Affirmation

I can’t not write. And yes, the double negative is intentional. I have to write.

Writing is hard work. It can also be frustrating. I may go through weeks in a row when the words won’t come but the rejections do. So it’s nice to get some affirmation now and then.

That’s what happened this last week. The words flowed and I didn’t get a single rejection. (No acceptances, either, but those are rare in any writer’s life, and at least I have manuscripts out that may lead there.)

Each book I write is better than the one before, but the one I am working on now has far more tension and a much stronger character arc than any of the others. And as I finish the first draft, my mind is teaming with ideas to improve the story in the second draft. So I was already on a writing high.

Then I took one of those Facebook quizzes. I never play the games, but I will take an occasional quiz if it looks interesting. This one asked, “What career were you meant for?” The result? Author!

For me, the three Rs are reading, research, and [w]riting. I love them all. Especially during weeks like the one I just had.

All writers—and all people—need affirmation now and then. It lifts us up and affirms our decision to write. Still, I’m not sure how much difference the past week will make in the long run.

Because I can’t not write.

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The picture at the head of this post was drawn by Frank T. Merrill for the original edition of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. First published in 1868, the illustration is in the public domain because of its age.

Books as Vaccines

My current work-in-progress is the darkest one I have written—and it’s for a middle grade audience.

I had a short e-mail conversation with my online critique partner about whether Creating Esther was too dark for the age group. She thought it would be fine for public school students but felt that some home-schooled children are more sheltered. The conversation was short because she agreed with my response, and it’s hard to have a long discussion when everyone is in sync.

So what was my response? First, I’ve read other dark books written for middle graders, and I think mine will fit in. Second, I plan on submitting Creating Esther to secular publishers. The book is not being written for the home-school audience, although I hope they will read it. But third and most importantly, all children, including those who are home-schooled, need to understand the real world or they won’t be able to handle adversity when it comes.

I think of these darker middle grade books as a vaccine. Vaccines give you low-grade (often dead) disease germs to build up an immunity so that the disease will not harm you when the live germs come on full-force. In the same way, reading realistic fiction helps immunize children against harmful emotional responses to real world tragedies and heartbreak.

As in real life, every ending doesn’t have to be happy, but it should have hope. That’s what happens in Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. The protagonist’s best friend dies in an accident when he’s not there to save her, and he takes it hard. But then he realizes that his younger sister needs him, and he finds he can go on living by helping her.

Life isn’t all sweetness and light, and children need to know that.

So don’t shy away from reality when writing middle grade fiction.

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The photograph at the head of this post shows Japanese American children getting vaccinated at the Santa Anita Assembly Center in Arcadia, California on April 6, 1942. Clem Albers took the picture as part of his official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Writing as Art

It is clichéd but true that art is in the eye of the beholder. You will never create a manuscript or paint a picture or even take a photograph that everyone loves. But you can increase the number of people who see it as art.

That’s why creative artists learn technique.

When I first got interested in photography, I bought a nice camera. I’m tech-savvy enough that I probably could have figured out the camera and taken decent pictures on my own—pictures like the touristy shot of Maus Castle at the head of this post. But decent wasn’t good enough, so I took a multi-week class.

One of the techniques I learned is called the Rule of Thirds. When composing (or cropping) a picture, you draw an imaginary tic-tac-toe board on the image and place the subject where two lines intersect. The picture above is nice, but the viewer’s eye is actually drawn more to the tower, which sits at one of those intersections, than to the castle as a whole.

By placing the subject at the upper right intersection, the castle becomes more noticeable as a unit. Even better, you see it in context at the top of a mountain.

Or do you? This next picture puts the subject at the upper left intersection and shows that it isn’t all the way up. Castles were actually placed high enough to look out over the Rhine River but low enough to take advantage of the rainwater running down the mountain.

I could also have put Maus Castle in one of the lower quadrants, which would have enhanced the feeling of isolation.

