Category Archives: Writing

We’re all Reacting to Life

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Recently I began to think about the (fiction-writing) imperative that a main character must make things happen.

One of the most consistent criticisms of Linnea, the central character of my Lindorm novel, is that she’s too passive.  “Everything happens to  her,” someone said, “and she’s always having to close the gap and react.“

Linnea is my first (grown up) heroine.

When I created her I was telling a story. I wasn’t thinking of forms or expectations (hey, I was just trying to make word count half the time).  She grew out of my image of this wounded girl with too much strength to simply roll over and take it.  She continued to think and walk, and even fight when she could find (or create) the weapons.

I really admired her, because she did what I wanted to be able to do: choose the right way to respond.  I wasn’t thinking about how she was “always reacting” because that’s the way (probably unconsciously) I saw myself and people in general.

And I still do.

Lots of people have repeated the line about how our character is not shaped/displayed so much by what happens to us as by how we respond to what happens to us.

The fantasy of a proactive, powerful protagonist is part of our collective hunger to have more control than we have.

I believe most our life what we do with what we’ve been given: given to us either by powers outside of us, outside our control; or what we’ve given ourselves, in the form of decisions we’ve already made, and are now living out.

For example, being married and having children dramatically restricts the number of choices I have.  Because I’ve made the choice to live honorably.  This is a proactive choice I made. No one coerced me into it.  But it now restricts my “options”.

Every Yes we declare is a hundred silent Nos.   The more we live, the more choices we make, the more we are hemmed in by our own freedoms.

I would argue this is why the Young Adult category is one of the most exciting places to write; not only because your characters have more genuine, clean, and life-shaping choices to make over the course of the tale, but also because those choices are felt by those who read them.

Young people are trying on decisions through their reading, experimenting with how they fit.

Readers who are older, who’ve already experienced the profound familiarity breaking away, of falling in love, of screwing up massively and wondering if there’s redemption, relive the fear and excitement.  This is what good stories are for, and as long as they bring us along for the ride (and we like the ride) I’m less concerned about who started the story.

I care most about how the characters end it.

Thinking Links

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Two posts I read last week made me think about my writing in a new way:

The Seven Virtues Every Writer Needs to Succeed

Which was a nice change from “discipline-” “organization-” “perseverance-” type lists I’ve read many times before.

What’s your Signature?

A lot of writing arenas talk about “brand” and how you need to market yourself to get read.

Steven King wrote in his book On Writing about life themes that come out of a writer.

But I rather like this concept and language better. It sounds more personal and poetic.

To answer the question I believe my stories all deal with the fragility and hunger of honest people searching for sustaining relationships.  I write a rebellion against what my critique friend calls “miscommunication as a plot device” and other relational gaffs that pit people against their feelings, not to grow them, but to create more story tension.

I call this Lazy Writing.

Another element my writing frequently addresses is the tension between helplessness and inaction. This is one of my favorite things about writing fantasy: as god of a whole new world I am able to say frequently, Yes, that first step is enough.

Not a little because I am assuring my own troubled heart that that first step is all that’s asked of me.

Novel Samples Available

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To give a quick update, I am now ~2/5ths through my latest revision (at least, there are 5 distinct sections, and I’m one chapter from being done with section #2).

I have had difficulty staying focused this round, and was relieved to find a reason.

The short version is that my life has been really stressful lately (I’ve moved, set up housekeeping, restarted homeschooling and attempted to restart our gluten-free eating.  Apparently too much for a single month’s efforts).

While the novel used to be my go-to recreation, the amount of tension in the story on top of the tension in my real life has been more than I’ve had energy for.

Did you know that your body processes stress and adrenaline (essentially) as it hits the brain, not waiting for reality.  This is why worry can be so damaging (your body is continually gearing up for the worst), and why we feel so exhausted after an intense story.

This really just entered my awareness last week when my writing friend (Hi, Jennifer!) brought up two categories of murder mysteries: thrillers and cozies.  People looking for a rush read the first kind, and people who read to relax gravitate to the second.

So I did question for a while whether I’m writing the right story or the right genre, mainly because I’m so weary I question whether I can continue creating a whole world (and an intense world, no less!).

But then I find I can’t really quit, so on we go.

I’ve decided to release the story in sections to people I know, so if you’re willing to give feedback and we’ve talked before, comment here or send me an e-mail and I’ll get you the first block (then the next once you comment on the first).

