For those of us who are super-ambitious and create summer reading lists with the hopes of actually READING everything on our lists, here are three novels that I am currently reading (one I just finished during my trip to South Carolina). All of these novels are the first published by their respective writers. I'm hoping that reading them will provide motivaton for me to continue toward my own writng goals.
If you decide to read any of these please let me know what you think of them! I'd love to hear.
"Child 44" by Tom Rob Smith--This is the one I've already finished. Loved it!! I am currently reading Smith's second book in this series, "The Secret Speech". He is currently working on the third of this series, "A New World". The books follow the main character, Leo, through his adventures and misadventures as a member of the Secret Police in Soviet Russia.
"Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld--This writer has been compared to J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath. The main character of this novel has been said to be a female version of Holden Caulfield. I love Salinger, so I'm excited to see what this book is all about!
"Mother of Pearl" by Melinda Haynes--This novel is set in the Deep South, where Haynes is from. This is the first book I have read that is from Oprah's book club...so we'll see if she knows what she is talking about!
Happy reading, all!!
27 May, 2010
11 May, 2010
The Significance of Space
When I first set out on this journey choosing the place in which the story would unfold was perhaps the easiest decision. I wanted to write about a place I knew, a community I knew, experiences I knew. Naturally, then, the setting for my story is a small, dry desert city on the verge of becoming something more prominent. The difficulty then became figuring out how the setting affected my characters—their stories, histories, decisions and interactions. I found some great advice at WritersDigest.com (yes, I do LOVE this website!) from Nancy Kress. She explains that two settings can be helpful in understanding who a character is: where he (or she) lives now and where he (or she) grew up. Nancy writes:
Where a character lives now:
“If your character chose his current setting, that tells us something about his tastes and values. The man who chooses the energetic grittiness of Manhattan is a different person from the man who chooses life in a small Midwestern town. The New Yorker may be ambitious, want more anonymity or seek greater sophistication. The choice of the city life won't, by itself, tell us which of these is true—but it'll give us a start on understanding him.
The same is true of the more intimate setting of a character's home. What kind of neighborhood has he selected? With what has he chosen to furnish and decorate his dwelling place? Walls of bookshelves? Expensive antiques? Salvation Army left-overs? Nothing except what was already there? Such choices are revealing of basic personality.
Of course, many people don't choose their city or apartment. They live in New York or Houston because that's where their jobs are and in their current dwellings because that's what they can afford. Here's where a character's attitude becomes important.”
Where a character lived then:
“Although not chosen directly by any of us, a childhood home can still convey a great deal about a character. This is most usable if your character still lives at, or near, wherever he grew up, as is true of the three sisters of Jane Smiley's prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres. Ginny, the narrator, is shaped by, warped by and ultimately destroyed by the farms of the Midwest. Without this setting, nothing in the novel could've happened at all.
A second way to use a childhood setting is to have your character revisit it as an adult. This allows you to both demonstrate what shaped her values and show us how she feels about that place now. Two contemporary novels that have used this structure with great success are Rebecca Wells' Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and John Grisham's The Summons. In both, childhood settings become the means to resolve the conflicts of the past.”
I have two main characters. One has grown up in the town that is the main setting. The other comes for a purpose. So now the important part of this integration is to figure out how to describe the setting through the characters. I feel like this will be one of the easiest ways for me to learn who my characters are and what matters to them. I also feel that this may be a very difficult part. I’m worried about my ability to stay true to the characters and not let my own personal reflections and ties to the setting influence too much of what I’m writing.
I’m hoping that my drive through Southern Utah tomorrow will ignite some concrete memories and emotions that I can channel into the stories my characters want to tell. As I am leaving on vacation for eight days I’m also hoping I can get some real work done and make significant progress on this novel. Send me happy and productive vibes please! Hopefully I’ll return with some progress and/or breakthroughs to write about. Maybe even some pretty pictures…!
