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Don’t Circle the Wagons

…and don’t beat around the bush.  (Okay, maybe I should also mention not using clichés, but that’s not what this is about.)

Here’s what it IS about, a sentence I read last week in a book that shall remain nameless.

“He started to light the fire.” 

He started?  Did he scrape a match on sandpaper?  Did he flick his Bic?  Did he rub two sticks together?  Is he amorous?  I had no clue. Yes, of course I understood what the author was saying and given the context of the sentence within the paragraph and chapter I even knew there was kindling and a fire pit involved, but the opportunity to be specific about the main character’s action was completely lost, so whatever the author envisioned for that moment was also lost.

Was it important?  Turns out, it was.  His lighting the fire was a precursor for things to come. 

Don’t circle around what you want to say; come out and say it directly. Help your reader move through the story effortlessly and without "starting" distractions.

Forever is a Really Long Word

“Wish we could hold these moments in our hands forever.... “

I wrote this phrase in an email to a friend. We were discussing the reaction of her partner to a joyous event, but as I sent the email it occurred to me that in my books, I have the opportunity to create moments that might endure forever. Forever. That’s a really long word. But I take the lives of my characters quite seriously, analyzing every reaction, considering character strengths and flaws, carefully allocating each word they speak. If I’m then able to capture the joy and pain and hidden emotion in their lives, well, I will have succeeded, forever.

Every writer I know spends hours, days, probably weeks, delving into the backgrounds of their characters, to create a true reaction to every obstacle while trimming the cadence of their voice to match an upbringing that is only imagined, yet so very real. So our characters live and breathe. Their goals are ours; their beliefs and love and family, all of it, forever.

And then there’s world building. Whether based on reality or fantasy, that world we create has its own rules, bureaucracy, construction, inhabitants, flora, and physical reality. Our characters live there. For them, that world is as real as it is for me, forever.

I have always yearned for the moments I create in my books to be memorable, to make my readers laugh and cry, to reach their hearts. Now I’m feeling intimidated. I’ve never worried about whether my book will be pulled off a dusty shelf 40 or 50 years from now to be read or re-read. But it might be, and while 40 years isn’t forever, having my words impact someone’s life 40 years from now feels like forever, to me. So now I've been reminded, I do hold these moments in my hands, forever.