Character Dossier Lies

January 23, 2015 / Lisa / Leave a comment

When speaking to fellow writers, I’ve always said I don’t use character dossiers. I used to, with the first couple novels (that are still hidden in boxes). I’d carefully fill out every question and then never go back and look at it again. Once I got into actual writing, the characters answered all those questions for me and the answers were usually far different from what I’d initially imagined.

No dog dossier needed for this character (in our hotel room)

I recently finished the first pass through editing book three. In doing so I realized that I needed a detailed timeline, list of characters in the series, a list of places, etc. It’s okay not to have one for the first book, maybe it’s okay for the second, but for continuity, it’s needed by the third. It was time to get serious. So with this revision process I started jotting down notes.

I made a page for each character and when reading the story, any time I came across a character description, I jotted it down. I’m now doing the same thing for the first two books. And it dawned on me (I’m a bit slow, I admit) that I’m creating a character dossier after the fact.

Why does it work to have one when the story is written and done, but not at the beginning when you don’t know the character at all? I have no idea. I think it ties into my style of writing, that I don’t outline either. Once the story is done though, I need the dossier in order to not forget who this person is that I just spent so much time with. Especially for the minor characters who might decide to step forward in a later book for a more major part. I’ll be able to go back to my post-dossier and find out what color eyes they have.

So the dossier works for me at the end of a story as a reminder in case I need it in the future.

All this time of declaring adamantly that I don’t use character dossiers, I’ve been lying. Well, okay, deceiving myself is probably more appropriate.

Oh, and the line above about not outlining? Another self-deception. Because by creating a timeline after the story is done, I’ve just…made an outline! Dang it. I’m going to have to change my whole speech the next time I talk to an audience of writers.

Another character following me at the beach this Christmas. Helping me look for agates I believe.

Can A Book Be Trash?

January 13, 2015May 24, 2015 / Lisa / 9 Comments

I admit to being on Facebook instead of editing yesterday. While there I saw one of those photos people post with funny sayings. It talked about Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, and War and Peace. I can’t remember what the funny statement was, but two comments really struck me. One person said that listing War and Peace with the other two was just wrong as the other two were a waste of time. The other person said if a book resonates with a person, there’s a reason for that and that should be enough.

I agree, as I’m sure the majority of you do, with the second comment. While I haven’t read Twilight and probably won’t as it seems too romance/mushy, I have friends who love those books. Who am I to say they are wrong simply because tastes differ?

Yes, a book may not meet certain literary standards, or may be weak in the craft of writing, but we’re all learning as we go. Does that mean the book is no good? It might be no good to me, but not to you. So who’s right and who’s wrong?

I have read books I didn’t like. Books where the quality of writing made me cringe. I remember one that was almost 1,000 pages, and halfway through I still didn’t know what the protagonist’s name was. I remember one where the solution to the whole plot revolved around a series of very unbelievable coincidences. I thought those were terrible books. But the first one won awards. Obviously there were people out there who liked those books as they were on the shelves.

Book store shelves by the way, not thrift store shelves where I found one of mine recently…

Speaking of thrift stores, I believe books are in the same category – what’s trash for one is treasure for another.

Emily Carr’s Forest

January 4, 2015 / Lisa / 2 Comments

A snowy afternoon and moments ago I wrote the last sentence in the first draft of book three. I will need to start revising soon, and I want to do so with Emily Carr’s words before me.

A friend recently loaned me her complete works. It seems she is famous, especially in Canada, for not only her writing, but also her painting. She lived in the early 1900s and the thing is, she lived and wrote about places close by. Victoria BC, the forests, the Haida people. How did I miss out on her works? I’m surprised I didn’t learn about her in school.

She talks about ‘peeling’ a sentence back to its bare essence. That image sticks with me as I begin revising. Looking deep into story structure, at each individual word.

Emily Carr went into remote, abandoned Haida villages and sketched and painted the totem poles she found still standing. She also then wrote about those experiences. Those poles were old back then, and it’s doubtful any still stand now. But she captured them and gave us their history, so that they will never be forgotten. When I read her words I wish I could see them as they were then.

The book I’m reading is called ‘The Complete Writings of Emily Carr’ and of course comes with introductions and forewords before each piece. These are worth reading as they were written by those who knew her intimately and give the reader honest views of Emily. When you read those, and think about the period she lived in, you realize she was an extremely unique woman for her time. What courage it must have taken, and really, what self-confidence, to stand against the norm, the traditions, and to live life the way she wanted.

Her writing is well worth delving into, especially this book with the background that’s offered.

When I look at her paintings I can feel the forest alive and breathing. I can sense movement of wind, feel the cool mist. I don’t know how she does that, bringing the woods alive through word and paint.

Here is a sample, taken from her complete works, in which she talks about the totem, the Wild Woman of the Woods, D’Sonoqua. Alone in a village, she went exploring, beat through a nettle field and fell at this totem’s feet. After reading this I longed for that same moment of stumbling onto old magic in the forest.

“Her head and trunk were carved out of, or rather into, the bole of a great red cedar. She seemed to be part of the tree itself, as if she had grown there at its heart, and the carver had only chipped away the outer wood so that you could see her. Her arms were spliced and socketed to the trunk, and were flung wide in a circling, compelling movement. Her breasts were two eagle-heads, fiercely carved. That much, and the column of her great neck, and her strong chin, I had seen when I slithered to the ground beneath her. Now I saw her face.

‘The eyes were two rounds of black, set in wider rounds of white, and placed in deep sockets under wide, black eyebrows. Their fixed stare bored into me as if the very life of the old cedar looked out, and it seemed that the voice of the tree itself might have burst from that great round cavity, with projecting lips, that was her mouth…’

Wow.

And I’m only a quarter of the way into the book. Find it if you can, and read the words of this extraordinary woman. I also strongly encourage you to do an internet search on images of Emily Carr’s artwork. Look especially at the pieces where the colors are dark greens, the style almost simplistic until you look closely.

Then let me know if her words reach across the years to you, too.