The Language of Relationships
I’ve been wanting to write a post about this for awhile, but somehow it never happened. It’s been in the back of my mind for long enough that I actually searched through my posts before I wrote this, wondering if I might already have said what I’ve been thinking about. Ever have that happen in a conversation, when you’re not entirely sure whether you actually said something or only thought about saying it when you were rehearsing the conversation in your mind? No? Maybe that’s just me… Forget I said anything. So the Language of Relationships. Yes, I know. Unnecessary capital letters. That’s just the way I said it as I was typing it. This is sort of a combo life/writing topic, because I think it’s something we need to be aware of when we’re writing, especially with dialogue, and all too often, I think it gets overlooked. Writers go to endless lengths to get the jargon in their books right, whether their characters are police officers or doctors or computer geeks or florists or maids or milkmen. And I’ve seen both brilliant and obvious efforts to get dialect just so, even to the more-than-slightly-painful point of characters explaining their use of it, along the lines of “No, it’s a boot, not a trunk. We’re in England now.” But what about the personal influences on the way we speak and think? Relationships of any length and depth, whether they’re close friendships or marriages or family ties or love affairs, develop a language all their own. It happens effortlessly, over time and with shared experiences, and I love that. I think it’s a lovely reminder of the depth and history of a connection every time you automatically use a phrase that no one outside the relationship would understand, or, if they did, wouldn’t know the significance of within the bounds of the relationship. Sure, there are all the nicknames, the pookies and sweeties and dears and honeys. But what interests me, what always makes me stop for an instant of gratitude for having someone of such long-term importance in my life, are the everyday bits and pieces, the phrases and quotes and ways of expressing things we’ve absorbed and re-use over and over so that they become part of the fabric of our relationship. If my family or my best friend’s family happens to be roasting a chicken for dinner, our answer to “what’s for dinner?” is always, “I cook a chicken,” said in the slightly staccato tone her grandmother, whose first language was French, would use to say just that when she was roasting a chicken. In my house, there are a handful of pop culture quotations that have become part of our everyday language. Some of them may make sense to you, others not. But even if you know the source, the associations, the memories associated with them, are the thing that make them part of the common parlance at our house. A few of those? Thirty-four fifty. I do not think it means what you think it means. Death by tray…. And of course, there are the more personal ones that develop all on their own, ranging from the romantic to the ridiculous. The people I share them with know what they are, but I’ll keep them to myself here. Too difficult to explain, for one thing. Too silly, if they’re not yours, for another. So how do you bring something so personal to your characters’ relationships and still have it make sense to the reader? Maybe the difficulty of doing so without tiresome explanations is why I don’t often notice much of it in the novels I read. But I think it’s something to consider including, in small amounts, where context would lend enough understanding to avoid explanation. I think, done well, it can lend authenticity and depth to your characters’ relationships. It certainly adds depth to the real ones. The challenge, of course, is not alienating the reader by locking him out of the POV character he’s going along with on the story. Can it be done? I think it can, with care. What say you? Share...
West Coast Summer
It’s been a beautiful and busy summer here on the west coast, as evidenced by my complete and utter lack of posting here. What’ve been your summer highlights so far? For me, a lovely week spent on my favourite island in the sunshine at the beginning of July is one. We explored beaches, visited the tiny local museum housed in a heritage property with lots of history of its own, and spent our mornings sitting on the deck chatting and enjoying the view. Bliss! Less than two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts, held in Sechelt, BC. It was my first time at this festival, and I was impressed. The venue is gorgeous, with a well-kept garden and gravel paths leading up a slope to the festival pavilion, built among the trees with sides open to the fresh air, with seating for about 500. Each of the 21 presenters over three days had an hour onstage, reading from their books, talking, and answering audience questions. The festival was very well run in that way that makes the running of it pretty much invisible. Everything seemed to go as planned, though I know that’s probably an illusion created by a good team of people. The local vendors had great food on offer, and everyone I encountered had a smile and a friendly word. In addition to the festival itself, the time in Sechelt gave me a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some new people, as well as enjoy some time alone, something I think mothers forget to do for ourselves most of the time. The highlights of my weekend away included some wonderful speakers at the festival – Lawrence Hill, Denise Chong, Jack Hodgins, and SiWC regular Jack Whyte among them – and also some lovely moments outside the festival, including breakfast on the beach in front of my hotel, enjoying the view and a good book with my tea and scone, and then the splash of cool water over my feet when I waded into the Strait; wonderful company, good food, and a breathtaking sunset vista over dinner one night on the Inlet; the friendliness of the people involved, including coordinator Jane and Bev from the local bookstore; and a glorious few hours one afternoon with nowhere I had to be and nothing I had to do other than just be and enjoy the view. It’s something I should definitely do more often. Share...
