Alida Winderhimer's Blog

Alida Winternheimer, author

Avoid hyper-realism in your writing.

This applies to fiction and nonfiction, especially narrative nonfiction, but I’m going to talk about it in the context of story.

Hyper-realism is when you let the details of what your character is doing bog down the pace of the story. If you are concerned with telling a compelling story, one that keeps your readers engaged, you need to cut away anything that might bore the reader, even if it means leaving big chunks of your character’s life off the page.

Whenever I see this, I’m reminded of diaries. When I was a kid, diaries were cute little, hard cover, blank books for girls. They had fairies or ponies on the covers. Typically, brass latches closed and locked the cover. The diary came with a little brass key the Diary Keeper could put on a chain around her neck to keep the precious contents of the pages safe.

Now, why on earth would any nine-year-old girl have to lock away her words? Because she spilled forth onto those pages her deepest secrets, crushes, betrayals, and heartaches. It’s the kind of stuff her big brother might like to read—if only to tease her. It’s the stuff of story.

Years ago,I went to the Goodhue County Historical Society to conduct research for a historical novel. The GCHS had 19th century farmers’ diaries. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them! Diaries! Written by farmers a century ago! Surely, like that little brass key, these diaries were going to reveal secrets of 19th century life that would make my novel.

Do you know what I found in those diaries?

One Scandinavian farmer after another dutifully recorded his day’s activities and accounts. Things like: Sunrise 6:18. Drove oxen with trees to mill. Milled 23 new pine boards for addition to barn. Mercantile: 16¢ 3’ leather thong. $1.25 8 lbs sugar. $3.70 5 yds green woolen. & & & (I made up these entries to illustrate a point—don’t think those amounts are meaningful.)

I was impressed with the dedication to keeping diaries as a part of farm life. The entries were meticulous accounts of daily life, if you only cared about accounts. There was almost no narrative involved, and almost nothing I could use in my novel.

If the nine-year-old girl’s diary is a romantic fantasy, the Scandinavian farmer’s diary is hyper-realism. A good story lies somewhere in the middle.

Story worthy.

How do you know if you’re writing like a Scandinavian farmer?

You know you need to get your character out of bed and into work, so you start the scene in bed. Then write her getting to work over the course of ten pages.

You find yourself envisioning your character going through the motions of her day as you write, and writing down everything she does, from opening her eyes to brushing her teeth to taking a leak. From opening her filing cabinet to tabbing through the alphabet to putting Jones in place after Johnson and before Jonnson.

Your scenes include lots of details that aren’t relevant to your story, the stuff that happens before or between the interesting stuff.

Maybe the diary analogy wasn’t your favorite. Here’s another one:

You know that person on Facebook who posts photos of her vacation and her sister’s wedding and her baby’s birth and her triathlon…and after perusing her photo stream, you’re like, “Damn, that woman knows how to live!”

And then there is that person who posts photos of what he ate for breakfast and his car in the grocery store parking lot and the snow he shoveled and his coffee cup in his cubicle and the sushi he bought at Whole Foods on his lunch break…and after seeing all that, you’re tempted to hide him!

It’s not that the first person lives a better life than the second, it’s that the first person tells a better story. Story is not about the mundane. You can’t afford to have readers wanting to hide your character’s photo stream. You want your readers to be like, “Damn!”

Hyper-yawn-realism.

If you’ve realized you sometimes write hyper-realism. How do you fix your story?

Identify the plot and subplots of your story.
Identify the character’s goal and obstacles to that goal.
Identify the theme(s) of your story.

For every scene you have on the page, ask yourself if it is advancing the plot or a subplot, furthering the theme, or advancing your character’s pursuit of the goal. If it isn’t, it’s extraneous. It’s not serving the story.

Let’s say you want to write a scene in which your character gets out of bed or brushes her teeth? I have written several myself. How do you show that sort of mundane activity successfully? By making sure the scene is doing more than one thing. In other words, it can’t just be a scene of people brushing their teeth for the sake of brushing their teeth.

Maybe your couple is having a fight over the sink. Maybe they seem perfectly happy, but your POV character is wracked with anxiety.

Maybe as your detective is doing research in the library, she makes a discovery that advances the plot.

If you can’t combine elements to make that mundane stuff both interesting and relevant to the story, cut it. Start the story in media res, which means start with action.

If you really need to get us from A to B, use a brief passage of summary between more active scenes. You can also use a line of white space between scenes to show the gap in time. We don’t need to see the character wake up, get out of bed and go to work. Start at work after that nice white scene break.

Sometimes that mundane stuff provides a rest between action scenes or sets mood or establishes something interesting about your character. You can begin a scene with mundane stuff, but keep it short. In Dark Corners in Skoghall, Isabella gives Jess her diary. I have to do something with it, so I show Jess sitting down to read. It doesn’t take long for her phone to ring, bringing us all back to a more active scene. There’s another scene where Jess goes into the Village Hall to make a phone call. I want the reader to know she makes this call, but the content of the call has already been shown in scene. While she’s on the phone, Isabella shows up, which reveals something new about her abilities, something Jess figures out while making the call. In that instance, I could say the action of the scene is the phone call. But the scene is about Isabella’s new trick.

Sometimes you need mundane stuff to set up a more interesting scene later. I have Shakti run away at the beginning of the book in order to establish a behavior that becomes important later. That’s fine. Again, keep such scenes brief and see if you can layer in some tension. In that scene, Jess’s friend was supposed to be watching Shakti, so my purpose is to show that Shakti is willing to leave Jess’s side and go wandering, but the reader is more likely to focus on the fact that Jess’s friend screwed up.

Yes, give your characters lives to live, including mundane stuff, but don’t focus on the mundane, don’t let it drag out in real time, and make sure that while you’re showing us the day-in-the-life stuff you are also advancing the character, plot, or theme.

Recommendations:

Check out stories where the mundane is integral to the story and analyze why the story remains engaging. Why does this work? Why do I care about someone’s morning ritual?

Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday opens with the protagonist getting out of bed.
The film American Beauty opens with the protagonist getting out of bed.
John Sandford’s crime novels show a lot of detective work, including legwork and paperwork, yet he keeps the stories moving with plenty of dramatic tension.

The post Avoid Hyper-realism appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

Do you listen to Mat and Nancy on the Author Strong Podcast…and envy Nancy just a little bit?

