How the Old Masters Saw Palm Sunday

 

With Holy Week coming up, I decided to do a series on how the Old Masters saw those events. I’m starting this week with Palm Sunday.

The image at the top of this post is how we usually picture what we refer to as the triumphal entry, with Jesus surrounded by people spreading cloaks and palm branches before Him. The 1860 woodcut for Des Bibel in Bildern (The Bible in Pictures) is by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

The next photo shows a 1305 fresco by Giotto and is a typical Medieval portrayal of those events. Notice that Jesus is richly dressed and looks much more like a nobleman than a humble rabbi.

This final image shows the Spanish influence. It is attributed to Master of San Baudelio de Berlanga, circa 1125.

No matter how Jesus is portrayed in visual art, the best pictures are in words and come from the Bible. Here is the account of his entry into Jerusalem taken from Mark 11:8-10 (ESV):

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Although He came as a king, He rode on a donkey because He came in peace. The battle for salvation was still to come. We’ll see images about that battle next week.

__________

These works of art are all in the public domain because of their age.

 

Being Too Quick to Judge

 

Some of my main characters spend a lot of time reading. Since I write historical novels for children, I believe that it’s important to have them reading books that were actually around then. I have a long list of children’s classics and always check the initial publication dates.

Unfortunately, I recently read a book that reminded me that not all authors do that. I didn’t consider it one of the most egregious instances that I have seen, but it still bothered me.

Then I read it again.

The book I was reading is A Girl’s Guide to Winning the War by Annie Lyons, which takes place during World War II. The story is written for adults and has an adult protagonist, but her young niece is a prominent character. At one point the main character is reading Little House on the Prairie to her niece while a friend listens. That part is fine since Little House on the Prairie was published in 1935 and may well have made its way across the ocean by the beginning of the war. But the book is new to the friend, and the protagonist asks, “Didn’t you read these books with your mother when you were little?” Since the friend would have been a teenager by the time Little House on the Prairie came out, I was disappointed that the author would think it had been around that long.

That was going to be the theme of this blog: emphasizing the importance of researching publication dates before mentioning a book in historical fiction. When I looked for the quote to include in this post, however, I discovered a very big mistake on my part. It wasn’t the protagonist who asked the question but her young niece, who obviously wouldn’t have had any clue that the series hadn’t been around that long.

So even though Annie Lyons isn’t likely to read this blog, I’m apologizing to her now.

More importantly, it goes to show how important it is to read or listen carefully before criticizing someone for what they say. Otherwise, it’s way too easy to get the meaning wrong. That’s how misunderstandings—and even wars—begin.

So don’t be too quick to judge.

Even the Kitchen Sink

 

Last week I mentioned that spelling was the only subject I ever got Ds in, “At least not until law school, and that’s another story.” Rather than leaving you hanging, this post tells that other story.

I attended law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law, which is a division of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Two of the reasons I decided to go there were 1) they had evening classes (and I needed to work during the day to afford it), and 2) they allowed students to start with the January semester. With a few exceptions, including the one I’m going to mention in this post, it was a great place to go and I got a good legal education there.

So when my first summer session rolled around, I had just one semester behind me. I wanted to take the only two classes that would fit into my schedule and didn’t have prerequisites I couldn’t meet. Actually, the Evidence professor tried to talk me out of taking his class because I didn’t have enough substantive background yet, but those classes weren’t actual prerequisites and I signed up anyway.

The other class was Criminal Procedure, which was supposed to be an easy A.

I should have known better. I had the same professor for Legal Ethics my first semester and ended up with a C. People who know me have a hard time believing I got a C in an ethics class, and I had a hard time believing it myself. Still, I was just finding my way in law school and didn’t ask the professor why he gave me that grade.

That was probably a mistake.

Law school classes weren’t like my undergraduate ones. Midterms were rare, as were quizzes. So in most cases I had no idea how I was doing until I took the final exam and got my semester grade. Still, I was fairly comfortable about how I was doing in Criminal Procedure.

When I received my final grades, I had one A and one D, and they weren't in the classes I expected.

This time I did make an appointment to talk to my Criminal Procedure professor. When I asked what I could have done differently, he literally told me that I should have given him “the kitchen sink.” And yes, he did use those three words. I don’t remember how I responded, but I’m sure I walked out of his office in shock.

