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Action and Activity
I’m reading a How to Build a Great Screenplay by David Howard. In it, he poses the following questions:
“Are busy characters necessarily the same as characters taking actions? Are activity and action the same? Must all actions and activities be aimed at goals, at what the characters want?”
That’s a lot to think about on a Thursday morning, I know, but it’s been hanging with me for a few days now. What is the difference between action and activity? Does it really matter?
Yes. And here’s why:
Howard defines action: “An action has a purpose behind it…a goal that has been made meaningful for the audience.” (italics mine).
Activity? “Something a character does in a scene…in pursuit of a goal that we don’t care about.” (italics mine).
We don’t care about it? Then why put it in?
Remember the discussion we had about deepening the details? Well, activity is an opportunity to deepen the details. Make what a character does in between bits of dialogue, when alone in a scene, when entering a setting reveal character, reveal emotion, reveal tone, inner life.
Take any character you love and flip open to a portion of one of their tales, at a spot when they’re not actively, “action-ly” pursuing a goal towards story fulfillment. Likely his paring of potatoes way past what is necessary for getting the skin off is the author’s way of telling you that he is distracted, or just barely holding on to some pent-up frustration. The way she changes the energy she puts into the scrubbing of her car in the driveway as her annoying neighbor drones on? Tells you a lot more about her feelings about said neighbor than if the author just flat out told you.
Characters have to “keep busy,” yes. But we can work so much into that necessary activity. Our writing will be the better for it.
A Bouquet of Freshly Sharpened Number Two Pencils
4 low-odor dry erase markers, fine tip.
I pushed my shopping cart through my neighborhood discount store, kids in tow. We paused at the edge of the battle zone, the school supply aisle. Packed with parents and kids fighting for precious Hannah Montana spirals and Twistables, the tight space resembled a Discovery Channel Shark Week feeding frenzy.
I took a deep breath, consulted the list one more time. We were going in.
3 Mead Five Star three-subject college-ruled spirals.
Am I getting crankier or are the school supply lists getting longer and insanely specific?
10 glue sticks.
Ten? Really? You expect my kid to go through ten glue sticks?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind outfitting my kids with what they need for school, but the days of number two pencils, a pack of crayons, notebook paper, and a box of tissues are gone.
1 pack large grid graph paper (1/2 inch/1 cm).
Valiantly, we fought our way through the fray, snatching up pocket folders (no brads) in the specified colors, along with hand held pencil sharpeners, highlighters, and liquid glue (no gel glue).
1 package googly eyes.
We emerged on the other side, relatively unscathed, except for a minor skirmish over the last few composition books. On to the backpack aisle!
So…I’m wondering, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to buy for school or work?
Behind The Scenes With Harlan Coben
In an attempt to earn the forgiveness of my faithful blog readers for my unexplained absence of late, I’m making my return to the GG clubhouse with a splash. A big splash.
You see, I figure we all need a little inspiration once in a while. A success story to make us sit up a little straighter and type a little harder. And in the search for such a story you’d be hard pressed to find a better candidate than #1 New York Times Best Selling Novelist Harlan Coben.
Fortunately for me, I know the guy, and he agreed to my request for a Q & A with absolutely no resistance. And I didn’t even have to bribe him!
So here goes…
For those people who may be living under a rock, Harlan Coben is the mega-selling suspense writer of such titles as TELL NO ONE, NO SECOND CHANCE, THE WOODS, PROMISE ME, HOLD TIGHT, and (my personal favorite) THE INNOCENT. He has sixteen novels on the shelf and another in the works. He’s published in thirty-eight different languages and has had the amazing honor of watching the first of his standalones, TELL NO ONE, on the big screen in France.
And that’s just the beginning.
If I ran down the list of all of Harlan’s accomplishments over the past nineteen years, I’d have the longest blog entry in history. So if you want to know more about his stellar career, go here.
In the meantime, I shall don my dusty reporter’s hat and get down to business with the man himself.
Q#1: What are some of your favorite moments as a writer (thus far)?
