David Callow is exactly the kind of person I love to hate. There’s absolutely nothing special about him. He doesn’t sing. He doesn’t dance. He has no talent aside from waking up and clicking “record” with his cell phone.
But that doesn’t stop him from being a global media superstar. Continue Reading
You know what? I usually begin these essays with a description of the book in question. The opening of Robert Bausch’s In the Fall They Come Back, however, demonstrates one of the principles we can learn from the book, so I’ll paste it in right after I tell you where you can buy the book. (The publisher, your local indie, Amazon.) Continue Reading
Kayla Dienner is a sweet young woman who works as a waitress at her family’s restaurant. She was pretty close to a guy named Abram, but he broke up with her shortly after her firefighter brother died while on a call. (What a jerk, right?) Jamie is a firefighter who is sweet on Kayla. See how his vocation is an obstacle to their relationship? Kayla and Jamie are two great young people…will they be able to make and build a connection? Continue Reading
Caleb is not experiencing one of the high points of his life. His estranged wife died, leaving him to care for two kids. He broke his leg in an accident and cannot properly tend to his dairy farm. And worst of all, his wife’s sister has arrived from her own Amish enclave to help out in the household. Caleb isn’t a big fan of Jessie; perhaps she reminds him of Alice, the wife who abandoned the family before returning when she was close to death.
Jessie did her best to reach out to her sister, but failed. And she has a secret of her own: she had a huge crush on Caleb before Alice, the prettier sister, captured his attention. Spending time around him is painful, even all these years later. (Purchase the book from the publisher, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon. Here’s her Facebook page and web site.) Continue Reading
Several months ago, I was briefly a guest at the fictional Troyer farm, where Heidi and Lyle offer you their hospitality and their love of humanity. Their farm is a calm and peaceful place: plenty of sunshine, plenty of nature. Yes, things sometimes go wrong for the Troyers and the people around them, but there are no politics. People are focused on growing in love for others. They want to nourish their bodies, hearts, and minds.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, Heidi is teaching more of her famous cooking classes. Wanda E. Brunstetter was kind enough to chronicle what happened in her new book, Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing. Here’s the book trailer.
You can book your own return trip (or your first) to Walnut Creek by purchasing the novel from your local indie, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.
When the first book ended, Heidi was expecting to adopt the child of one of her students. At the beginning of this book, Kendra has changed her mind. Heidi is understandably disappointed, but decides not to dwell on her grief. The formula holds; there are six more students, including a caterer and a food critic, a wife who feels neglected, and a teenage girl whose mother took off. Do I even need to say that Heidi and her six students will have meaningful experiences that bring them closer to each other and to their faith?
The great charm of this novel (and of many Amish inspirational romances, however you wish to label them) is that the conflicts are very meaningful to the characters, but everything usually works out. The characters are sometimes cross with each other, but always in a relatable manner that doesn’t kick up too much of the reader’s own psychological pain. Ms. Brunstetter offers us a passage into another world, where we can escape…all of the things.
Ms. Brunstetter also takes her time. Her prose is always clear, and she often explains things that don’t need to be explained. I sometimes wonder what an MFA workshop might say about the prose. (MFA workshops, of course, are also known as the “Circle of Love,” so dubbed by the great Lee K. Abbott.) Some might say that there are “inefficiencies” in the prose. I contend that the prose fits the tone of the novel and the story its author is trying to tell.
Here’s an example. It’s the very first paragraph, in fact:
Loving and good-hearted workshop members may wonder:
Another example:
There are a lot of examples of this kind of prose, and I make the case that the “inefficiencies” are a great benefit to the book. Ms. Brunstetter’s novel, it seems to me, has two goals, give or take:
When you consider these goals, the “inefficiencies” are anything but. Why do Amish people use buggies instead of cars? So they can devote more thought and time to hard work and faith. (Among other reasons.) The Blessing is not the kind of book in which the author wishes to experiment with narrative or to force the reader to do a lot of work. No, Ms. Brunstetter wants the book to be a happy comfort, and her prose style helps her achieve that goal.
Amish Cooking Class: The Blessing is a welcome return to Walnut Creek. Ms. Brunstetter avoids the pitfalls of writing the second book in a series; this one is sufficiently different from the first to remain interesting though it follows the same formula. The reader finds themselves pulling for all of the characters because we can all relate to their concerns in one way or another. (We want our significant others to love us, we want to fulfill our need to nurture, we sometimes struggle with forgiving those who have abandoned us…)
There are many great writers in the Amish genre, and Ms. Brunstetter is one of those near the top. If you’ve never read in the genre, consider giving this or another of her books a try.
BONUS: Here is a great talk that Ms. Brunstetter gave to a library gathering. She is not the same kind of writer as we hear in the “MFA crowd,” and that is a good thing. She is very much a writer and storyteller, and we would all benefit from understanding more of the industry that we inhabit. (Or to which we aspire.)
The course of true love never did run smooth, even in an Old Order Amish community. Miriam has been in love with Saul Fisher since they were children. Now they are on the cusp of adulthood, the time when young men and women must decide which paths in life they will take. Miriam expects she and Saul will marry and remain in the community. Saul, on the other hand, has a job offer from a Pittsburgh restaurant and can’t wait to leave, though it means abandoning his brothers.
Beth Wiseman very much does her job in Plain Proposal, part of her Daughters of the Promise series. Yes, the book is a romance novel, and not even the kind that features “naughty.” Yes, this is a Christian novel, and one of Ms. Wiseman’s explicit desires is to buffet the reader’s belief in Christianity. If you don’t avail yourself of these kinds of novels on occasion, you’re really missing out. Writers such as Ms. Wiseman are great because they make promises to the reader and then fulfill them. What else do you want from a storyteller? (Please consider purchasing the book through Ms. Wiseman’s web site, from your local indie store, from Kobo, from Barnes and Noble, or from Amazon.)
Okay, so because this is an Amish/romance/Christian/inspirational novel, we can be pretty sure that the book is not going to feature a worldwide alien invasion or a Silence of the Lambs situation. Still, Ms. Wiseman must find a way to fulfill her responsibility to the reader. She must give us a story in which the events matter very deeply to the characters. There must be something important at stake.
Now look what Ms. Wiseman does in Chapter One. We learn that the book is structured in such a way that there are alternating sections from the viewpoints of different characters. It’s immediately clear that Miriam and Saul fancy each other. Boooooooring. That’s not enough to make a good book, and Ms. Wiseman knows it. After we hear about the impending arrival of Miriam’s pretty Englisch cousin (potential love rival?!?!?), the author ends the chapter from Saul’s perspective thus:
But as she looked up at him with a smile that threatened to melt his resolve, he knew that he was going to do the unthinkable-date her for the summer. Then leave her in August. God, forgive me.
Oh, snap! You don’t need to be Amish to know that this is a SERIOUS situation. (And it’s a serious situation, regardless of your religion or way of life.) We don’t know Miriam or Saul very well because we’re only in Chapter One, but Ms. Wiseman sets up some very big stakes:
Miriam and Saul are both in their rumschpringe, the “running around” time in which a young person decides whether he or she wishes to be baptized into the Amish way of life permanently. Both have been running around for a while…time is running out before they must make a decision.
Miriam wants to live in the community and to marry Saul.
Saul wants to leave the community but also wants to have a sweet, romantic summer with Miriam.
These two goals are contradictory! If one of them gets what he or she wants, the other will be heartbroken!
I loved the end of Chapter One because of how succinctly and powerfully Ms. Wiseman established the stakes. I was reminded of a very different work of art: The Terminator. After Kyle Reese and the T-800 shoot up the Tech Noir nightclub around Sarah Connor, Kyle makes the stakes of the story very, very clear: “Come with me if you want to live.”
Miriam’s cousin Shelby is also a young woman, but she’s not Amish. Her parents are splitting up, and Shelby has made some poor decisions. (Unfortunately, this is an Amish/romance/inspirational-type novel, so the reader does not get any of the dirty details. I suppose Ms. Wiseman leaves it to your imagination.) As another of the book’s main characters, SHELBY NEEDS A REASON TO BE IN THE RABER HOME. SHE NEEDS TO HAVE SOME STAKE IN THE NOVEL. So the author is careful to give her one at the end of Chapter Two. Shelby writes in her diary:
…Maybe I’m being punished. I don’t know. I just know that I feel bad all the time. I want to be loved, but my heart is so empty and my faith in life, in God, is gone. I don’t have anything to live for.
