Tuesday Books for Writers! The Book Thief

Two things first.

1. In recent months Tuesday Books for Writers has been all but non-existent. The idea behind it: to better articulate why a book works...which, for me, is a difficult thing to do. I decided to give myself the challenge and have, more often than not, failed to get the posts up. So I have decided to retire the idea and talk about the books I read in another way.

2. Yes, I realize I am quite possibly the last person on earth to read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

Now this.

I read The Book Thief during Hurricane Irene. I curled up in it on the couch, then the bed. Back and forth. It is quite possibly the best book to get lost in during a hurricane. But it is not necessarily the best book to finish during a hurricane. Mainly because it is not a book you can easily leave behind. It's hard to look up from a book like this one and put yourself back inside the day.

I have never in my life sobbed so hard for a group of characters. I have shed tears over words and pages...but not like this. This was the kind of emotion I would only be able to sum up in cliches because it would be too exhausting to find the right way to say how it made me feel.

There are so many reasons a writer should read this book. I'm not smart enough to know all of them and list them here. But here is what I can tell you:

The world of this book is huge, all-encompassing. You are in it and you know it. You feel the streets. You know what it means to be there. A remarkable thing.

The words and the way they are strung together are beautiful. Even though so many of the words themselves are strange and ugly. I would never think to put them next to one another and, yet, when I saw them together I would think, there is no better way to say this. Even if there are a million ways to say it.

The characters are really wonderful (understatement of the year.) And you only need to read the book to understand. There's not much more I can say about that.

But there is one device in the book that is used over and over again. And it's the only thing I was able to define and pass along to you and think about using in my own work. (The rest, I could only hope to absorb through a powerful kind of osmosis.)

The Bomb Theory!

Which I learned about from Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. Have you heard about it?

Two people sit at a table having a conversation and Boom! a bomb goes off. That's 15 seconds of surprise.

Two people sit at a table having a conversation and we, as viewers, see a ticking bomb underneath their table. And we wait. And we know what's going to happen. That's 15 minutes of suspense.

You know which method Hitchcock used.

As I read The Book Thief, I could think of no better example of how to effectively use the bomb theory in a book. It's hard for me to say it's a device because it sounds gimmicky and it is not used that way in this book. But almost every chapter begins and gives away the outcome of the scene. And we read, desperate to find out how the book gets to the place we already know it will get to. It's bold. It's risky. And it works in this book.

There is a lot more to say about this wonderful book but this is, at least, some kind of start that will have no end.

I do feel it is a good place to end Tuesday Books for Writers until I find a new way to talk about the books I read on this blog.

If you've read the book, please let me know your thoughts!

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?

Tuesday Books for Writers! Breaking Away

I am not following the rules of Tuesday Books for Writers! this week. Not that there are really that many hard and fast rules to this, but the label does suggest that I will be discussing a book. I'm not. I'm discussing a movie.

Because Tyler and I are obsessed cyclists, we rented Breaking Away, a film from 1979 about a young man from a working class family in Indiana who is obsessed with Italian cycling. It was a fantastic coming of age story. A story that would probably translate to Upper YA in the publishing world. Dave Stoller is not-quite college bound and believes he's destined for cycling greatness in Italy. But his friends believe they are more likely destined to stay in their small town working dead-end jobs, living in the shadow of the prepsters at the local University. And Dave's parents also question their son's inane ambition. By the end of the film, everything is turned on its head and none of the characters end up where they thought they would be.

The characterization in this film was near perfect. Within the first ten minutes I knew exactly who the main characters were and got an immediate hint of their struggle. That is quite a feat in ten minutes! It reminded me how important those early moments are in any story. That we must share what type of person each character is through specific dialogue and behaviors. It also reminded me something an old screenwriting professor told me. That the first five minutes of a character's time on screen shapes what viewers will believe about them for the next two hours. It's no different in a book.

Not only were the characters well developed, but their character arcs were also fantastic. Even secondary characters had major arcs throughout the story. The people they became made sense given their intentions from the beginning of the story, even when their goals changed as they faced obstacles and setbacks. The script was really a great example of the hero's journey and seems like it would be a pretty good format to follow in your own writing if you really dissected it.

