STRUCTURE

So, it's been many, many, many moons since I went to an office on a daily basis and sat behind a desk. I've been a writer/actress/mommy for so long I forgot what it really was like to keep a schedule.

I used to fantasize about it when I'd feel a little stir-crazy, wondering what the real people out there in the world were doing. Always walking fast down the street in their business clothes, with somewhere to be.

What would it be like if I did that? Would it cure me of my restlessness? Would I finally feel like I was a contributing member of society??


Not that I wasn't contributing with writing books. At least, I told myself that someone must be enjoying them. I got royalty statements. Royalties, even.

I reassured myself that if people were actually slapping down money for something I wrote, then I couldn't be a total loser. Right?

Mind you, all of this internal-kvetching started after my mommy-role took a back seat to watching my kids fly off on their own. As I found myself less structured, I also found myself missing self-imposed deadlines. Which is bad when you're your own boss. Very bad.

What I needed was more structure. A framework, if you will. More face time with real human beings. Less time with my cats.


Moral of this tale: Be careful what you ask for.

All this is merely a preamble to the real topic of this post, which is--

I got a job.

An 8:30-5 real, sitting-behind-a-desk, legal-freaking-secretary job. (Did I mention I'm completely unqualified for this sort of work? The learning curve is daunting.) My friend, the lawyer, is in dire need of help (translation: someone who can write) and I need the work, so it's all worked out perfectly. Sort of.

Except now I have structure and less time to write and blog, and visit blogs. Which is all my way of saying that if you've noticed my absence on your blogs, (Okay, so you didn't notice. But I did) this is why. So I apologize that I'll be here a little less obsessively, er...often. I will get my working legs under me and figure out how to make all of this work. In the meantime--I'll try to sneak a peak between Production of Document demands and Special Interrogatories.

Because I miss you already!

Taglines And Other Bugaboos

Have you read Lolly Winston's book, Good Grief ? I know this book has been around for a while, but if you haven't read it yet, go and buy it! Or take it out from the library. (No, I don't know her at all and don't even know anyone who knows her!) But I'm just sayin'. It's good.

It was her first book, which is astonishing enough when you read it, but it's also an incredibly moving story that tackles grief, loss of love and recovery. It sounds dark and yes, it has its moments, but it's also funny and insightful, too. And though I shed a few tears, I also laughed out loud at it.

She wrote it in First Person present tense, meaning we are always and only in her head and watching the action as it is happening. Now. Those of you who read a lot of chick lit or women's fiction are already aware that you're seeing more and more of this POV in books. For those who are longing to write in this tense, it might pay to study Winston's take on it.

One of the big problems with using this tense is that new writers tend to insert too many tag lines. For the uninitiated, a tag line is a clause at the end of a quote like "Blah, blah," I say to him. Or "Blah, blah, blah," he says, without turning to look at me." It's used to identify the speaker for the reader. ('Cause, ya know...sometimes we forget and we don't want to have to count quotes backward to see who's talking--you know you've done it!)

For some reason, this kind of tag line(ie: I say, he says) seems to jump me out of the moment, remind me that I'm reading in present tense instead of being lost in the story. NOT that it's wrong to use it. But I find it gets over-used especially with new writers trying to crack the difficult POV code. Maybe that's why Winston's almost invisible use of First Person Present struck me as so good. Maybe it's because there's often a better way to identify the speaker than to use a tag. Winston's characters voices were honestly so distinct, I rarely needed a tag line to know who was talking.

Of course, there are a lot of reasons this book is a good, smooth read and her mastery of this tagline issue is only one element. But because I'm always curious when I read something that works, I went back and studied what made her dialogue feel smooth to me. While she included at least one of those "I say," tags per conversation (just to orient us with the speaker), more often she used no tag at all (assuming there are only two people in the conversation and, how confused can we be?) or action or inner thought as a tag. This technique works for all POVs and not just first person, present tense. But here, it seems to accomplish what a tag line aspires to accomplish without jolting me out of the moment. Check out how Lolly Winston uses sub-textural inner narrative instead of a tag, as well. She says one thing, while thinking about something entirely different. But this inner narrative is always connected thematically to the dialogue.

