Doug Walsh's Blog, page 8

Friday Links #30: Purell is a Fetish

Rather than give an update about my novel or recent life events, I want to tell you about the book Siracusa by Delia Ephron. I spend Wednesdays in the library, hunched over a desk, noise-canceling headphones on, polishing a scene I intend to share with my critique group later that night. Sometimes, if I’m running early, I’ll browse the “Choice Reads” shelves on my way out. Other times, it’s the “New and Interesting” tables. I’m always on the lookout for books that might, possibly, serve as comps for when I query Tailwinds Past Florence.

Siracusa is about two couples, each struggling with their marriage, who decide to vacation together in Italy. First to Rome, then to the Sicilian town of Siracusa. Sadly, the struggling marriage in Italy part is where the comparisons with my own book end (ultimately, it’s a bit quieter and more literary than mine). Fortunately, the book was entirely worth reading. Siracusa is written first-person multiple POV style, with each character telling their version of the events in the past tense, as if they were being interviewed for a documentary. The only character to not get their own chapters is Snow, the tween daughter who accompanies cloying mother Taylor and distant dad Finn.

It’s a drama, it’s a character study, and it’s peppered with an excellent blend of laugh-lines and frustration. Ideally, the individual character voices would be more unique, but the internal dialogue really stands out and sets the characters apart. There’s Taylor, the helicopter mom, Michael the two-timing playwright, Finn, the restaurateur who doesn’t know what he wants, and Lizzie, the one just trying to make it all work. Or so it seems. Lizzie is the snark-filled vessel in which the reader best connects with the characters. Her viewpoint is whose we trust the most. And it’s through her POV that Ephron delivers a paragraph of internal observation that I can’t help but sharing. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at someone’s obsession with hand sanitizer, this is for you.

The setup: Lizzie is alone with high-maintenance Taylor at a cafe near Rome’s Pantheon. They both know this trip was a bad idea (an idea concocted on the spot when they had run into each other in London the prior year). They don’t really care for one another. Lizzie (and the reader) knows Taylor is absurd. Taylor has just extracted a small bottle of Purell from “one of six compartments of her efficient purse” and offers Lizzie a squirt. Here are Lizzie’s thoughts (author’s emphasis):

I didn’t know about the Purell. I don’t think I would have wanted to vacation with someone who brought Purell along. I even fantasized later that if I’d known about the Purell, maybe the vacation wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t remember Purell in London, perhaps it was a new fetish. Purell is a fetish. Once one carries it–I have noticed from those who do–it seems necessary throughout the day to cleanse. It reflects a constant awareness that the world is awash with bacteria and you, going about your innocent carefree way, are all the while collecting microbes that can murder you or at least give you the twenty-four-hour flu. It’s awkward to turn down Purell, so I didn’t. That struck almost as powerfully as the Pantheon, I’m ashamed to admit. It’s as if one is saying, I prefer germs, I prefer to eat with dirty hands, I have poor hygiene, I am a pig.

I really enjoyed Siracusa. Or maybe it’s just that I respect it. It’s very well-written. And though I agree with the reviewers who commented on the ending being predictable (and even then, I was still disappointed it wasn’t tied up a little differently) that’s not to say it wasn’t worth reading. It’s just not for everyone. It’s a bit more experimental, thin on action. In fact, the events that could best be described as high action scenes occur off the page (including the climax). But don’t let that stop you. Check it out here.

Bookish Links

Toni Morrison is More Hemingway Than Hemingway Himself – Here’s a statistical look at the usage of adverbs in modern fiction. Ben Blatt analyzed thousands of novel-length books in three different categories: fan-fiction, bestsellers, and award-winning literature to see if fewer adverbs really is the hallmark of higher quality writing. Like many authors, I tire of the so-called “writing rules” and welcome quantitative looks at the books we respect.
How to Overcome Rejection by 200 Literary Agents – This guest column discusses the pain and agony and determination that helped an author overcome 200 rejection slips and finally land an agent. Frankly, if I rack up even 100 rejection slips (after continuing to revise based on any feedback I get) I’m going to self-publish and get back to work on the second novel, which I will have already begun writing. Nevertheless, for those who yearn for that stamp of approval or those who find the heartbreaking process of submissions/querying/rejection interesting, this is a good read. It’s equal parts torment and inspiration.
Danielle Steel Loves the Weather… Literature by the Numbers –  Here’s another statistical look at trends in literary fiction, including the use of exclamation points (it’s a lot more than 3 per book, contrary to popular advice), the use of cliches, the length of first sentences, and the frequency in which authors open with a line about the weather. For writers who think (fret) about such things, this is a must-read.
How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?   – It seems Lithub is taking the place of all my Guardian links this week. This article is by Emily Temple and attempts to answer the age-old bar question: how many books will you read in a lifetime. Naturally, it all comes down to how many you read per year, how old you are, and how long you’ve been a reader. I’ll probably come in somewhere around 1,700 if current trends continue. I see no reason for them not to.
Forget F. Scott: In ‘Z,’ Christina Ricci Tells Zelda Fitzgerald’s Story – Have you watched Z yet? It’s the very (very!) good Amazon Original series starring Christina Ricci about Zelda Fitzgerald and her life with husband F. Scott. Only one season is available so far on Prime Video, but it’s so good. Even if you’re not a reader and the only Zelda you know lives on a Nintendo system, it’s a great show. This article on NPR will bring you up to speed.

Bonus Link

The Sumo Matchup Centuries in the Making –  My wife and I really enjoy sumo. Thanks to the NHK World app, we can even watch the nightly recap from each tournament (tournaments are 15 days and take place, roughly, every other month throughout the year). We were in Osaka on the final day of the March Basho in 2015, to see Hakuho win the tournament. And we watched in amazement last month as Kisenosato who his first tournament after his promotion to Yokozuna (miraculously winning after sustaining a significant injury on day 13).  Kisenosato is the first Japanese Yokozuna in nearly twenty years. Anyway, the article I linked to is a deep-dive into the history and present era of sumo. Fantastic sports reading.

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Muscling Through the Dash Point Half Marathon

“Maybe we should do a race?”

She wasn’t convinced. After all, we’d hardly been doing any running, me in particular. “What did you have in mind?”

I scanned a trail running calendar I conveniently left open in another tab and saw there was a race at Dash Point State Park near Tacoma. “We can do this one, it’s a month away. Plenty of time to train.”

“For the 10k?”

“Let’s do the half marathon. It’s only $9 more,” I said, as if arguing for the larger bucket of popcorn at a movie theater and not a thirteen-mile race. It made no sense and I knew it. I hadn’t run more than five miles in a year. But that’s me when I’m making plans. I do it with no concern for current fitness levels. “Plus, we can check off another state park from our list.”

Various maps hung on the wall to our right, each pierced with dozens of multi-colored pins, a triptych of three-dimensional checklists. We’ve added a half-dozen new pins this year to the map of Washington’s State Parks. Kristin glanced at the map and nodded, her lips tight. “Okay, if you’re sure you’re going to train for it.”

“Enough to finish,” I said, and laughed as I clicked the registration link. This was late February.

My training wasn’t going to match Kristin’s. Her daily stop light runs in the city—turning in whatever direction has the walk signal—nets her up to to five miles each day at lunch. Once a week she does stairs, hiking the 65-flights of stairs of a nearby office tower. Twice. I would run three or four miles once or twice a week. Then, on the weekend, would go for a longer run of six to eight miles. I mixed in one or two rides on my mountain bike, a dust-collecting victim of the most miserable winter I can recall since moving to this land of perpetual gray and drizzle in 2002.

