Reading Craft Book(s). Or not.

My friend Joyce Sweeney once said--and I'm sure I'm slightly paraphrasing: "Craft books are for when things aren't going well."

But, Joyce, I have a big shelf of them!
She's right though. That's way too-much-information unless something's going wrong. Start with your story. Begin with your characters. Keep writing till you get bogged down.
That's the time to see what's helped others, to explore lots of What ifs?, to find a trick to get you out of the Muddy Middle.

Before we took off to find a place to escape Florida's summer heat (which is turning out to be very hard this week), I grabbed a book by one of my favorite writers and teachers, ANN HOOD. I brought CREATING CHARACTER EMOTIONS with me. 
It's a perfect book for dipping into.

(And pictured, also, is the very cool notebook our Critique Group leader, Teddie Aggeles, gave us! I'm filling mine up fast.)

One interesting thing about this re-reading is finding little notes scribbled in the margins (Yes, I do dog-ear, scribble, sticky-note books if they're mine- don't you?). 
I've found thoughts about characters from two of my previous books and one WIP that may be "in progress" for a very long time! 

I grappled with emotions, especially for Theo and Azalea, and now smile-out-loud reading my notes.

I bought this book in January of 2008 when I was lucky enough to study under Ann at the fabulous Writers-in-Paradise conference. I love her examples, which have made me want to seek out some of the short stories and novels she references. Her exercises are excellent. She picks emotions like fear or happiness or grief, and shares things that work and things to avoid. This is a good choice to pick up with your writing notebook, to sit under a shade tree without your computer or your story racing through your fingers.

And since it's MONDAY and everybody is sharing what they're reading, I also re-read a picture book tucked away on my shelf. (I love picture books.)

Have you read Brian Lies's BATS AT THE BALLGAME. Hey, it's baseball season, people! Read all the baseball books you love. Right?

Re-reading this book makes me want to stop by the library and check out another favorite from Brian (truthfully, they all are favorites. I'm a big fan): BATS AT THE BEACH. 

This is what I said when I first shared this in a gift-buying blogpost: 

"When the grownup reading it continues the story even after the two-year-old lapchild wandered off, you know the book's a winner."

More Setting

Or maybe the title should be more ABOUT setting.

Goodness knows, I've blogged a few times about setting.

Just when I think I've got it figured out, I don't. Ever have that feeling?

Maybe I need a WORKSHEET.
Maybe I need a trip. Much as I love New Jersey, I could never set a novel for young readers here. Oh yes, we have our local color, but is it suitable for young eyes?

 (seen at the local deli)

And we have great food! But it's not food from my childhood. In fact, my children never cared much for NJ specialties so how could I possibly write about them.

(This is a Sloppy Joe. If you have never lived in NJ, it takes some explaining.)

Where a story takes place is almost as important to me as who is telling the story. That's why I've been noodling around to see what others have to say on the subject. I don't want to overdo the Spanish moss, the lizards, the pimento cheese.

Here's what I'm learning- I'll share a few links:

I love what Barbara O'Connor says about HOLES.
And she's said many things about setting over the life of her blog.

I have a tattered old notebook on a shelf with a few quotes from my favorite books: On the Road to Mr. Mineo's, for example.
("lazy days of summer stretch out before them like the highway out by the Waffle House" says more than most people could say in 3 paragraphs.)

And there's this: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/settings.shtml 
Or this: http://writeitsideways.com/21-writing-prompts-for-setting-a-scene-in-your-novel/


Also in that notebook-
A great memory of the Writers in Paradise week with Ann Hood. I love #1.

A few notes:

In all writing, the focus should be right there at the beginning, in the first sentences. We should know where we are and what we are in for.

1. Picture sentences. Close your eyes. If you can't picture it, it needs help.
2. In non-fiction, use all the devices of fiction: dialogue, setting, character, action, climax, resolution.
3. Find a central metaphor (examples: knitting, fire), something that gives your story meaning. 

Okay, writer and reader friends. Can setting be overdone? Does it limit the audience, especially in books for young readers? Do you have tricks to share with the rest of us? How exactly do you bring your scenes alive?

Writers in Paradise, My Book List

Although this random, un-alphabetized, somewhat messy list I've created offends my Librarian Sensibilities, I'm telling myself that it's a blog, not a bibliography. So here's my list, mostly taken from recommendations in Ann Hood's non-fiction workshop, with a few additions from Laura Lippman's Roundtable and listening to the other speakers. It is not all-inclusive. It does not include books written by our instructors/ speakers (Stewart O'Nan, Ann Hood, Laura Lippman, Michael Koryta, Ann Rittenberg, Jill Bialosky, Marc Fitten, etc). Nor does it include books on our recommended reading lists for reading before the week began. Just random and messy, you were warned.

Writers in Paradise Recommended books, January 2009

Ann Hood’s Nonfiction workshop:

Fly Truffler

Mercy Papers: a Memoir of Three Weeks (by Robin Romm)
A good example of structure.

