Tangling with Emotion

"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

-James Michene

As a writer, I can tell you that for me, writing emotion is one of the hardest parts of the entire process. We are in the habit of description--if we go out to the store and see something interesting, we always come home and describe the scene or item to someone else--it's ingrained in us. Dialog is easy too--after all, we speak all day long every day, and it is not too difficult to transfer those conversations to the page. [Especially if you are in the habit of speaking to yourself in your mind as well as audibly. :]

But emotion! Emotion is the vapor of a moment--elusive, shadowy, abstract, yet so very important. If we had no emotion, there would be no reason to write. What a sorry world this would be if the writer put no emotion, no heart, into her words, and the reader took no interest, felt no quickening of his pulse, as he read. We would have lost the very keystone of a novel: to transport the reader to worlds, adventures, and stories not his own, but indelibly connected to him through human sympathies and emotions. Ah, there we go again with that emotion.

There must be some level of emotion in each scene you write--if it is overdone, you run the risk of being labeled melodramatic. If it is underdone, your reader will have no interest in turning the page. After all, he could gain more satisfaction from picking at the dry toast-crumbs on the tablecloth than reading yet another heartless description, or soulless dialog. Emotion is defined as "A state of feeling." As writers, it is our duty to conduct the feelings of our readers with our words so that the reader becomes the character in the book. As Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away..." That phrase is our missions as writers. We work to craft our words until our readers forget they sit on a prosaic sofa in a shabby room, and believe--nearly--that they are the ones wielding the sword, slaying the villain, winning the maiden, waiting to be rescued, etc. It's a labor of love, for it is not easy, this passage to "lands away."

So we see the need for emotion, and the frailty of it. What now? How can we describe something that we ourselves often can't even put a finger on in our own lives? I would say, put on the part of an observer. Watch other people, and pay attention to your emotions, that you may learn how to write emotion into a scene. One mistake many writers make is thinking that there are three emotions--that is as false a statement as saying there are three legs on a centipede. (unless the said centipede is a veteran of a very cruel buggy-war...) But there they stand: Sorrow, Anger, Joy, and everything in-between is void and without form. This class of writers borders on melodramatic. After all, how many of you only feel those three emotions? Does it then make sense to subject your poor characters to such extremes? There are so many precious feelings in the midst of those three pillars. We can no more disregard merriment, or shame, or amusement, or wistfulness, or pride, or embarrassment, or yearning, or contentment than the centipede could walk as a three-legged bug.

Find a place for these emotions and learn how to write them in such a way that they are palpable. Your readers will thank you, and your characters [if they were real, and I'm not that certain some of them aren't. ;] will thank you. And, if it must be known, I will thank you. ;) ~Rachel

       "...These earth-people, always striving over something. And writers were the worst of the lot. Cecily wondered what they found quite so intriguing about the process. They could not be content with their own lives, but had to go poking about making more trouble for perfectly self-respecting characters who did not want to be bothered with kidnappings and murders and wars over kingdoms. She ought to know."

~The Scarlet-Gypsy Song by Rachel Heffington

P.S. I found a most astonishing development in The Scarlet-Gypsy Song: Cecily's story is the scribbling Mr. Macefield has been working on, and so when he writes that she is banished, she arrives at the Macefield Home, but then his children get into the story and he has to write them out, but he gets a fearful case of Writer's block in the meantime and they are stuck there, battling with Fitz-Hughes and trying desperately to set things straight with no way out but their father's pen. :) No, I'm not excited at all.

First Impressions: A Getting-To-Know-It tag :)

I am one for liking to know tid-bits about every one else's stories. I love reading Katie's scribbles of story, and the priceless peeps Jenny and Abigail give us into their books. But how is one to entirely immerse oneself in a story if you don't know much about it? So that is why I've designed this "First Impressions" tag. It will [hopefully] explain some things about The Scarlet-Gypsy Song, and give you a better impression of what it is I am scribbling.

1. Who are the main characters?
Cecily Woodruff, banished princess of Scarlettania, who is spending her banishment as a nanny in our world. Also, Adelaide, Bertram, Charlotte, Darby, Eugenie, and Fergus Macefield (her charges) who stumble into Scarlettania and find they can no more get out of that world than Cecily can get out of ours. And last but not least, the villain: Randolph Fitz-Hughes. And, as a fairy-tale would not be half so satisfactory without one, I am thinking a Prince is in order, though he hasn't come into being yet.

2. How did you get the idea for this story?
The only correct answer for this question would be the other way round: The story got me. The first line popped into my head: "There was Nannykins to begin with..." and suddenly I had Darby, and after him I got Miss Perdue, and then Cecily and the rest of the children. I nearly always begin with characters.

