For Writers

Oh, the Drama! Novel Writing from a Playwright’s Perspective

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Images are from a recent production of Peter Pan which I directed, but unfortunately, did not write.

As a director and resident playwright at my local children’s theater, I came into novel writing from a script writer’s background. There are drawbacks of coming from the stage to the page. But there are benefits, too. I think the lessons I’ve learned and am still learning apply to writers from all backgrounds, and I look forward to reading how you deal with these areas when writing.

Pitfalls: 

Seeing the Scene: “Could we have a little more description of this location?” My editor wrote this several *cough* times in my first novel manuscript. I call it the plague of the playwright: I “see” all my scenes as if they’re on stage or in a movie, often forgetting the reader can’t see them as well. I’ve had to make conscience decisions to describe “the set” of each scene, realizing that setting is what grounds the reader in the character’s world. This usually happens during the second draft.

Disoriented: “Orientation.” That’s another comment that occasionally still pops up in edits. Related to the first pitfall, in a script, I’d put the character’s position and movement on the set in parenthetical stage notes. I see it in my head when I write, but have to remember to help the reader see it by describing it for them.

Lost in Transition: As a director, I’m used to beginning and ending scenes via light cues and curtains. But that won’t work in fiction. It doesn’t always take much, just showing the passage of time or giving a character some internal dialogue (another thing it’s easy for this playwright to forget to include), but it’s the difference between a confused reader and one who can suspend disbelief.

Pluses:

PP2 (1)What’s That You Say? Dialogue is probably the playwright’s number one vehicle, and most of my first drafts consist of the characters talking. If I’m writing a script, I will often hand a copy to my husband so I can hear how a scene sounds aloud in comparison to how it sounded in my head. A strong internal ear is valuable for a novelist, but when in doubt, read it out!

Hands Free: I recently saw a contest for a short story written entirely in dialogue-no tags allowed. If I weren’t working on other projects, I’d probably enter for the fun of it. Body and dialogue tags aren’t a bad thing, and I use them often, but they can clunk up an otherwise snappy conversation. Playwrights have to rely solely on words in a script and let the actors fill in the rest. I think a stretch of dialogue without any tags gives the reader a chance to connect with the characters in a deeper way, utilizing the imagination to fill in the blanks. Jane Austen was a master of this. A conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice:

“Of what are you talking?”

“Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say he will not have Lizzy.”

“And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems a hopeless business.”

“Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her you insist upon her marrying him.”

“Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.”

Now, I would have been tempted to at least used one physical description of Mrs. Bennet flailing about or pulling at her cap, but Jane trusts that she’s painted the characters well enough for us to see it all in the theater of our minds. Also noteworthy is that she doesn’t use a single exclamation point.

I’m Hearing Voices: Nobody wants to see a play with characters who sound like echoes of each other, and the same holds true in fiction. I like to give characters varying sentence construction and one or two key words or phrases that they say without thinking, especially in conversations.

PP3It’s All About the Timing: There’s no time for lags in action or dialogue in theater. If you’ve ever been to a play with a seemingly eternal scene change or worse, where an actor forgets lines, you know how it pulls you out of the show. Pacing is priority in fiction, too. Varying sentence structure, giving readers time to “breathe” after intense scenes, and knowing how to end a chapter with a page turner will all keep your audience fully invested in your characters’ journeys.

I’d love to hear from other script writers on how you make the transition from script or screenplay to story, and from anyone else who has insight on how to improve a novel’s setting, orientation, and transitions.

LGBioPicture copyIn addition to writing, directing, and occasionally acting in plays and musicals, Louise Galveston is the author of BY THE GRACE OF TODD and IN TODD WE TRUST (Penguin/Razorbill). She resides in Kansas with her large family and a noisy parrot, who supply plenty of comedy and drama. 

 

 

 

On the Eve of Escape

Here at The Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, we have scheduling fairies who put names on a magical calendar so that we all know who is posting and when. And, weeks ago, when I saw the date I would next post, I immediately thought, “Oh! That’s the day before I escape to…”

maine beach web small

Every year, this land-locked Ohio farm girl spends a week in a cottage on the  Maine shore with nine writing friends. It is often the most inspiring and productive week of my writing year. I can smell the ocean air already!

I began to wonder how other middle-grade authors escape the daily grind. Where do they go to think more clearly? Breathe more deeply?

