EACH CITY WHISPERS IN ITS OWN VOICE

Just how do you make the locale a character in your novel?

I visited a new blogger from New Zealand last night. She wanted to set her vampire novel in the United States. But she has never visited these faraway shores.

She asked her American friends for help. She needed to know how to write of a locale that she had never visited ...

its customs, its natives, its unique way of looking at life.

I wrote her name and her blog's name on a scrap of paper. I think Gypsy ate it. But I will try to help her ...

and all my cyber-friends at the same time.

Just take what seems reasonable to you and fling the rest to the cyber-winds :

Each city whispers in its own voice. Your city. My city.

You know streets that whisper to stay away at night.

You know what scandal has stained some avenue beyond repair. You know what person's name is spoken in hushed tones long after he or she has died and been buried in your city.

Each city has its own personality. Like a human's, it changes with trauma, years of abuse, and moments of historic impact.

Lifting the veil from the distinctive features of the setting of your novel makes your whole narrative come alive for your reader.

But how do you do that verbal sleight of hand?

Research. Tapping your own knowledge on what it means to be human in an inhumane world.

Using YouTube to catch the accents, manner of dress, and way of holding the body that each nation has.

Keep the following in your focus :


Details.
Some obvious to tourists. Some that you have to ferret out by research in the library, on the internet, or by listening to a local visitor to your setting.

Feelings.
How does your hero/heroine feel about those details? How have they affected the protagonist and those important to him or her?

Weave those details and emotions into a rich tapestry of irony and longing.

What shadowed corner of your setting is especially dangerous or emotion-laden to your central characters? Why?

Paint a passage where that tapestry flutters in the shadows, not quite completely seen but more evocative because of that.

Time.
What era is it in your setting? Has your protagonist lived through more than one era of time in it?

How has the passing seasons shaped his/her mind, opinions, and outlook for the present? For the future? How does your protagonist view his and the setting's past?

As for FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE :

I worked on the streets of New Orleans for a time so the images, smells, and despair were fresh in my mind.

Which was a help and a hindrance. What one written detail brought into focus for me would not be in the memories of most of my readers.

I had to enter the blank slate of the reader's mind. Evoke in him/her an archetypal detail of touch, taste, and sight that would paint a landscape of the mind.

Every reading experience is a collaboration between reader and author in that way.

No two readers will take away the same mental images from the same author's words because each reader has his own distinct treasure-trove of memories and beliefs.

Still every author must bring his readers into the "now" of the novel's locale.

Not just by sight but by smell and by touch -- and even more important by the emotions evoked by each of those details.

Go from the universal to the specific with words. Meld detail with the characters' emotions.

In FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE I used actual quotes of politicians at the time of Katrina to ground the reader in the reality of the hurricane's aftermath, slowly melding the fantasy aspects so that the fantastic became more acceptable.

And at the same time, I used specific sensory details, blending them in with the main character's emotions to give the locale a personality of its own.

I like to think I succeeded. Only an accepting agent, publication, and the readers will tell. I hope this has been helpful in some small measure.
************
In honor of my use of Merde. Here is a little taste of Paris :

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING RULES!_RULE NOTHING OUT ...

DARE TO GO TOO FAR ...

in your book. Press the limits,

push the boundaries of what you think will work,

then make it work somehow.

Aren't you as a reader tired of seeing the same old thing :

shy girl goes to new school and meets a hot bad boy who turns out to be :

a werewolf, a vampire, a cross-dressing son of a mad scientist (caught you with that last one, didn't I?)

How about a tiger named Hobbes who imagines his human boy doll is alive and talks to him?

Spin the expected on its ear. You will snare bored readers, making them your loyal fans.

You can't go beyond yourself. No matter how strange your twist ... shadows who live and breathe, casting people behind them as they walk in the sun. No matter your idea, it will still have the stamp of your personality, your style of writing.

Be open to any whim drifting from your unconscious. To create means to think beyond the limits we have placed upon our muse. The mind has no boundaries. The imagination is the key to infinity ...

and to bestsellers.

A persecuted boy cracks. He climbs to the top of the school with a rifle and the school's yearbook. He starts shooting.

His persecutors? No. He shoots every nice person he knows. Why?