When you're submitting your books to publishers, just know that tags tend to be a bugaboo with editors. Often they wave like a red flag. Editors are all so subjective. Some freak out if you use any other verb but said, as in "She said, I say, he said," etc... The argument is that 'he said' is an invisible tagline to the reader. While I guess it is true to some degree, if it's overused, like anything else, it seems to jump out at the reader, too. Some editors encourage these other tags. It can be confusing!

There are a few all editors seem to agree on. Tags like 'she gulped, barked or growled,' make editors (justifiably) pull out their hair and uncap a new red pen! Mostly because one cannot literally growl and speak simultaneously. They particularly object to using noises as tags, ie: he sniffed, she huffed, she clucked or sighed. As in "I wish you'd stop doing that," she sighed. Your characters can do all of those things. (maybe not cluck unless she's a bird) but they can't talk AND sigh at the same time. Hence, the tag veto.

Say you want your protagonist to snort. It's a funny verb. I like it occasionally. But instead of "Right," she snorts. "When synopses write themselves." (Ugh.) It becomes -- She snorts. "Right. When synopses write themselves."-- See how I've turned what would have been a (bad) tag into an action? Not only that, if you listen to the way people speak, often the action of snorting in disbelief, etc... will come BEFORE the dialogue in real life. Not after. Because we're formulating something to say AFTER we react to it. Not before. Try reading your dialogue out loud and you'll see what I mean. Literally act out your tags. It's an eye opener.

You can also try taking a page of your book heavy on dialogue. Take a red pen and highlight how many tags you've used. Then ask yourself, was each one necessary? Am I losing track of who is talking and if so, why? Is there something I can do to strengthen, or make my characters voices more unique so that we already know who's talking? Or can I find a more interesting way to help readers keep track of my characters by using action or inner narrative to identify them?

That's all for now. I've babbled enough for one post. Happy writing!

Writing Craft #2: One False Goal

I thought I'd talk a little in this post about something that I've encountered along the road to writing. Something that can creep up and bite you if you don't keep your eye on the prize. So, it's like this: You're tootling along with the story you're writing and feeling good. The road's ahead, you can't really see around the bend, but you're feeling pretty okay with that because your characters are talking. And talking.
And talking some more.

They've got lots to say, you know? Like, "Pass me the salt, please?" and "Holy Cow! When did you start losing your hair?"

But suddenly (Well, not really so suddenly because it's been coming for a while. You know it has...) you notice that your characters have begun to sound boring, even to you. Oh, and not only that, they've been in the same room for 40 pages and they can't find the door. And action? Well, that was a good idea, but what are they supposed to be doing again? And doesn't picking navel lint qualify?

Perhaps some variation of this is happening in your story. Believe me, it's happened in mine. Even today, after lots of books, it happens. Why? Mostly it's because I've taken my eye off the road. As the writer, I need to have better vision than my characters. I need to be able to see around that curve in the road to the destination or, to put a finer point on it, THE GOAL.

Why do characters need goals? To keep them from wandering aimlessly through your story, blabbing up the other characters and settling in for a good pedicure with that woman who has nothing to do with anything.

There are really two goals for each character: the TRUE GOAL and the FALSE GOAL. The true goal is the thing the character needs but doesn't know they need. The false goal is the thing the character THINKS they want (or need) but it's merely a path (or a roadblock) to finding the thing they really need. Got that? Like the rest of us in real life, mostly internal goals are invisible to our characters at the start. Slowly, they become aware of why they are really doing the things they're doing and why that other protagonist or force has been put in their path.

Essentially, an external goal is something you could take a picture of. (Like they want to start a B&B, or travel to Italy, or build a house on a rocky cliff, or put a murderer behind bars.) An internal goal might look like finding one's own power, coming of age, letting go of the past, believing in love again, or redemption. Internal goals almost always have to do with relationships.

