On earthquakes, hurricanes, and hyperbole

It’s hard to talk about anything much but the weather this week. Between the earthquakes in central Virginia and the hurricane on the east coast, it’s been pretty exciting. Everybody here in Virginia has an earthquake story they’ll tell you, and I could share mine, too, but I won’t. I prefer to use mine, embellished and exaggerated ( I have a real gift for hyperbole), in my fiction.

Because that’s what writers do. We take an experience and we shape it into something that fits into a story, we use it to underscore and provide an anchor for the story itself.

As I tried to explain to someone once, a war story is not really a story about the particulars of war, but rather it’s a story about the people who live through that war. (If you’ve never read Tim O’Brien, you should.) If we want history, we can read nonfiction. Fiction is not about reporting an event. It’s about finding the truth and meaning of a character’s life through the lens of the event. It’s about tossing characters into a hurricane and watching how they react.

I read a wonderful short story once about the breakup of a marriage in the midst of a hurricane. The hurricane was real, and powerful, and I could hear the freight-train rushing of the wind outside the house, feel the fear of the dog the couple was fighting over. But it was the characters themselves that gave the story meaning.

Anyone can describe what it feels like to be caught up in a hurricane, or feel the earth move under them as it shifts and buckles in an earthquake. But writers do more than report the experience. They give it meaning within the context of a character’s life, use it to expose weaknesses or show previously untapped courage. Writers use their experiences to enrich their writing, to add veracity to their fiction.

So if you want to hear about my experience sitting in the upstairs of an old house while the walls shook and groaned, don’t look for it here. Just keep reading my fiction. It’s sure to show up there sometime.

Reading and Writing in C’Ville Again

Charlottesville doesn’t seem to be finished with me yet. In a matter of days, the entire universe has conspired to get me back up here for a little while, so I have to believe there’s a reason.

Whatever purpose the universe has, I’ll use this time to take advantage of the wonderful community of writers I have here to get some feedback on a couple of stories I’ve been struggling with. So beware, my writing friends, manuscripts are on the way.

Writing groups and trusted readers are a valuable part of any writers’ life. I have a group of readers who know my work and I know theirs and I would trust any of them to give me a tough but constructive critique. They make me work harder to get at the truth, they make me a better writer. (well, except they can’t seem to get me to stop using comma-splices.) If you’re ever lucky enough to find readers like that, hang on to them. They are rarer than you might think.

When I first started getting serious about my writing, I took a workshop with students with a wide range of experience and skill levels. While there were many wonderful writers in that class, there were some who had no business commenting on other writers’ work. They just weren’t ready. I probably wasn’t ready myself. But many of the comments from a select few were vague, confusing, or downright idiotic.

My favorite was a guy who was deeply offended by a story of mine in which a woman sets fire to an art gallery showing her ex-boyfriend’s photography. Instead of making suggestions about the writing or the structure or even the plot, he fixated on the fact that arson is illegal, and therefore I shouldn’t let my main character be an arsonist. Now, as far as I’m concerned, I can have my characters do whatever I please if it feels right for them. Not right for me, and not right for anyone else. Right for the character. Besides, IT’S FICTION! If you are so bothered by my character’s illegal act, just imagine she’s arrested when the story ends. “Because it’s against the law” is not effective critiquing any more than “because I said so” is effective parenting.

Finding the right readers is not easy. Don’t be afraid to walk out of a group if it’s not right for you. And don’t feel compelled to let just anyone read your stories. It’s like giving birth and holding up your baby on a street corner and yelling, “So, what do you think?” You want to know from the doctors and nurses if the baby is healthy, but don’t ask all the bums on the street how they like him. You don’t need to hear that they’re just not connecting with him or that something is wrong with his head, but nobody’s quite sure what.

Once you do find readers you trust, listen to them. You don’t have to do everything they say, but do pay attention. If more than one reader tells you, for instance, that you use way too many comma-splices, you might want to take them seriously. Then again, they’re your own damned commas, you can splice them if you want.

What book changed your life?

What book did you read as a child that changed your life or the way you looked at life? When I ask people this question, I find that almost every reader has a special book or books that they have never forgotten.

Little Women was it for me. I identified with Jo. When I was growing up, my divorced mother supported four children pretty much by herself, and we often struggled financially. Little Women showed me there could be dignity in poverty. It was the book that made me want to be a writer, that made me want to write books that speak to people the way Louisa May Alcott spoke to me.

Shortly after Little Women came the Anne of Green Gables books. Hm… Books about another aspiring writer. My grandmother bought me the whole series, and I still have them. They are some of my most treasured possessions. I pull them down and read them occasionally when I want to remind myself how to create an emotionally engaging character. My friend Hope loves the Anne books, too.

And then there were the Black Stallion books, which didn’t so much change my life as let me escape it for a while. I used to pretend my bike was the Black and I raced against my friends on their bikes/horses . We had the perfect oval street that circled around a gully like a track, and every non-rainy day was Derby Day. Of course, the Black Stallion and I always won. For a while I wanted to change my name to Alec.

When I think of those wonderful books and how important they were to an awkward, shy kid, it makes me want to touch a life like that. Kudos to all the Children and Young Adult writers out there who are changing our children’s lives every day.

What book/books made a difference in your life?