My Writers' Circle: Highlighting Sarah Boucher

Last night, I kicked off a week of sharing with you about writers I've met.  I met Sarah Boucher when we were kids living across the street from each other in small town Utah.  In fact, she helped me figure out this whole blogging process.  She's grown up to be an amazing indie writer, spinning fairy tales into realistic and meaningful adaptations for young adults.  I truly love her books.

I told her I especially enjoy how she makes the tale possible without resorting to magic.  Sarah responded, "I don't write magic. If I did, I'd have to remember my own magic rules and would probably end up breaking them anyway."  She finds magic in reality, which was something I had never considered doing before.  I was wowed by her Becoming Beauty in which her Beauty is as ugly inside as the beast is outside.  They both have to find the beauty within.  I was also swept away by her adaptation of "12 Dancing Princesses," Midnight Sisters.  I love this more obscure tale to begin with, but the way she took us into the tale through the eyes of a gardener in love with the eldest sister, once again without literal magic, was nothing short of, well, magical.

She is so excited that her third book, Golden Gown, is approaching its launch.  It's an adaptation of "Rumpelstiltskin" and "The Shoemaker and the Elves." I'm excited to get my hands on it.   Here's what the blurb says about it:
Elyse has lost everything; her parents, her family home, and the village where she is loved and respected. Still grieving, she arrives in a new town where she must prove her skills as a seamstress. Overnight, she creates a gown stunning enough to catch the princess’s eye and win the community’s approval. With every eligible maiden clamoring for her designs, Elyse must do everything in her power to appease them. No one can ever know that in the moments when she doubts her abilities, a mysterious stranger with a talent for tailoring and a penchant for damsels in distress comes to her aid. If anyone ever discovers the truth, her reputation will be ruined.

I can't wait to find out how she found a way to weave these stories together without magic but with depth and charm.

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I had a delightful interview with her, akin to the one I had with Thomas.  I asked how she got into this work.  She said, “I've been writing stories since elementary school, when I crafted a tale about magic pants. I didn’t share my stories with many people until about 2010 or 2012 when I joined a writing group. Working collaboratively inspired me to make my stories better. One member, who was a published author, insisted that I submit Becoming Beauty for publishing. Until then, I never had plans to do so." Her statements highlight the power and importance of the writer's group, which I'm highlighting this week.   

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When I asked what she liked most about writing, she said, “I like the whole creation process. I get to take stories that people know, think they know, or don't know at all and make them into something entirely new. Being a part of this creative process is both cathartic and challenging." For her, the writing process, itself, is fun, especially with the idea in mind of sharing it with others.  

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I then asked, "What do you like least about writing?"  Sarah said, “Deadlines kill me! They’re as discouraging as they are motivating. My second least favorite thing about writing is that is you can never really get it perfect. I read professionally published books, and they have errors. In the end, you just breathe. You let your sweet, little, baby manuscript go and hope people can see past the nonsense.” My answer would have been fairly identical.  So many of us struggle with the eternal and fruitless effort of making writing perfect.  However, one day, we just have to share it the way it is.  

I highly recommend you seek out the wonderful books of my friend, Sarah Boucher.  Her writing will sweep you away and may give you ideas for your own writing.  Pick up a copy today.  

Making Connections: Writer Thomas Paxton

I've been blogging about writing in a more literary fashion.  Recently, I've also been updating you on things I've learned from the classes I've been taking.  A few weeks ago, I specifically addressed the idea of building a writer's circle, a group of writers who can support you as you support them.  Many of the ideas I've learned of late come from the Write Practice. The class I'm taking teaches about how to create an email and writer's web page, how to write and share a story, how to get it polished, how to build a writers' group, and how to actually get the piece published, and how to start to build a following that will embrace it.  This week, I learned a technique anyone can use to start building their writers' group, which is reaching out to writers you already know to learn more about them and to further your connections in the writing world.

I interviewed five writers about whom you've probably never heard, so you can gain insights into what is important to other writers, especially beginning writers, and so you can learn about what some up and coming writers are working on.  I will be sharing a bit about each of these writers over the course of this week in a very special set of blogs.  One of the things the course suggested we do was share information about our fellow writers just as they're sharing information about us.  That's what I'll be doing in these blogs.  

