Monthly Archives: May 2013

Bud, Not Buddy

. Books I am glad were written . , , , , , ,

Bud, not buddyPublished in 1999, a winner of both a Newberry Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award.   I can see why!  This story is like a favorite song.  Where the melody is catchy, the lyrics are moving, the background instruments get highlighted in all the right places, and it’s easy on the ears.  Masterfully it comes together and appears seamless and effortless.

Another historical fiction novel that belies the difficulty of the craft, but gives me inspiration to keep at it nonetheless.  This will be one I reread to study how Christopher Paul Curtis did many things, but most significantly voice and characterization.   I also need to reread it because I enjoyed it so much that I zipped through it and forgot to pay attention to how the story was crafted.

It is written in the first person, which is a challenge I am not up for.   Clearly Mr. Curtis loved Bud, and most likely identified with his main character.

As a teacher, I told the students it helped to make a mental movie of the story to help with visualization and comprehension. This story made it so easy to do that.  The details did not beat you over the head, but was just enough so that I could take what the author gave me and incorporate it with my experiences and paint a great picture.

Bud was not a character in a story but a boy so much like many of the boys I have taught.  He had a funny sense of humor, a couple eccentricities that made him who he was, and very deep hurts that he dealt with so quietly.  Truly well done.  And one that I am glad was written

On Dialogue

. Writer's Craft . , , , , , , , ,

dialogue bubblesThere is much for me to learn!  So very much to learn!  The more I read about writing dialogue, the tougher it seems to do well.

So here is what I’ve figured out so far.

What dialogue isn’t:

  • a way to relay information to your reader.  That really stinks, because we aren’t suppose to “tell” our readers either.  Somehow we are suppose to sneak information into the text without being obvious about it.
  • a recap of street dialogue.  Real conversation often gets heavy in the kind of details that would bore a reader to no end.  We can probably think of a friend that could use adding commas and periods when they talk.
  • natural.  Alice LaPlante said, “You want to make it sound natural, but that doesn’t mean that it is.”
  • filler space

What dialogue is:

  • reader friendly.  Dialogue quickens the pace, puts white space on the page, and gives the reader a little relief.
  • balanced with action and description.  You are not writing a play (talking to myself here).  Dialogue cannot stand alone.  The full picture is painted when dialogue is followed with action and description.
  • moves the story forward.  It has to have a purpose that is related to the plot.
  • filled with subtext.  Trust your reader to be able to read between the lines.
  • built on the history of the characters.  Consider the things that you don’t need to say when talking to your best friend that you would if you were talking to an acquaintance.  Or when you are meeting someone new, the guarded superficial dialogue still carries a tone.  There is hidden dialogue built on history, intentions, and hopes and that will be true with characters.
  • conveys emotions without telling the emotion.
  • elliptical.  I heard Lin Oliver say this before, but I’m not super clear on it.  What I understand this to mean is speakers respond not just to what was said, but also to what wasn’t said.  They interpret the line, the subtext, the history, the intentions and tone, and reply with all of this in mind.  So the characters are filling in the gaps in the conversation in their minds and reply to each other in this form.  Is this right?
  • unique to each character.  Each character must be well defined in your head so the dialogue sounds like him/her.
  • brief
  • what is said is a glimmer of what isn’t.  And sometimes it is a complete fabrication.  Our characters are far more mysterious than most people are in real life.  But if we write dialogue that is true to how people really sound, our characters are flat, puppet-like, and the veil that has been hiding the author is ripped to shreds.

I think there is a giant asterisk over this whole thing.  Know your reader.  If you are writing for young readers, even as old as middle grade,  a little more needs to be transparent.  We don’t want to frustrate our reader to the point they put down the book.  Especially when they may only be reading because it is SSR (silent sustained reading) time and they have to read, so they picked your book off the stack.  Writing for kids is tough.  There are many who are resistant to reading for many reasons.  We want to intrigue, but not frustrate.

That was the ol’ teacher slipping out.  But as I write, I keep in mind very specific students who struggled to read, would never do it on their own, but nonetheless enjoyed literature circle.

So with that it mind.  Next time: Making your story worth talking about.

Til then, enjoy playing with words!

One more thing – What children’s book has great dialogue that is worth studying?

Inside Out and Back Again

. Books I am glad were written . , , , , , , , ,

Inside OutInside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

This was one of those stories that goes down easy.  Though the content was compelling  and deep, the presentation was gentle and unpretentious.   It’s apparent simplicity is misleading, for Lai is masterful with language.  She communicates succinctly with powerful words ideas that many could not convey nearly as well with entire paragraphs.

It is one of those experiences that seems easy to do; makes me want to try to write a story in verse myself.  I am sure I will quickly realize that I have minimized the difficultly of such a task!  Oh how her powerful management of language belies it’s easiness!

Inside Out and Back Again is a historical fiction account of a little girl, Há.  The reader follows her through her journey from war torn Vietnam to the United States.  Her  adjustment to a new culture and the mistreatment that her Vietnamese family face mingle with the seemingly insurmountable loss she endured.