Did you hear Angela McConnell talk to Simon Whistler about why she volunteered to do the show notes for the Rocking Self Publishing Podcast…and wish you’d thought to email Simon first?

Whatever you call it, the goal is the same: learn by doing while receiving personal feedback from someone advanced in your field.

If you’ve ever thought: I’d like to be mentored! I’d gladly trade a few hours a week to learn from someone in the game! I’d like to work with someone already connected in the authorpreneur world! Now’s your chance.

I’m beginning work on a series of books on story craft, and I’m looking for the right person to assist me and receive a private tutorial in fiction writing.

If you’re interested in being my apprentice, let me know and we’ll see if a mentoring match is made!

 

The post Apprentice Wanted appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

Rebekah would like to know about writing multiple points of view, so I’m going to tackle that topic in this week’s blog post.

Which is to say, I’ll touch on point of view, briefly, in part, because point of view, POV, is a massive topic. It’s also one of the most difficult things to do well, because it requires control. Your POV should never be accidental. You need to select the right POV for the story you are telling.

If you’re planning to write a multiple POV story, stop. Ask yourself: does this story require multiple POVs? If so, why?

If you can’t honestly say that your story needs multiple POVs, don’t write them.

Before I discuss reasons to use multiple POVs, I want to point out that we are a culture of film-lovers. Television-watching is surely the biggest pastime in this country. In film, whether television or movies, the camera follows any character anywhere and we, as viewers, have become accustomed to knowing who’s doing what at any time in any place. Film is all about multiple POV, and often the camera acts as an omniscient narrator, showing us things the hero would never know. We as viewers are used to being clued in to far more than our protagonist.

This is an effective form of storytelling in film, where you lack the voice of the author-narrator, or narrative exposition. What could be conveyed on the page through scene or summary must and can only be conveyed in pictures through the camera (unless they use a narrator voice-over). Viewed like this, we could claim that film must compensate for the lack of a narrator.

When writers learn how to tell stories from their experience watching films, there is the danger of using a technique that was developed by and for film, because it is familiar, not because it is the best choice for the story.

At best, multiple POVs are a carefully controlled means of bringing different perspectives to bear on a scenario.
At worst, multiple POVs are head hopping.

Head hopping results in redundancies, a lack of tension, and barely distinguishable characters.

 

Suppose you are thoroughly convinced your story requires multiple POVs, and you have sworn that you will not head hop. Now what?

How many POVs is enough?

The story will determine the number. Not you. The story.

Each POV must bring a unique perspective to bear on the scenario.

That means POVs are not used for convenience. Not because you want to show something happening behind the hero’s back. Not because you think the only way the reader will get the antagonist’s motivation is by getting in his head.

How many unique POVs are required to tell this story?

Sometimes the answer is simple. In A Stone’s Throw, I have three POVs, because it is a story about a love triangle.

Each POV character must be unique.

This means a reader should know who is on the page without being told. It’s a good idea to tell them anyway, but if your characters are blending together, if you aren’t sure who’s doing the thinking or talking or acting, then they aren’t distinct from each other. Lose a POV or two.

POV isn’t just about putting the reader in front of some action your hero isn’t witnessing, it’s about the individual perspective of the character. The reader lives the story through the POV character(s). That POV is precious. It is the vehicle carrying your story. The only reason we get to know a character, relate to him, love him, are fascinated by him, etc. is because we are experiencing the world through him.

If you are using unjustified POVs, you’re diluting the power of your main character by taking the reader away from him, and—because your main character is the reader’s vehicle through the story—you are effectively dulling the thrills on your ride.

Besides, character development is hard. You should know your POV character as well as you know yourself. Do you really want to do that for multiple characters? If the story requires it, yes. If not, multiple POVs are make-work.

Your POV must contribute to dramatic tension, not diminish it.

Whether the scene is subtle or explosive, it must have dramatic tension. Dramatic tension gets the reader wondering, anticipating, and turning the page. My favorite example of subtle dramatic tension that applies here comes from Harry Potter.

Remember when Hermione had the time turner and was taking extra classes? Throughout the book, we don’t know about the time turner. We only know that Hermione keeps turning up as though out of thin air. Ron and Harry keep asking each other, “Where did she come from?”

Because Rowling stuck to the singular POV, we didn’t know what was going on with Hermione and her strange appearances until Harry did. That means, for most of the book, it was a mystery. Mystery, my friends, is dramatic tension. We wonder what the deal is with Hermione. We anticipate it being revealed sooner or later. We keep turning the pages to find out. In this case, it’s a subtle tension, a small mystery, but the pay off is huge, because the time turner figures big in the climax.

If Rowling had chosen to use multiple POVs, Hermione and Ron surely would have been POV characters. We would have known all about the time turner along with Hermione. And there goes the dramatic tension. No mystery, no anticipation, no page turning.

Which brings me to my next point…

Revelation. Revelation. Revelation.

The reveal is precious. Never give it away. It will make your book. Its lack will…you know.

If Hermione had shown us the time turner in Act 1, it would have been a neat little trick. And then in Act 3, when it was needed, we probably would have seen it coming. Why don’t they just go back in time and fix that?

Revelation is your currency. Bank it. Guard it. Spend it wisely.

Rowling established a huge problem for Harry—Sirius Black’s capture and Buckbeak’s execution. Hermione had the solution, but none of us saw it coming because that thing she’d been doing, Rowling kept it a mystery. We did not know about it until Harry did, because Harry is the only POV character.

Extra POV characters can spill the beans and spoil the opportunity for creating a wonderful reveal. The reveal is that moment that is a revelation for the reader.

Are any of your POVs revealing too much? If so, axe them!

 

What are good reasons for using multiple POVs?

You are writing parallel stories that occur in disparate locations. M.G. Herron has two POVs in The Auriga Project (multiple third), one per planet. The POV characters begin and end the story together, but for most of the book, they are apart and the action in each location runs parallel to the other. Two settings, two plotlines, two POVs.


Having more than one POV actually increases the tension. In the film The Fugitive, we follow both Harrison Ford’s and Tommy Lee Jones’s characters. They represent the cat and the mouse, and we get to see both of them in action as they work to outmaneuver each other.
When each character’s perspective enriches the reader’s experience of the story, as in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (multiple first). This book is a wonderful example of how a character’s age, experience, and perspective will alter the depiction of events.

