reading

Selling Syncopation

elizabethcaulfieldfelt marketing, reading, writing

In my novel Syncopation, Adele Hugo writes her memoirs, and as she writes she sometimes argues with her sister.  These pieces of dialog fall outside the main narrative and are indicated by italics.

All of the people who have read only the first few chapters of  Syncopation comment that the dialog between the sisters is confusing and should be dropped.  All of the people who have read the entire manuscript say that the dialog between the sisters is brilliant, the best part of the story.

At one point, I took the suggestion about removing the dialog and revised for many months.  The story fell apart.  I put it back together, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good.  So, I’ve “trashed” that revision and continue to try to pitch the version with the dialog.

You see, as the memoir progress, the dialog develops and merges with the ongoing narrative.  The reason for it becomes apparent.

How can I get people to want to keep reading in order to see how good that part of the story is?  In particular, how can I get agents and editors to keep reading?  I’ve been hesitant to explain all of this in my query letter, but should I?  My query letter is getting responses, but my first few chapters do not.

Any ideas?

Backstory

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In my head, I spend a lot of time on backstory. I don’t write it down, mostly, but I try to get a clear sense of what has happened to my characters before they enter my story. For the main characters, this is essential. Otherwise, how could I understand them and their motivations and their desires, and write them with any sense of reality? I think most writers understand this and have a backstory for their main characters.

Strong writers have a backstory for every character. I am amazed by writers who can get their minor characters to grow and develop over the course of a story. This can only happen when the author has given them as much backstory as the main characters. An author who can do this and do it well is like God. God knows everything about everyone, and a writer should do be the same for her characters.

Of course, one does not want minor characters to start thinking they are main characters and take over the novel. Like God, a good writer must stay in control. If a minor character becomes too big, pull him out and give him his own story. Developing characters thoroughly is different than having a lot of main characters.

I create backstory for some of my minor characters, and I want to push myself to do it with all of them. I’ve found that when stuck on a scene or when having trouble moving through a minor conflict, if I start thinking about the minor characters involved, thinking about where they came from and what they want, my writing carries more purpose and complexity.

Backstory. It’s for everyone.

Bookmarks

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I love bookmarks. My favorite bookmark has a picture of my older son, age 1, on one side and a picture of my younger son, age 2, on the other. I’ve used bookmarks for as long as I can remember–but I’m never paid any attention to the way I place it in my book.

My husband places his bookmark in his book with the “front” of the bookmark facing the page he is on. Very clever! Since learning this, I have never been able to do it. If I remember to face the bookmark the right way when I close the book, then I don’t remember to look at it when I next open the book and remove the bookmark. I guess I don’t learn new things as easily as I used to!

About six months ago, my younger son stopped using bookmarks. He was so tired of his bookmarks falling out, that he decided to just memorize page numbers. So far, it seems to be working well for him. I can’t imagine that working for me. My memory is far too weak (see paragraph 2).

Best Books of 2010

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Here’s the list, in the order that I read them this year:

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
This story follows several families in Britain from the end of the nineteenth century through World War I. The characters and settings are rich, but what Byatt does that is most memorable is show how the attitudes and actions of one generation bear upon the next. I thought about this book for weeks after finishing it.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
The story of Mary Anning, a nineteenth-century woman who found and identified dinosaur bones, and her friend Elizabeth Philpot. Their shared obsession with fossils occurred in a time when women were not allowed to be so engaged. Their friendship crossed class lines (Elizabeth was an aristocrat and Mary was not) and endured through misfortune and success. A wonderful story because so much of it is true.

The Conjurer’s Bird by Martin Davies
Fitz, a modern-day conservationist, is searching for the remains of the Ulietta bird which went missing from the extensive collection of nineteenth-century naturalist Joseph Banks. The novel moves between Fitz’s search and Bank’s life. Both stories are exciting: Fitz must find the bird before another who wants it only for its monetary value; Banks falls in love with a mysterious woman, whose existence is linked to Fitz’s search for the bird. Great book.

The Bells by Richard Harvell
I reviewed this for HNR and will import an abbreviated version of that review: When I look at my copy of The Bells sitting in front of me, I cannot believe it lies there immobile and lifeless. The sounds and music within its pages should make the book throb and vibrate across the table. During the time I spent entranced with this story, my body rang like the bells within its pages. The Bells is a fictional autobiography, a letter written by a castrati father to his son, explaining how their relationship came to be. The Bells is a love story, for Moses falls in love with a woman who is forbidden to him. The Bells is also a mystery – for how can Moses, a castrati, a musico, be the father of the recipient of this novel-length letter? Finally, The Bells is music. Harvell’s magical prose gives sound to Moses’ life: the bells, the arias, and the uneven breath of true love.