Where a character lives now:
“If your character chose his current setting, that tells us something about his tastes and values. The man who chooses the energetic grittiness of Manhattan is a different person from the man who chooses life in a small Midwestern town. The New Yorker may be ambitious, want more anonymity or seek greater sophistication. The choice of the city life won't, by itself, tell us which of these is true—but it'll give us a start on understanding him.
The same is true of the more intimate setting of a character's home. What kind of neighborhood has he selected? With what has he chosen to furnish and decorate his dwelling place? Walls of bookshelves? Expensive antiques? Salvation Army left-overs? Nothing except what was already there? Such choices are revealing of basic personality.
Of course, many people don't choose their city or apartment. They live in New York or Houston because that's where their jobs are and in their current dwellings because that's what they can afford. Here's where a character's attitude becomes important.”
Where a character lived then:
“Although not chosen directly by any of us, a childhood home can still convey a great deal about a character. This is most usable if your character still lives at, or near, wherever he grew up, as is true of the three sisters of Jane Smiley's prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres. Ginny, the narrator, is shaped by, warped by and ultimately destroyed by the farms of the Midwest. Without this setting, nothing in the novel could've happened at all.
A second way to use a childhood setting is to have your character revisit it as an adult. This allows you to both demonstrate what shaped her values and show us how she feels about that place now. Two contemporary novels that have used this structure with great success are Rebecca Wells' Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and John Grisham's The Summons. In both, childhood settings become the means to resolve the conflicts of the past.”
I have two main characters. One has grown up in the town that is the main setting. The other comes for a purpose. So now the important part of this integration is to figure out how to describe the setting through the characters. I feel like this will be one of the easiest ways for me to learn who my characters are and what matters to them. I also feel that this may be a very difficult part. I’m worried about my ability to stay true to the characters and not let my own personal reflections and ties to the setting influence too much of what I’m writing.
I’m hoping that my drive through Southern Utah tomorrow will ignite some concrete memories and emotions that I can channel into the stories my characters want to tell. As I am leaving on vacation for eight days I’m also hoping I can get some real work done and make significant progress on this novel. Send me happy and productive vibes please! Hopefully I’ll return with some progress and/or breakthroughs to write about. Maybe even some pretty pictures…!
06 May, 2010
Three for Thursday. It's baaccckkk!
In the midst of a wonderfully insane end-of-semester, creativity—at least as far as my book is concerned—had to be put on hold briefly. But before all the papers and lesson plans, I did start writing some characters (if you all remember…although it was a while back I posted about it).
I’ve been doing some research to flesh out my main characters, and I seem to be getting stuck on the details, or deciding which details are important and which can be left out. How important is it, really, to know what haircut the leading lady had in 5th grade? Is it really necessary for me, as the creator, to know how the main man’s first goldfish died? I suppose if these details were important to the development of the character throughout the story then, yes, they would be relevant and necessary pieces of knowledge.
Many of us (especially the English teachers!) have seen character development charts and questionnaires we should fill out to really know our characters. But how much is really necessary? So many details seem important! I want to ask you, what three traits do you believe are most necessary for a writer to know about her characters? (Beside the obvious, and generally necessary traits like names and approximate ages, etc.) What do you think are the most important pieces to understand about your characters?
I’ve been doing some research to flesh out my main characters, and I seem to be getting stuck on the details, or deciding which details are important and which can be left out. How important is it, really, to know what haircut the leading lady had in 5th grade? Is it really necessary for me, as the creator, to know how the main man’s first goldfish died? I suppose if these details were important to the development of the character throughout the story then, yes, they would be relevant and necessary pieces of knowledge.
Many of us (especially the English teachers!) have seen character development charts and questionnaires we should fill out to really know our characters. But how much is really necessary? So many details seem important! I want to ask you, what three traits do you believe are most necessary for a writer to know about her characters? (Beside the obvious, and generally necessary traits like names and approximate ages, etc.) What do you think are the most important pieces to understand about your characters?
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