So if you writing a coming of age story or if you're just interested in learning more about character development, I highly recommend watching this film. It's also quite funny, so you're in for a treat. And if you've seen it please let me know what you thought!

Tuesday Books for Writers! Real Life & Liars by Kristina Riggle

I read Kristina Riggle's Real Life & Liars over labor day weekend. After biking from Brooklyn to Piermont and back again, I couldn't wait to get off of my bike each time and get back into this book. It's been a while since I've had an 'I absolutely CAN NOT put down this book' moment. It had also been quite a while since I've read a book that was similar in tone and style to my own works in progress. I'm not flattering myself. Obviously, this book and its author are miles and miles away from where I currently tread. But it felt like literary fiction. It wasn't overly melodramatic. There were no Jimmy Choo's involved. And, yet, it was written for a female audience. I guess it's what people are calling 'upmarket' women's fiction, a niche I have, for selfish reasons, been all to eager to find.

But I digress...

This book is essentially a family saga. It takes place over two intense days. Mirabelle Zielinksi is about to celebrate thirty years of marriage, while she harbors a terrible secret about her medical health and her three children deal with crises of their own. Which, of course, all come to head at the much anticipated anniversary party.

I think that part of the reason I adored this book is because it reads like a play. For the most part, the characters don't navigate very far. And most of the action takes place through dialogue. I'll sit and watch a play like this any day.

The rest of the action takes place through a lot of internal voice. And the reason I think writers should read this book is because Mirabelle and all three children each have a voice in this book. Did you catch that? Four points of view. That's four points of view. Did. you. catch. that.

My mouth nearly fell open with how well it was executed. I would tremble in fear, probably curl up on the floor and cry while trying to write four multiple points of view. It seems to me Riggle took it all in stride and probably went to get a pedicure instead. At least, that's how effortless it looked. Very impressive. I hope you'll read it.

Tuesday Books for Writers! Olive Kitteridge

I officially finished Olive Kitteridge and was officially floored. Elizabeth Strout wrote a book made for Melissa. A series of straight-forward, non-sentimental tales about folks these days. A book completely rooted in realism (which I love). A book that takes all the ordinary conversations, moments, and situations of our lives, studies them with a wide-angle lens, makes the micro...macro. A book made for Melissa. I loved every excrutiating detail, every quiet conversation, every unspoken word... Loved. Loved. Loved.

If anyone is crafting a scene between two people and is struggling to say everything you want to say in a short period of time without it becoming too forced, too unnatural, go to this book. It can be your bible. The writing is so tight. There's not a word that doesn't belong. Every gesture a character makes, every word a character says is so subtle, so perfect, so clean. I know, this sounds simple. It almost sounds dumb. Yes, Strout makes it look so easy, you feel like a complete moron. But I want to feel like a complete moron when I read. I want to just be like, wow, wow, wow, this blows my mind, my brain is mush, mush, mush.

Okay, I realize this makes no sense. I clearly should take a few cues from Strout. Here's what I learned from this book. Things I've heard, but not always seen.

1. Say what you have to say.
2. Get in the scene and get out.
3. Pick the right word.
4. Know just how the character moves at that very moment.
5. Know exactly why the character moves that way.
6. Once you've said it, don't look back.

Easy peasy. Right? Right.

Mush, mush, mush.

Tuesday Books for Writers! Room by Emma Donoghue

I haven't done a Tuesday Books for Writers post in such a long time and I apologize. I challenged myself to put into words why a book should be read by a writer. Sometimes I'm afraid to take the challenge. Even though I've been reading for nearly 25 years, I am still learning how to be an active reader, how to understand what a writer did to make a book sing.

Fortunately, after reading Emma Donoghue's Room, I didn't struggle at all to understand what made it so good.

She did something I've never seen before. She told a story from the point of view of a five year old. Before I sat down to read it, I was skeptical of this choice. I write for preschoolers all day and getting in the frame of mind to do that can make you, (to put it really elegantly), completely wacko. I didn't think I could handle 320 pages of this voice. But, the words moved across the page so easily, I thought I might prefer it if every book was told by a five year old. The speech patterns were so true to life, so flawless, so refreshing. Nothing felt forced and the narrator, Jack, was so endearing, I wanted to whisk him away and keep him forever with me...which, incidentally, is what the book is about, a touching, beautiful, story of a mother and son who are locked away in a tiny room. Two people whose entire mission in life is to keep one another safe.

I really want you to read this book! It's like nothing I've ever read before. When I closed the book, I was so in awe, so impressed, so amazed by this story. The blurb by Audrey Niffenegger says it best, "...when it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days." When I read it, I consistently had the feeling that I was looking at the world for the first time. A new perspective in every sense of the word. I loved it.

Tuesday Books for Writers! Purple Hibiscus

Tuesday Books for Writers! is a series that features books that are read with a writer's eye. It is written with the hope that the more you read the better you write. And the more you write, the quicker you become a more active reader. Please contact me if you'd like to contribute a Tuesday Books for Writers! post.

Purple Hibiscus
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Read this if you are writing:
Young Adult Fiction
With dialect in dialogue
About Nigerian Culture
About religion
About abuse
From the POV of an extremely quiet character
A coming of age story

I'm not going to give you a summary of this novel because I want you to go out and read it. It captures something that can't be expressed. And I'm glad I am only here to discuss craft because I'm not sure I can adequately express what this story is truly about.

To touch on some of the points above:

I was impressed with the use of dialect and language in this book. I understood the 'rules' for how it was used. I clearly do not speak Ibibio and, yet, I 'understood' it.

Maybe I'm not as well read as I should be, but I can't recall reading a book, especially for young people, that deals with religion in this manner. Kambili, the narrator of this incredible story, comes from a strict Christian family. It explores how faith can be exploited, but it does not, can not, take one side. Every extremist belief is counterbalanced with an opposite and equally compelling viewpoint. Every character represents the different ways that faith can change the course of a life. It shows us faith at its darkest and most severe, but also at its most powerful. For good and for bad.

I was also very impressed with the fact that the narrator of this story rarely participates in dialogue. She is still part of the action in every scene but remains a constant observer. And, it is her voice that grows with her, as it does for so many people. Such a simple way to capture how young people develop. And done so well. I'm not sure I could have imagined writing a book in which the narrator barely speaks, but now I know it can be done.

Last week, I spoke about issues. I took issue with too many issues or, at least, not adequately giving them the time and space they deserve in the course of a narrative. This story takes A LOT of issues and gives them appropriate billing. And I'm talking serious issues. Religion, child abuse, paganism, colonization, race, the list goes on. None of it is gratuitous. All of it is compelling.

If there's any word I want to use when I say why you should read this book if you write, it's balance. This novel strikes a near perfect balance in every possible way. With it's beautiful prose. Within each complex, multi-layered character. With every theme. Read it and you'll see what I mean.

As a writer, this is the kind of book where you want to put down your pen. After reading it, you want to say, there is no way I could tell a story so well. And yet, it burns a fire within you, it tells you that you have to pick up a pen and write it all down as quickly as you can, with the same humanity and beauty that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie does. There are a few books that I read and then say: I will follow this writer anywhere. Anywhere they want to take me. I can't wait to devour as many of her words as I can.

Tuesday Books for Writers! Marcello In the Real World

Marcello In The Real World

by Francisco Stork

Read this if you are writing:

From a young adult male POV

About people with developmental disabilities

About faith

About a difficult ethical decision

A quite/tame legal thriller

A coming of age story

It's been a while since I've done a Tuesday Books for Writers! post, not because I haven't wanted to, but because I haven't found anything I wanted to write about. I don't go into the archives of my reading past for these things, I'm all about living in the moment, writing and recommending as a read. I read a lot of books I think people will like, but to recommend it to a writer has a whole set of bizarro Melissa rules that, honestly, aren't worth getting into (and the head cold isn't making it any easier).

In any case, me oh my, love that country pie, this book makes the cut. And boy does it ever. This book delves into some of my favorite themes as a reader/writer: religion, ethics, faith, and self-discovery. It involves a narrator with a cognitive disorder (loosely labelled as Asperger Syndrome) and part of it takes place in Vermont (my favorite state).

I could gush all day. I finished with a sigh...an ache in my heart...hope in my soul! (Bear with the head cold, people, bear with it!) But that's of no use to you.

So I'm going to talk about character goals. And birth scenes.

I think it's Writing 101 that your novel needs to begin with something new. A new person walks in the door. Your character is charged with a new mission. He or she is dumped into a new place. And the character must cope. They must survive. The moment this is introduced is what somebody once told me is called the birth scene. And I rather liked it being called that. And it's always a birth scene, even if it means somebody died and left your character all alone. No matter what, they have to be born again into something new. And this novel does it well. Marcello is cast out, against his will, into what we all call the 'real world', to work at his father's law firm for the summer. And when you're a person with special needs who has been sheltered from the real world, as Marcello has, this is a rebirth of epic proportions. And, yet, it's done quietly and beautifully in this novel. So, read this book, and make sure your characters have a 'real world' too.

Then we've got goals. This is also pretty basic. Your character has to have a goal. Something that drives the novel forward. I know you're all thinking, yeah, duh, I know that already but I'm going to challenge you. Does your reader know? After I wrote the first 100 pages of my novel I realized, 'er, uh, Melissa, your peoples ain't ever specified a darn here goal'. It's amazing how the basics can slip away when you're in the trenches. The reason this novel is a good resource for goals is because it's very clearly spelled out. Marcello is someone who thrives on structure, order, and rules. Stork spells that out as soon as we're thrust into the novel. This is Marcello's on-the-surface-goal: If I follow the rules of the law firm, I will get to choose what school I get to go to next year. And I want to go to Patterson. Thank you Marcello. You know about goals. I think it's important to write out a character's goal for the reader. It doesn't have to be as blunt and plain as Marcello's (his character warrants a straight forward telling) but it should be there. Even if it's as subtle and quiet as your character shaking fists at the sky and shouting, "I'll never go hungry again!" Thank you Scarlett O'Hara. You know about goals too.

Anyways, there's that. I hope you'll read this book even if you don't care about birth scenes or goals. What a beautiful story. Just the right balance of plot and character drive. And Marcello. A character who will stay with me always.

Has anyone else read this book? Please share your thoughts if you will :-)

Tuesday Books for Writers! The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz

Read this if you are writing:
A multi-generational story
With footnotes
About Dominican Culture
About a 'Ghetto Nerd'
With multiple POVs
A story that covers a long period of time
A non-linear narrative
Dialogue with slang/dialect/non-English
Fiction that infuses history


I'm not going to lie. I had a lot of difficulty getting through this book. I have an INTENSE dislike of footnotes. I don't know Spanish. I am bored by historical accounts. I don't get any references to speculative fiction. And I am often annoyed by non-linear storylines. This lovely, Pulitzer Prize winning little diddy, included ALL of these elements. There were some 'can't put it down' moments. But also the feeling: 'Can't pick up. Not today. No mami.'

When I turned that last page, I was never so happy to have finished a book. For two reasons.
1. Dios Mio! That was really hard to get through.
2. Wow. If you can get through it there's a really wonderful story in there.

There are a lot of reasons that you should read this as a writer. Most of them are listed above. There is a lot crammed into 325 pages. It's an epic novel for the ADD. It plays with everything. Structure, language, POV, style, and all kinds of literary things I don't even know about. I'll leave that kind of analysis to the smart people. If anything, I was most impressed with the sheer amount of ground that it covered.

If you can get past a lot of the distractions (yes, I consider footnotes a distraction), there's a really, truly brilliant story in there. It's incredibly powerful. In my opinion, it's a story that could stand on it's own. Start to finish, with the wonderfully, fresh voice of a most endearing narrator about four strong characters: Oscar de Leon (the title character) his sister, Lola, his mother, Beli, and his grandfather, Abelard. When I finished the book, I left confused about Dominican history, but very aware of this personal struggle that spanned generations. I understood the enchantment of Santa Domingo. I felt a lot of complex emotions about what these four characters had endured. A marvelous story that still stands out amidst the playful technique and structure. There's a lot to be learned from this book. And when you're finished, not only will you get to see what a 3 page footnote looks like, but, in theory, you'll know what it takes to win a Pulitzer! :-)

Tuesday Books for Writers! The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Before I begin gushing over this book, I'd like to propose something: As a writer I'm always looking for book recommendations that will help me with my writing. I've been in many writer's workshops and critique groups where someone recommends a book to me that they think is relevant to my work.

Instead of saying: 'This [type of scene] isn't working for me and here's ways you can fix it' (which is certainly helpful but not always effective). They can say: 'This [type of scene] isn't working for me and you know who does [type of scene] really well?' and proceed with a book recommendation.

An active reader/writer can do so much more with that!


So I'm trying to figure out how to make 'Tuesday Books for Writers' into a larger resource for writers. If anyone wants to participate in a 'Tuesday Books for Writers' blog post on their own blogs, let me know! I know there's some way to link them together that I plan to figure out soon. The only qualifications are that you have to have read a book you think might be relevant to somebody writing and tell them why. And, well, to be honest, most books have something redeemable, however small, that can be useful to a writer. So basically...the only qualification is that you have to have read something, sometime in your entire life. Thanks bunches.



The Adoration of Jenna Fox
by Mary E. Pearson
Read this book if you're writing:
A YA Novel
About Ethics in Medicine
A slow, deliberate revelation
A book that plays lightly with structure (particularly poetry infused in a long work)


I have to start off by saying that I was fascinated and compelled by this story. And I have to thank Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? for recommending it. Wowsa. I could NOT put this book down.

Which brings me to why it was soooo helpful as a writer to read this book. This book has a nice, compelling, slow, deliberate reveal. This is hard for me to say. But I am just going to say it. I'm pretty sure the pacing in this novel is simply perfect.

It builds so remarkably well, that I was absolutely blown away. It slowly leaks information and yet it drives plot forward at lightening speed. And when you get to the reveal, it does not disappoint. It's a whopper. Then we experience the reveal with more and more depth as it gets bigger and bigger. And it doesn't end there, people. Oh no. Just when you think it's all out there on the table, just when you think there's no where else to go, you're still compelled to go on. Because lawsie me, you've got to figure out how to cope with the reveal. And that's what the novel is really about.

The reason I find this whole thing so mind-blowing in its simplicity is because every book has a reveal, no matter how minor. Characters are keeping secrets left and right. And they are discovering things about the world like it's going out of style. If you can build to each and every reveal with the kind of power and force that this novel does, I think you'll be in amazing shape. I hope to be in amazing shape now that I've seen how well it can be done and how I can use the same pace and build in my own novel. It's such an easy thing to say: build to a nice climax or reveal. It's another thing to see it done so amazingly well.

Oh. And please go read this book immediately. It's an order. I'd even give you a copy. If mine didn't belong to the New York Public Library.

Tuesday Books for Writers! My Life In France

My Life In France

by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme

Especially read this if you're writing:

A memoir

A biography

About travelling

About food

A cookbook

I found this to be a difficult book to do a Tuesday Books for Writer's post. It's a genre I don't normally read. And as I read it, I wonder how to describe the narration. When trying to describe the writing, I automatically look to the writer. But, while this story is told from Julia Child's point of view, it was technically completed after her death by Alex Prud'homme. Of course, it's based on extensive research, conversations, interviews, and letters with Child herself. But for some reason, I can't get past the fact that someone other than Julia would write something trying to sound like Julia.

Despite this weirdo struggle of mine, the book is absolutely fascinating. I do feel that Julia is telling me her story and I am eating it right up-- no pun intended.

But in sitting down to write this post, I really had to ask myself: why is this book good for fiction writers? Is it even any good for someone not writing a memoir? The prose isn't anything special. The timeline is linear, but I often feel that transitions are rough. I often question why one particular anecdote is told in light of the actual plot and I fail to see a lot of connections between the two. And yet, the anecdotes are what make it interesting. The 'characters' are wonderful, but are often not elaborated upon enough. So, what can a fiction writer take from this besides a factual account of Julia Child's life? Beyond Julia being an inspirational person in general, what should you take from this book?

