not-so-minor characters

This is the Hairy Beast that lives with us.  (Like the kids, I don’t want to compromise her privacy by revealing her true name.)  She is totally devoted to me and the crumbs that I drop.  She follows me around, hides under my feet–I am her mama, through no fault of my own.

Our first dog, Sandy, (God rest her omnivorous soul) was the kids’ dog.  She played with them, towed them on their sleds, ran their obstacle courses, burrowed in their clean clothes, ate their vegetables under the table, hunted Easter eggs, slept with them…

I swear, this is going to come around to writing.

Bottled Lightning came home this weekend for the first time since Christmas.  We were all very happy-pappy to see her.  We hugged and kissed her on the front sidewalk.  And Hairy Beast spied her through the glass of the storm door.

She tore out the front and ran down the steps making a sound I’d never heard before.  Something like a whine and a yip and a shriek.

I swear to you, she sounded like she was greeting someone she thought had died.

She wiggled and jumped and went on and on and on.  We were astonished, because while she had always been friendly to Bottled Lightning, she had never seemed—swoonish.

What I’d failed to consider was that even the minor players of our family story have an inner life.  JUST LIKE IN OUR WRITING.

Hairy Beast’s inner life goes unnoticed most of the time, which is the way it should be.  She’s a dog.  But this one time, her emotions overwhelmed her.  And made us feel our own joy even more.

Hairy Beast’s spontaneous outburst reminded me that minor characters aren’t just filler.  While they might be there to support the plot or the main character,  the writer must consider them individuals with their own thoughts, feelings and backgrounds.

Catler lives with us too.

She has taught me  a very important lesson also:

Keep a look-out.

hearing your own voice

It took me a while to find my voice.  In writing, I mean.  Let’s not go all melodramatic.  People hate that.

I’m in the gooey middle of an experiment called Tweet Mystery of Death.  It’s a 6-week “play” of sorts on Twitter.  A critique buddy of mine identified the character I play without my telling her.

Interesting.

She recognized my “voice” in my tweets of  in-character dialogue.  Even though I’m playing a young, male go-fer for a movie star.  With an unhealthy yen for bananas and a penchant for blackmail.

His voice is different from my WIP’s MC’s voice, an admirable teen who has had a lot of bad breaks.  Yet you can still identify that author’s voice as mine, too.  Just like my non-fiction pieces, @mermensing tweets, blogs,  grocery lists…

So what is voice?

Part of it has to be sense of humor.  While my sense of humor will change slightly for each character, in the end it still has to make me laugh too, so there will be similarities.

Syntax, sure.  Whether  a writer uses a lot of passive sentences, inverts the subject, “ing”s or “ly”s.  Goes choppy.  Or uses long, flowery, flowing discussions that seem to run on and on and describe every single detail until there’s nothing for the reader to imagine for him or herself because the writer has  covered every stinking thing that could possibly occur to the reader to think about.  I have a writer friend that likes to describe exactly what her characters look like, so a police sketch artist could draw a wanted poster.  I like to throw in a few key details, and let the reader fill in what they think is good-looking, or ugly.

Word choice.  Here ya go.  This is probably the key way to figure me out.  I admit that I have favorite words: detritus, flabbergast, bubble, jitter, harridan, smirk, boobs. (YA here, okay?) I always have to do that word search thing to make sure I haven’t put “detritus” in my MS 42 times.  (This is a separate issue from “weasel words” like: well, just, started to, etc.)

I can hear all you Sweet Young Writers out there saying,  “How do I get me some  Voice?”

Well Grasshopper, snatch the pebble from my hand.

Or better yet, get a blog.

Because the only way to “get” voice is to write it out of you.  The harder you try to get a voice, the less natural your voice is.  Bad voice is formal, artificial, stilted.  Good voice is–you.  In the old days, you would fill 100 notebooks.  But now getting a voice is more fun.  Get a blog, and write.

Make your goal something just out of the range that you’re comfortable with.  If you’re sure that you can do 100 words, make it 200.  If you’re sure 200 words will be a snap, make it 300.  DO IT EVERY DAY.  Pick a subject and go.  For a beginner, LiveJournal might be the best choice, because you can link easily with other writers, support each other, have a dialogue.

And hey!  When you get started, come back and tell me about it–in your own voice!

SHAMELESS PLUG: HAVE A CHEAP THRILL AND FOLLOW ME AND A HALF-DOZEN OTHER KIDLIT WRITERS AS WE ADLIB OUR WAY THROUGH AN UNSCRIPTED MYSTERY/COMEDY: TWEET MYSTERY OF DEATH ON TWITTER.  WE’VE JUST COMPLETED THE FIRST OF SIX WEEKS.  WE’VE GOT A NING WITH SYNOPSES AND OUR BIOS HERE.  THE BEST WAY TO WATCH US FALL APART UNFOLD IS FOLLOW @coffee_boy ON TWITTER AND FOLLOW ALL THE PEOPLE COFFEE BOY’S FOLLOWING.  PUT THEM ALL IN ONE COLUMN ON TWEETDECK AND YOU WILL HAVE ALL THE TWEETS IN ONE PLACE LIKE A SCRIPT.

support Iran’s people

I digress today from writing and children.

