St. Peter's Abbey in Saskatchewan

Writers often crave quiet time to write. I've had the pleasure of staying at St. Peter's Abbey near Muenster, Sasketchewan several times. This photo was taken in 2006 when Kari and I were both working on manuscripts. That's me on the far right, white shirt and skirt, and Kari in red shirt, brown slacks. In the background are the beautiful paintings of one of the participants of the Writers and Artists' Colony. You can click on the photo and see an enlarged version.

What's the next scene?

Just thinking of the novel in terms of structuring scenes. It's the emotional content that often determines what scene comes next. Happiness than tragedy. We've all seen that pattern. When the protagonist is at her happiest, look out, tragedy is sure to follow. We've seen it before because it works.

A sad scene followed by a funny scene. That works well too. Humour can bring us out of our sadness. It can heal the wounds. What doesn't work? Tragedy in one chapter. Happiness in the next. How did the character get there? We're not convinced. Too fast.

Generosity. There always seems to be room for characters to be generous to each other. After anger, generosity. After sadness, generosity. After misunderstanding, generosity. Generosity that surprises the protagonist (and the reader) is satisfying. If it comes in an interesting form or it comes from an unexpected person, that's nice.

Sometimes when structuring the next event in my novel I tried to follow logic, but it often didn't work. It was only when I paid attention to the emotional experience of my protagonist and my reader that I got it right.

the problem of outines

The question of whether or not to do outlines always plagues me. I always think I should, that there would be so much less muddling around if I knew what I was doing, where my characters were going. But here's the thing. I just spent the last hour writing a scene in which my main character offers something to help another character in trouble, and that character refuses it. I didn't plan that. I didn't know it was going to happen. But it makes so much sense in the story, because the boy in trouble is actually trying to protect someone else by refusing the gift, and by doing so he deepens the story enormously. I love this new twist. It makes everything that comes after it more meaningful because of this added layer. But I would not have been able to include this element if I'd been working to an outline. That's not to say I don't know where the story is going...loosely... just not precisely. And really, that's part of the joy of discovery isn't it?

editing wisdom...

Reading Susan Bell's book The Artful Edit. I love how she separates macro from micro editing. It makes so much sense--why edit for language when you haven't got the storyline down? Here's what she says:

When doing macro editing, consider:
intention
character: palpability, credibility, motive
structure: rhythm, tension
foreshadowing
theme: leitmotiv
continuity of tone

When doing micro editing consider
language
repetition
redundancy
clarity
authenticity of image and dialogue
continuity of visuals and character
show and tell
beginnings, ending, transitions.

Fantastic eh?

Ella Fitzgerald : One note Samba (scat singing) 1969

Writing about music...

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

No one seems to know the true source of this quote, but it could have been Elvis Costello or Frank Zappa, or someone well before their time. Regardless, it's what I'm attempting in my novel. I'm deep into researching jazz women singers and writing about them, their images, and their songs. As long as I don't get too distracted by all those amazing YouTube clips. Check out Ella's One-Note Samba for instant chills.

Gems

• When I cut things out of my writing it's often because it's not the right place for it. It's a bit of "telling" that slows things down so I chop it and put it in a file called "Edits."

• Later, I'll go back to this file, rescue a few gems. I've learned that sometimes I can get these bits in at the beginning of chapters when the action hasn't ramped up yet, when the reader might be wanting something a little different, something to ponder before the scene kicks in.

• I like these bits because they're different, not so forward-marching. I like the background they provide or the humour. I like the colour and shine of them. I'm hoping the novel will be stronger for having them in there.

writing workshops

Yesterday I attended a writing workshop hosted by fellow Wildwood Writer Julie Paul. Fantastic and inspiring. And the main thing I learned was, no matter how far into a writing project you are, never close your mind to looking at things from different angles. Julie had us doing exercises that made me look at my characters from new perspective, and opened my mind to a different approach to some of the material I have been finding difficult. Here's an exercise I particularly liked. Think of all the worlds you know. Everything from your own kitchen to the landscape you live in to the kinds of books you read. This is a simple activity, but doing it made me realise how rich my material could be if I brought in some of these worlds. My characters have worlds that they know, which I can explain, describe, make them live in. This brings more life to the story as a whole. Thanks Julie

showing and telling

We talked today in our group about how much has to happen in a story. How when we tell each other stories we only tell the highlights, we leave out the mundane parts of life like how much trouble we had finding matching socks or what we ate for breakfast and skip right to the parts where we met a man walking on the beach in nothing but a sarong in February. How does this translate into writing a novel we asked? Do the low points, the rest points, still have to have something happening? And what does happening mean? Can two people be talking? Is that happening? It is not happening, we agreed, if two characters are talking about something else that happened. That would be us as writers, showing people telling, which goes against the maxim: show don't tell. Maybe if we think about watching a play. What takes place off stage, what takes place on stage? Ahh.... so complicated!