GENREALITY

Circumstances have recently demanded that I spend a lot of time around normal people. That is, non-writers. I’d forgotten how often “So, what do you do?” comes up in conversation. Society does tend to label people largely by their vocation. After all, that’s how surnames started: Tom the Baker, Elizabeth the Ta(y)lor, Jim the Butcher. (I can only suppose my ancestors must have been rather merciful.)

Every time I’ve made a transition in my life, there’s always been an awkward adjustment period where I stumble over how to answer the question “What do you do?”  I know they mean, “What do you do for a living?”  But often that’s the least interesting thing about a person. Think about the accountant who crunches numbers all day, and is the star of his community theater troupe in the evening. The teacher who spends her weekend parasailing. The waiter who is paying the bills with his tips while he works on his Great American Novel.  (Here, I could go off on a tangent about multi-dimensional characters, but I’ll just consider that point made, and keep to the subject at hand: me.)

Anyway. I’m not reticent about the fact that I’m a writer (for a living) but I don’t always bring it up, because the next questions is, “What do you write?” meaning “Anything I might have heard of?”  If not, there’s always that awkward, apologetic moment while they try to decide if they’re a bad reader or you’re a bad writer.  Fortunately, I have an out on that, because unless they’re a young adult or a teen librarian, there’s no reason they should know my books.

So the conversation goes like this:
Them: What do you write?
Me: Supernatural mystery novels for young adults of all ages.
Them: *blank look*
Me: Kind of a cross between Nancy Drew and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Them: *doubtful look*
Me: Fantasy novels for teenagers.
Them, inevitably: Oh! Like Twilight.
Me: *sigh* Yes. Like Twilight. (Hey, I’m not knocking it, but love the books or hate them, YA authors sometimes get weary of all conversational roads leading to Forks, WA.)

Now, I spend 90% of my time around other writers and other book-related people, like book bloggers and librarians. And by “90% of my time” I mean, “on the Internet.”

But as writers and book people, we do the same thing. In any gathering of writers, the opening conversational gambit is always: “What do you write?” At the luncheon tables, in the bar, elevator or bathroom. It’s our writerly blood type. Romantic suspense, hardboiled thrillers, cozy mysteries, space opera…  You can write more than one, even in the same book (or three, like my supernatural mysteries for young adults). But one of the markers of an experienced writer (or possibly just experience conference attendee) working at selling her book is the ability to quickly sum up what she writes.

That doesn’t mean your work needs to be pigeonholed, any more than the accountant starring as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof on his weekends. It just means that you need to know the ingredients and be able to articulate them when introducing yourself in a query letter, at a book signing or event, or when your doting grandmother introduces you (to all her doctors and nurses, bless her heart) as “my granddaughter, the author.”

So, can you?  It’s more than where your book will go on the shelves.  You should be able to put your finger on what you’re trying to accomplish.  If it’s a gothic mystery with elements of alien abduction and a twist on the secret baby romance trope, you should know that.  Identifying the elements will help you parse out the conventions you need to honor, and the cliches you need to turn on their ears. It will keep you focused on the story you plan to tell (even if you’re not an outliner) and keep you from following the White Rabbit of whimsical ideas that take your novel off course. (If it’s a quest novel, you have to stay on your quest.)

So… what do YOU write?

I can never remember whether the decade starts with the “0” year or the “1” year, but all the TV programs are saying it’s a new decade, which doesn’t mean that’s right, just that that seems to be what we’re going with. So happy new decade, too.

I won’t lie; it was a crazy decade for the RCM family.  There was plenty of hardship. But there were plenty of blessings, too.  In other words, I’m… pretty much like everyone else.

What’s interesting to see, in retrospect, is where the hardships led to new things, down side paths that seemed crazy and irrelevant at the time, yet brought me to points in my life I may never have reached by a straight line. Interesting to see how detours and delays on my journey equipped me with things I couldn’t have imagined I would need.

In a book, we plot that all out ahead of time. If our heroine veers off the main thrust of the story, it’s all part of the grand scheme. We’re giving her information or magic items, or allies that she’ll need to finish her quest. But as the characters in our own stories, we only see that in retrospect. If we see it at all.

