Today, Carolyn J. Rose is posting here on
Straight From Hel.
Carolyn is the
author of several novels, including Hemlock Lake, Through a Yellow Wood, AnUncertain Refuge, Sea of Regret, APlace of Forgetting, No Substitute for Murder. She
penned a young-adult fantasy, Drum Warrior, with her husband,
Mike Nettleton.
She grew up in New York’s Catskill Mountains,
graduated from the University of Arizona, logged two years in Arkansas with
Volunteers in Service to America, and spent 25 years as a television news
researcher, writer, producer, and assignment editor in Arkansas, New Mexico,
Oregon, and Washington. She founded the
Vancouver Writers' Mixers and is an active supporter of her local bookstore,
Cover to Cover. Her interests are reading, gardening, and not cooking.
Welcome, Carolyn.
Don’t Club Your
Reader With Your Message
As a substitute teacher, when I’m not giving instruction I
like to blend into the background, to be there if I’m needed to answer
questions and explain directions for projects, but otherwise to be unobtrusive.
My goal is to keep the focus on the lesson, to help kids learn and think, not to
influence their thinking by telling
them what I think.
The same philosophy can be applied to writing fiction. For
me, the story unfolds more smoothly if the writer blends into the background
and deflects attention from himself/herself.
An author who intrudes into the story to belabor a point,
express an opinion, provide far too much background information on a subject, or
make sure the reader “gets it,” is taking time and attention away from
characters and action. When the author ceases to work behind the scenes through
characters’ thoughts and dialogue, the flow of the story can be disrupted.
That, in turn, can disrupt the reader’s involvement.
Sometimes the reader feels clubbed over the head with the
author’s message. A clubbed reader—even one in agreement with the message—may
skip passages or even put the book down.
As an extreme example, let’s say I have strong opinions
about chunky peanut butter.
Here’s that message delivered in what I call a character rant.
The character is channeling the author who is obviously up on his/her soapbox
expounding, lecturing, and dumping opinions like a load of wet cement.
Carla added a giant
jar of peanut butter to her shopping cart. Smooth, of course. The chunky stuff
was gritty and stuck in her teeth. On top of that, it demonstrated laziness and
carelessness on the part of producers—and lack of respect for the correct way
to do things. Chunky peanut butter represented all that was wrong with the
United States. Standards had slipped appallingly in the past fifty years and politicians
were only greasing the skids for further decline. It was all the fault of the
Supreme Court. No, it was the fault of those men who wrote the Constitution.
That document was far too vague. There was too much leeway. Far too much room
for interpretation. And it didn’t help that . . .
And on and on and on, in huge, dense paragraphs.
Now let’s put that message in short bursts of dialogue to
make it more interesting and easier on the eye. And let’s go a step further and
allow another character to challenge Carla. That lets us examine the peanut
butter issue from other angles and learn more about both characters as they
debate it.
Carla plucked a jar of
smooth peanut butter from the shelf and set it in the shopping cart.
“Can’t we get
crunchy?” Alex asked.
“Crunchy?” She frowned
at her four-year-old grandson. “Crunchy is gritty.”
He nodded and swung
from the handle of the basket. “I like that.”
She shuddered. “It
sticks in my teeth.”
“I like that too.” He
grinned. “That way I have some for later.”
Carla narrowed her
eyes. Was he baiting her? No, surely not. He was too young. But it appeared this
innocent child was becoming a tool for his mother’s liberal agenda. Well, since
her son apparently was doing nothing about it, it was up to her to set Alex
straight.
“Crunchy peanut butter
is inferior,” she told him. “It’s what you get when workers no longer take pride
in what they produce.”
Rubbing the end of his
nose with his index finger, Alex gazed up at the display of peanut butters.
“Pay attention, Alex. My
father wouldn’t tolerate crunchy peanut butter in his house and I won’t either.
It’s a symbol of what’s wrong with this nation!”
“Okay.” Alex turned
and peered into the shopping cart. Then, using both hands, he lifted a carton
of orange juice and thrust it toward her. “Then I guess we gotta put this back.”
Carla gaped. “Why
would we do that?”
“On accounta the guys
who made it didn’t do their job ’cause it still has pulp in it.”
Ooops.
Carla has been painted into a philosophical corner.
Double oops.
I’m right there with her because she was expounding on
my theory—a theory that seems to have
some holes in it that I didn’t notice until Alex challenged it.
How will I write her out of this corner? Will she amend her
rule to explain this contradiction? Will she re-examine her beliefs? Or will
she defend them? Will I change my tune about chunky peanut butter?
You tell me.
Use the comment space below and get your name
into the drawing for a copy of my latest book, No Substitute for Money.
I started writing Angel Sometimes a
couple of years ago. She came into my head and wouldn't leave. I had finished the first of many drafts of
her story when I was awarded a four-week scholarship to the Vermont Studio
Center. 
It took a while
before I felt the book was done. Not long after it was published, Angel Sometimes was awarded a USA Best
Book Award. As you might guess, I was hop-around-the-office happy. But what was
even more fun was talking with readers who emailed me. 