 

So, you’ve done some soul searching.

Your story requires multiple POVs. Each POV character is fully developed and unique. Each POV contributes to the dramatic tension. All of your POVs contribute revelations to the story arc.

In that case, you are not head hopping.

Your POVs are earned.

Write on!

The post Writing Multiple Points of View appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

Read Part 1 of this post, “Develop Your Protagonist’s Flaws,” here.

I’m going to continue discussing your protagonist, because one of my readers, Julia, had good follow-up questions. Whether you’re considering your protagonist’s strengths or weaknesses, the process is the same for building a 3-D character.

Julia said she would like her protagonist’s flaw to be something extra that adds value to the story or even entertains the reader. But she’s concerned that might not make sense with her plot. Let’s address this.

The flaw will always originate in your character’s backstory. We do not follow a protagonist from birth to death, therefore, he has a backstory that shaped his character. Just like you have a childhood that shaped your character.

Speaking of entertainment value, why is Indiana Jones afraid of snakes? I’m not sure what his trauma (the backstory) was, but the insertion of snakes in the plot and his reactions to them added brilliant moments of levity to the story. If your adventurous detective’s mother was beat by his father, he might be a cool cookie until he sees a man grab a woman and yank her out the door. Then he might lose it. Surely there will be somewhere that would come out in the story, just like in real life.

Journal about your protagonist’s life. I’m willing to bet money you’ll come up with things that can effectively play out in your story without seeming inorganic. Rowling always knew Dumbledore is gay, but she never used it on the page. Still, it shaped how she wrote him and his relationships with other characters. Start with your character. Don’t force things into your plot. When you know his history and build him a whole life, his flaws will occur naturally, usually when he reacts to something. If you remember my example from my own work, it’s natural for Beckett to get mad if he feels lied to. Until I remembered that, I had him mad for another reason, and it felt awkward and the scene felt forced.

If a dramatic moment feels forced, remember the famous actor’s question: “What’s my motivation?” Once you know your character’s motivation, the reaction will become natural.

Julia points out there are so many flaws to choose from, it’s hard to know what to pick. Should she focus on her plot, her hero’s strengths, the theme, etc? She asks, “In what order do you work on flaws and events?”

I wouldn’t look at it as a question between flaws and events, but between traits and scenarios.

If my story is about a young detective, then I know the primary scenario for each book: Trouble finds Young Detective. Young Detective escapes trouble. Young Detective solves case. Each book in a series will be different, but the scenario won’t change from one to the next.

You need to build a character who can fill those shoes. We know he’s young. We know he’s a detective. What traits are required? Let’s brainstorm a few possibilities.

Young: inexperienced, naïve, trusting, unskilled, gullible, hormones raging, energetic, untainted by the world, optimistic, idealistic, single, free…

Detective: brave, enjoys a challenge, smart, can hold his own with older adults, not your average teen, has some unexpected skills…

Let’s call those traits that are required by your scenario the character blueprint. Every Young Detective could be modeled on the same blueprint, just like hundreds of homes could be built from the same set of plans.

Variety and specificity are what make homes interesting. The same is true with people and your characters.

There are tudors everywhere in my neighborhood. They’re all similarly shaped with pitched rooflines, decorative half-timber framing, and multi-gabled rooflines. So how does one tell them apart? Color, landscaping, decoration… It’s the same with people. How do you tell one Young Detective from the next? Color, landscaping, decoration…

So we know your Young Detective is going to be inexperienced and brave. Energetic and smart. Establish your blueprint, the traits your scenario requires. Then decide how to make your house—I mean protagonist—different than all the others out there.

To do that, journal. Find out your Young Detective’s life story. Was he bit by a dog at age 4? What happens when a dog is introduced in one of your plots?

After you’ve done your character development work, do your plot work. Story board the series.

Yes, the series.

Now look for moments in the story arc when you can use some of this character work. Like that villain in book 3 who lives in a secured manor with Doberman Pincers patrolling the grounds.

Also, look for areas where you can add levity to your story without forcing it. How do you not force it? By doing your work now and establishing the character’s trait before you need it. Let’s say you’re writing Indiana Jones and you’re sitting around with a bunch of writer friends. One of you says, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Indy climbs into a plane and a giant snake slithers into his lap?” And another of you says, “Yeah, only the plane is already in the air, so he can’t go anywhere!” Then you all laugh at your brilliance.

Well, if you have this bright idea in the planning stages, it’ll work. You’ll make it work by establishing early in the series that Indy hates snakes. If that airplane moment is the establishing moment, it will have to come early in the story. If you never mention snakes until book 3, then suddenly there’s a snake and Indy is petrified, guess what? You blew it. Your reader probably won’t believe it, because you didn’t establish it up front. Want another example? When did you first learn that Harry Potter can speak to snakes?

These are called plants. 

I have one in Skoghall—I have quite a few, actually. Mitch, Jess’s ex, is mentioned several times in the first couple of books, and will be mentioned again in book 3. Why? I’m establishing not only his existence, but also something of Jess’s feelings toward him, so when he’s a key player in book 4, he won’t be coming out of the blue. The reader will have a sense of context and meaning already established. And Jess’s reactions to his presence will make sense, will seem organic. I don’t live in a vacuum. I have a past. Same for Jess. Same for you. Same for your Young Detective.

Yes, sometimes you want a character to come out of the blue, but probably not an ex-husband, someone the protagonist knows intimately and with whom she shared a chunk of her life.

The lesson here is this: you need to know where you’re going, what you’re doing, and who is on the ride. When you know all of those things, they will work together organically, whether for comedic  effect or dramatic. What’s more, you’ll know what to plant when, and you’ll recognize when the bud is ready to bloom!

One more little thing: some of your protagonist’s traits can seem contradictory on the surface. Imagine a kindergarten teacher who is a kickboxing champ. Or a pro wrestler turned governor. Now that’s unexpected!

 

The post Building Protagonists, part 2 appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

I was recently asked, “How do you choose and create a protagonist’s flaws?”

Simple. The same way you choose and create your own flaws.

What? You didn’t choose your flaws? You’d rather not have them?

Before you declare me a smartass, that’s a clue to the how part of Julia’s question. Your protagonist didn’t choose or create her flaws either. And she’d rather be without them, at least the one’s she’s aware of.

