Someone to Root For

 As I often do, I am reading books about writing as I work on my next book. Since I have multiple points of view and several primary characters, I've been giving more thought than usual to who these characters are. Their voices need to be distinctive. But I'm also thinking about what the fiction authors discussing characters have to say about how "likeable" a character needs to be for readers to care about that character and have "someone to root for". 

Personally, I have read books when I found there was no one I cared about or liked. And, then, there is a book like Gone With the Wind. I mention this book because -- as I have mentioned -- it is crucial to my 1939 novel because in my historical thriller, all roads lead to the Atlanta premier of the movie based on the book. I have been watching the movie in bits and pieces. I remember the movie well. But the book is still setting on my desk, waiting to be read again. Why?  Because even though I raced through the novel when I read it as a teenager, I found Scarlett a difficult character to root for. She is beautiful and brave, but I thought Rhett might have done better. Send Scarlett and Ashley off into the sunset and have Rhett find comfort with Melanie.  

I have given this some thought because I can understand why Mitchell created Scarlett (of course, I am analyzing the novel as it would have been read by her core audience in 1939. The racial politics is another matter entirely).  Scarlett is a dynamic character. She makes things happen. Even disliking her, one wants to know what happens to her. Even when she is being audacious, she is engaging. Melanie, on the other hand, is kind and unselfish, but she would have had to undergo the kind of transformation that Bette Davis does in Now, Voyager (1942) to hold the attention of many readers and movie goers. 

In the fourth novel in my Lizzie Stuart series, I have a character who does her best to take over the book. From the moment, she walks in -- even before that when she is being discussed by the other characters -- she is intriguing. I was as anxious as anyone who read the book to have her appear. I can't wait to have her turn up again in Book 7. But I share Lizzie's concern that compared to this woman -- her lost long mother -- she, herself, is rather dull. She has the feeling that even to John Quinn, the man who loves her and who she is about to marry, she must be less interesting than her mother. Not that she is jealous. She knows Quinn too well for that. But she recognizes that Becca is a woman who is neither good nor kind but renders other women invisible. 

I like kind characters just as I like real people who are kind. I am always in awe of people who seem to automatically do things to make other people's lives easier. That is not something that I do without thought because I am often in my own head and not paying attention to what is going on around me. To be kind, I have to make the deliberate decision to pay attention and look for the opportunity to do something nice. I would like to be a Melanie. My protagonist, Lizzie Stuart, is a Melanie. So I have to be careful that readers know her well enough so that even when Becca is in the  book, they still root for Lizzie. 

Well, and good in my series. But in my 1939 novel, one of my female character is channeling Scarlett. I have been trying to keep her in line. I am dismayed because I want to avoid creating a female character that might be perceived as a stereotype. But she is having her way. 

The thing is she is a lot more fun to write when she's bad than when she is good. But I want readers to like her and care about her. The end of the book as I have imagined it, depends for its impact on caring about this character. 

I have a feeling it isn't going to end quite the way I expected.

Omniscient Viewpoint and other Godly Pronouncements

Having retreated from this century and become newly enthralled by novels written by old Russians, I wonder why the omniscient viewpoint has fallen from favor.

Anyone exposed to contemporary writing courses is drilled with the necessity of "staying in viewpoint." I wonder why?

Authors used to wander all over the place and their books carried a delightful sense of authority. After reading Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and Crime and Punishment, I ascended to the 19th century and reread some of my favorite books: Gone With the Wind, Green Dolphin Street, Not as a Stranger. Rebecca, and A Distant Trumpet.

I've read obsessively this early winter. This is not particularly healthy. In my case, it indicates withdrawal and protection from the stresses of contemporary society. The bombardment of news and conflict is overwhelming. And ugly.

That's where novels come in. The kind based on Jane Austen type problems dithered over by civilized people.

In addition to this reading allowing me to cultivate a functional approach to the demands of everyday life, I've learned a lot about writing. Writers in previous eras not only changed viewpoints within scenes, they hopped from person to person and occasionally inserted narrative passages that would make today's editors grind their teeth.

Shifting third person is the popular choice for contemporary mysteries. It's an excellent approach, but it's rather timid. I miss the complexity and wisdom of writers such as P.D. James who came up with the following gems:

God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

By the time political correctness is added to the mix, passion has been drained from so many books. It's delightful to read novels written during a time when writers were seething with passion and didn't have to worry about political correctness. Gone with the Wind is the epitome of patronizing racism.

Talk about racial stereotypes! Yet it is one of the finest books about the destruction of the South during the Civil War. It also helped me understand my father whose family came from Georgia and who had many of attitudes so wonderfully captured in Margaret Mitchell's book.

Some of the classics would never survive the contemporary editorial pencil. Physical book-burning has given way to a more subtle kind of destruction.

Hooray for the old writers who had axes to grind, oodles of biases, and knew how to express them.

Sorting Books

There's no longer any rhyme or reason to my books. Not any more. When I lived in Western Kansas I had solid walls of bookcases in my finished basement. I knew exactly where everything was.

But after two moves my books are in total disarray. When I lived in the apartment in Loveland I didn't have any storage. My books were in five different locations: the shelves I managed to squeeze into my office, basements or workshops at the three daughters, and, of course, crates and crates in a storage shed.

Since I've moved to Fort Collins, I have a lot more storage space. It's a mixed blessing. Books breed. In another life they were rabbits. They multiply.

My difficulty is compounded by the fact that I can't donate used books without carrying more books home than I took to the facility.

Yesterday I began the difficult sorting process. I took a number of books to a really safe disposal place. Loveland Friends of the Library has a terrific used book sale every year. The have a unique method for collecting books and have a large device like a weatherproof outside postal mailer that can be used 24/7. It's perfect for me! I open the little slot and shove in a book. It clanks shut and I can't see any other books inside the dark building where they prepare books for the next sale.

Moving right ahead to my daughter's home, I took a couple of empty crates down to her basement. Because of the strength involved with moving books I'll tackle her place a little at a time. Unfortunately the process was complicated by a rediscovery process.

Such wonderful books! Surely worth rereading. A huge stack went into that pile. Such treasures as James Michener's The Covenant. I collect Pulitzer Prize winners and Gone With the Wind caught my eye immediately. When one of the winners is also a best seller, there is something to gain by looking at it again with a writer's eye.

Then there is special place in my heart for autographed books. Especially if the authors are friends. It's more troublesome if I love the person but really don't care for their books. I can't bear to let them go but there's not a chance I will ever look at these books again.

There's another stack of books that were given to me at conferences or when I have been a judge in contests. Some of these find a new home as soon as the responsibility is over. Especially the ones I didn't care for at all. But a few stay.

There's a plaguy little pile of either academic books and books I feel like I really, really should read for my own good. Will I live long enough to tackle this assortment? For my own good. For my own good.

Then there's gift books from relations or friends. Some are beloved and some are not.

Happily the biggest pile contains books that I have loved all of my life. I'm going to reserve a special shelf, a place of honor for books that I treasure.

Someone else can figure out where to put them when I die.

Writing Different

As I mentioned, this year I'm taking part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I'm not sure if I'm going to reach the 50,000 words, but I am now looking for time when I can write each day. I do write every day, but — because I'm trying to finish a nonfiction book — I haven't carved out a time each day to work on my historical thriller. Instead, I've been doing research.


I've done research on the mood of America in the 1930s. Research on fashion and houses and Gone with the Wind. Research on the 1939 New York World's Fair, J. Edgar Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the cost of living. I've done research on train schedules and the details of the tasks performed by sleeping car porters. I've watched films released in 1939 and listened to popular music. I've watched video tours of Washington, D.C., New York, and Atlanta. I've also watched a video showing how to drive a 1936 Ford. I know a lot about some things and a little about others.

The question — the real test — is whether during this month of focused writing I know enough to make it through the first draft without stopping to do research. Can I insert a question in brackets to remind myself to fact-check later and keep moving? That is not the way I normally write. I don't like to fill in information later. But this is my month of challenging myself to write different.

Writing different means that instead of working on my novel on weekends, I will get up a couple of hours earlier and start writing. I will write the entire two hours, not go back to read what I wrote the day before and edit. I will keep moving forward, working toward a first draft that is sure to be horrible.

But writing a horrible first draft may be what I need to do with a thriller. I need to feel the forward motion.

Right now, I'm going to bed. Getting up at 7 am is a shock to my system. I will keep you informed about how my attempt to write a novel in a month goes. If nothing else, I think it will force me to stop researching everything that crosses my mind, and instead focus on what I need to know.

Is anyone else doing NaNoMoWri? How did you prepare for the month of writing?