Book Review—The Fiction Class, a novel by Susan Breen

Susan Breen’s The Fiction Class, a Plume book published by Penguin Group, offers a great story while feeding your creative brain like a portable fiction class.
 
To be honest, I was rushing to an appointment when I stole a quick glance through a secondhand bookstore and picked up this gem.(Couldn’t resist—I had five whole spare minutes.) I made the purchase based solely on the title. I assumed the book would be another one of those how-to-improve-your-writing texts. Why not, I thought? I didn’t notice the two little words “a novel” in the upper left corner.

Needless to say, my surprise turned to delight. Reading Breen’s work felt like gleaning the gold from a well explained how-to book, while diving into the lives of interesting characters and a setting I related to on Page 1.

Through a teacher and a class of eleven wannabe writers, Breen unveils the secrets to crafting interesting and believable characters, pumping up dialogue to grab the reader, plotting, pacing, and the question of theme, as well as the importance of voice. She even shares the assignments given to the class and offers discussions on the aspects of writing, all dramatized through engaging scenes. The novel speaks to the heart through the love between man and woman; mother and daughter; and the complex relationships, heartache, and loss that evolve through those loves.

You can read The Fiction Class as a novel, become fully involved in the characters’ bitchiness and silliness, dream for them and weep for them, while at the same time, learn to sharpen your writing as though you’d just taken a ten-week course on fiction.

I’d recommend this book to anyone, writer or not. Readers with no aspirations of becoming a writer won’t be dissatisfied, and writers will be enthralled.

The Fiction Class, Susan Breen

 

Your Best Friend Is Your Best Resource

Have you noticed your best friend lately—the one who makes you laugh even when your eyes are rimmed with tears? The one who forgives your mistakes, because it’s more fun to dance through a pile of leaves on a breezy day than to waste time dwelling on darkness? The one who convinces you the bananas in your cream pie are fruit and therefore, the delicious slice of heaven is actually healthy? The one who convinces you to take a break on writing that Fibonacci poem you’re supposed to be working on, and instead sit on the deck and blow bubbles for a while?

Remember her? She’s your inner child—your best friend.

She can help you whether you are recovering from illness, wading through family or career obligations, or noticing the pain in your arm that is forever grasping at a bar that keeps rising as you near it.

Take a step back and pay attention to what your inner child is suggesting you do. I’m not saying listen to her evil twin who’s prodding you to take a year off, but if she is simply asking you to  stroll down the sidewalk while not stepping on any cracks ( please save your mother’s back), then do it. She is the one watching out for you, your sanity and preservation. Chances are, if you give her 15 minutes a day, the load you return to won’t feel nearly as heavy as it had.

Are you working on writing a legal thriller? Put on a striped hat and a polk-a-dotted jacket and jog around the block, waving at every dog you pass to see how loud the barking gets.

Are you revisiting that same spot again and again in the oil painting you think you’ll never finish? Cut out a picture of a goldfish, stick it to your trouble-spot and eat a chocolate bar as if it were an ice cream cone, while pretending you are a six-year-old with the freedom to paint anything you want, and work on the rest of the painting.

Are you stuck in that never ending rut of finishing the laundry? Give it up—throw away all those unmatched socks so that you never see them again. Socks are cheap. Buy a few new pairs, and let your imagination pick out the funky designs you’d never wear to church. Wear them anyway, with extra long pants. Wear them to places you think you shouldn’t, but secretly. You’ll be surprised at the little tingle you get every time you think of them. It’s the sneak of a thing that makes it fun.

Is one of your relatives still upset with you when you just want to call the feud quits? Write her or him a note that says:

 I’m sorry. Do you like me? Circle yes or no.

                       Yes          No

I bet you’ll get a good answer.

On your bad days, what does your inner child tell you to do? Do you listen?

Guest Author Edith Parzefall on Panic! The book's about to be released!

Since November, Francene Stanley and I have been looking forward to the release of our co-written post-apocalyptic fantasy novel Wind Over Troubled Waters. When we signed the contract, the release was planned for 2013. Then Double Dragon Publishing surprised us by scheduling the release for May 2012.

I've been counting the weeks till the release with the four-week span: in 6-10 weeks, in 4-8 weeks... Of course, I always rather expected the later date. When 2-6 weeks arrived, the publisher informed us the book would be released in 1-2 weeks. Excitement and panic embraced each other for a crazed dance around my study.

I hadn't yet sifted through all those links on marketing, book review sites, etc. Not to mention the two ebooks on marketing still untouched on my e-reader. I usually love to be prepared well in advance, but I felt certain I had plenty of time. And marketing isn't exactly the most favorite task for a writer.

Also, after years of collecting rejections, persevering and slaving on, it still seemed a little surreal that finally the first book should be published. Suddenly we only had a week or two to sound the fanfares and beat the pots with wooden spoons. No idea how that happened! Well, I do have a suspicion. Such a mind-shift isn't easy when you've been shooed away for so long, then stare at open doors, friendly faces, and arms waving you in. Also in November last year, MuseItUp Publishing accepted my thriller Strays of Rio to be published in September this year. Or so I think. Maybe MuseItUp is going to sneak up on me as well, when I least expect it--shortly before the planned release. Still, by then I might have learned from the experience with Wind Over Troubled Waters. Or not. ;-)

If you see me flapping around the Internet in headless chicken mode the next few days or weeks, don't shoot me, please! The head might grow back. I sure hope so. There's this new novel I want to write and a brain certainly helps.

Um, excuse my rambling. I just located a sliver of gray matter and realized Debi usually likes guest bloggers to actually provide useful information, give advice and insights. Well, I provided an example above of what you shouldn't do: neglect marketing. And there's only one advice I have: If writing is your passion, never give up! Listen to what the shooing folks say, if they talk sense or talk at all, work hard on improving your work, and keep knocking on doors.

Wind Over Troubled Waters
by Francene Stanley & Edith Parzefall

Oh, and here's more free advice: Don’t be shy about advertising your books when the time comes. Be bold but subtle. I’m still working on that. So, go buy Wind Over Troubled Waters from the publisher, or from Amazon, write a review and post it everywhere. Why? Because we'd love that. :-D

Links to my blog & website:
http://blog.edith-parzefall.de
www.edith-parzefall.de
www.facebook.com/people/Edith-Parzefall/100003176920875
Wind Over Troubled Waters by Francene Stanley & Edith Parzefall

Guilie Castillo on "Critic or Cheerleader?"

Do you belong to a writer's group? You do? Congratulations! It's essential to the process of growing as a writer, of honing your skills, of becoming an ace at the craft. By joining one, you've taken a major step in your career.

But here's a question: is your group a critique group? Or a chorus of cheerleaders?

We all need cheerleaders. Pom-poms and rah-rahs. Undying support from someone—anyone—that we can latch onto in those dark moments when the blank page seems the hardest thing to face; when your words, once sheer genius, have begun to look like so much crap. Ordinary crap, at that.  

We need cheerleaders to help us believe we can do this thing, that we have it in us, that our talent exists, that our writing is not ordinary.

If your goal is not only to get published, but to grow as a writer, to become the best writer you can be, you also need a helping hand in terms of craft. I know—you've read the books, you have an MFA from a prestigious program, you've been doing this for a long time. Hell, for all I know, you're Stephen King or JRR Tolkien. Whatever. If you're committed to this career, you want to be better. Write better.

Right?

Cheerleading is for the spirit. It's to keep you sane, focused, motivated. But it won't improve your writing. Unless it's balanced against objective critiques, it may even damage it.

What is the function of a good critique group? To improve your writing. How? By providing a bunch of objective opinions on it—what works, what doesn't. Suggestions on how to make a scene more alive, give a character depth, draw the reader into the narrative to the point where they cannot put the book down. A critique group is the foundry where your skill is tempered into cutting-edge precision. Like iron ore, you need to be smelted and continuously honed into the hardness of brilliance.

What a critique group is not: a cheerleader faction for your work. A support group? Certainly, when it comes to true improvement. Like AA, your critiquing partners shouldn't encourage you to hit the bourbon no matter how desperately you think you need it, but rather push you—hard—to stick on the right path, to rise above yourself. A good critique partner will tell you the hard truths you need to hear—and listen to—in order to take your writing to the next level.

