Category Archives: Barbara Pattee

More Than Black and White

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“If you see the world in black and white, you’re missing important grey matter.” –Jack Fyock

The most compelling stories involve characters who are flawed morally, physically, socially, or even mentally. For example in the novel, Deserves to Die by Lisa Jackson, a twice divorced, single pregnant detective must solve the murder of a woman whose ring finger was severed.

In Kimberly White’s Acquisitions, a pharmaceutical rep files a sexual harassment suit against her boss but falls in love and has sex with the company attorney investigating her claim.

Susan Kay’s Phantom is a powerful retelling of the story of the well-known main character Erik, in Phantom of the Opera, who was born horribly disfigured to a vain, spoiled Catholic widow. This gripping novel begins with her point of view then continues with the point of view of each significant person in the phantom’s life. When finally Erik’s point of view is told, the reader feels sympathy for the man who survived a life of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.

With Every Drop of Blood, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, is a novel of the civil war. When Johnny, a white southern teenager, is talked into delivering supplies to Rebel troops, he agrees in order to support his widowed mother and siblings. Johnny is captured by Cush, a Yankee runaway slave about Johnny’s age. Each has been taught to hate the enemy, but the interaction between the two young men is compelling.

In Karen Slaughter’s Fallen, police officer Faith Mitchell arrives at her mother’s house to find the door open, a dead man on the floor, another man she kills, her young daughter hidden away, and her mother missing. To prove her innocence in the killing, Mitchell must slip away to find her mother and solve this bizarre case.

To Have and to Kill is part of Mary Jane Clark’s wedding cake series. Piper Donovan, recovering from a broken engagement, returns home to help with her mom’s wedding cake business. Her mom’s macular degeneration, a friend’s murder, and a new love interest all impact Piper.

Lisa Genova’s Still Alice tells the story of Alice, a professor who develops Alzheimer’s. The story became the movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Now, look at your stories. Are all your characters in perfect physical shape? They’re boring unless they have a limp, a stutter, a facial scar, or some other imperfection. Are they polite at all times without a show of temperament? Are your antagonists all bad, or do they stop to open a door for the handicapped? Do they drop coins in the hat of the beggar on the street? Does your antagonist kill indiscriminately or does she only select victims who deserve to die? Do your characters have names that reveal a little about their personality or are you using the easy Dick and Jane names? Are your characters always living a life of luxury or is the middle class or the poor a part of some of your stories.

Mix it up! Add some flavor to your stories by including good and bad in protagonists, antagonists, and some of your minor characters. Your stories will be more compelling and interesting.

 

 

 

Write Something

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“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult

Creative writing is not the same as making a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. Once you put an ingredient in the pot, you can’t remove that item. The flavor changes with each addition of a vegetable, meat, or spice. Soup-making mistakes aren’t easily corrected.

Writing is different. You can put on paper descriptive words that don’t quite capture your thoughts. Continue writing. You can change words that you have written, but you can’t change what you don’t write.

Are you staring at a blank sheet of paper or blank screen? That’s writer’s block. Try quick writing which is timed, continuous writing without self-editing. Pick a subject; don’t agonize about it. Open a dictionary, novel, or newspaper. Pick any word. That becomes your topic for freewriting. This seems silly at first. However, your mind isn’t hampered by spelling errors, punctuation concerns, or difficult plot points. Write for fifteen minutes without stopping to change anything.

My first experience with quick writing came when a creative writing instructor told the class to write the word “chair” at the top of a sheet of paper. We were given ten minutes to write about a chair. At first I struggled. When I began to imagine who might sit in that chair, my writing took off.

Don’t want to try quick writing? Write about something you’ve seen or heard today. After reading a newspaper article, give your opinion of the information or on the writer’s interpretation of the event. Read a book and change one significant detail to give your spin to the tale.

Another way to stop the dreaded writer’s block is to take an idea from a book you’ve read or movie you’ve seen recently. Pick a scenario you would have created differently. Write this scene your way without stopping to correct spelling, change names, or edit in any way.

Try this: Close your eyes and picture a moonlit beach in the Caribbean. If you’re into murder mysteries, picture a couple walking down the beach when suddenly the woman pulls out a gun and shoots the man. If you’re into romance, picture that same couple suddenly dropping to the sand to make out. If you’re into science fiction, picture the couple discovering unidentifiable footprints in the sand. If you’re into memoirs, try to remember the last time you walked a sandy beach.

Do you self-edit as you write? Stop it! Editing while you’re working on your manuscript stops the creative flow. If you think of an alternate word, type it in red, underline it, or put it in the margin without deleting what you’ve already written. Check your thesaurus later to select the best word. You can always edit later by adding thoughts, deleting dialogue, or changing plots. YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU DON’T WRITE

Finding Fiction in Real Life

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“There are more bizarre stories in reality than any of us could imagine.” – J. Garth

If I wrote a story about an elephant buried at a shopping mall in the United States, no one would believe the plot was plausible. And yet it’s true. In 1972, Little Jennie, an aging elephant with a traveling circus, died at the mall and was buried immediately at “what is now Summit Place Mall in Waterford.” (Detroit Free Press, August 11, 2014, front page)

If I wrote a story about the compassion and empathy that a gorilla can exhibit, few people would want to believe it. After all, gorillas are just animals. Now that it is documented that Koko the gorilla expressed her sorrow at the loss of her friend, actor Robin Williams, people may now believe that gorillas are closer to humans than we thought.

