Writing Craft

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Listen to the Universe

That whisper you keep hearing is the universe trying to get your attention.    ~Oprah Winfrey

The past months have been crazy-busy.  While trying to keep current with day-to-day tasks at my office day job, I’ve had new projects and programs to learn.  At home I’ve been writing steadily, preparing my work for launching.  Through it all, I’ve been desperate to read and absorb all I can about the ever-changing world of Indie Publishing.

Still, this week I’ve had moments when I’ve heard the whisper of the universe.  They’ve jarred me from intense focus and opened my eyes to a sense of the world’s wonder.  None of the moments were huge. No weddings or childbirths.  No grand championships, or lottery wins.  Just everyday events that softly nudged my soul.

On Friday at work, a new mom brought her seven-week old son to the office to see his grandfather.  I was just coming back from lunch when I saw them walking toward me in the hall. We stopped and talked. Smiling, I watched mom hand the babe to her dad.  He lifted his grandson (his first), cradled him against his shoulder, and gently rubbed his back.  A few co-workers gathered round ooohing and ahhhing, as we women tend to do when we look on a new baby, especially a cutie like this little guy. And while I watched the proud grandfather hold his sweet, sweet grandson, I felt a tiny tingle as the universe whispered. This is life.

Friday night we attended our high school’s football game. Both teams were undefeated. In the chilly October air, hubby and I sat close on the metal bleachers, atop a red plaid stadium blanket that pre-dates our thirty-something sons.  From the booster clubs’ refreshment stands, the scent of hamburgers and fries drifted our way. The bands blared, crowds roared and feet stomped shaking the stands as plays were intercepted, players were tackled, and finally took the ball in for a touchdown, and then another.  Final score – 20 to 16.  We’re still undefeated. 🙂  We don’t go to games often, but when we do, I hear the universe whisper.

Saturday evening, four in our family went out for an early dinner to celebrate son #2’s birthday.  We sat at the table sipping coffee, munching simple food, licking our lips over ice cream desserts.  Throughout the meal we caught up on each others’ lives, and reminisced about earlier times.  They talked of the time son #2 cut his younger brother’s hair.  “You cut his hair?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said. “You wrote a column about it.”  Funny, I had no memory of the event, or my article.  “How old were you?” I asked.  “Young enough that I was using those little kid’s safety scissors.”  Still no memory, not even of the article.  He shrugged.  “Maybe I cut it up with the safety scissors.”  More talking, laughing, savoring our time together.   And as we parted with warm hugs outside the restaurant, the universe whispered again.

We drove home, passing broad farm fields filled with brittle cornstalks.  Off in the west the sun was setting in a brilliant yellow-red glow, radiating off the clouds.  I wanted to take a picture but was afraid we’d be too late to catch it at home.  My husband turned and drove up to the old Indian Tower on a hill high above our town so I could capture some of the fading brilliance.  And once more, the universe whispered.

It is easy to let precious moments slide by in a rush of daily routines – going to work, cleaning, laundry, shopping.  But as writers, and as humans, we must pay close attention.  Such little moments are gold to claim and commit to our stories, not only to make them real to the reader, but also to live on in our memories.  The velvet feel of a baby’s silken skin.  The proud love in a grandfather’s face.  The blare of a high school band after a touchdown.  Laughter at family stories.  Aroma of strong coffee. The fading brilliance of an October sunset.

I’ve read that the secret to good writing is to just write.  But in our writing we must also learn to pull raw emotion from our daily lives, to transfer those feelings to the written word.  No heightened soap-operaesque overkill, just simple human emotion.

We must listen to the universe.   Thank you, Oprah.  ♥

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On the 18th of April…

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.                                                                                                          André Maurois

They were married on April 18, 1942.  The United States had been at war since December and he would soon be called to serve as a Naval Officer aboard the U.S.S. Lexington.  During his time in the Pacific he exchanged long letters with his family and with her, the love of his life.  After the war and his return home they settled into suburban life and raised their growing family — two boys, three girls.  He was a Chemical Engineer who loved history and she was a meticulous homemaker and volunteer.  Both remained devoted to church, to family, and to each other.  It was a good marriage, a happy marriage, one with conversations that always seemed too short.

As writers, even as romance writers, we seldom write of marriages such as theirs. Exciting, passion-filled stories are all about conflict that show a struggle between two souls —  man against man, man against nature, or even man against himself.  Perhaps because life is filled with struggle, we long to read about it.  It is the struggle, the conflict that keeps us turning the pages.  What happens next?  How will they possibly resolve this insurmountable problem?

So we fill our stories with conflict.  If she’s a liberal reporter, he’s a conservative landowner.  If she’s a born and bred Texas rancher, he’s a NYC lawyer come South to stir up trouble.  If she’s the daughter of a Saxon King, then he’s a Norman knight granted her father’s castle, and perhaps her, by right of conquest.

Conflict isn’t only created by who the characters are.  It can also develop naturally through the setting.  Several years ago I heard film critic Roger Ebert discuss the amazing popularity of “fish out of water” stories.  At that time, I was reading a lot of time travel stories in which a modern heroine traveled back to an earlier time.  I started analyzing these and other popular stories. Plop a person down in a strange new world and there is instant conflict as she struggles against the unknown.  The story is not in heroine’s undying love for the hero, but in the conflict she must work through to attain that love.

Once the story’s conflict is resolved, the story is over.   The genre doesn’t matter.  Literary fiction ends with a resolution of problems, happy or sad.  Thrillers and mysteries end with the bad guy’s capture.  Romance ends with the concept of And they lived happily ever after.

What of my history-loving naval hero and his happy bride?   Their story endures in the memories and lives of their descendants.  Tomorrow would be their day.

