Category Archives: Barbara Pattee

Plotter or Pantser

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“Secret Sauce: If you’re not spending most of your time figuring out how your characters act or acted, you’re probably wasting your time.” Annalisa Parent, featured speaker, at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference 2017.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Or are you a crazy combination of the two? Some writers prefer to know where their stories take them before they begin. Plotters outline the story from start to finish and then write the manuscript. Others prefer to jump right in the story and let the characters talk to them to determine the direction in which the story takes them. A person who writes this way is called a pantser or “someone who writes by the seat of his pants.”

Annalisa Parent wrote a delightful, easy reading book, Storytelling for Pantsers, that helps in the scary adventure of writing by the seat of one’s pants. After reading her book, I realized that I started as a pantser for one of the manuscripts that I’m working on. Because my story involves historical facts, I’ve decided to plot the entire manuscript for accuracy of location, timeline, and the culture that shapes my characters’ lives.

However, I’ve outlined the entire story of another manuscript, but the characters continue to take me in an entirely different direction. This story puts me in the category of a plotter/pantser. I hear my characters in my sleep and wake up to a new plotline each morning. I’m okay with that because it’s not my story; it’s theirs.

What I believe is that a writer can be a plotter, a pantser, or a combination of the two depending on the writer’s personality and/or the type of story he or she is writing. There are some people who say you must plot your entire story. Others say that you can write “by-the-seat-of-your-pants” and let your characters do the plotting for you.

What do you believe? How do you write? I’d enjoy reading your thoughts on this issue.

 

Freedom! What Freedom?

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“Barbara, your assignment is to write a 250-word essay entitled What Freedom Means to Me, my English teacher said. “I’m submitting your work to a local writing contest.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, not questioning why she selected that subject or why none of my classmates were given the same assignment.

She told me nothing about the rules or the real purpose of the contest, or her reason for choosing me. My writing in class garnered decent grades and some of my writing appeared in the school newspaper. However, I had never entered a contest. An essay on freedom didn’t interest me in the least.

Freedom, what freedom? I never felt the freedom to do what I wanted to do. In my last year in a junior high school, I was told I’d be going to a business high school. Not my choice. I wanted to go to the college prep high school even though I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me to college. I had high aspirations. Without college, I knew my career options were limited. My mother thought the business high school would be good preparation for a decent office job rather than one of the many factory positions available at that time. I envisioned an unhappy, unsatisfying, boring future.

Freedom, what freedom? I attended school when you couldn’t choose your subject matter or teachers. Most of my teachers were okay, but my social studies teacher was an uninspiring, older woman who never discussed the subject. Every day, she simply told us to copy the twenty questions written on the chalkboard, find the answers in the textbook, and write those answers on the lined paper she gave us.

When that school year was over, I hoped that my next social studies teacher would be better. When I was assigned to her again, I sat in class with tears in my eyes. More of the same, I thought.

Freedom. What freedom? We ate what my mother prepared for dinner or cooked what she told us to cook the way she wanted it done. She even selected all my clothes with little or no input from me.

Freedom. What freedom? I told my mother about a relative’s excessive use of alcohol and I was chastised harshly for talking negatively about the family. When I chose not to socialize with a friend because she had been mean to me, I was again chastised. I shut down emotionally and learned to keep my observations and feelings to myself to avoid her displeasure.

Freedom. What freedom? Without a second thought, I quickly wrote what I thought she wanted in the essay. When the students in the English classes were assembled in the library that next week, my English teacher pulled me to the side.

“Barbara, you didn’t put much effort into your essay,” she said. “Here,” she said handing a second-place certificate to me. She then walked to the front of the library to join the other English teachers and some visitors.

One person, a contest judge I assumed, called a girl to the front and congratulated her on winning first place. I looked at my disappointed teacher and thought, this contest wasn’t about what freedom means to me. It’s about a teacher’s bragging rights of having the winner in her class.

Freedom. What freedom? To write what interests me, to study any subject that interests me, to cook what and how I want to, and to wear whatever I wish are freedoms I don’t take for granted.

What’s Your Number?

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“The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike say a brain surgeon.” – Robert Cormier

Grab your thesaurus! You need a stronger word to convey the anger your protagonist feels.

When reading your completed manuscript, look for apathetic words that don’t show the desire, despair, curiosity, danger, happiness, terror, or excitement you want the reader to feel. You may change a chosen word or phrase after reading aloud what you’ve written because the word just doesn’t fit. Perusing a dictionary or thesaurus helps in finding alternative expressions that work better.

But what about the numbers a writer selects in the titles of his stories. A particular number could hold some connection to the plot or sound better when read aloud. A writer may pick a different number even if it means adding or omitting characters or restructuring the story to fit.

Often a significant number conveys the meaning of a story much better than just words. Ray Bradbury wrote a short, futuristic story titled, The Fireman, where books are burned and reading is prohibited. There’s no spark to that title. However, a longer version published in 1951 with a more provocative title, Fahrenheit 451, worked better. Fahrenheit 451, the temperature of the combustion of paper, sparks more interest in the storyline.

Sometimes a number in an alliteration works. For example, 77 Sunset Strip, was the name of a popular television series from 1958 – 1964. The detectives could have lived anywhere on the Strip, but the address 77, worked better especially in their theme song.

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, (an alliterative title) depicts the request from villagers asking for protection from bandits and the response of the seven men. The verbalization of that two-syllable number, seven, sounds much better than any other reasonably small number. Eleven might have been a decent alternate number choice, however, that would make for a more involved storyline. Too many characters get in the way of a good, tight story. The movie was remade in America as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966), Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969), and The Magnificent Seven (2016).

The comedy, 9 to 5, tells the story of three women who, tired of their boss’s bigoted condescending attitude, take revenge on him. Dolly Parton’s song, “Working 9 to 5,” from the movie was a catchy tune. The title could have been “8 to 4” but that doesn’t sound as impactful. I had a job where I worked from 8:30 to 4:30. Try putting that time frame into a cute song.

I saw the 1985 French comedic movie, Trois hommes et un couffin (translation: Three Men and a Cradle) which needed no translation. The 1987 Hollywood remake, Three Men and a Baby, told a similar story. Having two inept men take care of a baby wouldn’t provide enough comedic material. Four bumbling men would be too much. Three worked best.

In Les Trois Mousquetaires (translation: The Three Musketeers), Alexandre Dumas’s historical novel, there were four musketeers after D’Artagnan joined the powerful Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. Any remakes never altered the number of the original. Again, the number three worked best for this story.

Which movies and books can you recall that have a number in the title? What is the significance of that number?

 

 

 

This Is Us

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“Do the one thing they always tell writers not to do. Watch T.V.”  From 99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write by Smart Blogger

You may discover interesting plot ideas in television shows; however, some programs may teach you about good quality writing.

Watching the television show, “This Is Us,” may help you learn to use flashbacks as well as flash-forwards effectively in your writing. If you’re not familiar with this show, please view it starting from the first episode. There was a jaw-dropping revelation in the last scene that set the pace for future episodes. When I viewed that episode and others a second time several weeks later, I picked up on the foreshadowing I missed the first time around.

This drama weaves the past and present seamlessly in every hour-long episode while portraying humor, diversity, obesity, career crises, abandonment, family dynamics, panic attacks, and death with an abundance of love, emotion, and passion.

Writers for this program are superb. They create surprising moments in every episode. A clue to the heart of the series is found on a lamp table in a seemingly insignificant photo of three apparent friends. This well-placed clue reminds me of a child’s shoe tossed aside and ignored in Mary Higgins Clark’s novel, Where Are the Children?

Without giving away the plot of “This Is Us,” I ask you to take notice of what a fireman did, now illegal, while standing in a hospital waiting room. I later realized that scene was a flashback. The superb writers returned later to that character, revealed his backstory and his significant connection to the main characters.

The appearance of a family friend in a different role, surprised me and generated extensive, detailed discussions the next day with avid fans of the show.

When you view the show, take note of the way the writers interweave the past with the present. You can learn good writing from them.

 

All Love Is Created Equal

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In 1958, Richard Loving drove his fiancé Mildred Jeter from their home in rural Central Point, Virginia to Washington, D.C. to get married. Then they returned to Virginia to live. A few weeks later, the county sheriff arrived in the middle of the night to arrest the couple for breaking the miscegenation laws.

 

Miscegenation, which is marriage or cohabitation between two people from different racial groups, was illegal in 24 states in 1958. Richard was white and Mildred was black. They were jailed even though Mildred was pregnant at the time. When brought to trial, they were given the option of spending one to five years in jail or accepting banishment from the state of Virginia for 25 years. They weren’t allowed to be in Virginia at the same time for the entire length of the banishment. They pled guilty and opted to leave for Washington, D.C. But when it was time for Mildred to have her baby, she returned to Virginia to be near her family for the delivery. Although it was illegal, Richard also returned with her.

 

Caught together in Virginia, they were arrested. The Lovings pled guilty to miscegenation and again were forced to leave town. They moved back to Washington, D.C. where they lived for several years and had two more children. But in 1963, Mildred wanting to return to Virginia, wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy telling him of their situation. The soft-spoken couple was referred to the ACLU which led to Virginia court cases and appeals to decriminalize interracial marriage.

 

On March 18, 1966, the love story, not the court case, of Richard and Mildred Loving was depicted in Life Magazine in a photo essay titled, “The Crime of Being Married.”

 

After losing in Virginia, their case was brought before the United States Supreme Court. The couple opted not to attend the proceedings.

 

On April 10, 1967, their attorney, Bernard S. Cohen, presented the case to the Supreme Court adding Richard Loving’s statement, “Tell the judge that I love my wife.”

 

At that time there were still 16 states, all in the southeast quadrant of the United States, which prohibited marriage between a black person and a white person.

 

On June 12, 1967, the Court unanimously ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion held that “Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man fundamental to our very existence and survival.” This landmark case permanently changed the history of the United States. Now marriage between members of any ethnic group can no longer be prohibited.

 

In spite of the vitriol over a 2013 Cheerios commercial depicting an interracial couple and their adorable biracial daughter, 87% of Americans approve of interracial marriages. Only 4% approved in 1958.

https://youtu.be/pbWeH9cztHw

Demographer, William Frey of the Brookings Institution said, “We’re becoming much more of an integrated, multiracial society.”

The documentary, “Loving Story,” depicting the lives of the Loving family, won the WGA Screenplay Award AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs in 2011. Now the highly rated, poignant film, “Loving,” brings their love story to the big screen. The film recreated some of the scenes pictured in the Life Magazine article.

 

I give thanks to Richard and Mildred Loving for fighting so hard for their right to live as a married couple in their home state. Their selfless act changed our country in numerous ways and made it legal for me to enjoy the life I do with the man I love.