Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 157

Working Wednesday

I’m clearing out my kitchen. I’ve been doing it forever, but this week, I’m getting serious about it. I have lovely pots and pans, but there are too many of them, so my daughter is getting some Creuset and All Clad. It pangs me to part with them, but how many braisers does one woman need? So that’s my work for the week: a lovely, clean, well-organized kitchen. Okay for the month, that’s my work.

What are you doing? Did you make anything? I need to make something.

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What is the Antagonist Doing? What am I Doing? Argh.

The antagonist often gets short shrift, especially in a romance where the lovers are united against him (she gets the main plot, he gets the subplot, the antagonist is the same for both). In that kind of book, the juice is in the lovers and the antagonist shows up to create pain which creates stress which creates adrenalin which spurs attraction which creates lust . . . . Yeah, the antagonist really should not be there as a sex toy, he or she should have a complete plot all to him or herself.

In Nita’s story, the antagonist is deliberately trying to kill, not to mention maim, poison, and put out of their jobs, Nita and Nick, but it’s to get them out of the damn way so he can achieve his ends. If they’d go someplace else and stop thwarting him, he’d leave them alone. Of course, during the discovery draft, I didn’t think much about his plan; bad stuff just happened to N&N whenever I needed bad stuff to happen. The antagonist–let’s call him Cthulhu since Nita does even though he is actually not an alien monster of the deep–has a very clear plan which he’s been pursuing over a fairly long time, and getting rid of Nick is part of it, but not the goal. Nick’s just in the way and refusing to die (again), so there’s a kind of Rasputin plot going on where Nick gets shot, stabbed, and poisoned, and still perks right along, making life hell for Cthulhu. And then there’s Nita, who’s the only one who says, “You know all this random stuff that’s going on? I think it’s one person.” Yeah, she has to go, too.

So I’m trying to look at the story from Cthulhu’s point of view. To him, Nita and Nick are gnats, they have to be brushed away so he can get what he wants. They’re annoying but unimportant. That’s why the assaults against N&N are so random. They get in his way and he swats them, but he’s always heading for the big payoff. Which is the plot I don’t have. I have the swatting stuff, but I finally took a step back and thought, “How the hell is he going to get what he wants? It’s impossible.” Of course, he’s nuts, so that’s a help, but still . . .

So that’s where I’ve been, trying to figure out Cthulhu’s plot. Still don’t have it. At this point, my brains are dribbling out of my ears. Talk amongst yourselves while go out to the backyard to scream.

ETA: So responding here has helped IMMENSELY and I can see Cthulhu’s plan now. You are all wonderful people and I will mention you in the acknowledgements if this book ever gets published.

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Happiness is a Bright Yellow Pepper

Or cute little cippolini onions. Or a really gorgeous tomato, bursting out of its skin. Or a purply shallot with its papery skin coming off. The thing about fresh food is that it’s gorgeous. And good for you of course, but let’s spend a little time admiring the firm white and green of bok ahoy, the cheerful curliness of dark green spinach, the luminous orange of a carrot that’s just been peeled, the deep frosted blue of blueberries, the sheer riot of nature trying to feed us, seducing us with all that color and texture. And that’s before we get to corn still in the husk (is there any prettier yellow-and-green than that?) and peas popping out of their bright little pods and the ridiculously flashy red of strawberries . . .

Produce makes me happy. I don’t even have to eat it, I just want to look at it.

So how did your life produce happiness this week?

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Cherry Saturday, April 27, 2019

Today is Tell A Story Day.

The thing about telling stories is that they establish reality. Two people can tell the story of an event they witnessed and come up with completely different stories with completely different meanings because of their views of reality. (America is in the throes of this phenomenon right now; thank god for a free press.).

But telling stories is just good for us. It gives us a chance to take the unrelenting chaos of real life and order it into a form and shape that is understandable and bearable.

Telling stories is what keeps us sane. And also . . .

So tell us a story in the comments.

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This is a Good Book Thursday, April 25, 2019

I ordered four actual paper books this week, which is rare for me, but it’s spring in NJ and reading by iPad in the sun is no fun. Also I wanted them on paper. I gotThe Nimble Cook, Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses (spiral bound to lie flat with patterns in an envelope on the back cover!), and two graphic novels by Emily Carroll, When I Arrived At The Castle and Through the Woods. And then, of course, there’s the new book on my Kindle, A Natural History of Dragons, which Book Bub had for $1.99, so I had to get it. Also on Amazon for $1.99: The Goblin Emperor, which a lot of Argh people loved.

What’s new in your reading life? (Or old, we don’t judge.)

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Working Wednesday, April 24, 2019

I started a sweater test this week, so I am finally MAKING something besides a book and a lot of food (still on my meal service research, I’ve tried nine now).

So what did you work on this week?

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Questionable: How Do You Start a Memoir?

Carol asked:
I have my MIL’s memoir draft. My question – Would it be a good opening for the memoir to have a “scene” of somewhat dramatic moment in her life? Then go from there. Make it a story of her story?