As a novice writer, I appreciate Lai’s word pictures and her ability to conjure deep emotions with minimal words.  Let me share a taste:

 Rations

On the third day

we join the sea

toward Thailand.

The commander says

it’s safe enough

for his men to cook,

for us to go above deck,

for all to smile a little.

He says there’s enough

rice and water

for three weeks,

but rescue should happen

much earlier.

Do not worry,

ships from all countries

are out looking for us.

Morning, noon, and night

we each get

one clump of rice,

small, medium, large,

according to our height,

plus one cup of water

no matter our size.

The first hot bite

of freshly cooked rice,

plump and nutty,

makes me imagine

the taste of ripe papaya

although one has nothing

to do with the other.

I opened the book randomly, to be honest, to find something to share.  I was confident that wherever I opened would delineate my point.  From six brief stanzas we get a vivid picture of the scarcity she endures on this ship (while I sit here luxuriously munching on chips and pineapple salsa) as well as her feelings about her situation.  The wonderful part is that our imagination is left to fill in the gaps, which isn’t hard to do when you have the rest of the story in context.

What I need to take away from this magnificent work is how well the author strained all of her potential ideas and determined the essential parts, how powerful precise words are, and the importance of leaving some things to the imagination.  What is of most importance is Thanhha Lai created a piece that makes me want to read it again AND stirs in me a desire to write!

Oh, how can I forget to mention?  National Book Award Winner and Newberry Honor Book.

Show, Don’t Tell, using Body Language

. Writer's Craft . , , , , , , , , , , ,

Non-verbal communication makes up the majority of how we express ourselves.  So easy in person.  Such a different beast when trying to make a story come to life on two dimensional pages. 

Body language is intended to communicate emotion in the story without TELLING the emotion.  During my reading of my rough draft and in my first rewrite, I find myself relying on some of the same body language over and over.  I am not sure how many times my characters shrug, nod, furrow their brow, and purse their lips.  SOMEBODY HELP ME!

Learning to write is certainly a steep curve!

Where to turn to first? Well, body language is about the body.  So let’s begin by thinking about body parts and what they can do.  Hair: bounces, falls in the eyes.  Eyebrows: lift, squeeze together, arch.  Lips: purse, curl, press, whistle, pucker.  Shoulders: sag, shrug, raise up to the ear.  Hands: clench, fidget, fold, tap.  Feet: stomp, tap, stand on tippy-toe, shuffle.  What about knees? ears? chest? arms? nose? neck? eyes? stomach? toes?

What else? Well, bodies move.  What are some common movements?  (Stories need to keep the action, so how can we keep our characters moving in non-redundant ways?) walk, sit, look, run.  A thesaurus is a good place to start, right?  But what about what movement implies?  A lean in – we are engaged, a step back – we are considering the big picture when making a decision, doodling – we are thinking, a hand to the forehead – we have forgotten something, annoyed with ourselves.

Writers are said to be voracious readers, keen observers, and compulsive writers.  So, alas, I must assign homework because I am surely not the expert on body language.  Ah! Dang! I said homework!

1.  Take your favorite book down from the shelf.  Skim for use of body language.  Record the author’s words and your incites in your journal.

  • “Papa suddenly crossed the room and put his arms around them both. He kissed the top of each head. . .” – nurturing, reassuring, parental, security
  • “The street soldiers were often young, sometimes ill at ease, and Annemarie remembered how the Giraffe had, for a moment let his harsh pose slip and had smiled at Kirsti.” – a pose can slip, someone can momentarily reveal their true self before wearing their mask once again.
  • “Mama put a hand on Papa’s arm.”  – concern, protective
  • “Annemarie relaxed her clenched fingers of her right hand, which still clutched Ellen’s necklace.  She looked down, and saw that she had imprinted the Star of David into her palm.”  Yes!  SO GOOD!  The picture is painted and I can sense how completely petrified Annemarie was and the relief she now feels.  Bonus- GREAT VERBS: clench, clutch, imprint!

2.  Go on a field trip.  Hooray!  Go to your favorite coffee house, mall, or to be really effective, somewhere similar to a scene in your book.  OBSERVE and RECORD body language.  What is it telling you?  If you can hear the dialogue, how does the body language extend the meaning of the words?

3.  Watch TV! (Didn’t you love it when the teacher said you could watch tv for homework, but then the let down, “Watch the State of the Union.”) Here I am telling you to watch “Lie to Me.”  It is a show that specializes on analyzing body language, especially facial.  Or watch a movie.  I am thinking about watching “Pursuit of Happiness” because my MC is always on the go.  Record the body language that stands out to you and what it communicates.

Sorry to have to give homework, but I have to do it too!  Think about how much our writing will improve if we actually do these things!

So Read! Observe! and Write!

Next time: Effective Dialogue

Til then, Enjoy Playing With Words

Bonus: Three websites I found (though there are certainly more out there).

The One That Did It For Me!

. Books I am glad were written . , , , , , , ,

This is the book that did it for me.  I was in fourth grade and I read words well, but I didn’t pay attention while reading so my comprehension was less than impressive.  We went to library every week and the miniscule library at my Catholic school did not excite me.  But I remember coming along Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman by Dorothy Sterling.Image

I had this unique feeling of not wanting to put the book down as I read page after page of this amazing woman. Prior to reading this story, I don’t recall learning much about the underground railroad.  But this stuck and it made me want to read more.  (A good book can have a greater power than a good teacher.  Sorry to say, but true.) The excitement for reading did not continue, even though I volunteered regularly at the local public library.  But this planted a little seed in me that has grown, many years later, into an enjoyment for reading historical and realistic fiction, and now an aspiration to write one of my own.

Here’s to you, Dorothy Sterling.  Thank you for inadvertently planting that seed.

Hmm, I think it is time to read that story again! Time to head to the library 🙂

Which one did it for you?

Tackling Character’s Voice in 3 Ways

. Writer's Craft . , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Who am I? courtesy uskidsmags.com

Who am I?
courtesy uskidsmags.com

Which is easier: creating life or performing total reconstructive surgery where no vital organ or system is left untouched?

The nice thing about writing the rough draft was the liberty to write garbage just to move the story forward and find the end.  Now it’s time for surgery.  We’ll be hanging out in Revision Step Three: First Rewrite for a little bit.

During my reread, one of the things that stood out to me was the feeling that the main characters did not have a strong enough voice that easily identified them.  I don’t want my reader to rely on dialogue tags to know who is speaking.  The three characters I most need to focus on are my main character, the antagonist, and my main character’s sidekick.  These guys get the most words on the page, so they better count.

There are three things I am doing to help me craft their separate voices.

1.  Write a scene that occurs outside of the story.  Stories generally start on the day when life changes for the MC.  To help learn the character’s voice I have written scenes that occurred prior to or outside of the story, when life was normal, an everyday kind of conflict, an everyday kind of event.  No high drama, just take a look at your character before their world gets turned upside down.  I wrote a scene for my sidekick eating breakfast with her family the morning of the Great Fire.  It was lovely and funny, and I hate that there is no purpose for it in the story, but it’s nice having this special scene just for me.  It made me more familiar with the sidekick by helping me see her in her natural environment.

2.  Change the point of view. My story is being written from the third person, omniscient to the MC, but not all characters.  For a while my MC was not turning out the way I wanted him to be and, honestly, I didn’t really like him.  I rewrote the opening scene in the first person and I really got inside his head.  This naturally changed other parts of the opening scene, but I think it was all for the better.  I am keeping the story in third person, but stepping out and writing “diary entries” brings me tighter to my character without so much of the author’s filter getting in the way.

My Favorite:

3. Determine your character’s personality type.  There is a lot of research that goes into writing.  One of the golden nuggets I happened upon was The Myers Briggs Test.  Four short questions later and I found out which of sixteen different personalities my MC fell into.  Then I found High Level Description of the Sixteen Personality Types.  What do I like about this?

  • It’s fun – who doesn’t like to take multiple choice personality tests?
  • It validated my perception of my MC, antagonist, and sidekick when I started reading their descriptions.
  • It gave me ideas to consider to make their personalities deeper.  None of them are the same personality type as I am.  (Of course I took it too.  How could I resist?)  Therefore, I don’t think exactly as they would.  For example, my MC is an ISTJ (Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Thinking), which the High Level people termed “The Duty Fulfiller.”  In the research I read, “The ISTJ’s word is as good as gold, and they honor their commitments faithfully.”  Well, I have a scene where my MC goes back on his word.  Even though this needs to happen for the sake of my book’s pacing, the MC has to be really conflicted about it.  AND the sidekick has to show the MC the value in the changed plan or else there is no way an ISTJ  would go for it.  A couple lines of dialogue and the text will be richer and the MC will be deeper.

OK – two bonus ideas

4. Raise the conflict.  Every conflict the character is in reveals more about him.  Keep making life harder for him and you will find out who he is.

5.  Skip the dialogue.  Once I start writing dialogue a scene can get away from me, a bit like chasing rabbits.  Write a scene (with conflict of course!) but very limited dialogue.  Stay close to the character’s thoughts, body language, reactions. You are most likely making this kid up, the more you know about him, the more you can reveal, the better the reader can identify with him.

What tricks do you use for developing your character’s voice?

I know you are going to take the personality test.  I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours 🙂

Next time:  Show don’t tell, using body language (I don’t know how many times my characters shrug and nod.  Somebody help me!)

Til then,

Enjoy Playing with Words!

BTW – I am attending the Wild Wild Midwest Conference with SCBWI this weekend.  Of course they have the no blogging policy, but who knows what ideas will spin from it!