In Which Real Life Has No Discernible Plot

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Stephanie Alexander| 10 Comments

Today I like: Homemade ice cream
Not so much: Sponge Bob’s laugh. “Hehehehehehehe…” Shoot me.

Darlin’ do not fear what you don’t really know…
–Brett Dennen

Writers generally fall into two camps: Plotters and Pantsers. Those who plan out their work (plotters) and those who wing it (pantsers). There’s sort of a tradition amongst writers to look down upon others who don’t follow your individual mantra. Plotters think pantsers are undisciplined. Pantsers think plotters are rigid. Blah Blah Blah. It’s like a literary Mommy Wars. Anyway, I fall into the plotting category. I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that my “plotter-ish-ness” is really a reflection of my personality.

I like to know what’s going to happen. In my own life, I tend to plan things out. Lists, schedules…love them. So, it makes sense that I plan my work. It’s comfortable to know where my characters are going, and have an end goal. I write a detailed outline before I even write one word of a scene in a new novel.

Sometimes, however, this doesn’t work out, and that’s where I drift away from my outlines…and sometimes even my end goal. Where the flow of events in the story, the characters’ evolutions and plot points, decide that my plan is not where it’s at. This can be a little disconcerting…having to reorganize my thoughts and wrap my mind around a new direction. Usually with a good run and some serious mulling over, the new path takes shape. Cue re-write on the grand plan…but still, there is a grand plan.

That’s the great thing about fiction. You can always change course, and it’s like the original course didn’t happen. Ugh, plot hole. This scene is just not working. Guess what? Delete! Whoo hoo! It’s gone! New scene…all better. Things are back on track. Rolling toward the end goal.

Unfortunately, real life isn’t like that. You pick a course, write a scene, and you’re stuck with it. There’s no time to figure out the perfect reaction or bit of dialogue. No ability to control the other characters. One scenario can lead to another, and you feel like you’re trapped in the most poorly edited film ever recorded. When it’s all over, you can’t believe it happened…and you have absolutely no idea what to do with it. Where to take it…if mistakes have been made, how to fix it. The end goal is invisible…or at least seems out of reach.

Not knowing frightens me. I don’t do it well, in writing or life. I try to keep in mind, however, that sometimes in my books, the scenes I never saw coming teach my characters the best lessons. Even the most dedicated plotters have to be pantsers once in a while.

So are you a plotter or a pantser? In writing, life, or both?

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Posted in Balance, Plot, Writing

Review of Little Gale Gumbo by Erika Marks

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Stephanie Alexander| 16 Comments

Today I like: The Adventures of Tin Tin
Not so much: Winter breaks that never end

Today I’m reviewing Little Gale Gumbo, the debut novel by the fabulous Erika Marks, who I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know through the Twitter writing community. Here’s a summary of this fun and page-turning read:

Camille Bergeron left her native New Orleans for the shores of Little Gale, an island off the coast of Maine. She brought along her two teenage daughters, Dahlia and Josie, and hoped to leave her abusive husband behind. When the Bergerons meet divorcee Ben Haskell and his teenage son, Matthew, it seems they might have a chance at a fresh start, and maybe even a new family. The Bergerons and Haskells open the Little Gale Gumbo Café , and soon the suspicious islanders are drawn in by Camille’s colorful food…and her daughters’ more colorful personalities.

Years later, Camille and Josie are still running the Café, all the while holding onto old loves and family secrets. When their violent father’s sudden reemergence puts Ben’s life in danger, Dahlia and Josie are forced to confront the past and figure out what to do with their shared future.

So, I was really excited to read Erika’s book. Colorful, outlandish New Orleans Creole meets stiff-lipped Yankee island fishing village? I loved the idea of a collision between two such unique American cultures, and Erika does a wonderful job bringing both settings to life. Her New Orleans is bourbon-soaked humidity and spice, her Maine island is gray and quaint and insularly chilly, in both the literal and figurative sense. The characters, as well, from wild Dahlia to practical Josie, are pleasantly flawed yet retain their likability. Even as Dahlia makes a mess of her own life, and Josie rationalizes the betrayal of the one man she really loves, you don’t doubt their inherently worthy intentions.

Erika weaves the relationships between the characters masterfully…everyone is somehow connected to everyone else, as is always the truth in a small town. The plot zips along with one question leading to another. In the case of Little Gale Gumbo, I think the title is a great metaphor for the story: a stew of characters, problems…loves and mysteries, all mixed together to form a wonderfully flavorful story.

Congrats, Erika, on a great debut!

