What about Paul?

Posted on September 16, 2013 by ginachoward

maze-gyreEverything is coming together: characters, setting, story and plot. I’ve even figured out the dramatic tension. However, one thing still hangs in the balance: What should I do about Paul?

He could be on the lam, which would point to his guilt. Or he could be sitting in prison and eager to tell his side of the story – or proclaim his innocence. Neither seems satisfactory.

Or Paul could be silent.

He could be in prison or a hospital and refuse to talk to Janelle, but the reader would know his thoughts.

Or he could be seriously injured and unable to talk. He could be in a coma. He could dream and the reader would have to tease out reality from drug-induced fantasy. From that, the reader would have to determine Paul’s guilt or innocence.

Perhaps Paul won’t communicate at all. We’ll learn about him from what his friends and family tell us (and don’t tell us). We’ll draw conclusions. But we might never know for sure if Paul committed the terrorist acts of which he is accused.

What do you think I should do with Paul?

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Deflecting the glare

Posted on September 9, 2013 by ginachoward

glareThink about the kid next door. The one you’ve known since she was in diapers. The one that used to ride his bike with your son. The one that would hang out at your house while her mom ran errands. The one that gave your daughter rides to school when he got his license. The one that helped carry your groceries in when she was home from college.

Now what if you learned that that grown-up kid had been accused of embezzlement – or murder – or terrorism. Would you be disbelieving and need irrefutable proof? Or would you start to look at old memories in a new light. Maybe that time he bloodied your son’s nose was a sign of latent violence. Maybe carrying the groceries inside was an excuse to scope out the place. How would you respond to the police when they came round asking what you knew or had seen or had sensed? What would you say when a reporter thrust a microphone in your face?

Last week, I talked in my post about perspective. How we – and my characters – fill in gaps or interpret events through the lenses of own experiences in order to make sense of the world. We also respond to situations in ways we feel are best for us.

Self-preservation is one of the strongest innate responses we have. It’s why people remain silent in the face of injustice or wrongdoing. If we disassociate ourselves from or point our fingers at people under scrutiny, we won’t fall under scrutiny ourselves. It’s a form of misdirection, of asking the interrogators to look away and not pay attention to the man behind the curtain, if that man is me.

Paul’s neighbors, friends and acquaintances are facing scrutiny, and they respond in individually human ways. The reader will have an advantage, but Janelle will have to be observant to know whether to take what people are saying at face value.

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A matter of perspective

Posted on September 2, 2013 by ginachoward

glassesThe 11 strangers began by sharing where they were from and an interesting fact about themselves. At the end of five days, after hours together in the van or in pairs on the river, they slowly revealed more. The conversations became more personal. I overheard snatches that ran together, creating a new narrative:

“My parents escaped from the Soviet Union and went to Iran. When the Iranian Revolution began, they, my brothers and our cat got out in the nick of time, crossing China and living on a boat on the Mekong River where our cat got sick. A Catholic relief agency sponsored them, and they settled in Minnesota where they raised monarch butterflies and had a lollipop business. After selling the business, my father got a job at Stanford and my mother raised money for the Veterinary School. After I was born, they moved to Colorado and Tennessee before settling in North Carolina, where they now live and plan to write a book about their experiences.”

The parts are true; the whole isn’t.

It’s human nature to want to make sense of our world, and we often do so by filling in gaps or interpreting events through the lens of own experiences. However, by projecting our thoughts, feelings, attitudes or interpretations, it’s easy to inadvertently create misunderstandings or false realities. A co-worker’s snappish comment could just as easily be a reaction to a day that’s not going well as it could be a sign he doesn’t like you.

As in life, fictional characters must not jump to conclusions. Janelle must be careful to analyze the responses she receives from Paul’s friends, family and neighbors, rather than to fit them into preconceived beliefs she might not even be aware that she holds. To do so would distort her painstaking research, leading to a miscarriage of justice she is working so hard to avoid.

(If you have just come across my blog and have no idea who Janelle and Paul are, take a look at some of my earlier blogs to catch up.)

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An awesome power

Posted on August 26, 2013 by ginachoward

The choices we make, trials we face, experiences we have, people we meet, the countries and families in which we are born, even our innate dispositions tug at us throughout our lives, molding us into the people that we become. As we age, our forms become less malleable, but we continue to change. Sometimes, a sudden tragedy alters us. However, usually, like water on rock, the transformations are incremental, only noticed by old friends that haven’t seen us in years.

As I wrote the back stories for Paul, his parents and friends, it occurred to me how complex people are, even fictional ones. If Paul did what he is accused of doing, how does that affect his old high school girlfriend and her family? If Paul’s former supervisor grants Janelle an interview, would that impact his future with the company? Even Paul doesn’t live in a vacuum. And what of Janelle? How will writing Paul’s story and knowing the impact it will have on so many lives permanently affect her?

Paul and those associated with him are fictitious, but the impact that each of us has on those who pass through our lives is real. We have the power to hurt or heal, intentionally or not. It’s an awesome power. We must use it with care.

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Back to business

Posted on August 19, 2013 by ginachoward

Iowa mapIt was good to get back to Clinton.

I took today off to catch up with Paul’s family and to learn more about his old friends. Since Paul had moved away, a new middle school had opened, swallowing two others, including the one that he had attended. His former friends, teachers and others who had known him had grown and changed and had moved on, as people do. Except for his parents, they really hadn’t thought much about Paul throughout the years. Oh, they might have read in the Clinton Herald about his being deployed to Afghanistan and his safe return, but once he went off to Iowa State, their lives began to diverge. Eventually, many of them lost touch.

If Janelle talks to them, I wonder if she would begin to understand how an all-American boy from Iowa could become a terrorist, that is, if the charges against him are true.

If you’ve just stumbled across my blog, you’ll discover that I’m in the midst of the creative process. I know the story line. I’ll finish creating my minor characters this week. The setting is roughed out and most my research is complete. I’ll begin plotting next week.

To help myself stay focused, I returned to E.M. Forster’s classic Aspects of the Novel for a refresher. He does a wonderful job of stating what we intuitively know makes a good story. Whenever I get to this point in a major project, I return to his advice on how to make readers care about the characters, maintain tension and make every word count. When I begin writing and share snippets, I’ll look to you to tell me how well I’m doing.

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When mom’s away…

Posted on August 12, 2013 by ginachoward

ShebaNo sooner did the lock click behind me as I headed to the airport than the word was telegraphed: Mom is gone. And you know what that means – PARTY!

It wasn’t like they had been unsupervised. Leigh had stopped by daily to make sure they were eating (never a problem) and drinking. Ahh, but what??

But I got home just a hair too soon, and their over-eager welcome didn’t keep me in the kitchen quite long enough. The house was a disaster. The sewing basket was overturned. The lei still peeked from under the closet door. The bunny ears were lying for all the world to see in the middle of the living room floor. And the bed! The sheets were exposed where the spread was pulled down, and the quilt… it lay so shamelessly on the floor, I had to avert my eyes. The matted black hair on the carpet was so thick, there had to have been a cat fight. That’s what happens when two females (or were there more?) are left alone. Yet, there they sat, the picture of innocence.

Looking up with her wide green eyes, Sheba trailed after me as I set things right. Whenever I paused from dusting (and sneezing), scrubbing, sweeping and mopping, Penguin cozied up to me.

Two weeks vacation undone. It’s 2 a.m., and my alarm goes off in 3½  hours. As I stagger to bed, there they are, curled up at the foot of the bed.

I hope they had fun.

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Tug-of-love

Posted on August 5, 2013 by ginachoward

There’s a dynamic tension in familial relationships. And because they are based on love, the stakes are high.

As children become adults, their parents have to bite their tongues – and often don’t – to keep from warning their grown-up kids of life’s pitfalls. The next generation feels it is their obligation to keep their aging parents from making late-in-life mistakes. These are occasions for equal-opportunity resentment.

Unrequested “helpful” advice is fraught with unspoken messages, intentional or not. Young adults might feel their parents think they are incapable, inadequate or “not measuring up.” Older adults, already experiencing diminishing physical and mental capabilities, could take their children’s suggestions as further signs they are failing, useless or burdens.

The irony is that in most cases, the advice is offered out of love. Each wants the other to be proud of them and doesn’t want to disappoint. Even in strained or estranged relationships, that desire for validation doesn’t die, so strong is the parent-child bond. For aging parents, advice can be a way to show they are still relevant. For adult children, it’s a way to demonstrate their competence.

Those of us in the so-called sandwich generation are caught between a rock and a hard place. With our parents on one side and children on the other, it sometimes seems like a no-win position. We’re getting – and giving – advice on both sides. Whichever way we turn, we are tugged by emotional situations. The complex parent-child relationship adds layers of meaning to even the simplest statements. In multi-generational living situations, the emotion is ratcheted up exponentially.

There is no one-size-fits-all way to handle family tugs-of-love any more than there is an answer to finding world peace. However, over the years, I’ve been trying to talk less and listen more, put myself in the other generation’s shoes and moderate what I say with love. I still offer too much advice, not really hear what people are saying and speak before thinking when I get annoyed. It’s still a work in progress.

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Learn from the best

Posted on July 29, 2013 by ginachoward

I love to read, but I just don’t have time. My frazzled friends and I myself repeat this chorus. For me, reading is a guilty pleasure, something I try to sneak in when I’m not doing all the “musts.” But for writers, reading is a must. Just as athletes get better by playing with or against someone better than they are, so, too, do writers get better when they read the works of people who make you feel you are walking on roads as familiar as the one in front of your house alongside characters that you have known all your life – or wish that you have.

Vacations are my reading times. I catch up on classics, read page-turners for the fun of it and generally immerse myself in worlds far different than my own. Whether contemporary page-turners or revered classics, every book I read – or at least finish – has one thing in common. They are well-written.

I usually don’t read fantasy, but Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children received such rave reviews, that I checked it out. I am not disappointed. A fireplace “throttled with vines” and a kitchen “that was a science experiment gone terribly wrong” not only create vivid images, but set the tone. Careless in Red by Elizabeth George, who never disappoints, describes a relationship by how the characters are positioned on opposite sides of a kitchen, “less than ten feet, but…a chasm that grew wider every year. Her characters define themselves and their relationships by what is unsaid.

As I read these two books, I find myself making mental notes of how relationships are established, segues between scenes, powerful verbs and the unhurried way both authors pull the reader into the settings. I can research and plan, create my characters, settings and plot, but the craft is in the execution. If I hope to be better than a good writer, I need to read and learn from the best.

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Trade-offs

Posted on July 22, 2013 by ginachoward

step directionLast week, I chose work over progress on my characters. To be honest, the work was fun. I conducted interviews and toured advanced manufacturing facilities to get the material I need for an article that’s due this week for the October issue of US Airways Magazine. I also went out to UNC Charlotte to learn about research initiatives, start-ups and early-stage companies that have spun out of the university, and I caught up with what’s going on at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I had a wonderful time.

Of course, I paid the price for being out of the office. Not even 12-hour days were enough to catch up. Time off became work time. And when I finally called it quits for the day, I just wanted to turn off my brain. Janelle and Paul, their families and friends just had to wait.

However, it did make me wonder about my priorities. Life is a constant series of choices, of give and take, of this or that. We make some choices because we feel it is the right thing to do. We make them to be good parents, good friends, good children, good employees. But we also make excuses. Was that trip to the grocery store really necessary, or could we have put together meals from what’s in the cabinets? Could that trip to Target have waited another week? Did I really have to check my email that frequently? Those are “musts” that really aren’t. If something is truly important to us, even if it’s only important for that moment in time, we usually do it.

Last week, I wanted a break from Paul and Janelle. They seemed to be guests that had stayed a little too long. But now I miss them. So, we’ll catch up, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Meet Paul

Posted on July 15, 2013 by ginachoward

question mark on silhouetteNow that you’ve met Janelle, I’ll introduce you to Paul, a 27-year-old from Clinton, Iowa. The tall, blue-eyed veteran looks more like an all-American boy than the terrorist he’s accused of being. But, then, the jury is still out on whether he did what he’s accused of doing.

Although Catholic, Paul went to public school, attending Whittier Elementary, Washington Middle and Clinton High School. When he graduated, he went 183 miles up the road to Iowa State where he majored in microbiology. He joined ROTC and when he graduated, he was deployed to Afghanistan. He served for four years as an Army officer and upon returning to the States, studied plant pathology at ISU as a graduate student.

That’s all Janelle knows, so that’s all you can know – at least initially. She’ll learn more about him through his friends, family, neighbors, teachers, those with whom he served and others. However, she doesn’t learn more from the person who can tell her the most – Paul. And he’s not talking.

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