My lone attempt at making a serious foray into training involved a very hilly six-mile run that ultimately had me wandering around unfamiliar, snow-covered trails, trying to follow a GPS track I downloaded from Strava. Then, last weekend, a week before race day, we each went our separate ways, aiming for an eight to ten mile run on our neighborhood trails. The rain had been incessant, the woodchip trails were as much sponge as they were quicksand. Running water and shoe-sucking mud provided variety. I mapped a route in my head and decided that I’d run straight home from wherever I was when I hit eight miles. Knowing the distances of our trails too well, I hit the eight mile mark a short ways from home. Kristin ran nearly ten. Because, of course she did. She’s prudent.

Last Wednesday, I went out for one final tune-up run. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I kept it close to home. There was a gap in the constant rain so I opted for the roads instead of the trails. I hate running on pavement. I should have friends that stop me. I went too fast. Memories of my faster days, my youth, flood my mind when I’m running on the road, and just as my GPS watch beeped the third mile and as I saw I ran it in 7:22 (my fastest mile in too long), my left calf seized. I was walking three steps later. And walked the rest of the way home.

I had been dealing with calf tightness on and off for over a year. This was the third or fourth instance. Each time in the past, it took up to two weeks to fully go away. A byproduct of not enough water, not enough stretching, my overly-long stride on too-soft terrain, my past-their-use trail shoes, and, probably, a touch of too-much, too-soon. A physical therapist friend of mine studied my gait and my shoes and filled me with tips that kept the pain from recurring. And it worked. Right until I stopped following his advice, thinking I was beyond the need.

I realize I’m never going to beyond needing those tips. Life in my forties… sigh.

Can You Race?

It was the topic du jour each night at dinner and even moreso the morning of the race. Can I race? I didn’t know. I shouldn’t. That I did know. I could barely walk around the house without feeling that tinge of tightness. But nightly massages—thanks babe!—and stubbornness and the knowledge that this whole damn idea was mine and mine alone, had me at least wanting to try.

So we drove to the race and as Kristin went about her warm-up run, I gamely tried to run around the parking lot, convincing myself I could do it. Try to do it. Maybe the first lap. We’ll see.

The race began and the hundred-plus entrants shuffled double-file onto the trails and were soon queued up for a series of staircases.

Stairs were unexpected.

Though I had looked at an elevation profile of the course weeks prior, it masked how steep the terrain was. And we had never been here before. As a rule of thumb, I tend to consider an average of 100ft/mile being the mark of a hilly run. This two-lap course averaged over 200ft/mile for the first three miles (and then again later at miles seven through nine). And though the latter half of each loop was predominantly downhill, there was still plenty of ups sprinkled into the tight, twisty trails that grew slicker and muddier with each passing footfall. Total elevation totaled ~1540 feet for the course.

But my calf pain was a blessing in disguise. It forced me to run slower than I would have otherwise. It kept me from striding out the downhills, from sprinting to pass, or from taking the stairs two at a time. It kept me in check and, for that, I was thankful. Once, on mile four, I considered dropping out after the first lap. I hate multi-lap courses. They mess with your mind, as much a test of fortitude and determination as physical fitness. It’s easier to finish when there’s no alternative but continuing on, knowing the shortest way back lays ahead of you. But on a lap course? Passing your car halfway through? Knowing you can stop now, grab a clean set of clothes and a beer?

No, don’t think about it. Just keep going. Don’t succumb to the temptation of warmth and relaxation.

I grabbed some Cliff Bloks and Nuun at the aid station, having completed the first lap in 1:06, a time that felt impossibly slow and shameful because I remain haunted by the times I used to run, in races I ran half a lifetime ago.

Kristin’s co-worker and friend Linda caught up to me at the start of the second lap. I wished her well as she passed me on the stairs and never saw her again. My calf pain was uncomfortable but by the seventh mile, it wasn’t my issue. A lack of training was. I knew the only way I was going to finish was if I walked each and every hill during the second lap.

And so I did. My mile splits were each over a minute slower on the second lap. But so what? I kept moving. Left foot, right foot, left foot around the mud puddle, right foot slip-and-slide.

There were two lollipops on the course, short stretches where traffic moves out and in from an isolated loop. I passed Kristin late on my second lap, as I was leaving the latter of these lollipop loops, as she was entering the “stick.” We high-fived. I was happy to see her out there. She looked good, slower but steadier than I.

Years ago, when we used to do triathlon and marathons (and even some ultra-marathons), she would be the one with the nearly even splits. Her first marathon, I still remember, down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, she ran a 4:14, going out in 2:05, and coming back in 2:09. Incredibly even splits. I rolled through the half-way point that day at 1:25 and came back in 1:50. Oops.

I tried not to look at my watch too often, to not worry about the time. It’s the beauty of trail running. The time is almost meaningless as even when courses do remain the same, the conditions change from year to year. What would my time be? Would I break two hours, as I had hoped weeks ago. Would I break 2:30, I wondered during my second lap.

I wondered about a lot during that lap.

My feet ached. So much pounding. Is that a blister on my arch? I’m too heavy for this shit, I thought. What ever happened to clydesdale divisions? That was so popular in triathlon years ago, back when I was podiuming at a lean 178 pounds. I wonder if they still have them. I’d probably do pretty good for my size.

Downhill from here. Down the stairs. Be careful on the bridges, they’re slick. You’re not on a mountain bike, Doug, don’t worry. Who put the uphill in the downhill? Ugh. Okay, there’s the tent. Round the corner. Tap the watch. Finish.

2:18, okay. Is that good? Who cares. Stretch. Eat something. Oh my God do my feet hurt. Watch for Kristin. Stretch, you dummy. Oh, look, blueberry muffins. I’m so hungry! Potato chips and Coke! Excellent. More blueberry muffin.

I think Kristin’s coming. High-five with Linda. Wow, she’s fast.  Finished in 2:13. Nice job! I’ll have to buy her beer when we go out for lunch. Kristin’s done. 2:31. She’ll wish she had broken 2:30 after the fact. Because round numbers make great barriers. I’d wish the same.

Wanna Race Again?

 It’s Tuesday, my calf is still a little sore, but I run up and down the stairs of our townhouse without trouble. I’ll go for a run today. It’ll be raining when I do. Writing this report reminded me to check if the results had been posted. It never occurred to either of us to look.

Kristin won her age group, finishing 1st out of 8 women in her group, 23rd out of 58 women overall.

I finished 5th in my age group out of 10 men, 25th out of 49 overall males. Middle of the pack. Middling preparation. Only fifteen people (including three women) broke two hours on the course. It was hard. I mentioned there were a lot of stairs, right?

The winning time of 1:28 was thirteen minutes ahead of second place.

We didn’t run this race because we cared about racing. It was just a goal, a marker on the calendar to inspire/scare us into getting out there and pushing a little harder, a little further. The goal isn’t to become fast. The goal is to lessen the discomfort of the other adventures we have planned this summer. Too many of our adventures last year hurt too much. We want to minimize that with preparation. How novel!

Do we want to race again? Yeah, probably. I like this distance. Half-marathon. 25k. Whatever you want to call it doesn’t matter, the distances are never exact in trail running. My GPS said the course was 11.8 miles, undoubtedly a short measurement based on the spaghetti-like network of trails. Was it 13.1? Who knows. Who cares?

We’re going to Florida in May. It will be hot. And flat. I think I’ll get some running in while I’m there. Even if it has to be on the road.

After all, the flattest race on the calendar is at the end of May. Two hours or bust(ed calf)!

Image photo from Evergreen Trail Runs.

