Tag Archives: Fiction

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What’s the Big Idea?

Writing

Writing (Photo credit: jjpacres)

You’d think after ten years together, you’d know someone really well. And, no, I’m not talking about my husband. I’m talking about a character, and January marked ten years since she showed up out of nowhere, demanding I tell her story.

When eleven-year-old Emma popped into my imagination, it was shortly after I really got into reading young adult lit. I figured it was a sign that that was the writing path for me. Early drafts of her story were promising; readers liked it (and gave me a lot of constructive criticism). I finished writing the novel in nine months. That was a first for me: finishing a novel. I was good at beginnings and endings, but I always had trouble making that connection in the middle. But I finally felt ready to face the big boys; I learned everything I could about queries and began looking for a literary agent.

Then reality set in: no one was interested.

Rejection is discouraging, yes, especially when you know that your story has promise. But the wonderful thing, the part that makes me sure I’m not wasting my time, is that I never wanted to stop writing, even when I learned to expect that every SASE would come back containing a form rejection. I got excited when agents wrote something personal, even if the answer was no.

Each rejection I took as an opportunity to better my story; maybe it simply wasn’t ready yet. I continued revising, or sometimes it just sat and kind of stewed while I worked on other projects (like being a mom). Many authors recommend leaving the book for six weeks or so after revising, then coming back for a fresh look. To date, I’ve gone through ten major revisions (sometimes revisions within revisions) since I finished the first draft. Each time I’ve returned to my story, I’ve seen changes that I needed to make and might not have noticed if I hadn’t taken a break. I rediscovered clever bits of writing that I couldn’t believe I actually created (unless there’s a little word fairy that turns garbage into poetry when I’m not looking). It’s a fantasy novel, so I really delved into the world of the story and made up words in my own fictional language, gave my fictional kingdom its own history, wrote pages of backstory. I changed the title four times, and I think I finally have the one that fits.

With each revision, I felt like I was getting closer to my goal, but it wasn’t until recently that I finally felt satisfied with it. Even though all the components were there, including that tricky middle bit, I think part of my problem when querying was that I wasn’t completely confident. I was almost relieved by the rejections, as much as I wanted someone to love my book, because I didn’t know if I would be happy publishing it as it stood.

Then, last fall a friend clued me into a webinar given by a literary agent, which led to me buying the agent’s book and discovering perhaps the biggest roadblock in the way of me truly knowing my story—and thus being able to tell it. The agent is Mary Kole, her book Writing Irresistible Kidlit (which I recommend to all authors, not just those of “kidlit”). In it, Kole addresses many aspects to which I never gave conscious thought. Perhaps the biggest, aptly named, is the Big Idea of the story. Even if not clearly articulated in a novel, the Big Idea needs to shine through. It’s also something an author should be able to clearly state in a query letter. Well, I can tell you that every query I ever wrote before reading Kole’s advice was all over the map when it came to describing my book. I could not specifically pinpoint what it was about without giving a lengthy explanation of the plot (which is extremely difficult to pull off in a one-page query).

Other authors such as Madeleine L’Engle and Anne Lamott further encouraged me. (Click the links to read about them in previous posts.) I thought about my story, went to sleep and awoke in the middle of the night with Emma on my mind. One thing that always bothered me was that I had no idea what her middle name was. Now, Sarah, you’re probably thinking, how could you not know your own protagonist’s middle name? You made her up, how hard is it? The problem was that when I thought of Emma, a middle name automatically came to mind, but even though it sounded right, it wasn’t hers. The same thing happened with her hair color. My first, hand-written draft made it brown, but Emma’s hair isn’t brown, it’s red. Sometimes, there are things that authors try to force on their characters—attributes or bits of history—that don’t suit, and they have to go.

Then it came to me—the perfect name and with a perfectly logical reason for why Emma’s parents gave it to her. It’s a name that defines her. . . because she hates it. If you told me at the beginning what her middle name was, I would have laughed and said it was stupid. I hadn’t gotten to know my story yet.

And it turns out that Emma’s middle name has a lot to do with the Big Idea, which I only started to figure out a few months ago. With that final bit of requisite knowledge, I not only composed a better query letter, but I finally did so with confidence. For the first time, I have a firm grasp on what I wrote and what I need to do moving forward. Am I happy that it took me ten years to get here? Of course not, and if I’d known it would take so long all those years ago, it probably would have killed my spirit. Nor does it mean that I’m done making changes, finished struggling, or guaranteed a best seller. But I am satisfied and ready to share Emma’s story. And I think she is ready to share her middle name, even though she doesn’t like it.

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A Dirty Beginning

writing

Writing (Photo credit: found_drama)

 

In the afterward of a sci-fi book that my dad recently finished, the author said that writers don’t come up with ideas, but that ideas find writers. I didn’t want to be rude and say, “No, duh.” After all, this was an epiphany for Daddy. But I said, “Yeah, any real author believes that.”

There is the chance, however, that I spoke out of turn. There very well could be an author out there who spins a little wheel that points to a variety of plot possibilities. The first spin: heroine is in an unhappy marriage. Okay, onto spin two: hero makes heroine believe in love again. Spin three: hero and heroine escape heroine’s dastardly ex-husband and save the world in the process. Alrighty, plot decided, time to crack the knuckles, take a deep breath, and write. Unfortunately, I’ve read more than a handful of bestsellers that felt like they were the victims of similar plot devices.

For the rest of us, though, writing is a tightrope walk across a pit of ravenous alligators, often sweating and exhausted and hopeless. But sometimes we find our footing and make it across. Sometimes we gather our courage and leap. Sometimes we fly.

I’ll be the first to admit that I fall into the pit more often than I fly. But usually, I’m somewhere in between, swimming like hell, struggling to keep my head up. What does that look like, outside metaphorical language? There are a lot of starts and fizzling-outs. Compositions books, notepads, journals, Word documents, full of millions of unpublishable words. When I realized that I had this propensity years ago, I started keeping a journal that was specifically for these little scenes that may or may not make it into completed novels. Sometimes a good bit of writing just doesn’t have a home yet. One of these scenes turned into the middle grade fantasy that I’m currently shopping with agents.

Even though I don’t consider myself superstitious or very mystical, I do believe that stories—true stories that need to be told—find their writers. One way in which they find me, at least, is what I think of as my inner narrator. She never shuts up. Often it’s in the third person, less often the first. The tense varies.

Earlier this week, it started when I saw a line of muddy footprints tracking from one end of the house to the other. Almost immediately, a line popped into my head. She should have known something was wrong when she saw dirt tracked across the house—BAM!—a story was born. No, that’s not actually the opening line; I tweaked it. But as soon as I thought it, I wondered what exactly went wrong with the nameless “she”? I’m still finding out; her story hasn’t let me go all week.

I don’t know this story’s future, as far as publication is concerned, but I love it that it found me while I did something as mundane as sweep a dirty floor. I don’t even have to leave my house, or my own mind, for creation to happen. So, I suppose, if I silently narrate about doing laundry or brushing my teeth—you know, the really exciting stuff that people can’t wait to read about—instead of worrying about the psychological issues behind talking to myself, I can be excited that (even if I am crazy) there might be a story in it one day.

But there still is one problem. If a story found me through the dirt on my previously clean floor, where did the dirt come from, exactly?

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To Prologue or Not to Prologue?

Storm Brewing, Vancouver

 Photo credit: world of jan

I am getting ready to do the whole submit-and-reject thing again with my list of agents. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky this time. Like I’ve said before, my novel is much improved from the last time I tried to get an agent. And this time I have a little more hope for my query. The thing I’m nervous about, however, is the bit of story I’m submitting, the bit that will make an agent excited (or not) about my writing. The bit that kids will probably read and then decide if they want to spend their allowances on my book.

I recently attended a webinar with agent Mary Kole, and the first topic she addressed in her Q&A (and it also gets a good-sized section in her book Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers) is about prologues—and she strongly suggests not to write them. The argument against them is that the prologue will pack a punch, fooling readers into thinking the first chapter will continue being just as exciting. In actuality, the first chapter is a big disappointment, including back story and info dump and blah-ness. Why not just write a strong start to begin with?

I’d never considered prologues in that light before. I can think of plenty of books that had prologues that I really enjoyed, but in none of them did I feel cheated when I got to Chapter One. The first chapter of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone is like a prologue in that it starts years before the present of the rest of the story. Whether you call it a prologue or the first chapter, it is what it is, right?

The opening of my book is the same—an opening years (actually decades) before the main story. It sets up the plot and gives a taste of what happened to get us to the story. And beta readers like the book much better with this bit of fore-story included. So what’s a writer to do? I’m going to include it, dadgummit. But just for kicks, I’m going to put it here, see what you think. I’ve always hesitated to put my unpublished fiction online because, if readers like it, but it gets changed, they might be disappointed with the published work. Or if it’s terrible now, I’m metaphorically shooting myself in the foot. Well, I’m shooting away. Here it is, the prologue/opening/whatever-you-want-to-call-it of what is currently titled Kingdom of Secrets. Read below, or download the PDF from the My Fiction page, and then let me have it!

 

Kingdom of Secrets: Prologue Excerpt

by Sarah Cotchaleovitch

Ella knew she shouldn’t do it. Mama wouldn’t like it one bit.

After much lip gnawing and twisting of her brown hair between her stubby fingers, Ella decided she couldn’t let the poor pup die.

