Weather Forecasts Depth in Your Writing

I don't know how it is where you are, but here in SE Pennsylvania, the summer solstice has brought another day of clouds and/or rain. Since our last snowfall in early March, we've been plagued with gray skies, interrupted by one day––and often only half-days––of sun here and there. I try to look on the bright side––so-to-speak––calculating how much I'm saving on air conditioning (though I have been tempted to turn the heat on a couple of mornings), but the truth is, all those rained out graduations and ruined weekends, not to mention soggy workday commutes, are weighing people down. You see it in their faces and the way they walk, in the clothes they choose to wear. It's like the dampness has soaked into our bones making us feel all rusty inside.

There's no getting around it, weather plays a big part in our lives. Heat waves make us irritable and tend to increase the crime rate. Too many snow days, like too many rain days, can make us lethargic, while the occasional blizzard that shuts down the city and provides everyone with an unexpected holiday, can be invigorating.

Weather is a close companion to all of us, affecting outdoor types and shut-ins alike, and it should also play a part in the lives of the characters you create. Weather can add depth to your stories. A sunny day can complement or contrast with a character's mood. Rain can dampen spirits or wash everything clean. "The Storm" by Kate Chopin is my favorite use of weather, as the building of a thunder storm mirrors the sexual desires of Calixta and Alcee. More subtle is Chopin's use of weather in her famous "The Story of an Hour" where, after being informed of her husband's death in a train accident, signs of spring signify the promise of a new life for Mrs. Mallard.

"She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves."

If you are like me, the bite of winter can be difficult to conjure during a string of 90 degree days. The muffled tones of a snow day may be hard to recall during a thunderstorm. Yet sometimes the story we are writing cries for different weather than we're currently experiencing. That's why it can be a good idea to keep a weather journal. Either on paper or just in your mind, make note of the weather you experience. While walking down to the mailbox on a close, muggy day, notice how the air feels on your skin, how the leaves hang weighted from the branches, how the neighborhood dogs lumber. Then, when you need just that weather to make your story real, you'll know how to write it.

The main thing is, don't overlook the weather. It's one of the best, and easiest ways to add depth to your writing.

What Inspires You Most?

I'd be curious to hear from my readers on this, because, in looking over much of my work, there's often a strong element of weather. And when I think back on the birth pangs of each story, I remember the weather somehow starting the whole thing off. I've written on this before, mentioning my nature journal and almost exactly a year ago in my post Weather Forecasts Depth in Your Writing.

I've read so many times that I could not begin to attribute the comment, how one should never start a story talking about the weather. However, in a story I just started working on, I'm doing just that, and, in this case, I think I will probably keep it. I didn't go into a paragraph of description, just one line before moving right into the action, but I felt that one line of weather set the mood.

The odd thing is, while many writers can picture their characters right down to the mole on the left buttocks, I can feel the weather surrounding them. I'm not sure why, but, even when it doesn't end up being mentioned, or I cut it out later, I know what is going on outside the window of my characters' homes. In The Box of Cereal the weather is a cold drizzle––the kind that makes a depressed person sink even lower. Dora's Memoir is set in a hot, stuffy Philadelphia row house on a summer night, and Foundations of Churchill begins during a rare hot and rainless summer in southeastern PA.

All of those stories had another inspiration too, of course, but I remember on the day I began to write them, I was either living through, or remembering, the type of weather that was elemental to the story.

So, what is your inspiration? Is there something in particular that usually sets you off on a writing spree? Conversations on the commuter train? Scenery or landscapes? Or does it vary? I'm curious.

Adding Depth to Your Writing Through Layering

Painters working in oils will often layer, painting the basic picture then adding colors and brush strokes to create shadow and light thus adding depth. This same method can add depth and texture to your writing.

The majority of submissions I read for Sotto Voce or through CROSSxCHECKING tell great stories. Unfortunately, that's often where it stops. The stories have no more depth than something a friend might relate over lunch or I might overhear while engaging in that favorite passtime of writers, eavesdropping. Good stories do more than simply relate what happened in chronological order, they pull us into the world the characters in that story inhabit.

This is where the layering comes in.