Though I’ve always written stories, my path to publication was rather stop and start. Sometimes (like at the turning of the year), thinking about the time ‘wasted’ on abandoned manuscripts, and sidetracked artistic endeavors, I have to remind myself that all those disappointments and failures, false starts, wrong turns, dead ends and slammed doors that make me the writer–and the person–that I am today.

We are the total of our experiences. Actually, I’d posit that the synergy of experience and imagination makes us more than the mere sum of the events of our lives. This is especially true as writers, as we extrapolate from our own personal first hand knowledge, letting it spark ideas and inform our craft.

I hope that in the New Year, you let all those things propel you forward toward your goals, and that 2010 is healthy, happy, and successful for you all.

I think one of the reasons that people get such a glow from holiday songs is that they use a lot of sensory imagery.

When it snows, ain’t it thrilling, though your nose, get’s a chilling…

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…

Put on your yalmulka, here comes Hanukkah…

(Okay, that last one is a little weak, but I was trying to be ecumenical.)

From the smell of lit candles to the taste of gingerbread, the holidays are full of sensations that resonate with emotional memory. (Good or bad.)  On one hand, I can call up the sound of bells and carols in church, and on the other, the blare of canned holiday music and the screams of weary children in the mall.

Give that last one a try: Close your eyes (after you get done reading this) and call up the memory of the mall in December. Concentrate on the sounds– the holiday music, the echo of voices in the high roof of the central mall–and the sensations– the weight of the packages in your hands, the jostle of the hurrying crowd, the ache of your feet as you stand in line. The terror you feel knowing Santa is lurking at the other end of the mall… Oh. That’s just me.*

You’re probably having a pretty strong emotional memory right now. Maybe your neck has tensed up into knots and your stomach is a ball of anxiety and stress, and your heart is thumping. Or maybe you’re doing deep breathing to keep your cool, and finding your happy place in the middle of the chaos. Whatever it is, think about THOSE sensations, too.

Try doing this the next time you’re writing a scene, and your character should be feeling harried and stressed and tense–even if he’s trying to get to somewhere to diffuse a bomb, or save the president, or whatever–remember the sensations of being at the mall on a bad day (there are good days, too, but everyone has probably had the experience of needing to get something done in a mad crush).  Translate some of those internal sensations into your scene, and put those emotions to good use.

This is something we as writers can apply to any season. It’s drilled into us from Writing 101: Show don’t tell. Surround your characters by sensations drawn from your own experience.  Just like acting, where your goal is to show real emotion in fake situations, writing should do the same thing.  Giving your characters sensory experiences in their moments make them real and emotional, and can resonate with your reader.

What physical sensations–touch, taste, sounds, smells, sights–evoke emotions in you?  They don’t have to be holiday related.  I have certain things I recall when I need to feel scared or angry or nostalgic. (The smell of dirt and cut wood makes me think of building fences on the ranch with my dad. I use it when I need to feel exhaustion and satisfaction of a doing a hard job myself.)

And in YOUR busy December– whatever you celebrate, or don’t–I hope you collect more good sensations than bad!

–Rosemary

*To those who just met me.  I’m not a fan of Santa. Sort of ironic, given my last name. But seriously, when I was growing up, we could not go to the mall from Thanksgiving to New Year’s without my pitching a screaming fit because Santa was there. Waiting. Watching. Judging. *shudder*

Just in case I gave you the mistaken impression I was all highbrow and stuff because I sit around watching opera in my free time, I capped off my week watching Angels and Demons, the latest Dan Brown movie adaptation.  (I’ll say this for Dan Brown. His stories are kind of like crack to me. I just can’t resist a treasure hunt. Especially when I figure out the clues ahead of the characters in the book, because it makes me feel smart. And you know, I never turn down an opportunity to feel smart.)

So anyway, there’s this old writing adage: If you put a gun on the mantle in the first act, it had better go off in the third.

Agatha Christie?  Anton Chekov?  It sounds like it should be Christie, just from a literal standpoint.