Happy Anniversary, Tom & Betty!  ∞

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A Family for your Characters

My mom and dad divorced before my 2nd birthday. Within a few months, Mom moved to another state and remarried.  She’d known my step-dad since their childhood in northern Minnesota.  My older brother and I grew up in a household with Mom, our step-dad, and ultimately five other siblings.  Our younger brother, Tim, died in an accident when he was four and I was eight.   His death forever touched our lives.

My Great-Grandparents, Godiace & Alphonsine - With their children about 1910

Both my real dad and step-dad were working men who started and ran their own businesses. Through the years Mom tended house, raised her children, baked, read, and sold Avon.   Nearby lived our aunts and uncles and many, many cousins.  We visited a lot.  One of our uncles was an elementary school teacher with a passion for knowledge, a true Renaissance man who, among other pursuits, played guitar, carved Nordic tree sculptures, and boiled down road kill for the skulls.

Who we all became as adults was a direct result of the childhood we lived through together.

The Maher Siblings, around 1920

George Santayana called the family “one of nature’s masterpieces.”  For all its faults and even dis-functionality at times, I view my family as such.  Somehow, despite familial squabbles, when things matter we band together.  My siblings, my cousins, and I share much more than blood kinship, much more than common strands of DNA.  We share the common bond of memories from growing up together.  And I love them all.

When developing the protagonists for my books, even before I write about them, I must create and come to understand their family lives.  Did they grow up wealthy or poor?  How many siblings?  What was their education?  Where did they live?  Rural, urban, apartment, mansion, log cabin?  What part of the country, and when?  What was their family heritage – Irish or English? American or French?  Norwegian or German?  Did they or their parents fight in a war?  What is their religion?  What was their role in the family – big brother, pacifist, troublemaker, caretaker?  Are their parents still living?  What was their relationship with them?  Who was most important in their lives – a parent, a sibling, a pet, a favored aunt?  Why?

The Ueland Siblings - 1973

I cannot paint my hero’s, my heroine’s, or even my villain’s personality without first developing then understanding their families.  Not every aspect of this information must be written directly into the book; in fact, it’s generally better if it isn’t.  But I need to know it, and I need to understand it.  Their family life is part of their background.  It shapes who my characters are.  Equally as important, it shapes their motivation in the story.  It makes them come alive.

Creating family backgrounds is also essential in creating the book’s core conflict.  But I guess that’s for another blog.   🙂    ∞

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Birth and Death

Last week massive storms ripped a 2,000-mile swath across the land. On Tuesday at 1:32 am, in the middle of the heavy Wisconsin blizzard, a text message appeared on my cell. It was from my brother. “At the hospital,” his words read. I didn’t actually see the message until I woke around 5:30. By then more messages revealed that, a few hours earlier, my niece had given birth to her second daughter.

Out of the snowy dark came the glorious wonder of life.

A few days later, I received another sort of message from a dear friend, also in Wisconsin.  “My son died yesterday afternoon,” she wrote in part. “I was with him and sent him on his way.”

Out of the snowy dark came the terrible wonder of death.

I understand the joy my niece feels. After all, I’m a mother with three children of my own.  Only a newborn baby can bring such a glad fullness to the heart.  The memories of those early hours never leave.

When I learned of the birth, I wanted to hug my niece and her new daughter. But hugs will have to wait until my visit in May. My grand-niece will no longer be a newborn then, but I will hold her and welcome her into my life.

It seems to be a time of new babies in our family.  A happy time. Sadly, it’s also a time of passing. In the last few years alone, we have lost four loved ones.

Through those losses, and others, I understand a little of what my friend feels. And, just as I wanted to hold my newborn grand-niece on learning of her arrival, I wanted to hug my friend in comfort at her loss.

Life and death touches us all at the most basic level.  They are shared experiences.  Sometimes I am awed to see the depth of caring generated by others when babies are born, or when people pass from this life.  To me those feelings reveal the inherent goodness in humanity.

As a writer, it is something I hope I re-create in my stories.

Welcome, Avaeh Nicole!  Rest in peace and love, Jimbo.  ∞

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Secrets

In writing a novel, there are many ways to enrich the characters.  Some writers fill notebooks with complete details.  They include every aspect:  height, weight, hair and eye color, college attended, hobbies, astrology sign, mother’s maiden name, father’s occupation.  The writer plans carefully and leaves nothing to chance.  All this detail, whether or not it is eventually spelled out in the book, helps to make the character real, both to the writer, and subsequently to the reader.

A few years back at a conference workshop, I heard a statement about character development that I found far more helpful than creating long lists of detail.  “Give your hero a secret,” the speaker said.  “What does he not want anyone to know?”  A secret adds rich layers to a novel.

On Sunday my husband and I took a bus into New York City to meet up with our oldest son.  We enjoyed the day, walking around together, stopping into shops and cafés, seeing the sites.  As we paused for several minutes to look out over a snow-covered Central Park, a thought occurred to me.  Cities, like characters in a novel, have secrets.  These secrets can be anywhere.

Who sleeps in a snow-covered maintenance shed in Central Park?  What lies buried under mounds of uncollected garbage?  What crime was just committed backstage of a Broadway play, or in the halls of justice? Essential to the plot, these are all secrets in setting.  They are simply waiting to be revealed.

On our ride home, I mused over the term “setting secrets.” I realized that I had several ingrained in my own stories.  A construction site hides a murder victim.  A farmhouse conceals a kidnapped child.  A small town denies its guilt over an injustice.  In each of these stories, I believe my description of the setting became deeper, and darker, because the setting hid a secret.

I’ve heard it said that thinking of your setting as a character will add richness to your story.  Take it a step beyond that.  As you do for your characters, give your setting a secret, too.  See what happens.  ∞