Even a book about a man's singular search such as Jon Krakauer's INTO THE WILD, a book about a man vs. nature, is really about his quest for self-love. Why does this speak to us? Because as human beings, this is what we're all engaged in. The struggle is a common one.

The goal of your story, first the external goal (which will give them something to physically accomplish in the story) and then the internal goal (which gives them emotional arcs) will help you find the turning points in your story, which will also lead you to the action required to reach them. Having a road map for your characters' journeys in your book will not only help you avoid the unbeaten paths they want to aimlessly meander down, but will focus your story.

Try watching a movie you love and see if you can pick out the false and true goals. Pay attention to how those are revealed. When you get good at spotting it in a film, try it with a book you've never read. Then take a look at your own Work-in-progress. Are your characters' goals strong enough? Can you find a way to strengthen the conflict by strengthening your character's T & F goals?

As with any of the writing craft stuff I post, feel free to take what you like and leave the rest. There is no right and wrong about it.

Now, back to pondering all that snow on Mr. Frost's road less traveled.

Brrr.

Bet you wish you didn't ask...

Claire was sweet enough to honor me with the Me Me award today! Thank you so much, Claire. It couldn't have come at a better time as I was feeling a bit cranky as I sat down to decide what the heck to blog about today. And really, who can be cranky when someone sweet thinks of you in such a nice way? It was Claire's way of saying welcome to the blogging world, but the award also asks me to mention seven things you may or may not know about me and pass it along. Since I already gave out a bunch of awards last week, (And I don't know that many of you yet!) I'm only gonna pass it on to one. I hope that's okay.

So here goes:

1.) I used to be a ballerina! I danced for fifteen years as a kid, and into college. I loved to dance! I would do arabesques while setting the table and choreograph dances in my living room. My weird, dancer's arches will attest to starting on point at 11. Though peer pressure in junior high school tried to punch a hole in my balloon of happiness over dancing, I persevered! I even danced with a dance company for a while and did musical theater productions in the Syracuse University Theater. Oh, Carousel! Alas, water skiing put an end to my dreams of wearing a feathered costume one day in Swan Lake.


2.) I made my living for a while in LA as a commercial actress. I did probably 30 commercials over the years, including one particularly embarrassing,and long-running Head and Shoulders commercial where I'm best known for scratching my head! Someday, I'll post a link to it, so you can be embarrassed for me, too. I did a Hertz commercial with OJ Simpson and Jimmy Conners (for those of you too young to remember, he was a tennis player) when I was just pregnant with my daughter. All I remember of that nightmare is that it was 107* that July day and I had a three piece yellow polyester suit on in a closed, baking studio. Under hot lights. And I was nauseous. Somehow, I ended up on the floor with Jimmy hovering over me. (His wife was due right about then, so apparently he was empathetic.) The rest is a little fuzzy. But they miraculously let me finish with a fan and a glass of ice water nearby. Yes, Hollywood is glamorous.


3.)I met my husband in a bar. But before you get all judgemental, let me say in my own defense that I was employed as a waitress at that establishment, one of three jobs I was juggling in my quest for an Oscar. (Which, as you're no doubt aware, never happened.) He was the bar patron. I was so busy working I had no time for TV in those days. If I had, I might have known this guy I had a crush on was starring in a TV series at the time and worked all the time as an actor. I just thought he was cute. Anyway, it all worked out. Somehow, we've been married for 30 years and produced two wonderful--now grown--children. We just became grandparents!



4. I've published 10 books, all romance novels for houses like Kensington, Harper Collins and Harlequin/Silhouette.

5. I write screenplays, too. Part of the reason for the problematic slowness of my book productivity was my quest to learn this new skill. I took a few years off to re feather my empty nest, go back to grad school and enter into the Hollywood fray of screenwriting, like everyone and his brother here in La-La land. I finally optioned one a year and a half ago. It's still wallowing in development hell. But we're hopeful it will get made. Hopefully some time before Vampires are out of style....