The third and fourth sections contain the most changes for this newest draft, so they may be longer in coming, but several of you have been so patient already I wanted to give you the option of reading a bit of the story, if you would like, while you wait for the full.

Weaving Tales is Live

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So I did it.

Turns out (and I was very excited to learn this) the package currently supporting my blog has a lot more room than I’m using. So all I had to do was buy the domain ($4.99 the first year; I can so do this), and put my info into the template to have a basic website.

Naturally I’ll like best to have a blog-based (and therefore interactive) site, but this will do to celebrate securing the site I’ve wanted for a long time.

Check it out: WeavingTales.com

Meeting the Readers

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There’s not a lot (in my writing world) much more exciting to me than meeting and talking with the type of young people who will be reading my book.

I’ve had a few delicious encounters with teenage fantasy fans, and they all go about the same way. In my half-curious, half-outgoing way, I start asking questions about the sort of stuff they read.  I love hearing what draws somebody into a book, because I want to make a book that draws people in.

Last night I talked with a trio of teenage girls and was very disappointed to hear (though not for the first time) that the *cover* is the first thing that makes them pick up a book to learn more.

Disappointed, not because I’m not the same way, but because I know I shouldn’t expect to have any control over what the cover looks like. Kinda drives home my powerlessness.

I also found words coming out of my mouth that weren’t quite fair, like, “I don’t like it when authors seem to be trying to teach you something– like a character does something bad and everything else that happens is to show you how bad it was.”

This is both true and not-true.

I don’t like didactic books that make a story serve the lesson the author wants to teach. I do like stories that leave me feeling like I know more than I did in the beginning.

Generally, because of the kinds of books I read, I’m observing more about interpersonal relationships, or emotional intelligence, than anything “factual,” but those are things I’m not seeing a lot of alternate teachers for, so I’ll take what I can get.

I don’t have to “believe” it all, obviously, but good authors definitely make me think, and frequently see things in a new way. 

THIS I like.

A lot.

But giving them my blog and e-mail (Hi, girls, if you’re reading this.) I was forced to look at this website in a different way, realizing that Untangling Tales probably isn’t going to be able to serve my goals as a writer, simply because there is way. too much stuff going on here.

So I’m playing with the idea of an author/novel site to move my fiction-specific stuff to, and I’ll keep y’all posted.  The domain I want is still available…

For the record I am down to two blogs: this one and the family scrapbook.

Staying Happy

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I started writing a different post, about what I would change if I didn’t “owe” anyone, if I were free to be self-centered and do whatever I want to do.

Then I realized, I kinda am.

That is, unlike the people I genuinely pity, I really am living the life I want to. And it’s not easy.

So I didn’t pick an easy life.
Moving on.

This brilliant (unpublished) post enumerated the three directions I feel pulled in, and I said–

What? My world’s falling apart over three things?

Now, granted, my world was not falling apart (just my focus), and there are a LOT more than three things on my mind right now (each category has numerous subsections), but to see clear sections has settled me down, and I’m back to believing I have a reasonable number of things to manage.

Tragicomedy

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I was just working out some story grids for my POV characters

[Character] wants [Goal]
In order to [Motivation]
But [Complications complicate]

And Tykone’s grid cracked me up. There seems to be a fine potential for comedy here (something I’ve felt deficient in), but I have to work into mean-author mode before it could be fully realized.

Tykone wants to rescue Linnea
in order to prove he has value as a protector, establish his identity as he wishes it to be
but other people keep doing it first.

I laughed out-loud just writing that. But Tykone himself is so serious and tragic it seems backward and near-cruel to make him the core of jokes or running gags.

I mean, in the end, in good comedic fashion, he needs to be rescued by her.

But I don’t think I can rub his face in his own weakness.

Yippee!

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There it is: I did it. 50,024 words in 30 days.

I have discovered things I didn’t know were in it (Basketball tryouts, just today), and found new things that were in me (attitudes toward the challenges and delights of witnessing).

A summary:

It’s not until 17-year-old Gydeon Calder visits his mother’s homeland for Christmas break that he discovers she is from another world. One where magic is very real. Back home on Earth his father wrestles with suicidal thoughts and the question of whether his family is better off without him.

When Gy’s mother becomes ill in her homeworld of Eshe, he brings her back to Earth with the help of a magical girl who for a time was a swan. Sharizalli is used to an openly violent world where she hid her true thoughts and feelings. In Moscow Idaho, Shay discovers a world where threats are less-open and relationships can hang on speaking the whole truth.

