The One Book That Struck Me This Year… Like a Bolt of Lightning!

Consider today’s post the caboose, pulling up the rear of our 

summer train of themed blog posts about the one book that each

of us learned from this past year.

(Or in April’s case, the one book that changed her.)

Of course I’ve known from the get-go the book I’d be choosing, 

and the twist on our theme it demanded - i.e. the book that struck 

me like a bolt of lightning: My Own Lightning (Dutton, May, 

2022), Lauren Wolk’s sequel to the Newbery Honor Winner 

Wolf Hollow (Dutton, 2016). 

I leave the compelling and surprising plotlines of both books to 

future Readers. 

Suffice it to say, when I left 12-year-old Annabelle McBride in 

western Pennsylvania’s Wolf Hollow in 1946, her heart was heavy, 

weighed down with matters of truth-telling and justice and 

kindness, of personal responsibility “when doing right can go 

very wrong.”  She was telling her story first person, past tense, 

years after the action that showed her she mattered. She grabbed 

my heart and refused to let go.

 

So imagine my delight when she beckoned me again, this time at 

the start of summer of that very same year. Except now her spirit 

lay low. Might-have-beens and if-onlys distracted her, she shared. 

What-ifs consumed her. And just like that, in the blink of an eye, 

her world once more “tipped on its axis”! The lightning that struck 

her that stormy June day heightened her sensibilities, especially to 

emotions, and changed her outright. Or rather, eventually and for 

the better, outright and inward. Empathy has a way of setting 

straight misunderstandings, teaching us how to forgive, both 

others and ourselves. The story’s illumination of such Truths 

caused me to “fizzle and crackle” right along with Annabelle,

despite the difference in our ages, as if we were both still full 

of lightning. 

My own lightning, indeed.

 

Katherine Paterson superbly described the kind of magic Lauren 

Wolk conjures up.

     “What happens is a reciprocal gift between writer and reader:

       one heart in hiding reaching out to another.”

Each of Lauren Wolk’s “Book Daughters” as she calls them in this 

interview with Horn Book’s Roger Sutton, has gifted me 

accordingly. 

Crow in Beyond the Bright Sea, a story set on the Elizabeth Islands 

off the coast of Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1925.

Ellie in Echo Mountain, a story set in Maine in 1934. 

A fifth grader recently queried Ms. Wolk if she might write a story 

featuring all three of her young female characters, resurrecting a 

story idea she’d put aside. 

We Readers can only heartfully hope.

Thanks to Sarah Grace Tuttle for hosting today’s Poetry Friday. 

May a story strike you soon!

Esther Hershenhorn

MY Favorite Grab ‘N’ Go Writing Exercise: The Name Poem!

This month my fellow TeachingAuthor bloggers and I are putting forth our favorite Writing Exercises for you to grab and go.
April shared her new In One Word poetry form, Bobbi her favorite Writing Workshops, and Gwendolyn her practice of typing out favorite texts and/or passages,
Carmela advised us to try something new and Mary Ann reposted her Creative Eavesdropping exercise.
My favorite Writing Exercise is an Oldie-but-Goodie, too: The Name Poem.

I came upon this exercise serendipitously when my Holiday House editor Mary Cash requested I drop my character Howie Fingergut’s grade from Fifth to Fourth.
I of course said: “Of course!” 😊
But it was fifth graders I knew like the back of my hand. I’d never taught fourth graders.
It was a few weeks later, while seated in a Fourth Grade classroom at The Frances Parker School in Lincoln Park, that my eyes zeroed in on the Name Poems dotting the walls.
Name Poems?
Name Poems!
I could define my character Howie and his singular world view with but 5 adjectives! Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier?

Howie’s name poem not only helped me nail Howie. It helped me nail his heart and thus, what he was after.  Howie, it turns out, had longed to change his “I” word to “Important.”

I recommend my students and writers create Name Poems for their characters.
I don’t know why but this exercise always works.

What also works, though, is to create a Name Poem for yourself!
It’s a sure-fire way to see just where your story crosses paths with your character’s.
Katherine Paterson wrote that, when it comes to our characters, it’s simply “one heart in hiding…reaching out to another.”

Imagine my smile when I discovered just how much I had in common with Howard J. Fingerhut.

For the record, once you grab this exercise to define your character and/or yourself, choosing defining adjectives isn’t the only way to go. Think about verbs, nouns and even favorite expressions.

Thanks to Karen’s Got A Blog for hosting today’s Poetry Friday.

Happy Writer-Muscle-Building!

Esther Hershenhorn
 

Wednesday Writing Workout: CONNECTING WITH YOUR CHARACTER EMOTIONALLY

I owe buckets of thanks to award-winning children’s book author and my friend Ruth Vander Zee for contributing today’s hands-on WWW: "Connecting with Your Character Emotionally."  Ruth’s hands-on exercise will help you probe your heart so your character’s story resounds in readers’ hearts.

Ruth’s newest book, NEXT YEAR (Creative Editions, 2017) is the story of one young boy who finds a way to endure the next four years of dust storms and drought following the April 14, 1935 dust storm known as “Black Sunday.” Like the characters whose stories Ruth tells in her other works - ERIKA’S STORY, ELI REMEMBERS, ALWAYS WITH YOU and MISSISSIPPI MORNING, Calvin and his family face their tragedy while clinging to hope and acting courageously. Throughout the book, Ruth’s lyrical text is paired with the gorgeous artwork of Gary Kelley, giving readers a moving and memorable reading experience.

  

A resident now of Coconut Grove, Florida, Ruth believes her love of stories was kindled at the kitchen table of her childhood home on the south side of Chicago.  Her father told stories and had the ability to make each day’s activities sound like an ongoing novella. She considers herself a Late Bloomer, deciding to earn a college degree in education at the age of 40, then later to write stories for children. Those two decisions proved life-changing, not only for Ruth, but for legions of young readers, the fellow children’s book writers with whom she generously shares her expertise and experience and all who come to know her. 

In today’s WWW below, Ruth shares how she delved into the characters in her stories in ways she would have never dared.

Thank you, Ruth, for gifting us with an exercise to get both us and our readers feeling.

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S. Hours are running out to enter our Giveaway for the 2018 Children’s Writers and Illustrator’s Market! Click here to enter if you haven't already.

. . . . . . 

CONNECTING WITH YOUR CHARACTER EMOTIONALLY

When I was writing my first book, I received this critique: “You are writing an amazing story, but I don’t feel anything.”  That was the worst and best critique EVER.  It got me delving into the characters in my stories in ways I would never have dared. 

I had a habit of holding my characters off a bit.  It’s safer that way.  Because, truth be told, finding the hearts of my characters meant finding myself in those characters.  And that brought me to places I had legitimately forgotten, chose to forget, avoided, and dismissed as unimportant.  However, when I dug up that stuff, my characters became alive.  I probably saved myself a lot of counselling fees.

For instance, when I was writing Erika’s Story, the protagonist told me that “a woman picked me up and cared for me.”  If you know the story, this child was thrown from a train.  The woman she mentioned took her home, cared for her and raised her to adulthood.  But for her to dismiss her by calling her “a woman” gave me pause. 

To write that one paragraph, I began the exercise I am sharing today.  I have done this same process with every character I have written.  Picture book writers have very few words to convey a lot.  Every word has to count, drive the story forward, and deliver the emotional connection which makes a story great.

I give myself at least a half hour.

Go to a quiet place with a pen and piece of paper.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and sit quietly for a moment. 

Then begin using your five senses.

Go the place you are trying to discover.  In the case of my “woman,” I went to my grandmother.  She was my mother’s stepmother.  She always did the right thing for my mother but my mother had a deep longing to know the love of her real mother.  There were many reasons for that.

So I went to my grandmother’s living room where we often sat when visiting.

I started with what I could see.

With eyes closed, I looked around the room, stood in the middle of the room and turned around several times taking everything in, from the horsehair sofa to the peppermint dish, to the people in the room, wallpaper on the walls…everything.  I took a long time doing this.  Turned this way and that and made sure I didn’t miss anything.

Then I went to the smells…dirty diaper on one baby, latent cigar on my grandfather.

The tastes in the room…the peppermints, the cookies my grandmother always baked.

The touch…the hot tea pot, the feel of the covering on the sofa if I ran my hand one way or the other, the silky hair of my cousin.

The sounds…chattering children, the conversations of a lot of people all happening at one time, my grandfather’s teeth clattering in his mouth.

This can take at least a half hour.

When you feel you have taken everything in, open your eyes and immediately write down, with no restrictions, what you have just experienced through your senses.

Write fast and fill your paper.  When you have put all those memories on paper, go through what you have written and cross out any words which are unimportant.  Leave all important verbs, nouns and adjectives.

Then take those words and write them in a list.

What you are left with is a distillation of a memory you may have never thought of or one that lingers in your heart every day.

You have essentially written a poem of that event.

What I discovered that day…my grandmother was not in my memory.  I’m sure she was there but I could not place her anywhere in my memory.  Her peppermints were there.  Her cookies were there.  I’m sure she brewed the tea.  But she was not there.

That experience informed how I wrote the one paragraph about the woman who picked up Erika.  I sensed her doing right by a girl she did not necessarily love but to whom she gave a lot of care.  Her resoluteness in continuing the care.  How that care could be misinterpreted as nice but not filling an emotional void.  There are many layers in that one paragraph and all need to be said with the greatest economy of words while still delivering an emotional connection to anyone who has experienced something similar.

You are not writing what you lived through but what you lived through is informing your writing. It gives authenticity and honesty to your writing.

This also works particularly well if you are needing to write authentically about a feeling.  For instance, if you remember a time you felt sad and go to the place you felt sad and walk through your five senses, you will have layers of information with which to write.

. . . . .

Wednesday Writing Workout: Connecting with our Characters

For this, my third and final post celebrating the release of my young-adult historical, Playing by Heart from Vinspire Publishing, I'm sharing a Wednesday Writing Workout based on my experience with not only the novel, but also the nonfiction biography that led to my writing Playing by Heart in the first place.

I've found that whether I'm writing fiction or nonfiction, if I want to create multi-dimensional characters I need to connect with them personally in some way. As I've mentioned before, Playing by Heart was inspired by two amazing sisters who lived in 18th-century Milan, and the novel grew out of my research for a nonfiction biography of linguist and mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi. I was drawn to Maria Gaetana's story because of my interest in math (I have an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science) and in women's history. But when I sat down to write a biography of her, I was stumped. How do you bring a character to life who was born nearly 300 years ago and who lived in a completely foreign society and culture?

The two-volume math text Maria Gaetana Agnesi wrote.
I photographed it at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library in 2008

For me, the answer lay in finding a personal connection with the character. Our mutual love of math was an obvious bond, but it wasn't enough. We're also both firstborn daughters. That didn't feel like enough either. The connection that really clicked for me was Maria Gaetana's relationship with her father. Pietro Agnesi used to hold academic salons in his home for Milan's aristocracy. After discovering Maria Gaetana's talents, he made her a regular part of his meetings, beginning when she was only nine years old. She spoke to his guests about her studies, in Latin, Italian, French, or whatever language her father wanted. By her teen years, she also debated with her tutors about what she'd learned. Maria Gaetana was a shy girl and supposedly hated being made to perform in this way.

Unlike Maria, I wasn't born into an upper-class family. In fact, my Italian-immigrant parents struggled to make ends meet when I was a child. But, like Maria Gaetana's father, when my father learned I had a knack for memorizing things--prayers, songs, baseball stats, etc., he had me "show off" at family gatherings. Like Maria Gaetana, I hated it. After I recognized that we shared that experience/feeling, I was finally able to connect with her as a character and write her biography, which I'm still hoping to eventually see published.

When I decided to take the research I'd done into Maria Gaetana's life and use it as the foundation for a historical romance, I had a new problem. Since the main character of my novel is based on Maria Gaetana's younger sister, musician and composer Maria Teresa Agnesi, I now had to find a way to connect with her as a character. Much less is known about Maria Teresa Agnesi than about her older sister, so finding something we had in common was more challenging.

I've always loved music but I wouldn’t call myself a musician. When I was six, we moved into a house that had an old upright piano in the basement. I used to pick out simple tunes on it, like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I longed to study piano, but that wasn’t one of the instruments my Catholic elementary school offered for instruction. Instead, I studied the clarinet. I played clarinet in high school marching band and orchestra, but haven’t touched it in decades. I never lost my desire to learn piano though, and even considered studying it as an adult but never did.

courtesy of pixabay

To connect with my character Emilia, who was inspired by Maria Teresa Agnesi, I tapped into the longing I felt as a young girl wanting to learn how to play the piano. I imagined that Emilia had a similar longing to play the harpsichord. And when Emilia suffers a terrible loss, she turns to composing music for consolation in the same way I sometimes do with writing. Emilia is a singer, too. I could relate to that since I sang in our church choir during my teen and young adult years. I used to make up my own songs, too, though I never wrote them down. In a way, writing Emilia’s story allowed me to indulge my fantasy of being a keyboard musician and composer.

(The following YouTube clip is a performance of Maria Teresa Agnesi's Overture II, Ulisse in Campania performed by La Donna Musicale. You can find it online here.)

Now for today's writing exercise:

Wednesday Writing Workout: 
Connecting with your Characters

Part 1: Make a list of your main character's personality traits.
Is she or he shy? Or outgoing?
Sensitive? Or thick-skinned?
(If you need help with this, check out this Big Long List of Personality Traits.)

Now, review the list and see if you can find any traits you share with your character.

Part 2: Make a list of your main character's interests, especially any that set her or him apart from what's typical. Does she like math? Does he like to design clothing?

Now, see if you have any interests in common. If not, can you give your character one of your traits or interests?

(If you come up empty with both parts, check out this article about "2 Simple Ways to Connect with Your Characters.")

When you're done, take a scene from your work-in-progress that's been giving you trouble and rewrite it with your new connections in mind. Then come back here and share your experience in the comments.

By the way: don't forget to do this exercise for your villains, too. If there isn't something about "the bad guy" that you can relate to on some level, your villain will likely come across as flat.

Some of you may have your own tips or tricks for connecting with your characters. If so, please share them in the comments.

And don't forget to enter to win a copy of Playing by Heart if you haven't already done so. Details in this post.

Remember, always Write with Joy!

Carmela

Crafting Characters, Cover Reveal Giveaway, and a Tetractys Poem

Today, I wrap up our series on characterization and share an announcement about my book cover reveal giveaway. At the end of this post, I also include a poem in honor of one of the first female mathematicians of modern times.

While reading the previous TeachingAuthor posts on crafting character, I couldn't help thinking about how the advice applied to my process in writing my forthcoming young-adult novel, Playing by Heart, which is inspired by two amazing sisters who lived in 18th-century Milan. The novel grew out of my research for a nonfiction biography of linguist and mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Even though I have an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, I never heard of Agnesi until I came across her name in an article about little-known women of note. I think her story's a fascinating one, but I haven't found a publisher for it yet. However, one of the editors who rejected the biography suggested I write a novel about Maria Gaetana and her younger sister, Maria Teresa, who was one of the first women to compose a serious opera. That suggestion is what led me to write Playing by Heart. (If you'd like to read more about Maria Gaetana Agnesi, see this website I created.)

My first challenge in writing the novel was to decide on the point-of-view character. The obvious choice would have been Maria Gaetana--I identified with her love of math, and with being the firstborn and apple of her father's eye. But Maria's story felt almost too good to be true. Besides being a brilliant linguist and mathematician, she had a heart for social justice. After her father died, she rejected her celebrity status to devote her life to caring for the sick and homeless. When I read the Anne Lamott quote April shared about how characters shouldn't be too perfect because that makes them "fatally uninteresting," I thought immediately of Maria Gaetana. She struck me as "too good" to be my main character. I chose the "second sister" to be the narrator of my novel instead.