See how your creative choices—and the different messages you can convey—have increased by using the Rule of Thirds?

As with most creative techniques, the Rule of Thirds isn’t a law that must always be followed. Maybe the background is ugly or the subject is so beautiful that it deserves the entire frame. Or maybe following the rule is simply impractical because you can’t get far enough away from your subject to include the context—a common problem when photographing cathedrals in crowded European cities. But knowing the technique opens up your creative choices.

Here’s another example. Sports photographers often use a very fast shutter speed to freeze the action. That’s what happened in this picture I took at a volleyball game.

But what if I wanted to create the feeling of movement or isolate one player by blurring out the background? A much slower shutter speed can create this effect.

Good technique can turn an ordinary photograph into art.

Creative writing is also art. You will never write a book that the whole world wants to read. Not even the Bible can claim that distinction. But even though you won’t satisfy everyone, you can increase your audience by learning—and then using—good technique.

How does a writer learn it? I attend at least two conferences a year and own a number of books about the craft of writing. I also use a third—and much cheaper—classroom. I belong to a good writers’ group with people who know technique and are willing to point out where my work lacks it.

Now it’s your turn to increase your audience by improving your technique.

How Important is Genre?

Most writers choose a genre or two and write within them. There is a practical reason for this: it’s easier to sell genre works to publishers, who have to sell to bookstores. And even online bookstores are more likely to buy books if they know where to “shelve” them.

But what if you want to write something that doesn’t seem to fit?

To use an example from another art form, consider the photograph at the head of this post, which I took on vacation in July. The picture shows the River Aure running through Bayeux, France. I like this photograph, and maybe I’ll want to enter it at the Lake County Fair next year. But it doesn’t quite fit any of the categories for this year’s entries. Nature scenic? Yes, the river and the trees and the flowers are nature, but the buildings help make the picture. So maybe it should be entered as architecture? Although the buildings would make a nice picture on their own, it wouldn’t be the same one.

Since there is no perfect match, maybe I should just forget it. The rules allow only one entry in each category, so if I enter it in the wrong one and it is disqualified, I will have given up the opportunity to enter a photograph that does qualify. But I like this picture better than other options. So should I risk it?

That’s the same question writers face when drawn to an idea or plot that doesn’t fit neatly into a particular genre. Should we follow our hearts or make the “practical” choice?

Fortunately, I’ve never faced this question with my own writing. My manuscripts (published and unpublished) have always fallen within the genre lines. Not on purpose or because of any particular effort on my part—it just happened. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t creative. Many of the great composers, including Bach and Mozart, worked within the musical formulas of their time but still managed to show their genius. Obviously, I’m not comparing myself with Bach or Mozart, but the point is that there are plenty of opportunities for creativity while writing within a genre.

Still, sometimes we just can’t make an idea fit. So do we abandon it and move on, or do we follow our heart?

That’s a question only the writer can answer.

What Does Your Writing Celebrate?

Roland and I just returned from a European vacation. One of the places we visited was Nuremburg, Germany, where we took a tour of the major World War II historical sites. The picture above shows a typical Nazi building. The Nazis used classical Greek and Roman structures but without any ornamentation, and they made them larger than the buildings they were modeled after so they would be even more imposing. The purpose was to make people feel insignificant—the state was everything and the individual was nothing.

 

This particular building is now a “documentation center” showing the history of Hitler and the Nazi party. As our guide explained, it is not a “museum” because museums celebrate their subject matter and the center did not celebrate Hitler or the Nazis—quite the contrary. But Germany believes people should know the evil of history as well as the good.

After visiting the documentation center, we went to the Nuremburg courtroom where the Nazis were put on trial after the war ended. Although we didn’t have time to see it, the courthouse had a museum about the trial. The guide explained that it was a museum because it celebrated justice. True justice, that is, not the Nazi type of justice where you were presumed guilty and judged by a kangaroo court. There were even some acquittals among the Nuremburg defendants.