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The Movies of My Life

I’ve long believed that you can learn a lot about a person by the books they read, the movies they watch, and the music they listen to. As mass-market media production grows ever-more commoditized and commercialized with each passing year, so grows our access to independent, original, and foreign creations. I believe our consumption reveals that much more about who we are now than ever before, given the options available. Whether it be our willingness to be challenged, our intellectualism, our preferences, or even just our need for simple entertainment, the media we consume says a lot about us.

An acquaintance recently shared a list of his favorite movies from each year that he’s been alive. Movies are such a great reflection of who we are, as opposed to music and books, thanks to comparatively fewer numbers. In seeing his list I realized, immediately, how little he and I had in common. Sure, I had seen the majority of the films on his list (movies are great for establishing shared experiences between strangers), but only two of the thirty-odd choices struck me as a choice I’d make. Which gave me an idea…

Instead of posting another collection of bookish links today, I’m going to focus on movies. The favorite movies of my life!

Thanks to the searchable, database website Letterboxd, I was able to quickly peruse hundreds of the most popular films released from each of the 41 years I’ve been on this planet. The list below represents a compilation of my personal favorite movies from each year, not the movie I consider the best or the most impactful. In doing this exercise, rewatchability was prioritized over artistic merit or cultural importance. Essentially, I asked myself, over and over for each year, “If I could only watch one of these movies ever again, which would it be?”

The 70s

1975 – Jaws

1976 – Rocky

1977 – Saturday Night Fever

1978 – Animal House

1979 – Apocalypse Now

The 70s, I realized quickly, had a few outstanding films that stood the test of time, and then heaps of crap (this issue presents itself 25 years later). But it also provides the first glimpse into the “very bad nerd” whose website you’re currently reading. No Star Wars? Nope, sorry. I don’t even like Saturday Night Live that much but I’d rather watch it over Star Wars any day. Honestly, it was hard to not choose Pete’s Dragon for nostalgia’s sake.

The 80s

1980 – Caddyshack

1981 – Chariots of Fire

1982 – Fast Times at Ridgemont High

1983 – A Christmas Story

1984 – Sixteen Candles

1985 – The Breakfast Club

1986 – Stand By Me

1987 – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

1988 – Bull Durham

1989 – Say Anything

Perhaps it’s just because the advent of the VCR and movie rentals happened to collide with the brilliance of John Hughes (the director responsible for a disproportionate number of these selections), which, in turn, coincided with the prime of my adolescence, but for my money, the mid to late 1980s were a golden age of movies. At least in terms of comedies. It was incredibly hard to pick a single movie from 1985-1988. Clue, The Goonies, Ferris Bueller’s Day off, Platoon, Princess Bride, Top Gun, and Dirty Dancing were just a handful of the movies I had to weed out. It’s always easy to make fun of the 1980s, especially in terms of pop music and fashion, but damn if it wasn’t one of the best decades for movies.

The 90s

1990 – Goodfellas

1991 – Point Break

1992 – Singles

1993 – Tombstone

1994 – Pulp Fiction

1995 – Casino

1996 – Happy Gilmore

1997 – Seven Years in Tibet

1998 – The Wedding Singer

1999 – Office Space

Ah, my high school and college years. These were probably the easiest selections to make as, frankly, each year had only a few movies that really jumped out to me. The toughest choice I had in this lot was selecting Point Break over The Silence of the Lambs. Again, I won’t hesitate to name SotL the superior film, but if I only had to watch one again? No doubt, I’m paddling out with Johnny Utah. I’d also mention here that 1997 is, in my estimate, one of the worst years for movies — good thing I had a wedding to look forward to. There were a few unsung classics and there was Titanic, a movie I wouldn’t rewatch if doing so saved it from sinking.

The 00s

2000 – High Fidelity

2001 – Amelie

2002 – Whale Rider

2003 – Lost in Translation

2004 – Shaun of the Dead

2005 – Waiting…

2006 – Casino Royale

2007 – Into the Wild

2008 – Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit

2009 – The Hangover

Another collection of years with few choices that really spoke to me. The late 90s and early 00s were really lacking, with the exception of 2000. I had a hard time choosing between High Fidelity and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Almost Famous, and O’ Brother Where Art Thou. But 2001 and 2007 were just like 1997 and I had a hard time picking something. Think about it: Zodiac and Hot Fuzz were ranked as 3rd and 4th most popular films of 2007 on Letterboxd. For me, Into the Wild was a no-brainer of a choice, a movie based on a book that left a big mark on me as a teen, but still… And no, I really don’t even like The Hangover, but it was either that or Adventureland.

The 10s

2010 – The Fighter

2011 – Midnight in Paris

2012 – Moonrise Kingdom

2013 – 42

2014 – Ex Machina

2015 – The Martian

2016 – Train to Busan

I wish I could say these were as hard to pick as those in the 80s, but I can’t. So many movies of late — quality ones at that — are super hero flicks. And I just can’t get into them (you’ll notice I couldn’t get into Raiders of the Lost Ark, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, or any of the other huge franchises either). For many of these years, there was just one movie I’d even consier putting on this list. And in 2013, I struggled to even name one. 42 is really good. It’s my favorite of the year by default, apologies to the legion of Frozen fans among you.

Which brings us to 2017. I haven’t seen any of the new films yet this year, but I’m looking forward to The Dark Tower, It, The Zookeeper’s Wife, and Fate of the Furious which, if I had to pick one, would be my favorite big-budget action franchise. In fact, we just watched Furious 7 again the other night with friends. Such ridiculous fun, those movies!

So now it’s your turn. How many of these would you agree with? Where do we differ? If you’ve got a few minutes, take a handful of years and share your picks in the comments or, if you’re feeling ambitious, put a list together like I did, post it, and share the link. I’m always up for some recommendations!

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Painting With Words

As the early third of my book advances to the latter stages of revision and editing, I find myself now — finally — adding the artistic details that make reading so enjoyable. Namely, the similes, metaphors and turns-of-phrase that bring descriptive imagery to life in unique and original ways. Hopefully.

So much of my time spent working on my first novel has been about establishing, iterating, and refining my work process. One of the things I’ve found is that I work most efficiently by eschewing description and metaphor until at least the second draft, if not the third or fourth. By keeping my first draft basic and adjectives sparse, I can drive my story like a snowplow, maintaining traction, avoiding the icy patches that might cause me to slip, slide, and lose momentum of the page.

That there was a simile. A poor one at that, but a simile nonetheless. You know it’s a simile because I’m directly comparing the effort of writing a first draft to plowing snow, my writer’s momentum to traction, and the time it takes to create dazzling figures of speech and imagery with spinning one’s wheels on a patch of ice.

Crazy as a Fox

Google defines a simile as a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid. Similes are often introduced with the words “as” or “like.”

Simon Winchester, one of my favorite non-fiction authors, contained this wonderful quote in his book Outposts. The excerpt is in reference to the Falklands War. Note the simile in the quote by Borges.

And so a small problem became a large tragedy. Thirteen hundred men died, hundreds more were maimed, thousands of million of pounds were expended in an unnecessary war over a piece of territory whose only function was as a symbol of power and strength, and had no intrinsic use at all. ‘Like two bald men fighting over a comb,’ Jorge Luis Borges remarked sardonically when it was all over.

Here’s another example of simile-rich description in Ian Frazier’s book On The Rez.

Le’s appearance has varied over those years. He is about six feet tall, and he has a broad face rather like the actor Jack Palance’s. His eyes can he merry and flat as a smile button, or deep and glittering with malice or slyness or something he knows and I never will. He is fifty-seven years old. I have seen his hair, which is black streaked with gray, when it was over two feet long and held with beaded ponytail holders a foot or so apart, and I have seen it much shorter, after he had shaved his head in mourning for a friend who had died. He has big hands which can grip a basketball as easily as I can hold a softball, and long arms.