Because the true story of the Agnesi sisters' lives doesn't fit into a neat story arc, I decided the novel would be heavily fictionalized. One of my earliest tasks, then, was to choose character names. I asked myself the same questions JoAnn shared in her questionnaire: "What is your character’s name? Does she like it? What would she prefer? What does the name mean, and why was it given to the character?" Since Playing by Heart is set in 18th-century Italy, I had to research the naming conventions of that time and place to find the answers. I won't go into that process here, but I will say that I had very specific reasons for naming my main character Emilia Teresa Salvini and her older sister Maria Gaetana Salvini.

I also relied on research to help me identify the details that would not only bring the story to life but also reveal the inner character of these people, as Carla described in her post. And, like Bobbi, I had to unearth "the emotional truth" beneath all the facts in my research. Ultimately, that's what allowed me to do what Esther recommended in her post: put elements of my story into the story of the Salvini sisters.

There's one other character-building technique I use that wasn't really discussed in any of the other TeachingAuthor posts. I'm a visual learner, so to tell my characters' stories, I need to be able to see them in my mind. Early on in the process, I look for images in books, magazines, and online to represent my characters. (I mentioned this before in this blog post.)

Coincidentally, we just finalized the cover art for Playing by Heart. I'm grateful that the publisher asked for my input regarding how I'd like to see my main character portrayed. Even so, it was a bit of a shock when I saw the initial cover mockup. The Emilia Salvini on the cover bore little resemblance to the young woman in the image I'd used for myself--that of an Italian actress dressed in costume for a musical set in 17th-century Milan.

After the shock wore off, though, I decided the cover representation was an appropriate one. I'm now looking forward to finding out how potential readers respond. In fact, I'll be celebrating a special
Cover Reveal Giveaway next week to elicit reader feedback. Unfortunately, I don't have copies of the book to give away yet--it releases from Vinspire Publishing on September 30. Instead, the prize will be a custom book bag bearing the Playing by Heart cover image on one side and containing Playing by Heart bookmarks and a special heart keychain. I'll email the contest details to my Creativity Newsletter subscribers in a few days. This will be a special edition of the newsletter, which normally goes out about once a month and contains creativity tips and quotes along with news about my books and classes. If you're interested, I invite you to sign up for the newsletter on my website (in the right sidebar).

Since I can't show the prizes without giving away the cover, I've created a cover reveal "teaser" that includes a snippet from the Playing by Heart cover:

If you want to see the full cover, be sure to sign up for my Creativity Newsletter on my website!

Before I share my poem for today, I want to announce that I'll be giving two presentations at the Catholic Writers Guild (CWG) Live Conference being held just outside Chicago in Schaumburg, IL July 18-21. In the first session, I'll be discussing "Turning Life into Fiction." The second will be a team presentation with two fellow authors on "Writing Fiction that Engages Teens and Tweens." You can find conference details and a link to the schedule here.

Now for today's poem. While working on the biography of mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi, I wrote a tetractys in her honor. A tetractys is a five-line poem in which the syllables per line form the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 10. My tetractys in honor of Agnesi salutes her three callings as a linguist, mathematician, and humanitarian over her 81-year lifespan, and is in the shape of a right triangle.

Be sure to check out the complete Poetry Friday roundup at A Year of Reading.

Remember to Write with JOY!
Carmela

Crafting Character: The Heart-to-Heart Connection

I confess: I found out the hard way just how important characterization is.
I wasted the first third of my Writer’s Journey as I went my merry way manipulating my characters.
Plot derives from character?  What character-plot connection? My manuscript was the exception!
I was One Happy Puppeteer, pulling my characters’ strings non-stop.
I was also One Unhappy Wannabe Author.

Like April, I was fortunate to have some mighty wise teachers who set me straight.
For example, Barbara Lucas, the former Harcourt Brace Jovanovich children’s book publisher, who helped open my eyes to what I wasn’t doing.
“Esther,” she pronounced, after reading my middle grade novel THE CONFE$$ION$ AND $ECRETS OF HOWARD J. FINGERHUT at the Vassar Children’s Book Publishing Institute, “you’re writing above your plot line!  You’re disconnected to your characters.”