In case any of you aren’t familiar with the phrase “everything but the kitchen sink,” it usually means someone has provided a lot more information (usually irrelevant) than necessary.

I believe in being efficient and providing only those arguments that a judge isn’t going to laugh at. So, although I probably didn’t say it at the time, I refuse to learn how to include the kitchen sink.

In the long run, that D in Criminal Procedure didn’t mean much. It wasn’t a failing grade, and a D was good enough to keep me from repeating the class. I did need a C average to graduate, but the D in Criminal Procedure was more than offset by the A in Evidence, and the rest of my law school grades were As and Bs with a sprinkling of Cs, so my GPA was never in danger.

It did teach me a valuable lesson, though. A good writer knows his or her audience, which I obviously didn’t. Still, it isn’t enough to satisfy the audience.

I also need to satisfy myself.

Vocabulary and Spelling

 

I just finished a book where a boy whips out his pocket dictionary every time he hears a word he doesn’t understand. I have a great vocabulary, so I don’t need a dictionary for that. And even if I have one, it doesn’t always help.

If a word is spelled phonetically, I can find it. But if it isn’t . . .

Spelling has always been my downfall, the only subject I ever got a D in. (At least not until law school, and that’s another story.) I can’t rely on artificial intelligence, either. The spell-check on Word usually works, but if my spelling is too far off, it doesn’t include the correct choice. Then I’m sunk.

That’s a problem with doing crosswords, too. If I know the answer but misspell it, it can throw everything off.

So here’s my advice to my younger readers: don't make my mistake.

Learn to spell.

Writing Parallel Series

 

I while ago I decided to write a series of middle-grade novels taking place during the California gold rush, and I have just started sending them to editors and agents. The series consists of a stand-alone story for each of the three most common routes to California: around Cape Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama, and over the plains. The first two books have female protagonists and the third has a male protagonist.

Over the Plains is the second book I have written with a male protagonist, and it is the first that didn’t also include a female protagonist. Obviously, I have never been a boy, and that makes me hesitant to write from a male point-of-view. Still, many women write male POVs successfully, just as many men write female POVs successfully. And the boys I used as beta readers for Over the Plains didn’t question the accuracy of my male character’s thoughts and actions.

As I was searching for agents, one website said the agent is particularly interested in books that would encourage boys to read. Statistics say boys do not read as much as girls do, and they will rarely read a book with a female in the leading role. So I assume the agent is interested in books with a boy as the main character. I will certainly send him Over the Plains.

But maybe it’s time to step out of my comfort zone and write more books for boys. In fact, I think I can do it by splitting my completed series in two—or, rather, by creating two parallel series, one for girls and one for boys. This requires an additional three books, but I think they would be both challenging and fun.

The middle book in the series is about the trip across the Isthmus of Panama, and writing a version for the boys’ series should be relatively simple. My twelve-year-old female protagonist has a fifteen-year-old brother who plays a big part in the story. I’m envisioning a parallel book told from his point-of-view.

The other books will require more effort. I already have the first two books for girls, but if I move Over the Plains to the boys’ series, I will need a new book for the girls’ series to cover the overland trip to the gold fields. Except for one adult, there are no significant female characters in Over the Plains, so I will have to create an entirely new story line. I can, however, use the same setting and place the new story in the same wagon train. Obviously, there are some events that affect the entire train, and I will use them in both books. It’s a large enough train that the significant characters in the two books won’t have to interact, however, so I shouldn’t have to make any edits to Over the Plains.

I have a similar problem with the first book in the series when trying to adapt it for boys. There are no boys in that book who would make a good protagonist for the trip around Cape Horn. Again, however, I can create a new story about a boy on board the same ship on the same voyage. If I put him in the crew, he won’t have to associate with the passengers. I will use some of the events that affect everyone on board, but I won’t have to change the book I have already completed.

Sometimes my head pops with ideas and I get excited about the challenge, and this is one of those times. But there’s a problem. Although I have ideas for all three books, I can only write one at a time. And I’m currently working on a different book, so I’ll have to finish the current draft of that one first.

Still, I can’t wait to get started.

