Posts Tagged ‘Of Little Consequence’
Victoria’s swamped, so she’s asked to take an extended away, leaving me as a one man show until her inevitable return.
This isn’t a problem except, jeez, I don’t know what to do with this thing. I mean, we’re four months into a group blog and it’s no longer a group blog–it’s Jinky talking to herself. How is that different from Friday night dinner? IT ISN’T. And at the same time, I would hate to just give it up, too. What would be the fun in that?
So now I’m not sure what to do. Talk to myself twice a week until she comes back (if she comes back)? Start a project and hope others tag along? Grovel for guest bloggers? Replace–gasp!–Victoria with 2 (or 3 or 4) other bloggers?
I’m open to suggestions. In the meantime, if you want to offer up a guest blog, be it a one-time thing or on an ongoing basis, don’t be shy. I don’t bite…hard.
In 2005, I asked the author of my then-favorite book series one simple question: “What do you like to read?”
“Oh, I don’t have to read anymore,” she told me. “There’s no time. I don’t read when I’m writing, and I’m always writing.”
I let the words sink in slowly, not sure what to make of them. Shock came first, then disappointment. And finally, confusion. A writer who doesn’t read? It didn’t make any sense.
One of the first bits of good advice I was ever given was to read everything. Read outside your genre. Read nonfiction. Read transcripts of television shows. Read the newspaper. Read the back of the cereal box in the morning. Read your shampoo bottle in the shower. Read. Read, read, read, read, read.
Read.
And yet, there she was, a pint-sized bestseller, laughing off my question as if it were the most absurd thing she’d ever heard. A writer who reads? Ha! What an amateur!
To be honest, I kind of feel sorry for this author. My mother forced me to take piano lessons when I was a kid, and I hated it. I hated practicing. I hated going for the lesson. I hated the recitals. I hated everything about it. Even when she started paying me per minute to practice and play, it did little to entice me to care. It wasn’t long before even the money wasn’t enough anymore, and I hate to think that this author is in that same place, going through the motions, just to collect a paycheck. What an unsatisfying career that must be. What an unsatisfying life that must be.
And how foolish she was to think her readers wouldn’t notice.
Trust me on this: readers notice. Readers notice everything.
Readers know what TV shows you watch. They know what music you listen to. They know your hopes, your fears, and sometimes even the brand of soap you use. They know if you’re happy, or if you’re sad, or if you’re rushing to make that deadline looming over the horizon. They know if you read only romance, or if you branch out a bit. They know if you have pets, and if you’re a dog person or a cat person, or both. They know if you believe the story you’re telling, if you feel it in your gut, or if you’re struggling to make sense of the whole thing. They know, because you tell them…in your writing.
Characters and stories aren’t plucked from thin air. They come from within. They’re experiences and emotions, personified. And if the only story you have inside you to tell is that reading books is a chore, then your book is going to be one helluva chore to read. No eight-figure advance nor outrageous marketing budget can change that.
Just something to think about.
Earlier this afternoon, I was poking around Wikipedia and found this paragraph referencing Macaulay Culkin:
On September 17, 2004, Culkin was arrested in Oklahoma City for the possession of 17.3g of marijuana and two controlled substances, 16 mg of Xanax and 32 mg of clonazepam while listening to Huey Lewis and the News.
Of course, the first thing that popped into my mind was just how freaking odd that paragraph is. Read it again. I’ll wait. See how weird it is? See how it’s so completely normal until then end, and then BAM! all of a sudden it’s the strangest thing you’ve read all day? Huey Lewis and the News? Really? And how did that end up in a police report, anyway?
So many questions, so little time. But it’s that one detail that makes the whole thing pathetically real.
And that–that right there–is the secret to a good hook. It’s all about the details and how you use them.
“You’ve probably heard this story before,” that last line tells you, “but you’ve never heard it told like this.”
I doubt there will ever be a time when I can’t hear about a celebrity drug bust and not have Power of Love stuck in my head the rest of the day.
So now I’m curious. What are the details that make a story real for y’all?
