A Character-Building Exercise

Or this week in things I'm focussing on while trying to ignore Trump

Oct 18, 2019

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Craft: When the character is you

“Everyone in this book is a full-blown character—except for you.”

Ouch.

That was the feedback I got from a cold reader of a manuscript I’d been chipping away at for what seemed like forever—someone who only “knew” me based on the me I’d created on the page. And she was saying there was no me there—or, perhaps more accurately, not enough of me there.

At first, I thought she was flat-out wrong. I will admit this is my go-to response for all negative editorial feedback: some combination of outrage, denial and umbrage. Proportions may vary depending on stress level; volume-in-my-head increases in relationship to how right I secretly believe the criticism to be. And as I reread the pages, I had to admit—first to myself, and now months later, to you—she was right.

Why hadn’t anyone else spotted this? (Phase two of my response to criticism: Surely this is someone else’s fault!) Portions of the manuscript had been read by others, and not one had said “I don’t see you on the page.” But as I stepped back, I realized that all my other readers already knew me—and so they were reading me onto the page, filling in the gaps I didn’t realize I’d left empty.

So, how do you craft the character of you on the page? I’d been reading Gail Bowen’s excellent Sleuth: On Writing Mysteries and realized that the notes I’d been taking on crafting fictional characters were just as useful in getting myself down onto the page.

From Bowen:
What does each character want more than anything? Quoting author Ray Bradbury: “Find out what your hero wants. Then just follow him.”
What were your character’s formative experiences?
What place defines your character—a particular haunt?
How will your character change in some fundamental way in the course of the book?

And since the missing “character” was me? I asked myself: What did I want more than anything? What were my formative experiences, particularly in relationship to the key figures in my manuscript? What places were important to me during that time? How did I change?

That last question echoed a line from Abigail Thomas’s small but excellent book Thinking About Memoir (new copies are expensive, and even second-hand aren’t cheap, so check your local library system as well):

“Writing a memoir is a way to figure out who you used to be and how you got to be who you are.”

As I returned to the page to start digging in again, another line from Thomas’s book motivated me: “Be honest, dig deep, or don’t bother.”

Back to work.

What I’m Reading: I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place by Howard Norman

I can’t recall now where I stumbled across the recommendation for Howard Norman’s memoir I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place. (Aside: I am perversely delighted that Norman doesn’t appear to have an author webpage, which is why I’ve linked to his Wikipedia page.) I wasn’t familiar with Norman before picking up the book, but based on what I’ve read so far, I think other of his books will find their way onto my shelves. He’s American, but sets many of his fictional works in Canada and specifically in Nova Scotia. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he spent his twenties in Halifax , and his memoir recounts some of his time here. The book isn’t a straight-line retelling of his life story, and neither is it clearly memoir’s other common form, a particular issue or theme explored through the lens of the author’s personal experiences related to that theme. In his introduction, Norman puts it this way:

“In this book I narrate a life in overlapping panels of memory and experience. When Henry James used the phrase ‘the visitable past,’ he was largely referring to sites that had personal meaning for him: graveyards, archeological ruins, centuries-old cathedrals. Conversely, this present book contains memories of places that kept refusing not to visit me—unceremonious hauntings, I suppose, which were in equal measure gifts and curses.”

Gail Bowen (quoted above on character-building) asks about the formative experiences and places that “create” a character. In I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place, Norman takes us to a handful of places and brings us inside a pocketful of formative experiences that created him. I’m only halfway through, so I’m not sure yet who he becomes, but so far, the journey is full of insight and honesty.

Other good stuff

Read: “In praise of First Girls”—I read this piece by El Jones last spring, and it stayed with me as I thought about the “first girls” of my teenagerhood. You should read it.

Watch: I know, I was late to the Schitt’s Creek fan club. I avoided the show when it launched because the name just turned me off: too corny! But then it showed up on Netflix, and yup, I was hooked. I’m not the first to say it, so I will simply join the chorus: what I love about this show is that no matter how misguided, not-very-smart or self-interested the characters are, they also genuinely care for each other. This is a show filled with people who love each other. It is a joy. (And PS Moira’s clothes are inspired by the wardrobe of real-life fashion muse Daphne Guinness. I saw a collection of Guiness’ clothing at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 2012—take a look at a few of the photos from the FIT show and you will definitely see the influence.)

Listen: My sister Tina has a new podcast out, produced for Penguin Random House Canada. It’s called Betrayed, and is about “the crimes that cut the deepest”—those that involve betrayal. The series highlights books published by PRHC through both documentary and interviews. Check it out on the podcast app of your choice (here’s a link to it on the Apple podcast page ).

Book industry stuff

Yes, that subhed needs work. But here you go:

A good primer on how to describe your book, from Brevity.
Some fun with book titles: A data analysis of book titles using the word “wife” from Booknet Canada.
If you’re interested in the book business, and aren’t already checking out Jane Friedman’s website or subscribing to her newsletters, you should be.

Tweets and stuff

Hey, I think these subheds might be working after all!

I retweet more than I tweet-tweet, so here are some of the recent tweets that caught my eye.

Forgive us our climate denial sins

Sergi🎃 Tenebr😱usaum @sergioten

Have people views about receiving Templeton money changed since we learned they invested $20M in climate change denialism? That is, I have nothing against their "religious agenda", etc., but I tend to draw the line a bit before working for the destruction of the planet.

This piqued my interest because Templeton funded a TON of research on forgiveness in the early aughts. And that research tended to land in the “forgiveness is good for you” category. I am still working through the intersections of pushing forgiveness while promoting climate denial. It’s intriguing.