Another example, from Chad Harbach’s brilliant novel, The Art of Fielding.

His chest hair waved to the surface like marine flora straining toward the light.

Not all similes work though, as this example shows, author and title removed to protect the guilty.

Of course I recognized Maia, with her nut brown skin and shiny black hair running around like a playful seal on the dock.

This phrase popped me out immediately when I encountered it. Do seals run? Don’t they sort of lurch and lunge and wobble? Or is she suggesting Maia was running around and not her hair? I’m so confused. I suspect the author initially wrote the word puppy, and then changed it thinking it too cliche. The alliteration of playful puppy would be nice — and tempting — but it’s been done to death. Playful seal could work if she changed the word running.

Trapdoor of Depression

All similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. Google defines a metaphor as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Like the header, there.

An example that I liked in Kitty Thomas’s book Tender Mercies took a cliche and turned it original.

She’d always hated the saying “Misery loves company”. Misery hated company; it only made the blanket of pain that much thicker and impossible to untangle oneself from.

Lauren Groff, in her brilliant novel Fates and Furies, had this wonderful description of a group of friends arriving for a dinner party.

They handed over spider plants in terra-cotta, six-packs, books, bottles of wine. Yuppies in embryo, miming their parents’ manners. In twenty years, they’d have country houses and children with pretentious literary names and tennis lessons and ugly cars and liaisons with hot young interns. Hurricanes of entitlement, all swirl and noise and destruction, nothing at their centers.

Chapter 27 in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a font of wonderful description, simile, and metaphor. I probably highlighted more from that single chapter than in the previous four novels combined. Here’s an excerpt of J.K. Rowling’s work that I particularly enjoyed.

“That,” said Firenze calmly, “is human nonsense.” Parvati’s hand fell limply to her side. “Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents,” said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor. “These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements.”

“Professor Trelawney —” began Parvati, in a hurt and indignant voice.

“— is a human,” said Firenze simply. “And is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind.”

An Example From My WIP

Speaking of Firenze, the Italian city we know as Florence, it’s only fare that I share an excerpt from my upcoming book, Tailwinds Past Florence. Here’s a brief excerpt from the first scene.

The road was a cotton-blanketed ribbon of asphalt laid amongst a black forest of Douglas firs and slumbering aspen. The effect was one of a narrow trench cleaved into a plateau of treetops, the two cyclists mere drifters along a paved stream at the bottom of an inescapable gorge. Out in the distance, the steel-blue silhouette of the Rocky Mountains loomed. It was his first time to Montana, but Edward couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been here before. Not in a goose-bumpy déjà vu kind of way, but something deeper. Like a faded memory, played in reverse.

Rather than major in English as I had intended when I went off to college all those years ago, I focused on the sciences, avoiding English classes entirely. It’s not something I regret, as my experience with scientific research served me well as as a technical writer, but it does mean I sometimes need a refresher course in those old high-school language lessons. Though one doesn’t need to be capable of labeling various parts of speech in order to write well, I did find this lesson on metaphor and simile to be helpful. The Daily Writing Tips website is chock full of helpful articles like this.

Post image by Jocelyn Kinghorn, used under Creative Commons.

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Friday Links #29: Tai-Pan and the Perfect Reading Weather

I don’t normally complain about the Seattle area weather, unless it’s to exaggerate the gloominess of it in a public setting to further dissuade the masses from moving to the region. Yes, yes, it does rain every day. All year round–and traffic is so bad, our cars grow moss during the morning commute. Honestly. Stuff like that. But this year? This year needs no exaggeration.

Seattle has had just 3 sunny days above 40-degrees since October (and got more snow than Minneapolis). Here’s a link in case you don’t believe me. I live east of the city, in the foothills, in a town where annual rainfall averages 62 inches, twice that of the Emerald City. It’s been colder and rainier than I can remember in the thirteen years I’ve lived in this town. And it hasn’t even been close. The country would have shattered the record for hottest February on record last month if not for Washington and Oregon. 99 degrees in Oklahoma in February? That sounds nice right about now.

Though walking the dog has been a bit more of a nuisance and my desire to go mountain biking has taken a hit, I have to say that the incessant dreariness has been quite conducive for reading. After all, it’s harder to sit by the window reading when the sun and birdsong is floating in. I devoured a couple of quick reads earlier this year before finally turning my attention to Tai-Pan, the second book in the late James Clavell’s Asian Saga series. And what a book it is!

Set during the 1840s founding of Hong Kong, Tai-Pan, follows the leader of the most powerful trading company in the Far East, Dirk Struan. Myriad plot twists unfold over the ensuing 600 pages, each of them gradually complicating the dynamic between Struan and his brother, son, his chief rival, his Chinese mistress, the British Navy, the Mandarins, the Triads, the Portuguese Catholics, a Russian Prince, and pirates, smugglers, weather, and disease. The more I read, the more in awe I became of Clavell’s ability to ceaselessly bind additional story strands into such a tight rope.

The book is not without its challenges, however. For starters, the first twenty pages consist of a host of character introductions. It was difficult at first to keep track of who was who, as Clavell shifted point-of-view frequently, introducing each character’s opinions of the others in quick succession. This, combined with the mix of Chinese pidgin English and 19th century slang and Scots dialect, made some of the passages harder to read, especially early on when the reader is still adapting to the style.

Just before finishing Tai-Pan (the second in the series, following the unrelated masterpiece Shogun) I learned that the last of the six books to be published before Clavell’s death in 1994, titled Gai-Jin, is essentially a direct sequel to Tai-Pan, set just 20 years later. In one way, this was a spoiler of sorts, as learning who Gai-Jin starred as a protagonist alerted me to how one of the major plotlines in Tai-Pan was going to resolve. On the other hand, I was glad for this knowledge. As Tai-Pan wound its way to its conclusion, I was beginning to feel let down, that the climax it had been building toward had either taken place off-the-page or was coming to too neat of a conclusion. And the closer I got to the end of the book, the more let down I started to feel by the author’s choice. Right until the final two pages. My disappointment vanished on those final pages as my eyes flicked back and forth across the text. I reached the final sentence seconds later, breathless, my eyes stinging with tears of excitement.

And that’s why we read.

Bookish Links

William Fotheringham’s Top 10 Cycling Novels – An excellent list of suggested reading for those who want to dive into a novel in which the act of cycling is central to the theme of the book. Fotheringham spanned the globe (or at least Europe) to assemble this list and has some interesting summaries on each. I immediately added Bad to the Bone and The Rider to my list of books to read (though the former certainly has its share of bad reviews). Maybe we’ll see my own Tailwinds Past Florence in a list like this one day? I can only hope.
The Most Famous Books Set in Each State – Not the best, mind you, but the most famous. Though I’d cast my vote for Snow Falling on Cedars for Washington, I can at least be happy to see Twilight get the nod over Fifty Shades. This is a fun article to go through, especially if you try to guess each state’s entry before reading it. I tried to guess for my native NJ and figured it’d have to be something by Philip Roth. Nope. A short-story collection by someone I hadn’t heard of. There are plenty of other surprises on the list too.
Why Lena Dunham’s Advance is Not Crazy (The Earn-Out Fallacy) –  This is an older link, but one I’ve been wanting to post for a while. This article by Jason Pinter discusses the math behind large advances and the absurd notion that a book needs to “earn-out” in order for the publisher to make money. That’s not true at all. This isn’t to say that authors early in their career shouldn’t be concerned with earning their advance, as not earning-out on a small advance of, say, less than $20,000, is not a good sign for future success.
Interview with Lisa See   – The author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan has a new book on the way, one revolving around a very expensive, rare variety of Chinese tea called Pu’er. The interview discusses See’s interest in the topic, her historical research, the influences in her life, and even where to get the famed tea. The book, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, releases March 21st.
How Ten Years Producing “Car Talk” Helped Me Deal with Rejection – NPR fans will no-doubt be familiar with Car Talk, that wonderful radio show in which people from around the country called in with a range of car-related questions for the show’s witty hosts. What we listeners didn’t hear, however, was the behind the scenes screening process that ensured the show was successful. Cronin’s experience with filtering — and rejecting — callers is an excellent analogy to what agents and publishers have to face when reviewing manuscripts. Even the best books still need to land in front of the right person, with the right need, at the right time.