Little Gale Gumbo was published by NAL/Penguin in 2011. Erika is a native of Maine, and her husband is a native of New Orleans. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and two daughters. Erika is a featured novelist on The Debutante Ball, a website that showcases promising debut novelists. You can learn more about Erika and her writing on her website or follow her on twitter at @erikamarksauthr.

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Posted in Book Reviews, Erika Marks

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 6 Comments

Watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Merry Christmas to All!

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Posted in Uncategorized

Take Me In, Let Me Wonder

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 10 Comments

Today I like:  Sullivan’s Island
Not so much: Wrapping paper

Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in
Are you aware of the shape I’m in?
My hands they shake, my head it spins
Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in
–The Avett Brothers (I and Love and You)

My second daughter, she of the white blond hair and blue eyes; she who looks nothing like me, is a child after my own heart. I think she might have a writer’s soul. She takes it all in.

Songs, for example. She always asks me, “Mommy, what is this song about?” This is her reaction to every artist from Kesha to Bob Dylan. Usually I can come up with a pretty succinct, child-friendly answer. (“She’s mad at her boyfriend! He wants to go to a big party! He likes big butts and he cannot lie!” Ok, really, I change the song on that one…) Sometimes I’m stumped…and the above song, I and Love and You, by the Avett Brothers…which I have recently discovered and with which I have fallen in love…is an example of such a song.

When I had that inevitable question, this time I said, “Why don’t you just listen to it, and tell me what you think at the end?”

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
That we are headed north
One foot in and one foot back
But it don’t pay to live like that
So I cut the ties and jumped the tracks
Never to return

She kept up a commentary. “So he’s going on a trip? North…it will be cold. Is it Christmas?”

When at first I learned to speak
I used all my words to fight
With him and her and you and me
Oh but its just a waste of time
Yeah its such a waste of time
That woman shes got eyes that shine
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes
She asked to dance I said it’s fine
I’ll see you in the morning time 

“He messed something up. Maybe his girlfriend is mad.”

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
What you were then, I am today
Look at the things I do

“I and love and you. That’s like I LOVE YOU.”

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
Your dreams to catch the world, the cage
The highway sets the traveler’s stage
All exits look the same

“What kind of exits?”
“Like the ones on the highway.”
“They do look the same. But they have numbers. What number is Brooklyn?”

As we were listening, I thought of how the best songs tell a story. Like novels do, but in the very shortest, simplest form. Sometimes the most eloquent and emotional. It made me think of that old writers’ adage: Show, don’t tell.

Songwriters tell their tales in emotion, and give the reader room to interpret the details and the message in an individual way. What one person hears, where he or she finds some commonality, might not be how the songs resonates (no pun intended) for the next listener. So, as long form writers, I think the lesson we can learn from great songwriters is this: Don’t over explain. Give your readers a chance to come to their own conclusions, and maybe even leave them hanging a tiny bit. Tie it up, but keep the sense of wonder. Give your readers credit for having individual points of reference and creative intelligence. And of course…tell the story in as few words as possible. Just make sure they’re the right ones.

So, at the end of the song I asked my girl what she thought it meant.

“He’s sad. He misses home. He wants to go back and fix things.”
“Do you think he did?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, definitely.”

I’ll let her tell me the rest of the story when she’s ready.

 

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Posted in Plot, Prose, Writing

What Math Taught Me About Writing

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 24 Comments

Today I like: Rhianna
Not so much: Kids Place Live on XM. I can only take so much Laurie Berkner

“…I’m all about them words
Over numbers, un-encumbered, numbered words
hundreds of pages, pages, pages, for words,
More words, than I had ever heard
And I feel so alive…”
–Jason Mraz

Let’s start out by saying, academically speaking, I’m a words person. Give me term papers and poetry readings and fifty page dissertations. Let me make outlines and take copious, long-winded notes. Read bulky text books. I don’t want just one answer. I want to see all sides of an argument. I want differing points of view, so I can prove my opinion. Makes sense, novelist and all.

This leads me to admit: I hate at math. I never enjoyed it. I know, as a feminist I should be a strong female role model, and I hope I am…as long as I’m not required to figure the square root of anything or do long division. I have to agree with that much-maligned Barbie…math is hard.

So I avoided math as much as possible. Not difficult, since I did not attend the most stellar of high schools (PG County’s finest). Didn’t take any math my senior year, and somehow squeaked by with B’s the three years before that (maybe because my basketball coaches were my teachers? Who knows.) I got to college and was promptly placed in remedial algebra, which I managed to pass with a lovely D that screwed my GPA for all eternity. Damn you, letter D! After that I took symbolic logic, and I hoped I’d be finished with x‘s and y‘s forever.