3. What genre is this story?
I suppose most would call it fantasy, though it's rather a mash of a classic Nanny-tale and a Fairy-tale. I am writing it as a pretty, winsome, charming, satisfying story intended for readers between the ages of  8 and 12 with clever things to make adults laugh as they read it to their children. Strange goal, that. You must keep me updated on how I'm doing.

4. Describe your book in three thoughts:
Cecily Woodruff: a princess banished to the world of naughty children Who Need Nannies. The Macefields: Children who stumble into her fairy-tale and cannot find a way out. Life may or may not ever be the same again.

5. The bit that describes an obscure piece of real life best:

 It is queer, how the entrance of a stranger into our midst can put a new face on things we have stared at for years on end. The dear old nursery seemed to have hidden itself behind a company-curtain, and Darby saw little bouquets of red flowers on the wall-paper instead of lumpy old men, and a water-stain on the ceiling where he was accustomed to seeing a lion with a humped back. He disliked this sensation of everyday things turning their backs on him, and he crossed his eyes so as to easier see the lumpy old men. Ah. There they were, as usual. He straightened his shoulders and poked his tongue out at the water-spot which would not look like a hump-backed lion again despite his efforts.

6. The funniest line said by a side-character thus far:

 “Children,” he [Mr. Macefield] said, fingering his limp cravat and beaming. “Miss Woodruff here is to be your new nanny. Never thought a newspaper ad to be quite so effective. Glad I put it all in capitals, despite the expense.” 

7. Your favorite piece of description:

        The mirror, having been for years in the habit of reflecting Nannykins’ wrinkled face and then Miss Perdue’s warts, was so delighted to see the beautiful  image of Cecily Woodruff that it grabbed sparkles of sunshine from the window and threw them across the new nanny and the children so they stood in a shower of light almost like fairy-dust.

8.  Your biggest fear in the writing of this story:
That I'll lose the quaint, saucy flavor of the prose before the end. It isn't easy you know, being clever for the length of a novel.

9. Last full sentence you wrote:

As this time was the one hour of the day in which Mr. Macefield emerged from his scribbling, he presided over the snack and poured tea, leaving inky fingerprints on the handles of all the tea-cups, and blotting-sand in the biscuits.

10.   Favorite character thus far:
Oooh. Hard one. I'd have to say Darby, as he's such a duck.


11. What books have been written or have you read that are similar in style and flavor to your novel?
Umm...I don't exactly know....Mary Poppins for one, then Nurse Matilda, then The Ordinary Princess...and hmmm. Maybe Five Children and It? I haven't really read any that combine the two worlds in the way my story is doing.

12. If it was destined to become a book on tape, who would you wish to read it?
Easy. Sophie Thompson. Gotta love her voice for a dry, humorous tale. :)

There you have it! I hope you are a little better acquainted with my story by now! The rules of this tag are:

• You must fill out all the questions and post it on your blog.
• You must tag four-six more authors to do it.
• You must then let me know if you've done it so I can read all about your tales!

That being said, I must now tag my people:
Katie from Whisperings of the Pen
Abigail from Scribbles and Inkstains
Jenny from The Penslayer
Miss Georgiana Darcy from the same :)

Thanks a million and have a lovely day. ~Rachel

Raven-Black and Serpent-Gold

Then the memory of her sixteenth birthday rose in her mind and blocked out the pleasant thoughts with a shadow dark as a raven’s eyes—and there was nothing blacker than that. For it was on that anniversary of her birth that Randolph Fitz-Hughes arrived, handsome and dark and coarse with his raven-black and serpent-gold raiment billowing about him. He had come to buy her freedom with a pledge: The princess of Scarlettania for the safety of her country.

Fitz-Hughes knew his own strength—he had set his sights on the Princess of Scarlettania, and he would make her the Queen of Gildnoir—of his own dark, wild, forested country—if not by her will, by the blood of her people.

~The Scarlet-Gypsy Song by Rachel Heffington 

(Yes, this is the working title of my newest story.) I wanted to introduce you to the villain of The Scarlet-Gypsy Song: Randolph Fitz-Hughes.He is handsome and powerful--the ruler of a dark kingdom bordering the homeland of Cecily Woodruff--her beloved Scarlettania. 

"...Fitz-Hughes began pillaging the outer reaches of Scarlettania, spiraling inward, slowly but surely like a python wrapping its coils around its prey."

