You, the Narrator, the Character

Before I start the post, just want to let you know that I’m going to be at a library in Irving, Texas, on Saturday, October 12th. You can find details on the website. I’ll be there to talk about my historical novel, Dave at Night, but I’m sure I’ll take questions about anything. I hope some of you can make it, and please let me know that you read about the event here.

In August, Abby wrote in to the website with this: …I am aiming to write a book on myself. I have a very interesting background, being a traveling homeschooler, being a regular school-going kid, living in two different countries at different times. I feel like I have so much to share, but I honestly don’t know where to start. I love writing poems, though I don’t read much of poems. I TOTALLY love reading books. How do you think I should start my journey of writing a book?


And just so you know, I already write a lot. My creative juices are flowing. I’m becoming a writer, regular blogger and I write journals and poems.

In my answer I wrote, I haven’t done much memoir writing, although there are snippets in WRITING MAGIC, or much autobiographical fiction, but I’ve written two related posts. To find them, click on “writing from life” on the right. Also, I think you should read memoirs and autobiographical fiction, which a librarian or a bookstore salesperson will help you find.

I’d also suggest you look at some travel writing books, not guidebooks, but travel writing as literature. Again, a librarian or bookstore salesperson should be able to help.

I’m glad you called writing a book a journey. I’d say it’s a trip on a slow boat or on foot. Books aren’t written at rocket-ship speed, except during NaNoWriMo (coming up soon), and even then there’s revision afterward. So you seem to have the first element down. Patience is the most important virtue a writer needs.

I just googled the difference between autobiography and memoir and found this link, which you may find helpful:  http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/knowing-the-difference-between-an-autobiography-an.html. And here’s a link to a Wikipedia article about memoir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir. I looked at a few more links and gleaned that memoir uses more of the strategies of fiction than autobiography does. I’m guessing here, but I suspect that retelling a conversation in autobiography, for example, would have to be exact. In memoir who said what can be filtered through the memoirist’s memory.

When you start, don’t worry about beginning in the right place. The most important thing is to put something down. You can figure out what goes where later. Of course, in a memoir the beginning may wind up being the earliest chronological point. Or not, depending on what you eventually decide gets the narrative going.

In my earlier posts I mentioned the short story I wrote for a collection of stories and memoirs about grandmothers, called In My Grandmother’s House, which seems to be out of print and hard to find. I also contributed a memoir piece to a collection that is still be available, called Thanks and Giving. My grandmother story was fictionalized, but the family in the story was mine, minus my sister; the unpleasant grandmother and aunts were definitely mine. The main character was a slightly more outspoken version of me. The memory in the Thanks and Giving story was true to the facts as I remember them, although I was very young at the time.

In both I regarded myself as a character and not a perfect being – I was flawed. I criticized my grandmother in one; in the other, I destroyed an expensive doll. Whether you’re writing autobiography or memoir, you need to become character-like. The reader has to engage, must find herself in you, and you have to be sympathetic. That I was flawed was fine. Nobody identifies with a Mary Sue.

How to achieve that empathy?

We need tension, maybe not as much as in fiction, but some. For example, you might include your worries, if you had any, when you moved to foreign countries. If things didn’t always go well, readers will want the details. And details in any kind of writing bring experience to life.

If something funny happens, please share. Details are essential here, too, to set up the situation and ensure that the reader gets the joke.

Your thoughts and feelings, negative as well as positive, are also essential. The reader walks in our MC’s shoes when he enters her mind and heart. Same for the narrator of a memoir.

Naturally, there will be other real people in a memoir. If any of them are also flawed, you may need to consider hurt feelings. I go into this in more detail in my other posts, but you may want to start by talking to those involved and telling them what you’re doing.

I once heard a children’s book author say in a speech that she learns by being surprised, which struck me as true. An unexpected fact lingers in my memory. For example, when I wrote my historical fantasy, Ever, I read up on ancient Mesopotamia. When I looked into medical practices way back then, I discovered that a physician, on the way to a patient, would look for omens that would help him make a diagnosis – before he even saw the sick person! I’ll never forget that. If something astonished you, it will likely surprise your reader, too. Don’t leave it out.

Likewise, what interests you will probably interest your reader. Another example: Disney sent me to Japan to promote Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. Before I went I asked for help bridging the culture gap, and Disney set me up with a consultant. Here in the U. S., when I promote a book I’m expected to say good things about it – that’s the purpose of promotion, right? But the consultant told me to be careful about that in Japan where anything that smacks of boasting is frowned upon. I had to find ways of talking about the book with humility. It was fascinating! (And I learned that it’s perfectly acceptable to eat sushi with your fingers.)

Prompts:

• When I researched my historical novel Dave at Night, I read about early automobiles and learned that carriage companies commonly made the auto bodies. Think Cinderella’s pumpkin coach with an engine. The driver’s seat in an early chauffeured limousine was lower than the passenger seats, and short chauffeurs were preferred so that the gentry who rode in these cars would appear bigger and more important. Write a story about a character who is desperate to break into high society in a fantasy world that makes these kinds of obvious, even physical, class distinctions.

• Pick a character from one of your stories and make him or her the MC in an anecdote from your own life. After the incident gets going, let the MC take the story in a fictional direction.

• I don’t know if this is still true, but when I was in school teachers loved to assign “My Summer Vacation” as a September essay topic. So let’s revive the practice if it’s fallen out of use. Write a memoir piece about your summer. Look for the tense times, the disappointments, the crazy jokes, the near-drownings. Make yourself into a character readers will identify with. If you had the dullest summer in world history, fictionalize! Invent the near-drownings!

Have fun, and save what you write!

29 Responses on “You, the Narrator, the Character”

  1. E.S. Ivy says:

    Not worrying about where to start is excellent advice when starting on any book!

    There's a chance I'll be in the Dallas/Irving area the same weekend, but we can't leave town until my daughter's musical practice is over and it's likely I'd miss you by just hours. 🙁 Hope you have a great time!

  3. HeroineHiding says:

    The part about feelings really stuck out to me, just because that's something I struggle with when I want to write about anything, not just what's going on…

    I'm just curious, since I'm here… I know you've talked about blogging specifically in one post before, but most of the other writing blogs I read insist that blogging is the third best way on the entire planet to become a better writer (first two being reading and writing). And also if you're not blogging then you're doing it wrong.

    Can one be a 'real writer' without a blog? I tried it, but I could only write about topics that I had no enthusiasm for and I didn't feel very self-improved. It kind of made me miserable. Or is there another way to do it without dying on the inside?

    • E.S. Ivy says:

      I can't resist putting my thought on this because just yesterday I read a report from a conference that publishers now say blogs aren't as important for writers as keeping up with the social platforms. Even just last year they were "all" saying that anyone who wanted to be a writer *had* to have a blog.

      Personally, I think a blog is only useful if you enjoy it because that shows in your posts. Ms. Levine's blog is obviously well done and very useful to many.

      I put off getting a blog because I knew for me it would be a huge time drain as I tried to get it perfect. Which it is – I have two and I'm working on revamping them. I'm either writing books or working on my blog technicalities – I can't seem to do both at the same time.

      I keep at it only because there are parts of it I enjoy and I keep hoping I can get my act together and to both better. 🙂

      But I would say no one knows if you need a blog or not. Find what works for you! I bet Ms. Levine can answer your last question better than I can as she clearly came up with a method that works for her.

    • gailcarsonlevine says:

      Can you say more about the problems with feelings? I think there's a post in your question, but I want to be sure I know what's giving you trouble.

      As for blogging, of course you're a real writer without blogging! People wrote for centuries – millennia! – before blogs were possible. My publisher said writers needed to be more involved with social media, and I picked blogging and found it a good fit. Actually, I love it. But you can tweet or use Facebook or Goodreads. Or do none of it and just write your stories, which is the most important thing. Period.

    • HeroineHiding says:

      Good to know… Obviously reading and writing are the keys to getting something written well, but it's still good to know one can be successful without all the things a writer "needs."

      As for the feelings… As someone who is really detached from her emotions, I usually go through life and through my writing not exactly apathetically, but with separation so that logical response always comes before anything touchy-feely. And if I were the sun the touchy-feely part of me would probably be Pluto.

      At any rate, I'm well aware that conveying emotion is one of those pieces that really makes writing powerful. It's just that since I usually don't recognize feelings as I experience them, or I give them little heed, I have a hard time translating emotional response into my characters. I could probably handle something like misery, or joy, but you can't (or at least shouldn't) fill up an entire book with only emotional extremes. I know that there are little twinges of annoyance, momentary fears, minor infusions of happiness, but they never seem to make it into my writing. And then I don't think to put them in there because I kind of travel along in an "unfeeling mode."

      I've been told on several occasions that my writing either has little emotion or the wrong ones. Being able to give that extra dimension would be ideal, problem being I'm not really sure how.

      (I think that's kind of what you wanted. Maybe.)

    • gailcarsonlevine says:

      This is a tough one, and I don't think it's the subject of a post. You might try high-action writing. I'm assuming you're an adult, so you might find examples in the crime novels of Richard Stark (not for children). Or you might write fantasy about a world with very different emotional responses. Or you might take on educating yourself about emotional responses, in an intellectual way. A book along these lines that might be helpful, which I haven't read, but I heard the author interviewed and read bits on Amazon, is by a man with Asperger's who set out to improve his marriage. It's called THE JOURNAL OF BEST PRACTICES (not for children).

      If anyone else has suggestions, please speak up. If anyone else struggles with this, please say how you approach the problem.

  4. April says:

    You were in Japan?! Next time you're over here I hope I can see you. I still live in Tokyo. I'll never forget that you checked in on me after the 3/11/2011 disasters. I was very touched.

    I don't comment much these days, but I do still keep an eye on your blog from time to time. With a toddler and a baby (both born since I discovered your blog), I don't have much time to spend online these days. Though I do take the time to reread your books while I'm busy nursing… 🙂

    • gailcarsonlevine says:

      April! It's great to hear from you! And congratulations on the new baby!

      I was in Japan before I started the blog, only for six days, but I'd love to return. My experience there was extraordinary. When your children start school (unless you home school them), if they attend an international school with a visiting author program, please think of me!

    • E.S. Ivy says:

      Hi, April! I wondered where you'd gone… I'm only on sporadically myself now and my kids are older – much older! In fact, I can't believe that as of a month ago I'm the shortest one in the family. 🙂 But I remember those days. I'm glad to hear that all is going well.

  5. Clara Darling says:

    Hello, Mrs. Levine! I'm a longtime fan of your books, but I never thought about checking to see if you had a blog until now! You and your books have been such a huge inspiration to me, and have impacted my writing life so much. I'll be following your blog from now on…it's so thrilling to be able to get some writerly advice from you on this blog!

    And a huge THANK YOU for writing such wonderful, classic books. I seriously couldn't live without them;)

  6. Sunny Smith says:

    I have a question. I'm working on Christmas short story and I'm having trouble with my ending. My story's pretty much over but I'm in the middle of a dialogue and I can't seem to get my characters to shut up. So basically, how do you end the end?

    • gailcarsonlevine says:

      You might try ending it the way you end a phone conversation, because something else has come up, attention is needed elsewhere, look how late it is, "I love you guys" followed by The End. Or by moving into your main character's thoughts, which offer a conclusion. Any other ideas, blog readers?

    • Elisa says:

      Have something dramatic happen! Like: Suddenly Emily burst through the doors. "Maya, I have to speak to you! It's about Robert." Maya turned paper white and put her hand to her mouth. And then "The End" it, and you'll have a nice New Years story to tell. Or, if that won't work, have something traditional happen. Traditions tend to cut the talking. I know from experience. Like, have some ones grandma bustle over and say "Hurry up you jabberers, it's time to go caroling." And then the story ends with them singing "Silent Night". Or something like that. Hope I helped.

    • carpelibris says:

      I prefer the second idea. The first implies a beginning, not an end. If you bring on a new, dramatic thing, I'll want to know what happens next. (Unless it's the lead-in to a second story that you KNOW the reader will have access to right away.)

  9. Kenzi Anne says:

    Great post, Ms. Levine!! Really quick, I just wanted to say thanks for your post answering my question a few weeks ago–it got me out of a rough patch! Sorry it took me so long to say so–I've been so ridiculously busy! But I really appreciate it 🙂
    Question for all y'all: Any advice on writing with main characters that are either mute or rarely talk at all? I am going a little crazy with two stories I'm writing–one has a mute boy as the main character, the other has a shy, timid telepathic boy as the main character, and both are driving me up the wall!! I feel so disconnected from the story because of a lack of dialogue…any advice as to how to get around that? Thanks!!

    • Michelle Dyck says:

      Writing his thoughts could help. In cases where he has to interact with others, then make his communication clear through nonverbal stuff — facial expressions, body language, or interaction with the environment (furniture, objects, etc.).
      For the mute boy, is it possible to give him something to write down his responses to people? Maybe a notebook or cell phone or chalkboard?

    • griffinrider says:

      One thing that hugely helps me when I write deaf or mute characters is sign language, which is just as expressive as any spoken language. If the mute boy is the main character, then he knows exactly what he's saying, and thus we do too; if not, having another character who understands sign language would be fine, like maybe a little brother or sister who follows him around, or someone who's been his best friend for a long time.

    • Elisa says:

      Kenzi Anne, Griffinrider had an excellent suggestion. A book that uses her (his?) example is Of Sound Mind, by Jean Ferris. I liked it pretty well, and it deals with a boy who isn't deaf, but has a whole family who IS deaf. It's not inappropriate unless you are under eight, so no worries about that. Hope I was able to help a little.

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