And, so, I just asked.

Some of you might follow author Cynthia Lord on Facebook. If you don’t, you probably should click on her name and do that now, because she posts thoughtfully and with her heart, and you’ll love following her. And if you already do, you know that she has this great little escape in her own backyard.

cynthia lord's writing shed

Cynthia told me that she got her writing shed (aptly dubbed “Walden Backyard”) after RULES won a Newbery Honor and she and her husband were a bit cramped sharing an office in their house. Cynthia’s escape is close to home, and she loves writing in her multi-season shed. (We would say all-season, but she does live in Maine, and I’ve seen pictures in which the snow was piled nearly as high as the shed!)

lisa yee   Author of WARP SPEED and THE KIDNEY HYPOTHETICAL, Lisa Yee was caught in mid-escape when I contacted her. She wrote back:

“Ha! As I reply to your question, I am sitting in a hotel room where I’ve escaped to get writing done.”

Enough said, Lisa! Now, get back to work and don’t let me get in the way of progress!

I was surprised how many authors escape to water.  Kirby kirby LARSONLarson, author of HATTIE BIG SKY and the new DASH and DUKE, escapes ocean-side to be with the eagles and hummingbirds. It’s interesting that negative ocean ions can positively affect one’s blood pressure!  Thanks, Kirby!

tricia springstubbMixed-Up Files Author Tricia Springstubb echoed the water theme as well. Her newest middle-grade novel MOONPENNY ISLAND is set on a fictitious island. It’s no small coincidence that Moonpenny Island mirrors Kelley’s Island and Tricia’s favorite rocky and remote get-away.  Tricia finds water so motivating, she often swims to clear her head and has solved more than one plot dilemma after coming out of the pool!

Some writers, though they enjoy a good vacation, have found a more accessible escape. Margaret Peterson Haddix (the MISSING series and the SHADOW CHILDREN series) and Marlane Kennedy (THE DOG DAYS OF CHARLOTTE HAYES and the DISASTER STRIKES series) both agreed that when they are caught up in a good writing moment, their best escape is the story itself. Marlane shares, “When I am deep within  a story, I am not even aware of my surroundings. I am transported to wherever and whatever is happening in my story, and my writing escape is more within my mind than anywhere else.”  (Margaret’s escape mode, however, is not entirely waterless. Like Tricia,  she’s another swimmer/thinker!)

Peterson and KennedyMargaret Peterson Haddix and Marlane Kennedy

Lots more  Mixed-Up Files Authors weighted in as well! You can see their pictures and read about their books here But first, take a moment to read about their escapes:

Jacqueline Jaeger HoutmanCoffee shop. Earbuds. Vivaldi.

Michele Weber HurwitzI’m a big walker. Nothing like a long walk to clear my head and work through trouble spots in a WIP.

Greg R. Fishbone – Long train rides are great for writing.

Amie Borst – When my office won’t suffice, I love to sit on my back deck or by the lake. (There’s that water thing again!)

Valerie Stein – On the sailboat! Calm, quiet motion at the dock, free of distractions. (And again!)

Rosanne Parry – Love writing in my treehouse in the summer. Fresh air, lots of birds & squirrels for company and no distractions. Bliss!

Okay, I admit it. I just couldn’t leave Rosanne’s comment without hoping on over to her website to see if, just maybe, she had a picture of said treehouse. And, bingo! Here it is.

rosanne tree house

So, we would love to hear about your writing escape. Comment below and let us know where you go! I’ll try to respond, but remember, in less than 24 hours, I’ll be escaping to…

maine porch web small

Michelle Houts is the author of four books for middle-grade readers. She loves mail (the real, slow, stamped-envelope kind) so she created the 52 Letters in a Year Challenge to encourage writers young and not very young to help revive the art of letter-writing. Visit Michelle at www.michellehouts.com. On Twitter @mhoutswrites and on Facebook as Michelle Houts.

Strong Girl vs Rock Head Boy

“Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”   – Ursula Le Guin

We have the words; we have the power.
We have the power; we can transform.
The artist produces the idea, the idea is consumed, and then the idea seeps into our reality.
Words.
They can make a difference.

Girl Power vs. Rock Head Boy
Last month, we hosted a youth baseball clinic as a fundraiser for our high school baseball program. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and there were around twenty 5-8 year-old-boys on the green grass of the outfield warming up with a little catch. Out of the check-in table in the first base dugout, ran a first-grade girl, her glove in one hand, her ponytail bouncing in the morning sun, and wearing a pink T-shirt with a big flower emblem on the front.

Baseballs hit the ground in mass. The boys all stared at the newest kid to join the clinic until the inevitable occurred and a half-dozen boys yelled, “She’s a girl. She can’t play baseball.”

Now, a younger version of me would have probably agreed with these young boys. But the evolved me said, “Girls can play baseball. Girls can do just about anything they want to.”

Not another word. The young lady played as hard and had as much fun as any of the boys on the field. After the initial incident, no boy said another word or even raised an eyebrow. It was wonderful.

I was not only impressed with the effort of the girl, but also impressed with the almost immediate acceptance of a girl baseball player by the other kids.

Where does this come from?

When I was a kid, we would rather have not played and spent the summer afternoon in the library rather than let girls play. What has changed the attitudes and why? I thought of Ursula Le Guin’s quote from the National Book Award last fall.

Art and words make a difference.

These modern kids have been exposed to more equality and empowerment in their literature than we were. Their attitudes have shifted for the positive. No, things aren’t perfect, but things are getting better.

Art and words change minds.

Take Wonder Woman for example.

Wonder Woman was created to show young girls in the 1940’s that women could be strong and empowered while still being women. Strong Girl, huh? Changing the perception of women and girls as the “fairer” or “weaker” sex.

“Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.” – Dr. William Marston, Psychologist, and co-creator, with his wife Elizabeth, of Wonder Woman (1943)

Literature and art showing what is possible.

Girls were alien to me growing up. I grew up kid #4 in a house of six kids and only one of the six was female. My only sister is still known as “that poor Hays girl” even after all these years. Our neighborhood was also young male dominant.

Needless to say, a girl POV was sorely lacking in my young life.

So I turned to books. And in the climate of 1970’s Kansas City parochial school life, this may not be the best resource for an academic study on the sociology and behavioral patterns of girls. The “Boy Meets Girl” romantic book section? What could be learned from googly-eyed, pink, monogrammed sweater-wearing, paper doll characters? The take home message seemed to say that girls were indeed the “fairer” or “weaker” sex. Nothing worth learning.

So, I was clueless. I gave up trying to define what girls were all about. I put my male head in the sand and stayed safely in the dark.

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS was very good. But, why did they have to move to the Kansas prairie? I liked the woods. I lived in Kansas; I didn’t dream about living on the prairie, I dreamed about living in the Big Woods and building log cabins. Sorry Laura, Mary and bulldog Jack. You were strong, but I abandoned you on the dry, arid flatlands before you had a chance to transform my way of thinking.

LITTLE WOMEN. Nope. Couldn’t relate, refused to read … almost flunked 8th grade English. My mother threw a fit and still gets a twitch in her eye at even the mention of LITTLE WOMEN. Enough said?

What I failed to realize was strong girls were all around me. In real life, I only needed to observe the strong girls in my life. My sister, mother, classmates, and even the athlete girl, the cheerleader girl, the artist girl, the intellectual girl who were all examples of strong girls right there in front of my nose my whole life. Strong girls were in books I didn’t take the time or the effort to invest in reading.

Fail.

But, this is not a sad story; it’s a happy story of enlightenment and redemption. No matter how much of a chauvinist, male-centered, and close minded an individual can be, there is always hope. I am lucky enough to have the gifts of a wonderful wife and amazing daughters to help redeem me. These Strong Girls opened my eyes to the world of strong girls in life and in literature.

There is so much good art out there now. Words to change minds. Words I wish I would have had back in the day. Here are some of the Strong Girl characters which have helped bring me out of the dark ages.

  • Hermione (The Harry Potter series is chock-full of strong girls!)
  • Penny, Turtle, Ellie or any female character written by Jennifer Holm
  • Coraline Jones
  • Stargirl
  • May B
  • Tabitha-Ruth “Alice” ‘Turtle’ Wexler

I invite you to leave a comment on what “Strong Girl” books or characters influenced you growing up. Also please suggest books representing strong female characters to help enlighten today’s young rock head boys. Help us out … we need all the help we can get.

And never forget that words have power.

Wield your words wisely.

Make the world a better place.

474px-Wonder_Woman_Lynda_Carter