Let's say you have an idea for a semi-autobiographical piece about a mother dropping her daughter off at college for the first time. The story might start out with packing the car at dawn, then driving down the road where you write in both bits of conversation and poignant silences. The story ends at the parking lot outside to dorm or when the mother leaves her daughter behind for the first time.

So far so good. Some of those reading your story will be parents who share the experience and they will immediately identify, but if you want to hit the larger group, readers with young children or no children or the unmarried, you need to make that world real to them. You want them to feel like they are sitting in that car with the mother and daughter. You can do that by layering in detail.

Here's how it works. After your first rush of inspiration, put the story aside for a week or two. The next time you pick it up, think about some details you might add. I find it best to start broad and work down to the minutia. For example, the first thing you might consider is where the mother and daughter live and where the college is located. These can be real places or generic city/suburban/rural settings with an idea of the distance between the two locations. It will make a difference to your readers whether the college is nearby allowing the daughter to visit often or so far she can't even make it home for Thanksgiving. It will also make a difference if the place she is going is vastly different than the place she grew up, or if the young woman grew up in a middle class suburb where going to college was alway in her future, but the leaving is painful nonetheless.

Moving in a little closer, your next layer could be something like details about the weather. Is it a typical crisp fall day reminding the mother of her own first year at college or the day the daughter started kindergarten? Maybe the weather is unseasonably warm and muggy, allowing for contrasts. Maybe there's a sudden rainstorm that makes driving a challenge and almost causes an accident.

Your next layer could include sights and sounds. Does the scenery change along the way? Are the silences between the two characters filled with the sound of a blasting radio or traffic noises? Maybe the cracking of the daughter's gum gets on the mother's nerves or vice versa.

Moving along, it always helps to include external details that provide insights into the characters' personalities, like the kind of car the mother drives. Is it an expensive SUV or a clunker or something middle of the road like a Ford Focus? What items are packed in the back? Are they things like a TV, refrigerator, microwave, popcorn popper, skis? Or just a couple of suitcases? Is the car packed carefully or do items shift and tumble?

Finally, you'll want to finish with at least a few details about the characters themselves, not an info-dump describing each one from head to toe, but little distinguishing features like hair color or clothing, body type, etc.

Depending on what you want to convey with your story, you probably won't need to include all of these. It works more like a Chinese menu, picking one or two things from each category. You don't have to add your layering all at once either. Personally, I find it works better to continually put the story aside, then come back and add more detail each time––kind of like letting the paint dry on the canvas before adding more. You also need to know when to stop. Unlike the 19th century, readers today don't want every detail of a room from the color of the walls to the curve of the sconces over the fireplace. A few telling descriptions are all that's needed.

Layering can make the objects of a painting jump off the canvas. It can also make your words jump off the page.

CROSSxCHECKING: A Critique

Last month I announced my new venture, CROSSxCHECKING, a critiquing and editing service. A little over a month in I thought it might be fun to critique the critiquing in a manner of speaking. (Hey, that rhymes.)

First, by way of excusing why I'm not posting more, I'm surprised at the number of queries I've already received, enough to cover my ad expenses and more. The bad news is it coincided with one of my parents going into the hospital, so something has to go on the back burner, and it's usually the blog.

Now back to the purpose of the post. I have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of submissions I've received. CS offers two levels of service. For new writers or those still struggling to get published, I offer a critiquing service where I will review up to three submissions and evaluate the writer's overall strengths and weaknesses. I also offer a more traditional line edit and as an introductory offer, am throwing in one line edit with the critique if the prospective client refers to an ad.

Anyone out there who reads submissions in any capacity will appreciate that my ambivalence in offering the service wasn't so much based on business concerns as what I would do about those submissions so bad I didn't even want to finish them let alone comment. So far that hasn't been a problem, but I don't think it's mere luck. I've come to realize that those who seek help with their writing usually take it seriously enough to have learned a few things on their own. So far everyone has come to me with a solid base in some aspect of their writing and needing only a little input on other aspects to make it work.

Having said that, reading these submissions by less experienced writers has both reminded me of things I've come across in the past or introduced me to some new problems that do seem to crop up again and again with writers just starting out. So, at the risk of putting myself out of business, I thought I'd mention a few here.

