Creating a fictional character who isn't like you

I'm more than half-way through the first draft of my third novel. I've written the stories of two of the three women  principals, the mother and her biological daughter. While neither one of these characters is exactly me, they have characteristics of me. Now I'm moving into the story of the adopted daughter, who is not at all like me. Or should I say not like the me I let myself be.

Callie is a rebel, a bad girl. Selfish, impulsive, prone to the illegal and the spontaneous. And since this doesn't describe me, not in any lived experience, I'm finding it quite a challenge to get under her skin and see how she acts and responds. What will she say? Who will she find attractive? What is she willing to do to get her way?

I realized all this more clearly this morning as I was writing. The writing was going more slowly than it has in the other two sections. I'm having to sit longer, wait for Callie to show up and speak to me. It's a curious process, this fiction writing.

Giving yourself a break

My friend Margaret recently finished the first complete draft of her second book and sent it off to her editor. The editor replied very quickly (within a week) with many ideas for improving it, including some deep structural changes and additions needed. While Margaret was grateful and that kind of advice is exactly what she's paying the editor for, she wasn't ready to start in again so soon. In an email conversation with her last week, I reminded her that finishing the draft was a big deal, and that it was okay to give herself a break. Her deadlines are self-imposed and more importantly, her brain may not yet be refreshed.

I find myself in a version of that situation this morning. Yesterday I finished the second big section of my current novel, Frankie's back story. I didn't write very much yesterday that was new, about 50 words in all, but I reworked the ending and added some text and got something that was very satisfying for me.

Then yesterday afternoon I went for a walk on the beach with friends and ended up walking by myself as I wanted a faster pace. I had about a half hour to myself and I began thinking about the next section. I knew where it started and ended (dovetailing into the rest of the story) but didn't know what all events had transpired for this character. While I don't work from an outline, I do like to have some feasible ideas to start with.

I got several good ideas, quite good, I think, and so I figured I would start in this morning when I did my early morning writing. But I can't. Or rather I don't want to. And I realized that just like Margaret, my brain isn't ready. I need a little bit of space before I start this new part, before I take on this new persona. So this morning I gave myself a break.

Consequences of memoir writing

When I teach workshops on writing your stories (whether for publication or for circulation to friends and family), people invariably ask about how you write about others, particularly others who are still alive. Few of us have stories about our lives that don't involve other people, not very many anyway.

I always say that we keep the focus on our own truth, our own experience, much as counselors suggest we use "I" statements when we are in dialog with others about bothersome behaviors. "I feel, I respond, I become" keeps the focus off of accusation and on response. So in a sense, a memoir is one giant "I" statement. On the other hand, people do do us wrong. They hurt us, and sometimes intentionally. Parents neglect us or abuse us or abandon us. Teachers and classmates and school friends devastate us with words or actions. Lovers leave us or hit us or cheat on us. And these become major parts of our stories.

We don't worry about their feelings or their response when we draft our stories. We just get them down and work on them and polish them. Then if we decide to publish them, we change the identifying information so that others who don't already know the person won't recognize him or her. After all it's our story we're telling, not theirs.

But the person in question may read what we've written and respond in a way that is painful. That happened to me last weekend. A man I was involved with 35 years ago read my memoir and wrote 5 single-spaced pages of response. It was both painful and fascinating to see how his memories differed from mine in all kinds of ways. He wanted me to tell much more of his story (which I found arrogant) and wanted me to tell much less of mine. It was a long epistle of justification of his bad behavior and recitation of the details of mine.

I knew when I published it that if he read it, he wouldn't like it. And he didn't. And he let me know that. And that's his right. But we still have a right to tell our stories. We have a right to learn what we can from writing them and help others learn about themselves from sharing them.

Coming at the writing sideways

I went to the gym this morning and had a good huff-'n-puff on the treadmill. I didn't have much time as I'd arranged an unusually busy Sunday morning. I'd written first thing as usual on my novel, nearly an hour as I'd gotten up at 6 and sat right down. I was at the end of a chapter, actually coming to the end of a section, and it wasn't flowing very easily but I hung in there. Then I journaled and went to the gym and did a fast, hard workout.

On the way home from the gym, I was in that easy place. Proud of myself for going to work out, for pushing hard, feeling the effect of the en-dolphins (as we call them in my family) and suddenly I knew what the next chapter was and I also knew where the section went in the overall story. I hadn't been thinking about the book (although sometimes I do on the treadmill). The ideas just came in that relaxed state of mind, driving along.

Coming at the writing sideways is something I do more and more often, and I think it's a powerful effect of writing every day. That I leave my mind open for problems to solve themselves, or rather for my unconscious to do what it needs without me being impatient about it.

Brenda Ueland, author of one of the first and still a great book on writing, advised taking a 5-mile walk every day as the most helpful thing one could do for one's writing. While I don't follow that advice, I can see more and more what it is for.

Kindle convert

Like many avid bibliophiles, I've been reluctant to get involved with a Kindle. My sister, who reads twice as much as I do, has had hers for three years and just loves it. She doesn't read many books any more and loves loading up the best sellers or recommended books and reading them electronically. I have many unread books in my home (I mostly only have unread books as I move them along after I read them) and was afraid the Kindle would mean I wouldn't want to read them.

I got a Kindle Touch for my birthday and while I set it up right away and bought 4 books and loaded them on, I didn't read with it until I went to Florida two weeks ago. I actually took both the Kindle and the current book I was reading. I finished the book on the long flight and then started reading on the Kindle and loved it. It was easy reading, a nice size type for me. Light and portable. I can see why people get hooked. And I had several books right there in that little gizmo, not having to choose which to carry on the plane.

Don't get me wrong. I still love books and the Kindle, or at least the version I have, is not going to replace the art books I have or even any of the books I haven't read yet, but for reading a novel, I got to tell you, it sure is convenient.

It's 9 pm. Do you know where your subjects and verbs are?

I've spent the last several days preparing a 2-day workshop for software salespeople on writing better emails and other business documents. Two days isn't a lot of time to teach writing improvement, and I always make sure the supervisors who hire me understand that I can present a lot of information and suggestions but that each employee must practice what he or she doesn't know in order to get better. I can guarantee them an entertaining and informative two days, but I can't guarantee better writing. You can lead a horse to the comma....

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in teaching writing improvement is that few people under 40 have any knowledge of grammar or parts of speech. Or rather they have only an internal grammar and not an external one. The internal grammar is the collection of rules and usage that we each develop as infants and children. We're born with this capacity and it gets filled up with our first language,the one we learn from our parents or other caregivers. It's our automatic language and we use it without thinking about it, a lot like we drive a car without thinking about it.

Having an external grammar as well, explicit knowledge of the rules and terminology of the language, is helpful  for repairs and stylistics (just like knowing the names of car parts and how the engine works may come in handy if you want to repair your car yourself). If you're a writer by profession or craft, you will want to learn these rules and terminology. (A good guide is a handy book/workbook called The Least You Should Know about English. It's recently been rereleased in a hideously expensive version but old copies are just as good and cheap on amazon.) It's really a must. But other people use writing all the time and don't have a lot of interest in those technicalities.

My challenge tomorrow will be teaching some basics to people who are not writers by trade or inclination but  who must improve their writing skills as part of their job. They may not come to the class with much enthusiasm or inclination so I'll have to pull out all my tricks to help them learn where their subjects and verbs are.

The joy of sharing what I know

This past week I've been in Naples, Florida. Monday and Tuesday, I co-presented at a writing workshop with my friend Karen Casey. Karen and I have complementary styles and that worked out great. She knew just what to say to bring out the content of the stories we were asking the 30 women to write and I knew most of what to say to bring out their confidence that they could write them and write them well.

I love teaching what I know about writing: zero drafting, staying out of editing mind when you're drafting, being willing to write crap so you can practice and get to the good stuff. Writing specifics, including dialog and description; taking things deeper.

We spent two days in a church rec hall, eating ham sandwiches and cookies and trying to keep the room cold enough for those of us who were too warm and warm enough for those of us who were too cold. And we spent two days writing and reading to each other. We started off with the writers reading their drafts in groups of three although we made it very clear that anyone could choose to not read. I was delighted to see that only one woman passed that first day. At the end of the day, we asked anyone who wanted to come up to the microphone and read. Six volunteered and read wonderful drafts.

Yesterday, day 2, we had much more reading to the whole group and the stories were moving and inspiring and we laughed and cried with each other. By the end of the day, only one person hadn't read at the microphone, preferring to read to just one other person.

I'm so glad I'd agreed to come, that I agreed to be part of this experience. I learned a lot from Karen about content and evoking deeper feelings, and I got to share my beliefs about the importance of writing our stories and encourage 30 women to do just that. I'm so lucky!