A: I will tell you a quick story. An unknown writer was in a big chain bookstore for a god-awful booksigning – we all know them — sitting at a table alone, playing with his pen, nobody buying. He felt like a chump and a loser. An older man came over to him, looked at the book, put it down and said to the unknown writer, “You’re living my dream.” So in short, I love it all.
Q#2: Do you always know how a story will end before you start?
A: I used to say that, but for THE WOODS (2007 release), my, what, sixteenth book or so, I had no idea. Four kids vanished in the woods in the beginning and I had no clue why. My point? You still learn.
Q#3: What’s the best advice you ever received as a young writer?
A: Elmore Leonard says, “I try to cut out all the parts you’d skip.” Live it, baby.
Q#4: What’s the best advice YOU can now give as a seasoned writer?
A: Read Elmore Leonard’s quote. And write. Just write. Don’t worry about marketing or selling the book or what publishers are buying now. I know NO ONE who has had a successful career as a novelist chasing trends — usually it’s just the opposite.
Q#5: How long from your first book published until you hit the NYT?
A: 1988 was the year my first novel was published. I first hit the NYT in 2001. Overnight success, right?
Q#6: Have the majority of your standalones come to you in an instant? Or gradually, over time?
A: Nothing comes to me in an instant.
Q#7 What was your favorite touring moment?
A: I will quote Dan Fogelberg here: “The audience is heavenly, but the traveling is hell.” Specific moment? So many. Maybe one was when a nice man in a baseball cap waited patiently in a fairly long line, politely asked me to personalize his book “To John,” thanked me and left. After he was out the door, someone in line said to me, “That was John Sanford.” Talk about flattering.
Q#8: What was your favorite conference moment?
A: I love it all. But maybe when I won the Anthony at my first Bouchercon in St Paul. That was pretty dang cool.
***GG side note: My favorite conference moment was when this guy put me on the phone with Mary Higgins Clark. Sigh…
Q#9: Do you have any writerly quirks (you know…writing in your boxers, only writing when the sun is in the eastern sky–that sorta thing)?
A: I have two writerly quirks. I write naked. Oh, and I only write at Starbucks.
I kid.
No quirks really. Whatever seems to make me write I will ride until it doesn’t work anymore. Then I will look for a new quirk.
Q#10: Any moments–early in your career–that you found particularly challenging?
A: All of it. But I loved the early years. I was wonderfully naïve and I wish more writers could be that way. Now everyone knows everything – marketing and print runs and printing up bookmarks, etc — but back when I started the Myron Bolitar series, when I was making five grand a book and only published in mass market with a print run of 15K, I thought I was the cat’s pajamas. If I knew the odds, I would probably have gone crazy. So put your head down and write and realize how lucky you are. Makes life easier.
##
A big thank you to Harlan for assisting me in my olive branch offering. And as for the rest of you, who knows…maybe he’ll even lurk in the comment section today in the event someone has a really scintillating question.
Hugs,
~Laura
The Hardest Things to Write? by Clare Langley-Hawthorne
One of the trickiest questions I’ve been asked on a panel is “what is the hardest thing to write? Dialogue, descriptions, sex scenes or violence?”
I think at the time I answered sex scenes (as I’m always in danger of getting a fit of the giggles if I get too graphic!) but in the midst of revising my latest manuscript I have realized that it’s not the sex scenes or the violence, it’s not dialogue or description. The hardest things to write are the most mundane - how one of the characters gets across a room for example, or sits in a chair – because, if you have a room full of characters all going about the ordinary acts of life, like pieces in a chess game being moved around, then it’s all too easy to fall prey to lazy writing and suddenly the whole chapter starts to plod. Yet the sometimes tedious mechanics of getting characters where they need to be are nonetheless critical. Readers will start to wonder why a character never got up from the chair or why she left her coat in chapter one hanging on a coat stand but is then seen wearing it again (as if by magic) in the next chapter. How much easier it must be to be a script writer who can dispense with all the niceties and merely say in parentheses that ‘Ursula left room’ or ‘Ursula gets coat and exits’. Do this in a book, though, and it’s snores-ville for a reader.