__________

Beginning at the upper left, the images in the photo are: “Clipper ship Sweepstakes,” lithographed by Fannier Palmer and published by Nathaniel Currier in 1853; “Der Isthmus von Panama auf der Höhe des Chargres River” (“The Isthmus of Panama at the Height of the Chargres River”), 1850 painting by Charles Christian Nahl; and 19^th century illustration of a westward wagon train, artist unattributed.

Responses from Readers

 

My denomination publishes a quarterly devotional magazine called Portals of Prayer. In every issue, three individuals each write a month’s worth of daily devotions.

Mine appeared in February.

I received a number of comments on the devotions. Only one was negative, but that one and one of the positive ones were unexpected.

Portals of Prayer includes a brief biography of each writer that includes the individual’s church but no other contact information. Although it also didn’t include my website, that is easy enough to find with an internet search and I received several comments through its contact page. That’s how I received the sole negative comment.

I had done several devotions on God’s command to obey governing authorities. I followed them up with one on obeying God rather than the governing authority when the governing authority asks us to do something contrary to God’s Law (Acts 5:29), and I used Hitler as an example.

Here is a quote from the email I received in response to that devotion.

You had to bring up Hitler, what an easy way to be brave! Sorry Miss, but you are either a coward, and/or a lazy researcher or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Hitler actually was a devout Catholic, and during his era, thousands of new churches were actually built, and none were taken down.

I haven’t researched whether new churches were built during Hitler’s era, and that statement may be true. Hitler may also have claimed to be a devout Catholic, but his actions prove otherwise.

The email went on to say that the real villainy (my word, not his) occurred in the Soviet Union, where, according to the writer, Jews were behind Bolshevism and created it specifically to murder as many Christians as possible. Finally, the writer denied the existence of the Holocaust and ended by saying, “As Christians, we are not allowed to lie about other people or countries, simply because everyone believes it to be factual.”

In many ways, that was an easy comment to respond to. Although I consider research to be one of my strengths and calling me a lazy researcher would normally have upset me, the entire email made it clear that the writer was misguided. Arguing would accomplish nothing since the unknown author of the email is as unlikely to change his or her mind as I am to change mine. So I simply said, “Thank you for sharing your opinion with me,” and left it at that.

One of the positive responses to the devotions was harder to handle.

Several people contacted me through my church, and one note complimenting the devotions included a check for $125.

It wouldn’t be quite true to say I didn’t do it for the money. I consider myself a professional writer who is worthy of my hire, and I gladly accepted the stipend that Portals of Prayer paid me for my work. Still, my primary goal is to write to the glory of God, not for worldly reward. While I appreciate all the positive comments, I don’t feel right accepting money from a reader. So I voided the check and returned it with some suggestions for where they could donate the money if they so chose.

Writers never know what type of responses they will get from readers. Many times readers’ opinions are unexpressed, and the writer doesn’t know what they are. I can live with that.

But it’s always nice to hear from readers.

___________

The picture at the beginning of the post was painted in 1896 by Arthur Netherwood and is titled “Portrait of an Old Woman Reading the Bible by Candlelight.” It is in the public domain because of its age.

Remembering the Vietnam War

 

I can’t cover a trip to Vietnam without mentioning the war.

Roland served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, but he never made it to Vietnam. His name was on the list, but then President Nixon announced his Vietnamization plan to increase the withdrawal of American troops. So this was Roland’s first trip to Vietnam as well as mine, and it started in Saigon.

Technically, I suppose, it started in Ho Chi Minh City, but many residents still call it Saigon.

Saigon was the location of the American headquarters during the war. There are few of those sites left there, but the photo at the top of this page is the CIA building. The modern building in the background is a more recent addition, but the roof of the CIA building was the location for a famous photograph taken while the Americans and their supporters were fleeing the city. That photo shows a helicopter evacuating Americans and Vietnamese residents who had worked for the Americans.

The main war-related location we visited in Saigon is Reunification Palace, which is not specifically tied to the Americans. It used to be the equivalent of the White House, with both the president’s living quarters and many rooms where affairs of state took place, and is now a museum. They call it Reunification Palace because it is where the then president of South Vietnam resigned and turned the country over to the communists, thereby reunifying the North and the South into one country. That’s the second photo.

By the way, our Vietnamese guide called Vietnam a communist country with a capitalist economy. It seems to be on good relations with the U.S. and welcomes American tourists. Roland likes to say that Ho Chi Minh would be rolling in his mausoleum if he saw the robust commercialism.

