Flawed Characters

As I have been writing lately I've had to stop to ask myself the question, "Are my characters flawed enough?"  That's a strange question to ask under normal conditions.  We don't ever say, "Is my spouse flawed enough?" or, "Are my children sufficiently flawed?"  So, why do we ask it of our fictional characters?

I think the answer is simply that our spouse and our children (and, oh no, ourselves!) are already "sufficiently" flawed, and we are well aware of that fact.  So, who wants to read about a character that makes us or those around us look worse by comparison?  If a hero or heroine is too perfect we might end up hating them for that fact rather than respecting and liking them as was the author's intent.  Or maybe they just won't seem real, and then we will view the book as more of a fairy tale.  Any message the author may then want to impart will be lost as not realistic or simply irrelevant.

But there is a danger here of going too far.  Many well respected books put forth such flawed characters that I, as a reader, struggle to like them at all.  I would not want to be friends with these fictional people.  So, if I wouldn't want them in my home, why would I want them in my mind?  If I get to a point in a book where I begin to ask the above question, that's usually about the same time I put the book down, and find a better use for my time.

That's not to say every character has to be likable, but there have to be enough characters that we view as friends.  That way we will care about what happens to them.

I suppose there is a message in all of this.  Yes, I know that I am a flawed "character," but am I too flawed?  Fortunately as an author, and as a human being, I can choose to change my character(s).

Hidden Sounds

My title may seem a little oxymoronic; things we see are hidden, not usually things we hear.  But bear with me for a few minutes and allow me to be literary instead of literal.

I was walking my son to school this morning, something I haven't done since last spring.  Usually we are greeted along the way by various animals - squirrels, dogs, and a huge variety of birds.  We saw none!  They were conspicuous by their absence.  However, before long we could make out the songs of various birds.  Even with that we still could not locate them with our eyes, but we were certain they were there.

A good novel will let us "hear" many things before we actually get to see them, just little hints and bread crumbs along the way, taunting us, teasing us, keeping us intrigued.  And eventually, we will see what we only believed to be there.

My return home after successfully depositing my child turned out to be different.  Before long I heard the call of a blue jay followed shortly by his actual appearance in my line of sight.  This was followed by my view of several small birds clutching a wire overhead.  My favorite though was the bush I passed that upon closer inspection was housing several small birds neatly tucked inside.

I had been teased and taunted, yes.  But in the end I was rewarded.

Lost Grammar?

I have to admit to my grammar pet peeves.  It really annoys me when someone uses "your" when he or she should have used "you're."  And I'm not too thrilled when someone confuses the use of "past" and "passed."  I have also noticed that the trend in novel writing is to commonly use fragments.  These things don't seem to be rocket science, and yet . . .

What really rankles is when one of my children's teachers makes silly mistakes.  How is my child going to learn the proper usage of words and appropriate grammar when even his teacher has problems?

I could continue on my rant about the loss of grammar skills in this day and age of technology and grammar and spell check.  I could, but I won't.

Are you familiar with the phrase, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"?  As I have been going through the editing process of my own book, this phrase has come to have more meaning.  It appears that I have my own grammar blinders - for instance, I like to split infinitives.  According to the internet, splitting infinitives is akin to starting a sentence with "and" or "but."  It is not a hard and fast rule anymore; however, the article I was reading added that you still shouldn't do it.

So, maybe I should take it easy on my son's teacher.  (But it's so hard not to cringe!)

Do you have grammar pet peeves?  Feel free to share what they are.

Disappointed?

I just finished reading a book (that will remain nameless).  It was long and somewhat drawn out.  Just as one character progressed, he or she would be dropped to introduce yet another new character.  You would then be presented with a whole life story of this new person in quick summary form.  I will admit they were interesting stories, but it felt like a long novel full of short stories.

I have come to appreciate flashbacks, the back and forthing continuously going on in many novels.  But this book did it in such annoying fashion!  Not only were you going back, you were changing characters, settings, themes and directions as well.  It didn't feel like you were building a larger story, but just constantly putting on the brakes, stalling the motor and needing to restart the engine.

So, I finished reading it last night.  And I was kind of mad at the ending, but not in the way you might think.  I really, really liked the ending!  I was all set to thoroughly hate the book.  I was ready to dismiss the whole thing.  But now I can't!  I've never been so disappointed or annoyed to like a book before.

I'm not sure how to feel.  I'm not sure whether to recommend the book to others or not.  And I'm annoyed at having such a quandary.

I suppose if I had been the author I would not have included quite so many side stories.  In fact many of those stories could have been developed into their own books, and they had the potential to be great stories all on their own.  But the point is, I'm not the author, and he choose to do it this way for a reason, just as I will choose to do things in my books for a reason.

You may or may not agree with the choices I will make for my books, just as I didn't agree with the choices he made.  In the end, I guess I really want you to like my books, but I especially want you to like the ending, to be satisfied by it.  Because in reality my favorite books are the ones with the most satisfying endings.

Is it that time already?

So many emotions exist these days around our house - and for those not accustomed to showing lots of emotions.  It's back-to-school time.  Doesn't that explain a lot?

It starts with the disappointed, "Oh, no!  Summer's not over yet, is it?"  But this competes with the feeling of excitement.  "Who's my new teacher or teachers?", "I can't wait to see my friends?", "Which new shirt will I wear the first day?"

I'm not sure which emotion is winning. Attempting to get everyone back in an up-early-in-the-morning routine this week is probably swaying them towards disappointment.  But there still is the undeniable (although they are trying hard to "deny" it!) sense of anticipation, an eagerness to push forward.

Conflicting emotions are present on my end as well.  I love having my kids home for the summer.  I love letting them sleep in, seeing them walk out of their rooms fully rested and happy.  I love playing lazy games in the afternoons and going places in the car together.

But . . . I do like the learning that goes on, the acquisition on new knowledge and skills, the budding maturity and self-assurance, the interactions with a wide variety of other kids.  I'm also looking forward to getting my writing time back, to have the routine of writing every day, to seeing real progress.  And now that I'm working through a major rewrite of the first draft of my novel, with the intent that the second draft is being sent off to agents and publishers, I'm impatient to have more time with it.

But when all is said and done, I'll be a little sad next week when my kids go out the door to spend most of their waking others somewhere else.

Summer In My Rear-View Mirror

School is starting up again in a matter of days, and while the calendar may say otherwise, that signals the end of summer to me.  Summer and children home are one and the same in my mind.

As far as summer goes, this one has been odd.  In some parts of the US it has been hot and dry, fueling the wildfires that are raging right now.  For us it has been unusually rainy.  And when it has rained, it's not the typical drizzle, it's a downpour producing four inches or so in an hour or two.

I have become attuned to the indoor sound and sense of the rain.  It comes on with an ominous feeling that gradually engulfs the room.  And only at the last do you realize what has transpired, prompting the light switch to be turned on and the curtains opened to discover the darkening skies beyond.

Before any sound reaches your ears you see the far off lightning, and the lines of rain playing dot-to-dot from sky to ground.  You know what's coming and you are powerless to stop it or avoid it.  You close windows and unplug computers.  You find flashlights to be at the ready, checking to make sure batteries still work.  And then it hits.

Even downstairs you can hear the drops pounding on the windows or the ground outside.  The gutters on the roof are overwhelmed and water pours straight down in large torrents.  From downstairs you check the windows for water and are relieved to see them hold.

And for me, when I know I am safe, I stop what I am doing to watch.  Sometimes I go to the front porch to see the flashes and hear the echoing thunder, drawing closer and closer with each bolt.  I feel the wet heavy air and even under the protective porch I still feel the rain as it splashes in front of me.  I am in awe.  I am powerless and small, and I marvel.

There is a Higher Power at work here.

Ever Learning

Life is a journey, and everyone approaches that journey in his or her own way.  I have seen people let time pass, and I have seen others grab hold of every opportunity.  I think I most admire those who approach life as if it were their own private university.

My great-grandmother lived to the age of 100, but her mind was active and alert up to the end, even after her body betrayed her.  She was always reading and learning, eager for any tidbit that might come her way.  At one time my brother went to Switzerland and Germany for an extended period of time.  Our great-grandmother charged him with learning to yodel so he could come back and teach her how to do it.

Two days ago (when, yes, I know I normally would have blogged, but didn't) I interviewed a local chef, who has gained national renown.  It was pleasant to hear about his history, what he did when.  But I was more interested, not in the stops along the way, but by how he approached those stops.  Part way through the interview, with various questions, I finally got him to move away from reciting his life to talking to me about his life.  I found out how he learns, how he develops, what he thinks.  I was learning about how he learns.  That was fascinating.

I spent the afternoon of that same day doing some hands-on research for my next book.  It was a lot of information to take in all at once, but as I go over more and more iterations of the same kind of thing, I'll understand it, and then I hope to convey what I have learned to my readers through one of my characters.  It was equally fascinating, but in a different way.

I don't know what kind of journey you are on, but I can tell you that I love being a constant learner.  The world is always fresh and new.  It is wonderful and mysterious, always whispering to you to ask, to learn, to grow, and then to ask again.

Senses

As a writer (and as a reader) I love descriptive passages where words paint such a vivid picture in one's mind that you feel as if you can literally see what's being described.  But I was thinking today about our senses other than sight.  Descriptive passages the involve one of the other senses aren't as common.

What made me think of this was my morning.  My husband and I awoke early.  And while it was still cooler outside than in, he cracked our bedroom window.  I lay there in bed in that fuzzy place between sleep and awake with eyes closed listening to the world around me.  Car engines, starting and stopping at our corner often drowned out the more calming sound of a bird's sweet call.

As the day changed right before my ears I could hear the sound of a lawn mower trimming our yard to a more acceptable height.  This was interrupted by the sput, sput, sputtering of an engine starved of fuel, followed by the sound of the kitchen door, followed still further by my teenage son's voice informing me about the empty gas tank and the empty gas can.

We use our five senses all of the time, but often because of that frequency we fail to appreciate them.  And maybe that's why we don't always think about writing them into our prose.  It's just food for thought or maybe I should say music for our ears.

Friday Musings

Today is Friday, which means it's a blog day.  But it's also a book editing day and a turn-in-an-article day and a play date day and a run errands day and a laundry day.  Sometimes writing can feel like the rifle shooting portion of an Olympic biathlon.  You hurry, hurry, hurry through the other activities of the day and then somehow need to slow your heart rate down, calm your thinking, and focus on the blank page in front of you.  And you hope what comes out on that page is lyrical and enchanting or heart-pounding and gripping or suspenseful and intriguing.

Just like the participants in the biathlon, it takes practice, with some days producing better results than others.  Some excel at rifle shooting but never in a context of doing it between skiing legs.  And I suppose many writers shut themselves off from the rest of life in order to write.  In fact, that is the recommended path to take.

Sometimes I'm able to write like that, most often when the kids are in school.  But today isn't one of those days.  My youngest sits a few feet from me playing an elaborate made up war game using the game pieces from Axis and Allies.  He carries on his own little conversations, complete with any number of sound effects.

Another child is in the kitchen washing up his dishes after a late breakfast.  My husband is gathering his things to run errands.  And while I am aware of these goings on around me, my mind is also on this blog and on my book, playing out the various scenarios of the elements I will be adding to it today.