Bonus Link

World-First as Man Crosses Atlantic Ocean Unaided on Paddle Board –  No other explanation needed. Enjoy the story and photos at the link.

Post image by Nam-ho Park, used under Creative Commons.

The post Friday Links #29: Tai-Pan and the Perfect Reading Weather appeared first on Doug Walsh.

Kindle Scout and the Company You Keep

Amazon turned a lot of heads back in 2014 when it unveiled the Kindle Scout program, effectively giving writers a third choice in the decision to either query or self-publish. I had forgotten all about it, but the recent decision by Valve Software to do away with its user-curated Steam Greenlight program made me wonder how Kindle Scout was fairing.

For those unfamiliar with Kindle Scout, the program allows authors to submit their unpublished novels (50,000 word minimum) for user vetting. Anyone with an Amazon account can log in and nominate three books. Books that get the most nominations over the course of the 30 days spent on the Kindle Scout site are then passed along to the team of editors at Kindle Press. Some — not most — will be chosen for publication. Amazon then offers the writer a $1,500 advance in exchange for all e-book, audiobook, and translation rights for 5 years. Writers can opt out of renewing the contract should the book fail to make $25,000 in royalties over the term of the contract. Rights also revert to the author if the book fails to generate $500 in royalties over any 12-month period after the initial two-year period. Authors are free to self-publish the print version as they see fit.

Readers, in addition to helping support and uncover rising talent, are given free downloads of the books they nominate, provided those books are awarded a Kindle Press publishing contract. To make the whole thing even more enticing — after all, the Internet has a lot of flaws, but a lack of free reading material is not one of them — Amazon has gamified the Scouting experience, awarding people with points for nominating books, leaving reviews, and such. There’s even a leaderboard for those who care. Achievement unlocked!

Let’s Talk Money

 First things first. A $1,500 advance for a book that was going to otherwise be self-published is very nice. And seeing that a book would have to fail to earn $25,000 in royalties over five years (~2,850 copies sold annually) to break the contract (or $500 in 12 months) shows that Amazon has little intention of slapping their Kindle Press label on books that won’t sell. Or so it seems at first.

But in acquiring all of the digital rights, Amazon gains control over pricing. I spent some time looking up the books that had been published through the Kindle Scout program over the past year and did not see a single one priced above $3.49. Granted, many were under 250 pages, but one that weighed in at 373 pages, with a four-star average and 155 reviews, was still only priced at $3.49.

Amazon pays a flat 50% royalty to Kindle Press authors. Those who self-publish, as I did with One Lousy Pirate, earn a 35% royalty on e-books priced below $2.98 and a 70% royalty on those priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Thinking ahead to my own WIP, if I were to self-publish, I’d likely set the e-book price at $6.99 or higher.

At $3.49 and a 50% royalty, an author would have to sell 857 copies to earn-out. Only then would they begin to see any additional income. But taking matters into your own hands, at an e-book price of $6.99 and 70% royalty, you’d only have to sell 306 copies to make up that $1,500. Those other 551 copies sold would net you an extra $2700.

But What About the Marketing?

More than the $1,500, a lot of authors are tempted by the promise of Amazon’s marketing muscle. Not only having Kindle Press marketing your book, but also the dream of being picked up by one of Amazon’s in-house imprints. I hate to say it, but this is probably wishful thinking.

Spend any time looking at the books currently up for nomination and those that were selected recently and you’ll notice that the cover means (almost) everything. Each of the books that have been published by Kindle Press, with one or two exceptions, had a professional cover. This is the author’s responsibility and must be provided in order to make your book eligible for the Scout program. I’m not saying they were chosen because of the cover. But I am saying that the professional covers got the Scout’s attention (and Kindle Press’s) and is indicative of a book that likely also had professional editing and an author who cared. In other words, the things we authors should be doing on our own anyway.

The other thing I noticed is that Kindle Scout is not a surefire way to gain the might of Amazon’s marketing muscle. Many of the books recently published by Kindle Press had just a smattering of reviews and paltry sales ranks. Not only does this show that the books aren’t being pushed by Amazon (or their author), but that the people who nominated the book and received a free copy, did not take the time to leave a review.

If the so-called Scouts can’t be bothered to leave reviews, and evidence doesn’t suggest any active marketing by Kindle Press, then what are you getting, other than that $1500 and an extra set (or three) of eyes providing feedback before you publish?

Nominating with Extreme Prejudice 

I perused dozens of titles in the Literature & Fiction category on Kindle Scout last night and I have to say that the bulk of it was easily forgettable. I know this is harsh. I’m sorry, but that was my impression. Upon submission, authors must provide a professional cover, a short headline, a description, and the book’s interior. Scouts browse books by category and are shown a grid of covers, the title and headline, and the description. Clicking on a book lets you begin to read the first 5,000 words or so.

Of the 41 books currently in the Literature & Fiction category, the bulk of them either had an unappealing headline, an amateurish cover, or some other issue. I struggled to find three worth nominating. One I clicked on featured a beautiful cover, an enticing headline and intriguing description. Yet the writing could have benefited from a robust critique. I couldn’t get past the second flick of my mouse wheel.

Others seemed intent on using the service to market the absurd. And by intention. One, Time Burrito, was impossible to ignore. It was ridiculous. The cover was… well, just look at it. And that description! But I really enjoyed the honesty of the author’s Q&A:

“For this story, I decided to lock up the internal critic that told me, ‘No, don’t write that, that’s stupid.’ I wanted to write the most ridiculous story that I possibly could. A time travel burrito story with a cat pretty much covered the stupid quota. The rest of the story just fell into place.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have nominated it. Maybe it’s hypocritical of me to do so, when I’m about to say that I think as readers and writers it us up to us to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I like the idea of a gatekeeper. Valve’s Greenlight program provided a small hurdle for independent developers to clear before their software and games were placed on the Steam storefront. Without it, the store is swamped, forcing customers to swim through an ocean of low-quality, shovelware in hope of finding the game for them.

I applaud Amazon for using Scout to enlist its readers (or the author’s respective friends and family) to at least attempt to stem the tide. I may go the Scout route myself, especially if the terms of the agreement change. And that’s why I want to see great books on there. I want to see the books that “win” (after all, it is a bit of a popularity contest) do well, attract hundreds of reviews. Some are. One is even ranked #5,506 as I write this, out of all e-books. There are well over a million books on the Paid Kindle Store. But the bulk of the recent winners that I clicked on seemed to have little going. The author of one hadn’t even bothered to upload a profile photo for his Author Page.

I suppose I could have nominated that one with the great cover and description and hoped Kindle Press’s editors brought the writing up to speed, but what if they don’t? That only increases the chance of readers associating the Kindle Scout system — and its winning books — with lower quality offerings. That doesn’t benefit anyone except the author cashing a check for a book that likely wouldn’t have earned $1,500 otherwise. And for that reason I fear the Kindle Scout boat may have already sailed. After all, when was the last time you heard mention of it?

That Silver Lining Might Sting a Bit

Perhaps more important than the advance or being eligible “for targeted email campaigns and promotions” through Amazon is the fact that even those authors who don’t get published by Kindle Press can still email the people who nominated them to alert them to the book being available independently. That’s certainly something. You won’t necessarily gain those email addresses, but being able to alert the hundreds or thousands who voted for you just might kickstart your sales.

Or it might not, as author H.D. Knightley said: My emphasis.

Either I just marketed my arse off for an entire month to get KindleScout 1300 new customers, with no plus side for me. Or, I just marketed like crazy for my next book, contacting every friend, fan, stranger, and person within a 3 mile radius, and then after a whole month of working my arse off, KindleScout told all of those people, 1300 according to their dashboard, that my book wasn’t good enough to be published. Thanks KindleScout, glad I could help. I think if I were you, this last one is a huge negative. A screaming pile of stay away.

He’s right you know. I nominated some books back in 2014 when Kindle Scout first went live. A month later I received emails letting me know that none of them had gotten published. Did I go search the store months later and look for them on my own? No. No, I did not.

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Friday Links #28: Beyond Memoir

I gave a talk to the South Jersey Writer’s Group last Thursday night about my transition from wannabe travel writer to novelist. The presentation, Beyond Memoir: Let Travel Inspire Your Fiction, was a natural topic for me to wax knowledgeable on, and I was happy to see people taking notes and asking plenty of questions — though most of the questions were about my two-year bicycle travels. Understandable.

Standing in front of a group of strangers is something that’s always come easy to me. From presentations at scientific conferences during my time in college, to a semester I spent talking to high school freshman — often by the hundred — for Monster.com, and now to my post-travel talks and speaking gigs. It’s fun. So long as you are master of the material.

Last week’s presentation was brand new. It being a writing group, I knew I couldn’t just hit them with a pure travel presentation. I had to mix it up, come up with something different. And I was nervous. Not because I was worried I’d forget what I wanted to say or because of the pressure of trying to entertain and inform a room full of people, but because of the fear all creatives feel at some point in their career: the fear of being discovered a fraud.

Authors, artists, musicians, particularly those who have achieved early success, often discuss the fear of being found out. The dread that the first success was just luck — right book, right time. But the second? That’s when they’ll come for you. Pitchforks and red pens, oh they’ll come. And they won’t be kind.

It’s easy to stand in front of a crowd and show them pretty pictures and talk about how I planned and accomplished a journey that goes beyond what the majority would ever consider. Giving a talk about my travels is easy. Standing in front of peers, with no major success or, at best, a litany of tangentially-related credentials, is different. Fortunately, I was able to convince myself that even though my WIP is still very much IP, the years I’ve spent studying travel memoir, storycraft, my experiments with One Lousy Pirate, and what I know to have worked thus far, gave me the confidence to do just that.

The goal of my talk was to not speak as an expert, but to show others what is working for me. And how I believe we, as writers, can use our travels to add authenticity to our fiction. I discussed the lessons learned from my self-published travel story, the decision-making process that led to my abandoning travel memoir and embracing fiction for my current efforts, and the strengths and weaknesses of using the Internet as a substitute for on-the-ground experience. I also talked at length about the steps I took while traveling to ensure I had the research materials I would need for when I got home, regardless of genre.

I’d love to hear from anyone interested in scheduling this presentation for your group. Please use this form to contact me. Thanks.

Bookish Links

Experts Warn that Top Books Prizes Are Harming Fiction – Yes, I too rolled my eyes upon seeing the headline. But Danuta Kean makes a strong case to support her claim. Unfortunately, we see it in all mediums where art bumps up against consumer goods. Books, movies, video games. Success, whether commercial or critically, encourages imitation and a lack of risk-taking.
Writers on their Favorite Funny Book – Another link from The Guardian (I’m cleaning out my Flipboard likes). Here’s a number of hilarious books chosen by authors, complete with their reasons for liking the books. Of the books listed, I’ve only read one of them. Well, heard one of them. David Sedaris does a semi-annual show in Seattle. If the others on the list are as funny as Sedaris, my to-read list will get a lot longer.
When Did You Realize You Weren’t An Artist? –  My favorite of the links I’m posting today. David Toussaint flips society’s need to make artists explain themselves on its head. Rather than asking creatives when they realized they were going to be an artist, Toussaint suggests asking everyone else when they discovered they would’t be one.
Five of the Sexiest Scenes in Literature   – Another Guardian link. Anyway, this article features five quick examples of some steamy sex scenes in classic literature, including an excerpt from Nabokov. But no, it’s not Lolita. [Mental Note: Remember to read Lolita]
15 Movies All Entrepreneurs Love – This article from Shopify is for everyone looking for a little inspiration in their business lives. Going it alone can be scary — I’ve been self-employd my entire adult life, so trust me, I know — but movies like these help prime the pumps and keep the fear at bay. We might not all be Zuckerbergs-in-the-making, but success comes in many levels, as these movies show.

Bonus Link

Tokyo Violin Maker’s Apprentice Fulfills Lifetime Dream at 81 –  Never say you’re too old to reinvent yourself. Never say you’re too old to learn a new skill or be retrained. If you ever catch yourself thinking such ridiculous thoughts, just remember the story of Amadio Arboleda, a man who, at age 78, decided it was finally time to learn how to make a violin, just as he always dreamed. It took three years, but he did it.

Post image by Pero Kvrzica, used under Creative Commons.

The post Friday Links #28: Beyond Memoir appeared first on Doug Walsh.

Friday Links #27: Half-Price Books

I had a problem. My car sat idling outside the waiting room as my keys were dangled in front of me on the outstretched arm of the smiling clerk at Discount Tire. The new rubber was installed and I was supposed to leave, but I hadn’t finished the book I was reading. I wasn’t close, I still had at least seventy or eighty pages left, and I had things to do. But I was hooked; the Australis finally struck the iceberg. And Keller was aboard. I couldn’t stop now.

I flung the library hardcover edition of My Last Continent into the passenger seat and sped over to Crossroads, the un-mall in the glitz-less corner of Bellevue where one of the coveted leather armchairs sat awaiting my arrival, a stout wooden chair already pulled alongside it like an end-table ready to shoulder my coat and coffee. For ninety more minutes I read, finishing the book, comfortable not only in the seat, but in the smells and sounds of my surroundings.

Crossroads is a time machine for me. To smell its hodgepodge of international food stalls, to hear its endless array of free public concerts, and to see the casual, relaxed mingling of its locals is to return fifteen years to when I first moved to Washington State. Never before had I seen such a variety of ethnicity in one place — people from all corners of the world chatted, pushed strollers, ate, and relaxed and browsed together. Nowhere had I smelled the aromas of Thai and Vietnamese foods mingling with the scents of burritos, pizza, dolmades, and empanadas with not a chain restaurant to be seen. Nor had I before seen a life-size chessboard or other gaming tables arranged for public use alongside a satellite library branch. Crossroads isn’t a mall. It’s a community center, market, and melting pot.

I was surprised to see the space formerly occupied by Barnes & Noble empty and available for lease, but it wasn’t what brought me there. Aside from the comfy seating and a chance to snag a quick lunch, I came for my favorite store in Bellevue: Half-Price Books. As its name suggests, Half-Price Books is a second-hand, discount bookstore that happens to also buy used books, music, and movies for cash. I sold a lot of my books here before we left on our trip. Some I wish I still had.

Nowadays, thanks to doing most of my reading on the Kindle, I’ve turned more into a book collector than a book buyer. I keep a running list on Goodreads of books that I have rated 5-stars. These are the books that I’d like to honor with a spot on my bookshelf. Preferably hardcover, ideally first-edition when affordable. So after lunch I opened the Goodreads app on my phone and headed to the alphabetized aisles of the literature section. For $41, here is what I came home with.

My Five-Star Favorites

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes – 2010, First Edition, hardcover, very good condition, some slight wrinkling of the dust jacket.
Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck – 1995 Book-of-the-Month Club Edition, hardcover w/clear jacket protector, new condition (originally published 1961)
Her Privates We by Frederic Manning – 2013 Serpent’s Tail Edition, trade paperback, new condition (originally published 1929)

Other Purchases

Tai-Pan by James Clavell – Was looking for a collectible copy of Shogun but had been wanting to read the next book in Clavell’s Asian Saga Series anyway, so bought this.
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima – Was looking for a collectible copy of The Sound of Waves but saw a stack of this book for $3 each.

Bookish Links

What 12 Debut Authors Did Right on Their Journeys to Publication – Getting published is about getting a well-written book in front of the right person at the right time. And hoping they can convince the other editors at the publishing house to buy into it. There’s a lot of good advice here.
A Library From the Future Arrives in Denmark – Not just a place to store books, but a space for people to play, renew passports, take classes, and complete civic tasks. And it not only looks out of this world, but has a fully-automated robotic underground parking lot.
How to Read 200 Books a Year –  There’s some rather generous math involved here (fast reading rate, short books) but the gist of it is that if you took the average time you spent on social media and television and applied it to reading, you could easily read a bookshelf’s worth of books each year.
Cheryl Strayed Was $85k in Debt When Wild Got Published   – This is a fascinating interview with the author of the hiking memoir, Wild. What makes this interview so unique is that Strayed doesn’t shy away from talking about money. Her advance, the wealth that followed, and the years of struggle that preceded it all. Too many authors are reticent to discuss the financials, but it benefits all writers to do so.
10 Contemporary Novels by and About Muslims You Should Read – Some of my most memorable reads were books written by people from other cultures. And sometimes it’s because it’s a great way of showing how similar we all really are. From fantasy to crime mysteries to a faux-memoir named The Moor’s Account (which sounds fascinating) there’s a bit of everythign on here.

Bonus Link

Claw Machines are Rigged – Here’s Why It’s So Hard to Grab that Stuffed Animal –  Complete with video and claw machine setting charts, this is guaranteed to anger anyone who ever thought ripped off by one of these machines. It should also throw some cold water on anyone who ever thought they won because of their impressive skill.

The post Friday Links #27: Half-Price Books appeared first on Doug Walsh.

First Sentences – Fiction (2016)

It’s time for my annual look at the opening lines from each of the books I read the prior year. I started doing this exercise early last year for all of the books I read in 2014 and 2015. I do this for a couple of reasons. For starters, it’s a nice way to be reminded of all the great books I read the prior year. But more than that, it’s a wonderful way to see how styles and techniques have changed over the years. The opening line has so many jobs to do. It must hook the reader, it must demand questions, it must showcase the writer’s voice and hint at the point-of-view. Or, as you will see, it might do none of these things.

If you missed my earlier posts in this series, here’s the gist: I take a look at the opening line from each book I read in a given year and critique it’s effectiveness as it pertains to hooking the reader’s attention and making them ask questions. A good opening line should spur the reader’s mind to curiously demand answers to the questions of who, what, why, when, where, and how. At least I think so, anyway.

Fiction

Much of 2016 was spent reading books that were either inspired by a reading group (that only reads from dead authors), reading classics I had been long-overdue in reading, or reading books that would help me better understand the genres/category in which I’m writing. And I also re-read a couple old favorites. I might cover my non-fiction books in a later post. For now, let’s talk fiction!

1) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1990)

The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

This sentence, from the Prologue, makes us wonder who the alchemist is (or what one is, for those unfamiliar with the term). It’s an in-the-midst-of-it style opening that doesn’t reveal much, but gives us a cue as to the location (caravans take place in the desert). I included the second short sentence because, in stopping at the story of Narcissus, we’re given a hint as to the alchemist’s interests.

2) The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago (1986)

When Joana Carda scratched the ground with the elm branch all the dogs of Cerbere began to bark, throwing the inhabitants into panic and terror, because from time immemorial it was believed that, when these canine creatures that had always been silent started to bark, the entire universe was nearing its end.

A mouthful of a passive sentence that is a far cry from today’s tendency for shorter, more direct writing. Yet, who is not curious? The Cerbere — aka the hounds of hell — are barking and the universe is nearing its end. All from a woman scratching the ground with an elm branch? Please, do continue…

3) Every Secret Thing by Susanna Kearsley (2006)

I’ve been told, by people more experienced at writing, that the hardest part of telling any story is the search for its beginning and its end.

This is the second novel I’ve read by Susanna Kearsley (she actually sent me this after seeing me mention our September trip to Portugal — the book is set there) and one of the things I enjoy about her books is that she often weaves the life of a writer into the story. This sentence is of Hemingway’s “one true sentence” variety and it works. The narrator is about to tell us an unbelievable story that is part family history, part international murder mystery/thriller. This sentence is from the Prologue.

4) It by Stephen King (1986)

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

A brilliant opening. For one, we’re told that the terror is going to last 28 years. We’re exposed to a narrator who may not be the most reliable (so far as I know or can tell), and we’re left wondering how a sheet of folded newspaper can initiate decades of terror. I hadn’t ever read It before and, frankly, I thought it could have been improved by being 300 pages shorter. But the opening pages hooked me big time!

5) Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (2015)

A thick drizzle from the sky, like a curtain’s sudden sweeping.

Yes, a literary novel. How’d you guess? The first paragraph consists of three short, direct sentences about setting (and the weather, no less?!). The other two aren’t as devoid of verbs as this one is, but even combined there is little hook. The opening offers no hints to the characters, the events, or why you should care. That all changes very quickly. But here, in this opening line, we’re offered the writer’s style than anything about the story other than mood.

6) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (2003)

The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.

Book five in the HP series welcomes readers back to Privet Drive, deep into the summer recess. For such a beloved series, and one that almost always begins each book in similar fashion, this is a superb opening. Privet Drive is where it all began and where we love returning to, knowing Harry is likely only a few days from returning to Hogwarts. Ah, back to school season is upon us again!

7) The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (2015)

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

I have never highlighted more of an opening chapter than I did in The Nightingale. The opening is exquisitely written and shows us right away that the bulk of the book will take place in the past. It will be about love, about war, and self-discovery from a life that has seen it all. This opening line doesn’t just grab our attention, but lets us know right away that we are about to spend 500 pages with an author who knows how to write a beautiful sentence.

8) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929)

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.

Life is not fair. And times change. Query an agent today with that as your opening line and I doubt she’ll keep reading. The form-letter rejection slip will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks. Wait for it. There’s nothing particularly awful about that opening, but it’s all setting and no hook. Yes, it’s world-at-rest setup, but does it leave us asking any question other than, So? Not in my opinion. But it’s Hemingway, and it’s Farewell to Arms and its a classic (though not nearly as good as For Whom the Bell Tolls in my opinion. Sigh.

9) Storming: A Dieselpunk Adventure by K.M. Weiland (2015)

Flying a biplane, especially one as rickety as a war-surplus Curtiss JN-4D, meant being ready for anything.

What I like about this opening is that it manages to do three things subtly in very few words. 1) mentioning the biplane gives us an idea of the time period: Early 20th century. 2) specifically mentioning the model plane tells us the author did her homework and there’s going to be at least a modicum of authenticity to the book, and 3) the final words hint at a lot of unexpected action and reaction in the coming pages. It might even get frenetic. This is going to be one barn burner of a read, pardon the pun.

10) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

In addition to wondering how Jem got his arm broken or why it was important enough to mention, we’re given an idea of the locale. Jem isn’t a northern name. It’s not a California name. It’s a southern name (though the book blurb would have already told us that). We’re also informed that the narrator is going to be telling us a story from his/her youth (we don’t know it’s a girl yet), in flashback. Other than that, we don’t know much.

11) Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993)

I had my recurring dream last night. I guess I should have expected it.

I included the second line because the first sentence on its own does little for us. Modern writers are told to never begin with a dream. Mention of a recurring dream is okay, but the opening is not very interesting. That she expected it is at least somewhat interesting. A rather dull opening on its own.

12) The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek (1983)

The piano teacher, Erika Kohut, bursts like a whirlwind into the apartment she shares with her mother.

The word teacher implies a certain age. At least mid twenties (though it could be younger or much older). That she lives with her mother suggests something not quite right, so we’re interested. One of the things I like about this opening is that we are told immediately that the title character is Erika Kohut. That the author uses her full name suggests to us that she is a very formal character. It’s a nice way to show us she’s formal without telling us.

13) The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks (2000)

It would later be called one of the most violent storms in North Carolina history.

This is a nice way of beginning with the weather without literally beginning with the weather. We know we’re looking back at it by the word choice, and we also know to expect a tragedy (or near-tragedy) by the fact that Sparks mentions it was a most violent storm. Still, for the purposes of this exercise, it’s one of the weaker entries.

14) The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2003)

Imagine that you are living your life out of order: Lunch before breakfast, marriage before your first kiss.

This is such a wonderful beginning, I feel like I don’t even need to say anything. That marriage before your first kiss line really says it all. It’s a fantastic hook that commands our full attention from the first sentence. This was a really fun book. One of my favorite reads of last year, for sure. And the movie wasn’t bad either.

15) The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (1915)

As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm.

Another example of how times have changed in what is considered acceptable for an opening line. Though there is a faint suggestion of some sort of mishap or tragedy to come, beginning with a description about a single narrow street is not very engaging. The fact that she mentions arm-in-arm suggests that there’s a romance at work, or at least that we’re about to meet two characters in a relationship, but on its own this sentence does very little.

16) Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

3 May. Bistritz. – Left Munich at 8:35 p.m., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.

Dracula begins with a diary. And a rather boring one at that. This is the world-at-rest before the narrator arrives at Dracula’s Castle. It’s telling us about a journey and the mundane frustrations one has suffered (which was likely a bit more interesting in 1897). Reading it today the only questions we’re left wondering are about his final destination. Well, that, and how a German train could possibly be running late.

17) Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006)

Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook.

This is the first line in the prologue of one of my favorite novels, a book I’ve read several times. I really like this opening, as it foreshadows a horrible event — only three people were left — and hints at the era and the type of characters we’ll meet. Using words like grease joint and fry cook are specific enough to complement the book cover/blurb (we know it’s about a circus) without bogging down in specifics.

18) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1945)

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

This is one of my all-time favorite openings (and used to be my favorite book). I consider it right up there with the famed opening of Pride and Prejudice. I can’t think of an opening sentence that better reveals what the narrator is like than this one here. Reading this book as a high schooler, it made me want to become an author. Reading it last year, again, it made me want to ring Holden’s whiny little neck.

The post First Sentences – Fiction (2016) appeared first on Doug Walsh.

Friday Links #26: Catching Up, Movie Time

Is it February already? I have a vague sense of where January went (and know today isn’t Friday, but… so be it). A lot of it was spent preparing the first 25 pages of my novel for submission to a literary contest (and writing the blasted one-page synopsis that must accompany it). A few days were spent convincing myself that my idea for a talk I’m giving later this month isn’t drivel — and then putting that talk together and rehearsing it. It’s titled “Beyond Memoir: Let Travel Inspire Your Fiction” and I’ll be presenting it at the February meeting of the South Jersey Writer’s Group. My wife sat through my rehearsal last night and gave it two thumbs up. I’ve also been doing some freelance writing for a local bike shop.

So the blog took a backseat. My apologies to all of you who recently subscribed to the blog after finding your way to the review I wrote for the Runtastic Results app. I hope your fitness goals are being met!

Added to all of that other stuff (and running and mountain biking), I spent some time writing, revising, and rewriting a sequence of scenes that build up to a major act break in my story. I think they came out pretty darn good. Every day I get even more excited to share the work with the world. But that time is not now.

Now I want to mention two movies I watched this past month: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared and The One I Love. Both were bizarre, funny, and uniquely wonderful. I’m not sure about Netflix, but both were available on Amazon Prime Video.

The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared isn’t just a contender for longest movie title, but also the highest-grossing Swedish film of all time. It’s an at-times hilarious story about a centenarian who, tired of living in an assisted-living home, ventures out his window, ends up with a suitcase filled with a million dollars, and soon has a biker gang chasing after him. And there’s an elephant involved. It has a wonderful Forest Gump quality to it as Allan finds his way in several historically-important situations over the course of his life, all thanks to his love of bombs. The movie is narrated in English, but some of the dialogue is in Swedish and therefore subtitled. Don’t let that stop you though, it’s a terrific film.

 

The One I Love caught our eye because it’s by the people behind Safety Not Guaranteed which was another really funny, quirky, indie film we enjoyed. The One I Love is about a couple who are sent to a retreat by their marriage counselor. They arrive at a fantastic home in the hills, complete with a cottage that has a, let’s just say, unique characteristic to it. Really, it’s impossible to talk about this movie without giving away too much, so I’m just going to leave the trailer here and offer strict instruction to watch the movie at your earliest convenience. It’s weird, it’s funny. It’s got a certain je ne sais WTF.

 

Bookish Links

What Our Editors Look for on an Opening Page – This article by Phil Stampler-Halpin from Penquin Random House discusses the things editors look for when reviewing a manuscript submission. What I like about this article isn’t just that it reminds us writers of the things we ought already know, but he gives some nice examples of different books that check those boxes.
Using Weather to Create Mood, Not Cliches – This is a helpful article by Angela Ackerman about the dangers — and benefits — of using weather in your opening scene. The opening scene of my WIP, Tailwinds Past Florence, does take place in a spring snowfall, but you don’t get mention of the weather until three or four paragraphs in. And even then it’s by showing the protag reacting to the weather, not a weather report.
Book Returned to Seattle Library More than 40 Years Overdue, With Apology Note Inside –  Here’s a very Seattle story for your enjoyment, complete with video from KOMO News.
What is Mainstream Fiction?   – I encountered this article while working on my contest entry which, not coincidentally, happens to be in the Mainstream category. And I say category and not genre intentionally, as Mainstream is not a genre, in that it doesn’t have prescribed conventions. It’s also a lot more than that, as this helpful article helps explain.
Maxims and Mottoes From Masters of One-Liners: A Reading List – This is a bit high-brow, but here’s an interesting collection of books of essays to read for those who appreciate a good quote.

Bonus Link

At Cuyuna, MTB Trails Revitalize ‘Forgotten Region’ –  The world is changing, and no election result is going to roll it back to the way things were. Increased automation, new inventions, and changing mindsets are the only constant. Fortunately, towns left behind by industry that has since moved on or died off can find rebirth in outdoor recreation. The town of Cuyuna, Minnesota, abandoned after the iron mines closed decades ago, has found new life as a tourist destination thanks to a commitment to build world-class mountain bike trails. Over a dozen new businesses have opened since trail construction began.

Post image by Larry Jacobsen, used under Creative Commons.

The post Friday Links #26: Catching Up, Movie Time appeared first on Doug Walsh.