Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 120

It's all in your mind

One of my goals this summer was to reread some books I enjoyed the first time around, and I’ve been doing that. Most recently, I finished Neal Shusterman’s Unwind again, and it held up well.

In particular, I admire what he did in Chapters 60-61.*  I noticed that these chapters—which have earned the horrified respect of every writer with whom I’ve discussed them—achieve something quite special. They paint a very detailed picture while supplying only a few, well-chosen details. Although what the...

Relax

In this picture, our cat, Scout, may look like he's flying through the night sky, but he's actually lying on a very dark couch.

He's appearing on this blog to illustrate my writing message for the day:

Relax.

Whatever tension, fear, negativity, worry, constraint, or other obstacle stands between you and your writing, let it go for now. If you really need to pick it up and deal with it again, it will be there waiting for you. But for now, relax.

Let it flow. Abandon yourself to the moment as th...

Showing through dialogue

While responding to a question from East for Green Eyes on my last post about showing and telling, it occurred to me that dialogue is one of the most effective forms of showing there is. It may seem, at first glance, that dialogue is telling.

For example:

1. "We've lost the battle! Run for your lives!" screamed Ronaldo.
2. "The truth is, the woman you always called Mom is your grandmother, and I am your real mother," Laura said.

In these cases, the reader may be learning about the outcome of the...

Show and Tell

Here are three quotations from John Updike's novel THE CENTAUR, to illustrate showing versus telling. (The longer, "showing" quotes are all from Updike; the shorter, "telling" lines are my translations.)

"I remember I was propped up on two pillows in my parents' great double bed. The wallpaper and bedposts and picture books on my covers beside me all wore that benevolent passive flatness that comes with enough fever; no matter how I wiped and swallowed, my mouth stayed dry and my eyes stayed m...

For your amusement

I posted over at the Tenners about some of my favorite secondary characters (in other people's books, not my own).

Also, today, I give you a quote from another book just bursting with a fascinating supporting cast:
"'They've a temper, some of them--particularly verbs: they're the proudest--adjectives you can do anything with ...'"

That's Humpty Dumpty speaking, from Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS. But I don't know if I can claim to agree with his next line:
"'... however, I can manage ...

Power trip

I just wrote up a critique in which I suggested that the main characters should have more power. My feeling is that the characters should have some control over their destiny, or if they don't control the actual events, then they should learn something or at least have control over how they cope with things. I realize I'm operating from an assumption here, which may or may not be shared. So I thought I'd throw this question out there: How much power should a main character have? To what exten...

Romance with friction

It's the tenth, so my post at AuthorsNow! is up. This month my topic is romance with friction, in which I pose the question, "When is a [fictional:] relationship attractively peppery, and when does it veer into abusiveness?" I explored the old "Guy makes obnoxious, even insulting comments. Girl therefore despises him. But girl finds herself attracted to guy, even though she doesn’t want to be" model.

Where things happen

I'm always talking about how my work is character-oriented, and I love dialogue, and my early drafts are thin on description, all of which might lead a reasonable person to conclude that setting is something I stick into a story just so my characters aren't floating in space. And yet, when I look at my work I find that's not true at all--setting is integral.

I've answered questions about where I got the idea for The Secret Year, and when I say that I started with the main character and his voi...

Much inspiration and a chuckle or two

I'm all about the links today.

I guest posted at Dreaming in Books about that age-old question: is blogging good or bad for your writing? (Of course, I could really only answer with respect to my own.)

Kelly Fineman posted this link, which I shamelessly stole so that you can read Tanita S. Davis on why we need the Coretta Scott King award. Preview: "I wanted to hear a story where my people lived. I wanted to see African Americans make history."

Tanita Davis won her award for the book Mare's...

Details, details

One thing my critiquers do is point out where I've gotten a detail wrong or set up something inconsistent. Sometimes I notice these things myself--a character having green eyes early in the book and gray eyes later, for example. Other times, the critiquers tell me things I didn't know.

Recently, I read a book where I was happily immersed in the fictional world until I hit a passage that contradicted my firsthand knowledge of a certain situation. "No way," I said. "That's not how it works. I wo...