I once read a different writer's blog who criticized authors who didn't write enough, using their life as an excuse.  It made me stop and think.  Am I letting the living of my life get in the way of my writing?  There are days when that is undoubtedly true.  But I actually plan for that.  I schedule days for working on other things with no intention of writing.  That way I seem to pack a lot into the day, but I also carry no guilt about not adding to the word count of my book.

Still, there are far too many days like today, when I am writing and living life at the same time.  I guess it's just the path I've chosen, and somehow it's working out.  It presents the challenge of time to devote to my writing, but I think it makes my writing better and more authentic.  Without it I probably wouldn't even be able to write.

The Best Writing Advice I Ever Heard

I've been thinking lately about this blog and what it's all about.  There are many writing blogs that put forth tips and ideas about writing, but this blog was started in an effort to chronicle my writing adventure.  However I've found I am learning tips along the way.  So, at what point am I credible enough to blatantly put forth writing advice?

I don't know, but I'm going to pass along a tip I picked up from someone else.  I need to set the stage a little first.  Several years ago one of my sons was beginning to show an interest in writing, in particular writing poetry.  My husband came across a notice that the poet laureate was going to be in town speaking at a local university and the public was invited.  My son and I eagerly attended and afterwards spoke with him briefly.  I asked for his advice for my son.  He said the best tip for writing poetry is reading poetry - lots of it!  My son took that advice and has continued to read, write and love poetry.  He recently completed his freshman year at Cornell University with a major in English.

I find I write best when I am including a regular diet of reading to go along with it.  Other writers, especially good writers, help me to be a better writer simply by letting me experience their words.  What I find interesting is that as I read writing advice I often find I am already doing what they suggest.  This isn't because I was naturally born to write, it's that every time I read I am being schooled in what to do, what works and what doesn't, what I like to read and what I don't.

It's pretty nice to be able to say "I've got to get some work done," and then curl up with a good book.  Just one of the perks of this job - even if I'm not getting paid by the hour to do it.

So Much Below the Surface

I have to admit I have the best job!  This morning I interviewed our city's fire chief for an article on the fire department.  It was so interesting!  How often do you get to visit with an official or business executive of your choosing for an hour and ask them anything you can think of?  All you have to do is rub the magic lamp of "I'd like to write an article about your company," and you're good to go.

Only one of these types of interviews left me frustrated.  In that case the statistics he gave me were incorrect and I wasn't able to glean much information about how their business does what they do for fear of industrial espionage.

But other than that one, they have been absolute fascinating.  I have learned so much more than I could possible include in an article.  I hear some of the best stories along the way as well.  Sometimes (as I mentioned in an earlier blog) I have to sample the product, such as the ice cream when doing a story on Mitchell's Ice Cream stores.

You may think you have a great job, but I don't know about that.  Unless, of course, you're a writer too.

Do What You Love

My husband has always been an advocate of finding your passion and pursing it for a career.  Until recently my career was my kids, and I was passionate about that.  I still am, but my children are getting older and leaving the nest so it doesn't take the same kind of time commitment that it used to do.

So, I have had the wonderful opportunity of having a second career, hence the writing.  At an earlier time in my life I wouldn't have embraced this the same way I do now.  I've always loved writing stories, but it was more of a hobby than anything else.

Now, it's different, and I'm not even sure why.  All I know is that I love it!  I'm writing feature articles and a column for a regional magazine, and I love that.  I'm working on my second novel, and I love that.  That book requires me to do a fair amount of research before I write too much, and that, surprisingly, excites me as well.

I started this blog when I started this second career of mine.  The first post was all about my excitement about the journey I was starting.  That excitement has not waned.  I thought it might, that I might get bogged down in all of the writing that needed to be done, but that's just not the case.  That's not to say that I don't have days where the writing just isn't "happening," but overall I love this.

I just spoke with a friend who admits writing is not her favorite thing.  But she is passionate about the nursing degree she is pursuing.  It would be a pretty lopsided world if we were all passionate about the same thing.  So, find the thing or things that interest you, and then do what you love and love what you do!