Oh, no. Fast forward to grad school. As a sociology student, I had to take A LOT of statistics. I literally cried my way through every problem. Twenty-five years old, sobbing, “I CANNOT DO THIS. I WILL NEVER GRADUATE. MY BRAIN IS OOZING OUT MY EARS IN A SLOW FLOW OF P-VALUES.” Regression analysis made me regress to age six.

I’m thinking about age six because my sweet six-year-old daughter is struggling right now. She’s having trouble with her math facts. Last night she sobbed at the dining room table.

“BUT IT’S HARD, MOMMY. I CAN’T DO IT. IT’S HARD.” Big blue eyes seeping tears all over her subtraction worksheet. Smudging the smily elephant on the top of the page, the one I’m sure she’d wanted to stab with her pencil.

So I told her my story. About statistics, and how it almost killed me. I really got into it. Cue me boo-hooing and pounding my fists on the dining room table and pretending to hurl my computer out the window. She loved it, and the scary part is my rendition was actually a fair representation of the truth. She sniffled and got back to business, and we plodded through the worksheet…came out the other end with smiles.

Now, I pulled through in stats. It all finally clicked…and my final class earned me an A. One I actually deserved. Honestly, that experience taught me that I’d never worked hard. I was lucky enough that I didn’t have to. I could put in a modicum of effort in school and get a good result. I think my daughter is the same way. She’s accustomed to things coming easy.

These days, I think back on what I could have accomplished if I’d actually tried throughout my academic career. Put in the kind of effort I put into statistics. Those god-forsaken classes changed my life. It took me until age twenty-five to really understand the value of hard work.

So when I sat down to write a book, yes, it was going to be a challenge. But I never had any doubt I could do it. If I could conquer statistics, I could conquer anything.  Writing is sometimes emotionally exhausting, no doubt. But nothing feels better than the combination of hard work and passion.

I hope my daughter learns that lesson quicker than I did. I think she will. She’s a smart cookie.

 

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Posted in Motherhood, Uncategorized, Writing

On Fog and Other Opaque Topics

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 12 Comments

Today I like: Bridges
Not so much: Jungle Junction. What a ridiculous show, even for 4yo’s.

In my attempts to be a better doggie parent, I’ve been walking Rosie the Round Ridgeback after the kids go to bed. Last night, when we hit the sidewalk around 9:30pm, fog was covering my little slice of Daniel Island like a layer of opaque frosting. Running along the tops of the trees in a shifting gray mass. Lit from below by street lights. A damp, stick-in-your-nose kind of smell, with just a hint of salt thrown in from the surrounding brackish rivers.

Didn’t bother Rosie, who was intent on sniffing out any possible food item, including cigarette butts and smooshed wads of gum. I was a little disoriented, however, and I realized the reason: I couldn’t see The Bridge.

The Bridge would be the Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge. It connects Mount Pleasant with downtown Charleston. It’s a testament to function and creativity, sweeping over the Cooper River like a graceful roller coaster. I see it from different angles at least fifty times a day as I run around town, and usually drive over it more than once.

But tonight all I could make out were a few faintly blipping red lights…meant to discourage novice Air Force pilots from crashing into its spires. The fog kept that comforting, constant concrete place marker from me.

I’ll admit, I’ve been struggling a bit to get the words on “paper” (computer screen) lately. I can force them, but they’re not coming with their usual easy tidal patterns: in, out, in, out, repeat. If you’re a writer, you know what this means: I’m in for some rewrites. It can be disheartening when you feel the story in your head…but it…sits…there…like a content lizard on a hot rock. You poke it, but it merely hisses at you.

The thing is, just like the bridge, the story is still there. It’s all in my mind, hidden behind the fog. I can see the colors, hear the voices. They’re just muted right now.

Sometimes I find myself in similar situation in my “real” (read: non-fictional, unicorn-and-dragonless) life. Wondering how to sift through the issues we all run up against: doubt, untruths, ambiguity. I guess in the end, all we can do is wait for the weather to clear. For the fog to blow over, so we can decide if the structure underneath is sound.

I know the bridge will endure. I know my story will find its way out. And when I have to ask those kinds of questions, I hope for bright sunlight and a strong wind.

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Posted in Writing

Desperate Housedog

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 15 Comments

Today I like: Lululemon
Not so much: Leftover Halloween candy. Ugh.