Anyway. Angels and Demons, Ewan McGregor plays this priest in the Vatican, and as he’s introduced to the protagonist, has this clunky piece of dialogue/exposition/infodump about his stint in the army when he was a helicopter pilot.  So of course I knew by the end of the movie that he was going to be flying a helicopter.

So, there’s putting a gun on the mantle, and there’s putting a spotlight on it.

Contrast this with the other movie I watched (re-watched, actually) this weekend: UP.  Here, Carl has several Conveniently Useful character traits. Most notably, he’s sold balloons at the zoon for his job. The whole conceit of the movie hangs on this seemingly random quirk that gets about two seconds of establishment in the middle of the backstory montage.

Likewise, the dogs’ obsessions with squirrels–set up as a joke early on, but a Useful Character Quirk later on.  Ditto the Wilderness Scout call.

Characters can (in fact, should) have random quirks, because humans have random quirks, and ideally they’ll play into the plot–whether it’s the A plot or the B plot.  But I think that the more conveniently useful the trait is, the less random it can be.
Now, from my super secret confession, you may have gathered, the lampshade the screenwriter hung on Father McHottie… er, I mean, McGregor, didn’t really diminish my enjoyment of the movie. It was delicious cheese, and unlike The DaVinci Code, the camera work didn’t make me nauseated.  But for a great example of an adventure story that hinges on some of the best character development I’ve seen, check out Up.

But bring Kleenex.

How about some suggestions in the comments, of places where the Convenient Weapon/Clue/Character Trait was planted so skillfully that it became a pleasant surprise when it played out later in the book?

So, I’m watching Carmen on Ovation TV, and I love how in opera when a new character enters, he gets a whole song (or a verse, if he’s not that important) to introduce himself and illustrate his defining characteristic. Sometimes the other characters sing about him, too. Carmen enters and launches into her definitive aria about her philosophy of love. It’s sultry, seductive… and cynical as hell.  Boom. We know what we need to know about Carmen. *

Can you imagine what would happen if we introduced book characters this way?

Harry Potter entered the great hall at Hogwarts. The sorting hat said, “It’s Harry Potter, who the Dark Lord tried to kill but he survived and has been in hiding and now here he is, Harry Potter. Yes, Harry Potter!” [They repeat things a lot in opera.]

Harry climbed into a table to orate, as they all gazed up at him in various attitudes of interest (or in Draco Malfoy’s case, villainous contempt).  Harry was a tenor, so everyone knew he was a good guy. (Draco was a baritone; he was bad, but not as bad as the basso Voldemorte, who wouldn’t show up for another few acts.) “Yes! I’m Harry Potter.  Let me tell you what’s happened to me so far, and how I feel about it….” [Proceeds to do so]

Of course, we authors DO want to help the reader get a handle on our characters just as quickly. We just have to do it a lot more subtly.  Not that we need to know everything about them in the first page of their appearance. The only way you can get away with that kind of infodump is if you sing it.

My favorite example is the opening of Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott:
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

“We’ve got Father and mother and each other,” said Beth contentedly from her corner.

I love the simplicity of this opening. It’s got a rhythm to it, and it defines each of these girls in one sentence, without going: “…said Jo, the grumpy one; …Meg, the vain one, …Amy, the snobby one; …Beth, the sweet one.

And look at what Jo says. Yes, it’s focused on presents, but her concern isn’t that she won’t have nice things. It’s that Christmas won’t be Christmas. That is, her idea of Christmas will not be there. And so much of Jo’s story is her clinging to what her IDEA of something in the face of a different reality.

Go look at a book that has a character that really stands out for you. Even if the first thing they say or do isn’t exactly iconic, how you first see the character will tell you a lot about them.

I’d love to see examples in the comments!

Happy writing!
Rosemary
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* I could have introduced myself with a song, but it would lose something translated into text. Because that’s the other things about opera.  It loses a lot in transcription. I love how the subtitles on opera broadcasts go like this:

Carmen:  *sings for five minutes*
Subtitle:  Love sucks.

But yeah, I’m aware my first post on genreality probably says a lot about me. Maybe more than I intend!