Showing and telling
Many writers perceive their problem to be one of "telling" rather than "showing" when, in reality, they are doing both at the same time. New writers have a tendency not to trust in their abilities. They may "show" a character's quick temper by having her ream out her kid for an innocent question then follow with "Mandy always had a quick temper," just in case we didn't quite get the point. The way to drive home a personality trait is not to explain what the reader just saw and never mention it again, but to weave that trait into the story. If you think you have to explain a lot to get your meaning across, read Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants."

Telling the story and no more
Some new writers create great stories. Sometimes they come up with a slightly different take on an old theme, like breakups and divorces. Sometimes they will experiment with interesting POVs. Many times these same writers will neglect the details that add richness to the story. I compare it to serving filet mignon right out of the boiler or serving it with a sauce of mild herbs. You are starting with a good base, but the sauce enhances the flavor.

Details, particularly sensory details, like smells and sounds and sights, enhance the story and make it more real. A reception where the music vibrates the floor boards and you can't hear yourself speak is different than a reception where you hear the clinking of forks on the plate. One is wild and frolicking, the other subdued and perhaps stodgy. Weather is another great way to enhance a story. You might have a bright sunny day contrast with a character's mood or situation or the gray sky could reflect that mood. Kate Chopin's "The Storm" where the weather forms a metaphor for the soon-to-be-requited love is an excellent example.

Too much drama
I've written before about the penchant for surprise endings, but even when the ending isn't a surprise, don't make the mistake of assuming it has to be dramatic. Stories don't have to end in death or even confrontation. Your main character doesn't even always need an epiphany. In real life most people just keep on keepin' on, repeating the same mistakes over and over. This sounds boring, but it doesn't have to be if the story is told well. John Updike's "Friends from Philadelphia" (sorry I can't find a free link online) doesn't end with confrontation. The young man in the story has no idea he's been patronized, but we do. While I don't like fade-out endings, subtle ending usually work best.

These are some of the things I've come across. I'll add more if the subs keep coming in. Only I'd like to make these posts off limits to anyone considering submitting to CROSSxCHECKING. Given the already great caliber of the work I've received, these little hints might be all they need.

Craft: Keeping a Nature Journal

Have you ever been watching a sunset or hiking a trail when suddenly a description you read of just such a scene pops into your head? Yesterday, a brilliantly sunny day following an unusually early snowfall in my Philadelphia suburb, brought to mind the "lapis lazuli" sky Edith Wharton described in The Age of Innocence.  Last summer I posted about how including weather in your stories can add depth to your writing. The same goes for other natural phenomena like the light of a full moon or the way a streak of lightening appears to shatter a purple sky.

This past summer I began keeping a "nature journal." Not the kind people kept in the old days with drawings of flowers labeled with their scientific names.  This is a journal of short one or two sentence descriptions of a sunrise under various different conditions, such as a cloudy day vs a cloudless day, or the way the sky appears at sunset. I noted how a full moon shows everything in near daylight brightness and yet washed of color. I also cheated a little and added things I remembered from past years that I might not have seen recently like the way a crust of ice forms on top of snow after a freezing rain, or looking down a lane of trees following an ice storm when branches appear encased in glass.

I am lucky, as a writer at least, to live in an area that experiences all varieties of weather from humid to dry, from flash floods to droughts. I've never actually seen a tornado, but I saw the effects where one touched down nearby a few years ago, and I've never been in the eye of a hurricane, but the tail end was enough to help me project how it might feel.

We can't always restrict ourselves to writing exactly what we know. While I caution against writing about places you've never been, for example setting your story in LA when you've never even been to California, sometimes we may want to write about someplace we've been but in a different season. That's where cataloging our own experiences can come in handy.

Right now I'm writing a historical piece that takes place on the Nebraska prairie in the late 1870s. I visited the place I'm writing about, but in the summer. The historical event that frames my story happened at night in mid-January. I know there was a full moon and a light covering of snow on the ground. I have my notes on moonlight to refer to. Also I know the prairie is windy, and I know what it feels like when the wind sweeps a powdery snow over the ground so that it sprays into your face. Adding that small touch, I feel, brought realism to the piece.

Notice that I use the word "touch." Pre-movies and TV I imagine readers had more appreciation for long Hardyesque descriptions of dusk falling on the moors. Today, painting a picture with words is better thought of as a writing exercise. In the final version, just a line or two of description interspersed here and there is enough to give the reader a sense of place.

If you are like me, just the right words may come along once in a blue moon. That's the point of keeping my journal. When I need to describe a blue moon or a crescent or a night with no moon at all, I'll be ready.

Craft of Writing: It's About Time

Much is written about the need for writers to outline every aspect of their characters, down to the breakfast cereal they prefer, even if it never shows up in the actual story. To a slightly lesser extent, setting is also emphasized, but, to my mind, not nearly enough attention is paid to the aspect of Time in our stories. Time comes into the writing in two ways: The period in which the story/novel is set and the time that elapses within the story. I feel very strongly that, just as with character and setting, writers need to know the details about Time, even if they are never explicitly set out in words.

Setting the Story
Broadly speaking, all stories take place in either the Past, Present, or Future, but this can be broken down even further. The Past can be historical fiction or a story that takes place within the writer's lifetime like Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees. The Future is most often associated with Science Fiction, but in Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty author Tim Sandlin takes us no more than 20 years hence when the Baby Boomer generation will be elderly. This was not a future of intergalactic travel and metallic underwear, but he did need to add a few touches to make it believable.

The majority of stories take place in a nondescript Present or immediate past (he says/he said). Even so, it's important for the writer to have some sense of the year, the season, even the day of the week. My story, "The Foundations of Churchill," is about a once-rural community that is being developed into an exurb of a major city. While this theme is being acted out in real-time across the country and the world, it soon became apparent that in order to ground my story in reality, I needed to decide exactly when it took place. Since I was writing about my own community, I set it back in the 80s, when many of the events it was based on actually occurred. It took a little extra effort working out details like the cars people would drive (SUVs were not nearly so ubiquitous so driving one implied upper middle-class status). I might have gotten away with some generic time period, but getting specific made it feel more real.

Elapsed Time
I'd say nothing screams amateur like unrealistic timing, but I've read published books, particularly thrillers, where the protagonist couldn't possibly have accomplished that much is so little time. Still, I happen to believe that the more parameters a writer places on her work, the more disciplined and well-crafted it will be. If your protagonist leaves home for the city at 10:00 PM, meets up with friends, visits three or four bars, and plays a game of pool, she'd better be returning home in the "wee small hours of the morning" and not sometime after midnight.

The same applies to non-linear stories, for instance, "circular" stories where something triggers a flashback and at the end, the protagonist remains in the same place (or only slightly advanced in place and time). In Fellow Travelers, a book I reviewed for Roses & Thorns, the entire novel, covering several decades of the protagonist's life, is told as a memory exercise while tying his tie––all 300+ pages. On the sublime end of that spectrum is "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, where the author masterfully slows down time to take us through the protagonist's past.

Follow Through
As with other aspects of a story, once you pick the time, there must be follow through. Say your story opens on Saturday, then make sure your protagonist is doing Saturday things. That is, he's not dressing for work unless he's a work-a-holic and he's not going to church, unless he's particularly pious. And it should go without saying––though sadly it can't––that you need to be careful about changing the day or making the next day Monday instead of Sunday. You'd be surprised at the number of sloppy submissions I've read where the writer didn't pick up on this glaring error.

If you add seasonal specifics, make sure to follow through with that too. In Joyce Carol Oates' "Gargoyle," the main character is driving at night in a wintery mix of snow and rain. At some point it changes to all snow, and the character slows her speed when her car begins to skid. Oates is a pro who realizes that, if the weather/season is to play a part in the story, the reader needs to be reminded throughout. Unfortunately, less professional writers might mention the season or the weather as a plot device then never mention it again.

Finally, of course, if your story is set in the past, make sure to get the details right.FDR going on TV to talk about the market crash is a pretty obvious flub to those of us of a certain age, but in these days of rapidly advancing technology it's easy to forget that as recently as the early 90s a character could not pull out a cell phone when her tire went flat or IM friends about meeting up later at a club. Luckily part of that advancing technology is the Internet. So, when in doubt, look it up.

It's about time.

The Devil's in the Details

A few years ago I read a novel where the author mentioned an old photo of her newly married parents, back in the '50s, posed in front of their Ford Mustang convertible. Buzzers went off in my head. The Mustang, which caused a major sensation on its release, didn't come out until 1964.