While it can be great to try and come up with novel ways of describing how characters walk across the room, for example, trying too hard to make it sound interesting can also be just ludicrous. Imagine a book where every scene was overwritten – where no one just walked, they all ‘strode purposefully’ or ‘clomped angrily’ or ‘tiptoed gracefully’. So how do you find a balance between the boring and the overdone? That, I think is the hardest part of writing a novel – moving the characters between scenes or through a scene, filling in the movements between description and dialogue, between the tension and the confrontations, with it appearing seamless - neither boring the reader witless with humdrum banalities yet including enough continuity so readers can see how the characters live and move through the ordinary aspects of their lives. The key, I think, is to value every word, to treasure every detail of gesture or movement as a potential opportunity to illustrate settings and characters. So when I face revising a scene where my character has to get from point A to point B I now realize the challenge in making the boring mechanics of the scene ‘come to life’ as well as the necessity of including the richness that comes from making every line on every page count.
What do you think is the hardest aspect of writing?
And be sure to check out Clare’s own blog at Kill Zone! She’s doing double duty on Mondays.
Ever Seen an Author Apologize to a Book?
By Kristy Kiernan
An open letter to my second novel, Matters of Faith, in which I attempt to right the grievous wrong I’ve committed in neglecting to trumpet its publication far and wide online.
Dearest Matters of Faith,
I am so thrilled that you’re out in the world! No, really, I am. I know that it seems as though I’ve neglected this momentous occasion in the online world that I know you so deeply love, but, look, I’ve been biiiiiizzzy, what with the whirlwind of launch parties, fielding offers from Spielberg and Affleck, and juggling my Oprah and Richard and Judy interviews!
Well, maybe I’ve been more busy with trying to get my next book finished (NOT accomplished, please hold your jealousy in check), taming my e-mail in-box (also NOT accomplished), and attempting to get some of those above things happening. But a late announcement is still an announcement, right? Do you deserve to get punished for my startling lack of organizational skills? Surely not!
So, congratulations, Matters of Faith! Some lovely things have been said about you, including:
“Kristy Kiernan’s Matters of Faith was so good and true and real that I forgot I was reading a book. I felt as though I was standing helplessly beside good people whose ordinary family life is slowly, inexorably tumbling into the darkness of the unknown.”–Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author
“In this tense, well-paced novel about belief, Kiernan explores what happens when faith and love test the limits of family fealty… [Kiernan] movingly portrays a 20-year-old marriage gone flat and torn apart by crisis, a troubled son, a daughter hovering between life and death, and the hard-to-discern boundaries between true faith and unhealthy fanaticism. She handles her difficult material respectfully. Most interesting is her portrayal of the well-meaning traps parents fall into when encouraging open-ended exploration of faith without context, or choosing to remain silent. The thoughtful themes, interesting characters and page-turning drama of this novel will likely make it a book club favorite.”—Publishers Weekly
Just another day at the Florida beach this is not…It is, however, a great read, structured into the first-person story of Chloe, as she navigates through this family disaster, and the third-person story of Marshall, as he instigates and then attempts to right it.[ ]Kiernan doesn’t flinch at the end; there is no fairy tale happily-ever-after…Yet we are left with hope as the members of the Tobias family come out of a tragic situation with the compassion and desire to work their way back to each other. Which, in the end, is what families, and faith, are about.– Bookreporter
Kiernan’s stunning second novel explores how one family reacts to a devastating tragedy… Unforgettable and moving, Kiernan’s novel is an achingly real portrait of a family in crisis, one readers will react to passionately. –Booklist
Matters of Faith begins as a recognizable family story and transforms into a view of human nature under pressure. How open will minds be when lives are interrupted? Will we believe the same things when loss tests our faith? How do we choose between the two things most precious to us? Kiernan’s portrait of the Tobias family is a study in emotional turmoil that will stay with any reader when their beliefs are, inevitably, called into question. -BookPage
That’s not all Matters of Faith! Let’s peek behind Curtain Number 3, shall we? That’s right, you’ve also been chosen as an IndieBound Notable Title for the month of September! Now, considering how much we both admire independent bookstores you must feel pretty good about that! Come on, come on, ooooh, I see a little crack there in your irritation!
