May 15, 2009

Surprise! I just returned from ten days in England!

We visited homes of famous authors, Chepstow and Goodrich castles, the Tintern Abbey ruins, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, and Oxford. We hiked in Wales along the Wye River, rode trains, navigated the Underground in London, and learned to drive on the left side of the road. My absolute favorite times were visiting Jane Austen’s homes in Bath and Chawton Village, plus a 90-minute private tour of C.S. Lewis’ home by the wonderful warden of The Kilns. (More about the Lewis home later.)

Our super-generous children gave us plane tickets to the U.K. last year for our annivesary, and I planned and saved for this trip all year. I didn’t mention it before we left because I’d heard that burglars were high tech now and read blogs to find out when people would be leaving their homes unattended. I left my computer behind, and a friend posted my pre-written blog entries. (Thank you, Joanna!) I didn’t even check email when gone. I wanted to immerse myself in the worlds of Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis–and it was pure heaven on earth.

Kinship of Writers

Jane’s home in Chawton was where she revised Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice for publication. Here she also wrote Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and part of another novel before becoming ill. After visiting Jane’s house in Chawton, I felt a kinship with her. She lived in the kind of home I would have loved (see below): several hundred years old, two stories, cozy fireplaces in every room, big flower and vegetable gardens, set on a cobblestone street lined with tiny shops and thatched-roof cottages.

Her writing desk (above–seen behind glass) was tiny. I was struck by the contrast between her small desk, just big enough for her paper and ink well, and my two desks back home covered with computers, printers, books, notebooks, and assorted junk. Jane had no shelves of how-to writing books, no writing room of her own, no Internet or cell phone.

She wrote in the mornings, after breakfast, before helping her mother and sister with household tasks or visiting or entertaining numerous nieces and nephews. She put her writing first in her day, before it got taken over by friends or family or other obligations. There was a lesson for me!

She also wrote about what she knew and experienced–and what interested her–despite pressure from her publisher to write what would make more money. They wanted gothic and historical romances, not her “simple little stories” about her everyday village life and how several families affected each other. (Remember: although her books are historical to her present-day fans, she was writing contemporary fiction.) Her heroes and heroines who learned about their character flaws and overcame them–like Darcy’s pride and Lizzie’s tendency toward hasty judgments–were considered too tame for the reading public.

Write Your Passion

I loved reading Jane’s responses to the publisher’s pressure. Her replies (there were photocopies of her letters) basically said that she could only write what they wanted if she were literally starving, and even though historical romances might be more popular or profitable than her “domestic stories of country villages…I would be hung before I could finish the first chapter…No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way, though I may never succeed again.” Wouldn’t that same publisher be astounded today to see the thousands of fans who still flock to the Jane Austen walking tours in Bath, the Jane Austen Centre, and her home in Chawton, who buy her books and watch movies made of them? Isn’t there a lesson for all writers here?

Perhaps this is what Jane was thinking when she wrote (in Mansfield Park): “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

(I hope this blog makes sense. I’ve been up since 2 a.m. My body still thinks it’s in England–or wishes it was!)

January 16, 2009

I have a confession to make. My Christmas tree is still up, until tomorrow, at least. The Christmas season is so rushed sometimes that I don’t feel I have enough time to enjoy it before Christmas. Since I moved south a few years ago and bought my first artificial tree, I’ve been taking the tree down when I felt like Christmas was over. (I enjoyed it so much the first time that I didn’t take it down until Valentine’s Day!) I loved the looks on people’s faces when they walked into my living room. They obviously thought I was confused about what time it was.

Keeping Their Time Straight

My characters often have the same problem. They forget what day or week or month it is. (Er, I forget what time it is in their lives.) Events get out of order, as my critique group will point out. It’s an easy thing to do, especially after big revisions where you’ve moved events around. Still, you need to keep track of the events in your characters’ lives, or you’re in trouble.

On a new site called Novel Matters, they’ve noted two cool FREE web tools to help you with this problem. One is called OurTimeLines, where you can fill in your character’s birth date, and then find out what was going on in the world at that time, when he went to school, what disasters happened in the world during his lifetime, personal events, historical events, etc. For fun, put in your own birth dates and see what you find. I saw that Velcro was invented when I was four years old and pantyhose when I was nine. Who knew? (You get major historical facts too–not just fun stuff.)