A critique group is like your editor—but careful here: not your spellcheck. You wouldn't send a first draft to your editor, right? You'd check for misspelled words, for echoes, for repetitious scenes, for character and plot arcs. When it's as good as you can make it, and only then, you'd send it out.

And then your editor would come back with suggestions and remarks, and you'd start work on your final draft. 

Revise your expectations: a critique group should get your writing as good as you can get it in order to help you improve it. A rah-rah might feel great, but how much does it help, really?

When you join a critique group, you leave your ego at the door. You bring only your story. It's all about the story, about making it better, making it shine.

Guilie Castillo is a 38-year-old Mexican writer currently exiled in the island of Curacao. She misses Mexican food and Mexican "amabilidad," but the "laissez-faire" attitude and the beauty of the Caribbean is a fair exchange. Plus, the bounty of cultural diversity on the island inspires great culture-clash-based topics that her talent is seldom good enough to bring to fruition.

 Guilie is currently in the final revision process of her first novel, Restoring Experience, and working on another spawned during NaNoWriMo 2011. She blogs at http://guilie-castillo-oriard.blogspot.com, and her short stories have appeared in www.fiction365.com, http://www.ladyinkmagazine.com/home

, and http://pureslush.webs.com/authorsc.htm#825261724,

, as well as a few blogs, including an honorable mention in Clarity of Night’s contest in July 2011 (http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2011/07/entry-97.html). 

Guest Author Mithran Somasundrum on Characterization

"Action is character," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a notebook, meaning that showing a person's actions, and more importantly his choices, is the clearest way to delineate his personality. But there is a distinction between character and characterization. It's one thing to make a man seem brave, petty or violent. It's something else to make him seem real. The best short description of characterization I've ever found was a quote on the back of a novel whose title and author I can't even remember. While they've gone out of my mind, the quote, by V. S. Pritchett, remains.  "[Author X]," he wrote, "knows the fantasy lives of his characters." 

When great writers look at the works of others, they often end up discussing themselves; and Pritchett's statement could just as easily have been a description of, and an explanation for, the vitality and life in his own work. Throughout the whole of his long writing career, you feel Pritchett had a direct line to the cinema playing behind his characters' eyes.  The cinema where they were the heroes and happiness unfolded.

While we judge the people we meet in fiction by their decisions, we believe in them largely because of what comes out of their mouths. Which ties good characterization inextricably into the art of writing good dialogue. "Good" doesn't necessarily mean clever or long. "You killed Miles and you're going over for it," is good because it's true to Sam Spade's hard-headed, uncomplicated view of his life. However, given that the main purpose of the pages of a novel—any novel—is to make you keep turning them, dialogue needs to be more than just true.  It needs to be interesting. 

The fuller section of The Maltese Falcon that I've just quoted is,

"I don't care who loves who. I'm not going to play the sap for you. I won't walk in Thursby's and who knows who else's footsteps. You killed Miles and you're going over for it."

This has a great rhythm and power, without moving outside the vocabulary Spade would use or the kind of ideas he’d express. Another writer of great hyper-real dialogue is Saul Bellow. His characters use ordinary idioms and phrases, but often at such a pitch of emotion their thoughts go tumbling into each other. From The Victim, when Leventhal finally decides he's had enough of Allbee leeching off him:

"You dirty phoney!" Levanthal cried huskily. "You ugly bastard counterfeit. I said it because you're such a liar, with your phoney tears and your wife's name in your mouth, every second word. The poor woman, a fine life she must have had with you, a freak like you, out of a carnival."

People reveal themselves in anger; they lose hold of the image they want to present to the world. But it's impossible to write a novel in which everyone is angry all the time. So the writer needs to find the smaller signs where people give themselves away. Great examples of these are scattered throughout Paul Theroux's collected short stories.

Theroux is a great describer of groups. Whether it's a reception at a London Embassy, the muggy heat of a Malaysian polo match, or four poets strolling through a frosty Amherst night, Theroux's group scenes bristle with life. This isn't because his characters are constantly screaming at each other—although their tempers do fray and irritations do flare—but rather because he creates the impression of separate human minds running on very different rails. Theroux's people talk to one side of each other, they enter conversations pre-armed with a view of the world, their minds snag monomaniacally on an idea and then refuse to let it go.

How much mental space an author needs to achieve this is moot.  Graham Greene often said he knew his characters had become real when they became capable of surprising him.  In contrast, Nabokov described his characters as "galley slaves."  And yet to the reader Humbert Humbert remains as disturbingly real as his desire for Dolores Haze. 

The issue of authorially-granted freedom has often led to novels being labeled as either plot-driven or character-driven; but the fact is, any wholly alive story is set moving by the hungers and self-deceptions of its people. The plot of The Maltese Falcon ticks along like a Swiss watch. But it's the low cunning and mutual suspicion of Joel Cairo, Brigid O'Shaughnessy and the Fat Man, and the almost amoral nature of the "blond Satan" (Sam Spade) they turn to who set the book ticking.

Who would you recommend as a great example of characterization, either to learn from or simply to enjoy?  Which writer and which of their works?

Mithran Somasundrum was born in Colombo, grew up in London and currently lives in Bangkok.  His short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Sun, Inkwell, The Minnesota Review, Natural Bridge, and GUD, among others.

Author Holly Michael on Ghostwriting

I began ghostwriting immediately after I quit writing. That’s right. When rejection letters, numbering in the hundreds, angered me into avowing my one-sided love affair with writing, I quit. Not only did I quit, I announced it to God with fervent fist-raising. I bolted that door shut. After my drama, I cracked the door a teensy weensy bit, in case God wanted to sneak in, work a miracle, and change my mind.

A few hours later, an editor with Guideposts for Teens magazine called. She wanted an essay I’d submitted a couple of months earlier. Someone other than my mother and maybe even God, liked my writing. Immediately, I pitched an essay I’d written about my struggle as a teenager overcoming the drowning death of my sister.

They published “Guilty” a few months later. A patient editor worked with me to understand Guidepost’s formula. Once I got that down, she offered regular ghostwriting assignments.
My first job took me near Little Rock, Arkansas, to interview a teenage boy who had survived a plane crash. I wondered how I, a mom in her thirties, raised in the north, could write in a teenage boy’s southern voice. As a natural born people-watcher, I listened to the way he spoke, his dialect, his mannerisms. Voices have tones and tempos. I compare ghostwriting to acting. You must incorporate the same techniques an actor would in taking on a role. You have to get in to the head of a person and understand how he or she would think, feel, speak. Is the person you are writing for friendly, formal, chatty, distant, quiet?

A more difficult assignment was an older woman who had survived a holocaust. I imagined her emotions as a terrified teenager, so many years ago.

For more than ten years, along with other freelance jobs, I interviewed teenagers, took photos, and wrote their stories for this magazine. As my young children matured into teenagers, they became a great help. When I wrote a story for a high-school basketball player, I showed it to my teenage son,Jake. He said, “Mom, no one says, ‘I shot a three-pointer. Say, ‘I busted a tre.’” Tre didn’t survive my spell check, but I trusted Jake.

In any writing, you have to study the voices of the characters (either real or made-up) and learn their lingo. Before the magazine went to an online edition only, I interviewed a teenage girl in India who had survived the tsunami. My husband is a pastor, and he and I were in India for mission work two weeks after the 2004 tsunami hit. The girl we interviewed didn’t speak English. My husband, a native of Tamil Nadu, translated her horrific journey of being swept up in the huge wave and carried through the streets of her village. Watching Tamilarisa’s mannerisms and tuning into her shyness and sorrow helped me write from her point of view.

Though I couldn’t speak her language, I understood the pain and anguish of a teenage girl who had lost a loved one in a drowning death. The assignment brought me full circle with the first story I’d pitched to Guideposts about my own teenage experience of suffering the loss of a sister who died from drowning.

Empathy is a key to writing from another point of view. You must hear the emotion behind the words.

I took what I learned from ghostwriting into further freelance writing work: writing a biography for someone, full time work as a features writer for a newspaper, and other freelance jobs.

Now, entering the world of fiction writing, I use what I’ve learned. A novelist must use various voices. In CROOKED LINES, my upcoming novel, I write from the point of view of two teenagers coming of age in totally different cultures: A boy from India and a girl from the Midwest United States. I carry them through to middle adulthood. My current WIP is I’LL BE SEEING YOU, a novel about a man in a coma and his children who come together with their own issues and agendas. It’s fun and challenging to write from the perspective of an elderly man in a coma.

I’m also looking forward to a future project. Jake, my son is a diabetic who is preparing for the NFL draft. He says after he gets drafted, he wants to write a book about kids, sports, and diabetes. If all goes well and we begin this joint venture, I’ll return to ghostwriting roots. If you want to read more about Jake and me, check my blog:
http://writingstraight.com/2012/02/19/nfl-aspirations-and-novelist-dreams-follow-the-fairytales-as-they-come-true/

Subscribe or keep checking back for updates to what happens with the novelist and the NFL player. Holly’s novel, CROOKED LINES, is in the quarter finalists of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. You may download the first three chapters for free as well as rate or review it here:
 http://www.amazon.com/Crooked-Lines-2012-Entry-ebook/dp/B007GEJ7LG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332444396&sr=1-1

Guest Author Francene Stanley on The Birth of a Novelist

          As a child in Australia, I grew up entertaining my two younger sisters with stories. Enthralled, they watched me dancing the role of Cleopatra, dying from the bite of an asp. Lost in the wonder of fluidity and the attention of my audience, I thrived.

With the passage of the years, when the body goes through the most amazing transformation from child to woman, I used this grace in my walk. I attracted an action man, strong, handsome and charismatic. Perhaps instinct drew me to a partner who would provide healthy children. Deep inside, I rejected the little voice warning me not to let him control me. I discovered that turning a blind eye to his rages would appease his jealousy. I committed to love and all it entailed—through sickness and in health.

By the time I reached twenty-four, three wonderful children occupied my time, and any chance of a career sailed right past me. Caught up in The Good Life, I taught my children to respect and consider others. Together, we collected rubbish on the beach, helped the aged and strove to be the best we could be.

My husband worked at an advertising agency, so I didn't see him much during my twenties. With his charm and talent, he caught everyone's attention while I acted as his side-kick. But the pressure of work caused him a nervous breakdown. My stepfather offered the chance to leave city life behind and move to a little seaside town—a place where my husband could relax and heal while building sand-hill protection with a view of the ocean crashing on the shore. Here, I went through another transformation. Although he recovered, I saw my husband's bullying with new eyes.

Fantasy became the powerful instructor I needed, the means to transport me into another world, one distant from his demeaning tactics. I read my grandmother's early, extensive collection of science fiction as well as Ayn Rand's novels and Edgar Cayce's readings on the afterlife.

When the children left home, my love went with them. I committed to keep faith with my pledge and continue to strive for my best.

My husband's illness pinpointed bipolar. Although he'd latched onto the sympathy of the first real friend in my adult life, he still wanted my support. When he moved in with my ex-friend, he gave me a freedom I wasn't ready for. Full of sorrow and torment, I forgave myself.

With no expertise, I worked as a nanny, eventually travelling to England. All alone in London, I survived amongst borrowed luxury. But my spirit longed for love. A prince in the guise of an accountant appeared.

Free at last, I explored other ways of expressing myself. First I wrote songs—at least fifty. Seven of the best, produced as demos, molder in files without me ever acquiring the necessary drive to get a producer's interest. Poetry, so similar in rhyme and beat, involved me next—a hundred tomes. The frustration of writing and writing, with no chance of airing the result, caused a change of direction. I wrote my life story for my family.

Right. Done. But what about all I'd learned during my wonderful life?

Use my story as the base of a novel. Show how a gentle, naive woman CAN survive in the face of aggression. Demonstrate how to use the power of the mind to overcome every obstacle with time, space and patience—as Edgar Cayce advocated.

And that's where fantasy came in. An inherited star moonstone ring sweeps Liliha, my heroine in Still Rock Water, away in random visions to help someone in distress. She's so much more than a woman borrowing the story of my life. Liliha took over and created her own circumstances. Her story will inspire each reader during the ride to the joyful ending.

Due to be released soon by Solstice Publishing, Still Rock Water comes first in the Moonstone series. The three books to follow will involve the reader in love, heartache and a fresh start for Liliha.

Francene's blog:
http://francene-wordstitcher.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003255760473
https://twitter.com/#!/FranceneStanley