Right now I am in the middle of a book (which I will review shortly on Cross-Reference and which I will not name here in case the error is corrected in future pages) about a woman who moves into an abandoned cabin in the woods. After years of neglect she finds, realistically, mouse droppings in the cabinets and a nest in an old stove. However, the upholstery on the fine antique furniture has not been burrowed into. Books on shelves, though dusty, remain undisturbed. And, so far, into the third night of her stay, she has not seen an actual mouse skitter across the floor or heard the scratch of tiny nails across the boards. As hard as I'm trying to get into the story all I can think is, this woman does not know mice or how they will multiply and take over an uninhabited building.

Many readers and writers will ask, what's the difference? The cabin in the woods serves only as a backdrop to this woman's internal journey, a place where she could be alone. So what if this gal's parents are posed in front of a Mustang or a Thunderbird or a Corvette? The point is, they were in love.

That's one way to look at it, but inaccurate details cause problems for me, as a reader, in two ways. First, it's a matter of trust. If the author fudges the details I do know about, how can I trust her on other details, integral to the story, that I might not know she got wrong. Second, I see it as a matter of respect for the reader. If the author can't take the extra time to get it right, why should I take the time to read it?

I remember reading one of those cautionary articles in a writing magazine a few years ago by a writer who set her novel in a city in which she had never been. She received a huge number of letters from residents and former residents regarding non-existent street names, and while her point was to alert writers to the issue, at the same time she took a condescending tone toward those for whom the issue was so important. I hardily disagree. As I mentioned "Cliched Settings," each city and region of the country has its own personality. Setting a novel in a place you've never been goes beyond street names. It gets into bigger questions of, would this incident have actually taken place in a city like Denver or Seattle or is it more of an East Coast event?

It may sound silly, after my post exhorting writers to extend themselves, to now fall back on the old "write what you know." It's a good thing for writers to extend themselves into different skins, because, like actors, we can draw on our own experience to imagine what it would be like to live like or be another person. I can easily imagine how I would feel living in prison, but if I've never visited a prison, or I don't know something about the routine or what a cell looks or feels like, I'm better not to go there.

Notice I said "something" and not "everything." Writers often set work in an earlier time, and even if they are very familiar with the setting as it is now, they can never truly experience it as it was in times past. However, a detail or two can add a sense of reality. For example, I am currently working on a novel that starts during the country's Centennial celebration in Philadelphia. In my reading on the subject I learned that the winter of 1875-1876 was unseasonably warm. Pairing that with what I know of the unseasonable weather I've experienced growing up in the area––that daffodils and forsythia might be blooming on New Year's Eve––I was able to bring a touch of reality to the setting, a touch, I hope, will add credibility for my readers if and when it is ever published.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. If you want readers to trust you, get the details right. Otherwise skip it or write about something else.

April Come and Gone

It's been a frenzied week. I took on an editing job with a content site. Not the classiest gig in town, so it shall remain nameless, but I made $100 since last week this time and I haven't even reached the quota yet. Since my daughter arrived home for two extra years of college with a diamond ring and plans to marry––originally in two years, now possibly one––the money will come in handy. My plan is to work to meet my quota in 15 hours a week, leaving some bit of time, after doing what I need to for my Mom and our business, to devote to my own writing.

Funny how the lack of time leads to desire. Recently I'd had trouble motivating myself to write creatively. Now I crave it.

Hard to believe, with all that is going on here, that it was just one year ago, yesterday, that my Dad passed away. Everything is so different this year. Last April was so rainy they had to put plywood down at the grave site for us to walk on. He was hospitalized the entire month, going back and forth between rehab centers and nursing homes as we stressed about the day they'd put him out and we'd have to arrange care for him at home.

This year the warm weather started intermittently in March, providing plenty of days to repair all the snow damage before the weeds poked their heads out and mulching time came around. Today was unseasonably warm in the high 80s and tomorrow will be 90. Too warm to work outside, especially as our bodies aren't accustomed to it yet. But the evening was a rare treat. Everywhere you walk through our neighborhood the air is literally perfumed with azalea blossoms, and the lilacs are on their way. The night was clear with just a few wisps of clouds, I sat on the patio listening to the birds singing their last songs of the day.