I thought really hard about this one. And it turns out, I was thinking much too much. It's right there in the title. My Life In France! The spirit of a place! The spirit of a particular person in that place! It is captured magnificently in this book. After reading this, if you don't immediately want to book a trip to Paris, drink every glass of wine that Julia sipped, eat at every restaurant Julia sat in, meet every delightful person Julia met in France, well, I'd wonder a little bit about you. As with everything about Julia Child, her enthusiasm and passion for life, particularly the one she led in France, simply leaps off of the page.

And so I realized, wherever my protagonist may be, I better let them experience it to the fullest. Even if they hate where they are. The things they see and do always have to reflect that. My readers should want to spit out every sip of wine my main character takes if she hates the restaurant (I'm really digging the wine analogy)

So, if you're a fiction writer- still read this book! Julia Child is a fascinating and inspiring person, and she really knows how to let a place become a character.

Thank you Julia! Thank you Alex Prud'homme! Especially because you have an apostrophe in your name. That's pretty kewl.

Tuesday Books for Writers! What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

by Haruki Murakami

Especially Read This If You're:

A writer

A runner

A biker (Murakami's tales of biking woe will make you laugh)

A Triathlete

Training for a race

Writing things with words

There are a lot of books about writing that we've all been told to read. The most likely suspects: Strunk and White's Elements of Style and On Writing by Stephen King. But maybe you haven't been told to read this one, yet. (And if you have, why haven't you?!)

Haruki Murakami is one of my all-time favorite writers. I'm about one martini away from hopping on a flight to Tokyo and asking him to to marry me. Thank goodness I never drink martinis. He is genius for so many reasons. For me, he is a simple case of: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

That is why, when he wrote a book about running I ran to get it.

So, here's where things get tricky.

The book is mainly about running. It is about the many marathons and ultra marathons and triathlons that Murakami trains for. It's about running in many different places across the globe (the most notable for me: Athens and Hawaii). It's about failed triathlons and being numb at the end of a race and getting injured and feeling euphoric.

But this book is mainly about writing. Follow me yet? Because while you're reading for the umpteenth time about how many miles Murakami ran that particular day (Murakami, for me, is a master of the mundane) and what his time was and what he wished his time was and what he wished he wished his time was, he offers these little gems about writing. And that's what it's really about.

A writer's life. A runner's life. A running writer's life. A writing runner's life And the discipline and the training and sheer determination it takes to live it.

So read it. And tell me what you think.

Tuesday Books for Writers! The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

Especially read this if you're writing:

A YA Novel

A Book with Pictures

About cultural identity

In First Person

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian immediately struck me because of the strong 1st person narrative voice. This is an example of remarkable story-telling from a specific POV- a teen boy who is acutely observant, self-aware, confident, and hilarious. It's conversational, easy-going and, because of that, resonates as strikingly realistic and unique. No other person could tell you this story and no other story could tell you about this person. Let's face it. That's hard to do. That is REALLY hard to do. A strong narrative voice can make or break any novel, 1st person or not.

Voice is so important and this novel does it well. Simple as that. But, I know it's not as simple as that. And part of my goal is to become a more active reader and discover why it's not as simple as that.

I concluded that the voice is so remarkable because it feels like dialogue, but it's not dialogue. It has it's 'well's and 'okay's and 'Jeez'es and that makes it feel like the narrator is speaking to the reader. It's intimate. It's friendly. There's no talking up or down. It's story-telling. It's straight. It's humble. It's one to one. The reader becomes a peer. An equal. It makes readers feel that whether they are sitting in their chair reading or standing inside of the novel, they are right there with the action. It's one and the same.

This style doesn't work for everyone, but I know that it can be helpful. If the narrator of my novel was sitting next to me with a cup of tea, she would tell me her story in a very different way than she might be right now. I'd like for her to sit down and tell me, one-to-one, the real deal. Well, okay. Jeez, Melissa. So...this is how it happened... ;-)

Thank you Sherman Alexie for creating (among so many other things) a remarkable voice. Which is so key to a successful story.

Tuesday Books for Writers! A Prayer For Owen Meany

For the past week I've been reading John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany. I haven't finished it, but I am enjoying it very much. I have attempted only one other John Irving book in my life (The World According to Garp) and, to be honest, I didn't have the patience to finish it.

I am by no means scared of lengthy books with over-attention to detail, but there came a point in my reading of Garp where I couldn't bear to go on and I simply shut the book, placed it on a bookshelf, and declared it unfinished indefinitely. This is very rare for me. It's only happened one other time, during my reading of Stephen King's Insomnia, and I hope that Owen Meany does not suffer the same fate.

There are a lot of things I admire about Owen Meany so far. Right off the bat, I was intrigued by the use of capitol letters, which are used whenever Owen (whose voice is apparently rather irritating) speaks. I have never seen this done before and I considered it absolute genius. It certainly made me wonder how I can use physical letters and punctuation to achieve something similar. How can I highlight a certain physical or emotional characteristic beyond simple description? Is there another way? Beyond capitalizing all of the dialogue of a character with an annoying voice--well--I couldn't come up with one. Let me know if you do.

The other thing that struck me is the first sentence:

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

I happen to be writing a novel that is about a person who is changed by someone else. I think this is pretty common in a character driven novel. And even if it's not the whole story, if a protagonist is on any kind of spiritual or emotional journey, every experience and every person they interact with at every point in that novel is going to change them. Or at least move the story forward. I probably wouldn't call it out in the same tone and manner that John Irving does (I'll leave that to the masters) but I want to be sure that every character my protag meets achieves something.

So, this got me to thinking, once it's time to edit, every person in this doggone novel is going to have to be held up to what I'm going to call the Owen Meany First Sentence. If you break it down: "I remember this person, NOT because of a unique physical characteristic and something they did but because of how they changed my life or at least moved the novel forward." I mean, when you think about it, it pretty much covers everything. A physical description of this secondary character, an action they took, and a spiritual and emotional change that pushed the protagonist forward or backward. Or at least contributed in some way to the main character's arc and growth in the story. That's pretty cool. And I really think it's going to help! Thank you John Irving!

Tuesday Books for Writers!

When I was in college, a lot of my writing classes had a similar format. Eccentric writing Professor passes out a photo-copied handout of an excerpt of a published novel or short story. Students pass copies around the room. 15-20 minutes of silence ensues for your reading pleasure. Afterwards, it's discussed. A writing exercise is posed to the class pertaining to the piece. The class proceeds, in silence, to write for 15-20 minutes. Afterwards, the experience is discussed.

We read to become better writers. In the hopes that the more you read...well...you get the picture. So as logic might have it, the more we write, the better we must read. (Here's hoping!) We pick up on things. We read, not only because we love stories, but because we're interested in craft. How did they do what they did? Why is it effective? We become active readers.

It is my goal to become a more active reader. I read many books and I'm in awe of them. But I often can't articulate why. So, what better way to do it then to post it on this darn here blog?

Every Tuesday I hope to tell you what I'm reading and what I'm learning from it. Some Tuesdays I might forget. Some Tuesdays I might be pulling my hair out at work and will not feel like telling you a darn thing. ;-) But most Tuesdays, I'll try my hardest to articulate what's good about what I'm reading and try and figure out why on earth it's good. No matter what it is. Whether it's Chick Lit or Tolstoy I'm going to try.

Maybe you'll find it to be a good resource. Maybe you'll say: Melissa, seriously, enough with trying to figure out why Twilight is a resource for writers, let me get back to my 3rd reading of Grapes of Wrath.

So here's to the new series: Tuesday Books for Writers! I figure an exclamation mark really kicks things up a notch! (Ask me offline about my day job some time!)

Because it took me long enough to explain myself, I have nothing more to say today. So I'll link to a previous blog about Trusting a Narrator which is something I learned from Elijah of Buxton.
I hope you'll engage in a dialogue about the things you're learning from your reading too :-)