After leaving Saigon, we took a long bus ride to our boat. On the way we stopped at the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were part of the vast tunnel system used by the Viet Cong to hide from the Americans. Some of our group went down in one entrance and came up at another, but neither of us went into the tunnels—Roland because he is too big and me because I’m slightly claustrophobic. The next photo shows a guard at the park showing off a hidden entrance.

We ended our trip in Hanoi, where our hotel overlooked the lake (on the left in the photo) where John McCain landed after he evacuated from his airplane. He was captured and taken to what American prisoners-of-war sarcastically called “the Hanoi Hilton.”

Although we visited the Hanoi Hilton, which is a museum now, it had a much longer and earlier history as a prison where the French held and tortured Vietnamese rebels, and that is the period the museum concentrates on. In that sense, the visit there was something of a letdown. The next photos show one of the doors, which may be the only thing that is the same as in the Vietnam War period, and an undated arial photograph of the grounds.

Our tour director grew up near the Hanoi Hilton. When she was younger, she was told that Americans called it the Hanoi Hilton because they were treated as well as if they were at a real Hilton Hotel, and it was said without irony. When she would mention it while giving tours to Americans, the women would giggle behind their hands, and she didn’t understand why. Years later, when she visited the U.S. for the first time, she went to an exhibit on the Vietnam War at the Smithsonian and got an entirely different perspective. She did some further digging and now appears to believe something closer to the American view.

One of the major tragedies of the Vietnam War was the use and effects of Agent Orange. The Americans sprayed the chemical to kill the undergrowth that the Viet Cong hid in, but it had very serious health consequences for both Americans and Vietnamese who were exposed to it and genetic effects for their descendants. Our last stop in Hanoi was at Dai Viet Fine Arts, which is a government-sponsored company that employes people who are disable by the effects of Agent Orange. The people who work there make and sell a number of articles, including pictures embroidered with lotus silk, which uses threads from the stalks of lotus flowers. The last photo shows the picture we purchased for ourselves.

This is the final post about our trip to Southeast Asia. There is a lot more to say, but I think it’s time to get back to talking about reading and writing, which is supposed to be the primary focus of this blog. So look for a change of subject next week.

Honoring the Dead

 

Most people in Southeast Asia are Buddhist, and the Buddhists cremate their dead. So what do they do with the ashes? It may depend on how much money they have.

Those who can afford an elaborate burial place build mausoleums, which they call stupa. Most are built to hold a family’s ashes, although some are simply built as memorials. Regardless, they are all beautiful. The photo at the top of this page and the one that follows were taken at a stupa cemetery just outside Oknha Tay, Cambodia.

People who can’t afford to build a stupa place the ashes in a spirit house in front of their home or place of business. The next three photos show spirit houses located outside a home and a business and a place where they are for sale, respectively.

If you can’t even afford a spirit house, it is apparently acceptable to spread the ashes in the river. Our Cambodian guide said that some people even make their own spirit houses, which look something like a rural American mailbox.

As mentioned above, however, some stupas are built as memorials not to specific individuals but to a group of people, much like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Cambodia went through a particularly violent period in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge controlled the country. The Khmer Rouge decided to get rid of the upper classes and the educated citizens and slaughtered several million men, women, and children. These days, many of the former “killing fields” have become memorials, or at least have memorials built next to them. The next photo shows what our Cambodian guide call the Stupa of Regret, an empty stupa erected at Phnom Pros, the site of a former Buddhist temple where people were held and executed. The stupa was built by a member of the Khmer Rouge who was later remorseful about his role.

The final two photos show the temple used as a jail and a centuries-old stone lion with a missing hip from being used as a sharpening block for the weapons the Khmer Rouge sliced people’s heads off with.

Memorials help us remember people and historical events, but in the end it doesn’t matter where our ashes or bones are kept or how elaborate or simple the burial place. What does matter is whether the final destination is heaven or hell.

Still, I love looking at those elaborate stupas.

Temples Now and Then

 

When we were in Southeast Asia, we saw a number of temples, both new and old. Actually, all of them are old. The real distinction is between those that are still in active use and those that are ruins.

