Smithsonian and Other Smarty Mags Good for Writers Too

You may be able to tell from this post that my husband brought me a copy of The Smithsonian magazine from his dermatologist's office. So thanks to Lance and Dr. Mantel, I am now a diehard fan of the magazine.

One of the articles was inspired by the new movie, Man of Steel. They take up how "superhero origin stories inspire us to cope with adversity."

 I prefer to think of it as an article on how to plumb the depths of characters with backstories.

The elements that make superheroes so popular can work with characters in any kind of fiction you may write (or read). Here are the ones that writer Robin Rosenberg found in several of the most popular superhero tales. Check your stories and novels to see how these themes (or "life-altering experiences") might be capitalized on to further pique the interest of your readers.

~Destiny—is your character "chosen" in some way?
~Trauma—has your character suffered trauma that increased his strengths or weaknesses?
~Sheer chance—Sheer chance (like getting bitten by a spider) is usually not as compelling as an action that has been caused or motivated, but sometimes a writer just has to do it. If an author makes that choice, he or she should put more emphasis on how the character deals with it.
~Choosing "altruism over the pursuit of wealth and power."

My own takeaway from the story is that literary criticism of the last decade has relegated backstory in novels as pretty undesirable, something that should be minimized at all costs. In my gut, I've always disagreed. Of course, we can't let backstory get in the way of momentum, but backstory is often part of your hero’s path to character building so they very well may deserve more attention. 

Backstory can help your readers relate, find meaning in loss, and provide models for coping. If you are a write of nonfiction, you may find ways to use superheroes' themes anecdotally in your work.

In either case, understanding the psychological underpinnings of why we are so affected may benefit us all by "tapping into our capacity for empathy, one of the greatest [super?] powers of all."

I also think Rosenberg missed something. I think we're all searching for connection—human to human. If that happens to be human-to-alien or human-to-superhero, so be it. It's part of what we all need as readers.

Note: Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist, has written several books about the psychology of superheroes. Search for her on Google.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor .

A Mini Essay: On Race, Authors and Creativity

Many of you know that in my other writing life, I take up serious themes like discrimination so I’m especially sensitive to it when I see in the publishing world.

Not long ago, my writing friend Leora Krygier was asked by a reporter for the Orange County Register if she felt qualified to write from the point of view of a young Vietnamese girl in her book When She Sleeps. Having once been in journalism and been in a position to do some interviewing of my own, I was a bit incensed. It seemed amazing to me that someone would presume to tell a writer they couldn't or shouldn't write from any point of view they so choose  or suggest that doing so would cause resentment. How could a reader (or a reporter) possibly presume we couldn't write from the point of view of someone of a different race, a different religion or culture. And why would they tinge that question with a hint-of-haughty in the voice, a bit of a look-down-the-nose demeanor.

My daughter, a cultural anthropologist, suggested that such ideas were a function of our intensity to be as politically correct as possible and The Register did have a large Vietnamese population, which was probably one reason they were doing the interview in the first place. Because I believe that being politically incorrect in most instances, simply promulgates bigotry, I tried to put all my arguments—arguments in favor of creative writers—aside and forget about it.

Then I ran into another instance of this kind of question in Time magazine. There is was in my face again:

Belinda Luscombe put on her snarkiest interview hat to interview Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Michael Chabon. It went something like this: "A central character in your book Telegraph Avenue, Arcy Stallings, is the black co-owner of a record store. Did you feel anxious writing from the point of view of a black guy?" In addition to the haughty and snooty tendencies listed above, her question smacks a bit of the passive aggressive.

I admit it. That got me a little riled. But the interviewer persisted: "But race is a charged subject. In the book, there's a white lawyer, Moby, who talks like a black guy. Didn't you worry that that was you?"

Then I went on a full scale rant, albeit a quiet one to myself. Exc-u-u-se me! But don't writers of fiction always use something of themselves when drawing a character? None of us can pull any character trait that we haven't personally seen, experienced, or read about from thin air! I sniffed! But it doesn't have to be us.

And doesn't fiction work—especially great fiction—because at our cores we are all the same? Sentient human beings who share needs and feelings? When I suffer under one kind of prejudice, as an example, isn't that at some level very similar to what someone else suffers under another? So wouldn't that qualify white-girl me to write from the point of anyone I so chose—if I took care. If I had a worthy subject and theme. And isn't that the job of the artist to decide?

And, (I actually huffed! Almost aloud!), haven't these reporters ever heard of research? Or imagination?

And what about that idea of getting too close to something, so close that we may feel responsible or fear we're putting our souls in danger? Or that someone might mistake sincerity for satire? Of vice versa? Wouldn't any thoughtful person understand that every time an author picks up a pen he or she puts herself in some kind of emotional (philosophical?) danger? And don't readers understand the difference between fiction and reality? Do they really think that every character in our books is us rather than seeing that every character may be us, but may also be a reflection of someone we've observed? Or read about? Or devised by mixing traits of many people we've met?

And this is the answer I came up with.

Apparently not.

CHJ

 

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . 

Craft: Learning from Edgar Allan Poe and Mindy Phillips Lawrence

A guest post today from...

By Mindy Phillips Lawrence

I share Edgar Allan Poe's birth date except for the year. When I began to write in junior high school, Poe’s work fascinated me. He jerked my senses around and sunk deeply into my consciousness, a place where he has stayed. His short story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” is only 2376 words but it astounds you with its building action and macabre ending. If you haven’t read it, shame on you! It’s a masterful bit of writing that is a short story course in and of itself. If you use the points on Dennis G. Jerz’s Web site tips on short story writing to judge it (http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/), Poe’s “Amontillado” follows every point.