Think about your flaws. How did you get them? No, really, take your time. I’ll wait for you.

Most reasonably self-aware people can list a few personal flaws. And most of us have a story or two about why we’re stuck with those triggers, peeves, bad habits, and whatnot.

I hope you had an ah-ha moment just then. Allow me to illustrate.

I was camping with a friend this weekend, and we swapped scary spider stories around the campfire. She once camped in a swamp. After sunset, they were surrounded by the glowing eyes of giant spiders. She thought it was kind of cool.

I would have been quaking inside the tent, after quadruple checking the zippers, until dawn made it safe to get the hell out of there!

My brave friend then told me she hates beetles. I’m like, beetles? As insects go, they’re kind of cute. Remember Herbie the Love Bug and the most famous rock band ever? (Different spelling, I know.)

My friend responded to my dubious inquiry with a story. As a small child, she got into a sandbox only to find it infested with some kind of beetle.

And in story craft, we call that backstory.

 

Turtle is dreaming up her characters’ backstory.

 

 

If my character’s tragic flaw is a terror of beetles, I get to invent a reason for that terror, which will make it logical and create believability.

Let’s say I want my character to be a well-rounded, three-dimensional (fake) human being. I know, as a well-rounded, three-dimensional human being myself, that means he can’t be all good. That means I need to give him some triggers, peeves, bad habits, and whatnot. But, spiders and beetles aside, how can I do that?

Remember, today’s lesson is brought to you by the letter B, for backstory.

I’m still working on Dark Corners in Skoghall. Beckett gets mad at Jess. I want them to have a lovers’ quarrel for the dramatic tension it creates and a couple of plot reasons. But now I need a reason for him to get mad at her. This kind of stuff happens in real life all the time, so I know it’s believable, but stories are vulnerable in a way that real life isn’t. In stories we expect the action on the page to be supported by other readable elements of the story.

If an actor were playing Beckett in this scene, he’d ask, “What’s my motivation?”

I did a little soul searching and realized at the end of The Murder in Skoghall, (spoiler alert) Beckett reveals to Jess that he was adopted and his parents didn’t tell him until he was a young adult. There’s my backstory. The people closest to him lied to him for most of his life. I don’t need to spell it all out for the reader; that would be bad. But here’s what I need to know to understand one of Beckett’s fundamental flaws and the trigger that sets off the quarrel. Whether Jess knew it or not, Beckett feels lied to. His flaw is to become immediately, irrationally angry when that old wound is revisited.

I started with the need for the fight. Then thought about what that fight would look like and why they’d even go there. The answer was in the backstory. Beckett has a “thing” about being lied to. Whether Jess actually lied or not, he thinks she did and before she can explain, he has to move through some serious anger.

If you want your characters to be flawed, know their backstories. Sometimes the key to creating the flaw is an event (like a sandbox full of beetles or Beckett’s adoption), sometimes it’s a condition (like a birth mark or a limp). As the writer, you need to examine all the possible ways that event or condition could play out in a person’s life. Then use it in your story to increase dramatic tension.

Remember, your protagonist’s tragic flaw need not be “bad.” Big dumb Lennie loves to stroke soft things. Seems pretty harmless, until Lennie touches the boss’s wife’s hair and she screams. (Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck)

The post Develop Your Protagonist’s Flaws appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

 

An Unlikely Story, or Write What You Don’t Know

I enjoy mysteries. I read Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie as a kid. PBS’s Mystery series was and is a favorite of mine. And yet, I fell into writing the Skoghall Series accidentally. I wanted to write a ghost story the way you might want to try a new restaurant. It sounded like a good, harmless, fun way to spend some time. Yes, all right—dinner takes an hour or two and a novel takes a year or so—the scale is different, but the idea is the same.

To have a ghost is to have someone who died an untimely and difficult death. Hence my title The Murder in Skoghall. At some point writing my ghost story, I decided to make it a series. This choice was part business, since series do better than stand alones, and part personal, since I realized I could spend the required time in this world, with these characters, writing this genre.

And now I’m finishing Book 2 of The Skoghall Mystery Series, Dark Corners in Skoghall. I’ve been thinking about the process of working and reworking a manuscript, because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. And I’ve got some take aways for you.

 

The Skoghall Books

 

Take Away #1: Get Expert Advice

I am one of those people who has trouble imagining that strangers would want to help me, despite evidence to the contrary. On Father’s Day I had a flat tire at Lake Harriet and some very kind strangers helped me. I would help a stranger. So why does it seem improbable that a request would be met with a yes? I share that personal information, because I’m sure I’m not the only one in this camp.

I am getting better at asking for help. Maybe I’m growing my faith in the kindness of strangers or confidence in myself or some mix of both.

Recently, I reached out to the Pepin County Sheriff. I convinced myself the worst I could get was a “no,” which isn’t really such a big deal. And it helped that I have 2 books on Amazon with 4.5 stars. Now when I say I’m a writer working on a mystery, I can direct people to proof positive. Sheriff Wener agreed to meet me for an interview, and getting his expertise on my subject has already been invaluable.

I did my book research, watched cop shows, like Bosch, and true crime shows early in the writing process, saving this interview for late in the book’s evolution. I wanted to have a list of questions specific to my plot and characters so I could get the most out of the interview and be efficient with Sheriff Wener’s time.

I learned so much over our two-hour conversation, including a lot of small things that could make or break the story for a reader who knows something about law enforcement. As Sheriff Wener answered my questions, I found myself saying, “Oh crap, I need to rewrite a scene now.” I’d written in some inaccuracies, despite all my previous research. Even now, however, I might not remove an inaccuracy or two. 

What?!

I am striving for verisimilitude, the ring of truth, not total factual accuracy. There is this thing called Creative License. Why would I keep my erroneous scene in tact? Because of the dramatic tension it creates and the lack of a better alternative. The scene I have in mind delivers both dramatic tension and humor. To be factual in that moment would cost me the humor if not the tension, and that’s a high price to pay for a minor technicality. This has a lot to do with the restrictions of point of view. I have 3 characters with point of view in this book and if I make the scene technically correct, I have no way to keep the funny event in the room with the point of view character. I am going to talk to Sheriff Wener again, and I’ll see if he has any suggestions for that scene.

 

Take Away #2: Drill Down Further 

Two revision rounds ago, I focused on the global issues. I printed the book and read a paper copy. I made a timeline of the events to make sure everything occurred when it should in relation to everything else. I marked up the paper, then went to my computer and made the changes. I moved scenes to improve the rising action and merged others to cut repetition. It certainly improved the book.

I printed a fresh copy and read it again, focusing on character interactions, and made a few notes as I went that were then entered in the computer.

This current round, I’m reading it on my computer, making changes as I go. It’s slow reading. I read aloud often so I can hear the rhythm of the sentences. I drill down further with each pass at the manuscript and catch myself making all kinds of mistakes, mistakes I didn’t see before, but a reader would have hated me for. 

Example: the needle gets stuck in a groove sometimes. It’s like my brain is hiccuping. Shakti, the dog, knocks Jess over a few too many times. Three men have shaved heads. Jess spots hummingbirds in the garden constantly. It’s a relief to delete the extraneous and leave one or two instances that have the potential to be meaningful or pleasurable to the reader.

I also delete extra commas. Join sentences. Separate sentences. Swap pronouns for names and vice versa. This kind of sentence-level manipulation is a lot to do with the rhythm of the prose. Also, avoiding redundancy while looking for the cleanest, most pleasing way to convey my meaning. 

I ask myself if each scene is useful and necessary. And I look for things that might have happened already in book 1, then cut the repetition.

Sometimes I consciously include something a reader might think is a little slow, a little mundane. Why? Because it’s a set up. Jess admires Beckett’s hair a few times? Because he’s going to chop it off. Shakti runs away? Well, I can’t tell you about that without spoiling my climax.

 

Take Away #3: Pay Attention to How You Feel

Thoughts are in the head. Feelings are in the gut. If you read a passage that’s all up top, ask what you can do to drop it down into your body, your character’s body, your reader’s body. Minor tweaks to a passage can make the difference between a good book and a great one, because by the time you’ve made a hundred such tweaks, you’ve created memorable change in your manuscript.

Here’s an example from this current polishing round:

BEFORE:

Why, if Dan Grunner was such a nice guy, such a loving husband and father, was he attacking the girl from the bar? Jess wanted to believe the version of him that showed her the wedding ring on his finger and somehow planted “Great Balls of Fire” in her head. She’d decided those two things meant he cared about his wife more than anything else. And if that was true, what the hell was Dan doing in the junk shop with the girl?

AFTER:

Why, if Dan Grunner was such a nice guy, such a loving husband and father, was he attacking the girl from the bar? Jess wanted to believe the version of him that showed her the wedding ring on his finger and somehow planted “Great Balls of Fire” in her head. But she’d seen him, felt him, been him pursuing that girl in the junk shop, reveling in her fear and vulnerability.

In the first paragraph, Jess “had decided” and it “meant” and “if that was true.” Do you hear the alarm bells? You should. Jess is thinking something through instead of experiencing it. That might be preferable in many situations, but not on the page. My revision didn’t change the setting, action, or meaning of the passage, but it did change the feel of it. The verbs are active, the prose drops out of Jess’s head and into her gut—along with the reader’s—and I’ve got impactful words like “pursuing,” “reveling,” “fear,” and “vulnerability” to close the passage. Wow, right?

All of this revision is necessary—sorry folks. I haven’t gotten sick of my story or bored with it, as plenty of writers report. Honestly, I can’t imagine hating my story. I wouldn’t write it if I weren’t fascinated by it. But I do find the constant work to improve the manuscript causes fatigue. This fatigue has some side effects.

Such as a blind spot—or twenty. Those mistakes we just can’t see because we’ve seen them dozens of times already. Aren’t they normal? Don’t they belong?

Another issue is diminishing confidence in the work. I find myself reading a passage and thinking it’s dull, overwritten, too detailed, imagery is stale… At this point, I put my faith in the fact that I know what I’m doing. And I have readers who will agree with me. And I have friends who will tell me when I’m wrong! In other words, I push through the doubt. I know from decades of writing prose that my real problem is that the story is getting stale. Just like watching a movie for the 5th time, the plot lacks surprise, the characters are predictable, and I anticipate the twists before they occur. My own enjoyment of the story is ever diminishing because of familiarity, not failure.

At least, that is what I need to believe in order to finish the work.

After that, I listen to my advisors and beta readers. With their fresh eyes, they can see what I can’t. What comes after beta readers? A final pass at the manuscript with the polishing cloth—at this point, I should be done with the abrasives—and then publication.

At which point, it’s back to the plotting board for the next book!

The post Travels & Travails in Revision Land appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

I recently watched the PBS Masterpiece mini-series, Endeavour. You might be familiar with Inspector Morse from the Colin Dexter books or the Mystery series. Endeavour portrays Inspector Morse as a young Detective Constable in the 1960s. It’s free on Amazon Prime, which means I got to binge watch two seasons.

It was awesome.

Until the end. Season 2 ended with young Morse in jail thanks to the corrupt Masonic society that had infiltrated Oxford’s politics and police force. And if I were that kind of person, I would have thrown my computer across the room.

Of course, I’m not that kind of person. I’ve never even thrown a book. How could I? I love books. Most books, anyway.

The point is, I was mad at the writers, director, and producers for leaving the season with a cliffhanger. I quick changed my browser from Amazon to PBS and checked the listings. Nothing. I don’t even know when Season 3 of Endeavour will come out.

Is that my problem? Or is it their problem?

It’s both. It’s my problem, because I’ve invested my time in a story that left me unsatisfied. And it’s their problem, because they’ve written a show that left me unsatisfied.

Which brings us back to my original question: Are cliffhangers evil?

(Total aside: Is anyone else singing “Cliff Hanger…hanging from a cliff?” If so, high five, my friend.)

What do you think? As a reader? As a writer?

As a reader, I don’t like them at all. As a writer, we can make a case for them. Some genres use the cliffhanger more than others, thrillers for example. And from a marketing standpoint, if your reader needs to find out what happens next, he might buy the next book in the series immediately, compulsively.

But what if your next book is still being written? Then you’ve left your reader hanging with a strong desire for the next installment and no way to get it. Just like my Endeavour situation. Some of those unsatisfied readers might remark on this fact in their reviews, might even drop a star or two off their ratings as a result. That might not be reason enough for you to avoid the cliffhanger—go forth, intrepid author!

The fact is, you can’t satisfy everyone.

