Masquerade

Fly Away Home--from the writing perspective--has been an interesting experience for me. First of all, it's a genre I don't usually write in. Fly Away Home is primarily an adult novel (20's-30's) , though I'm sure a YA reader would enjoy it.
But the thing that has been most challenging in this novel is the writing of Calida Harper's world-view. She's not a Christian and doesn't have a high opinion of those who are. She has been burnt by her father, deserted by her brother, and let down by life in general. The only thing she clings to or trusts is her ideal of becoming a Successful Woman and all the posturing that must go into her life in order to bring that ideal to a reality. Therefore to write this novel (in first-person too!) takes a bit of mind bending. I can't have Callie's narrative sounding like my own, because I'm a Christian and Callie is not. (Not yet, at least.)

A person's world-view is the lens they view life through. Everyone has one and it flavors and colors their whole perception of the world. Callie's is green. She's jaded and cynical, though like everyone there is portion of her that is still whole and beautiful. But for the most part Callie lives under false pretenses, a sham veneer, and associates among people who are probably just like her. That's part of the reason she and Mr. Barnett collide so often--he's realistic and honest and hearty while she has carefully cultivated her persona so that she is only what she thinks she ought to be.
In fact, Callie's whole world-view can be summed up in this conversation between herself a friend.

“Jamie?” I paused and smiled at him—so jolly and puckish. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like at a masquerade if everyone suddenly removed their masks and could see each other for who they really were?”

“Not much, my sweet. And what would you be wantin’ to see the real person for? The whole point of the game is to be appearin’ like someone else.”

That was the point wasn’t it? Life was just a masquerade—mine more than most—and if I didn’t give Jules what he wanted he’d tear my mask from my face and let the world see the woman who truly lay behind the mask of Calida Harper. My lips trembled and I bit them to keep the tears back.

“It’s a masquerade, darlin’,” Jamie said with a wink. “Everyone’s actin’ like someone else.” He stepped back onto the dance floor and the crowd consumed him.

The privilege I have in this project is to show the gradual change of Callie's worldview as the plot progresses. It's so neat to have an intimate acquaintance with a character who will undergo such changes. But it is a challenge, personally, to think as an unsaved person would think. Every thought of Callie's is tinged with suspicion, jealousy, pride, or hardness, and it has been a great mental and writing exercise to create such a character and write her realistically without making her unlikable or distasteful. I've also grown to remind myself that there are dozens of Callie Harpers living in the world today who are just as precious and just as deceived as she is...just waiting to meet a Mr. Barnett who will take the costumes, masks, and puppetry away and show them the things that make a person truly great.

Insults and Banter

Perhaps I possess a cruel and unusual nature that delights in giving insults. Or maybe I just appreciate a sharp, knife-edged thrust of wit now and then as many people do. I don't like giving the insults, but I have loads of fun reading and writing them.
Shakespeare had quite a few good ones:

"I would challenge you to a battle of wits but I saw you were unarmed."

"More of your conversation would infect my brain."

Hey! I even found a nifty, online Shakespearean insult kit! (do keep in mind not to use some of these in modern conversation...you'd have your tongue washed out. :P) These could be really helpful in a medieval-era novel.

Another man who was almost on par with Shakespeare in this category was Winston Churchill...you should hear some of his tiffs with Lady Astor! Phew! Among the lengthy list I found were some of these gems:

"A modest man who had much to be modest about..."

"He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."

"...a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma..."

I will be the first to admit that even if these men where a bit cruel at times, they were undoubtedly witty. I also love witty banter...a friendly sparring now and then that pokes at the opponent with no real malice, but certainly elicits a laugh or two. The one thing I love to come across in a book is a bit of wit or some first-rate insults. Not the common run of insults, mind you, because what fun are those? But I try to write in a sparring-match or two in much of my writing, and am having especial fun with it in Fly Away Home because Calida Harper and Wade Barnett are both clever, sharp-witted, and capable. And sometimes they cross swords with other characters as well. Here are some of my favorite moments:

(between Callie and her former co-worker, Jules)

“I want you to rescue my career.” {he said}

“Your career.”

“Mine…yes.”