So what does this have to do with writing? It made me realize how important it is to ensure that fiction—and especially historical fiction—does not celebrate wrong. I’ve heard it said that every antagonist should have at least one likeable characteristic, and that may be true for individual human antagonists. But the historical setting can be an antagonist, too, and evil never has a positive side.

The distinction isn’t always easy, though. Take my recently completed middle-grade novel, Desert Jewels. There were some good things that came out of the Japanese incarceration. For example, Japanese high school students in California were integrated with Caucasians and other races, and they never got the chance to be sports stars or school leaders because those roles always went to the white students. In the camps, the Japanese American students came into their own because they didn’t have to compete with people who believed they were a “superior” race. It’s tempting to celebrate this outcome as a result of the incarceration, but that would turn an injustice into something good. It’s better to celebrate the spirit of the Japanese youths who took advantage of the opportunity when it came.

That may seem like a small distinction, but it’s an important one. And I hope it’s a lesson I never forget.

What about you?

Near or Far?

Now that you have chosen a point of view, how closely do you want the reader to identify with the POV character or characters? Do you want us to look into their eyes and see their very souls? Or do you want to put some distance between us?

 

A distant POV is just what it says—distant. The reader views the character and his or her actions from across the room, seeing what any observant bystander does.

 

Middle distance is more like standing near the person. The reader can see the character’s expressions and guess what he or she is thinking or feeling, but it’s just a guess.

 

Close third person POV—sometimes called deep POV—takes the reader inside the character’s head. Readers know what the character is thinking and feeling as soon as it happens. And because we’re inside the character’s mind, the writer doesn’t have to use italics or say “he thought” or “she thought.” In fact, that ruins the moment. When you see an adorable baby coming toward you in a stroller, you don’t think, “I think that’s an adorable baby.” Your mind is much more direct. “What an adorable baby.” That’s the way it works for characters, too. And if you are trying to bring the reader up close and personal, use the character’s own wording. If he would use contractions or slang, put them in. If she uses stilted language when she talks, have her think that way, too—unless she’s pretending to be someone she isn’t.

 

Imagine that your POV character is a pyromaniac who just set a building on fire. Now he is standing nearby and watching it burn. These examples get increasingly closer.

 

A man stood in a doorway and watched the fire trucks arrive at the warehouse across the street. It had only taken them ten minutes, but the fire was already burning out of control.

 

As Marty watched the fire trucks arrive, a smile tugged at his lips. They had gotten there quickly, but the building was already a sheet of flames.

 

The colors were beautiful. The orange of the flames. The red of the fire trucks. Momma’s lime-green dress as she stood frozen at the top of the stairs. But nothing was as satisfying as her screams. Nine years ago now, and they were fading faster each time.

 

In the first example, we see what any observer can see, but we have to get closer to see the smile that wants to escape. And the last example takes us right inside Marty’s mind.

 

Playing with distance is like taking pictures with a zoom lens. Staying at the same setting all the time makes for boring pictures and, with some exceptions, for boring story-telling. Varying the distance can change the effect and add interest. But do it gradually or at a paragraph or scene break. Abrupt changes take your reader out of the story.

 

These techniques work well with third person and omniscient POV. They are less successful with first person since that POV puts the reader in the character’s head all the time. But there is still some room to play with distance. There was no “he” in the last example above, and it could be either first or third person. Adding “I” moves the camera a little farther away.

 

Now go out and write that novel. Experiment with different POVs and distances. Then choose what works best and do it right.

 

Because POV matters.



Playing God

Omniscient point of view is a little like playing God.

Imagine that the leopard in the picture is actually outside the fence, looking in. She is not involved in the action of the story, which occurs on this side of the wire. She can see the entire plot from beginning to end, and even before and after. She can also see into each character’s thoughts. If she uses all her knowledge when narrating the story, that’s an omniscient point of view.