We have a dog. Rosie. She’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback. If you’re not familiar with Ridgebacks, let me describe the breed: Large. Brown. Floppy ears. Stripe of hair that grows backwards along the spine. Bred to hunt lions and protect homesteads in southern Africa. Loyal and protective. Lovely animals.

That being said, Rosie is driving me mad. She paces the house all day long on a scavenging mission. She knows how to open the drawer wherein hides the ever tempting trashcan. She’s approximately six feet tall when she stands on her hind legs, so she can reach any food item on the counter, from toast crumbs to birthday cakes. She stalks the kids and takes whatever they happen to have in their hands. She goes outside and swipes McDonald’s bags from the poor construction workers building the house next door.

And then, after gorging herself on anything she can find, she stands at the pantry door and whines for food.

“For the love of God,” I say. “You’re not hungry. You just ate an entire rotisserie chicken. Bones and all.”

Rosie: “Mee…meee…eee…errr…errr.”

Me: “No! What about the bag of Hershey kisses? All that tin foil must have been filling.”

She does not hear me. Nor does her stomach, which I assume is lined with South African conflict diamonds or something, since nothing she swallows seems to have one iota of negative effect. (I used to panic when she ate something suspect. Several pricy, pointless trips to the vet later, I just shrug.) I can never send a picture of her to the breeder, who once sent me an email with the tagline: “Is your Ridgeback fit or fat?”

If she got one look at Rosie’s spare tire she’d demand we return her. I guess I could send a head shot, but her cheeks are a bit round, too.

The thing is, I sort of understand why Rosie has OCD. She’s bored. This is my fault. Between three kids, a house, and writing, I don’t take the time to play ball with her or walk her every day or even pet her half the time. She’s looking for something to do. Food is her obsession.

I used to be a dog person. I swear. I had a dachshund named Schnapps, and I had a total blind spot for that little guy. My college roommates hated him, and with good reason, since he barked non-stop and would bite your fingers off if you tried to drag him out from under the bed. (“That dog is the devil.” –Lindsey, circa 1997). I wouldn’t hear a word against him and took him everywhere with me.

At this point, however, poor Rosie is pretty low on the totem pole. At the same time, I understand her malaise. In the year or two before I started writing seriously, I became a bit obsessed with working out. Overdid it on several occasions, once leading to a stress fracture in my tibia that took six months to heal. I agonized over my inability to get out, get on it, get moving. I finally realized I was looking for something to occupy my mind, not necessarily my body. I loved being home with my kids, but as I emerged from six years of baby haze I knew I needed something else. I couldn’t cook and clean and cart kids, not without some additional mental stimulation. I was literally running myself into the ground in my search for some additional, personal purpose.

Once I began writing in earnest, The Cracked Slipper took shape quickly, and suddenly working out became enjoyable again. No more injuries. I’m still extremely active, but it’s a healthy habit.

So, I know Rosie needs mental stimulation, too. Something to take her mind off the trashcan and whatever tidbits might be lurking in it. My dog is struggling with a canine version of The Feminine Mystique. It’s guess it’s up to me to turn her into an enlightened, fulfilled doggy woman of the 21st century. She needs a career, or a hobby, or something. Any ideas?

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Posted in Balance, Women's Issues

World-building and Wikipedia

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 18 Comments

Today I like: Watching the river from my front porch
Not so much: I can’t really think of anything

This afternoon I’m visiting another country. I’m working on book three in my Cracked Slipper trilogy, and the characters have left the confines of my enchanted kingdom. They’ve crossed borders, gone north, past the mountains. So I’m leaving a land I’m very familiar with. I can recite the history of Eleanor’s kingdom backward and forward. Now I’m in a new place. A tourist in my own head.

As I started thinking about this northern nation, I pulled my pre-writing documents from The Cracked Slipper. Ah, how nostalgic those pages seem now! I was just a fledgling novelist trying to figure out how to make this process work for me, and how I would get this huge story out of my head and into my computer. I knew the importance of world-building in fantasy novels, and I wanted to get it right.

So I wrote out as much as I could possibly come up with about my imaginary kingdom. Here are some of my headings:

Geography (sub-headings: Bordering Nations, River and Mountains Systems, Major Cities)
Weather
Religion
History (Major Wars, The Monarchy)
The Arts (Literature, Music, Dance)
Culture (Holidays and Traditions, Attitudes about Alcohol, What is the Character of the Typical Citizen?)
Gender Roles (Patriarchy, Attitudes about Sex)
Animal and Plant Life (Levels of Animal Intelligence, Enchanted Creatures)
Education
Magic (Integration into Daily Life, Roles of Witches/Magicians, Power Limits)
Class Systems
Economy (Trade, Raw Materials, Magic and the Economy)

Now I look back at these documents, and surprisingly they hold very accurate. I think I needed to have this background information in my head before I started writing, so I could concentrate on the characters and the plot. I thought of it as background research. The same thing a historical novelist would do before starting a story about 16th century Holland. You can’t place your characters into a context you’re not familiar with.