You’ve also proven to be a possible doer of good deeds, helping to inform those whose lives untouched by the difficulty of food allergies of the daily struggle families who are dealing with it have to face. You’ve even been blogged about at Booking Mama, A Year of Books, and Redlady’s Reading Room. You’ve been blogged about elsewhere, but these are particularly special because these women who usually blog about books also happen to be mothers to children who have severe food allergies. So, I hope you appreciate that, Matters of Faith!
The fun’s not over yet, either, my second child, you’ll also be traveling around with me, just so I can talk about you, extolling your virtues, showcasing your beautiful cover, and just generally making sure that my life revolves around you and only you for, heck, I don’t know, the next year or so?! Want to know where you’re going? Go check out my website (don’t go there often, do you? No, but you don’t hear me complaining that you don’t support me! I’m just saying…) and look in the appearances section. If you don’t go to my website, I’m sure you don’t bother with my blog, either, so to make you feel even more loved, check it out and see all the nice things I do for you!
And, in addition to being available in indie bookstores across these United States, you are also available at all the usual online suspects, like Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. And people have even gone on those sites and said nice things about you! I’m not positive we even know all of them!
So, Matters of Faith, know that during your writing, editing, and publication, that you were loved by me. You’ve taught me much and brought me great joy, and I am grateful to you. I apologize profusely for my seemingly light treatment of your big day, and I promise to do better in the future.
Kristy Kiernan is often behind in most things in her life, causing her to have become a real pro in apologizing. She lives, works, and plays in southwest Florida. She also can’t figure out how to resize this photo, and she apologizes profusely for that, too.
Band Names, Interior Design a la Miami Vice and Coffee Shops
King Dork (by Frank Portman) is as good a book as I’ve heard tell. Aside from being hilarious, it is a YA mystery-of-sorts, wherein the protagonist, Tom (otherwise known as Chi-Mo) and his friend Sam are constantly renaming their “band,” thinking up new names for themselves, and for their first album, logo and all.
At the same age as our wonder boys, I spent a year not going to French lab, and, instead, camping out in the school library, drawing (badly) multiple interiors of my “loft,” which, of course had a wholly improbably number of spiral staircases, panels of see-through flooring, and chrome and leather.
These days, my daughters spend their time thinking up names for the coffee shop they’ll run someday. (I blame this particular passion on too many episodes of Gilmore Girls. I swear they think they will open a “Luke’s” and it will come ready-outfitted with a Luke, and a Jess for good measure). The latest version has no name, but includes a bakery, a performance space and a hostel. (Blame the last on our recent family stay at a funky New Paltz, NY hostel - which, if your dreams are along the same lines as my daughter’s, is for sale. Email me for details, or maybe I’ll come back and link to it later).
So, what form do my fantasies take nowadays? Many different ones, I can tell you. See, I write stuff. I get to re-play all those teen fantasies of the life I might have once I’m a “grown-up” in every writerly decision I make.
An internet boom tycoon, turned cop like her father and brother? Been there. A reluctant teen psychic whose father is a paranormal investigator? Done that. Sexy, old-school, retired female burgular/bodyguard? That’s floating around somewhere on the net.
What did you doodle and dream of at age fifteen? What about now?
Spies ‘R Us
Living near Washington D.C., I have some of the nation’s major tourist destinations in my own backyard. My favorites are the museums. In fact, there’s so many that you may not be able to visit all of them during one stay. If you’re ever in D.C. definitely take in the museums of the Smithsonian, but don’t overlook a museum every mystery reader will like, the Spy Museum.
Located a few blocks north of the Mall, the Spy Museum boasts that unlike most museum collections, which are built through donations, their “stuff is mostly stolen.”
I visited a few weeks ago and aside from the overcrowding—which is par for the course in D.C.,’s museums—it was an interesting and enlightening experience. With many interactive exhibits, the Spy Museum concentrates more on real life spying and less on pop culture spies, although there is an Aston Martin for James Bond fans.
The majority of the museum focuses on Cold War Era spying with nods to ancient spies, women spies, and World War II code breaking and the Resistance. Don’t miss the carrier pigeon exhibit. Fascinating stuff! I also learned that several famous writers where prior spies, including Somerset Maugham and Ian Fleming. The museum is a bit pricey, but since most of the other museums in the area are free, save your pennies for this one.
Does anyone else have any other mystery- or writing-related must-sees in their area?
What in the World Have I Done?
By Christine Son
Writing is wonderful. Magical, even. With words, one can create imaginary worlds. Can delve deep into a character’s head. Can render a fictional scene from a true event that had gone horribly awry in real life. Writing can result in delicious, popcorn entertainment. And it can move a reader so that she recognizes that what she’s experiencing is art in its purest form. I love writing. I obsess over it. And in hindsight, I love even the difficult bits of the process, the word glut-filled nights when I think that my novel-in-process will never go anywhere. I love how writing makes me feel, how it opens up my perspective and makes me more empathetic. As isolating as the exercise of writing can be, it’s also a strangely humanizing activity, one that makes me feel more connected to the rest of the world.
Publishing, on the other hand, is another bag altogether. It’s a business that’s hideously generous with rejections. Hideous, as in having something like a 99% rejection rate for fiction writers. With those kinds of odds, I’m much better off at a craps table in Vegas. Still, I was foolhardy enough — and, like most writers, unreasonably optimistic — to think that I might creep into that glorious one percent. And after years of work, no sleep, a two-foot stack of rejection letters and a divine miracle, I did. My first novel, OFF THE MENU, sold to Penguin, and I celebrated as if I had just won Powerball. I celebrated as if I had achieved something better than winning Powerball because I had. My husband jumped up and down for joy. Literally. My friends congratulated me and told me that I was awesome. My coworkers (unfortunately, I have an arduous day job) gawked at me enviously. Life was good. It was better than good.
Fast-forward thirteen months to eight weeks before publication. My publicist told me that my first book signing was going to be August 15th, and suddenly, I felt exactly the way I’d made my characters in OFF THE MENU, which is to say that I was gripped by paralyzing fear. After all, it’s one thing to hide away at home and write, to have my baby safely within my grasp. It’s a different thing entirely to have that work out in the public where everyone can see it. I kept thinking, what in the world have I done? What had possessed me to push so hard to get my book before an audience that might judge? What if my friends laughed at me? Or worse, thought I was a hack? A fraud? The self doubt that was plaguing me was made worse by the fact that everyone was telling me to laud myself, a characteristic that my Korean parents — who had adopted genteel Texas sensibilities — had spent their entire lives telling me not to do. It’s unseemly, they said. Terribly uncouth. And yet, as an author, I have to sell myself. I know that. I knew it even when I was praying that a publisher would notice me. And still I went for it. And still I was terrified when everyone was telling me that I should be nothing but thrilled.
Of course, I am thrilled that OFF THE MENU’s out on bookshelves now. But I’m still anxious and nervous and all the other nail-biting emotions that go along with having such a personal piece of me out there. Maybe all authors feel this way. After all, we want our readers to enjoy our books. To feel like they can escape from the real world for a few hours. To feel uplifted and inspired and entertained. In a way, having my novel in the public is like hosting a party. I want everyone to be happy and taken care of. And if that’s why I push myself so hard to make my second book better than the first, and the third better than them all, then maybe this anxiety isn’t such a bad thing.
Read more about Christine here.
THE IDEAL (FICTITIOUS) HUSBAND? by Clare Langley-Hawthorne
(Filling in for Diana Killian over the next month – keep your eyes peeled for me the next few Mondays here as well as every Monday on my own new group blog – Kill Zone – I’m Monday’s child now I guess!)
I was watching one of my favorite BBC series on DVD, North and South, and it started me thinking about what we look for, as readers and viewers, in our male protagonists and their relationships. The men that have drawn me in have been the ideal suitors: Rochester in Jane Eyre, Darcy in Pride and Prejudice Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Mr. Thornton in North and South, the gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and of course, in mysteries, Lord Peter Wimsey (if I kept going the list would be a long one!) But how many of them would have made the ideal fictitious husband? Are our fictitious men doomed once they become married?
Authors worry when writing a mystery series that once the two protagonists finally settle down and marry, that’s the end of all sexual tension in the books and, with a fizzle and a plop, the series is finished. That idea has me anxious because I know as a reader (and a voracious viewer of BBC series!) that I’m a romantic at heart. I want to see the hero and heroine find true love at the end - I want that resolution but do I want to see what happens afterwards? Would Darcy be quite as appealing with bad morning breath on the honeymoon? Imagine Heathcliff doing the dishes or Rochester burping his first born… Hmmm…you got to admit the sexual tension would be wilting. So how do authors manage to pull it off? As a reader nothing drives me crazier than an artificially drawn out courtship where it’s clear the author wants to drag out the ‘will they or won’t they’ ad infinitum. But what happens once you’ve got the ‘happily ever after’ – how do you recover from the morning after?
I confess I enjoyed Busman’s Honeymoon and loved being a fly on the wall with the newlyweds Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. I also enjoyed the later installments written by Jill Paton Walsh and as a mystery solving duo they seem to work well even after marriage. I have also read some of Anne Perry’s Inspector Pitt and Monk series and they both survive the marriage stakes, although, to be fair, I never sensed that the relationships in these books were ever in question. They weren’t books in which the romance or sexual tension (for me) was ever a driving force. But if it is, how do we keep that tension propelling the characters forward without dragging a relationship out or destroying it all once marriage rears its head? With my own books I’m terrified by the prospect that Lord Wrotham will turn into some boring middle-aged, married lord (never!) and I’ve certainly thrown Ursula a challenge at the end of the second book in the series, The Serpent and The Scorpion, to keep the tension bubbling along. I guess I also have the First World War looming on the horizon, but it would be a sad day indeed when the only way an author can keep the tension alive is by killing someone off!
So who do you think has made the successful transition from sexy love interest to the ideal fictitious husband?
Clare Langley-Hawthorne was raised in England and Australia. She was an attorney in Melbourne before moving to the United States, where she began her career as a writer. Her first novel, Consequences of Sin, has been nominated for the 2008 Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Macavity award. The second in the Ursula Marlow series, The Serpent and The Scorpion, is due out in October 2008. Clare lives in Oakland, California with her family.
How Do I Love Thee?
At the moment, there are few things that can entice me to step away from revising the book on which I’m working. I love revisions–they’re much less painful than drafting–and I’m in absolute heaven spending days curled up on my chair, pen in hand, marking up the manuscript until I’m too hungry to ignore dinner any longer. Generally speaking, I then stop to cook and then spend the rest of the evening reading, even while I’m eating.
However.
Last night that did not exactly happen. First, because I found myself in sudden and inexplicable need of a cheeseburger. Not the well-formed, perfectly-seasoned homemade kind, with artisan cheese and a beautiful roll. I wanted grease. I wanted McDonald’s. So I headed out with my accomplice, Renee, and we kicked off an evening that included water that looked like vodka, not pretending to be interested in the Olympics (yes, yes, Michael Phelps is spectacular; there’s little I like better than someone who is desperately skilled at what he does and who loves doing it), heading off spur-of-the-moment to a late night concert.
But.
As you may recall, Kristy Kiernan and I had big plans for today. Here’s the thing—it just didn’t quite work out for either of us, despite many, many long, witty, thoughtful conversations full of profound insight and literary brilliance. Heh. We’ll regroup next week, which gives you plenty of time to buy and read multiple copies of Kristy’s new book, Matters of Faith. Yes, I mean that precisely—read each of the copies. This is a novel with a stunning depth of layers. It stands up to repeated reading and will break your heart, get you mad, and bring you to a perfectly imperfect redemption. You will love it in ways you can’t count.
We haven’t had questions in a while, and I, for one, miss it. So help out a girl, will ya? Let me know your thoughts on the following……
1. What are you doing tomorrow night?
2. Would you go into space if the opportunity presented itself?
3. Today is book-buying day for me. What should I get?
4. How do I get a ride in a fighter jet? I promise, PROMISE, I won’t touch anything.
I’ll return, post-caffeine, and answer them as well. Except the last, because if I knew how, would I be sitting around here? I’d be suiting up and sliding into the second seat of an F-18…..
xo
Tasha