The Hunger Games / Catching Fire / Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
I wrote about this trilogy in an earlier blog. The story takes place in a dystopian future where children are put into an arena to fight to the death on national television. I know, it sounds awful, but it is a brilliant series. Collins’ minor characters are some of the best ever written. Powerful.

Ender’s Game / Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
These two books are the same story told by different characters. Earth has been attacked twice by insect-like creatures, uniting the nations of the earth. The most brilliant children are found and trained to be an elite corps of soldiers to fight another invasion. Ender is one of these children (first book); Bean is another (second book). Exciting reads, but they make this list because of the complicated psychology of the characters.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde may be one of the cleverest men alive. I re-read this book and haven’t quite re-read the others in the series—but I recommend them all. The stories take place in a sort of alternative reality Britain where the Crimean War is still being waged, and where people go door to door trying to convince residents that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Thursday Next is a female literatec, a sort of police officer to keep literature safe. A bad guy goes into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps Jane, making the story stop abruptly as Jane Eyre is a first person narrative. Screamingly funny, incredibly clever, and impossible to describe well. A must read for anyone who loves English literature.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Is it the best book ever written? Quite possibly. Another re-read for me. A comfort read.

I read sixty-seven books this year. It is the first year I’ve kept track, so I don’t know if that is a lot or not for me. I’d love to hear what you think of this list. Also let us know what were some of your best books of 2010.

Grief

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When I wrote Syncopation, I had never unexpectedly lost someone I loved. I had to imagine Adele’s grief. I had to create the things she would think and feel and do. When Adele learns that her sister has drowned, she wants to be there as quickly as she can. She feels that if she can get there soon, there will be something left of Didine.

My mother died this week. She was sixty-eight and in good health. She had a massive stroke and died quickly. I live far away from my mother, but I felt a passionate need to get to her as quickly as possible. The shock and surprise are nearly overwhelming.

People grieve in different ways, as I can see around me. I am disconcerted by the fact that I’m grieving so much like Adele. I guess I shouldn’t be, as she is my creation. I have a pretty accurate imagination, I guess. It is still odd, as Adele and I are so different.

I said a few blogs ago that I have the best mother. I’m so glad I said it. She was a writer herself and was my best reader. She was amazing at being both supportive and constructively critical. We talked regularly, spending some part of every conversation on books and writing.

When I was packing for this trip, I didn’t take the library book I had been reading, instead I grabbed Pride and Prejudice for the plane, as a comfort read. Yesterday my sister and I were going through things in our mother’s room, and I discovered that she had a copy of Pride and Prejudice on her bedside table.

My mom was a quiet person, a literary person. She was also actively engaged in a variety of volunteer jobs, all with the goal of making the world a better place.

Because of the way she died, my mother was able to donate many of her organs. I get great comfort from this. My mother would be so happy that through her death, others will live.

I was trying to think of the best way to describe my mother, and I remembered Matthew Arnold’s words:

Sweetness and light.

Book Signings

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Sat, Nov 13, Stevens Point:
We will be selling books all day at HolidayFest which is held in St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Sat, Nov 27, West Bend:
We will be signing books and the boys will be playing Christmas music at Fireside Books and Gifts in West Bend, Wisconsin.

Thurs, Dec 2, Stevens Point:
I will be selling signed books at the High School Writers Workshop at the student union at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

Inspiration

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Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a workshop run by the UWSP English Department’s ACORN (A Chance tO Read in compaNy) program. The ACORN book this year is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, and the workshop sessions I attended were Tomoko Kuribayashi’s lecture on Margaret Atwood, Per Henningsgaard’s lecture on the role of colonialism in Alias Grace, and Sarah Pogell’s lecture on nineteenth century psychology.

The workshop was fabulous. The UWSP faculty were knowledgeable and interesting, and the topics fascinating. The day was fun and got me excited about literature again . . . . and made me question myself as a writer.

I began my first novel, Charlotte’s Inheritance, while I was in graduate school: taking literature classes, discussing literature, analyzing literature. I was immersed in the literary world. The idea of Syncopation came to me during the same time period, though I wrote it after I’d finished school. These books reflect my mind at that time.

I don’t want to say that my novels are in the same class as the novels of Margaret Atwood or Tracy Chevalier or A.S. Byatt, but they are heavily influenced by these writers. Charlotte’s Inheritance and Syncopation have themes and layers and complicated characters. They could be studied. I’ve spent many years trying to get them published, and a common criticism from agents and editors is that they are “too literary” for such-and-such a publisher’s list.

I’m a practical person. I want to be a published writer; I want to have an actual career as a writer. So, I’ve decided to write more light-weight novels in the hopes that this is what the publishing world is willing to publish—something like The Stolen Goldin Violin. I wrote this with / for my family with no illusions as to it having literary merit. The Stolen Goldin Violin is a quick, light, fun read.

In the past two years, I’ve gotten excited by a few ideas for light-weight books (see my previous blog postings), but after a little time, I find myself uninspired. This didn’t happen with either of my first two novels. I had slumps, but these stories were forged by a fire within me that raged until the story was out.

I don’t want to spend more years of my life pouring my soul into a literary novel which will never be published, read only by a few close friends. I’m not a literary snob. I read everything. I like fluff and didn’t expect to have trouble writing fluff.

Recently I’m just so uninspired, and I guess I’m just trying to figure out why . . . .

The Hunger Games

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If you have not yet read this series, I advise you to rush out and buy it at your favorite bookstore or go to your local library and get on the waiting list. (They most probably will not be on the shelves.)

Normally I wait to post my favorite reads of the year until the end of the year, but I’m obsessed with this story. I don’t want to leave the characters or the world (even though it was a pretty awful world), and I thought I better post about it and get it out of my system, so I can return to the characters and world I’m supposed to be writing about!

When my older son first told me about The Hunger Games(first book in the series), I asked him what it was about. He told me, and I immediately decided I didn’t want to read it. That night, a friend of mine told me she had just read The Hunger Games, and she thought it was possibly the best book she’d ever read. The next day, my older son came home from school with an audio copy of the book. We listened to it in the car as a family, then sat in our living room and finished it.

A few days later, unable to take the library’s waiting list, I ran out and bought a hard cover copy of Catching Fire (second book in the series). We read it as a family on a long road trip. I obsessed about the story and characters all during that vacation.

When we got home, I pre-ordered Mockingjay (third and final book of the series). When it arrived in August, my older son and I fought over it, and I (being much older) won. I read it first, then he read it, then I began reading it out loud to my younger son. (I read it twice in about a week.) My husband is reading it now.

So, you ask, what is this book about?

It is set in the future after some sort of nuclear war or disaster. North America is divided into 13 districts and the Capitol. After District 13 rebelled and was destroyed (about 75 years before the book begins), the Capitol initiated the Hunger Games. One boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen by lottery from each district to participate in the games. The Hunger Games take place in a wilderness-sort of arena, they are televised, and the children participating must kill each other until only one is left. So, now you know why I first decided I didn’t want to read it. Pretty icky stuff.

But Suzanne Collins is a magnificent writer. It is a horrible world, but the characters are gems. They aren’t all lovable or even likable, but they are all incredible. Every single character has depth and grows over the course of the trilogy (unless they die, of course, and there is plenty of that). There aren’t easy answers or solutions to the myriad of problems, but the people try to survive in the best way they each know how.

It is rare for a book (or movie) to deliver fast-paced, violent action and delicate, complicated characters. The people in this world sometimes do horrible things to survive, but they never recover from it. They are irretrievably damaged or changed by what they do and what happens to them.

You have to read these stories. You’ll be changed too.

The Stolen Goldin Violin Sequel

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We’ve gotten a number of requests to write a sequel to The Stolen Goldin Violin, so I thought I would update you on that issue. I am currently working on an adult novel, a mystery taking place in 1880s England. I’m hoping to have this finished by June 2011. My next project could, indeed, be a sequel to The Stolen Goldin Violin.

I’ve had some very different requests about this sequel. Some people see it taking place at ASI the next year, with May, Hunter, Bayly and Sebastian as returning main characters. Some people see it taking place at ASI the next year with a different group of main characters. Others have moved us out to San Diego with May and Selena meeting up with Augustina Goldin.

What are YOUR thoughts? Do you like any of these ideas? Do you have ideas of your own? I’d love to hear from those who want a sequel. If you cannot respond to this blog, email us your thoughts about a sequel. We love to get fan mail: elizabethcfelt at gmail.com (Replace the “at” with @ and leave out the spaces.)

Book Sales at Institute

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The American Suzuki Institute is this week and our book is for sale in the institute store. The manager of the store says it is one of her best sellers! Our book signing yesterday went pretty well–many people had already bought the book from the store, and we sold some additional ones ourselves.

The most fun thing is to be walking around campus and seeing people we don’t know sitting in the shade or eating lunch at a picnic table and READING OUR BOOK! Very exciting!