What's your secret?

In his book On Writing, Sol Stein urges authors to dig deep into characters’ lives. He suggests that we imagine a photograph our character may have hidden in his or her wallet, a photograph that person doesn’t want to share with the world. An Achilles heel, it reveals a vulnerability that may be masked with denial and lies.

Word count: 433                                 Reading time: 1-2 minutes

He says the secret doesn’t even have to make it onto the page; it only has to be woven into the character’s identity and motivations. To Stephen Sondheim this unsaid quality must be both clear and mysterious which is a harder balance to strike: Narrative art must be clear, but it must also be mysterious. Something should remain unsaid, something just beyond our understanding, a secret. If it’s only clear, it’s kitsch; if it’s only mysterious (a much easier path), it’s condescending and pretentious and soon monotonous.

Sondheim describes the feeling I have when I close a good book and wish there was someone I could discuss it with. That’s the driving force behind book clubs and sites like goodreads. These groups exist for readers who have sucked through the hard candy coating and sunk their teeth into the soft chewy centre of the Tootsie Roll. The best is yet to come. With unanswered questions and varying perspectives they share and clarify their interpretations of stories. Writers who want to attract strong readers must offer complex characters and plots that will stand up to this scrutiny.

Can’t think of any good clues to your character’s behaviour? Visit Post Secret, a community mail art project where you can read what people willingly offer for public contemplation. It features handmade postcards that express people’s hidden longings, fears, and confessions in eloquent language and images.

Recent examples:

• I’m thankful for the difficult people in my life. They have showed me exactly who I don’t want to be
• I speak English….bitch (written over images of cleaning tools: mop, bucket, scrub brush)
• some of my best traits have terrifying origins
• come home (around the picture of a pretty young woman)
• my family would be shocked to know I am a grandma with a secret life. I’m having a long time lesbian affair with my best friend

You don’t have to copy what you find on Post Secret but these bared souls may stir the creative juices. Perhaps an element of your character’s hidden life is waiting to be discovered there.

What secrets do you know about your current characters? What are they hiding from the world? How does it manifest itself in their behaviour?

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Photo from: Wikimedia Commons

Is it better to give than receive?

From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life. Arthur Ashe.

Word count: 378    Reading time: 1-2 minutes

Consider Ashe's philosophy in view of the fact that February 14^th is International Book Giving Day. While this campaign primarily aims to get more books into the hands of children, giving a book to an adult isn’t a bad idea either.

Reasons to participate:

• If children develop a reading habit from an early age, who knows what might happen. They could become lifetime readers.
• Giving is good for the soul. It forces us to look outside ourselves, to think about others.
• Books are inexpensive gifts. In fact you don’t have to buy a new book for this special day; take one from your shelves or buy one cheaply at a second-hand store. The cost can be as low as you want to make it.
• Books are easy to wrap.
• If you decide to buy, you get to hang around a bookshop. Is there a better place to pass time? If you’re buying, please consider the One Book Pledge.
• Books are gifts that stay with a person for an entire lifetime.
• Both readers and writers benefit from the gift of books. After all, who are writers without readers?

Don’t know any children? Maybe you could speak to your local librarian and see if there are books the library cannot afford that you could donate. Maybe you could leave a book on a bus, in a waiting room, or at the local rec centre.

What books to buy? I’ve added my ideas to those from blogger North Wind:

• Determine your reader’s interests. Fiction? Non fiction? Favourite genres?
• What format do they prefer: e-books or paper and ink? Graphic novels or traditional?
• How well developed is their vocabulary?
• Check out goodreads for reviews and feedback.

When you give someone a book, you don’t give him paper, ink, and glue. You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley. That doesn’t mean you can’t still give them a chocolate heart also. It is Valentine’s Day after all.

Is there a better gift than a book? When you select a book for a friend, how do you choose which one?

Happy new reading year

 Word count: 410                                Reading time: 1-2 mins

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time (or the tools) to write. Stephen King.

Last year I read 60 books and dozens of short stories (thank you The New Yorker and Sarah Selecky’s brilliant online course Story Is A State Of Mind). I worked through fiction and nonfiction, books on the craft of writing, children’s books, YA, thrillers, historical fiction and classics. How can I remember all this? Easy: every time I finish a book or story, I list it on a spreadsheet, summarizing its merits or shortcomings. I note authors who moved me. When a writer has delivered a particularly powerful scene, I copy-type it to discover what it feels like to be so skilful. I am a determined apprentice who wants to learn from the masters.

I’m not going to list all the books I liked here. That’s what Goodreads is for. I’m not trying to be a book reviewer so I use the GR site simply to vote for captivating novels. Because taste in literature is so wildly subjective, the books that disappointed me are not included in my GR list. Maybe I didn’t understand what the writer tried to achieve. Maybe I didn’t empathize with the main character. The failures may be all mine.

Which leads to the question: why keep reading books that disappoint me or are poorly written? Edward Albee answered that question:  If you are going to learn from other writers, don't only read the great ones, because if you do that you'll get so filled with despair and the fear that you'll never be able to do anywhere near as well as they did, that you'll stop writing. I recommend that you read a lot of bad stuff, too. It's very encouraging. "Hey, I can do so much better than this." Read the greatest stuff but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging.

I finished 2012 with Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. If I read only at this level all year round, I’d give up writing forever. She’s that good. So, in the day or two, after I’ve finished Flynn’s Sharp Objects, I’ll pick up something less humbling. And I’ll learn something from both ends of the spectrum.

What have you read recently? Do you find the books that inspire you are also the ones that slightly discourage you? What are your guilty reading pleasures?

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Book photo by: Sglaw