So what is Shelby’s arc through the rest of the book? Of course. She’s going to find a reason to live. (It’s not a spoiler alert to reveal that God is a part of the reason.)
Ms. Wiseman’s book is a fun and quick read because she made the characters’ goals so clear, even though she puts poor Miriam and Saul through a lot of changes of minds and hearts. Even though the story and characters evolve (particularly Miriam’s mother, Rebecca!), the reader always has a firm grasp of what the characters want and why it matters to them.
Friends, my GWS QuickCraft posts are a way for me to bring attention to more works and more authors. (Sadly, more people are likely to see these bits of writing craft advice than the regular essays I write, but that’s the way things are now…)
In a recent post, I wrote about Boris Fishman‘s most recent novel, a critically praised book called Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo. (Purchase the book from your local indie store, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Amazon.)
Here’s what I posted on Facebook and Twitter:
GWS QuickCraft: Word choices from Boris Fishman's DON'T LET MY BABY DO RODEO. #amwriting pic.twitter.com/tJ69Ku32F8
— Great Writers Steal (@GreatWritersSte) July 13, 2017
I was curious about the reasoning behind one of the choices Mr. Fishman made on his crucial first page. Well, Mr. Fishman responded to me and explained why he chose the word he did. Even better, he was happy to share his thought process with all of us. (Check out his Facebook author page.)
So why did Mr. Fishman plop that prefix on “humid” instead of choosing one of the words that would easily do the job?
“Arid” would not work there, I think — when the humidity briefly lets up in New Jersey, it’s drier, but I wouldn’t say “arid,” a word that calls up the desert. “Dry” works a little better, but it also doesn’t quite capture the feeling, I think. I think the most salient aspect of the experience is the sense of reprieve from an onslaught. It’s conditioned by the onslaught. So you’re not dry so much as briefly non-humid. At least that was my mind process, I think.
What an interesting explanation! Remember: we can make any choice we like, so long as the choice achieves the desired effect.
How’s this for an appealing story? It’s about a young woman whose body will be a vessel that will save untold numbers of lives. Unfortunately, a powerful company wants to take her out if they can’t control her, so they assign someone to do the former. Fortunately, a dark and handsome man is ready, able, and willing to protect the young woman, no matter the cost.
What story am I talking about?
The Terminator, of course.
Why do I bring up James Cameron’s 1984 classic? Because Body Parts operates in a manner that is similar and dissimilar in interesting ways. (And if you haven’t seen The Terminator or Terminator 2: Judgment Day, do yourself a favor and go see them now, whether or not you like action movies. They are marvelous examples of storytelling.)
Body Parts, a novel by Jessica Kapp, tells the story of Tabitha, a young woman who begins the novel as the ward of a seemingly perfect orphanage. Everyone in the Center is extremely healthy and well cared-for. Tabitha herself, with her long, red hair, is perfect…aside from a slight issue that affects her heart. The Act One 15 Minutes In Turning Point of the novel occurs when Ms. Preen takes Tabitha for a ride to meet her new foster parents. Yay! Everything is fantastic! Until Ms. Preen gives her a knockout drug. When Tabitha wakes up, she discovers that there never was a foster family. The Center, you see, carves up these incredibly healthy young people to get their…body parts. (I liked the book a lot! Purchase it from your local indie store! Or Kobo. Or Barnes & Noble. Or Amazon.)
Don’t worry; divulging that much of the plot doesn’t ruin anything. After all, here’s some of the description from the book jacket:
Raised in an elite foster center off the California coast, sixteen-year-old Tabitha has been protected from the outside world. Her trainers at the center have told her she’ll need to be in top physical condition to be matched with a loving family. So she swims laps and shaves seconds off her mile time, dreaming of the day when she’ll meet her adoptive parents.
But when Tabitha’s told she’s been paired, instead of being taken to her new home, she wakes up immobile on a hospital bed. Moments before she’s sliced open, a group of renegade teenagers rescues her, and she learns the real reason she’s been kept in shape: PharmPerfect, a local pharmaceutical giant, is using her foster program as a replacement factory for their pill-addicted clients’ failing organs.