Natural History of the Senses (by Diane Ackerman)
Dirt
Secret Currency of Love
Boys in My Youth (especially “Fourth State of Matter” by Joann Beard)

Liar (example of unreliable narrator in memoir)
Drinking: A Love Story (by Carolyn Knapp)


Other instructors’ references:
Arrogance (by JoAnna Scott)

Under the Red Flag (Ha Jin) “writing is kind of a mess but the truth of the story comes through”

Lorrie Moore (for examples of surprising the reader)

First Comes Love (by Marion Winik)

A Three Dog Life (by Abigail Thomas)

Writers in Paradise, the End

Since Friday was jam-packed and I had no time to write, this entry will cover the last two days and I'll try to keep it brief. No promises.
The morning session was a panel on publishing, two editors, an agent, an editor of a literary magazine. Mostly what they said is what anyone who follows the business knows. Write your best. Don't let an editor/ agent be your First Reader- give your manuscript to as many good readers as you can, before it leaves your house. Don't be a pain in the butt client. Read what's out there but don't copy what's out there.

On Friday afternoon in Ann Hood's memoir workshop, she touched on other forms of creative non-fiction. We started with her take on personal essays. "In some ways as challenging to write as short stories." Ann quoted Grace Paley's statement that a short story is always two stories: the obvious one and the one happening beneath the story. The climax is when they come together and clash. And that can also happen in a personal essay.

Saturday morning started with the editor of The Chattahoochee Review. Good advice about submitting to literary magazines/ journals. An agent followed, with more publishing advice. We learned that everybody's happy when a book sells 15,000 copies. A lot sell only 2000. More advice, excellent and specific, about crafting the query letter. She even tore apart the letters (anonymous) of a few brave souls willing to have their letters used as samples. Very brave souls.

Then to our last session with our amazing teacher. Highlights? She reminded us again to use those similies sparingly: it's hard to find a great one. You defeat what you are trying to say if your simile (or metaphor) is jarring. Sometimes you don't need anything. It just gets in the way. We talked about about structure, about the container. How some pieces seem to cry out to be short, for example, four months of time passing, a specific road trip.

Since this class has officially been about memoir, I'll end with something Ann Hood said today about the hard things, the sad things that memoir is often about. "It's hard to decide what's interesting when it's your own life. But think about what's interesting to the reader. It's all about the literature."

Writers in Paradise, only 3 more days

In some ways, I'm excited about finishing and getting back to work, using some of my new thoughts and advice from this week. But I hate to think the time spent in these workshop sessions will be no more.

Today started out with a lecture by Nahid Rachlin on writing memoir. She read from her book Persian Girls and spoke very briefly about why to write memoir. "Unless you're famous, why would anybody read your life?" The writing. Write characters as interesting as those in fiction and use words that sing. I'm hearing that a lot this week.

When I asked Ann Hood that question in our afternoon workshop, she said nonfiction's like everything else we write. Why write? To make sense of the world.

And good writing is crucial. Vibrant and lively language move a story. To illustrate her point, she read from Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan, especially noting the verbs-- dangle, bend, glide, snow sifting. And the metaphors and similies (No weird similes that stop the reader in his tracks!)

Then we talked about flashbacks. Ann's a big fan of space breaks and says sometimes this is a better way to introduce a flashback, no matter what we learned about using a memory prompt- a device such as hearing the ringing of a bell. (Though I still think in writing for children, it might have to be clearer than just a space break.)

Other tips from today?
Always use said as a dialog tag. The actual dialog should tell you if it's a shout, a hiss, a query.
Not "Sarah Elizabeth, come here this second," Mama hissed.
Actually, I kind of like that. But in writing for adults and especially memoir, cut the hisses and the smiled dialog as much as possible.

In memoir- get rid of all the I remembers, I recall, I thought back. Just slows us down.

Lots more advice as we critiqued our two classmates today. That's what I like about this class. The instructor actually teaches as she critiques.

Throughout the almost three hour session, Ann shared several more book recommendations, many new to me. List to follow. Next week.

Day 2, in Paradise

At 10 AM, I walked into a large room with circles of folding chairs, mostly already filled up with my fellow Writers in Paradise participants. Today's first session was listed as Roundtables. The idea was come and go, join a circle being facilitated by one of the presenters, move on if you like. I took the last seat at the circle nearest the door.

Then Laura Lippman joined my group. I didn't move for 2 hours. I missed opportunities to hear Dennis Lehane, Stewart O'Nan, all the other presenters, but wow. I learned a lot.

I'm a Lippman fan from my 12 years of living in Baltimore. She writes crime fiction, old stories often taken from her days as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Here are a few gems from my notes (though I was listening and there was quite a dynamic interchange going on about writing and reading, so I didn't write much).

When asked how she plots. She calls her method the "distant shore school of plot." She always knows what's happening across the water, at the end. She knows the one big secret, but we (her readers) don't and even the protagonist doesn't. Although she knows the ending, she's also a fan of what she calls "Landmine Fiction" (don't you love that?). " It may not matter now, but mostly these zingers will go off later. This in reference to much of what she plants along the reader's path. Not exactly red herrings, but they might be.

About Rules: She likes George Orwell's rules, especially the last one: Break the rules. Remember my reference, somewhat ironic, to Elmore Leonard's rule about the weather? She loves weather. Often starts with it.

More on her concrete tips for writing out of a muddled middle later.

In the afternoon, we critiqued three manuscripts with Ann Hood. I've been in workshops where participants moved around the table and commented, then the leader gave her suggestions and that was that. That's not the way this works. So far, we've spent an hour, occasionally more, on each 25 page memoir. Interspersed with her critiques, Ann continually gives us tips, advice, suggestions that apply to all of our writing.

Today, for example, the question of prologues came up. "When chapter one and the heart of the story are set in different places, different times, and you need to know the earlier stuff, you need a prologue." Or you may need a prologue. The prologue says "this is what you need to know to read my book." Or it can be a different point of view being expressed, such as an earlier time, when the main character was a child.

This comment came because someone's piece had a prologue and she wanted to know if it worked. That's how most of what we are hearing happens. Because of the writing being discussed. We also talked about connected essays, the need for a central theme (if it's going to be a book).

More words of wisdom from my afternoon session?
Only specifics ring true.
Semi-colons are an evil form of punctuation (ditto ... and !).
But we all know that.

Tonight Ann Hood read the first thing she was able to write after the death of her young daughter, the prologue to the memoir about her daughter, and she finished with the chapter from that book about her daughter's love of the Beatles. Evening sessions are open to the public.

In introducing Ann Hood tonight, Dennis Lehane told us that after she'd taught at the conference last year, he didn't even think of not inviting her back. All the writers here are cool, he assured us. But Ann's even more than that. She actually cares if you learn something.

He ended his introduction with a quote from The Princess Bride:
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling you something.

Writers in Paradise, Day 1

OK. I probably overestimated my abilities. I told my writing friends I'd be blogging about the conference each day. After Day 1, I can see how this might be overwhelming. To me and possibly to anybody reading this.

So I'll keep it brief and fill in details as they come up in future posts. Because this conference, after only one day, is packed full of helpful, amazing, interesting stuff.

Stewart O'Nan spoke first. I'd just read his new novel: Songs for the Missing. I love his writing. He spoke about his journey, beginning in his basement writing room, through conferences, and eventually an MFA from Cornell. He's a big believer in reading to learn how to write and gave us numerous challenges in that department. (I guess I'll have to tackle Joyce Carol Oates after all.) He reads to look at sentences, their construction, to notice words. More of his advice?

Set your big scenes big.
Surprise the reader. (Change the tone. Make an unreliable first person noticeable. Shock the reader.)
Keep your characters with you. Carry them around Feel yourself as that character.

"Writing is like reading a good book. You live in that world and don't want to leave."

Then I moved to my afternoon memoir workshop with Ann Hood (the reason I wanted to be a part of this conference. Love her writing.)

"You can't write non-fiction unless you tell the truth. You can't worry about what others think."

Since I even worry about what others might make of my fiction, this is food for thought for me.
She quoted Gregory Maguire. The What if, Then What, And then, And then thing. A great way to get at the story. In non-fiction (and in fiction), the most important of these questions is the next one: So What?

In all writing, the focus should be right there at the beginning, in the first sentences. We should know where we are and what we are in for.

Tips I think I'll work on:
1. Picture sentences. Close your eyes. If you can't picture it, it needs help.
2. In non-fiction, use all the devices of fiction: dialogue, setting, character, action, climax, resolution.
3. Find a central metaphor (examples: knitting, fire), something that gives your story meaning.

That's about all my brain can process at the moment. Stay tuned.

Begin at the Beginning

OK, so how hard can this be. Write a little about what I read. Discuss the pros and cons of (mostly free) book reviewing I do. Pull my hair out online about how hard it is to write, how under appreciated writing is as a job choice. Post pictures of me with new very short haircut, my dog going for a run (ha, ok an amble) on the beach, my latest failure in the kitchen. Let the games begin!

For starters, I'm reading The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. I just heard her read a chapter at the Writers in Paradise conference and bought the book on the spot. I'm a big fan. My knitting experience ended with the blanket my grandmother taught me to knit when I was nine years old, but the way Hood tells the stories of the women who gather to share and knit and care for each other is remarkable. I'd saved the book to read on my flight from Tampa to Newark yesterday but I can't stop reading it and worry that there will be no book to read on the trip back to Florida. I can't face a plane trip without a book.

OK, blogging is fun. Just like writing the long emails to my friends and family that they pretend to read but really skim and often ignore. Except for Leslie and Kate, who always read and always answer quickly. Thanks, guys!