles. Any girl of that day would have known why one wore such a hat. Here, Kelly is slipping in a bit of extra information to educate the modern reader—again something I applaud as long as it does not feel like such, and I think Kelly does an excellent job of it.
I could go on and on but will stop here!
StorySleuths Tip #54: To create a setting that feels true to the period of your story, treat objects now considered unusual with the same level of disinterest they would have received in their day. Be judicious when offering definitions, fitting them into an active use of that object.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
EPIGRAPHS AND LITERARY REFERENCES: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Hi Allyson and Heather,
I love epigraphs and literary references in the context of a novel. Maybe it’s the bargain hunter in me—I feel like I’m getting added value—being introduced to the thinking, vision, or insight of one writer through the eyes of another one.
Epigraphs
Most often, if there’s an epigraph, there’s only one, at the beginning of a book. So I was thrilled to find epigraphs at the beginning of every single chapter of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. All the epigraphs are from Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and reading them inspired me not only reserve a copy of Darwin’s book at the library, but also got me wondering why Jacqueline Kelly selected each epigraph and how the epigraphs functioned in the structure of the novel.
According to Wikipedia, “in literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional context.” As might be expected, the Wikipedia examples are not from books for children. However, on occasion epigraphs are included in books for children, and when they are, I take notice.
For example, our first StorySleuths book, which we investigated way back in October, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, includes this epigraph: “There is another world, but it is in this one. W.B. Yeats.” It “links the work to a wider literary canon” and “invites comparison” of Junior’s worlds in and beyond the rez. Awesome, isn’t it?
Turning to the epigraphs in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, I discovered that they serve many functions, including those listed below.
1. Foreshadowing. The Chapter 1 epigraph refers to a “young naturalist” (p. 1), foreshadowing Callie’s initiation into the ranks of “naturalist.” Grandfather says, “You’re a regular naturalist in the making” and Callie wonders, “What, exactly, was a naturalist? I wasn’t sure, but I decided to spend the rest of my summer being one.” (p. 8)
2. Comparison. The Chapter 2 epigraph includes the statement, “the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandfather” (p. 22)—Callie, like her Granddaddy, observes the wildlife around her.
3. Humor. The Chapter 5 epigraph notes Natural Selection is “immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts” (p. 54), a reference to Granddaddy’s “feeble efforts” to distill “drinkable liquor.”
4. Contrast. Chapter 7’s epigraph notes that sometimes someone with a “monstrous character” may emerge from a race of the “same species” (p. 73)—Callie notes that Harry’s “young woman” was “a hag, a stooping harpy….” (p. 74) and a member of the Independent Church, which was not “acceptable” (p. 75), so Grandfather dispatches her with a “good talk” in the library (p. 92).
5. Emphasis. “The crust of the earth is a vast museum” (p. 94), the epigraph for Chapter 8, emphasizes the importance of each living, and previously living, thing that Callie encounters—the stuffed armadillo, the trilobite fossil, the bottled cuttlefish, the microscopic river creatures, and especially the discovery of the hairy vetch with the odd dependent leaf. Best of all, Callie discovers “another member of my own odd species living at the other end of the hall. There was a living treasure under our roof, and none of my brothers could see him” (p. 102). Callie is discovering that her world is a vast museum stuffed with treasures.
6. Allusion. Chapter 9’s epigraph refers to the “caterpillar or cocoon stage,” (p. 112) of Callie’s woolly caterpillar “pet” Petey, but also alludes to her developing past the “grub stage” of “human children” (p. 115), as she herself is metamorphosizing.
7. Thematic resonance. Taken together, the 28 epigraphs initiating the chapters anchor the story in the theme of Callie’s evolution. Her relationships with Granddaddy and other members of her family, her awareness of the natural world around her, and her own self-knowledge evolve throughout the book, and her growth and change are echoed in the theory of evolution that Darwin had published in what was her fairly recent past.
Literary References
Although quotations from The Origin of Species are the predominant literary references in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, other literary references enrich the text as well. One of my favorites is the quotation from Plato that Granddaddy shares with Callie when she responds with surprise to her first glimpse of microscopic creatures: “all science begins with astonishment” (p. 105). Callie refers to a familiar story when she describes her struggles with her knitting:
StorySleuths Tip # 53—Add serendipity to your story—consider including epigraph(s) and/or literary references to offer your readers added value and to give resonance to your theme.
I love epigraphs and literary references in the context of a novel. Maybe it’s the bargain hunter in me—I feel like I’m getting added value—being introduced to the thinking, vision, or insight of one writer through the eyes of another one.
Most often, if there’s an epigraph, there’s only one, at the beginning of a book. So I was thrilled to find epigraphs at the beginning of every single chapter of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. All the epigraphs are from Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and reading them inspired me not only reserve a copy of Darwin’s book at the library, but also got me wondering why Jacqueline Kelly selected each epigraph and how the epigraphs functioned in the structure of the novel.
According to Wikipedia, “in literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional context.” As might be expected, the Wikipedia examples are not from books for children. However, on occasion epigraphs are included in books for children, and when they are, I take notice.
For example, our first StorySleuths book, which we investigated way back in October, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, includes this epigraph: “There is another world, but it is in this one. W.B. Yeats.” It “links the work to a wider literary canon” and “invites comparison” of Junior’s worlds in and beyond the rez. Awesome, isn’t it?
Turning to the epigraphs in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, I discovered that they serve many functions, including those listed below.
1. Foreshadowing. The Chapter 1 epigraph refers to a “young naturalist” (p. 1), foreshadowing Callie’s initiation into the ranks of “naturalist.” Grandfather says, “You’re a regular naturalist in the making” and Callie wonders, “What, exactly, was a naturalist? I wasn’t sure, but I decided to spend the rest of my summer being one.” (p. 8)
2. Comparison. The Chapter 2 epigraph includes the statement, “the child often reverts in certain characters to its grandfather” (p. 22)—Callie, like her Granddaddy, observes the wildlife around her.
3. Humor. The Chapter 5 epigraph notes Natural Selection is “immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts” (p. 54), a reference to Granddaddy’s “feeble efforts” to distill “drinkable liquor.”
4. Contrast. Chapter 7’s epigraph notes that sometimes someone with a “monstrous character” may emerge from a race of the “same species” (p. 73)—Callie notes that Harry’s “young woman” was “a hag, a stooping harpy….” (p. 74) and a member of the Independent Church, which was not “acceptable” (p. 75), so Grandfather dispatches her with a “good talk” in the library (p. 92).
5. Emphasis. “The crust of the earth is a vast museum” (p. 94), the epigraph for Chapter 8, emphasizes the importance of each living, and previously living, thing that Callie encounters—the stuffed armadillo, the trilobite fossil, the bottled cuttlefish, the microscopic river creatures, and especially the discovery of the hairy vetch with the odd dependent leaf. Best of all, Callie discovers “another member of my own odd species living at the other end of the hall. There was a living treasure under our roof, and none of my brothers could see him” (p. 102). Callie is discovering that her world is a vast museum stuffed with treasures.
6. Allusion. Chapter 9’s epigraph refers to the “caterpillar or cocoon stage,” (p. 112) of Callie’s woolly caterpillar “pet” Petey, but also alludes to her developing past the “grub stage” of “human children” (p. 115), as she herself is metamorphosizing.
7. Thematic resonance. Taken together, the 28 epigraphs initiating the chapters anchor the story in the theme of Callie’s evolution. Her relationships with Granddaddy and other members of her family, her awareness of the natural world around her, and her own self-knowledge evolve throughout the book, and her growth and change are echoed in the theory of evolution that Darwin had published in what was her fairly recent past.
Literary References
Although quotations from The Origin of Species are the predominant literary references in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, other literary references enrich the text as well. One of my favorites is the quotation from Plato that Granddaddy shares with Callie when she responds with surprise to her first glimpse of microscopic creatures: “all science begins with astonishment” (p. 105). Callie refers to a familiar story when she describes her struggles with her knitting:
“I fancied that a malevolent Rumplestiltskin crept into my room at night and undid my best work, turning the gold of my efforts into pathetic dross on a wheel perversely spinning backward.” (p. 213)As The Origin of Species was the literary touchstone for The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, A Wrinkle in Time was the literary touchstone for November’s StorySleuths selection, When You Reach Me. Rebecca Stead clarified the central focus of Madeleine L’Engle’s book in an Amazon.com interview, saying "What I love about L’Engle’s book now is how it deals with so much fragile inner-human stuff at the same time that it takes on life’s big questions. There’s something fearless about this book."
Other literary references in books I love include lines in Wordsworth’s poem, Ode: Intimations of Immortality: “Trailing clouds of glory do we come…” (p. 38) in The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson, and the literary touchstone of the story of Little Red Riding Hood in Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.
What epigraphs and literary references in children’s books inspire you?In Take Joy: A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Craft, Jane Yolen says, “Be prepared for serendipity.” She continues:
How does a writer organize luck? In a variety of ways. Perhaps a file of articles or quotations. Perhaps a stack of books from a secondhand shop on various fascinating subjects.” (p. 75)As Rebecca Stead was inspired by A Wrinkle in Time and Jacqueline Kelly mined The Origin of Species and Katherine Paterson nourished Gilly through the power of Wordsworth’s images and Annemarie keeps telling herself the story of Little Red Riding Hood, I consider what epigraph(s) and/or literary references might illuminate the story of my WIP.
StorySleuths Tip # 53—Add serendipity to your story—consider including epigraph(s) and/or literary references to offer your readers added value and to give resonance to your theme.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE: Writing about Nature
Dear Meg and Allyson,
What a beautiful, early spring day here in the Pacific Northwest! Indulge me for a moment as I share the view outside my window: a blue, blue sky that reminds me of summer; the lacy, pale pink blossoms of a cherry tree; on the fence, two crows bickering like an old married couple; and an eagle soaring high and alone above it all.
A perfect day for a hike or picnic.
Alas, I’m inside, typing at my computer. The irony is that my topic for today is how Jacqueline Kelly incorporates nature into her middle grade novel, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
The story begins in the middle of a heat wave in Fentress, Texas. “By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat,” eleven-year-old Calpurnia narrates (p. 1).
The triple-digit weather is so hot that it forces worms into hiding, so that Calpurnia’s brothers can’t find bait for fishing. It brings out fireflies every night for a “spectacular show.” Trails of ants invade the kitchen in search of water. And a new form of grasshopper appears:
huge bright yellow ones, twice as big [as the usual green ones], and torpid, so waxy and fat that they bowed down the grasses when they landed (p. 11).
Calpurnia wonders about these yellow grasshoppers. Where did they come from? Were they an entirely new species? These questions lead her into a new relationship with her grandfather, who shares her affinity for the natural world.
As Calpurnia spends time with her grandfather, she learns about observation, nature, and science. Her new passion for science brings her into direct conflict with her parents’ and society’s expectations for a young girl of means. What will the future hold for Calpurnia?
Kindred Spirits
Reading about Calpurnia’s adventures in Texas reminded me of another spirited girl, Anne Shirley from L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books. I adored this series as a child, in part because of Anne’s overwhelming enthusiasm for the landscape around her home on Prince Edward Island, in Canada.
Here, at the beginning of the story, Anne drives through the Avenue toward her new home.
The ‘Avenue,’ so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple trees…. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy, fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle. Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor above (p. 24-25).When Anne recovers from the beauty of the blooming trees, she immediately scorns the Avenue’s prosaic name, calling it instead “The White Way of Delight.”
Many people believe that children (as well as adults) skim over descriptions of nature and landscape in books, preferring to read action and dialogue. But I loved reading about the trees and flowers in Anne of Green Gables when I was a child, in part, I suppose, because Anne’s enthusiasm and love for nature was so infectious.
Writing about nature
Because people do tend to gloss over long descriptive passages in novels, writing about nature can be tricky. How do authors like Jacqueline Kelly and L. M. Montgomery maintain the reader’s interest?
- Nature appears through the viewpoint character’s eyes. Calpurnia observes the animals and plants that live around her house, such as the possum that sleeps in a hole near her room. She even observes the ridges along the top of the mouth of a sleeping dog. In the novel, nature is up-close, and something as common as the family dog inspires curiosity and amazement.
- Interactions with nature provide opportunities to reveal emotion. Anne Shirley feels awe in the presence of natural beauty. Likewise, using a microscope for the first time, Calpurnia is shocked to discover “a teeming, swirling world of enormous, wriggling creatures” in pond water.
- Nature connects to the novel on a thematic level. By observing nature, Calpurnia develops deeper awareness of her world. Granddaddy looks at the entries in her nature journal and remarks, “It’s amazing what you can see when you just sit quietly and look” (p. 35).
- Descriptions of nature enrich the language itself. In The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Kelly develops nature-oriented metaphors. For example, the men who shave their beards to combat the heat “ looked as naked as blind salamanders” (p. 3). When Calpurnia overhears her mother’s plan to train her as a proper young lady, she feels like a “coyote with her paw in the trap” (p. 220). In addition to revealing Calpurnia’s character, these metaphors build a sense of story unity.
Donald Maas in The Fire in Fiction says,
It is impossible to powerfully capture a place via objective description—at least, to capture it in a way that readers will not skim. Only through the eyes and heart of a character does a place truly come alive (p. 113).Fentrees, Texas comes to life through Calpurnia’s unique point of view.
Nature as a subject
I’d like to veer away from specific writing techniques for a moment to consider the importance of nature and science as subjects of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. Did you know there’s a movement of people who believe that children today suffer from Nature-Deficit Disorder?
I don’t presume to guess Jacqueline Kelly’s opinion about children’s connection to nature. However, I do believe that books like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and Anne of Green Gables provide inspiring examples of how to interact with and respond to nature. While neither has an overt “message” about the importance of nature or the environment, they feature characters who interact with nature on an intimate, engaged level, with emotions that range from curiosity to awe.
Like the big questions in Marcelo in the Real World, nature matters in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. Phillip Gerard, author of Writing a Book That Makes a Difference, says, “The writer owes the reader a large experience—one that will increase his imaginative grasp. One way to deliver this is to recognize the obvious: Subject matter matters” (p. 34).
StorySleuths Tip #52: Bring the natural world to life by revealing it through the character’s perceptions and emotions.
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