Because Cecily would not marry him, Fitz-Hughes has declared war on her country. She will be his bride, or it will mean the death of her people. He is arrogant, ruthless, bold, and swaggering. Of course when concocting a villain, one must stop and consider "Why?"
"Why does he desire Cecily?"
"What is so unique about her?"
And my answer for Fitz-Hughes springs from a very simple cause--one that has been reenacted throughout our world's history time and again: He desires her because she is the one thing he does not have. His lust for power and prestige has been immersed in ruling the country of Gildnoir. There is nothing left for Fitz-Hughes to win there, and so his roving eye rests upon the beautiful Cecily, Princess of Scarlettania. When he has won her, he will have her country under his thumb as well.
I am looking forward to writing more scenes with Fitz-Hughes. As of yet he has just been introduced through Cecily's memories of the events that transported her here, to our world. I can't wait to write him as himself in all his horrible, leering beauty. Ah yes. My pen shall be busy indeed.

S.O.S. To Dell, Apple, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Others

Dear Dell, Apple, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Others. The main characters in this drama are me: The Ever Hopeful and my brother Daniel: The Realist.

Ahem. I digress.

               It is a well known fact that a serious authoress finds a keyboard and computer much better company to her thoughts than a pen, despite the dreadful prosy nature of technology. So this authoress, finding that every time she wished to work on her story, someone of her family happened to be checking emails or doing bills or doing bills or doing bills, this authoress, Rachel the Ever Hopeful, decided to become a paleontologist. For those of you who are a bit rusty on your sixth-grade learning, a paleontologist is One Who Digs Up Dinosaurs.
            Yes, Rachel the Hopeful decided to become a paleontologist and hunt up one of the ancient brontosaurus-like computers--relics of an age when Windows 94 was cutting edge. :P She wondered how hard it could be. The computers must work, and her needs were simple: a keyboard, Microsoft Word of some nature, and a hard-drive to save her writing on.
So Rachel the Ever Hopeful traipsed up two flights of stairs to her attic, tripped over some coat-hangers, waded across piles of junk, and found the bones of what Had Been a working computer.
         "Aha!" she thought, Hopeful to the end. She gathered the skeletal beast into her arms and turned around to see her older brother, Daniel the Realist gaping at her.
          "What?" she asked. "Dad said I ought to find one of these to use for my writing."
            Daniel the Realist, owner of a Toshiba laptop (Which Rachel loved to gaze at) and an iPhone (which she was still a little scared of), continued to gape. "But those things are...are..."
            "Dinosaurs?" Rachel the Ever Hopeful chirped. "Yes, they are, but I'm sure I can piece something together."
            The look of disgust on the Realist's face was comical. He was obviously not a lover of history and dinosaurs. He hadn't the spirit of a paleontologist about him, and suddenly Rachel the Ever Hopeful realized how very little she knew about this sort of dinosaur, and how little this sort of dinosaur seemed to wish to be resurrected. She had not a penny to her name. She knew her father and mother had not much more than a penny to their name. Certainly the dinosaur would see the predicament and respond in kindness? But Rachel the Ever Hopeful could not be daunted. The lure of a place for her own writing egged her on. She hauled the very heavy dinosaur down the stairs..all three pieces of it, and set it down on the ground.
Rachel the Ever Hopeful tried to understand all of the cords going on, but found it impossible without the help of her cousin, Matthew the Realistic Patronizer. He reminded her she had no mouse or keyboard.
         Rachel the Ever Hopeful crept into Daniel the Realist's bedroom and unplugged the mouse and keyboard from his desktop. She held her breath and plugged them into the back of the dinosaur. In the darkness of the Reading Nook, Rachel the Ever Hopeful's face fell. The dinosaur wheezed and groaned and squeaked like nothing she had ever heard. It was not a Promising Sound. The computer booted up, hauling itself to it's feet. When the screen finally appeared, it was covered in scratchy rainbows, and sent Rachel the Ever Hopeful a message that a Dell keyboard and mouse don't correspond with an ancient, prehistoric Gateway dinosaur.
           And so it was the Rachel's hope died, and she gave in to the idea that she would have to scribble in between bills and emails, unless a Computer Manufacturer looked upon her with a sparkling eye. :)

So there you have it, dear computer companies. I don't suppose any of you would care to adopt an aspiring authoress as a Christmas good-will, anti-BAH-HUMBUG project? If you do, you may email your inquiries to theinkpenauthoress@gmail.com. Thank you so much for your kind consideration of my plight. ;)
               I am Yours Respectfully,
                                  Rachel Heffington

The Man With The Gun...a powerful weapon

A famous man, sometime, somewhere said that when your plot is dragging, bring in a man with a gun.
Some authors take this literally. A man and a gun. Bing-Bang-Boom, you're dead. That can be extremely effective in the right place. But the man-with-the-gun syndrome can be used figuratively, and to great effect in other places. I can think of two right off the top of my head:

