Art that's true

My area hosts a pretty major youth ballroom competition every year. Between my friends whose kids compete and my kids’ friends who also compete, my girls and I go to watch every year. We aren’t a particularly athletic family, dance included, but someone needs to be the audience, right?

This time, we stayed for about four hours, catching younger divisions of dances like swing, cha cha, tango, and samba. No matter what their age or how long they’d been doing that particular dance, you could tell instantly who had years of dance behind them, even if it was “only” ballet. They were at home and at ease with what they were doing. All of them, however, even the relative newbies, had confidence pouring off of them. (Not cockiness, though. When they walked off the stage, I didn’t see a single kid acting like they owned the world, or like they thought they were better than anyone else. I’ve lived in a lot of places around the world, and that’s something I consistently notice where I live now: high levels of art + low levels of ego.)

Between the newer and more advanced categories were the national youth cabaret championships. Cabaret, at least in this context, is kind of like figure skating, only with more of ballet and gymnastics and less of icy floors and sharp blades strapped to your feet. Cabaret is the dance with all the lifts and balances that make you gasp. Unlike when you dance a few minutes of say, the cha cha for judging purposes, the cabaret is a dance with a plot to it. The dancers in this competition were excellent—their steps were difficult and graceful, and watching made you feel like somehow you could do that, too. Maybe your body couldn’t, but your soul could. Not to mention the pure enjoyment of athletics raised to art, a similar feeling I get when watching the Olympics. Beautiful bodies expressing something beautiful inside all of us.

 

That said, my prediction on scoring turned out to be accurate for every couple. The top two were my favorites. The second place couple had the most challenging moves, with a lot of lifts and complex turns that could have resulted in some serious injury had they not been so perfectly executed. It was technically perfect. The first place couple was slightly less flashy, but there was something…something about their performance that made you know that they were the winners. Controlled grace. The spotlight in cabaret is on the female dancer who’s flying through the air, etc. etc. You expect her to be graceful. But I’ve never seen a guy dance as gracefully as this—I can only assume he had just as many years of ballet as she did. Their choice of music and even costuming/color was perfectly suited to their routine. They made it all look easy, as if of course anybody could do this. I was never worried about “what if they fall,” because of course they wouldn’t. It reminded me of long-ago Nadia Comaneci’s perfect Olympic gymnastic performance—that natural and graceful. And because of it (or maybe the reason for it), there was a lot of emotion to the dance that felt like they were taking you behind the everyday façade to show you what they were really thinking and feeling.

And that’s what a good book does. With any book, whether you’ve written one like that before or not, you can tell if an author has put in long years of unappreciated or unseen work beforehand. It’s all those years of ballet before taking up ballroom. All those half-finished or trunked stories, all those rejected manuscripts where you opened a new file and started a new story the next day.  Beyond that, there are books that are technically flawless. Books that are as flashy and “hooky” as you can get, with extreme tension and plot turns that make you gasp and a voice that pushes to the limits. A lot of these get published. But the books that you love, the ones that say something to your soul that other ones don’t, have that something extra that this winning dance entry had, too. It gives everything to the art. It opens up all the doors and windows we like to keep closed for fear of exposing ourselves too much. It tells the truth in the most naked and vulnerable way, and in that, it links us to the things that are most human in all of us.

Showing and Telling and Feeling

I get the impression from all the many writing books out there that most people have the opposite problem here, but in case you are like me and getting this kind of feedback, I'm going to post a few things I've learned here about showing, telling, and making feelings clear in a book.

Show, don't tell. That's what you've always heard, right? And it's true. Put your reader in the action. Don't tell about it after the fact. Don't jump us five minutes later, even. Let the scene unfold in real time as the reader gets to it. Give us sensory impressions--how it smells like long-forgotten lunches in front of the lockers, how it sounds when the goodbyes of kids with friends slam against the metal of the locker doors. How small and clear and sharp the pupil of the bully's eye is as he looms over Our Hero. Show.

But.

You have to tell, too. Just a little bit. You have to give us Our Hero's reaction. That can come in internal reflection (owie kazowie!!), in watching him gasp, in his dialogue, OR in setting up his reaction and/or fears of that very thing BEFOREHAND, so that when the worst happens, we know, we KNOW what it means for him. It needs to be personal--not just the obvious fact that someone hitting you hurts. The blows can feel like payback for every time Our Hero let someone down. Or maybe as he lies there on the floor, he can worry about not being able to meet the cute girl who finally started talking to him when and where he promised. Whatever it is, you've got to have a reaction, and it should be as specific to your character as psosible. It is not enough to leave it all to the reader. The reader might form an opinion, but you have to let them know how close their opinion is to the character's.

I think sometimes we are overly influenced by the screen. In movies, we aren't inside a character's head. All we have to go on is what we read from the outside. If an actor shows us expressions we associate with certain feelings, then we make an interpretation. And writers do this--we describe our character's external, physical reactions. But movies have visual camera shots, they have color (or not), they have great, swelling music and drums and SFX. Writing doesn't. We are both trying to get to the same thing in the end--that gut emotion--but we use different media, and have to use different ways to get there. The inside of your character's head is the most important place because it's what gives all the action of your story meaning. Don't leave it out!

When you do this kind of telling, you let the reader into the mind and heart of your character. That means you let your reader feel. Since I believe in fiction, anyway, (as opposed to a nonfiction manual on air compressors), the most important thing about strong writing is to make your reader feel, this is the key point for your book, no matter what it's about.

Writing male characters if you're female

Firstly, let me direct you to a recent post by agent Mary Kole on reactions. She says that reactions are the MOST important part of interiority--they tell the reader how they are supposed to react to a situation, and pull them into what the character is experiencing. I love this advice, because it's something concrete. You can go through your manuscript and make sure you have the appropriate reactions for each significant exchange or event, and noticeably strengthen your book. I love love love this post, and have notes all over my draft to revise for this specificially.

Secondly, I'm finally starting to look at some of the material from this summer's Writeoncon.com. They always have such good information! I liked this video by author Jessica Martinez, which is supposed to be about writing sexual tension in dialogue, but which is really more about paying attention to the subtext of a conversation and also about writing believable male characters if you're female. She points out that sometimes female writers create male characters who behave like they wish they behaved, when no real guy would actually talk like that. They are not going to sit down and just share all their feeeeeeeelings. Her advice: if you can't honestly see your spouse/brother/significant other saying this, it's a good clue a character guy shouldn't be saying it, either. So my additional thoughts on male characters are these:* guys don't play a lot of mental emotional gymnastics. They aren't going to overanalyze the intricacies of what someone said and what they may have been saying underneath, etc. Yes, guys can read (or send messages) between the lines, but most guys I know are not going to spend hours trying to go over conversations to pick out emotional messages about relationships. Also, face is kind of important to guys, you know? As in, they want to be seen as cool and competent. Girls might bond over sharing mistakes and embarrassing moments, but I think guys would rather keep their private humiliations to themselves. Of course all guys are individual, but when writing them, especially middle grade and adolescent ones, they are going to be a mix of clueless, trying not to look clueless, and occasionally, almost accidentally, dead center on target when it comes to doing the right thing or being there for someone emotionally. I've read some rather fancifully fictional guys, but I've also read some really excellent ones that are funny, vulnerable, endearing, but still "real." Some great examples, IMO, are Bobby from Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen (because of his excitement and work into solving his invisibility problem), Ledger Kale in Ingrid Law's Scumble (he is trying soooo hard not to be a failure, but he holds some of it inside, too, you know? He still wants to keep face.) Jeffrey in the Penderwicks series feels like a real boy--he does have deep thoughts (about music, about his father, even wondering about getting married someday), but he doesn't sit on the couch all day, eating cookie dough over it, either. Percy Jackson (and Harry and Ron, for that matter) is a great example, because he's awkward and sometimes insensitive (but not intentionally!), and good-hearted as he tiptoes over the minefield that is understanding girls.

Any other well-written guy characters you want to mention? Any other elements of capturing the essence of a real male adolescent on the page?


*Source of my observations: my husband, three sons, their friends, the teens and kids I've worked with at school and church, and observing the bus line that forms outside my living room window.

Voice, character growth, and Daddy Long Legs

I just finished reading Daddy Long Legs, by Jean Webster, published in 1912, to my girls. The story: Jerusha "Judy" Abbott is an orphan. A trustee of the John Grier Hall finds her snarky high school essay on trustee visiting day at the home amusing, and on a whim, decides to send her to college. He's done it a few times before for boys, but never girls. His conditions: she will write a monthly letter, letting him know how things are going and what she's learning. He will pay for college and send her money, but will never reveal his name or anything about him. She is to call him Mr. Smith. All Judy knows is that he's rich, he apparently dislikes girls, and he is tall (she saw his shadow around the corner as he left that day). So she calls him Daddy Long Legs, and writes funny letters about what she's learning, the extent to which she tries to hide her true origins (because in 1912, the girls who are in college are definitely not people who came out of foundling homes!), and her hopes, dreams, and disappointments. Her attempt to conceal her orphanage past among some rather wealthy friends eventually gets her into trouble, though, as you can imagine.The voice in the story is simply lovely--funny, wise and naive at the same time, and sometimes heartbreaking, too.

There's a recent musical based on the book that uses many lines from the book, but also shows the other side of the stamp, ie what "Mr. Smith" Daddy Long Legs is thinking as he reads these letters, and what happens to him. Umm...if you're planning to read the book first, don't listen to the music until you're done, because there are spoilers. But two things really stuck out to me after listening to the music, things that are just very well done, and useful to study for writing.

Firstly, the voice. There's this great song called "Like Other Girls," where Judy says she just wants to be like other girls (ie without these weird gaps of knowledge and social errors, and without the fears she brought with her from the orphanage). So she sings things like, "I just want to be like other girls--bake lemon pies, cure diseases, win the Nobel Prize--like other girls." Um. Maybe her peers want to bake lemon pies and wear pretty shoes, but I'm pretty sure that not all of them want to win the Nobel Prize. There's just this lovely sense in the whole song that even in all her wanting, she still doesn't really understand what it means to be like other girls. It's this funny mix of her individual perceptions of the world against what the viewer knows is the real reality that gives her such a lovely voice and personality. So think about that with your characters. We all see part of the mysterious elephant, and believe that is the total reality. What part does your character see? How does s/he describe it? That's a part of that character's voice.

Secondly, character development. Early in the show, Daddy Long Legs sings about charity. He's rich through no effort of his own, but since he's come into this amazing wealth, he doesn't think he should keep it. He's very happy to share it with the less fortunate. And there's really nothing wrong with that. He's not "bad." He doesn't love wealth more than anything--he has a basic virtue, and it's charity. But he really only has a theoretical understanding of charity. But the letters--they force him out of being a casual observer. He who doesn't like people is forced to get to know them--and realize that he was lonely before, and now he's starting to get filled. Later in the musical, he realizes that his anonymity has created enormous obstacles to his own happiness, and extricating himself from the situation he's created is going to require other people's forgiveness. And now--he realizes that charity isn't just thoughtless passing around of money, but something you give to someone that they cannot do for themselves. And he realizes that he needs the charity that is forgiveness, too. It's a lovely, lovely example of character growth. You don't have to have your character be horrible at the beginning to grow. You can have them basically good, but untested, naive, with basic but rather shallowly understood good intentions. And then they live it, and understand what they once gave lip service to in a very real way.

Anachronisms

I'm reading a book right now that is well researched and has an engaging main character and a great voice. It's historical, but has a very immediate feeling to it (which is what makes people like or dislike historical novels, I suspect--ie how immediate it feels). There is one aspect, though, that keeps pulling me out of the story. And that's social anachronism.

Okay, yes, you can make your character any way you want to--as long as they're believable as a person. So if one of your characters is a really well educated peasant in the 15th century, or is a person who doesn't believe in marriage in Austen's time, or any number of other non-social-norm situations, well, you'd better have a pretty good reason for that character to be that way. I see a lot of authors who do try to back up their reasoning here. But where things seem to break down is when they want to insert that quirky character into the greater historical world, and everyone's suddenly okay with the modern attitudes and actions they bring along. I am not saying that people did not do some of these things way back when. What I am saying is that they were not considered okay/normal/unsurprising. So for your world at large to have no reaction, for your characters to have no consequences, for everything to breezily move along as if part of the modern world were dropped right into the past with no jarring whatsoever, is not believable.

What? You say I have to write about repressed people? Well, some people were repressed, but I'm guessing just as many people didn't feel that way at all. They had different goals than some of us do, and they felt fulfilled and powerful when they met those goals. And assuming that everyone was repressed for forced into all acting the same is a bit simplistic of a view, anyway. People were varied "back then." Not all people married the person they were in love with, or followed the rules they were supposed to. True. But there were consequences and reactions back then for things that don't raise any eyebrows today. You can write a strong character in a historical context, but to be accurate, you're going to have to understand more than just names and dates when when the zipper was invented. You're going to have to understand the kinds of choices a strong female character would have made in 1940 as opposed to 2012. You're going to have to understand things like faith in more than an atheistic, check-off-that-character-trait way if your MC is going to be a nun. You're going to have to figure out how to make a character feel strong by 21st century reader standards, while at the same time letting them be strong in their own historical context. Which may mean leaving behind some of your own 21st centuryness when you go into that world yourself.

(No, I don't think this is easy! But it's rather rewarding to read when it's done right, don't you think?)

Finding your voice

I have a writing group that has an illustrator in it, and not long ago we had a discussion about voice in illustration. I like drawing and I'm reasonably good at it (and have even earned money with it), but at the present moment, I'm a professional writer and a person who likes to draw on the side for fun. But I think the idea of voice works in much the same way in both text and art.

Because I'm learning about illustration, I do things like look at online sites where potential illustrators post samples of their work. I like looking at them all together because, well, I enjoy looking at picture books--but I'm also there to learn stuff. And one thing I've noticed is that an awful lot of illustrators fresh out of art school draw in the exact same style as everyone else. It might be different than how illustrators drew ten years ago--but there is still a sameness. They might be well done, but some of the artists haven't found their own style yet. My crit partner and I were trying to figure out what made our styles our own, and we came up with the same thing--at some point we had tried to draw the way everyone else was drawing, but after a while, it felt fake, and so we gave up and just drew what we really wanted to.

What I've always loved drawing is realism, especially people, especially kids. I can appreciate Rothko and I can feed my soul on impressionistic landscapes, but the thing that really gets me excited when it comes to my own drawings is people. Their expressions. The lovely way their bodies move and bend and reveal what they may be thinking. My art teacher in high school was frustrated with this (in her opinion) limited view of things. So I tried to draw in other styles. But it all comes down to this: I will always draw best the things I care about most, and I really can't draw in someone else's style, even if I like to look at it.

So that's one of the keys, I think. You go out and read and learn as much as you can about as many different kinds of voices there are. But in the end, you have this individual thumbprint that isn't quite like anyone else's, and once you've developed your craft, you need to listen to that little voice, you need to do the best that only YOU can do. And then you find your voice. It's that thing that happens when you forget about trying to have a style, and just do the very best thing YOU can do, in the best way you know how, in the way that only you can do. That's voice.

Encouragement

Pippa Bayless has reminded me of an old post by Maggie Stiefvater on listening to yourself and keeping going when the world around you is busy rejecting you. I've read it before, but I love this post. As I've said before, I really do believe that you've got to listen to that little voice inside you that says, go for it! (If that's what it's saying, I mean.) Because there are so many voices that will tell you otherwise, and if you listen to them, you will quit. I can't quite say I've never cried over a rejection, as Maggie claims--there have been some real stingers there, and usually they have been the really nice, almost-there kind. But I do know that people are rejected all the time, yet go on to succeed in that very thing. I was the only second grader specifically banned from chorus, yet as an adult, I've occasionally been asked to sing solos. I frequently got points taken off in elementary school for coloring too hard, for not coloring between the lines, etc. But I've earned money off of my art. And as to listening to that little voice inside, when I started dating my husband, I knew almost instantly that he was "the one." He was graduating from college and getting ready to leave for Germany on a Fulbright, and wouldn't be coming back. Well-meaning people warned me not to get involved, because it wouldn't work out, and I'd only be hurt. But something just told me that it WOULD work out. I listened to that little voice--and yes, he got a clue eventually, and we got married AND went to Germany.

I'm still on my writing journey. I have so many ideas whispering in my head, and I hope that everything I write is better than the thing before it. It's not something I plan to give up on. I do think, though, that "not giving up" can mean being willing to change direction and try something new. To learn new things, try new approaches. So if this is you, and you are listening to that little voice that says, "Go!" then don't be afraid to change, either. Write a book in a different genre. Switch your main character. Study a book that excels in something where you are weak, and try out that author's technique (which is definitely not the same thing as taking their story, just so we're clear). If the door you've been knocking for three years still isn't opening, find a new door.

And now that I'm feeling encouraged again, I'm off to write. :)