But do you want them to resort to violence, tossing your book (or their e-reader) against a wall?

I’m writing a series now, which has given me reason to consider the difference between a cliffhanger and a hook while developing my own philosophy of how to end books in a series.

My end goal is to both satisfy the reader and hook him into buying the next book. To do this, I rely on a few tactics.

1. Plant Seeds

I know what the next book is going to be about, and the one after that, and the one after that. I might not have them thoroughly plotted out, but I know enough to plant some seeds in the current book that will bloom in the future books. I’m counting on the fact that readers of book 2 will enjoy being rewarding for having also read book 1, which will make them look forward to book 3 even more.

One of the ways I do this is by introducing characters and situations in book 1 that may not really be important until later books. My little girl Isabella is one such case. She’s present throughout book 1, and just when Jess’s haunted house becomes unhaunted and you think she’s done with this ghost nonsense, there’s Isabella waving to her from the window. And then there’s Love Interest #1. Just when Jess has settled down with Love Interest #2, #1 rolls back into town. He returns in the final scene. Clearly, his purpose is to get the reader wondering if Jess will return to him in the next book. I could tell you, but that would spoil my hook.

2. The Preview

The preview of the next book is your best friend. Depending on your series and the kind of continuity you have between books, you might preview the next book in an epilogue, assuming you have a prologue. Or just tack a sample from the forthcoming at the end of the current book. If your sample is a grabber—and the opening pages of any book had better be—then it will function as a hook. The best thing about the sample text is that, like a movie trailer, it’s all about the promise of what’s to come and does not, in any way, detract from what has just been.

3. Character and Setting

Your characters and your world should make readers want to stay with them, or at least come back to visit again. If you’ve got an unlikeable antihero, he’d better be damned interesting. If you’ve created a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested hell, you’d better populate it with some endearing, if difficult, characters, the ones we want to survive.

Who’d want to hang out with Rooster Cogburn if not for Mattie Ross? Who’d study Daisy Buchanan—sober anyway—if not through the eyes of Nick Carroway? Who would Marilla Cuthbert be without Anne Shirley to soften her edges? And Green Gables would not be half so lovely without Anne’s rose-tinted glasses. Who’d venture onto the Island of Dr. Moreau without Edward Prendick as the voice of moral astonishment?

One of my readers told me Skoghall sounds like the kind of place she’d like to live. I couldn’t help thinking, Yes, me too, except for all the murders and ghosts!

You might love cliffhangers and use them to great effect. By all means, do so. I, however, will stick to the hook and spare my books and my readers’ walls the pain and suffering inherent in the cliffhanger!

The post Are Cliffhangers Evil? appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

Writers are solitary creatures…or are they?

It’s spring and conferences are in the air. But if attending a conference isn’t in the books for you this year, there are other ways to find a writing community.

Earlier this month I attended the AWP conference, that’s the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. It’s a major event every year, and this year it was in my home town. According to their site, each year over 12,000 people attend. You can imagine the jokes about all those introverts in one place, filling a convention center only to sit in corners with books, ignoring each other.

Of course, it’s not like that at all. It’s nonstop activity from 9:00 a.m. until midnight, and that’s only the official activity. Who knows what goes on in bars, clubs, and hotels until what hour? And while writing a book might be a solitary activity, AWP caters to “writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers.” Of course, very few people there are only writers. You could rephrase that to say writers who are also teachers, students, editors, and publishers. Some of the publishers might not be writers, but my point is, everyone in attendance belongs to a community, be it in a BFA/MFA program, a small press, a literary agency, or a large press.

You can read about AWP 2013 here.

Lidia Yuknavitch at the podium at AWP 2015

 

And there are many more conferences around the world, so if academia isn’t your niche, don’t worry. There’s a conference out there for you. Check out the Shaw Guide to conferences and programs.

If you’re an indie author, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of online communities you can join. Kboards is probably the biggest community forum, and a good place to start connecting with others in your genre.

Podcasts are everywhere right now and I find them the easiest way to stay on top of industry news and find out who’s doing what with what results. You’re probably a fan of the Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast, The Creative Penn, and The Self-Publishing Podcast. Have you heard of The Sell More Books Show? I’m sure you haven’t heard of the Author Strong podcast yet—more on that in a minute.

The great thing about podcasts is that you get to learn from people in your community—albeit a virtual community—at your convenience. And while you might not know these people personally, I’ve found in the indie world that people are approachable and beyond helpful. The podcasts are a great way to connect with others through the comments, feedback, and Q&A interface with the hosts on podcast sites. A great feature of podcasts is that each guest brings new resources to the listeners, new opportunities to connect, and the indie web grows bigger and stronger. So when you connect to a podcast, don’t just listen, get involved. Make contact. Grow your community.

Of course, sometimes we need actual face time with our community. There are resources for that, too. Find writing courses and workshops, MeetUps, and writing groups, or start your own.  Mat, Nancy, and I touched on writing groups in our chat yesterday. Whether together or separately, you’ll hear more on this topic soon enough.

Wait a minute…Mat? Nancy? Chat?
Back to the Author Strong podcast I mentioned above.

Yesterday, I was the special guest on the soon-to-launch Author Strong podcast with Mat Morris and Nancy Elliott. It’s a daily show with amazing content launching on Friday, May 1st. Mat drew on his connections in the indie author community to bring incredible guests to the mic, so you can expect greatness right out of the gate.

We recorded 3 episodes, an interview and a 2-part piece on point of view. I had a blast talking shop with Mat and Nancy, so I promise that besides being chock-full of craft wisdom, our episodes will be fun to listen to…if you enjoy the super-charged energy of people geeking out about their specialty.

All of the podcasts I’ve mentioned are easy to find in iTunes and other distribution channels. Look for Author Strong on Friday, May 1st, and don’t say I didn’t give you anything for May Day!

Happy Spring!

 

The post Writing & Community appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

I’ve been down the rabbit hole for the last couple of weeks. It’s a necessary side venture to writing any novel, and some more so than others. I’m working on book 2 of The Skoghall Mystery Series, Dark Corners in Skoghall, and I hit a wall. Not just any wall—certainly not writer’s block—the research wall. And down the hole I went, chasing that fellow with the fluffy white tail, all in pursuit of what is true.

Book 1, The Murder in Skoghall available here, involves a murder that occurred 40 years ago. Very little of my main character’s detective work involved police procedure or forensics. The murder in Dark Corners, however, happens today. As I started to write in the grisly details of my victim’s death, I developed concerns I didn’t have with the first book.

The things my reluctant psychic detective, Jess, sees have to make sense when compared to what a police detective or forensic scientist would report.

Everything I write needs to make sense to Jess, my detective, me, and our readers.

My trip down the rabbit hole raises an important question for all writers. It’s one I constantly discuss with workshop participants and clients writing memoir. It’s one I address in my work as a fiction author, as well. How true is true? In creative nonfiction and fiction alike, writers deal with facts, logic, and the coherence of the world we inhabit on the page. Today, I’m going to discuss this question as it relates to Dark Corners in Skoghall.

Although my setting and characters are fictional, and I’ll place that nice disclaimer in the front of my book, stating that any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental, much of my book is in fact based on fact. So much so that I worry over my factual accuracy. That’s right, it’s mine. It’s personal. I am responsible for every word on the pages of my books—good, bad, right, or wrong. I have weird dreams related to my worry. And I disappear off the map for weeks at a stretch because I’m chasing the rabbit down the hole.

What kind of questions cause my sleepless nights? Just like I tell my workshop students, fiction and creative nonfiction alike, there are two types of truth: factual truth and emotional truth.

You need to balance them, but I tip the scale in favor of emotional truth—unless you’re writing a dry, scholarly biography, but I’m not talking about that kind of writing. I’m talking about story.

This table lists some of my research questions and I’ve sorted them by the two kinds of truth.

Factual Truth

Emotional Truth

What kind of injury will this weapon make?

What kind of person becomes a homicide detective?

What state of decay will a body be in after 36 hours during August in Wisconsin?

How does being a homicide detective change a person?

What is the trail of evidence necessary to solve this mystery?

Is my killer organized or disorganized? What kind of person does that make my killer?

What will it look like if this injury is premortem, perimortem, or postmortem?

How does the suffering my characters inflict or endure affect the balance of sympathy for them?

There is some overlap between factual truth and emotional truth. Factual truth questions have to do with the potential to make technical errors, to simply get it wrong. Emotional truth questions have more to do with characterization, the emotional impact the story will have on the reader, and that feeling we get that everything in a story is as it should be.

Like it or not, thousands of facts go into any book. For example, if I attributed a certain kind of wound to a certain calibre of rifle, plenty of readers wouldn’t know the difference, but a few would, and hopefully the rest of the story would hold together so well that such a technical error would be readily forgiven. Many such errors, however, would add up and be held against any author.

Errors of emotional fact are, I believe, less forgivable. They have to do with the author’s authority, and therefore how much I the reader trust him the author. If that homicide detective behaves in a manner that feels inconsistent with what I know or believe about homicide detectives, the story quickly falls apart for me, because I have lost faith/trust/belief in the author’s ability to deliver a story that rings true. Another way to say that is, the author has broken the social contract with the reader.

The social contract states: I, the author, do hereby promise to deliver to you, the reader, a story that is entertaining and believable. It may also be dramatic, cathartic, hilarious, or any other number of things, but it will above all be entertaining and believable.

The flip side of the contract states: I, the reader, upon opening this book, do hereby place myself in the hands of you, the author, with the expectation that in exchange for my time, attention, and possibly my money, you will actively engage my emotions, my mind, and my senses.

There is no escaping this contract, even if you build your story world from scratch. Aren’t hardcore sci-fi fans the first to point out inaccuracies in the stories they love? Aren’t they known for heated debates over the logic inherent in the worlds they engage as readers/viewers/gamers? All that means is if you build a world, you are responsible for creating its rules, and if you break those rules, you break your contract with the reader. All of us might lose readers as a result of breaking the contract, but those of you who build your own worlds are probably more likely to get stung by dissatisfied readers. My logic being (tell me if I’m wrong), that your genre’s readers are known for being passionate about the worlds they visit and will therefore be quicker to publicly note their upset.

That is why I spent weeks of writing time without writing a word, instead tunneling through piles of research material. Because I care about verisimilitude. If a homicide detective or forensic scientist reads my book, I want her to enjoy it, as someone who knows better than I whether I got the factual and emotional truths right.

Verisimilitude: noun 1) the state of having the appearance of truth, probable. 2) the state of depicting realism in art or literature.

I’m thinking about writing more about research, the how of it specifically. If you have questions about the topic of research, please send me an email!

The post How True is True in Fiction? appeared first on wordessential blog.

Alida Winternheimer, author

There is a special balancing act to be accomplished when writing action scenes. Think of a teeter-totter and put Clarity on one seat and Pacing on the other. Generally speaking, the faster the action occurs, the more you have to slow it down to make it work on the page. But you can slow it down too much or put the emphasis in the wrong place in an effort to make the action clear. On the other hand, if you favor of the fast pace, you risk writing a confusing blur, instead of conveying the sensation of a blur.

Let’s start this week’s discussion with an example of a fight scene. See how many flaws you can identify in this piece.

Norman puts his hands out and grabs Larry, then shakes him by the shoulders. “Don’t come to work. Ever. You got me? Don’t ever come to work again, you freak!” He shoves Larry. Larry stumbles backwards, tripping over something. His own feet maybe. The contents inside his refrigerator clink and rattle when he slams into it. As Norman turns to leave, he stops and bends over to pick up the scroll with his left hand. He tucks it under his right arm. “Come on, Sarah.” He turns her gently toward the door, placing his left hand on his wife’s back. She moves toward the door, but keeps looking at her brother, staring over her left shoulder.

Larry scrambles onto his hands and knees, then pushes himself off of the floor and launches at Norman. He grabs the scroll and tugs it out of Norman’s grasp. Norman spins around and reaches out his right hand. He is grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking hard. Norman is a man who knows how to fight. He remembers before he met his wife, bar brawls and baseball diamond brawls and even one at his brother’s wedding. In his defense, he was saving a bridesmaid from a drunk who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Of course, Norman was just as drunk, but he at least remembered how to be a gentleman. Though he gave up brawling when he married Sarah—what a real man won’t do for love—he finds the movements are reflexive, his instincts in tact after all these years. He draws back his right arm as he releases Larry’s shirt from his left hand. Larry is off-balance, stumbling as he turns. Norman swings his right fist and puts his weight behind the punch, using his back and shoulders, spreading his feet to stabilize him even as he is twisting on the follow-through.

Did you identify all of the flaws? Good.
Now let’s talk about them.

 

I often see writing where the author is so focused on the mechanical staging of which body part is doing what where when that the scene becomes weighed down by descriptives and the pacing is ruined. Roger put his right foot behind him and shifted his weight to it while slightly bending his knee. Once his weight had been carefully transferred to that right foot, he lifted his left foot imperceptibly and made a sweeping motion with his leg, so it looked like his left big toe might be drawing an arc in the sawdust on the floor. Meanwhile, his right hand was raised in a gesture of stopping attack…

Every scene needs to convey action, whether that action is eating dinner or stopping a runaway train. That said, if your scene is intended to get anyone’s adrenaline pumping—character and/or reader—do not suddenly divert the action, leading your poor reader into a flashback or editorial piece. Jill commented on how lovely it was to have the gondola all to themselves, a surprise given how many people there were at the base of the mountain. She didn’t know Jack had arranged it that way, at no small expense in the height of tourist season, but he wanted his proposal to be perfect. While Jill gazed out into the Alps, he pulled a bottle of champagne from his pack and a small velvet box…With the question popped, it was time to pop the champagne. Jill held the glasses expectantly while Jack pushed at the cork with both of his thumbs. The popping sound was much louder than it should have been, loud and metallic. The gondola rocked suddenly. Champagne overflowed into the carriage. A jolt sent Jill crashing into the side of the car and the champagne flute smashed, cutting her left hand. It occurred to her that now when she posted photos of her engagement ring to Facebook and Tumblr, she’d have a bandage on her hand and that would be unsightly. Blood began to gush as the carriage swayed more violently. What would be worse would be if Jill had a scar. A scar on her hand would be for the rest of her life, but with her wedding only 9 – 12 months away, a scar would still be pink, raised, and unsightly! Maybe she could find a wedding dress with lace mits to cover the back of her hand. And of course her flowers would be pink and purple. There was screaming coming from the other cars and a horrible grinding noise overhead.

(Did I get a little carried away with that?)

Sometimes the writer loses the reader when he can’t see the forest for the trees. Is that metaphor (yes, yes, it’s a cliche) unclear? Just imagine our heroine is fleeing from bandits, racing through a forest, her hair streaming behind her, her skirts held up in her hands as she bounds over rocks and logs. Got it? Good. Here’s how it’s written when the author can’t see the forest for the trees: Jalinda leapt nimbly over the fallen trunk of a cedar. The tree had fallen at least twenty years ago, based on the amount of decay to the wood. A badger had hollowed out a space to the left of the trail and made its home there for the last two winters. It was not home when Jalinda made her hasty retreat from the evil Merkur. A squirrel, however, about to run the length of the deadwood was scared enough by the flash of golden silk skirts and soft thump of Jalinda’s slippered feet to drop its acorn and scamper away.

Some of you remember my blog post “To Be or Not To Be.” In it, I make a case for avoiding use of “was” and all its variations, and especially “was + -ing,” because was is a flat, uninteresting, passive verb. A wonderful, useful, critical little word, but not when there’s an alternative. When you write an action (any) scene, put “was” (or is/are/were) in your word search box and see how many of the buggers get highlighted on a page. Now change as many of those as possible. Shoot for removing 95% of them. I put plenty of “wases” in the examples above. I hope you noticed and flagged them already.

 

How to fix these issues:

 

1. Highlight and replace “was.”

2. Judiciously prune your scene. “Right” and “left” are seldom necessary. Keep your focus on the action of the scene. Remember who your POV character is.

3. Know when it’s okay to leave the action for a detour and when it’s not. In my Jack and Jill example, if I were writing a satire piece, that might work as is. But if I want the reader to care about Jack and Jill’s impending doom, not so much. A well-placed and relevant aside can work well in an action scene, but keep it brief.

Often it doesn’t take that much work to fix an action scene, just a good sense of balance!

 

By the way, if you’re thinking you’re going to write the ultimate “time stands still” story, it’s been done. Sorry, folks. Check out Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain.”

 

*Note: All of my examples are made up. If they seem over the top or tongue in cheek, well…maybe they are.

**Also note: I’m not singling anyone out. I decided to write about this, because it is a common problem.

 

Finally, if you’d like to see that fight scene again the way I actually wrote it, here it is.

 

This excerpt is from “Creatures,” which appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Summer 2013. Note: this story is multiple POV, though the scene is almost entirely in Norman’s perspective.

Norman shakes Larry and his head rocks on his shoulders. “Don’t come to work. Ever. You got me? Don’t ever come to work again, you fucking freak!” He shoves Larry, releasing him so that he slams into his refrigerator and the contents inside clink and rattle. As Norman turns to leave, he picks up the scroll and tucks it under his arm. “Come on, Sarah.” He turns her gently toward the door, though she keeps looking at her brother, staring over her shoulder even as she steps away.

Larry scrambles off the floor and launches at Norman. He grabs the scroll and tugs it out of Norman’s grasp. Norman spins and reaches. He connects with Larry, grabbing the back of his shirt and yanking. Norman is a man who knows how to fight. Though he gave up brawling when he married Sarah, he finds the movements are reflexive, his instincts in tact after all these years. He draws back his right arm as he releases Larry’s shirt from his left hand. Larry is off-balance, stumbling as he turns. Norman puts his weight behind the punch, using his back and shoulders, twisting on the follow-through. Larry’s eyes are small with a downward turn at the outside corners. The stubble on his cheek grazes Norman’s knuckles like coarse sandpaper as he connects with the jaw. Larry’s cleft chin folds in on itself as his face is reshaped by the punch. His mouth opens, his teeth cutting Norman’s hand. One of them is knocked loose. When he lands on his back, the wind and a small yellow tooth are knocked out of him.

Norman draws his arm back for a second go, but Sarah steps in front of him, her face terrified. He can barely see her even though she is right there, begging him. He feels like the blood is draining from his head and he hears her, feels her touch on his arm. He looks at Larry lying on the floor, his paper clutched to him, and he knows if he doesn’t go with Sarah right now he will do something bad. He lets her lead him through the door and up the concrete steps to the sidewalk.

 

Please leave your questions and comments below.

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