It's nice to just breath it in sometimes and appreciate the moment. To spend some time outdoors without looking for weeds to pull or leaves to rake. To think about where we are and where we've been.

That, to me, is a writer's paradise.

See You In September: Many Literary Publications Will Re-Open

In my post Reading Periods: Think Before You Send, I warned against rushing to submit just before a publication closes down for the summer. Hard to believe, but now summer is almost over, at least in the academic world, and that means many of those literary journals associated with colleges and universities will soon re-open for submissions. (If you are one of our readers from Down Under, just reverse everything I say––I know you folks are used to that.)

So do you have your cache of stories all ready to mail out or submit online? Neither do I. Though I have some decent excuses. My Dad passed away the end of April, and I've been involved in the paperwork of transferring things to my Mom's name and helping her take care of the day-to-day. I started a newsletter from my editing/critiquing site, CROSSxCHECKING, re-designed the site, and had some bigger than expected jobs. For the past two weeks I've been blogging and volunteering for healthcare reform, and then...Okay, I still could have fit some time in, but I didn't.

I know many of you have to wait for the kids to go back to school. I'm not there anymore, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, summer does provide so many things to do out of doors or away from home. One thing I do have is additions to my list of places to submit and some good notes. They aren't notes for stories, but back in June I suggested using weather in stories so I took my own advice. Spending so much more time outside, this summer I made a point to observe how the morning light hit the tops of the trees in my backyard, and the differences in light between a nearly cloudless day and a hazy humid one. I noticed how the morning sounds changed from early summer's cacophony of bird song to late summer's chittering of cicadas. I noted how a warm dry breeze felt like silk against my exposed skin while sticky August air felt like an itchy wool sweater.

I also did what I'd suggested in another post––caught up with my reading. I didn't review many books this summer, because much of my reading had been sitting on my shelf too long to be considered new, but I did make the acquaintance of an old writer, in the rediscovered Thomas Savage. I found The Power of the Dog totally riveting.

So it hasn't been a total waste. The fact is, I tend to still be on that academic schedule myself. The year for me starts in September, not bleak January. A couple more weeks of cleaning up my desk, emptying my bookshelves of the books I don't need to keep, sharpening my pencils––though I don't write in long hand––and I'll be ready.

Every Day Brings a New Adventure This Winter

 

Here in the western suburbs of Philadelphia this is what I awoke to on my screened in back porch. Guess we won't have a fire in the fireplace this afternoon as the wood is covered and we'd need to put our boots on to get it. Our dog Sheila (she's a ten-year-old Aussie Cattle Dog, seen below) loved it, as it was like being outside without being exposed to the elements, and so she treated the porch floor as she would the lawn, if you know what I mean.

Below she makes her way around our buried patio after the last storm a couple of weeks ago. Until this morning that's where all her little winter presents were scattered.

Her expression tells what she thinks of having to place her rump on the cold snow for this shot.

And this was when I still found something lovely in the whole thing, before the wet patches showed up on the living room ceiling from the ice damming in our unreachable gutters.

 

Because weather like this comes along only sporadically in my part of the country, I try to keep a mental picture of what it was like watching the snow swirl and looking out my window to find three-foot drifts in some areas and bare grass in others. I'll try to remember the needle pricks of the snow when I walked out to the mailbox or the way wet flakes dripped behind my glasses during the last storm making it impossible for me to see or the way the wet wood hissed and crackled when we tried to make a fire.

Luckily I remain safe and warm in my home, even if there is a leak here and there, but these experiences help me project myself into a less safe situation that might arise in one of my creations. For now, though, I will have to put that aside and go sweep out my porch before all that snow melts into big messy puddles.

Craft of Writing: Cliched Settings

You know that characters can be cliche and dialogue can be cliche, but you may wonder at the term "cliched setting." I recently critiqued a story about a writer and the young man he befriends. The character of the writer could easily have been a cliche, but he wasn't. There were nuances to his personality that made him interesting. Same with the young man. The only problem I had was that much of the story took place in the writer's study, a room "lined with dark bookshelves and containing a well-crafted desk with a large leather chair"––what else?

On first read you may find that description perfectly fine. The story is, after all, about the characters and a study is a study. What more do you need?