So, unless a friend blindfolded you and put the book in your hands and forced you to start at the first page, you knew the basic thrust of the first several chapters of the story. You knew the big reveal that changes Tabitha’s life forever.
Same thing with The Terminator or Terminator 2. Unfortunately, the surprises from the films are no longer surprises. Everyone is fully aware that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the bad-guy Terminator who wants to terminate the nice waitress woman named Sarah Connor. Everyone knows he’s a cyborg. In 1984, you may have been lucky enough to see the film without knowing a single detail other than the title. Every twist and turn would be a revelation! In Terminator 2, James Cameron took great pains to conceal the fact that Arnold was the good guy. Alas, in Body Parts and in The Terminator, the audience knows much more about the protagonist’s life than she does for quite some time. (Think about it; Body Parts is “that book about the teens who are sold for parts, but one of them escapes, etc.” The Terminator is “that movie about that woman who will give birth to the guy who will save humanity, so robot Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to kill her, etc.”)
I thought it would be interesting to discuss these two works in conjunction with each other because they approach their conceits so differently. In The Terminator, you’ll recall, Arnold uses the phone book to track down all of the Sarah Connors in L.A. The important one, of course, has a fortunate middle name that makes her last on the list. Sarah sees this creepy-looking dude scoping her, so she ducks into Tech-Noir, a cheekily named disco. Shootout. Then it turns out that the creepy, sweaty guy was actually protecting her. Now, Sarah is no fool. She (and the audience) need some exposition. What the heck is going on? Kyle Reese hotwires a car and tells her about the Future War, that her son will one day be the savior of all mankind.
Then more car chases and action interspersed with some romantic scenes and powerfully drawn characters.
Chapter 5 of Body Parts is the equivalent to the above exposition-in-the-car scene. Tabitha has woken from her pharmaceutical slumber and meets Gavin and the other members of the team dedicated to liberating young people from the grip of the Center. Gavin lays it all out in some healthy paragraphs set in the group’s “headquarters” and Tabitha accepts her new reality. “Parts,” she says. “I was being raised for parts.”
As I read the novel, I was wondering why Tabitha believed so easily and quickly. Now, to some extent, I am perfectly happy to just go with it. It’s a book. Sarah Connor believes Kyle Reese’s insane time travel/all-powerful computers narrative because she just had a giant Austrian man shooting at her. Ms. Kapp does something smart that forces Tabitha to deliberate more. After Gavin’s explanation, Tabitha (on her own) meets Mary, a much younger girl who was rescued-but not before the bad guys took her cornea and kidney. Writers must give the audience a reason to believe, just as much as characters must convince each other what is really happening to them.
The narrative of Body Parts is far looser than those of the Terminator films, which is both good and bad. On one hand, those movies are awesome. On the other hand, Body Parts doesn’t want to be a non-stop, pulse-pounding action story…and that’s okay. Instead, Ms. Kapp has other freedom and responsibilities. The looser story just means that she’s not as high on the scale with respect to plot. That’s perfectly fine, so long as she kicks up some other elements of her book. Here’s another way to think of it. This is a chart I made for Lee Martin’s wonderful Late One Night. That book is not at all a plot-heavy Tom Clancy book. Instead, Mr. Martin focused more time and attention on character and style than plot. It’s okay to go easy on some elements of our work so long as we compensate in another way.
Body Parts is an entertaining near-future science fiction novel that will entertain its YA audience, but will also appeal to those who are not very Y. Tabitha is a compelling character, and Ms. Kapp ensures there is a lot going on around her. Tabitha experiences her first love triangle! Her first…love feelings! Her first escape from people who want to cut her up and sell her organs! Ms. Kapp juggles her plot and its subplots in a felicitous manner and wraps things up in a way that I’ll just say that I wasn’t expecting.
James Cameron, Jessica Kapp, Lee Martin, Terminator, Young Adult
When the great Rod Serling sat down to write a second pilot script for a TV program he was calling The Twilight Zone, he heaped a big problem onto his shoulders. The episode, you’ll recall, finds a man meandering through a small town. He’s utterly alone. Not a person in sight. There are hints of habitation-a burning cigar, a ringing telephone-but no people. The man finds clues for twenty-plus minutes, but for all but a few minutes of the episode, he has no idea where he is or what is happening. (Don’t worry, I won’t ruin the story for you.)