But not from imagination and creating.

The Iranian people have taken to the streets to push for their freedom.  We forget that this happened before, has  happened for years now.  Dissent has steadily grown.  Will change come this time?  Or will it take 30 more years?  We’ll find out soon.

Thirty years ago, Iran was an extremely westernized, educated nation.  Then the Shah took power, and the Dark Ages returned.

I worked at an international shipping line in Houston in the 80’s.  One night I worked late, and went to the copy room.  The Iranian-American teletypist was there, tippity-tapping away.  But she wasn’t working.  Her brother was employed in Iran at a firm with a teletype machine, and they spoke once a month. On the sly. It was the only way they could communicate.  If he had been caught…well, not good.

Now they would be on Twitter.  Because as fast as the government shuts down the protesters’ papers and phone lines, outsiders are helping them with satellite feeds.

Be a part of that.

Go here for live twitter feed of the Iranian Revolution

Join the facebook group I Suppport the Iranian Protesters

deep thoughts

I was thinking today, about how much I think before I write.

And then, I wondered if I was procrastinating, by thinking about thinking before I write.

But then, I thought well, I’m thinking.  Isn’t thinking…work?

I think thinking is work.  But I’m not sweating.  And I’m not sore.  But I am getting unhappy.

So it’s got to be work.  And I’m starting to moan some.

So yeah, it’s work.

So I’m thinking and moaning, which is working, not procrastinating…

And then I think that it is procrastinating after all unless I do something.

Because for an action to be truly acknowledged as work it has to produce something.

So here it is.

The End.

what’s so dang funny? the characters

I think about 15% of my time with my friends is spent in deep, serious discussion.  The other 85% is spent laughing.  Giggling, guffawing, snorting, chortling, snickering, tittering, sneering…

Etc.

Pretty sure you see the point bearing down on you like a freight train: we like people who make us laugh.

And we like our book-people to make us laugh, just like our flesh-people.  The right mixture of pathos and humor will connect readers with your characters.  Our audience is familiar with feeling embarrassed, exasperated, frustrated.  The quickest way to a reader’s heart is through his gut.

In The Sorcerer’s Stone, we meet Hagrid when he bursts into the shack with a bedraggled cake.  He ties the Dursleys’ gun in a knot, spouts cheeky vernacular, and hedges on the real reason he didn’t finish his education.   Comedy comes in the form of a surprise.  Memorable?  Yes siree Bob.  We are in love.  And not with the book, with Hagrid, in particular.

Then there’s humor from the character’s wry observations and clever turns of phrase.  See:  Louise Rennison or John Green:

He opened the drain in the tub, stood up, toweled off, and got  dressed. When he exited the bathroom, his parents were sitting together on his bed. It was never a good sign when both his parents were in his room at the same time. Over the years it had meant:

1. Your grandmother/grandfather/Aunt-Suzie-whom-you-never-met-but-trust- me-she-was-nice-and-it’s-a-shame is dead.

2. You’re letting a girl named Katherine distract you from your studies.

3. Babies are made through an act that you will eventually find intriguing but for right now will just sort of horrify you, and also sometimes people do stuff that involves baby-making parts that does not actually involve making babies, like for instance kiss each other in places that are not on the face.

—An Abundance of Katherines

Colin’s funny comes from being so dead-on true.  Saying what we’re all thinking right-out-loud (metaphorically speaking) in a slightly askew fashion.

It’s one thing to show the funny through your characters’ actions, or let funny happen to your characters, or even let funny spew from their pieholes.  The trickiest funny is Voice.

It ’s too easy to come off as a smart-ass.  If you read through your draft and hear the rim-shots, you’ve got too many one-liners. (Ba-dum-bum-bing!) And oh, Lawsy, it’s hard to strangle our little darlings, isn’t it?  But if it’s too heart-wrenching to let go, cut and deposit in another document.  Take a look in six months, and I bet you’ll wonder what you ever saw in them.

Here is THE MASTER at comedic voice, Christopher Moore.  He started as a YA writer, but has gradually moved into adult novels:

Nate did not watch her rub the SPF50 on her legs, over her ankles and feet.  He did not watch her strip to her bikini top and apply the sunscreen over her chest and shoulders.  (Tropical sun can fry you even through a shirt.)  Nate especially did not notice when she grabbed his hand, squirted lotion into it, then turned, indicating that he should apply it to her back, which he did–not noticing anything about her in the process.  Professional courtesy.  He was working.  He was a scientist.

—-Fluke

Moore gets the mechanics of the scene across, as well as the facts about the tropical sun, the obliviousness of the bikini babe, the very interested disinterest of  Nate. (*Caution: This is a raunchy, adult book.  And it is a scream.)

When you use humor just right, the reader surrenders a piece of himself to your story.    A sure way to keep him turning the pages.

Stop by http://community.livejournal.com/kidlit_central/ tomorrow to find out when not to use humor in your writing.

let’s take a little break…

what’s so dang funny? the plot

You might be Robin Williams in everyday life, but that won’t do you much good in your WIP.  When a writer uses humor, it has to serve the story.  Otherwise, you get a bunch of random one-liners that jump out at the reader like an Attack of the Living Dead.

Buff up your plot with situational humor.

Everything that’s achingly funny starts with real life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t exaggerate. Like in Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney–the stuff about “the cheese touch”.   Didn’t everybody have some stupid superstition like that in school? Jeff Kinney starts with a perfectly mundane, childish scenario and blows it up until it’s a side-splitting recurring  joke.

Or look at  An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.  It’s about Colin Singleton, a boy who’s dated and been dumped by 19 girls, all named Katherine.  Sure it’s possible, though not probable.  But a reader might have dated all blonds, or all baton-twirlers, and would identify with Colin’s inability to branch out.

Take a look at something interesting and swerve in a different direction.  Ask yourself, and then what?

Say, for instance, Main Character throws a water balloon at Nemesis.  And then what?  Nemesis retaliates with a water balloon barrage launched by sling shot.  Then what?  Main Character gets his buds together, puts together a plan of attack and rains water balloon hell upon Nemesis’ territory.  Then what?  Nemesis calls upon the entire fifth grade.  Then what?  They buy out the entire supply of water balloons at Nugent’s Drugstore. Then what?   Main Character’s Army frets and worries, shores up the battlements.  Patrols the perimeter.  Then what?  Finally, Nemesis’  Minions attack—with shaving cream!  Ah, the unexpected twist. Gotta love it.

Even serious stories need humor.  A tense plot must allow the reader an occasional breather.  Novels are not verbatim transcripts of life, but they are reflections.  And no matter how dire the straits, there is always room for humor.

“I would never have made it if I could not have laughed. Laughing lifted me momentarily . . . out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable . . . survivable.” (Victor Frankl)

A little humor gives your reader the confidence to believe he, too, could survive the ordeal your Main Character endures.  Another way to draw your audience in.

Lucky for the rest of us, you don’t have to be Bill Cosby, (the early years),  Douglas Adams, (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), or Tim Conway (with Carol Burnett).  Be observant.  Life is funny enough if you squint just right.

what’s so dang funny?

People love you when you’re funny.

You can get all scientificky and say the reason is laughter releases dopamine–the pleasure hormone.    And endorphins, your natural opiates.

C’mon. It’s more than that.

When someone diddles your (READ THIS WORD CAREFULLY)  titterer, you feel immediately closer to them.  That’s why icebreakers always have some facet of humor to them.  Though I concede it’s usually pretty lame.

Notice that the best speeches open with a joke.

(Though that one really pushes the envelope.)

And even sermons.  In fact, in my opinion the very best sermons last the amount of time it takes to tell a joke, but no one listens to me. Yet another reason they won’t ordain me.  Right behind the fact that I’m not male.

So, writers and writerettes, humor is your power tool.  Use it to build a relationship with your reader, just like you use it to build relationships in real life.  When people talk about a book like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, they might say it’s “powerful” or “thought-provoking”.  But mention Lamb or Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore, or Skipping Christmas by John Grisham,  people will show their pearly whites and enthuse, “Oh, I LOVED that book!”

Don’t we all want to be loved?

Since I’m semi-famous in my circle for being a smart ass peculiar kind of scary funny, I’ll have some more things to say about humor in the next several posts.

do you ever feel like doing this?

Do it.  You know you want to.  It’s a…

freeing up exercise.  For your writing.

Yeah.  That’s it.

(If you want to see the real music video, here ya go. But it’s not nearly as inspirational.)

napibowriwee gone wrong

Depending on your perspective, I was either duped, shamed, or lured under false pretenses into participating in the NaPiBoWriWee. Write seven picture books in seven days.  It’s a great idea started by a fab gal, and I have absolutely no business participating.

Because this is what you get, when a YA writer turns her talents on the picture book genre:

BABY ANTS

Ants march along the top of my window sill,

Following the trail of sweet crystals I laid for them this morning.

I lower my eye to their level

Watch them feel the granules

Choose the right ones for their babies

Then march off on their tiny feet

Imagine I can hear them stomp, stomp, stomp down the wall,

Along the oaken baseboard

Under the shaggy carpet

Around the blaring t.v. while my dumb brother watches

Mud wrestling.

What industrious ant parents!

They trudge, trudge, trudge down the porch steps,

Across the grass

Into the hole under the old oak tree

And feed their adorable baby ants

Sweet crystals from my window sill.

Also known as arsenic.

Don’t worry, parents.  As soon as this week is over, it’s back to the dark land of YA I shall go.  Hanging out in picture book country makes my teeth hurt.  And I am vastly underqualified, because picture book writing is definitely THE MOST DIFFICULT GENRE OF ALL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE.