{"id":1603,"date":"2022-01-12T08:14:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2022-01-12T08:14:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:14:08","slug":"slicing-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/12\/slicing-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Slicing Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I posted this as a comment a few days ago, about a poetry-writing contest for high-school-age people: Here\u2019s the link to Narrative High High School Writing Contest:\u00a0https:\/\/www.narrativemagazine.com\/narrative-in-the-schools-program\/seventh-annual-contest<\/a>. You\u2019ll read there about the rules and awards. I wrote to the contest to see if home-schooled kids can participate, and the answer is yes. The contest folks wrote back with these criteria for home-schoolers:
1. Be within our age bracket stipulation (grades 9-12 in the U.S. or internationally)
2. List as their school the name of the\u00a0accredited\u00a0home-schooling curriculum they follow
3. Have a \u201cteacher\u201d representative\u2014whether that\u2019s a parent or other tutor<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Please say if you enter, and definitely if you win.
Good luck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 17, 2020, Lysander Grey wrote, Does anyone have advice on writing \u201cslice of life\u201d stories? One of my current WIPs is a long-term story following the growth of the MC. That\u2019s fine, and I do have it fairly planned, but I\u2019m running into trouble with showing her changing and not bogging down the plot too much. I suppose it\u2019s the doldrums in a sense, but rather necessary doldrums because the reader needs proof that she\u2019s changing before she becomes someone different.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now I\u2019m stuck in an area that needs multiple (mostly) happy scenes in a row before more Drama (TM) can get introduced, and\u2026 the only time I\u2019m very good at happy scenes, unfortunately, is as setup for something to go Terribly Wrong. Happy scenes with no immediately linked tragic payoff are proving to be troublesome.       <\/em>           <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erica wrote back, Could you try writing comedy? Not necessarily comedic scenes in your WIP, but a story whose entire purpose is to be funny. That way, you can experiment with having tension without drama, if that makes sense. And letting your characters play off each other can help show how your MC is changing, especially if she responds in an unexpected way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m with Erica about small, unexpected changes in an MC that form a dotted line that the reader follows and thus understands her transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to write back-to-back happy scenes. Readers need something to worry about, although the worry can be mild, like an itch in the middle of your back. It\u2019s not going to kill you, but it\u2019s there<\/em>, out of reach, and you have to keep reading to discover when and how it gets scratched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Clinically, there is such an itch, notalgia paresthetica<\/em>, benign, long lasting, going away eventually, between your shoulder blades, perpetually an inch beyond your finger, invented by a minor demon in a mean universe. Mine did finally vanish.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lysander Grey\u2019s question called to mind the novels of Kevin Henkes, especially The Birthday Room<\/em>, which I remember as gentle and tender and full of slice-of-life. At the heart of the story is family conflict, but the conflict plays out among people who love each other. No one is tossed out or runs away. There\u2019s no violence. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s even much anger. Yet my eyes were glued to the page. Kevin Henkes, in my opinion, is a master of slice-of-life and always worth reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m also thinking about Anne of Green Gables<\/em>, which is a coming-of-age story, not dark, also full of slice-of-life moments (like dying her hair green, falling off a roof, breaking a slate over Gilbert Blythe\u2019s head) that nudge Anne toward character change. Author L. M. Montgomery sets up Anne\u2019s personality in technicolor detail: she has a temper and an imagination. She\u2019s over-the-top dramatic, emotional, loving and lovable, and given to getting into funny and disastrous scrapes. Also, she\u2019s capable of learning from the messes she gets into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can adapt Montgomery\u2019s method. We think first about the transformation our plot calls for. Then we plan our MC. How can we make her different from what she needs to become? What traits will have to change? What will remain? She has to start out as someone we can imagine turning into the personality we need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next step takes us to the slice-of-life scenes. What can we cause to happen as a result of the person she is? For example, Anne hates her red hair, and she\u2019s impulsive, which leads to an attempt to dye her hair the color she wants, resulting in green hair. This disaster plants a seed of a lesson that she shouldn\u2019t instantly act on her impulses in the future. Erica\u2019s idea comes in here; there\u2019s a lot of humor in Anne\u2019s scrapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Anne, growth comes slowly and therefore believably. Montgomery sticks mostly to showing, but late in the book she does this little bit of showing: There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change. For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. <\/em>We too can drop in a tiny bit of this, though most of the change should be shown in action, thoughts, and dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My novel that most features character transformation is The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre<\/em>. My MC Perry is born into the underclass Bamarre but is raised as an overlord Lakti, and she\u2019s ignorant of her birth. Lakti tend to be rigid, not highly emotional, restrained, direct, not literary. Bamarre are polite, accommodating, emotional, poets, and admirers of poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except for her love for poetry, Perry exemplifies the Lakti personality. When her origins are discovered, she has to live with her Bamarre family. A fairy tasks her with lifting her people out of servitude, but first she has to become more like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though this is a fantasy, Perry doesn\u2019t drink a potion. She has to work at changing herself, and she blunders in several slice-of-life scenes. The reader sees Bamarre life at the ground level, how they behave among themselves, how they act with Lakti, what their customs and habits are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do we have?<\/p>\n\n\n\n