6. Speaking of bats...I rappelled down a 180' cave once. Seriously. Down a shaft two feet wide and twenty-five twisty feet long of slippery, scary limestone (Did I mention I'm claustrophobic? What was I thinking?) and down into a cavern where I free-rappelled another 150' straight down. Toward a pile of ancient bones of critters and curiosity seekers who did not have a rope as they probed the opening I squeezed through. They didn't call it Moaning Caverns for nothing. And there were a few bats. *Shudder.* It was fun.


7. I conquered the subways of Paris. Well, my husband did it with me. They're beautiful subways. Clean and friendly. We found our way all over that beautiful city that way and I even left my reading glasses on a table at Montmartre just so I could take the subway all the way across Paris again the next day and race the little lift (that we missed) up the three hundred cute steps from the stop to retrieve them. I would have left them again, just to stay in Paris because I fell so madly in love with it. And even though we didn't speak French, the maitre d' at the restaurant saved them for me and was very kind. I long to go back there again. And someday, I will.

So that's me in a nutshell. Aptly. I shall forward this Me Me award on to someone I don't know well, yet, but would like to. Someone who's kindly been following my newbie blog and been very sweet in her comments to me: Snap.

My Characters Have Issues

One of the things about writing a novel is that it's a 24/7 kind of job. With the books I sell to publishers, there are no time clocks to punch. No boss standing over me with a proverbial whip. The deadlines are mine and mine alone to do with what I will. And being the kind of person who does not like disappointing editors, I'm pretty good about self-motivation when I have a deadline. But this is a double edged sword. It means that regular work hours are meaningless. That is to say, it's not like you can leave a plot point at the office and say hello the next day at 9 am.

Me: (Stretching luxuriously after a good night's sleep) "Oh. Morning, Jack. So, did you and what's-her-face resolve your conflict issues last night?"

A long, irritated pause.

Jack: "No."

Me: "Oh. Well, did you at least come up with some better dialogue than that idiotic patter you were muttering yesterday? Because seriously--"

Jack: "Uh, no. We were...waiting for you."

Me: "Waiting for me? What kind of lame-ass hero are you anyway?"

Jack: "All right, that's it. C'mon, folks. We're going on strike until we get some real revision here." Jack motions the other characters together, then tosses me a pointed glance. "And that's your job. Read your contract."


Yup. Regular hours are a dreamy, fantasy-world away. Because these characters you've conjured up will hound you. They will hunt you down in the middle of a perfectly good nights' sleep and demand their right to a decent resolution. They are relentless, difficult and for the most part, unhelpful.

By the mid-point of your book, as the sagging middle rears its ugly head and they just stand there, arms crossed, taunting you, it can make a sane writer...well, cranky.



(Picture Tom Hanks here, yelling:) "There's no crying! There's no crying in publishing!"

When my characters have reached this impasse, they are not capable of sorting it all out for themselves. Although, as most of you who write know, occasionally,they will lead you to the closed door looming ahead like a road block and helpfully point out that you took a wrong turn back there and it's time to retrace your steps. Here's where the familiar refrain of "Where did this stop working for me?" begins banging away at my sleep.

Nine times out of ten, it's because I've chosen the wrong Point-of-view for a scene. I'm trying to make some character talk when it really has little to do with them emotionally. By switching this to the other character in the scene, it's amazing how suddenly things loosen up. Characters put down their strike signs and belly up to the bar. POV usually finds its strongest ally in the character who has the most at stake in a scene (emotionally or physically.) Why? Because every scene is a mini-book. Each scene has a beginning, middle and end. Each scene starts with one or both characters having goals. And by the end, one character will win and the other will lose. Deciding who does and who has the most at stake emotionally for a particular goal is your choice. Try it both ways if you're stuck.

This all becomes so much trickier, of course, when writing in First Person (meaning the camera is always viewing from one POV--your main character. In that case, you don't have the option of changing POV. So your impasse probably has more to do with whether the scene you're writing has a strong enough goal, motivation or conflict.
Rocky Balboa

I'll talk more about GM&C in another post. For now, if you're not a fiction writer and you managed to get all the way through this post, I apologize. Maybe it'll all pay off and you'll notice this stuff when you read your next novel. But even if it's blogging, I'd love to hear: What kinds of problems keep you up at night when it comes to your writing?

