Sunday Writing

On Sundays I take a rest from writing novels, but I still write or at least research for family histories and biographies. 

In the past few years when I attend family history/genealogy conferences, I attend the presentations on writing. My expertise on research in finding ancestors is pretty good after all these years and writing is where my interests lie right now. Below are several snapshots I took of presentations. (I'll need to find who the presenters were and cite them.) Many of these ideas are great overlaps for writing novels, especially historical fiction. And, of course, these will be used in the family history class I'm teaching at church. [Aaargh! I'm frustrated that Blogger doesn't give me table options like a website so some of these slides are in weird places.]

1 August 2014

1.Pick one person, event or location

2. Create a story board

3. Make a powerful beginning and end

4. Stay focused

5. Doesn't have to be perfect---just share it.

 In writing the biographies of the four grandmothers I'm in the middle of writing, I didn't have a lot of stories about them, especially my Welsh grandmother, Mary Rees, so had to glean stories from documents and bring in historical facts and events. In writing the historical novel, I used names and events from census records and other documents I came across, especially the Kirk Sessions. In fact, it was through these sessions that a plot evolved.

Not only do characters in a story evolve and change, but we do too. I like the idea of being a character in my own life, it not only gives a new perspective on events, but also helps me see patterns and decisions that changed my life in so many different ways. Last year the focus at RootsTech seemed to be on writing stories that help families, especially children become more resilient. Research shows that if children know their family histories, they are better able to deal with hard things they are going through. One of the main speakers at the event was Bruce Feiler who wrote an article in the NYT: "The Family Stories that Bind Us."

This is a hard one. How much do you reveal in a autobiography or biography. I know the trend is to "tell it all, warts and all" but is that productive in the end? For example, I've heard a few stories about our grandmother from my cousin, Jane, and there's one story that I'm trying to decide whether to include in the biography or not. A lot of the stuff I have about her is sort of negative already: she was a difficult person, and to be fair, it seems like it's the negative things that are remembered. "The good is oft interred with the bones" said Marc Anthony in the play, Julius Caesar.  So do I add the story that as soon as Grandpa died, she threw his pipe and smashed it saying "Well, that's him gone"? And yet, by other accounts she loved him deeply. It's about changing. She was a different person at age 74: bedridden, bitter, confined, lonely, except for her unmarried daughter, Elsie. Unconsciously, I included her as a character in my historical novel, not so much with the interaction with the protagonist, but the idea of a bitter, sickly old woman with a mean tongue. Perhaps in telling hard things it makes a difference how you frame it.

But this slide, also is very hopeful in that if there are hard things in your life writing them down helps somehow to diffuse the terrible memories, even if you never share them and destroy them; you never get to that safe place. It is a technique used in psychology: write down your resentments against a person making them concrete, not vague. Read them aloud, one by one, and then destroy them one by one by shredding or setting on fire. I tried it when I was having continual years-past issues with my mother. It is cathartic, empowering, and helps you love that person better without that barrier of self-preservation. You feel safe.

Pantster or Plotter

People want to categorize writers into the either/or pantster or plotter, but I seem to be a hybrid. And, truth be told, I think that is the norm. For a historical novel you need to be a plotter if you are going to have a credible historical setting. But, I then discovered NaNoWriMo which helped me finish the historical novel. And for that I became a pantster with ideas flowing one after the other and sometimes random scenes that came to mind. Though I kept the ending in mind, I came up with a few surprises. But, I made a spreadsheet of chapters to make sure that the plot was falling into place. Several times I moved chapters back and forth as the storyline developed and I need to be a plotter for that.

For fun, I wrote a romance novel. It started off with a vague premise but I challenged myself to do a Camp NaNo in July and the book is basically finished and all by the seat of my pants! I had a hard time starting mostly because I couldn't "see" my characters. But once I had a better idea of them, the story grew and I began to like the characters. At first I didn't. That surprised me. 

A blog I saw on Facebook shared by a neighbor about having more women protagonists was interesting. There are apparently more male protagonists though the romance genre seems to center on female protagonists and their POV. But, even then, the female protagonist's interests and focus are on men! How to get your man! So there's always going to be a strong male character in the story. One thing I have a hard time doing is getting inside the male psyche without making him a stereotype. I guess it comes with practice.  

Digital Storytelling: An Application of Vichian Theory

When you finish a thesis you're just so relieved to finish that you never look at it again. At least I haven't. And you expect it to just lie on the shelves of the university library with maybe a few eager students stumbling over it almost by accident as they do research for a class paper. But, with the option of an electronic version of the theses/dissertations, the readership becomes world wide.

As my thesis is on the ScholarsArchives website at BYU, I get an email periodically telling me I've had more downloads; I usually get at least one a month. I have a readership of 94 people so far, a lot more than I would have anticipated. Actually, there may be more readers; these 94 people actually downloaded my thesis.

I have an international readership! Of the 94 downloaders: 27 are from the USA, 8 from China, 4 from Malaysia, 3 from Canada, 2 each from the UK, Italy, Philippines, and Taiwan, 1 each from Germany, Estonia, France, Croatia, Indonesia, Iran, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia and Tunisia. I don't know why getting readership in some of these places amuses me. I think it's because they are so random in such out of the way places. I would have expected more from Italy because of Giambattista Vico, but I think the real draw is digital storytelling and its application in education as well as in social life.

Today I discovered, there are five papers where the thesis has been cited. So not only did they download it but actually quoted from the thesis. Wow! One was a dissertation by a Tunisian at the University of Victoria in Australia, two articles by people in Portugal, and two articles by people in Taiwan (they were in Chinese; I would like to know what they quoted!). All of them were writing about using digital storytelling in education.

As I am now writing fiction, eventually I hope to have a larger readership. In some respects this smaller readership of my thesis probably has more impact internationally on education systems and thus to students, though indirectly. But, fiction also can impact others if only to entertain so I'm not going to say that my novels will not impact others. Our book group was reading Maisie Dobbs, which is set in WW1; we learned a lot about WW1 and how it impacted ordinary people, more than just dry events from a history book. So fiction can be instructive too though that is not its main goal.

One thing that is better in creative writing, is that the only committee you need to face are your critique groups; they are a lot less intimidating and they are not grading you like a thesis committee. I wish I'd found out earlier that I had the aptitude to write more than academic papers, though my life was too complicated in the past. This new passion has opened up new possibilities I just hadn't anticipated. Writing fiction is a lot more fun!