She ran inside to fetch her mother’s emergency kit from the cupboard over the sink.

Climbing onto a chair, Ella scrambled onto the counter and stood on her tiptoes, but the cupboard was still too high for a girl of four to reach. Not to be thwarted, she got down and dragged the stool up to the chair. She hoisted it onto the counter, stood on top, and swung the cupboard door wide, revealing Mama’s kit.

Movement through the kitchen window caught her attention, reminding her there was a sick pilfit pup waiting outside.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ella whispered. She nearly toppled off the stool in her haste.

Kit held in front of her, she scuttled outside. The pup lay panting in the shade of the hedge, looking for all of Terra like a cross between a raccoon and a dwarf rabbit.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make you all better.”

The pup gave a half-hearted yelp and closed his eyes.

Ella’s favorite thing about the emergency kit was the bottle of hot water. Whenever her mother bought another one, the merchant always promised her silver back if it went cold before two months’ time.

How often had she seen Mama brew a restorative? Into a bowl went a splash of hot water; steam spiraled into the air. The first part was a success, at least.

“Let’s see, let’s see.” Ella’s fingers played over the jars. She couldn’t read, so she trusted her memory of what the ingredients looked like. A bead of sweat formed on her brow and slid down her nose. She brushed it away, gave her concoction a quick stir, and held the bowl under the pup’s snout. “Drink, boy. It’s good.”

The pup opened his eyes and whimpered.

“It’s okay, I promise. Just—just take a sip.” She tilted the bowl toward him.

His black nose twitched, and the pup tested the liquid with his tongue. Starting slowly, he lapped every bit and licked the bowl clean.

Ella moved the pup’s head onto her lap, running her fingers through his silver fur. After a wash and a brush, he would be the fluffiest pilfit in Jackson Village.

The pup sighed. Ella held her breath. He opened his eyes: blue with brown flecks.

“You’re so pretty, Clumps,” she said, naming him without a second thought.

He sat up and yelped, an almost-human sound, the sound of a healthy pilfit.

“Oh, Clumps, you’re all better!” She hugged him to her chest.

“Ella!”

The girl stumbled upward, Clumps dangling without protest in her arms.

Her mother stood at the kitchen window. “Is that my emergency kit?” Dark-haired and blue-eyed like Ella, Mama was madder than a fish in firegrass at the moment.

“Mama! Mama, he was dying. I had to! His mama—she got into the poison mushrooms. All his brothers and sisters died, but I saved him, Mama! Oh, please, please can I keep him?”

Her mother’s face told Ella that she could not keep Clumps, nor would she be allowed a pet for the rest of her life. She mightn’t ever be allowed in the kitchen again, either.

But next second Mama was gone from the window, and that was worse. She was coming to Investigate the Situation.

“Clumps, maybe you’d better go.”

Too late, here she was.

Ella’s mother leaned over and scooped the pilfit pup into her arms. Gentler than her tone suggested, she scratched behind Clumps’s ears, prodded him a little, made him open his mouth. “I’ve got to be more careful around you,” she muttered. “You brewed that restorative perfectly. How did you figure it out?”

“Just. . . just watching you, Mama.” Ella pressed her lips together. This was turning out differently than expected.

“Well, you know I’m going to tell your father when he comes home. We’ll talk about whether you can keep this pup—”

“His name’s Clumps, Mama.”

“Oh, you’ve named him already?”

“Yes, Mama.”

Ella’s mother handed the pup back to her. “Let me be very clear,” she said in her this-is-your-last-warning voice. “You may never get into my things without asking permission again. And never brew a cloakbane without my help. Got it?”

Ella’s eyes were wide and tearful. She nodded slowly twice. Maybe it would be a while before she brewed another, but if she could save the life of a pilfit pup, she knew she could do other wonderful things.

She would give the whole incident some time to filter to the back of her mother’s memory before mentioning that, though.

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Why Can’t All Stories Be Happy?

“True art has a mythic quality in that it speaks of
that which was true, is true, and will be true.”
Madeleine L’Engle

I read all kinds of fiction. As soon as I say that I don’t like something—romance, for instance—I find myself halfway through Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and loving every page. There is one genre, however, that I just cannot stomach, that of the no-conflict, unrealistically sticky-sweet happy-ending romance. People explain it away, saying, “There’s so much sadness in real life; I like reading something where I know there will be a happy ending.” Well, what’s wrong with that? I mean, I would like for my ending to be happy, so why do I keep reading the stuff that has unhappy endings (not to mention beginnings and middles)?

In my fiction workshop days, we sometimes discussed truth in fiction. Fiction is story, through which authors convey truth. Take allegories like Aesop’s Fables. What about Jesus’ parables? Nuggets or even great chunks of truth can be mined or chiseled out of stories. And what is more true than a life full of bumps and potholes?

