The Right Moment

Do you ever read a book at just the right moment?

I recently read A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.  I stumbled upon it in a used book store and purchased it after scanning the jacket copy without really taking it in because if I had taken it in, I probably would not have purchased it.  Despite the fact that I enjoy nearly every historical novel I ever read, I consider myself a reader who does not like historical novels. (Don't ask. I'll be the first to admit this is completely nonsensical.  Cognitive dissonance at it's finest.)

Both the book and the author were new to me, which I can only blame on my own ignorance.  But I liked the cover, the price suited my needs, and so it sat on my nightstand for some time before my stack of books grew smaller and it appeared at the top and I thought, Well then, this book...is next.

I am grateful to the book for many reasons. For the simplicity and beauty of its words.  For the voice, which sang to me.  For the story, which river-flowed at the right pace and emptied just where it should.

But I am most grateful that it found me when it did.  I had been struggling for weeks to understand the structure of my current manuscript and in a just-like-that moment, in a blade of grass snap, the lock was broken.  All that I'd been doing wrong, this book does right.

Tuesday Books For Writers! Three Junes by Julia Glass

I am really excited to talk about Three Junes by Julia Glass. A book I'm only able to speak about in cliches. "I loved the raw emotion", I told Tyler. "It's just heartbreaking." "Beautiful" Like I'm writing a bad blurb for the cover of the book. The books I like, I mean, really, really, like are the books I can't speak about with any eloquence. I feel something about them I can't express. And I just think: Love. Love. There is so much love for this book, I just want to gush and force it into people's hands and become completely inarticulate and say "I loooove this book" "You are going to looooove this book". Looooove.

But, (sigh), this is not what Tuesday Books for Writers is all about. I must articulate what I admire about the book. The craft. That is my personal challenge. So, beyond this 'raw emotion' and this looooooove, oh the love!, the thing I am most impressed with is...

...the narrative structure.

Gosh, I just re-read that sentence. What a let down.

But, for real, the narrative is tricky. It tells an incredible amount of story in a short period of time. Part I is told in third person and deals with the patriarch of a Scottish Family, who has recently lost his wife and has taken a trip to Greece. While we watch him discover Greece, Glass takes us back in time to tell three other stories: the story of he and his wife's meeting and eventual marriage. The story of one of his wife's colleagues. And the story of her dying. It alternates between his time in Greece and those three storylines in the past.

Part II does the same, but I don't want to spoil anything, because Part II really surprised me. It is the longest of the three parts of the novel and it is told in first person. A completely unexpected first person. And, again, it weaves a brand new present with a brand new past. And some of the stories overlap with the stories told in Part I, from a very different point of view.

Part III takes us to yet another surprising third person point of view, wrapping up some leftover cliffhangers from previous story lines and opening up a whole new story.

I have to tell you, it is an incredible way to tell one big story through a lot of little stories. That's the best way I can describe it. Really impressive. So I recommend this book if you're interested in a unique narrative structure. It may inspire you to tell your story differently. To experiment. Because if you can do it as flawlessly as Glass does in this novel, I think you'll, ya know, win the National Book Award. ;-)

And if you don't give a darn about narrative structure, and you just want to fall in loooooove, or finish a book and hug it to your chest while you exclaim how dare the author do this to you and can she please fill up a lifetime of books about these characters so you can follow them forever and ever and never have to leave them again...if you want that, then I beg you to go out and buy this book.

Have you read this book? Have you fallen in love with a book recently?

The Intentional Tangent

After this week's myriad of events, I planned on writing a bit about the Engage Expo and narrative storytelling through games and toys. However, I regret to say that I didn't find anything incredibly insightful during these talks and discussions. A lot of times these industry conferences relay things you already know. Or it becomes a chance for people to talk about the things they are creating (which is certainly inspiring) and there's often nothing to take away except a new url or a new toy or game you'll want to check out the next holiday season. Again, I'm reminded that conferences are for networking and it's simply not the best forum for me.

So...I'm sure you'll all find it ironic that, instead, I found Kathy Griffin's show on Friday night to be a genius model for storytelling. I know what you're all thinking. She's a vulgar, inappropriate, rude, self-absorbed, callous, crude (etc. etc.) attention seeker. And I get it that a lot of people might not be able to handle her comedy. In fact, she repeatedly reminded us that her show is made for people in New York City because we're the only audience that can truly handle it. And we can. We've seen it all and a couple of completely inappropriate jokes are not going to phase us. And they really didn't.

But let's put her comedy aside and get to the heart of this post. To be able to stand on stage for 2 hours (2 hours!) and have an entire audience completely engaged and entertained, hanging on our every word...well, that's what we, as writers, want. And when the end comes, we want our audience to want hours more of us. We want them to want the sequel. The next book. The next story.

Kathy's ability to do this astounded me. I couldn't understand it. 2 hours! 2 hours of stories and I wanted hours more. I felt like a little kid at bedtime: tell me more stories Kathy, tell me more stories!

As a writer, I wanted to understand how she was able to do this. I'm going to put the obvious out there quickly:

1. Interesting subject matter? Check. (Acting lessons with Liza Minelli! Tea with Gloria Vanderbilt! The list goes on...)
2. Distinct Voice? Check. (I think she said f&^kballs approximately 1,000 times)
3. Humor? Check. (duh, it's a comedy show)
4. Great characters? Check. (Tiger Woods! The Balloon Boy! Anderson Cooper!)
5. Great setting? Check. (Hollywood!)

But it's about structure. I want to get down to structure. Kathy started her comedy show with a welcome and dove right into the Tiger Woods Press Conference. 1 1/2 hours later, she wrapped up the Tiger Woods Press Conference. Argh. You're all probably thinking. She talked for an hour and 1/2 about Tiger Woods?

NO!

She went on incredibly structured tangents. But always, always, looped back to the original topic.

So, why is this important?

Because this is what we all want to do. And I'd argue it's what most storytellers do do. We want to keep people wanting more. If we start with A, then dive into B with A unresolved, our audience is always waiting for a resolution to A. And she consistently delivered the resolution to every unfinished story. And there were many. It was a constant stream of suspense for the un-resolved and delight in the current subject, consistently weaving between the two until every story had been completed.

Because this was all done through spoken word, most people would consider this a tangent. But an intentional one. While it all felt very natural, a good friend telling me one hilarious story after another, it's obvious that this was a well thought out plan. There's no way you could tell a series of stories in this manner without complete intent.

The skill it takes to do this and keep an audience engaged is impressive. Think about this in your writing. Think about how everything you introduce in your work keeps the audience wanting more. Think how you can continuously extend that suspense over the course of an entire novel. Think about how you can keep people waiting and think about how time sensitive it is. Feel when it's time to pick up a story and tuck it aside. Feel when it's time to resolve it before it's too late and you've lost your audience. After watching Kathy's 2 hour set, I know that... f&%kballs...I sure am.