“Oh…I hadn’t noticed it had grown big enough to get into trouble. My, how time flies.”

*     *    * 

I raised my glass of tonic-water and smiled at Mr. Barnett. “To independence, to Ladybird Snippets, and to the fashion sense of a journalist,” I teased.

Mr. Barnett raised his glass in reply. “And to Miss Harper, who views the world from all angles and never tells a man where she’ll lash out next.”

*     *     *

“I agree to go dancing under one condition….”

“What are the conditions, Mr. Barnett?”

“You simply cannot wear black.”

“Provoking toad.”

“Nefarious chit.”

*     *     *

So he was going to make me speak? So be it. “You were taunting and clever and made me look a fool.”

“It was not my intention to make you look a fool, Miss Harper.”

“Well you certainly did a heck of a job not intending.”

“You can never make a person out to be something they aren’t,” he answered with that cool causality that was so maddening. 

*     *     *

The bella signora sipped her champagne and sighed. “I would think having Mr. Barnett for a partner a fortunate situation.”

“Oh, now, Miss Nalia,” Mr. Barnett protested, but his new humility irked me.

“As a partner in business, I confess I find him exacting,” I laid my napkin in my lap and smiled with uncanny sweetness. “But I’ve had it from his own lips that as a dance-partner he is unrivalled. I look forward to seeing if he represents himself aright, for he seemed so determined on that point...It would be a great pleasure to prove him wrong.”

when it springs upon you.

 "We should take care not to make intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." 

-Albert Einstein

When an editor, agent, or publisher looks at your novel they are looking for many things. The feel of your writing, your talent in playing out a story, your plot, your characters...but they are also looking for a elusive little thing called Originality.
As a general rule I define Originality as "that spinning out of an idea that is not commonly seen, and which sprang upon you, rather than you springing upon it." You know when you've hit something original, because it will probably have very little to do with anything else you've ever read. Sometimes it will resemble in some way another author's work because after all, there are only so many basic plots. BUT--an original idea won't be concocted of bits of Jane Austen's novels smashed together and called your own. Publishers don't need more conglomerations of what they've already seen. They need an idea that stands out of the hoards because of the fact that it is exotic and rare. Nobody, walking through a park, would stop to look at pigeons when there was a swan floating on the lake. You want your novel to be that swan--that one book that catches the eye of the Lofty Ones so that they take a second glance.

So how do you make sure your work smacks of originality? By avoiding a host of things, some of which I've listed below for your benefit and mine.

Stop Using the "Different Girl"-- Rookie Mistake No. 1 is making your protagonist a willful, headstrong, freedom-grasping girl who only wants to "be different" and spends the whole novel fighting with tooth and claw to prove herself. If I have suddenly squashed your little character-bubble, forgive me. But instead of wasting a whole novel saying your character's different, why not make her different from the start? After all--being different is all a part of that self-same Originality. But show it--don't tell it. We are tired of the Different Girl--and her horse. Which brings me to Point Two:

You Don't Have to Include a Horse: Not that there's anything wrong with a horse, but honestly--if you tallied up all the books that have ever been published, I assure you that books with a strong horse-character are already crowding neck and neck with romance to claim Most Used Ploy. Try something new.

If you write fantasy, find another letter to use:  The letter that is overused? "Y." I assure you that from experience, and from the reading of blog posts of several friends on this topic last year, the letter "Y" is another technique young and old writers alike use to make their names "different." Somehow names like Brynn, Wyfur, Kyla, Nyanna, and Hyr have crept into the average novel of today so that I wince when I crack the binding and peer through the pages, bracing myself for the inevitable. Try a new combination of letter so that you don't earn a grimace when I read your book next!

Let your voice play out: Instead of trying to be original, just write as fast and furious as you can. Your natural voice will develop and mature in this way, and a good natural voice is another thing publishers look for. If you are trying too hard your writing will feel stilted. Just write and let it lie. Tighten things that need tightening, and cultivate your craft, but always keep your voice intact.

Pay attention: The thing is, there are thousands of stories crowding around us every day in the form of People, yet because we are so absorbed in our own troubles, our own business and hey--even our own imaginations--we fail to gather anything from this treasury. Go out, get coffee or a doughnut or something and just watch people. If you are in an airport and waiting for a flight, don't grab your book. Sit there and watch life go by, taking stock of things for once.

Do the things your characters are doing: Trying something yourself will add an authenticity to your descriptions that is lacking in most fiction. Of course you can't go off to war or get lost in a fjord or get kidnapped by gypsies and forced to read things to them, but you can light candles at dinner and watch the play of the light on your family's faces. You can make the food of the culture you're writing about. You can tour a battlefield or visit a farm or go to a dance. Getting you and doing things bring your one dimensional, blah descriptions and breathe life into them...literally. Read your dialog aloud with a friend or sibling--tweak where needed, and get them to adlib with you. You might come up with something hilarious.

Keep a notebook handy: Anytime an interaction, description, or event pops into your mind, go to that notebook and catch the idea on paper. You don't have to have any definitive plans for the pieces you catch, but I can assure you that they'll be helpful. You see, originality largely depends on the expanse of your mind. If you can turn your notebook into a second mind for yourself that can remember things you would have forgotten, then so much the better!

"Keep it secret; keep it safe": I recently heard another author speaking about the fact that your characters need secrets. Yes, you know the character well, but just as you don't know everything about your friends to begin with, so your characters should reflect that maxim. Keep your readers guessing. Let your characters have motives and secrets they might keep hidden even from you for a time, only to let them fly at a crucial moment in your story.

These are my tips and things that I have found helpful in cultivating a sense of originality in my writing. I hope they'll help you, and that someday I'll get to read dozens of original stories pouring out of publishing houses as we all strive to have fresh, new ideas! :)

a minor flashback

Writing query letters for A Mother for the Seasonings puts me in mind of how much I love this dear little story. It has the advantage of having completed even its multiple editings at least a year ago, so I can stand and smile upon it from a helpful distance. :D Now to find an agent who wants to learn to love it.

“We really haven’t a mother of our own, and we need one terribly, so we were wondering if you wouldn’t like to marry Papa.” I finished and my shoulders slumped.

 It was not as easy as you would think, trying to explain our business to these women. None of them seemed to understand the thinking behind it.

-A Mother for the Seasonings

Dear Silas...

{and a midget library just for fun}

This evening I remembered a certain post I'd written on my other blog waaaaay back in 2009. It was just a very short story made up entirely [pretty much] of the titles of famous books. The piece had made me laugh back then and I thought of it fondly enough to rummage through my archives and hunt it up. Because I thought some of you might get a laugh over the reading of it, I have "reprinted" the piece here. Have a laugh and a wonderful weekend afterward!

"Dear Silas"

A {very} short story

        "The Scarlet Pimpernel, at The Sign of The Beaver, Kidnapped David Copperfield, and had Great Expectations to take him to Treasure Island. So Tom Sawyer and Pollyanna dived 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea To Kill A Mockingbird, but instead killed Moby Dick. 

            White Fang, The Last Of The Mohicans, sent a letter saying "As You Like It! Much Ado About Nothing!" to Emma who posessed great Sense and Sensibility, though she was sometimes blinded by Pride and Prejudice. Emma lived in Cranford during times of War And Peace, with her husband Ivanhoe. The Wives and Daughters named Elsie Dinsmore and Lorna Doone, along with The Lady Of The Lake, went Around The World In Eighty Days. 

            Dr. Doolittle, (a Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court) after much Persuasion wrote The Federalist Papers for Peter Pan. By the time it came to Middlemarch in The Secret Garden, The Count of Monte Cristo had sent out The Three Musketeers from his Bleak House. 

          Crime and Punishment followed. The Brothers Karamazov burned The Pickwick Papers, and wrote The Anti-Federalist Papers. It's only Common Sense that The Wind in The Willows whispered, "The Red Badge of Courage" to Oliver Twist. And that, Silas Marner, is The Tale of Two Cities of the Wuthering Heights."

the baring of our souls

Hello everyone! I'm feeling rather wonderful this morning because I managed to have written 1229 word of Fly Away Home before 8 o'clock. And that is an accomplishment, I think, seeing as I don't prefer writing in the morning. My brain is just a tad sluggish and anything looks more alluring than trying to hash through a scene. But I did it and I love the 1950's NYC high-life, and all of that jazz. BUT--this post was about something entirely different:

I love seeing other people's writing journals. I know pretty much across the board everyone else's writing journals are far more fabulous than mine, because I haven't been using a writing journal for very long--before it was mostly odds and ends scrapped here or there or everywhere. But a journal is more portable and therefore that's what I switched over to. All that to say, I thought I'd give you a bit of a tour through my writing journal to show you this, my other half of my brain. Enjoy.

"...to further encourage the baring of our souls and the telling of our most appalling secrets."

{The frontispiece}

 

A sketch from Cottleston Pie as well as a few random, unconnected bits I like to scrawl down when they Pounce me. This is the only glimpse of my multitudinous collection of scrawlings, because if you saw them all than you'd know all the clever bits I planned to put in one or another of my books someday. And we can't have that.

My newest mantra: expanding my vocabulary so "that I might not appear as uneducated as compared to Jane Fairfax." ;)

I'm finding that Shakespeare (especially in "The Taming of the Shrew") has some spot-on quotes from Mr. Barnett and Callie's relationship.

Ideas/inspiration pages for Scuppernong Days.

 ^Something I have to remind myself of time and time again.

"Why I love writing" quotes as well as literature/author-themed clippings from magazines.

Well, there you have it. Not particularly gorgeous or stunning, but a good, all-round functional place to dump my brain, and the place where all my people-watching finds congregate. I also thought any of you that had read/seen Dicken's Little Dorrit might get a laugh over the sign I made to hang over my desk when I do the billing for Dad...

I hope all-and-sundry of you have a wonderful day. :)

the cultivation of vanity.

Calida Harper is a mess. But I love her. She's complicated (to say the least), she's insecure, and she never quite knows how to react in a given situation. She has emotional issues leftover from her father abandoning their family when she was a very little girl, she has twisted ideas of success and glory, and she's a perfect basket-case.
But I find that Callie is one of the easiest-to-write characters I've ever created. Because despite all this, the one thing Callie has going for her is a big personality. She's winsome and insecure, frightened, and quaint. And her voice is so distinct that I find the character is really speaking...I'm not speaking for the character. (It does help that Fly Away Home is written in first-person.) Though I'm not a big fan of First Person Present Tense, (i.e. I come in and see that Mr. Barnett is sitting at my desk. "Great," I think, "Now I'm in for it.) I do find that one can get a sense of identification with the character quicker--if written properly--than the usual third-person narrative.

Of course third-person narrative gives you a bit more option as far as POV goes. You can switch from character to character (only one per scene, mind you) whereas in First Person that's a little trickier.
My favorite part of writing in First Person are the clues you can drop as to your protagonist's whole view on life...it's a much more intimate acquaintance with a character--being inside their head:

" 'What will I wear?' If I was like any other woman I would have asked the question of my sister or my best friend or my hairdresser…but my only sibling was dead, I didn’t have friends, and I was scared to death of the German woman who trimmed my hair." 

In just a few short lines you learn a lot about Callie...her mental voice, the fact that she's an only child now, she is lonely, and she has a good sense of humor. This technique is harder to accomplish (I think) when using third-person. Therefore any writer who can accomplish an intimate acquaintance with a character using third-person has my respect. I do use third-person narrative often in my own stories (The Scarlet Gypsy Song, Scuppernong Days, Cottleston Pie) but I knew when I began Fly Away Home that the only way to write Calida Harper was to give her the full stage.
Callie sees the world through a wry, half-smile. She's got a great sense of humor that comes out with her head cocked to one side. I love her so much.

"I was going to have to start scoring some vanity-points. I was in the habit of cultivating a good opinion of myself much as the average housewife is in the habit of cultivating ferns and geraniums and other plants on her windowsill. Recently we’d been in a drought in that category—my battered pride couldn’t take much more of this."

Yes she's vain and she has her faults, but the lovely thing about Callie is that she knows it and she's able to laugh at herself after the storm's over. :) It's a privilege getting so close to a character, and I am enjoying every moment of my time with Callie.

Which style of narrative do you write? What are the pros/cons of it?