So, my notes are really like my own personal Wikipedia entry. Something I can use to check the facts. Fortunately, I don’t need to verify anything about my made-up world. I can count on it’s authenticity, and if it’s biased, that’s ok.

So now I’m off to work on a Wiki version of my northern nation. Research my own imagination. :)

What’s you’re favorite story world? If you’re a writer, how do you craft the world your characters inhabit?

 

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Posted in Setting, Writing

In Retrospect

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 12 Comments

Today I like: Tom Petty. The kick continues
Not so much: Ant invasion

So I’ve started out
for God knows where
I guess I’ll know
when I get there
– Tom Petty (again)

I don’t know about you, but my life makes perfect sense when viewed in reverse. I can see clearly how one thing led to the  next. The most painful situations often offer the most clarity. Once the hurt fades or some answer is concluded, the lessons seem so obvious. When you’re in the middle of it, however, nothing makes sense. Why, why, why is this happening? What good can it possibly serve?

I think the best fiction forces characters to ask these questions. All writers know about “upping the stakes,” “giving your characters hell,” etc. If the protagonist is not facing some huge dilemma, then obviously there is little need to keep reading. In plot-driven fiction, we usually have a protagonist with an external problem (bomb! psycho killer! rogue vampire assassin!), but for me, these kinds of obstacles, while they keep the pages turning, are secondary to the internal struggles. If a book keeps me flipping pages, but the character has nothing emotional at stake, and doesn’t learn anything from the external forces working against him/her, then the story is quickly forgotten.

When I’m crafting a novel, the characters’ internal journeys are as paramount in my planning as the external plot. I picture them, at the end of the book, looking back over the series of events that lead to the conclusion. I want her to see the connections between the pain and the lessons. I want him to understand that it all meant something, that it happened for a reason.

Because, while it’s fiction, and maybe it ties up a neater than real life, I believe things do happen for a reason. In retrospect, everything eventually makes sense.

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Posted in Characters, Plot, Writing

Somewhere You Feel Free

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Stephanie Alexander| 19 Comments

Today I like: Halloween (early I know, but whatever)
Not so much: Costumes already on back order? Seriously?

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong on a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free
– Tom Petty

What consumes you? You know there’s something. You can’t put is aside, set it down, listen to John Lennon and Mother Mary and let it be. Lots of people would say work. I know I have times when my writing takes over my life. I’m not talking about the actual sitting down at the keyboard and banging it out (more about that later), I’m referring to all the extra stuff that surrounds the creative process. The waiting, wondering, preparing for the the day when it all (hopefully) falls into place and trying not to chew off my nails in the meantime.

If you’re lucky enough to have a blissful work life (maybe you paint portraits of fluffy dogs for a living and make millions or something), I bet you still have something that follows you: an issue with your kids, your parents, or your best friend. Some inner demon. It’s part of the human condition, and I accept that, but I still find ways to feel free.

I feel free when I run. When the inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale forces me to concentrate on my own pulse. Forward momentum carries me through the last mile, the easiest mile, when everything moves with the simple flow of a water wheel in a strong current. I feel free on a crowded dance floor. In the rhythm and the sweat of the people around me. In not knowing how my body will physically manifest the vibrations in my chest. I feel free on a boat with the wind in my face; air so fast I have to gasp. Catch it before it slips past me.

I feel free when I’m writing a new scene. I’m fortunate in that I never struggle through first drafts. They come hard and fast for me, like sneezing or possibly like throwing up (a gross metaphor, yes, but an accurate one). I usually have the sense of being unable to keep up with my own mind. A fear of leaving something out. The dichotomy is my control over what the characters are doing and saying, but at the same time…not really knowing where it will all end up. It’s a rush that requires complete focus and total release.

Some of this leans to the physical, some to the emotional. But I’ll close with a combination of the two. I feel free when someone makes me laugh. Without trying. When I least expect it. When I can’t stop, and the thought makes me smile hours later. When I can’t hold back the laughter I’m laid out, wide open, uninhibited. Free.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Balance, Writing