Editor Melanie Kroupa illuminated Barbara’s insight a few years later, turning back two of my revisions of the aforementioned novel, but sharing a Nugget that furthered my understanding of how to craft a character.
“Who a character is,” she told me, “gets him INTO Trouble. But…..who a character is also gets him OUT of Trouble!”

By the time I was ready to revise my HOWIE – finally under contract - for Mary Cash at Holiday House many years later, I was a whole lot smarter.

Bobbi speaks the truth: we do need to know our character’s heart.
April does too: we need to know our character’s flaws.
And so does Carla: we need to know the facts of their lives.
JoAnn’s questionnaire helps reveal all three.

It was Marian Dane Bauer, though, who helped me see the light, first in her
WHAT’S YOUR STORY?, sadly out of print now, then next in an all-day seminar.
(Her blog JUST THINKING is must reading.)
Marian taught me: a writer needs to know and put his heart, his flaws, his facts - in other words, his  story, into the story he’s telling in order for that story to resound in a reader’s heart.
Period.
We need to find pieces of ourselves to share with our characters.
“There is one basic question you will need to ask yourself over and over again,” Marian writes in WHAT’S YOUR STORY?  “How would I feel?”

Just look how worn my copy of WHAT’S YOUR STORY? is!

Thanks to Marian, those eyes Barbara Lucas opened years before have stayed open.
Here’s just one example of how I put Barbara Lucas’, Melanie Kroupa’s and Marian Dane Bauer’s wise words to work.

The situation: time was running out; Mary Cash had turned back two of my revisions; I needed an accepted revision to receive the final payment of my Holiday House advance; I needed to connect to my HOWIE!

I focused on Melanie Kroupa’s advice.  To learn just WHO Howie is and what got him into Trouble, I had Howie create a Name Poem – one of my favorite character exercises, and he included it in the book he was writing.
Howie proved to be TOO everything all right – too hopeful, too original, too willing, too intelligent, too enthusiastic. Predictably, his lawn-care business was going down the tubes.
A few of  his uber traits, though, could/would/should surely save his business, his classmates’ businesses and the business contest sponsor’s reputation, not to mention, the day.

Except, where was I in Howie’s story so I could craft him in a true-blue BELIEVABLE organic way that allowed him to solve his dilemma?  I needed to connect with him at his crucial “OH, NO!” moment.

So I created my name poem.

This exercise took me close, but no cigar – as in, revision acceptance and paid-in-full advance.

So out of desperation, I sat down and wrote good ol’ Howie a letter, telling him of the Trouble we both were in. And I mean Trouble with a capital “T.”
(Writing a character, by the way, is yet another one of my favorite character exercises.)
I spoke earnestly.
I needed to know WHY he needed to win the H. Marion Muckley Junor Businessperson of the Year Contest. Or else.

Howie’s answer forged an immediate heart-to-heart connection with mine.
“When I won,” he shared, “I was gonna change the “I” word in my Name Poem to “important.”

Suddenly, I knew what Howie was feeling.  I knew what was at stake.  He wanted to matter.
That knowledge allowed me to craft a character who not only lived on the page, fully-realized.  He could best of all live in readers' hearts.

Here’s hoping sharing the above confession helps you craft characters who can do the same!

Esther Hershenhorn

3 Terrific Quotes on Character Flaws and a Poem

.
Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! The link to today's PF host is below, as is my poem.

TeachingAuthors' current topic is Creating Characters. Bobbi started this series, discussing characters' inner struggles. JoAnn gives us the questionnaire she uses to get to know her characters, Carla shows us concrete examples of how small details reveal character in nonfiction characters, and each Wednesday in May, Esther offered us Wednesday Writing Workouts.

And me? I need help pulling 3-D characters from the blank page.

One criticism of my W.I.P. novel in poems is that except for the narrator, the other characters are one dimensional. Ouch! As a teen, I saw everyone as black and white. It's still hard for me to see people as three dimensional, hard to accept the fact that they are/we humans are imperfect. But we all have flaws, darn it.

I'll never forget the example Barbara Bottner gave in a class at Otis Parsons in the 1980's. The gist of what she said is this:

Let's say you want to tell a story about three characters in search of buried treasure. 

Okay--that's fine. 