While Gy seeks to restore his parents’ will to live, and with it their marriage, fear mongers from Eshe infiltrate Gy and Shay’s high school in positions of authority. Shay must decide how much of her old life to reveal, and whether she can sacrifice the ease of her new life to save those she has just begun to love.

~

So does that sound melodramatic? Maybe confusing?

Between The Veritas Project and The Fairy Tale Novels (among other titles)  which I’ve read in the last year, I’m firmly convinced of a vibrant, if small, audience for solidly Christian and morally grounded fantasy and adventure stories.

I feel like I’m supposed to be a part of that, and prayed a lot through this month that my stories, however and whenever they become more widely read, will be useful and encouraging to those who read them.

I’m Not the Reader You’re Writing For

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Readers read to worry. They want to be lost in the intense emotional anticipation over the plight of a character in trouble.

–The Kill Zone

This is only the latest place I’ve read this analysis/assertion. And this has never been true of me.

(I don’t think it’s a small thing to observe that I’ve only heard this assertion either from men or women quoting men.  Men think knocking heads together is funny — this is science, not sexism– so the concept of pain = entertainment is already established. And should not be heresy for me to question.)

Just this weekend I put down another book because for me, the writer was too good at her job of conveying intense emotional distress.

I opened a novel that was play for the Jane Eyre governess/romance genre published by Bethany House, which gave me the hope of a clean play on the theme (in general I’m afraid to invest in such stories, so a Christian publishing house is a nice safety net).

The prologue (yes, there was a prologue) opened with the heroine at age 12 hanging out with her drunken papa at the local pub.  She’s done this all her life, whiling away the hours by counting, which grew into a precocity at math.  On this particular day a Rich Man and his Son enter and Drunken Papa sees an easy mark, challenging Rich Man to set his boarding school educated son against a village Girl in a test of mathematics.

The emotionally astute Girl recognizes the Son’s agony at the prospect, interpreting it both as his lacking in that subject, and the familiar fear of losing a demanding father’s approval.  Drunken Papa offers a 10-guinea wager on 3 math problems (“Best two out of three.”) and Rich Man construes it as 30 guinea, which 12-year-old Girl knows her father cannot afford.

I got through her first (and correct) response to the first question, and her interpreting its affect on the stricken boy before I put the book away.

There just was no way for that to end well.

I gave that much to my husband the same night I read those pages, and he was really annoyed I couldn’t even remember the name of the book.  Said he was ready to go back to the store so I could track down the book and he could know how it ends.

I was *grabbed* emotionally, even intensely, but I wasn’t invested enough to feel these characters where worth the angst I would share for a few hundred pages.  I assumed that the inevitably agonizing ending wouldn’t be fully salved until the happy ending of the whole novel, and I couldn’t see enduring the knot that long.

Really, it was a brilliant opening.  Everything I’ve ever believed an author was supposed to do (not the least of which being establishing an *observant* POV character, which will be very useful in the course of the longer story).

But it was nothing I can feel peace about.

I’m not that kind of writer, and I’m not that kind of reader, either.

This is not the first, or second, time this has happened to me.

Can I learn from this?

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NaNo 2010

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Barring other changes, I’m planning to go for it this year.  For real.

I haven’t seriously tried NaNoWriMo (as in, a fully new work from page one) since I began the Lindorm in 2006.

Now I am in a critique group and getting serious help (and pushing!) on my novel, I realize I haven’t created for a long time.

I am committed to finishing the Lindorm novel (and eventually coming up with a brilliant and applicable title), but for these last couple weeks of October (prep) and the 30 days of November, I’m going to dive back into creating.

I’m excited. And now I have to choose which story to build: One based on the Grimms’ tale, The Water of Life (sort of like last year’s play-around, but more traditional) or a time-bending take on the Russian epic poem Tsar Saltan.

Technically I’ve already started the Russian one, and that’s the only reason I’m not convinced that’s the one to do: I might be too vested in it.

But, despite the fact I have 14,000 words on the old story, I have a whole new take on it that is a beautifully inspiring muddle of Saltan + Arabian Nights (no djinn this time, though) + Enchantment (a la O.S. Card).

That already feels like I’ve given away too much, but I’m really excited right now.

One tool I’m looking at to prepare is a post on the 5 most-important things to know about your novel before you start. Fascinating concept.