Our first visits were to Buddhist temples that are still in use, starting in Bangkok, Thailand. The first, and largest, of those was the Temple of the Dawn, shown in the photo at the head of this post. It had been built centuries ago but underwent a recent restoration.

The next day we saw two Buddhist temples, still in Bangkok. The Temple of the Emerald Buddha is within the grounds of the Grand Palace. The Emerald Buddha is actually jade, and we weren’t allowed to enter the building that housed it. We could view it through a window, but I wasn’t able to get a good photo. I did get good pictures of some of the details of the temple buildings, however. Demons were a frequent decoration, and the next photo shows three of them. Our guide made a point of telling us that demons didn’t equal bad—some are and some aren’t, much like people.

The last temple we saw in Bangkok was the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Its main feature is a very long golden statue of Buddha reclining. We could get close up and personal with that statue, but that had its own disadvantages. I couldn’t get far enough away to take the entire figure or even most of it at once. The next photo shows Buddha reclining on his right elbow.

From Thailand we flew to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where our cruise director took us to a Chinese temple. This one didn’t celebrate any particular person or god but was meant to be a place where people could come to honor their own particular household gods. At least I think that’s the gist of what she said.

The other active temple we visited was Udon Monastery north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where two of the monks on duty at the prayer building gave us a group blessing before one of them was chased away by a possibly rabid monkey. This photo shows the steps leading up to the prayer building.

One of the main reasons we took this trip was to see the ruins of Angkor Wat near Siem Reap, Cambodia. That temple was built almost a thousand years ago. Cambodia was Hindu at the time, but the king married a woman who wanted him to transition the country to Buddhism, so there are elements of both in the temple. It was well built and is remarkably well preserved for such an old building. The first photo shows the main building reflected in the water of a pool within the grounds, and the second shows the steep steps to the third floor. It was worth the climb for the views, but the stairs were a little scary, and the woman coming down in front of Roland was terrified.

We saw two other ruined temples before leaving Siem Reap. The first was Phrom Temple, which had several gigantic trees growing over the stonework. Our guide said that type of tree lives for only about two hundred years so they won’t be there forever, but they are pretty impressive now. The next photo shows the roots growing over the entrance within the temple.

The last temple ruin we went to near Siem Reap was Bayon Temple, which is a place of many faces. It’s common to find towers with a face of a different god on each side, but Bayon Temple had 54 towers of different sizes and each one had the four faces. Apparently there were 54 provinces in Cambodia when the temple was built, and each tower represents the size and location of one of the provinces. The next photo shows Bayon Temple, and the last shows three of the stone faces (one in front and one on each side) above a living one.

We actually saw one more temple that is no longer in use, but it has a different history and will be covered in next week’s post on how Buddhists honor their dead.

Beware of the Monkeys

 

Roland and I just returned from a trip to Southeast Asia, and we saw plenty of cute monkeys in Cambodia. We were told not to get close to them, however, since a scratch or a bite could result in getting rabies. As one of our guides put it, “That’s why you have zoom on your camera.”

The monkey at the head of this post is a good example of the problem. We first saw him outside the prayer building at Udon Monastery (a Buddhist temple) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Then we saw him again inside, in the back of the building. That’s the next photo.

We had left the prayer building and were standing outside waiting for the rest of our group when we heard a screech. Apparently the monkey had advanced all the way to the front where two monks were on duty giving blessings and had walked right up to one of them. The monk jumped up, ran away, and didn’t return until the monkey was gone. But if a peaceful Buddhist monk was afraid of monkeys, we certainly should have been.

Monkeys seem to like temples. We saw the next one at Phnom Pros, which was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge. The area has been turned into a Buddha garden as a memorial for all the people killed there, and I first saw this monkey on top of a statue of an elephant. Unfortunately, he moved around too much and I couldn’t get a good photo of him there. I did get this one, though.

These last two photos were taken at the ruined Bayon Temple near Siem Reap. I’m pretty sure they are not the same animal.

So much for the monkeys. I’ll write about the temples next week.

Thinking Outside the Stage

 

This reprint is from May 18, 2015. At the time I was actively involved with the Indiana Writers’ Consortium, which has since disbanded.

Thinking Outside the Stage

I spent three hours on Saturday at a playwriting workshop. No, I’m not thinking about writing plays, but learning about one genre can provide insights into another. And venturing out of my comfort zone stretches my creative muscles for what I do write.

Besides, Saturday’s workshop was excellent. Hosted by the Indiana Writers’ Consortium, it featured playwright Evan Guilford-Blake and focused on adapting prose for the stage and adapting plays to prose form.

One thing I learned, or at least was reminded of, is that writers shouldn’t assume a story has to be told a certain way. After describing some initial principles, Evan had us do two exercises. In the first, we were given either the play or the prose version of a short piece he wrote and had already adapted. Then he asked us to rewrite it as the other type. I had the play version and turned it into a prose story, mostly by adding descriptions of the setting and changing the first character’s onstage monologue into thoughts. But some of the other participants were much more creative.

Before I continue, you need a little of the plot. The two-character play opens with a man nervously waiting for a woman he “met” through a dating service, but this is their first in-person meeting. When our working time was up, Evan started with those of us who turned the play into prose and asked which character’s point of view we had used. My first thought was, “his, of course, because she wasn’t in the scene at the beginning.” But one of the other participants did use the woman’s. He got around the POV problem by placing her in the scene from the beginning, but with a twist. She was hiding where she could check out the man before deciding whether she wanted to meet him. It was an inspired approach that had never entered my mind.

One of the people who turned the story into a play had backed up and added a new scene at the beginning. It still showed how nervous the man was but started at his apartment as he was getting ready for the date. This participant had also thought outside the box (or the stage) rather than just making the most obvious changes.

The main lesson I learned from Saturday’s workshop was to try something new. Experiment. If it doesn’t work, I don’t have to keep it. But if it does, it can take a good story and make it a great one.

And that should be every writer’s goal.

A Test of Creativity

 

This is a reprint of my February 27, 2017 blog post. Inferno is no longer a work-in-progress but is a published book. It can be purchased from Amazon at this link: Inferno: Page, Kaye, Camp, Kathryn Page: 9780989250481: Amazon.com: Books

A Test of Creativity

What do a picket fence, a work boot, and a petticoat have in common? They can all be used as emergency medical supplies for characters fleeing from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

I’ve always been a big fan of The Borrowers books by Mary Norton. The borrowers are a family (and a species) of people about as tall as pencils. They live in normal people’s homes, “borrow” household items, and transform them. Sheets of blotting paper become carpets, razor blades become chopping knives, cigar boxes become beds, and stamps become wall art.

It isn’t just The Borrowers books, either. I enjoy any author who takes ordinary objects and has his or her characters adapt them to a different purpose—like castaways who use turtle shells for bowls. So I’m excited that I finally have a chance to join the club, even if I only qualify for associate membership.

My current work-in-progress has two girls fleeing from the 1871 Chicago Fire. After they get separated, Julia wants something to wrap her sore wrists and rips a row of lace from her petticoat. So a petticoat becomes a bandage.

But Fannie has bigger problems. A cart runs over her foot, so she needs both a crutch and something to protect the foot from bumps and blows. In my story—as in real life—many people tried to save too much and ended up abandoning their possessions as they ran.* There are many types of debris littering Fannie’s escape route, but finding an actual crutch would be too much of a coincidence for my readers (and for me). It also deprives me of an opportunity to be creative, which is at least half the fun of writing. So here’s my solution: when Fannie passes a fence and spots a loose picket, she wrenches it off and turns it so that the point is down. Now a picket becomes a crutch. She also finds a man’s work boot and stuffs it with cloth, so a boot becomes a splint.

Those ideas don’t put me in the same league as Mary Norton (hence only associate membership), but at least they take some imagination.

And creativity is what feeds my writer’s soul.

Mixing Creativity and Formula

 

This week I’m reprinting a blog post from July 15, 2019. I originally wrote it for the Indiana Writers’ Consortium blog, where it appeared on February 21, 2018.

Mixing Creativity and Formula

I’m tired of hearing people run down so-called genre fiction because it follows a formula, as if that means it lacks creativity.  Yes, some genre fiction is only minimally creative, but that’s the fault of the author, not the genre.

Take romance, which is often cited as the archetype of formula fiction. I don’t write romance and rarely read it because I have limited time and generally prefer other types of novels. But I do read it occasionally, and one of my favorite authors fits perfectly into the romance “formula.” More about her later.

Here is the definition of the “Romance Genre” found on the Romance Writers of America’s website at www.rwa.org/the-romance-genre.

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. A writer can include as many subplots as they want as long as the love story is the main focus of the novel.

An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.

This “formula” leaves a lot of room for creativity. As the RWA website goes on to say, “Romance novels may have any tone or style, be set in any place or time, and have varying levels of sensuality—ranging from sweet to extremely hot.” Setting, characterization, plot twists, word choice, and many other elements of romance writing provide as much opportunity for creativity as literary and experimental fiction do.

For illustration, here are summaries of three stories written by my favorite romance novelist. All three books have (1) a central love story developed through a main plot that centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work and (2) an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending where the lovers’ struggles result in emotional justice and unconditional love. See if you can identify the books and/or the author.

1. The two protagonists love each other even before the novel begins, but a well-meaning friend causes her to reject his marriage proposal. When they meet again years later, events, misunderstandings, and the romantic intentions of other parties conspire to keep them from renewing their relationship. Eventually, however, the protagonists realize that they are meant for each other and find happiness together.
2. The female protagonist is brought up by her aunt and uncle but is treated as a poor relation. When she falls in love with one of her cousins, she keeps her attraction secret because she knows his family would never consent to a marriage between them. But when the consequences of the family’s shaky values threaten to ruin their social position, the protagonist’s inner worth shines through and the lovers are united at last.
3. When the protagonists first meet, neither likes the other. They are continually thrown together, and the male protagonist falls in love in spite of himself. He grudgingly proposes, is rejected, and leaves. Soon after, the female protagonist’s sister elopes and threatens to bring disgrace to her family. After the male protagonist spends time and money to secure the marriage, the female protagonist realizes that she loves him after all. But it is too late! No, it isn’t. This is formula romance, and the two lovers end up together after all.

By now, you will have guessed that I’m talking about Jane Austin. Here are the titles that go with the summaries: (1) Persuasion, (2) Mansfield Park, and (3) Pride and Prejudice. I could have used many more examples, since Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey all follow the same formula.

I’m not saying that everyone should write to a formula. On the contrary, the world would be a barren place without any love stories that end in tragedy or authors who dare to try something new.

But I am saying this: don’t condemn genre novels that write to a formula, because creativity and formula CAN mix.

Fueled by Creativity

 

As a writer, creativity is my adrenaline. But it isn’t limited to writing. Lately, I’ve been spending much of my creative energy on thinking up ideas for my camera club.

As acting president, I have taken on the responsibility of finding speakers or, failing that, coming up with my own program ideas. For this month, I asked someone to put together a presentation on creating creative photos using the entries in the club’s recent Mylinda Cane Creative Photo Competition as the examples. My responsibility also means coming up with activities for the annual meeting to fill in the extra time. For that, I’ve created everything from a crossword puzzle with the names of famous photographers to a word seek puzzle of photography vocabulary and a game where participants guess the subject of a photograph from a small detail.

The photo at the top of this post is one of my poorer attempts to be creative for my camera club. We have a competition every month with regular categories for color and monochrome photos and a special that changes monthly. I know how hard it is to come up with a different idea every month because I do the same for the member photo section of the club’s newsletter. Our club is a member of a group of clubs, however, and fortunately the competition special is chosen by someone from the umbrella club so I don’t have to worry about it.

Our local club does the same topic one month earlier so that our members can decide whether their photos will do well enough to enter them into the larger competition at the umbrella club. Usually, that isn’t a problem. But the January special is “Happy New Year,” and the new year hadn’t happened yet when our local club had its competition. That meant finding something in the archives or staging a new photo. We can enter up to three photos in each category, and I found one in the archives that would work in a pinch, but I had nothing else that even implied “Happy New Year.” My motive for entering was not to win but because I was afraid that if only one person entered, he or she would be competing against him-or-herself, and that’s no fun. So I looked around at the props I had on hand and created the photo at the top of this post. In the end, I didn’t enter it or the one from the archives because nobody else from my competition class entered, either.

Still, it got me thinking about the importance of creativity in the arts. For me, of course, that’s primarily writing. Over the years, I have done a number of blog posts about writing creatively, and I decided this was a good month to reprint them.

So stay tuned.