Writer’s Blog

Learning from a Master

Let’s say you’re reading a book, and you come across a sentence that blows you away because of its poetry or cadence or economy or expansiveness. Mark it. Then at some point, come back and don’t just read it again. Write that sentence down in your writer’s notebook, word for word, comma for comma. In doing so, you will get the feeling of that sentence in your muscle memory–the clauses, the pauses, the rhythm. When it’s time for you to write, what you learned will come out to play.

Here’s one that I wrote down recently from Elizabeth Strout’s excellent book, Olive Kitteridge:

Olive, years ago, had taught math at the Crosby Junior High School, and while her emotions at times had attached themselves fiercely to particular students, Andrea Bibber had never seemed to her to be anything more than a small, dull, asseverating mouse.

Perhaps this exercise is akin to the idea of the artist who learns by copying a much-admired painting, brush stroke for brush stroke.

What did I learn?

If you want to learn something, one of the best ways to do it is to be conscious of what you are learning. That may sound ridiculously obvious, but life has a way of flooding the mind with too much information and sweeping the newly-learned or almost-learned stuff out to sea.

The best way for me to be conscious of what I’m learning is to literally write what I’m learning down. After every class that I teach (or take) I force myself to sit and write down at least one thing that I learned. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes not. Usually, the act of writing helps realizations to occur.

I put myself through a course in humor writing by watching funny movies with an agenda: each time I watched, I had to write down at least one thing I learned about why it was funny.

If you’re taking a class, create a ritual for yourself (a mini notebook? a set of 3×5 cards? a dedicated blog?) to write down what you are learning.

How to Read a Novel

One of the students in my Fiction for Young Readers class asked what she should focus on when she’s reading the novels I assigned.

First of all, I read for enjoyment, of course; but I do analyze books as I read, and I do it on two basic levels. Think of a house. You’ve got the individual planks of wood (those are sentences); and then you have the entire structure (the story). When I’m reading on the sentence level, I’m looking at the quality of the writing: fresh metaphors, rhythm, sentence construction. When I’m reading on the structure level, I’m thinking about whether or not the story works and how it was constructed.

On the story level, I analyze by asking myself questions: What is the heart of the story? If you boil it down to its most basic form, what is the story about? Try to define this in just one or two sentences. Usually, the heart of the story comes from looking at what your main character is yearning for and what gets in the way of him/her. This is basic Aristotle.

Then I look closely at the climax. Stories that work have climaxes that spring forth in an organic and inevitable way from the story’s heart. Identifying and analyzing how a writer moves from heart to climax is a simple and excellent way to get STORY into your bloodstream.

Some great books that emphasize the importance of understanding basic story structure:
William Gibson’s Shakespeare’s Game (yes, plays work the same way)

Darcy Pattison’s Novel Metamorphosis

Boys on the Brain

illus by Ethan Long for Amato's Riot Brother series

I’m riding on the metro, writing up my syllabus for a graduate course that I’ll be teaching (Fiction for Young Readers) at Johns Hopkins University; and I’m working on my lesson called “Audience: Age and Gender” when two boys hop on. Their moms quickly take a seat and chat. Although plenty of seats are free, the boys (ages 8 or 9) stand on either side of a pole and engage in an epic, slow-motion battle.

“My finger weighs 45 pounds,” one boy says as he sets his finger on top of the other boy’s head.

Obligingly, the victim acts as if his head is being crushed, but he is not going down without a fight. “My finger is as sharp as the sharpest sword,” he exclaims and menacingly moves toward his opponent’s face.

“But my face is the thickest thing in the world!” the first boy replies.

A series of slow-motion jabs, punches, and wrestling moves come next.

“Sit down and be quiet,” one of the mother’s says.

While all types of behaviors can be seen across gender lines, I have no problem identifying typical boy behavior when I see it.

So, when I write, do I consciously write for boys or for girls? I think the answer is tied to character. The character drives the story and will ultimately speak to the audience. My Riot Brother series is about two inventive and fun-loving boys, and those books are filled with non-stop action and humor. They definitely appeal to your typical boy, but girls are in the Riot Bros fan club, too. And my new book is about a poetry-loving boy named Edgar Allan who is radically different from Orville and Wilbur Riot.

The important thing is to be a constant and conscious witness to the wide range of behaviors that kids exhibit. Bring your observations to your writing and you’ll achieve authenticity.

Music to Induce The Writing Trance

Writing fiction requires that you dive into your character’s mind, heart, and soul. Lots of writers talk about the best material coming from a trance state, when you feel as if your character is talking/acting through you.

Choosing music that reflects my character and/or the themes in the book helps me to get into my trance state.

I carefully choose a different soundtrack for every book that I work on. The music that is inspiring me for the novel that I’m writing now (which is about two musicians) is the gorgeous guitar playing of Andy McKee.

The Art of Motion CD is the first thing I turn on when I sit down to work. If you’re out there, Andy…thank you!

“Humor is the Oxygen”

I’m remembering Sid Fleischman, who died this week. He said, “Humor is the oxygen of children’s literature. There’s a lot of competition for children’s time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book.”

My favorite book of his is The Whipping Boy, which I often use when I teach writing to grown ups. First line: “The young prince was known here and there (and just about everywhere else) as Prince Brat. Not even black cats would cross his path.”

Here’s to Sid Fleischman and all the stories he left for us to love. Heaven just got a little funnier.

Great Beginnings

Just finished Alan Bradley’s Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and enjoyed every bite. Listen to the opening three lines: “It was as black in the closet as old blood. They had shoved me in and locked the door. I breathed heavily through my nose, fighting desperately to remain calm.”

What a hook! But what you discover just one page later about who tied her up and locked her in the closet is so surprising and funny, you’ll want to keep reading even more.

I’m working on the final revision of my first mystery, Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook, which is due out this September, and reading Bradley’s book has inspired me to put everything I’ve got into it.

Getting Your Story on the Right Track

Photo by Jason Dunnivant

Having trouble revising? Maybe you should hop on a train. Over the years, I’ve done my best work while riding the rails. Why? Maybe it has something to do with literally being on a track?

Yesterday as soon as I settled into my seat on the 7 a.m. train from DC to Philly, I pulled out my notebook and got to work. I’ve written about 390 pages of a new novel that I love, but that has been suffering from…what?…well, I would have fixed it had I known.

My two main characters have strong, clear voices, but the other people in the novel seem like puppets or props instead of real characters. So, as the train sped along, I wrote the major themes and things that happen in the first part of the book on the right side of a piece of paper, and on the left side I began to write down the major themes and things that happen (including the main character’s epiphanies) in the second half of the book. I began to notice that many things in the second half were a mirror opposite of things in the first half. This was exciting. So I actively looked for changes I could make that would echo this. BAM! I could see the problem: two crucial minor characters did NOTHING for the theme or plot of the book; and because of that, they were pulling the story off track. When I started playing around with how these characters could become the extreme opposites of each other, all the elements of the story came together and it zoomed. I was in the quiet car, so I couldn’t stand up and scream my Hallelujah, but I wanted to.

I’m thinking that the next time I get stuck, I should buy a round trip ticket anywhere.