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is...

Kathryn at Tender Graces asked this question today-- Who are you? How do you label yourself? And how do you validate yourself about what you do? Great topic, Kathryn!

This is a question that comes up with my students over and over. And to be honest, it's one that rears its ugly head with me as well. Students who struggle for years with their own writing wonder if they'll ever get published. I wonder if I'll find the level of success I want. It's easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves, our careers, our publishing advances with others. After all, most of my friends are writers. Published, unpublished, I've found that the way success looks on the outside doesn't always match what the writer feels on the inside.

One friend talked about making the New York Times for the first time and being elated. For a minute. Then she started to worry how long she'd stay there. Would her next book make it onto the NYT? And if it did, would it move up the list? Would she feel like a failure if it didn't? These fears are really no different from the ones unpublished writers have. Will I ever sell? Will this rejection be better than my last one? And if I win this contest, will it make me feel like a writer?

The line that we draw in the sand as our measure of success shifts constantly as we take steps toward our goals. We redraw the line and erase the one behind us. But why can't we be happy about our successes? Is it just human nature to forget what we've accomplished in favor of driving ourselves forward?

Maybe.

But here's what I know. Spending time worrying about things out of our control like publishing, sales figures, book lists and reviewers will only keep us from what we're really meant to do: To Write. Worry keeps us from putting our butt in the chair and doing the work. Fear freezes up creativity. It is the bogey-man of artistry. Whether you write, paint, compose, or do anything that fulfills you, Fear's only job is to stop you in your tracks. Most often, it comes in the form of small negative voices-- maybe the naysayers in our past-- who chip away at our confidence. But all we have control over is what we do. If we paint, we paint. If we write, we write. No one can take that away from us. And it cannot label us. Only we can know who we truly are.

And now a word from my Id (as in the Freudian neuroses to whom this post was really directed.) "That was very enlightened. But can we just readjust this sand line here a smidge?"

"No."

You see sometimes, I need to listen to my own advice. Thank you.

It's The Journey, Not The Destination. Right?

First, I wanted to thank all of you who stopped by and left such sweet comments on my last (uh, first) post, buzzing by from sweet Sarah's blog. I am thrilled to meet you, hear your thoughts and to visit some of your blogs--which I will continue to do as I go. Wow, this can really be addictive! You're all so interesting!

Years ago, (don't ask me how many) I found a book called "The Writer's Journey" by a guy who taught at UCLA Extension named Chris Vogler. It has since become something of a bible in the screenwriting world when it comes to developing structure and it was based on Joseph Campbell's 1000 page epic, "Hero With a Thousand Faces," which, if I had two hundred years, I might attempt to plow through.

Vogler's book ( a condensed version) was kind of life changing for me. It was all about myth and The Hero's Journey. You know...character arc and figuring out how characters change in your story? Anyway, there are these stages that characters go through--out of the darkness and into the light? It's all very riddled with adventure and angst! At least, that's the way it's supposed to go. His title, "The Writer's Journey," eluded me for a while. I was so distracted, figuring out how my characters could use this structure in my stories.

But as I embarked on this new empty-nest chapter of my life (ie.-- flapping like an under-feathered baby bird in the grass, crying "Mommmeeee!") it occurred to me one sleepless night as I channel-surfed mind-numbingly bad infomercials that I had just stumbled into my own Inmost Cave! My own Tests, Allies and Enemies! The inevitable Crossing the Threshold! (Sorry, that's Vogler-speak for the *&^% is about to hit the fan!) All that I knew to be true was about to be tested. I was up a tree and some nameless force was throwing rocks.

What? I'm a character in my own life?? Hmm. This was an interesting concept. And as I looked around me, I realized it was true. And not in any archetypal sense either. For real. And most of my friends had inadvertently stumbled into it, too. We were all suddenly in this weird scary place, smack dab in the middle of our lives and none of us could figure out where the light switch was. The trick was, how to get to the other side with the prize. My own personal prize--if I could find it--would be to be figure out who I was. This new me.

