Wordy Wednesday - Reflections from the Editor's Desk: PRIDE OF PLACE

How many of you remember Northern Exposure? That show could only have worked in a small town set in the middle of nowhere. Specifically in Cicely, in the frontier-like atmosphere of Alaska. The place limited the actions of the characters, exaggerated their quirks, and forced them all to accommodate to each other in order to survive. In other words, place acted the way a character would.

Or am I dating myself? Okay, how about Downton Abbey? Great show. What’s the first thing you think of when you picture it in your mind? Is it the lord of the manor, the servants, the lovely costumes? I’ll bet the first image is that great square pile of a house in its impeccable grounds. The entire show is driven by the needs of the house, and the family is bent, constrained, and molded by the idea of maintaining the estate. Remember that chilling line when the eldest daughter gives birth to a son who will inherit it—“Downton is safe.” Again, the place acts the way a character would, bending characters to its will. 

Where people are affects the way people act. For instance, here in New Hampshire we don’t worry a whole lot about earthquakes. The earth is pretty secure under our feet. Folks in Haiti don’t have that luxury. How does that affect the way they feel about their lives? Does it encourage a sense of fatalism? On the other hand, Haitians don’t know a thing about driving in a snowstorm. Most New Englanders have learned either to cope with it or to stay home. Does that give them courage or make them feel like cowards? Desert peoples don’t carry umbrellas; seaside peoples learn to watch the tides. Small towns are different from big cities; those who live in the mountains see the world differently than those who live on the plains; heavily industrialized places demand different attitudes than agricultural ones.

To be true to life, fiction must always take into account the way a place acts on its characters. Place is more than an accent. What impact do local weather, geography, ecology, population mix, job opportunities, and history have on the people who live there? Place can have as great an influence as upbringing does on a person’s outlook. If you don’t believe me, think about where you grew up. Now try transplanting yourself into a different place. Say you grew up in NYC; what would you be like if you were raised in the upper Midwest?

I don’t have to imagine it. I was 13 when my family moved from a working class, largely Catholic neighborhood of small houses, where a garage was a status symbol, to an upper-middle class, largely Jewish area of spacious homes each accompanied by a two-car garage. The differences in outlook between me and my younger sibs (the youngest of whom was not even born when we moved) are enormous. Religion, politics, the areas where we feel most confident--suffice it to say place has made us so different we talk about the New Jersey family and the Pennsylvania family. And those homes were only fifty miles apart.

When you take place into account in your work, you add another layer of depth that enriches the reader’s experience. It’s a powerful tool in your writer’s toolkit, so don’t be afraid to use it.

Nikki Andrews is a content editor at Champagne Books as well as a published author. Visit her at www.nikkiandrewsbooks.com or at www.scrivenersriver.blogspot.com.

Wordy Wednesday - Reflections from the Editor's Desk: Visualizing Your Prose

Today, I’d like to build on the previous blogs by Christie Caughie, Graeme Brown, and Laurie Temple, and add another tool to your writing toolbox.  Let’s consider the technique of visualizing your sentences and paragraphs as they fit into your scenes. Just as reading them aloud gives you the sense of the cadence and flow, visualizing them gives you the cinematic flow.

I attended a seminar by Blake Snyder (Save the Cat) several years ago that helped me realize how much our words provide that cinematic experience to our readers. I learned that as you ‘see’ each scene in your mind, you can structure them to enhance the reader’s ability to enjoy your story on the visual as well as emotional level. For example:

Dave stepped to the plate, with one man on base. With one out left, in the last inning, he faced a lost game. The restless crowd booed him. The pitcher threw the ball and Dave hit a homerun to win the game.  Jane stood with everyone around her to cheer the hero of the game.

Viewing this as a movie scene, it would be flat and uninteresting. And on the cutting room floor. How do you add the texture, color and sounds that make the reader feel he’s standing right there beside Jane willing our hero to succeed?

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in that same place. What do your five senses show you? Let’s see what that might give us:

Jane squirmed on the uncomfortable metal bench seat as her butt went numb from having no opportunity to stand and cheer her team. The row she sat in behind home plate, full of fans just moments before, now lay empty of people but full of litter. Peanut shells scrunched beneath her feet, and her shoes kept sticking to the remains of a spilled soda from the crying child behind her.  The sour smell of half-eaten hot dogs and spilled beer fueled the turmoil in her gut. Adding insult to injury, it had begun to pour in thick humid sheets of rain.