·        Write a catchy first paragraph

“THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

Bingo! In the first sentence, we learn that the main character is plotting revenge against his friend Fortunato, which ironically means “good fortune,” for a perceived insult. Poe uses the first paragraph to introduce the murderer, whose name we do not learn until the latter part of the story, and his assumption that he has suffered a wrong worthy or murder.

·        Develop your characters

Short stories should have a limited number of characters. In this case, Poe uses two, Fortunato and Montresor, one who has offended the other. He develops one character through the use of the other, allowing us to also know the storyteller through his statements. 

 

·        Choose a point of view

Poe uses first person, mostly narrative, which allows Montresor to tell his side of the story only. This form of first person is called imperfect first person by some as the mental clarity of the teller is cloudy. He may or may not be telling the truth. His telling of the story unfolds the method of revenge and also gradually reveals the strands of Montresor’s insanity.

·        Write meaningful dialogue

Poe achieves the powerful development of this story with little use of dialogue. Every word he does use in the conversations has a special meaning, usually ironic as in...

“But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said--

"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!"

"The Amontillado!" I said.

"He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

"For the love of God, Montresor!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

·        Use setting and context

The setting is first in the street and then in the catacombs during Carnival, mostly likely Mardi Gras. The setting mingles the raucous celebration with the impending doom of Fortunato.

·        Set up the plot

The plot in the story is simple: Montresor has a grievance against Fortunato. He chooses murder to solve the grievance and devises a way to commit the perfect revenge. With this simple outline of events, Poe carries us, step-by-step, toward Fortunato’s demise. 

·        Create conflict and tension

Conflict and tension build with Montresor’s description of the relationship between him and Fortunato, the ironic conversation they carry on in which Fortunato means one thing by a statement while Montresor means something completely different. By having Fortunato drunk, Poe obscures any sensibility that his character has.

·        Build to a crisis or a climax

Every line in the story points to the climax. When we learn of the trowel that Montresor has brought into the catacombs, we know his method of revenge. It’s the deliberate telling of each step of the process that both sickens and thrills readers.

·        Deliver a resolution

The resolution in this story is two-fold: Montresor succeeds in bricking Fortunato’s body in the catacomb and for a half-century no one had found the body. A perfect crime! Or maybe not!

If you follow the development of this story and use is as a guide to write your own, you will find the process to be a great lesson in short story writing. Let me know how you come out.

LINKS

Short Story Writing

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/

The Cast of Amontillado

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/POE/cask.html

Amontillado

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amontillado

Study Guide: the Cask of Amontillado

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Caskof.html

~Mindy Phillips Lawrence–who shares a birthday with Dolly Parton, Dogen, Janis Joplin, Paula Deen and Edgar Allan Poe–is a writer, editor, and artist living in Springfield, Missouri. She is working on both the book and Kindle versions of the Itty Bitty column she writes for the Sharing with Writers newsletter each issue.  It is scheduled for publication in late 2012.

To subscribe to Sharing with Writers newsletter, send a SUBSCRIBE message to hojonews@aol.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second ediction of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Tom Selleck and Jesse Stone Set Examples for Characterization

Sharing with Writers and Readers has a guest blogger today. PM Terrell is a well-known novelist. Today, she's talking abour characterization, something we haven't mentioned in a long time on this blog.  The more writers know about it, the better--of course. But knowing more about it also increases the pleasure of reading for readers.

I fell in love with Jesse Stone after watching Stone Cold starring Tom Selleck. I bought every book in the Jesse Stone series. It didn’t matter what plots Robert B. Parker dreamed up for Jesse. The point was I would have followed him wherever and whatever he did, because I was hooked on the character. He was full of flaws and yet he was a good man, someone I wanted to succeed.

I feel the same way about Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call in Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove series. The plot didn’t matter as much as the characters and to this day, I still find myself quoting Gus and picturing him in my mind’s eye with that cocky shake of the head or his habit of sucking his teeth.

So when fans began writing me about the characters in my suspense/thriller Exit 22, I understood the connection. There are certain characteristics that can jump out at a reader; for example, the sociopathic assassin in Exit 22 knits baby booties in between killings. For some fascinating reason, that heightens the terror for many readers. Brenda Carnegie, a gorgeous woman who has no qualms about wading through alligator-infested swamps, has become an icon of a self-assured, fearless woman that fans want to read more about.

Exit 22 has inspired a series called Black Swamp Mysteries, a name taken from the black waters of the swampy Lumber River that snakes through southeastern North Carolina. In the next book, Vicki’s Key (due for release in March 2012) I introduce a character who jumped off the page at me and changed the course of the entire series.

Dylan Maguire is an Irishman who comes to America under mysterious circumstances. I found that his nationality made for some dramatic changes in the way I wrote his speech patterns and even the phrases he uses. Spoken by an American, they seem unnatural; spoken by an Irishman, he becomes irresistible. In the original draft of Vicki’s Key, he was meant to be a character that was just passing through. But when the editors and advance readers read the draft, they convinced me that he had become so real to them that he had to continue throughout the series. Like The Fonz in Happy Days, he had emerged in a starring role.

What makes a character memorable? It can be the exotic, like an Irishman or the Shawnee warrior in my book, Songbirds are Free. It can be a tragic back story that makes them who they are. It can be the sense of adventure and courageousness that perhaps we wish we had ourselves. Or it can be the unexpected, like the knitting killer.

And once those characters grab you, there’s no letting go.

~p.m.terrell is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twelve books. Exit 22 Kindle edition is on sale through October 31 for ninety-nine cents. The next book in the series, Vicki’s Key, will be released in March 2012. For more information, visit www.pmterrell.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: