{"id":927,"date":"2018-01-31T10:33:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T15:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=927"},"modified":"2018-01-31T10:33:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T15:33:08","slug":"dear-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/31\/dear-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"

On November 2, 2017, Christie V Powell wrote, In my WIP, adult fantasy, I have three point of view characters: two adults, and then a 15-year-old whose sections are all from her journal entries. I am having a lot of fun pulling from the style of my teenage journals, but I\u2019m a little worried. Journals are almost all telling, and it might not appeal to adults. I\u2019m keeping them short. I enjoy adding a different perspective than the other two characters, and I also like that I can use the voice to introduce every single person of her large family with \u201cher brother\u201d or whoever it is. Anyway, any advice?<\/em><\/p>\n

For example, here\u2019s her first journal entry:Hello! My name is Norma Filara. My dad just bought some new land, and when he was at the office he got this little notebook for me, and now I can keep a journal again! My last one got left behind when we moved. Actually, all our stuff got left behind when we moved. I guess I have to explain about that. My little brother Hamal was learning how to dream-jump, and he accidently jumped into some soldier guy\u2019s house. We don\u2019t know every thing that happened, but\u2026 he\u2019s not alive. I don\u2019t want to talk about that. It was freezing cold and we had to leave our house and everything, and Mom and little Orion got pneumonia, and\u2026 I don\u2019t want to talk about that either.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s move forward. We just came to a new city, called Grayton. My dad got a great offer on some land that no one else wanted. It\u2019s perfectly good land too. He and my biggest brothers Altair and Leo are super busy now building buildings and digging wells. I\u2019m supposed to be busy too. We all are, but Altair\u2019s wife Ann is too busy watching the little ones so sometimes we middle ones get overlooked. I don\u2019t mind. I would rather explore, and she can\u2019t stop me!<\/em><\/p>\n

Carley Anne wrote back, Ooo, sounds intriguing!\u00a0I guess the style of writing (whether it is more telling, or more descriptive), would depend on the character of your fifteen year old, and what kind of a mood she\u2019s in. Why is she writing? Is it just to remember a few facts, or capture a memory? Does she actually enjoy writing? (That would probably result in a more descriptive style.) I like her style of writing (reminds me of Anne Frank), but it almost feels like she could become more descriptive as she continues adding entries, and slowly becomes more \u201caccustomed\u201d to this journal.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019d argue that journal entries by their nature are like dialogue, because the diarist is speaking to the reader. I call that showing. The reader is introduced to Norma\u2019s character through the way she expresses herself. My impression of her is that she\u2019s direct, enthusiastic, and emotional–not that she tells us she\u2019s those things. I get the enthusiasm from the two exclamation points and her eagerness to journal. The directness is there in that she doesn\u2019t beat about the bush, and the deep feelings are revealed in her reluctance to talk about the loss of her brother and the illnesses her family suffered.<\/p>\n

That reluctance is an interesting choice in a journal, which won\u2019t be read by anyone, which is the ideal place to explore pain\u2013which suggests that Norma not only doesn\u2019t want to discuss her troubles, she also doesn\u2019t want to think about them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of showing to pack into a short journal entry. Good job!<\/p>\n

Yes, I suppose the reader is told that this is a world in which dream-jumping occurs, but telling is an inevitable part of dialogue, as in, \u201cDon\u2019t shake my hand. I have a cold.\u201d I have a cold<\/em> is telling. Don\u2019t shake my hand<\/em> is showing that the speaker is probably a considerate person.<\/p>\n

And telling is woven in with showing in narration, too. In my opinion (please argue\u2013with examples\u2013if you disagree), extended pure showing is impossible.<\/p>\n

The purpose of showing, in my opinion again, is to put the reader in the story. We supply the feelings, thoughts, nuances of character, the sensations (not just sight and sound, but also smell and touch) that make it real. Writing teachers urge us to show so we don\u2019t forget these elements in our eagerness to relate events.<\/p>\n

Telling makes the showing comprehensible. Without telling, the reader is lost, like an infant before language. The baby is primed to discover the telling in her world. The reader is primed, too.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, pure telling works. I\u2019ve mentioned this novel before: Miri, Who Charms<\/em> by Joanne Greenberg (definitely high school and up). There\u2019s almost no showing, and yet the story is compelling (and tragic). Maybe it would have been better if some showing had been worked in. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

As for adult reader interest in a fifteen-year old\u2019s journal, well, I\u2019m an adult and I\u2019d be interested. POV change adds variety, as do the form of journal entries. I could be interested if the whole story were told by a fifteen year old, too. It would depend on the voice and what the teen had to say. I think that falls into the category of worries we torment ourselves with when we write.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said this before: we should whisper our worries about readers into a lead canister and then drop the canister in a well. I say this because I\u2019m guilty of it, too. My current worries are that no one will want to read about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain more than 500 years ago, and that the book (which no one will read) will be intolerably sad. These are just sticks for me to beat myself with. Maybe no one will read the book, but it\u2019s still the book I want to write. And I assume that Christie V Powell wants to write that fifteen-year old\u2019s journal entries.<\/p>\n

What I just said applies to the projects of our hearts. Sometimes writers are commissioned to write a particular thing and being paid depends on writing that thing. Others of us write for our jobs. However, for the rest of us, readers are too unpredictable to worry about. Also, chasing the market is usually futile. It stays maddeningly ahead of us. The trend that was hot when we started is ice cold by the time we finish.<\/p>\n

Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2219 Write a journal entry for Tolkien\u2019s Sauron. Can be an ordinary day in the life of the lord of evil. Or can be the morning of what he expects will be the final day for goodness.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Write a journal entry for a character in a WIP whom you\u2019d like to know better. Let his own words tell you about himself.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Dream-jumping sounds fascinating. Write a scene in which a character dream-jumps for the first time. Mix showing and telling in the narration.<\/p>\n

\u2219 A science fiction classic, The Stars My Destination<\/em> by Alfred Bester, uses teleportation, called jaunting. The discovery of teleportation is described in the book, which is worth reading. I haven\u2019t read it in decades. My guess is middle school and up, but check with a librarian. Write your own scene in which teleportation is either discovered or invented.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what your write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On November 2, 2017, Christie V Powell wrote, In my WIP, adult fantasy, I have three point of view characters: two adults, and then a 15-year-old whose sections are all from her journal entries. I am having a lot of fun pulling from the style of my teenage journals, but I\u2019m a little worried. Journals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[52,70,304],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}