What Do You Write?
Yesterday, I had a great meeting with kc dyer, SiWC webmaster Dale McGladdery, and a guy we’ll call “Chris” who will be bringing us a fabulous Saturday Night Owl event at SiWC. (Hmmm…. Could that be a clue? Those of you playing along with our mystery on the SiWC blog might think so, but I’m not saying either way.) Anyway, in separate conversations, both men asked me what I write. I answered, as I usually do, “Women’s fiction.” Both were utterly confused, if the blank looks on their faces were any indication. One asked me if that was a euphemism for chick lit. It isn’t. My last MS could most accurately be called chick lit, if half a dozen people wouldn’t immediately leap in to point out that “chick lit is dead”. But ignoring that, sure, the last book qualifies for what people think of when they hear the term. But I also have a couple of partially-written romances tucked away, and the book I’m working on now, the one that leads me to use the slightly vague “women’s fiction” is… a book. It’s fiction. There’s a romance in it. Two, actually. Maybe even three or four, if you count existing marriages and a possible date for a minor character. But it’s not a romance in the traditional sense. What it is is fiction written by a woman for a primarily female audience. And so I call it women’s fiction, and that’s how I’d pitch it in a query letter. Except that the men who’ve read bits of it for me have loved it, too. Clear as mud? This book would probably go on the fiction shelf at my local bookstore, the same shelf as every other book that doesn’t clearly fit into a defined genre like mystery, romance, or fantasy. There’s a huge variety of types of books on the fiction shelf. So I got thinking about the existence of the term. You almost never hear someone talk about “men’s fiction” even though there are lots of types of books that appeal more to men than women, generally speaking. So why women’s fiction? I know what I mean when I say it. I know who my intended audience is. They’re fans of other women who write fiction about women and mostly for women. So I guess women’s fiction really is as good a term as any, even if it makes men go blank when I mention it. Before I could get too wrapped up in definitions and labels, as interesting as the topic is to me, I came across something local blogger Steffani Cameron said awhile ago: “For all of history, arts and passion are born because of what makes our hearts swell and break. Wars and uprisings and cultural revolutions wage because of matters of the heart.” That reminded me of a keynote speech agent Donald Maass gave a few years ago at SiWC, in which he talked about firing up our writing by tapping in to our passions. With characteristic straightforwardness, he asked the audience, “What makes you hard? What makes you wet?” and then told us to put it in our books. Good advice, no? So how about I forget about the label for the moment? There’ll be time enough to define that when I’m ready to pitch this thing. In the meantime, Don’s and Steff’s words have reminded me to write with passion, whatever it is I’m writing. I love people, the way they think, the way their lives unfold, how they interact and how they love, why they get into the situations they get into and what they do next. I love happy endings and exploring the bumps and detours along the way and wandering down the ‘what if’ paths of human relationships. That’s what I write. I’ll be hiding out in my word processing program this afternoon if you need me. Share...
The Result
I spent an hour on my WIP yesterday afternoon. My concern about not being able to get back in were unfounded. And I made myself sniffly reading the first couple of chapters, which made me very happy, paradoxical as that may seem. After mulling it over for months, it turned out that the bit of distance gave me the, well, distance I needed to make some pretty drastic changes. I’d come to the conclusion some time ago that the book might be stronger if I cut whole chapters and POVs. It was a painful thought at the time, because months of work would go in the bin if I did it. But I’ve lived with the idea for a long time now, all through the break from writing, and somehow it was easier than I expected it to be when I actually started doing it. So far, I’ve cut 3650 words, and that’s just a start. It’ll take a while to complete the process, because not only do I have to cut whole chapters and scenes, but I have to find a way to work that information into what’s left behind before I move forward. I’m not sure yet how that’s going to go, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Off to find the machete and get back to it… Share...