Her Dave was at bat with one out left, bottom of the ninth. With the worst batting average in the league, this game was over. His career would be over too.

His teammate stood sullenly at second, his arms crossed, tapping his foot on the base. He was already thinking about a hot shower in the locker room and a stiff drink.

Breathless, Jane scanned the thinning crowd as the weight of their disappointment radiated through the entire stadium. Fathers and sons slouched their way toward the exits mumbling against the coach for putting Dave in the game.

She watched her fiancée flinch as the catcalls and boos rained down on him from the remaining die-hard fans, their faces contorted with angry jeers. Forcing her attention back to Dave, she watched hin step to the plate, set his feet, and raise his bat. The pitcher sneered as he stepped to the mound. Fierce determination blossomed on Dave’s face and hope sprang up in Jane’s heart. Maybe. Maybe he could do it.

She leaped to her feet, jumping and yelling encouragement to Dave, screaming to raise her voice over the crowd. He could do it!

And, of course, he gets to be the hero of the game. 

Being able to visualize a scene allows you to add elements that are beyond a mere description of a location or an interaction. You can see and feel the emotions of the crowd, our heroine, and our hero. You can feel and smell and hear the atmosphere in the stadium. Readers who’ve been to a baseball game will supply other details of the scene, from their own experience. They’ll remember when a drunk fan dropped a beer down their mother-in-law’s neck. Or sitting behind a whole row of Little Leaguers at their first big league game. It helps tie your reader to the scene and the emotions.

Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, this tool will add depth and color to every scene in your book. As an editor, I love getting that cinematic experience of your story while reading it. 

Monica Britt is an editor at Champagne Books. 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authormjbritt
Twitter: @mons1954

Wordy Wednesday: Reflections from the Editor's Desk - Cadence

On the heels of Graeme Brown’s blog last week, and adding to what Christy Caughie blogged about the week before, I thought I’d offer a few tips about sentence structure. Don’t groan. You know it’s a necessary evil if you write. :) And don’t worry. This isn’t a grammar lesson. It’s just some pointers I offer to help your story read well.

Sentence length - Cadence is defined as a “rhythmic sequence or flow” according to Merriam-Webster. How your sentences are strung together is as important as what they say. Consider this example:

Chuck went to the grocery store. There, he looked for the perfect wine. He took forever to find one. Tonight’s date was important. At the check-stand, he stopped. He’d forgotten his wallet.

If you read it out loud, it sounds stilted and, well, boring. Now, if we vary the length:

Chuck searched the wines for the right one. Tonight’s date was important and he needed everything to be perfect. Somewhere around the thirtieth bottle, he found it. A Cabernet, her favorite. He grinned and sprinted for the grocery store check-stand, reaching for his wallet. His absent wallet. Chuck froze as it hit him. He’d left his money at home.

More readable, right? So varying the sentence length, along with some more dynamic word choices, makes this more interesting. Now take a look at your paragraph and make sure you’ve done a couple more things. Is there a purpose? Have you moved the story forward? And will it intrigue the reader? Here’s another draft of the above paragraph:

Chuck searched the wines for the right one, certain he could hear his watch ticking away. Beer, now that he could figure out. But wine? That was Sandy’s department. Tonight’s date was important and he needed everything to be perfect. He glanced down at the label name written in ink on his hand. Somewhere around the thirtieth bottle, he found it. A Cabernet, her favorite. He grinned and sprinted for the grocery store check-stand, reaching for his wallet. His absent wallet. All he pulled out was the small jeweler’s box. Chuck froze as it hit him. He’d left his money at home.

Hopefully, it reads quite a bit more interesting than that first draft. Keeping your reader entertained, whether your story is humorous or dark, is huge. As an editor, I love seeing the author’s excitement shine through like that in a story.

As I re-wrote the paragraph above, you’ll notice that it slowed things down. This moment is important to Chuck. It sets up a series of mishaps over the course of the evening that help Chuck realize some things about himself. But you can imagine quite a bit from this sample, can’t you?

Not every paragraph needs this amount of re-writing or slowing down. I always recommend writers read their work out loud. You’ll hear the cadence and recognize words that sound flat or need powering up. And hopefully you’ll smile. And as editors, we’ll get excited with you.


Laurie Temple is an editor at Champagne Books and writes under the pseudonym Laurie Ryan.
www.laurieryanauthor.com
Twitter: @lryanauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.ryan.79