Thomas Paxton

One of my first interviews was with my nephew, Thomas Paxton, an ambitious novelist whose sci fi/fantasy series, ShadowFang, he compares to a combination of Harry Potter, "Avengers," and Game of Thrones.  It's dark fantasy about the human condition, about trauma and healing, about family, love, and so much more.  Those who have read book one, Crimson Nightfall, it have been swept up in the drama, passion, and humor of his labor of love.  He's right now preparing his first novel for an editor then will be working toward publication.  Here is the interview I had with him:

The Cover of Shadowfang Book 1: Crimson Knightfall

When I asked how Thomas got into writing, he answered what got him into writing was "the fascination of wanting to tell a story and play with fictional toys instead of real ones."  He also emphasized the importance of the human heart in telling a story.  Of his specific genre of horror-fantasy, he said, "I'm fixated on the idea that we live horror and don't realize it."  He sees horror as reflective of the human condition.  

When I asked what he liked most about writing, he said the following: "I like that it's therapeutic.  I can act like I'm not me and be in control of my life for once.  That brings me to writing.  It's arduous coming up with complex story ideas.  It's the one place and time of day with college, kids, and work that I can be myself but not me.  I'm becoming these fictional people in my head.  It brings me to writing in the first place.  I have too much fun wrecking people's worlds.  I'm upset my own world gets wrecked all the time.  It's masochistic therapy, being able to see fictional people picking themselves up after they got wrecked and wrecking them again." In other words, he likes the control he has over fantasy worlds, of his projection into these worlds and characters, and its therapeutic value. 

Thomas's logo for the series. 

When I asked him what he didn't like about writing, he said this: "I don't like the part where I stare at a blank page,and it doesn't write itself for me.  I can't have my computer do a Dumbledore pensieve and pull out DNA strands.  It's the difference between taking a picture and making a scene.  With a picture, it happens and is pretty.  With writing, you have to decide which words to keep after you vomited everywhere.  After you bled and vomited, you have to take a mop and clean it up."  I think we all can understand this.  

Many of us who are aspiring or even practicing writers can relate to Thomas's passion and struggles when it comes to writing.  Be on the look out for ShadowFang, coming soon to a shelf (and click) near you.  Also be watching over the next few days for more interviews with passionate writers.  

Real Tragedy

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I've been blogging about writing more literarily, no matter the genre.  They say write what you know. This advice is never so true as when you're writing about tragedy.  It's important to help the reader care about your character.  One way to do that is to show their heart, what they love and lose.  Jane Eyre is so moving because it starts with her heart, the pain that shaped her.  We love Harry Potter because we see his loss first thing and know something of his pain.  Hamlet tugs at our heartstrings because Shakespeare wastes no time in showing how he lost his father, and the whole play shows him struggling with how to deal with the murder.  Even in less literary works, authors excite sympathy early on, so the reader feels their pain.  We love Batman, Spiderman, and Superman--in part--because these stories begin in parental loss.  The problem comes when an author writes about a character's pain without any understanding the experience.  There's a loss or some other difficulty, which is not realistically handled or feels like it's intended to manipulate the reader without any impact on the character.  If you, as a writer, are going to feature characters dealing with trauma, you need to first seek to understand the effects such a tragedy would have in one's life.

I read a piece that started with child loss, yet this seemed to have no bearing on the rest of the book.  It was just there, like speed bump on the way to an unrelated story.  I've actually lost a child.  That doesn't mean I know what everyone goes through who does, but it does mean I know how much such a loss impacts every day of my life.  I know how much it weighs on the mind, at least, to me.  If the impact in the character's life is not at least that weighty, even if it doesn't  mirror my own in any way, it rings false.  It feels like the author is trivializing my loss.  It hurts, and I don't want to continue a book that treats me like that.

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The same is true of any loss.  If your character lost a parent, siblings, or another loved one, and yet they are totally emotionally disconnected from that loss, why start there?  A reader who has been orphaned or lost a family member will know that such an experience would likely rock a person's world.  If it doesn't, there must be a reason for it.  But unless there is a very compelling reason to feature loss with no emotional impact, it's probably not a good idea.  If the character is trying to avoid thinking about their pain, turns to alcohol or some other self-medicating substance, is working themselves to death to avoid dealing with loss, or is incapacitated by the pain, that can ring true to someone who has done the same or has seen someone else do the same.  It's a fine line, however, between feeling it and spending the whole book whining about it.  That, too, can turn off a reader.

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If you're writing about tragedy you don't understand, haven't researched on a personal and real level or haven't gone through yourself, it's probably a bad idea to go there.  It can do more harm than good.  However, if you're writing about trauma in a real way that somehow reflects lived experience and shows the character dealing with, reeling from, healing from that pain, you're writing a book that can make a real difference in someone's life.  Writing and reading about trauma, whether real or fictional, can help writers and readers heal from their pain.  The writer can share their real or metaphoric voyage from pain to wholeness, and the reader who is experiencing the same kind of pain can feel understood and experience hope for their own healing.  The key is to avoid trivializing someone else's trauma for the sake of a plot or character device.  There must be a sense of authenticity to it.

Look or think over the way you have written about or plan to write about trauma.  How much do you know about the experience of that trauma?  If none, educate yourself.  Find people who can share their experience.  It's not enough to just read the five stages of grief.  More and more experts and regular people have debunked it as unhelpful and untrue of lived experience.  Research, so you know what you're dealing with, or change the story.  Your readers will be thankful you did.

Choosing a Perspective

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I've been blogging about techniques to make any piece of writing more literary.  One critical strategy to begin with is choosing your perspectival character.  Once, there was no perspectival character.  Narratives stood aloof from their writing and displayed everyone equally, venturing into various minds.  This kind of third person omniscient was commonly accepted as the way to go.  Now, it really doesn't fly with readers and can get fairly confusing.  I watched the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and where to Find Them, and it didn't work for me.  I'm not the only one it didn't work for, and much of that could be that the narrative doesn't pick a perspectival character.  We follow several storylines with several characters, and none of them seem to be THE main character.  It gets confusing and frustrating.  Some movies and books can pull it off, but it's usually best to choose a protagonist or two main characters, someone(s) the reader can see as their avatar in the world of the story. 

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If you already have your main character, it's a matter of choosing how to tell the story, in first-person or third-person.  First-person gives an immediacy, an emergency, and a passion that can be a bit lacking with third-person limited.  You, the reader, ARE this person doing these amazing things.   For a popular example, read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series.  We see the world through Percy's eyes, with all the intensity that entails. You're feeling the rush of the air, smelling the breath of the monster on your face.  On the other hand, writing in this perspective can feel somewhat limiting.  What if you want to show someone else's perspective?  What if you want to show this scene through the warrior's view and the next through the monster's?  There more flexibility in third person, and it can still feel urgent, immediate, and intense.  Just refer to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series for a very popular example.  It's really a matter of taste.  Try both.  Which works for you in this story? 

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However, if you don't know who your perspectival character is--or which one to use FOR THIS SCENE if you decide to use third-person and switch back and forth--look at what is happening or will happen in the scene or story.  For whom is there the most emotional impact?  Is it more intensely emotional to be a sick child being held by her mother, to be the mother holding her child knowing she can do nothing, or to be the woman's husband, watching them both suffer?  Possibly someone else?  Who has the most to lose?  Whether to use first- or third-person is a decision best made before you start because it can be really sticky and complicated switching later.  However, which character should tell which scenes is a decision to make as you go alone and that can be switched at any time.  Play with it.  Don't feel locked in until it's published. 

Building a Network

My blogging, of late, has been on literary writing, though this one is about writing, in general.  A couple of webinars I heard recently emphasized the importance of creating a writer's network.  One by The Write Practice talked about building a cohort of supports and writers with whom you can share your contacts and who can help you along the way.  It always seemed somewhat important to have a support network of fellow writers, but I never knew how important it was. 

A network, from what I understand now, is everything when it comes to the success of a writer.  A writer cannot succeed alone.   I have been building my writer's network for a while.  A good friend of mine has started self-publishing her books.  She helped me figure out the world of blogging.  I have friends in my writer's group and social network, who have been helping me polish my writing.  My sister sent me the contact of a publisher recently, one who could very well be the key to my future.   I have two children and a husband, all of whom are writers, all of whom help me create, polish, and refine. I have been building a network on Twitter and FaceBook for a while.  However, it seems that this is just the beginning if I am to succeed. 

If you haven't, start your writer's network now.  See other writers not as competition but as the keys to your success.  They can support you as you support them.  You can share with each other tricks, connections, and skills that will help both of you become more than you ever could alone.  Start your writer's network now. 

Referencing Disability in Literature

I've been blogging about literary writing.  One aspect of literary writing is tackling important and current issues.  One thing that sets literary works apart from their less literary counterparts is their ability to take a close and meaningful look at themes that are important to contemporary audiences, in particular, and to humanity, in general. 

Modern readers can open a window to various time periods by reading the literature of that time.  If one wants to know what issues concerned Shakespeare and his contemporaries, one need only to read his works.  He dealt with corruption, revenge, loyalty, royalty, ambition, love, madness, idealism, deceit, war, and so many more themes.  Many a reader has explored such themes to understand his world as well as human nature, in general.  Mark Twain explores themes of slavery vs. freedom, nature, and conscience.  If one wants to explore civil rights issues that concerned Harper Lee and others as she entered the sixties, one need only read works like To Kill a Mockingbird.  Orwell, in writings like 1984, Animal Farm, and others, helps readers explore contemporary fears of totalitarianism, technology, psychological manipulation, and other, similar themes.  These works continue in their meaning because they explore concerns with continued relevance. 