Who would believe a young man with cerebral palsy could write a novel using only the toes of his left foot? I read Christy Brown’s Down All the Days long before it became the movie, “My Left Foot,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis. The novel depicts life in Dublin, Ireland from the point of view of a young man suffering from cerebral palsy.

When I read the newspaper or watch television news, I’m often amazed by the real world. Why would a young person pour a flammable liquid on his chest then set the liquid on fire on a dare? Why would a woman kill her family and herself because she suddenly lost her job? Why would a child kill himself because he is gay? How does someone strapped with dynamite walk into a building and blow himself up for a cause?

Real life presents some bizarre stories. If you choose to write stories “ripped from the headlines,” you must be prepared with convincing plots, believable characters, realistic dialogue, and sights and sounds that satisfy us. Are you prepared to make the bizarre believable?

What Do You Know?

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“Write What You Know.” Original Author Unknown

“Beware of advice—even this.” Carl Sandberg

 

Creative juices are flowing. Your protagonist takes a high-powered position in a renowned law firm to be closer to her love interest. The romance is simple for you to write, however you know almost nothing about a criminal law firm. To make the story realistic, research is necessary. Even the pros do it.

 

Tom Clancy, known for espionage and military based novels such as The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, The Sum of All Fears, and Clear and Present Danger, was never in the military. Clancy had a bachelor’s degree in English literature and worked in the insurance business. His fascination with the military motivated him to do the research to create his best-selling novels.

 

Vince Flynn, a dyslexic who graduated with a degree in economics, was medically disqualified from entering the Marine Aviation Program. He quit his commercial real estate job to work full time on his first novel, Term Limits, a political thriller. Flynn also wrote Transfer of Power, The Third Option, and Act of Treason. Having no military or political background, he did a lot of research to get essential facts correct.

 

Harlan Coben studied political science in college and writes mysteries, such as Tell No One, Deal Breaker, Just One Look, and Six Years.

 

Some best-selling authors use the knowledge of their occupations to create heart-stopping plots. Robin Cook is a physician who writes medical thrillers, i.e. Coma and Contagion. Tess Gerritsen is a physician who wrote Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, as well as a series of novels that spawned the television series, “Rizzoli & Isles.”

 

Michael Crichton, an anthropology professor, studied medicine and did exhaustive research to write medical thrillers. He is well-known for Jurassic Park, Twister, and The Andromeda Strain which were made into popular movies. Crichton also created the television series, E. R.

 

Are you motivated enough to thoroughly research your topic of interest to complete your novel? Will you be the next Tom Clancy, Tess Gerritsen, or Vince Flynn? What are you interested in researching?

Writers Always Write

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“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” — Eugene Ionesco

As I was teeing up my golf ball one day, I noticed the name on the ball was Crystal. Aha, I thought. I know the perfect name for my character. She’ll be called Pearl. Stay with me. I don’t always do straight line thinking. Crystal reminded me of a pearl, which is a perfect name for the character in my historical short story. This demonstrates that I think about writing while in the midst of other activities.

When I first met my future in-laws, I was fascinated by the patriarch’s extensive stamp collection, his brother-in-law’s love of fishing from his motor boat on the lake, the small town they lived in, and the scary idea that most of the people knew each other and all their juicy gossip. In my mind, those details created a convoluted family murder mystery waiting to be written. I’m still working on that one.

As I was reading Claire Murray’s February 21st blog, “Finding Something to Write About,” I started thinking about how I find ideas for my stories. When I sit in a waiting room, on a plane, or in a restaurant, I sometimes overhear conversations that tweak my interest. I may discover a plot idea, an interesting scenario, an intriguing title, or see a person I feel would make a fascinating character.

Reading books or magazine articles sometimes gives me ideas. Because I also recognize some of the TV stories that are “ripped from the headlines,” I’ve started paying more attention to the news. Reading newspapers or listening to the news also gives me the opportunity to do a “what if” story. Tim Franklin’s February 27th blog addresses the “What if?” in a fascinating take on the demise of the dinosaurs.

My cousins-in-law were going through their aunt’s belongings helping her decide what should be given to family members, sold at auction, donated to the local historical society, or trashed. I was intrigued by the contents of an old, unwanted notebook. The cousins gave it to me. That notebook provided the plot for “Pearl’s Legacy,” which I’m preparing for a short story contest.

I keep a supply of notebooks, pens, and pencils in every room in the house and notebooks in various sizes to fit my purses, bags, and suitcases to catch any fleeting ideas before they escape my grasp. My handy, idea filled notebooks help jump start my writing long before I face that intimidating blank screen. Without my notebooks, I think I’d still be staring at a sea of white space without a clue of what I should write about.