I began to plot my way out of this fix. I decided to be--(er, I contemplated being) proactive, like any good hero. (Okay--in the interest of full disclosure, my husband latched onto this new idea with the optimism of man whose last floatation device has just drifted by.) He literally sent me dozens of emails during the day full of possibilities for story lines, ideas for jobs, connections for jobs.... Finally, he ran into a friend who had just come back from this fabu place in Vermont where she'd apparently unleashed the inner Her! She had a One-Woman show going up that had been part of a project she'd done for this place. My husband forwarded me the web site. Then, an application. He was relentless.

So, of course, I did the next logical thing. I applied for Grad school.

Be kind to yourself--Barbara

WHEN THE MUSE AND THE EMPTY NEST COLLIDE

When I decided to do this blog, I contemplated what it would be about. I mean, it has to have some kind of focus, right? Had I started it a few years ago, the focus would have been my kids, my family and BTW, my writing. Not that writing wasn't important in my life then. It has been years since I sold my first book-- a romance novel for Zebra/Kensington.

When I began seriously writing, my daughter and son were little. So I put my desk in my living room, near the front window, where I could be part of things. Where I could see my kids as they ran in and out and, when on a horrid book deadline, give them a hug, or stop to talk about their days. I wasn't the kind of mom who said, "Don't bother me unless there's blood!" Because, frankly, blood makes me queasy and I always figured it was prudent to intervene before things got that far.

But back then, I knew who I was. I was a mom. My real job was to make sure my kids survived childhood. (Seriously.) And to make sure they were happy. Amazingly enough, they did grow up to be wonderful adults who are now off and running in their own lives. My son is following his dream in the film industry and my daughter and her darling husband just had a baby--our first grandchild! The little Boo. (see above)

Okay, now I'm totally distracted by the deliciousness in this picture....Sorry.

After my kids grew up, went off to college, there was this....long pause in my life. Those of you who've been through this know what I'm talking about: It was kind of a "Now, what?" moment. Or...a "What the hell?"moment. Okay, fine. It was a full-on identity crisis. Which was ironic, really, since I'd always thought my book writing would save me from that. I thought I'd know who I was because I had this whole writing career thing going... I'd breeze through, buck up and write. All would be well.

Could I have been more wrong? I don't think so.

My writing life skidded to a screeching halt. Not a word found its way to the computer screen. The blinking cursor mocked me. Repeatedly. I thought I'd give it some space. Allow myself to be in my empty-nestedness for a bit. Then I'd be okay. But the longer I went without writing, the harder it was to get back to it. I feared I'd never write again. This went on for a couple of years. My husband gave me foot-rubs and told me it would all be all right. (Did I mention that I love my husband?) But I still grappled with dark questions like: WHO AM I? And WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFI?

Then, in the grandest of ironies, writing saved me. Lifted me right up and cradled me against its bosom. Angels sang and clouds parted and my muse stepped right up and--

What? Oh, right. My muse has asked me to inform you that none of that is true. No bosom cradling was involved. A couple of shin kicks, a shiner, as I recall. Some other injuries I won't go into here. But the part about writing saving me is true. But it didn't happen without serious determination on my part. Some call being stuck like this writer's block. I don't really like that term. I think it's life-block, because if I'm so stuck I can't write, there are definitely other reasons why. It's not about the writing.

Did I mention I teach writing? No? The only reason I mention it is that I get to see from a completely different perspective why people stop writing or doing any creative thing they love. And believe me when I say, it's not because the muse stops talking. It's for other reasons. Reasons that are important to address and work through. Ignoring them simply aggravates them. So, deep down I knew this. I knew I had to take action before the whole thing got away from me and I slid down that slippery slope I'd seen so many of my students take who'd given up on themselves completely. And despite the old adage, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach," I wasn't finished with writing yet. Besides, what good would I be as a teacher if I couldn't walk the walk, talk the talk...write the books?

(to be continued...)

Be good to yourself-- Barbara