But what if you told a story about 

Richard Nixon

Lucille Ball 

and Godzilla 

searching for buried treasure? 

NOW you have a story.

(I've forgotten the specific characters Barbara suggested--insert your own favorites.)

Wow. Talk about flawed characters! That's the moment I began to understand the interconnectedness between real characters (with real bitten fingernails and real raspberry jam stains on their clothes, who sometimes stomp on their little brother's toe) and story.

illustration from my book, New Year at the Pier by Stéphane Jorisch (Dial)

Still I struggle--both on the page and in real life--to see flaws in those I love. Or alternately, I dismiss a person entirely if I do discover a flaw.

One evening at a memorial service, I realized that everything that annoys me about my friends will be exactly what I remember fondly when they die. 

Ann Whitford Paul agrees:
"We all have flaws. Our characters must have flaws, too....Think about your imperfections. Think about imperfections in others that annoy you or maybe tug at your heart...Often...the strength and weakness are two sides of the same issue. Think of Frances in Russell Hoban's Bedtime for Frances. Her great imagination is exactly what makes her so fearful. It's what makes her sure spiders and tigers and monsters lurk in her room...Whatever the specifics, the main characters in our picture books must be human, and that means imperfect." ~ Ann Whitford Paul in Writing Picture Books

Ann Lamott makes this point, too:
"[Characters] shouldn't be too perfect; perfect means shallow and unreal and fatally uninteresting...I like them to be mentally ill in the same sorts of ways that I am; for instance, I have a friend who said one day, 'I could resent the ocean if I tried,'and I realized that I love that in a guy." ~ Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird

As does Madeleine L'Engle:

"I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect." ~ Madeleine L'Engle

For today's poem I thought I'd describe a character by including a flaw and some eye-poppingly original details. But that's not exactly what turned out. The first line came to me immediately: "She takes out her teeth to chew on that." Hmm, I thought. We know who that must be.

But...you're a writer--you know how it goes. You fiddle and rearrange and think and unthink and finally that first line seems too cliche, so out it goes.
.

I didn't include a fatal flaw or raspberry jam on her skirt, but here's a draft that came from my tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumming today:

CLARICE

by April Halprin Wayland

Ding-a-ling-ding, the telephone rings.

Her cat bats away a spec on wings.

She doesn't answer that telephone call.

Forget them all,

forget them all.

She watches this brave day's afterglow

then picks up the cat, tunes her radio,

leans into the umpire's gritty call.

It didn't have to happen at all,

it didn't have to happen at all.

She stares into space, chewing on that.

Her cat jumps into her tired lap.

How can it be the sun still sets

since Daniel's death,

since Daniel's death?

poem (c) 2017 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

Thank you, Buffy for hosting Poetry Friday!

posted with love by April Halprin Wayland with help from an invisible bee named Spinach.

A Real Character

This TeachingAuthors series is about creating characters.  I don’t create characters in the way most people think.  When most hear the word “character” they probably think of a fictional character.  Since I’m an author who writes nonfiction, my characters are real people.  I can’t change their character or create any facet of their true character.  But that doesn’t mean writing about real people isn’t creative-it is.  It takes a lot of creativity to breath life into sometimes dry and boring facts. 

I’ve always said, “I don’t create the facts, but I use the facts creatively.” 

In my biographies I show the character of real people though the details and quotes that illustrate who they are. Let me show you what I mean…

In The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon I wanted to show the tender side of Washington and the love he had for his wife, Martha.  I used part of a letter he wrote her in 1775 where he is telling her that he has been chosen the lead the Continental Army and would not be coming home as expected.  Instead he is going directly to Cambridge, MA, to take command. 

He wrote that he would “feel no pain from the Toil, or the danger of the Campaign—My unhappiness will flow, from the uneasiness I know you will feel at being left alone.”

Letter from George Washington to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775

In my book Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium I showed Curie’s character, not through a quote but by describing something she wanted to accomplish.  When Marie and Pierre Curie first married, Marie wanted to learn to cook.  She asked her sister’s mother-in-law to teach her. 

