How Much Do You Remember?

I recently read and reviewed a memoir by a friend who seemed to remember every aspect of his childhood. I tried to think back to the same period in my life and found that I could only put my finger on a few highlights and lowlights. How could he have remembered things so intensely? Then I took a pad of paper and started to jot down random memories. I found that the few items I freely remembered triggered other glimpses into my past, and my number of recollections slowly began to accelerate as I wrote them down. I started this exercise being convinced that I could never write a memoir of that period, but I soon realized that, like everything else, it just takes detailed and continuous work. My friend's memoir seemed effortless, but behind the scenes there must have been both memory exercises and interviews with others to recover seemingly lost memories. I'm also sure that even after such efforts, I would have gaps remaining in my personal history. Those gaps would have to be filled with what logically must have happened, even if you can't dredge up specific conversations and details. The initial exercise was so enlightening that I might actually try a memoir some day...The only question is whether anyone would want to read it.

Mysteries and Thrillers

One of the things authors like least is to be labeled as being a writer of only one category of book. Sometimes this is unavoidable due to the insistence of a publisher who is marketing the author as a product in one particular genre. In the absence of such pigeonholing, authors cherish the right and challenge of being free to contribute to multiple genres, fiction or nonfiction. One particular transition requires an adjustment of the writer's outlook. As an author of mystery novels (The Lord's Prayer Mystery Series*), I am always very careful to avoid coincidence in my books. Some mystery authors have said that there's no such thing as coincidence, while others have said that you're allowed no more than one coincidence per novel. This is completely different from the case of an author of thrillers. A thriller requires a continuous high-speed, almost frenzied, succession of events and developments in order to keep the reader involved in the action. Unfortunately, real life rarely operates at such a hectic pace. Consequently, almost all thriller novels allow coincidences to occur on a regular basis as the price you have to pay for having the right characters in the desired locations and performing the desired actions on schedule to match the pace of plot developments. Heroes and heroines are the only individuals to escape a catastrophe. A saving intervention intercepts the protagonist at the brink of disaster. A new character is introduced just in time to avert tragedy...These techniques are acceptable in a thriller because the rush of emotions produced by the pace of action is the payoff for the story. Mystery novelists try to maintain a sense of reality in their works that tolerates no more coincidence than occurs in real life. It's an apples and oranges sort of thing. The two genres are not the same, but both can be very fruitful.

*The Lord's Prayer Mystery Series by Richard Davidson: Vol. I Lead Us Not into Temptation; Vol. II Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread; Vol. III Forgive Us Our Trespasses.

Fare(very)well Maurice Sendak

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.”


The best friend of mischievous children has moved on. What a difference he has made in the way we look at things and children. Rest among the wild things!

Dick Davidson Interviews Fred Shafer, Literary Editor & Writing Teacher

1. Q. I have heard that you prefer a literary writing style. Is this correct, and if so, how do you define literary?

A. The word “literary” may seem to imply some kind of hierarchy in fiction writing, and I don’t feel comfortable with that idea.  But if the words “narrative” or “descriptive” were substituted for “literary,” then I’d say that I enjoy all kinds of narrative and descriptive writing, no matter the genre or audience.  In terms of voice or style, it’s always interesting to see and feel the things that good works of fiction share in common, from the cadences of sentences, to the textures of details, and the sounds of words.

2. Q. You have pointed out that all writers can learn something from studying examples of writing for children. Would you comment on this?

A. There are many things that all writers can learn from books written for children, because of the close contact those books share with fables, fairy tales, and stories told to listeners.  Too often, writers for adult audiences lose track of the basic spirit and force of storytelling.  By reading stories for children, they can renew their awareness of the rhythms of plot and the power and beauty of narrative sentences.

3. Q. You have spent more time in your career teaching others to write well than you have spent on your own writing. Would you comment on the relative values you place on writing and teaching?

A.  As a teacher and an editor, I’ve always felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to the people who come to me, and I enjoy watching writers develop and grow. It’s true that I usually give priority to my students’ work over my own, but I feel, at the same time, that I’m learning and growing and that my classes and workshops are, by implication, about my own writing, when there is time for it.

4. Q. In today’s literary climate and marketplace what kind of future do you see for short story writers?

A. Thanks to the Internet, the prospects for short story writers are excellent.  When the general-circulation magazines, with just a few exceptions, stopped carrying short fiction several years ago, the market for stories remained strong in magazines and journals published by universities, art organizations, and independent editors.  Many of those journals still appear in print, but some of them have shifted to on-line publishing and new journals show up frequently on Internet.  Last year, an author I know conducted a study of publishing opportunities available for storywriters both in print and on line and found more than 500 outlets.

5. Q. Genre writing emerged because bookstore displays and sales were made easier by having well-known categories of subject matter. With the increase of book (and eBook) sales online, will the importance of genre writing change? Do you anticipate new genres or mixtures of genres?

A. I suspect that the practice of categorizing genres is being sustained in on-line publishing, especially by systems that steer readers to books similar to those they have already purchased.  But I hope that writers will continue to experiment with genre mixing, because as a reader I like books that introduce new combinations of established forms and defy categorization.  On the Internet, where the planning of shelf space won’t be an issue, titles can always be listed under more than one heading, and it should be possible to create new headings, when they are needed.

6. Q. Some novels use much more narrative than dialog, while others are closer to plays in using mostly dialog with just enough narrative to set and describe the scene and accomplish transitions. Is the latter approach due to our increased dependence on visual forms of entertainment? Are different balances between narrative and dialog better suited to certain types of written works?

A. The reliance by fiction writers on dialogue, compact scenes, and quick transitions can be traced all the way back to the appearance of motion pictures early in the last century, and those characteristics appear often today, in short stories and novels created by writers who grew up watching television and movies.  Many writers have swung in the opposite direction, choosing to take a close look at the characters’ unspoken thoughts and feelings, simply because it isn’t possible in works written for film or theater.  The fact is that some stories may require physical action and dialogue, while others need to dwell on the interior lives of the characters, and I feel that each writer should be allowed to decide on the balance that seems right for his or her work.

7. Q.  Would you comment on the need for fiction writers to be entertainers as well as technically proficient writers?

A. If providing entertainment means to involve the reader in the characters’ personalities and lives, the world of the story, and a strong plot, great fiction writers have always been entertainers.  Whenever we are engrossed in reading a novel or watching a play or movie, those qualities enable us to feel entertained, and we need to stay in touch with them when writing our own stories.  It’s easy to make the mistake of associating entertainment with comic relief or, on the other side, to believe that a serious theme and technical adeptness will win the reader’s attention, forgetting that our primary job is to create a compelling narrative.

8. Q. The statistics I have seen indicate that only about ten percent of the titles published in the U.S. are fiction. Is this a cultural effect with the balance being different in other countries, and/or is there something that would make the reading public more interested in fiction?

A. I doubt that this trend can be reversed, unless the spread of IPads, Kindles, and other reading devices brings a renewed interest in short stories and novels.  For perhaps a majority of people in our society, the appetite for stories is being satisfied by movies and television programs, including the new and seemingly pervasive form, “reality TV.”  Even so, I feel that there will always be people, like us, who are eager to read fiction. Those are the people for whom we are writing, and on-line publishing has provided new and relatively inexpensive ways of reaching them.

9. Q. Is public school education more or less likely to aim children toward writing interest and proficiency than in the past? What would you recommend to improve writing education?

A. In the two years in which my older daughter has served in Teach for America in Washington, D. C., she’s helped me to understand that the reading and writing of stories is still an important part of our educational system.  Her seventh and eighth graders respond enthusiastically to stories about people, situations, and places with which they are familiar, and it leads them to write stories drawn from their own memories and imaginations.  I hope that educators will continue to acknowledge the essential role that the narrative impulse plays in our lives.

10. Q. With the advent of greater self-publishing, eBooks, and POD publishing we are now publishing more than a million book titles per year. Would you say this is a good trend because more people are getting more experiences in writing books, or do you prefer the traditional publishing gatekeeper approach which limits the number of titles published but tries to guarantee that those published have very high quality? 

A. In my answers to the other questions, I’m sure that my enthusiasm for on-line publishing has been obvious.  I’m pleased to see that the removal of the gatekeeper has created new opportunities for writers to publish and distribute their work, but there is one aspect that concerns me: the decline of the role played by editors in helping writers to shape and polish their work. This has already happened at some of the on-line journals, which tend to post manuscripts, without changes, soon after accepting them. I hope that people who decide to publish their own fiction will secure the help of an editor, because good books have always reached their potential through collaboration between a writer and an editor who is sensitive to the writer’s purposes.

Sherri Rinker Interview Link

Check out this blog link:

The Write Words: The Making of a Best-Selling Children's Book: Sherri Rinker on Goodnight, Goodnight

kathymirkin.blogspot.com

To Outline or Not to Outline

There is definitely a very good argument for creating an outline as you prepare to write a new book if you are writing nonfiction. The argument is less convincing for general fiction, and I do not like to outline in writing a mystery novel. I do make plenty of notes on a yellow legal pad with some guesses about where the plot might be going, and then I put that pad away and never look at it again until the book has been completed. The essence of a mystery novel is investigation. If you have an outline, you already know the results of that investigation. I prefer to write a mystery from the inside out. I ride along with my characters and witness each step of the investigation along with them. The nature of your characters, the amount of information they have, and the situation in which they find themselves tell you what the logical next step in the investigation is going to be. Different characters logically explore aspects of the problem that are appropriate for them, and they learn from each other when they compare notes. Each status comparison builds a new platform for the next steps in the investigation. I never know the outcome in advance. I learn along with my characters, and I find many surprises as the process leads to an outcome.

Beginning / Middle / End / Beginning

Most coherent stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. As with a speech, you don't want to start communicating without having some idea where you are going. Good fiction will tend to have a beginning, a middle, an end, and then it will double back to the beginning to be sure that the opening questions have been answered by the end of the book. It isn't always necessary to tie down every loose end, especially if you want to leave the reader with open-ended questions rather than answers, but wrapping things up neatly yields reader satisfaction and is a sign of good writing craftsmanship. However, if you are writing a series of novels, you may want to use the technique of ending each volume with a dilemma or stimulus that will entice the reader to crave the next volume.