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In order to write in a literary fashion, a writer needs to explore meaningful themes within one's writing.  One modern theme to which some writers have turned is disability.  There was a time those with disabilities were mocked, derided, and destroyed within reality and in literature.  The mad woman in Rochester's attic within Jane Eyre was locked away then self-destructed.  A contemporary writer recreated her story in Wide Sargasso Sea, showing the same story through her eyes in a way that is eye-opening and much more subtle and complex.  Modern writers increasingly tackle disability as a reality for minor, major, and even main characters.  Disability is a major theme in law, in pop culture, and throughout society as more and more people step forward to share the challenges and joys faced by those with various disabilities in factual and fictional sources.  For instance, The Fault in our Stars tells the realistic love story of two youths dying of cancer. The novel was turned into a movie and gained a wider audience.  The Percy Jackson series is modern fantasy and shows youths dealing with ADHD and dyslexia.  Temple Grandin writes multiple factual books on her experience to help others understand.  Disability has becoming an increasingly common theme throughout modern literature and culture, in general. 

One caution is that anyone writing about a disability should do adequate research to do the disability justice.  Temple Grandin, herself, points out she originally assumed all people dealing with a similar kind of autism would experience things as she did, but she discovered hers was only one perspective on that disability.  Writers dealing in a shallow or unresearched way with disabilities will throw those who understand the disability out of the narrative.  It will be clear to experts in the field that they didn't do their homework. 

As with many other important themes, disability should be handled with respect and understanding.  When done right, it can increase value and meaning of your work for modern readers and beyond. 

Useful Ambiguity

[Which is Bingo?]

I've been blogging about ways to make any piece in any genre more literary.  One useful tool is ambiguity.  Some writers think erroneously that it helps to keep the identity of the character a mystery for as long as possible.  Such writers start by introducing a character through pronouns, keeping the narrator as vague as possible for as long as possible.  Events and characters can also be confusing to a reader when presented in an ambiguous fashion.  For example, we're told in the famous children's song "There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o."  Upon further reflection, the reader might question whether it's the dog or the farmer who answers to the name Bingo.  Either interpretation may be accurate.  This is not useful ambiguity (unless there's a specific reason to do so, as in the plot or character development requires it).  Generally, a writer should be clear in who is doing what and when.  However, there are exceptions.

[The joke.] 

Useful ambiguity involves the deliberate confusion of events or character in order to create humor and/or to deepen plot or character.  As the joke goes, "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."  This joke takes advantage of its own ambiguity to turn the apparent meaning on its ear.  "Outside" appears to mean "apart from," though the punchline belies this interpretation.  Movies like "Ocean's 11" deliberately confuse both the antagonist in the story and, by extension, the audience as a clever plot device.  The reader/audience believes what seems to have happened on the screen or in the book then is pleasantly surprised when they, like the antagonist in the story, finds out what really happens. 

[Ambiguous symbolism in the woods.]

Authors of literary works often keep their symbols deliberately vague and ambiguous, so every reader can make their own interpretation.  In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, various readers may interpret Hester Prynne's red letter badge on several levels and in several ways throughout the text.  It starts as a mark to show the world she's an adulteress and ends up representing various things to various characters and readers, often shifting within the same book, from sin to hard work to charity to righteousness to sacredness to grace and beyond.  The woods in a fairy tale, in Hawthorne's novel, or anywhere else it appears as freedom, evil, danger, darkness, escape, loss, confusion, or any one of countless things, often in the same work.  When the reader doesn't spell out what a symbol, character, or event means, the reader can interpret it in a way that works for them, in a way that brings depth and meaning.  Yellow can symbolize fear, positivity, illness, joy, or any range of other things, based on context.  This kind of ambiguity can really make a symbol work on more than one level. 

                                                                              

Ambiguity, as with other literary devices, should be a carefully used part of the craft.  If the color yellow is used with no particular suggestion of something deeper, it's not ambiguous or even meaningful.  It's just a color.  If it's used in a way that merely confuses the reader, hinting at something that no reader can interpret, that's ambiguity that is not useful.  If ambiguity is uses with intent and depth, it enhances the reading.  If it's used unintentionally or in a way that is confusing or not useful, it just makes a mess.  Go and find ambiguity in your own writing.  This is often most doable with the help of an outside mind.  Once you find (or create) your own ambiguity, determine if it brings greater meaning and depth to your work or if it simply confuses and frustrates.  Best of luck.