• Description
• And Humor

In the description category, the-man-with-the-gun would be presented in an entirely unexpected comparison. If you were trying to describe golden hair, you might not even use the word "golden", or the word "sunshine", or the word "silk" or anything else that is at all common. You might say something like... "her hair was bright as a canary's wing" or "the color of a mirror-flat lake when the sun sets it on fire." Something that your reader is not expecting and probably would never think of if you didn't guide her.
Now for humorous man-with-the-gun. I love using it in this category. I like drawing the reader in and suddenly banging them over the head with a surprise that leaves them laughing and a little dizzy. It's the naughty child in me, I suppose. :P Here are a couple examples from my recent project:

        "Darby frowned and plugged his other ear, so as to hear better. Still, he could catch nothing but an occasional word.
      "From the ad...children...second Tuesday...credentials...blueberries."
       Blueberries? Darby growled in disgust. It gave more irritation than satisfaction, hearing these gnats of conversation."

        "The children and the newcomer faced each other, and for the first time in their brief acquaintance, they got a good look at one another. No words were spoken, but volumes were said, and the Feeling grew larger and stronger until Adelaide blushed, and Bertram quivered. Charlotte chomped the end of her pigtail, Darby plucked his rubber-bands like the strings of a lyre, and Eugenie and Fergus played hot-potato with a black-beetle that had somehow found its way into their possession."

"The littlest twins clambered onto the bed beside her, and showed their prettiest dimples when she did not push them away as Mum did, but gathered them into her lap and actually gave them her locket to play with. It was a beautiful locket—golden and etched with fantastical swirls like the writing on the cover of a story-book—and Eugenie put it into her mouth directly."

I got into the habit of doing it by getting so tickled when I would read such a thing in a book that I would laugh out loud and find my sisters staring at me strangely. I learn well by example, and pick up bits and pieces of other authors' brilliancy. :) So bring in your man-with-a-gun, either figuratively or literally, and try it out when your writing is feeling stale. It's *so* much fun!

New Pen-Spatterings

Some samples of a new story I've been toying with recently...I have a Feeling in My Bones about this one. It has children. Naughty children. And when a story has naughty children, a nanny who may or may not be a princess banished to this world, and adventures to be had in another land,  I am in my element. :P This new tale doesn't have a name yet, and I am enjoying it immensely.

"There was Nannykins to begin with, but she had a bad knee and left for the North. Then there was Miss Perdue who, when she was not sleeping was cross, and when she was not cross, was dozing near the fireplace with her apron flung over her face. Of course the children meant well—who would hint otherwise?—but they got rather into the habit of making loud noises just so—“Bam!”—and giggling when the apron flapped like the sail of a clipper ship in a gale." ~The beginning to this untitled story

"Mr. Macefield sighed, and rasped his chin once more. “No…no, I suppose it does not matter. Only now I shall have to spend another three weeks looking up a nanny for you when I could be making us wealthy.”

It was a favorite pastime of Mr. Macefield’s—making them wealthy, I mean. Not that he ever succeeded with more than the usual success, but it kept him occupied and happy enough, and the Macefield children lived under the general impression that all fathers spent hours in their studies, scribbling things to get wealthy." ~Ibid.

"The truth was Mrs. Macefield had a horrid case of what is generally known as Nerves. If it rained, she was ill. If it shone she was ill. If the children made more noise than usual she was ill. If her favorite horse did not win the races, she was ill. And, since it is a general maxim in life that things will not always go the way we wish them to, it is safe to say that Mrs. Macefield was nearly always ill." ~Untitled Story

“Hallo! Who are you?” Darby asked, tugging the brim of his cap in the manner of a coal-bargeman, and offering a small hand to the person on her rear amongst the flowers. The young lady allowed herself to be dragged to her feet by Darby and Bertram, who had since recovered himself.

She brushed off her skirt and tried to pin up her wealth of hair. It was useless—like trying to pin up great quantities of brook-water, or something equally rippling and beautiful." ~Ibid.

"I am Cecily Woodruff, and I have come to be your nanny.” She said it, not in the usual manner of nannies coming to be interviewed and hoping to be accepted, but as if she were doing them an extreme favor." ~Ibid.

Inkpen Poetry Day: "Carmen Ante Domum"

"Carmen Ante Domum"

(Song Before Home)

 By Rachel Heffington

Home is just over the next green hill

And my journey's last mile before me still--

Home before, and the road behind,

And a balancing moment within my mind...

Home, 'tis so pleasant to know the place

Remembers me still with its homely face.

Home, with her orchards and fields and her lane

Beckoning me with her smiles again.

But the Road, gypsy-mile'd and wild and free,

With echoes and wind-voices calls out to me:

"Remember the paths we have tread, you and I;

The lure of unknown and a clear, open sky!"

Pausing, I stand with the Road at my back,

And stretching before me the dear, homeward track.

A kiss to the journey, a laugh to the wind,

And onward, my heart full of wistfulness send.