Coming Up For Air
Can’t quite believe it’s been two months since I posted here. They’ve gone by in a blink while I worked flat out on getting ready for SiWC registration opening on June 2. I got there, and am very proud to have presenter and workshop information all available on the site along with registration options and all the other goodies you’ll find, like our contest, hotel information, awards and so on. With a wonderfully successful first week of registration under our belts, things have eased off just enough for me to remember that there are other things in my life. So it’s catch-up time. I’m terribly behind on personal correspondence, for one thing, and haven’t so much as looked at my WIP in three months. Ack! So today, I tackle the blog, the correspondence and, if I’m lucky, reading the printout of my MS that’s sitting here beside me, reminding me of the pleasure to be found in working on it. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a three-month hiatus from writing before. I’m a bit frightened about what having done so will mean. Will the words still be there, waiting for me, or have I let myself get too rusty to get back into it? I certainly hope it will be the former, because the latter’s too awful to contemplate. Guess we’ll see. My good friend karen says it’s a good thing to have put the WIP aside for so long, because I’ll come at it with fresh eyes and make it stronger. That sounds good to me! Have you ever taken a long break from writing? How was the journey back into it? Share...
Time keeps ticking…
I’m a first generation Canadian on my mum’s side. Mum was born in Scotland, and she, her parents, her aunt and uncle, and her grandmother came to Canada in 1957. These were the relatives I grew up with, the people I consider my closest family, the ones we spent Christmases with and whose homes were always my favourite places to visit. Most of them are gone now. Of the original immigrant family, only my mum and her aunt are still with us, along with mum’s cousins, born in Canada. My great grandmother, the inimitable “More Grannies”, so dubbed by my sister and me, was born on December 23, 1887. She died just 19 days shy of her hundredth birthday in 1987, when I was a teenager. Every year when I was a kid, her daughter, my lovely great aunt Lily, with whom she lived, hosted a birthday party for her. The guests were always the same: friends, family, and neighbours, many of them Scottish or English immigrants, too. I’m reminded of those parties every time I hear “The Old Sod” by Spirit of the West. There’s a line in there that puts me back in that red-tiled basement party room every time: “There’s a bar in the rec room in the basement of our house…” I loved those parties. They were always happy times, with singing and dancing and a spare room nearby lined with tables laden with treats, and I remember them through the eyes of a kid who loved people watching, loved listening to the grown-up conversations and watching the adults get goofy. The room did, indeed, have a bar in the corner. I played junior bartender many times, long before I was old enough to have tasted any of it (and I wouldn’t have dared!). Lily and Pat’s friends who came to those parties are faces I saw all through my childhood, some just there and some at other times through the year. I was too young for them to be my friends, too, but they were there, a part of the tapestry of my life, and I had a great affection for some of them. Two of them have died this year, one just last night, and I’m saddened by their loss. Florence was a tall, deep-voiced woman who was always invited to sing at any party, and always obliged. She died earlier this year. Last night, we lost Anne, whom I’ve known my whole life. She was in her mid-eighties and was very ill, so her death wasn’t unexpected, but it made me sad, anyway. Up in my daughter’s room, there’s a tattered, disintegrating old baby blanket, THE blanket, the one she wouldn’t sleep without for years, preserved from further destruction by being zipped into a mesh laundry bag, so she can still see it. That blanket was a baby gift from Anne. The days of those basement parties are long past, but I remember them. I wish sometimes we could flash back in time so my daughter could share some of those experiences. But I’ll tell her the stories until she rolls her eyes because I’m repeating myself AGAIN. That’s my job as a mother, right? Share...
Wherever you go…
I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but didn’t get around to doing it. Do you read Ev Bishop’s blog? If you’re at all interested in writing, you should. Yesterday, over a decadent piece of cake (well, two… we didn’t want to share!), my friend kc and I got talking about this particular blog entry and how much we were touched by it, and how much we enjoy Ev’s blog generally. I think you will, too. Check it out. Share...
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