Omniscient POV does not require the narrator to see things through a particular character’s eyes, and head-hopping within a scene is allowed. The writer talks to the reader directly rather than through one or more characters, although she might not identify herself as the writer. This POV was popular in the “olden days” of Charles Dickens and George Eliot but is mostly out of style now.

I said “mostly,” because some modern writers have used it very effectively. But here’s the rub, as Hamlet would say. If the omniscient point of view is done wrong, it looks like a multiple-third-person point of view riddled with errors: a mistake rather than a choice.

As a reader in the 21^st century, I find that the omniscient point of view works only if I am clued in immediately for a short story or within the first page or two for a novel AND before the first character in the story speaks. Here are some examples of what works. 

• Fairytales and folk tales tend to be told in omniscient point of view, as are some modern-day fantasies. The classic “once upon a time” clues the reader in.

 

• In Holes, Louis Sachar talks directly to the reader, and he makes sure you can’t miss it. After a short first chapter that describes Camp Green Lake but contains no dialogue and no defined characters, Sachar begins the second chapter this way:

     The reader is probably asking: Why would anyone go to Camp Green Lake? 

• In this example from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, notice the clear author intrusion in the second paragraph. I’ll give you the opening paragraph as well.

     Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

     Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is less direct but equally effective. The first paragraph reads like this:

     Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

J.K. Rowling has planted at least two clues in that paragraph. First, it starts with “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley” rather than focusing on either of them, as is normally the case when using a third person point of view. (E.g., “Mr. Dursley liked to tell his wife that the Dursleys were a perfectly normal family, thank you very much.”) Second, the next sentence contains language they might use to describe themselves in appropriate circumstances but not before they knew something strange or mysterious was coming.

And if that isn’t clue enough, the fourth paragraph starts by addressing the reader (“our story”) and telling us something about the future—something that is clearly not within the Dursley’s knowledge at the time.

     When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.

     None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

The first paragraph could conceivably be a POV error, but when followed by the fourth, we know it was intentional. That’s why we don’t question the fifth paragraph, which tells us something outside the Dursleys’ knowledge. By now we understand that this is an omniscient narrator and we are not confined to anyone’s head.

Even when the author tries to clue the reader in, omniscient can still be a bad choice. Since head-hopping is allowed within a scene, many writers think they can use it whenever they want. But that can be just as jarring in omniscient as it is in multiple third-person. And the practice makes sophisticated readers wonder if the author is ignorant about POV.

While omniscient can seem like a godsend (pun intended) for a lazy writer, it actually tends to highlight that laziness. So unless you are an experienced author who fully understands omniscient POV, I don’t recommend it.

In the examples given above, the storyteller never identifies himself or herself as anybody other than a disembodied author, making it a purely omniscient POV. Another option is to use a sort of hybrid POV that combines elements of omniscient with elements of first or third person by providing a flesh-and-blood narrator who tells the story after-the-fact. This could be either one of the characters involved in the main action or a bystander who knows the story. As with omniscient POV, however, you need to start by identifying the POV for the reader, usually by introducing the narrator and making it clear that the story is being told after-the-fact.

Here is how Barbara Gregorich does it in Dirty Proof:

     She wrenched the door open as if doorknobs were disposable, nuisances rather than aids. I flinched, scattering a handful of index cards across my desk. Of course, I didn’t know it was a she when the doorknob clattered, so I’m not telling the story in its proper sequence. But what burst in was a she, very definitely.

It doesn’t have to be a conventional storyteller, either. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the story is narrated by Death. When I said to make it a flesh-and-blood narrator, I used that phrase figuratively. The narrator needs a personality and a presence but not necessarily a physical body.

There is one other point of view that (barely) deserves mention, and that is second person. This is the story where the narrator is identified by “you.” I have read only one or two second-person stories in recent years, but that is more than enough. I found second person very disrupting, and I never read that author again. So if you want to gather a loyal following, don’t try it.

Next week I will cover psychic distance, which can be used effectively in both third person and omniscient POV.