Nancy Springer's Blog: Last Seen Wandering Vaguely - Posts Tagged "drawn-into-darkness"

“This will give you something to write about.” That is what friends and acquaintances say to me when life has just egregiously insulted me: when I buy brand new tires to drive to the airport but have a flat on the Interstate and miss my flight; when I take the dog to do her business first thing in the morning and sleepily lock myself out of my house, barefoot, wearing my skimpiest nightie; when a cat projectile-pukes directly into the paper feed of my printer and nobody, but nobody, will fix it. Or when the septic system backs up, or the water heater quits in the middle of my shower, or I back my car into a tree – again. Or when I slop scrambled eggs down my neck during brunch. “You can use that in your writing,” people say.

Because they mean well, I smile and nod and refrain from shrieking at them, Noooo! No! When crap happens, it’s generally not plot material. Quite the opposite: it is life interfering with my writing.

William Wordsworth once said poetry originates in emotion recollected in tranquility. For “poetry” substitute “my next novel.” Emotion? I have freightloads of emotion left over from childhood and adolescence, enough to last me for a lifetime of writing, and I think this is true of most novelists. What I really need at this point is the tranquility part of the dynamic.

In this regard, crabgrass on the lawn of mature life is generally not a help. “You can write about this” might be true of living in an airplane hangar for a year, but definitely not of most of my adulthood’s mundane urgencies such as needing a new roof on the house, menopausal visits to the gynecologist, getting mixed up in a lawsuit, automotive breakdowns or, for that matter, nervous ones – no, just kidding. But I truly could use more breathing room to get more and better writing done. Mostly, daily life gets in the way of writing.

I don’t mean to give the impression that adulthood is a total bust as far as creative material is concerned. I’m only trying to explain that when people say, “That’ll give you something to write about,” they are under a serious misapprehension. What you’re far more likely to write about is them. People. Many of whom are doozies. For example, there’s the guitar man. Every day he walks around town carrying two or three colorful toy guitars, never the same twice; he must have quite a collection. He is friendly, if vague. I would love to know, or imagine, how he lives and why he hikes around with both fists full of plastic guitars.

And he’s just one person. I’ve met lots of people who give me something to write about. The hoarder next door who lost a package of ground beef in the kitchen until the stink and the flies led her to it. The man down the street who put cow skulls painted school-bus yellow on top of all his fence posts. The neighbor woman who ate so many carrots she became orange. And many, many more with larger stories in them.

Adult life also offers useful new settings. My forthcoming suspense novel, DRAWN INTO DARKNESS, takes place largely in the Florida swamps with which I became acquainted as an adult. I had my first experience of small town living as an adult, and my first experience of a gated community, which would have been a wonderful place for a murderer to hide a body. In winter the level of the lake water was lowered to prevent ice from damaging the docks, and in the spring it was brought back up. A clandestine grave at the edge of the lake the night before refilling would have been covered with water by morning. Nobody ever pointed this out to me as something to write about, however.

What friends do tell me is that a broken ankle “will give me something to write about.” Well, it’s true that every visit to a hospital emergency room is an opportunity to take mental notes. But I don’t need any more data at this point, thank you very much, guys. I’d just like a good long spell of recollecting emotion in tranquility. I already have plenty to write about.

First I must leash, sharply, with a choke collar, the impulse to tell about my own real-life candidates for Woman’s Best Friend; I am supposed to be blogging about fiction.

So what about dogs and fiction writing?

Okay, for starters, dogs provide the quickest, slickest characterization shortcut I know. A character who comes complete with a beloved dog is instantly shown to be good at heart. A character who rescues and adopts a dog, even more so. A complex, flawed character who is in danger of repelling the reader MUST be provided with a dog forthwith. When writing I AM MORDRED, my novel about the arch-villain of the Arthurian mythos, I gave young Mordred a whimpering white puppy that he cherishes and names Gull after the white birds of the happy seaside home he remembers. Gull, his constant, loyal companion, is also a confidante he can talk to.

That’s another way a writer can make good use of a fictitious dog. Provide a troublesome, taciturn, solitary character with a dog, and very shortly they’ll be telling the animal all their shocking secrets, while the dog listens with unwavering interest and adoration. I suppose some people talk to cats, also, but it’s not the same; cats don’t generally sympathize. Nor do they trot by your side if you are traveling on a quest, as Mordred is.

In my most recent novel, DRAWN INTO DARKNESS, I give a stray dog to one of the characters, Ned Bradley, who is a recovering alcoholic. At a time when his family does not yet trust him, his treatment of the dog shows the reader that he is trustworthy, and what he says to the dog helps to establish his role in the novel. Exposition in monologue to a dog works a heck of a lot better than exposition in dialogue, in which characters tell each other things they already know. That sounds goofy, causing the reader to lose respect for the characters and the author. But no one sacrifices respect by telling a dog what they are thinking about. In this case, lack of sophistication is to be expected.

What else about dogs and writing? Well, even without being players in the plot, dogs can factor into characterization. For instance, if one of the people in your novel is involved in dogfighting, what does that reveal about them? Or if they rescue greyhounds off the racetrack, or carry a Chihuahua in their purse, or prefer to own a vicious dog? Regarding scary dogs, I remember when everyone was afraid of German Shepherds, then Doberman Pinschers, then Rottweilers, and now it’s Pit Bulls. When characterizing dogs, please avoid such stereotypes; the dogs can’t defend themselves. But when characterizing humans, it’s good to be aware of fashion trends in dogs. At one year’s horse show, all the big stables will show up with Welsh Corgis in tow, the next year the very same people will have Jack Russell Terriers, and so it goes; what sort of people trade in their dogs for a more recent model? If a person uses a dog to terrify the neighbors, that reveals character; the same is true if a pet is actually a status symbol. If a woman displays a Teacup Yorkie with hair bows in a plush-lined basket on her coffee table, what does that tell you? How different are the implications if she raises Irish Wolfhounds?

Another usage of dogs in fiction is as viewpoint characters. The canine point of view, refreshingly down-to-earth, food-driven and featuring a smorgasbord of smells, can provide a valuable contrast to the complex concerns of the human characters, and can serve as a foil for them. The first-person canine narrator can be especially appealing, and no, this approach is not limited to children’s literature or fantasy. But I admit it requires some getting away with and is not for every writer or every writing project. Still, my short story “The Scent of an Angel” pulls it off successfully, with the help of my mystic streak.

But as far as that’s concerned, the symbolism of dogs varies profoundly from culture to culture. Wild dogs and hunting dogs carry different meanings than house pets. Here are some snippets I’ve picked up: Merlin the Magician was followed by a black dog with white eyes. Winston Churchill called his depression “the black dog.” Every spring in the small town where I live, a terrifying rumor goes around about a big black stray dog with rabies. It’s never a Pekingese with rabies; it’s always a big black dog. The canine equivalent of an alley cat, however, is a “yellow dog.” People who believe in ghosts say dogs can see them, especially “four-eyed dogs,” which are dogs with contrasting spots of color above their eyes. A dog howling in the night is an omen of death. Finally, two widespread beliefs that are maybe even true: dogs can detect cancer, and dogs can sense the truth about people; if a normally friendly dog growls at a smiling stranger, never mind the smile; that person is bad news.

There are stories galore just in that paragraph.

Hmm, I feel one coming on. I feel a story beginning to constellate around the dog star, Sirius, and a dyslexic agnostic insomniac who gets out of bed to look up at the sky. . . . Gotta go for now. Sometime soon, cats, okay?