If fiction at all resembles real life, then endings can’t all be “happily ever after.” Sorry. Think about your favorite books and movies. How many of them include elements of tragedy? There is nothing like following the story of someone who goes through adversity and triumphs in the end. Often, however, that “in the end” might not happen until years after the protagonist has died—or it could be a sacrifice on his or her part that brings about the triumphal ending. (Can you imagine a Harry Potter in which his parents don’t die? Yeah, it’d be a lot happier, but then it wouldn’t be a story. Once upon a time there was a baby named Harry Potter. He grew up with his parents. He was a trouble-maker at school like his dad, but he got the girl in the end. Anyone could have written that, and it would have sold zero copies and movie rights.)

There are those out there on the opposite end of the spectrum who like to write sad endings simply to go against the happy-ending grain. For instance, I could rewrite Cinderella so that instead of riding off with the prince after trying on her glass slipper, she gets trampled by the horses pulling the transformed pumpkin carriage. This kind of writing only works in satire. If it’s written as a romance, and that’s the end, a lot of people will be banging on the bookstore’s door, demanding a refund. It’s a slap in the face and just as pointless, to me, as writing a happy ending for happy ending’s sake.

There is a happy medium, and I promise these books are worth reading, even if you have to go through some pain to get there. One of my favorite series of books is the Anne of Green Gables series, by L.M. Montgomery. If you’ve read the first three, you know that many of the “tragedies” in Anne’s life are simply the mishaps of a young mischief-magnet. She grows up, matures, and gets her prince charming, right? Well. . . If you read the whole series (and there are eight books, ending when her children are adults), you get sucked into World War I. And although there is a new romance between Anne’s youngest daughter and a friend-turned-soldier, there is tragedy as well. I won’t spoil it; please read the books yourselves. But to people actually living through World War I, don’t you think they appreciated reading something in which the young heroine-turned-mother suffered, grieved, yet survived like the rest of the world? Yes, it would have been much happier if her family had escaped the horrors of war, but I know I would not have been so moved, so drawn back to them again and again, if that tragic element had not been there.

To boil it all down, it’s fine if the princess gets her prince charming, but I won’t complain—actually, I’ll keep turning the pages hours after I should have gone to sleep—if she has to go through hell to get him.

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Apparently, I Have A Conflicted Personality

They say you write what you know.

Well, maybe not you specifically, but I know I’m guilty.

I can’t help turning my life into stories. There I am, walking along, minding my own business, when I realize I’m narrating what I’m doing. But instead of carrying a bag of groceries into my condo, maybe I’m a World War II nurse with an armful of gauze and blankets for my patients. Or maybe the phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s someone dialing the wrong number, but I can’t help wondering, What if that had been the call that no one wants to receive, that something terrible happened to a loved one?

Years ago, that very situation happened, and instead of going back to sleep, I lay awake all night, constructing a new story. I built it around what might have happened. Since the catalyst was something that actually happened to me, it was hard not to give the main character some of my own attributes. Sure, I made her older, gave her a different job, changed her appearance, let her live in my dream house, but to take it from a theoretical “what if” to the story I’d imagined, the main character turned out a lot like me.

I decided to workshop my story, and according to the class rules, I was not allowed to say one word during the reading or subsequent critique. I’d been through the process several times before, so I was over how unnerving it feels to have my story alternately praised and criticized with me sitting right there, helpless to answer any questions or defend myself.

My fellow workshoppers started talking about the character. She was too needy, they said, and there was no way she could be A and B, when she was so obviously P and Q, as well as Y and Z. She was conflicted—how on Earth could a person like her exist? Part of me wanted to laugh, and another part was dying to defend her—because I was A,B, P, Q, Y, Z, and every letter in between. Of course she was real because she was mostly me! But I certainly wasn’t needy. . . they’d gotten that part wrong. (Gulp—am I needy?)

Since then, when other English majors I know complain about how they hate math or just can’t get organized or don’t understand other kinds of artists, I smile and remember that I shouldn’t be able to do those things either. After all, my type of personality isn’t supposed to exist. But somehow I got creativity and organizational skills from both parents, a talent for spotting typos a mile away from my mother, and a math brain from my father (and his mother before him). If asked about my favorite pastimes, I’d be hard-pressed to put my top four in order of importance, but alphabetically, they are as follows: bookkeeping, reading, singing, and writing. Yep, that was bookkeeping on the list. I also love editing (sometimes I have more fun editing something I’ve written than actually writing it to begin with), but I lump that in with writing.

It makes me think that, while I don’t know any other Sarah Cotchaleovitches, certainly there are other “conflicted” personalities out there. Come on, admit it—you are, too, aren’t you?