About this I wrote, “Marie approached cooking as if it were a scientific experiment.  She made careful notes in the margins of her cookbooks about the successes and failures of her attempts.” 

In my book In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry, I showed a glimpse into Fry’s character and the high pressure situation he was in as he waited for some refugees he was helping.  The situation was tense as he was waiting to make sure the refugees he put on the train in France had arrived safely across the border in Spain.  They were all crossing the border illegally and would have been arrested if caught.  Varian went to the guard shack to ask if his friends had arrived. 

I wrote, “The guards led Varian into the guard shack and told him to wait.  As Varian sat there he wondered where his protégés were.  He also wondered if he was gong to be arrested.  He smoked one cigarette after another.” 

I don’t manipulate facts about the lives of real people.  But I can choose the right details to show their character.  

Carla Killough McClafferty

Creating a Character, Starting with a Questionnaire

Hello again! In my last post, I said I’d be taking a break. Surprise! Mary Ann explained our schedule shift. As it looks now, I’ll be posting at least once more before our Summer Blogging Break. Although I’m busy with writing (including a new work-for-hire series), sewing reusable shopping bags, and a little bit of gardening (the milkweed is finally coming up--hooray!), I’m enjoying all of these projects. Lucky me!

Bobbi started this series about creating characters with a thoughtful explanation of motivation. Take a moment to explore her process if you haven’t yet. (While you’re looking back, be sure to read Michael Leannah’s four wonderful Wednesday Writing Workouts, one for each week in May.)

When we create a character, we have to decide on a number of traits and behaviors. We explore the character’s history and geography, put ourselves in her shoes and discover her world through her senses, and create conflict based on what she wants. We might base a character on people we know (including ourselves). We can combine traits we admire and dislike. Some writers sketch their characters or find photos that look like what they imagine. Some interview their characters. Some lucky authors hear their characters speaking. I'm always trying to listen!

Several years ago, we Teaching Authors presented at the Illinois Reading Council conference. My part in the presentation included a handout on creating authentic characters. I’ve updated it several times to use it for my writing classes. Here is an excerpt:

Getting to Know Your Character: A Character Traits Exercise

• Is your character a person or an animal? An actual creature or a mythical or imaginary one?
• What is your character’s name? Does he or she like it? What would he or she prefer? What does the name mean, and why was it given to the character?
• How old is he or she? What grade in school is he or she in?
• What does your character look like? Describe his or her height, weight, hair, eyes, build, and any special or unusual physical characteristics, habits, or actions.
• How many people are in your character’s family? Who are they, and how old are they? How close are they? What kind of history do they have? What is their financial status?
• Does your character practice a religion? Which one, and how strictly?
• Where does he or she live? (City, country, small town, suburb?) What country or what part of the country? What kind of home?
• What kind of music does your character like? Does he or she play an instrument, sing, or dance?
• Does your character have a pet? What kind? How does he or she treat it?
• What does his or her voice sound like? Is it loud or quiet, clear or hard to understand?
• Does your character play a sport? Which one, how well, and why?
• What kind of clothes does he or she wear? Why? What would he or she like to wear?
• What does he or she want? Why? What would happen if he or she didn’t get it?
• What is he or she good at, both in school and out? What does he or she struggle with? What does he or she like and dislike?
• Who are your character’s friends? How close are they? What do they have in common?
• What generation does your character belong to? What period in history? Does he or she fit in?
• What is your character’s favorite food? Least favorite? Describe his or her eating habits.
• Does your character have any bad habits? Are they obvious or hidden? Is the character aware of them? How do they affect the character’s relationships with other people?
• What is your character afraid of? Why? What would happen if his or her worst fear came true?
• What does he or she carry in a pocket, a purse, or a backpack? What is in his or her desk?
• Does your character have a secret? What is it? What would happen if the wrong person found out about it?
• What else do you need to know about your character to tell his or her story?

Intended for authors of fantasy (and useful for all of us), the terrific “FantasyWorldbuilding Questions” by Patricia C. Wrede includes more detailed questions about characters and how they fit into their environments, especially in the “Peoples and Customs” section.

Today’s Poetry Friday Roundup is at Reflections on the Teche. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken