Pamela Love's Blog, page 6
March 25, 2015
Line?
When I was in elementary school, I was the narrator in a Christmas play. Everything went fine during the practices. Everyone knew their lines.
During the actual performance, the boy playing Santa Claus made his entrance, and forgot his line. Everything stopped. As the narrator, I had the script in front of me, but didn't give him his line. The director, a teacher, also had the script, but didn't give him the line. The other kids on stage were without scripts, but knew (approximately) what the line was, and they said nothing.
Forever went by while the audience just sat there. Finally, another teacher came up to the director, took the script, and gave him the line.
But that feeling we all had, standing there? That's what writer's block feels like. Your characters are right there on the screen, and they're not giving you their lines.
During the actual performance, the boy playing Santa Claus made his entrance, and forgot his line. Everything stopped. As the narrator, I had the script in front of me, but didn't give him his line. The director, a teacher, also had the script, but didn't give him the line. The other kids on stage were without scripts, but knew (approximately) what the line was, and they said nothing.
Forever went by while the audience just sat there. Finally, another teacher came up to the director, took the script, and gave him the line.
But that feeling we all had, standing there? That's what writer's block feels like. Your characters are right there on the screen, and they're not giving you their lines.
March 20, 2015
Play
When I was little, I wanted a play house. One of my friends had a wooden one in her back yard. Another friend had a plastic tent with pictures on the sides of a house that we played with indoors. I thought both of them were so cool.
It wasn't until decades later that I realized I did have a play house. In back of our house was an immense pine tree with branches that came all the way to the ground. About ten feet behind that was a wooden fence. That was where I played outside, because it was private. The pine was a wall. The fence was another. And nobody was watching from each of the empty sides. There was a fallen branch that I pretended was a horse. There were leaves I pretended were coins. And I walked on dead pine needles, and felt as if I were floating.
In my friend's play houses, I was a kid. In my own, I could be anything.
It wasn't until decades later that I realized I did have a play house. In back of our house was an immense pine tree with branches that came all the way to the ground. About ten feet behind that was a wooden fence. That was where I played outside, because it was private. The pine was a wall. The fence was another. And nobody was watching from each of the empty sides. There was a fallen branch that I pretended was a horse. There were leaves I pretended were coins. And I walked on dead pine needles, and felt as if I were floating.
In my friend's play houses, I was a kid. In my own, I could be anything.
March 18, 2015
When Blogs the Writer!
As a kid, I read whatever comics I could get my hands on. Many had titles like "When Strikes the Monster!" or "When Falls the Hero!" I thought these titles were extremely sophisticated. This isn't a post about titles, though.
Instead, it's about timing. One piece of advice many authors get is to start the story as close to the start of the action as possible. Often, though, before you can have the monster show up or the lightning strike or (for that matter) the winning lottery ticket found, you need to set up the protagonist's situation so that readers care about their good or bad luck. So try foreshadowing. It might be in the book's title, or the chapter's. The protagonist is giddy with joy (before their fall) or numbed with despair (before their win.)
Something's coming at your protagonist, something potentially more devastating than a bison stampede: your plot. If the book's about a flood, you don't need to start with the dam's breaking. You can begin with a raindrop on roses. But it helps if the title is "Flood."
Instead, it's about timing. One piece of advice many authors get is to start the story as close to the start of the action as possible. Often, though, before you can have the monster show up or the lightning strike or (for that matter) the winning lottery ticket found, you need to set up the protagonist's situation so that readers care about their good or bad luck. So try foreshadowing. It might be in the book's title, or the chapter's. The protagonist is giddy with joy (before their fall) or numbed with despair (before their win.)
Something's coming at your protagonist, something potentially more devastating than a bison stampede: your plot. If the book's about a flood, you don't need to start with the dam's breaking. You can begin with a raindrop on roses. But it helps if the title is "Flood."
January 22, 2015
Titles
I've just been asked to come up with three alternate titles to a picture book manuscript. That started me thinking about titles in general. There's an old saying, "You can't judge a book by its cover", but there's not one saying, "You can't judge a book by its title." Titles are attention grabbers, or should be. I like titles that rhyme. For example, I published an article in Cricket Magazine with the title "How to Disguise a Nobel Prize" and a story in Shine brightly Magazine called "The Noon Raccoon". Alliteration is also a good choice. My first (and most successful) picture book is called "A Loon Alone". Wordplay can yield useful titles as well: "Forest Stranger", which appeared in Spider Magazine, is a pun on "forest ranger". Other good titles are ones which raise questions in the reader's mind.
December 1, 2014
The Santa Claus Secret
When my son was four, he told me, "I know the truth about Santa."
"What's that?" I asked.
Grinning, he said, "Even when I'm bad, I get presents!"
"What's that?" I asked.
Grinning, he said, "Even when I'm bad, I get presents!"
October 24, 2014
Author Visitor
I've done a number of author visits to elementary schools to talk about my picture books. One little girl wanted to know how I could write so small. (She thought I hand-printed each book!)
A teacher asked her students whether the author wrote the story or drew the pictures. As one, her class piped up, "Draws the pictures!" She told me that she went over this every day, too!
But my favorite moment was when a special needs student with a speech difficulty was trying to ask me a question. He had to repeat it three times (his teacher couldn't figure it out) before I got it: "What does a bear say?" (As in, a cow says moo, etc.) Very good question!
A teacher asked her students whether the author wrote the story or drew the pictures. As one, her class piped up, "Draws the pictures!" She told me that she went over this every day, too!
But my favorite moment was when a special needs student with a speech difficulty was trying to ask me a question. He had to repeat it three times (his teacher couldn't figure it out) before I got it: "What does a bear say?" (As in, a cow says moo, etc.) Very good question!
October 2, 2014
Impossible?
I once took my son to a science fair for preschoolers. One pleasant teacher put a plastic dinosaur into some excessively sticky substance and explained about the La Brea tar pits. "Once anything fell in it couldn't get out!" She held out the jar toward my son so that he could see the truth of her words.
My son braced his little toddler feet. He reached in and pulled that dinosaur out! The woman was amazed.
My son braced his little toddler feet. He reached in and pulled that dinosaur out! The woman was amazed.
September 29, 2014
Tough Decisions
Well, I'm almost done with the second draft of my second novel. Unfortunately, the climax of the novel, the chapter on which I spent so much time and energy on, the one that I'm so proud of...is not something the main character would realistically do. I'm not certain it's something anyone would realistically do. It reads like it started in the author's brain while she was exploring the possibilities of her plot, and ballooned out of control. Which is precisely what it did. And it's too big to cut without replacing it with something truly significant...or a whole lot of anecdotes, or (Heaven help me) a subplot.
Once upon a time this novel had a subplot, but it stopped the plot cold, and so I turned it into its own book. (And that one is being considered by a publisher!)
Oh, and did I mention that my title comes from what happens in this chapter?
Think fast, author!
Once upon a time this novel had a subplot, but it stopped the plot cold, and so I turned it into its own book. (And that one is being considered by a publisher!)
Oh, and did I mention that my title comes from what happens in this chapter?
Think fast, author!
September 24, 2014
Dogs
I once went to an apple orchard with someone who was nervous about a barking dog there. She was worried about getting bitten.
Well, that dog didn't bite her or anyone. But a silent dog sneaked up behind her and grabbed the cookie she was holding. The cookie got bitten.
Were they working together?
Well, that dog didn't bite her or anyone. But a silent dog sneaked up behind her and grabbed the cookie she was holding. The cookie got bitten.
Were they working together?
September 23, 2014
What I Learned at a School Library
I used to volunteer to "read" library shelves at a school library. That means making sure the fiction is all correctly alphabetized by the author's last name, biographies by the subject's last name, and non-fiction by the Dewey Decimal System.
Unknown to the librarian, the library had two copies of the same biography of Mark Twain--one under "Twain", the other under "Clemens"--his real last name. Also, I found a copy of a Marco Polo biography that was at least fifty years old and apparently had never been taken out.
Books about certain subjects, such as cars and horses, were more likely to be at least slightly out of order than books about less popular subjects, such as the weather and history.
Unknown to the librarian, the library had two copies of the same biography of Mark Twain--one under "Twain", the other under "Clemens"--his real last name. Also, I found a copy of a Marco Polo biography that was at least fifty years old and apparently had never been taken out.
Books about certain subjects, such as cars and horses, were more likely to be at least slightly out of order than books about less popular subjects, such as the weather and history.