Details.

I would like to know what makes this writer's study different than someone else's and, perhaps in that way, gain some insights into his personality. If the books line one wall, floor to ceiling, the man is a prolific reader. If they line three walls, he's insatiable. Are the books shelved in some orderly fashion or just radomly? Is there a book open on the table? If so, what is it? Are there several books open implying more than one being read at the same time? And what exactly does the term "well-crafted" mean when describing the desk? Is it antique? Does it have carving? Is the desk messy or clear? Does it hold a laptop? An old fashioned typewriter? A pad and pencil?

I'm not saying the description should include all of these a la Thomas Hardy, but just like no person is exactly like another, no setting is exactly the same either, and especially when it comes to offices and studies, there is no such thing as generic. These places give us important clues to character's personalities and can help us avoid awkward dialogue and description we would otherwise have to rely on.

Another cliched setting is your generic city. Just as it is a mistake to set your stories in places you've never been, like L.A. or New York, because it sounds more interesting, it's also a mistake to set your piece in "any city USA," because there is no such place. Each city has its own unique type of structures. The weather varies. The housing varies, and some cities, like Santa Fe, don't feel like cities at all, but more like small towns. These differences also imbue cities with their own personalities. Miss that and you've passed up a great opportunity to add depth to your work.

Despite the reputation, even those ubiquitous suburbs are not all alike. Some "first suburbs" have almost become extensions of the cities they surround. Others comprise development after development of Levittown-like tract houses. And others, like where I live outside of Philadelphia, are ex-urbs where fields that grew corn just a couple of decades ago, now grow MacMasions.

It's never a good idea to stop the narrative and drag the reader into a long detailed description of a setting, but just a few details can add depth and richness to your writing, tell us something about your characters, and, more important, not feel cliched.

New Year's Resolutions for Writers

Making New Year's resolutions is not something I usually engage in. I'm the gal you hate who shows up at the gym three days a week unless I'm sick or have my annual gyny exam, and the other days I'm out for a three mile walk even in the coldest and hottest weather. I don't resolve to lose weight after the holidays, because I generally eat healthy all year long. After the little indulgence I allow myself, I actually look forward to getting my digestive system back on track. However, this year I do need to make some resolutions––about my writing.

So here goes:

RESOLVED to focus most of my creativity on my writing.

Each time I join a new volunteer organization I'm determined to remain only a foot soldier. Then my natural creativity kicks in causing me to suggest all kinds of new ideas and programs. As anyone who volunteers knows a suggestion is as good as a committee chair. This year I will downgrade all my volunteer activities, not in terms of time, but in terms of the thought I'm putting in to the detriment of my writing.

RESOLVED to submit more.

Writing is so much more fun than submitting, and as the rejections pile up it gets even harder to motivate myself. Until recently I had only about two or three pieces circulating at any one time to as many markets. That is not a formula for success. At a recent conference, one successful writer said he submits the same piece to seven markets at a time. If they all reject it, he revises and sends out seven more. Sounds like a good method, though I am going to send out just five at a time. It isn't as lucky but it's easier.

RESOLVED to do better research before submitting.

This is tough because it means "reading like a writer" which just isn't as much fun as reading solely for entertainment. It means homing in on what aspects different stories in the same publication have in common and that can mean reading a story in the same issue more than once. It's going to be hard, but while writing can be purely for enjoyment, getting published is a business like any other and involves some aspects that are more work than fun.

RESOLVED to spend more time reading current fiction.

No I'm not one of those writers who thinks I can get by without reading. I love to read. It's a matter of what. I read a lot of nonfiction, especially history, and tend not to get around to novel and short story collections until they've been around for a year or two. Also, as noted under "research" I like to read purely for entertainment and will skip the latest best-seller or the book by the current literary wunderkind if I the subject doesn't appeal to me. That's not good. As with any business one needs to stay up on the trends––like them or not.

The great thing about a blog is I can come back here next year and see what I wrote. Will I have kept my resolutions or will I be like those people who crowd the gym every January and disappear with the first crocus?

Do you have any writing-related resolutions? I'd love to hear them.

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL

And Now For Something Completely Different: Happy Holidays

In honor of the holiday I am taking a break from the usual craft article to post an essay I wrote for my local newspaper.

Happy Holidays

For my family, 2008 marks the end of a ten-year Christmas Eve tradition. Ironically, this tradition was begun to replace another far older one, the year we lost a member of my generation and the best cook of my mother's generation, the only one we could entrust with the traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes, was too feeble to carry it on. So that year my husband and I took over, opening our house to both friends and family all of Christmas Eve day.

The tag line for our invite was, "Stop on the way, or spend the day." Those with their own dinner plans or church services to attend could stop early for a cup of Wassail and some munchies, while those with no particular place to go could hang out and make our buffet their main meal.

In that ten years, as you can imagine, the weather was all over the spectrum and the number attending waxed and waned. One year the kids might go sledding between sandwiches another would find them roller blading in shirt sleeves. The year of the flu epidemic we spent days finishing the leftovers, while another year I had to run out for extra paper plates in the middle of the party. Friends moved away, old folks passed away, and new people entered our lives, filling the empty places on our guest list and making our tradition their tradition.

As often happens, the march of time was marked most notably by the changes in the younger guests. My daughter and her friends progressed from playing video games and watching Frosty the Snowman in the back room to spending more time mingling with the regular guests. The boys matured too, and overnight, it seemed, the girls' outfits turned from frilly skirts and Santa pins to spaghetti straps and heals. They all stayed longer and the boys, at least, ate more.

This year my daughter graduated from college and moved out of state. She was, I suspect, a little more relieved than she let on that her job would not allow her to come "home for the holidays." Christmas is tough on adult children––at least until they have children of their own. Raiding your stocking with Mom and Dad looking on feels a little too regressive, while sleeping in and skipping the whole thing feels too spiteful and adolescent.

Being back to just the two of us,and, truth be told, having felt more frazzled the last couple of years than we did in the beginning, Mom and Dad have opted for a quiet dinner with our remaining family. Meanwhile, down in Raleigh, NC my daughter and her roommate will be entertaining friends––other young people who won't be spending the holiday with their families either, for whatever reason. I plan to give her some tips I picked up over the years, and she's asked for some of my recipes.

So I guess, in a way, the tradition continues.

Summertime and the Reading Is Easy

While summer doesn't officially begin until the third week in June, here in the US the summer season usually runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so that puts us right at the start. I don't know about you, but for me summer is only second to the holidays as far as distracting me from my writing. While having kids under foot is a not-so-distant memory, there are still far more things I want to do than in the winter, like garden, hang out at the beach, and outdoor entertaining, not to mention the things I have to do like weed and clean out the garage while the weather is warm. In the winter you can't drag me out of the house at night, but in the summer who wants to sit behind a laptop when I could be at an outdoor concert or simply ensconced on the patio with a lemonade or something stronger.

Does that mean my writing life comes to a grinding halt? Only if typing words on a page is all there is to it. I happen to believe, and many an accomplished writer will back me up, that reading well is an important part of writing well. So, in that sense, summers away from my laptop don't have to be a waste. When I'm out there on the patio with drink in hand, I can have a book in the other.

Of course, for many summertime is associated with"beach reading", and "beach reading" is associated with throw-away novels. To me, if a book isn't worth keeping, it isn't worth reading. In fact, it takes me longer to slog through some formulaic thriller than it would––well, War and Peace would be an exaggeration––but certainly Anna Karenina. I absolutely hate books that are poorly written, and the times I've had to stick one out because I'd promised to review it, have been excruciating. So I use my summer to read the good stuff.

Summer is also a great time to read "a few sample issues" of those literary journals I'm considering submitting to. They travel quite nicely in a beach bag or I can print out a few stories online and take them with me. Short fiction fits nicely into summer because I can read an entire story during a break from my gardening or after I've finished and before dinner.

For those who do have kids home from school, try reading them the classics at night. I used to do that with my daughter. We started with Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte's Web, then went onto the Brontes and Thomas Hardy. It's hard these days for youngsters to stick with the wordiness of some of those older novels. Often, though, they can appreciate someone else doing the reading. It calms kids down after the stimulation of a summer day, and you get to re-visit books you haven't read in years. I know I got a totally different perspective on some of them.

So if you find writing a challenge in the balmy days of summer, try reading instead. Come September you'll be even more inspired.