No.  Also no, and please no.  (I don’t quite understand “make it a story of her story” so I’m ignoring that for now.) Those flash forward teasers (on any narrative, not just memoir) are basically the author saying, “I know this is a really boring beginning, so I’m going to give you this to hook you, and then you’re going to have to slog through the rest.” 

The question I need you to answer before I can tell you how to start this memoir is “How are you structuring this?”

If you’re using chronological order, always the easiest, you start at the beginning and go on to the end.  The beginning is boring?  Skip it and make the beginning where the good stuff starts.

If you’re using patterned structure, then sort your scenes into the pattern (say “Family,” “Career,” etc.) and build the sections to a climax. And start where the good stuff starts.

If you’re using a frame structure, start with the frame, then go to the narrative, then go back to the frame.  You can also drop pieces of the frame into the narrative as you go. And start where the good stuff starts.

That last one may be your solution.  For example (only as an example, not a suggestion): you start with a fascinating conversation you’re having now with your mother-in-law, two smart women in dialogue. Then you segue into her life.  And at the end, you go back to the conversation. The conversation contains the theme of the memoir, the reason why the memoir is more than just “this is the life of one woman.”  The memoir itself illustrates that theme.  

But the best advice is, skip the boring parts and start where her life becomes interesting. God help you if her life is not interesting; there’s nothing you can do.  

One note on memoirs in general: The problem with memoirs, much like movie biographies, is that often there is no main thesis, they’re just the events in a person’s life, and real life is chaotic and often meaningless until we give it meaning. Even then, people rarely grab onto one idea and hold it at the center of their lives forever.  So memoirs are intrinsically sloppy narratively, and the most important thing to do is figure out a structure that tidies it up.  If you can find a throughline in the person’s life, that’s great, but more likely you’re going to have to find a pattern, anything that gives the reader the feeling that there’s a shape to the narrative and not just “and then this happened.”  

Basically, memoirs are a bitch to write unless the central character has had such a fabulous life that the fabulousness overwhelms the lack of focus in the narrative, which is almost impossible.  Betty White’s memoir tanked, that’s how hard memoirs are to write.

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Questionable: How Do You Start a Book?

K asked:
And when you sit down to start a new story, do you plot out major scenes? (know them ahead of time) Or do you start with an idea and the ‘aha’ moment at the end? In other words, do you know where you’re going when you start? Or do you just start with two characters?

There are a million ways to start a book, and all of them are the right way if they work. My way is the least efficient, so please note, I am NOT recommending the following as a path to follow.  It’s a grossly inefficient way of writing a book. It’s just only way I’ve got.

People start talking in my head, sometimes inspired by an idea, a movie, a snatch of conversation, a news story . . . damn near anything, really.  Usually, they just wander off and I never think of them again.  But sometimes they get interesting and I start writing down some of the dialogue because I love writing dialogue.  Actually, I don’t write dialogue, I just write down what the voices in my head are saying; there’s a conversation in my head and I’m doing the transcription.  

Then when I get to twenty or thirty thousand words of inane chatting, I start to think there’s a book there and I get serious.  Who’s the protagonist?  (I usually know that one, didn’t on Faking It.). Who’s the antagonist?  (I never know that one.) Who’s the love interest? (I usually know that one, but not always.) What’s the conflict? (What conflict?  These are just verbal people.)  And answering those questions makes for more conversations; those of you who have seen my first drafts know they’re basically radio plays. 

That wandering around and writing down random conversations I hear in my head goes on until I have enough scenes that I go back and put them in chronological order and then keep writing until I have most of the discovery draft done.  

Then I step back and go into analytical mode—where’s the conflict, where are the act breaks/turning points, how are those character turning points, too, how does the character arc, and so on, ending with “What is this book about?” 

 And then I rewrite until I get a complete draft with turning points done, and I take a step back and look at it and see that I wasn’t writing the book I thought I was writing at all, it’s a different book, and the characters have things going on that I missed and need to be deepened, and I go back in and rewrite some more.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

BUT that’s how I have to do it, it’s not the way I’d recommend anybody else do it. Some people can plan their character arcs completely ahead of time which is much more efficient.  I have to find my way through the dark first.  I think that’s fairly common; Jo Beverley used to say that writing a book was like driving through a fog, you could only see as far as your headlights, and I think that’s true for a lot of us.  But there are also a lot of writers like Bob Mayer who map the entire book out first and then write to the map.  Much more efficient. I just found out that Rex Stout wrote one draft of all his stories, started at the beginning and went on until he got to the end. I think his pre-planning was massive, but once he started writing, he just wrote the book, no rewriting.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is having a story that you have to tell, that will nag at you if you don’t tell it. It’s the story you must tell that matters, not where or how you start it.

To show you how inefficient my method it, here’s four years of first scenes of Nita.

Four years, people.

Really, don’t do it like I do it.

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Happiness is Spring

It’s spring in New Jersey and it’s glorious. And wet, but you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

How did happiness spring out at you this week?

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Cherry Saturday, April 20, 2019

April is Adopt a Ferret Month.

No?

April is Active Dog Month.

No?

April is Garden Month.

Ah, we have a winner. Also, it’s Spring Is Finally Fucking Here Month. That’s the one I’m celebrating.

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