Visual Time Line

Another site mentioned was Dipity where you can generate a visual time line for yourself or any character. You can put down the major events in your character’s life, complete with notes, photos, videos, etc. A fun way to organize your research. (I’d want to print out a hard copy myself as well.)

There are many ways to keep track of the times in our characters’ lives, and these tools certainly make it fun. Maybe I should generate a holiday timeline for myself. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll watch “White Christmas” just one more time before I take down the tree.

December 15, 2008

It’s time for the rubber to meet the road. While it was fun to write like the wind during NaNoWriMo, it’s time to get down to work and re-shape the messy rough draft into a publishable book manuscript. I ran into trouble right away with a main character I loved–but who was decidedly limp and forgettable on the page. How could I make her memorable? I found help in an unexpected source: a market guide.

In Book Markets for Children’s Writers 2009, I read an article called “Characters in Control: Charismatic, Flawed, Memorable.” Compiled from interviews with editors from major publishing houses and well known agents, the article shed some very helpful light on what to do with my main character and her sidekick.  Much of the advice in the article shows writers how to develop the type of character that readers love to root for.

Advice from the Pros

“I love character-driven fiction because I want to get into that character’s head and breathe their air, experience the world through their eyes…” says Delacorte Press Executive Editor Wendy Loggia. “Action can happen anywhere. A juicy character can make even the most mundane aspects of life entertaining.”

“Characters’ lives can become almost as real to us as our own,” explains Rachel Orr, a literary agent at the Prospect Agency and former editor at HarperCollins. A successful character is someone whom readers connect with, but “these characters are far from being types. They have original ways of looking at the world, unusual quirks, strong passion, and most importantly, flaws…. Perfect, preachy characters are not only flat and unrealistic, but they’re no fun for anyone to read about, particularly if you’re a tween or teen reader.”

And Michelle Poploff, Vice President and Editorial Director of Bantam, Delacorte Dell Books for Young Readers, explains, “Underdog characters appeal to readers, whether it’s a quirky character, or someone trying to do their best but sometimes falling short. If a reader sees him or herself in the characters that adds appeal.” (FYI: I have permission to use the quotes from the article.)

Quirky Characters: Yes or No?

Last Friday, I talked about the characters in the book club discussion choice, The Egypt Game. The main character, April, was described like this when her friend first meets her: “Her hair was stacked up in a pile that seemed to be more pins than hair, and the whole thing teetered forward over her thin pale face. She was wearing a big, yellowish-white fur thing around her shoulders, and carrying a plastic purse almost as big as a suitcase. But most of all it was the eyelashes. They were black and bushy looking,and the ones on her left eye were higher up and sloped in a different direction.”

She certainly sounds quirky in that description, but without her very touching problems with her mother and her outstanding imagination, she would have just been an oddball. You don’t want “over-the-top, outlandish figures in the name of creativity or originality.”

Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) put it this way: “You can create the quirkiest character in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good character, or one that anyone will care about. Sometimes quirky just equals off-putting and weird.”

The article went on at length about how to create memorable characters, make the best use of character history, finding character motivation and voice, and more. After reading the article, I can spot quite a few weaknesses in my novel’s main character, and I know where to start to bring her to life.

Back to the keyboard!

July 21, 2008

March 31, 2008

If you’re not familiar with Gail Gaymer Martin’s fiction and blog, you’re missing out. For a thorough course in character development, I hope you’ll check out her recent blog posts. Print them out and you have an entire course on creating characters.

Here are some posts you won’t want to miss from her blog:

• Jan. 18–Birthing Realistic Characters
• Jan. 21–Defining Characters
• Jan. 24–Backstory and How to Use It Effectively
• Jan. 28–Characters’ Personalities and Names
• Jan. 31–Developing Characters’ Appearance
• Feb. 3–Dressing Characters
• Feb. 6–Characters and Their Mannerisms
• Feb. 10–Vocal Qualities and Characterization
• Feb. 13–Characters and Talking Without Words