Serling really complicated matters for himself. So much drama comes from two or more characters interacting. “Where is Everybody” is a one-man show. The restraints we place on ourselves, of course, force us to write our way around them.
In Luna Rising, Selene Castrovilla‘s titular protagonist isn’t exactly a loner. She has friends (including the enjoyably drawn Sunny), family, and a succession of boyfriends to keep her company. Still, Luna begins the (third person) book very much in her own head. Her husband has freshly come out of the closet. This complicates her life, along with that of her two sons. Luna is only thirty-eight. She’s still a woman and still has the requisite needs. Unfortunately, finding love in her situation is not the easiest thing to do.
The main love interest in the book is an older man named Trip. Will they end up together? Will they go their separate ways? Read for yourself, but remember: the course of true love never did run smooth.
So Luna feels a little lonely. That’s understandable. While she has a support system, she understandably doesn’t know how she is going to handle the changes that are shaping her new life. One of the ways to chart a character’s thoughts and to release exposition is the use of a confidant. There’s so much more you can do with a character and a scene if the character is not alone. Here’s an example: the gravedigger scene from Hamlet:
How different would the scene be if there were no “I knew him, Horatio?” There would be no reason for Hamlet to talk to himself. (I know…not that it stops Hamlet from doing so at other times…) And seeing as how Hamlet is dead at the end of the play, there would be no one to share the sad story of the ill-fated prince of Denmark.
Ms. Castrovilla gives a slightly lonely character a confidant: an imaginary friend named Jiminy. (Yes, after Pinocchio’s buddy.) Here’s how Jiminy is introduced in the first chapter of Luna Rising, before the narrative takes a trip to the past:
Jiminy is a useful character/device in the book because it allows Ms. Castrovilla to do the same work as can be done in a scene with an additional character. Luna certainly can’t tell Trip what she is thinking or how she feels-what a boring romance story that would be-but she can think what she is thinking and have an internal dialogue with Jiminy, who appears in the book a great deal.
Ms. Castrovilla did something very interesting with the characterization. Let’s look at how she introduces Luna’s ex-husband:
So she goes from straight third-person prose into a kind of profile divided by sections. Isn’t this an interesting choice? Ordinarily, exposition and characterization are released in straight narration or in dialogue; the author did something a little different here. It reminds me of the bare-bones exposition of the G.I. Joe profile cards that were on the back of the action figure packages.
As we all know, the value of a choice is determined by the effect it has on the work. On one hand, it could be considered inconvenient to drop such a big exposition bomb so close to the beginning of the book. Maybe Ms. Castrovilla really doesn’t need to tell us that the ex dislikes tomato seeds. Maybe she could release the necessary information in other, more felicitous ways. On the other hand, this is a fun romancey-type book. We’re reading this for enjoyment and to have fun. The bolded profile structure gives us a mental image of Nick very quickly. Ms. Castrovilla suggests other scenes (what it was like when Luna discovered Nick’s activities on the gay site!) and is clear about what Nick looks like. Looks are very important in romancey-type novels. Just the way it is.
So if we put all of this information on a scale, I think that the author made the right choice. She offers similar lists for the other characters in the book when appropriate, and they have the same effect.
Ms. Castrovilla imbues the book with a great deal of pathos and deals with it in much more comprehensive terms than you might find in straight-up romance novels. (The “heat meter” is also lower.) These choices make Luna Rising a novel that has a bigger emotional impact. Instead of chronicling how one finds passion, Ms. Castrovilla illuminates how people negotiate the minefield of love. I suppose it’s easy for two incredibly hot people to fall into bed for a night. This book is much more about how we build deeper feelings and appreciation for the people in our lives, from neglectful parents to our kids and especially the man or woman we love, even if their snoring makes us want to smother them in their sleep sometimes.
By July 1944, it was obvious to a growing number of Germans and Nazi higher-ups that Deutschland had all but lost World War II. Further, it was clear that Hitler’s obstinance was having a negative effect on whatever post-war future that Germany would have. As a result, many Nazi officials plotted to take out their Fuhrer and some even took steps toward achieving that goal.
On July 20, 1944, the Third Reich only had nine more months to live. Claus von Stauffenberg didn’t know that. The German army officer joined a meeting at the Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze), one of the control centers Hitler maintained outside of Berlin. Von Stauffenberg placed his briefcase under the long table Hitler was pounding as he dictated strategy on the eastern front. After a few minutes, Von Stauffenberg excused himself and beat feet from the Wolf’s Lair. Soon after that, the meeting room exploded. Four people were killed. Hitler was largely untouched.
Why do I bring up an interesting event from recent world history? Because it relates to writing craft and Marianna Baer‘s Amulet Books YA novel The Inconceivable Life of Quinn. Von Stauffenberg planned to detonate the bombs he left beside Hitler with a pencil detonator. The device is a relatively simple one. It’s a spring-loaded cylinder. On one end is a percussion cap that makes the explosives go boom. On the other end is a vial of liquid chemicals that, when burst, will begin to eat away the spring mechanism. When the wire fails…kaboom. Here’s a diagram:
Marianna Baer has a pencil detonator in her novel. Quinn, the protagonist, finds out that she is a couple months pregnant. Can you hear the acid eating away that wire? Babies generally take nine months of oven time to cook. Two months have already passed. When a baby is in a mommy’s tummy, it gets bigger every single day and (unless there’s a problem) nothing can stop it. You can’t close your eyes and pretend a baby isn’t coming any more than you can stand on tracks and expect the train to disappear. Pregnancy is a great pencil detonator because it causes disarray and change by its very nature.
Ms. Baer makes smart use of Quinn’s pregnancy by allowing the drama surrounding the baby to increase as time goes on. The author did, however, have a little bit of a problem: everyone on Earth has either given birth or been born. There are currently more than 7.5 billion people on the planet; being pregnant is not unique in the grand scheme of things, but it is very special to the child’s parents. So. That’s the big struggle: you must make the mundane special in your work. As Gunnery Sergeant Hartman taught his recruits to repeat of their rifles: “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” Everyone has been bullied. What makes the bullying in your story different. Everyone has fought with friends. What makes this fight different?
Fortunately, The Inconceivable Life of Quinn has a hook that makes the pregnancy worth reading about. Quinn is not only the daughter of a politician during an election year, she is a virgin and has no idea how she has come to be in the family way. In this way, there are two questions that keep us reading:
The great Lee K. Abbott loves to drop the following truth when it comes to writing:
On page 34 of the hardcover, Ms. Baer gives us a very sweet description of the first time Quinn hears the baby’s heartbeat. Her mother asks, “There it is. Can you hear that?” Then the narrator says:
A muffled, rhythmic sound. A distant drumming. Fast and strong.
A heartbeat.
A heartbeat that wasn’t Quinn’s own.
So this moment is nice and nicely written, but there’s a problem: there’s math involved. I’m the reader…I’m not supposed to have to do any work. Why should it be my job to go to the Wikipedia entry for “pregnancy” to figure out when the fetal heart starts beating? Should I be expected to get out a pen and paper and open the calendar on my phone?
Thank goodness, Ms. Baer saves me from this only five pages later. On page 39, she tells us that Quinn has been given a two-week window during which it was possible for her to become pregnant. (I think the author also says how many weeks the baby has been gestating, but I can’t find it in the text.) Don’t make your reader do math and don’t make them scratch their head and try to figure out, in this case, the baby is due and when it was conceived.
The Inconceivable Life of Quinn keeps the reader turning pages (or swiping the screen) by taking Quinn’s pregnancy and relationships in a number of unexpected directions. Ms. Baer populates her story (told from third-person vignettes from each character) with relatable characters who speak and act the way they should, even if those actions are not always pleasant. Quinn’s father should doubt her and ask several times about the father of the child. Some of Quinn’s classmates must be unpleasant to her.
The most interesting choice the author makes might be the way that she does so much to add unexpected elements to the pregnancy narrative. (I don’t want to reveal too much about those.) In this way, Quinn’s pregnancy, like so many others, is not simply an accident or a happenstance of biology, hormones, and impulse. The story of of Quinn’s “inconceivable” pregnancy becomes an emotional journey for the reader as much as it is for the prospective mother.