To spare them the hurt he knows is waiting for them as it waited for him.

BE A TROUBLE MAKER!

Break the rules. The shy girl falls in love with the vampire. His love for her turns him human. Now, his coven is out to turn them both!

Extreme is good.

The vampire was confident and kind. As a human he is sullen and snotty. The girl wants him to be a vampire again even if it means the death of innocents.

Her shyness hid her selfishness. The vampire realizes what a monster she would turn into if she becomes a vampire. He kills them both ...

as a gesture of the last remnants of his kindness.

The only rule :

everything in your novel must serve a purpose, down to the painting of the dying swan on the girl's bedroom wall.

It is what he looks at as he smothers the girl he loves. He sees not the monster she has become but the lovely, shy swan he thought her to be when he first saw her.

Everything in your novel must do double-duty.

The murder of the girl. The painting of the dying swan. Even going to the prom. The surface meaning. The meaning behind the character doing it.

Have we moved beyond the rules, beyond the boundaries of what you think possible?

Now, we are free ...

My Bernard Pivot Blogfest entry_NO SWORD SO SHARP AS THE APT WORD

In honor of Nicole Ducleroir's blogfest :

http://nicoleducleroir.blogspot.com/

here are my answers

What is your favorite word?
Healing.
The whole world stands in need of it.

What is your least favorite word?
I.
Enough about me. What do you think about me?

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Evocative music
and lyrical poetry.

What turns you off?
Bullying
in all its forms.

What is your favorite curse word?
Merde.
It sounds so much more classy than "shit."

What sound or noise do you love?
❤ The laughter of friends
and the yipping of playing puppies.❤

What sound or noise do you hate?
Snoring!!!!
Gypsy, my cat, insists I do it. Of course, I deny it.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
An Indiana Jones-style archaeologist!

What profession would you not like to do?
Mortician.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Well done, my good and faithful servant.

***
And here is an example by Jimmy Stewart on the power of words :

THE TURQUOISE WOMAN BEAT ME TO IT

I woke up this morning feeling like I was a horse that had been rode hard and left wet!

The coughing wouldn't let me be, echoes of that pneumonia that had tried to take me way back in that ice-bound Detroit basement apartment.

So I fed Gypsy, my cat, wearing her surgical mask to keep my germs to myself. I sat down at my laptop to see what mischief I could find on the web.

Then, I found Jules had written a lovely post about THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS :
http://fragilemouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-got-bear-to-pick-with-you.html#more

Summer Ross was the next one I visited to find this :
http://summersvoice.blogspot.com/

I next checked up on my friend, Olivia Herrell :
http://thatrebelwithablog.blogspot.com/2011/02/bear-with-two-shadows.html

Jessica Bell next made my morning so much brighter despite the coughing :
http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.com/2011/02/there-are-certain-ways-of-marketing.html

Nicole Ducleroir was the next friend who became a crusader for me :
http://nicoleducleroir.blogspot.com/

All this after, Elliot Grace had my back like a Texas Ranger of old with his post :
http://elliot-grace.blogspot.com/2011/02/rolands-two-shadows.html

And after WordsCrafter gave me a shout-out a few days ago :
http://therainydaywanderer.blogspot.com/

For once, I was at a loss for words. Gypsy fell over in a dead faint : me being speechless doesn't happen all that often. LOL.

I, alone, am left of my childhood LEAGUE OF FIVE. No family survives. Those close to me from childhood and loves have all been taken before their time.

Like a lone turret of a sand castle, looking at the ruins of sand left by the sweeping tides, I sometimes feel quite alone.

My friends, Elliot, Jules, Summer, Olivia, Nicole, WordsCrafter, and Michael (who, even now labors to remove the flaws from my book's format and is the genius behind the design of my book) -- you have reminded me that he who has friends is never alone and is far richer than Midas ever thought of being.

Thank you. Estanatlehi blows you a kiss. Hibbs chuffs a smile your way, too.

- a very moved Roland

HOOK, LINE, AND BESTSELLER

Writing.

It's all about money.

I hear protests out there in the cyber-darkness. Yes, writing is literature. And literature, when done well, is art. You're right.

Crafting great prose is an art form in and of itself. You and I write because we must. We are artists. Still ...

We can only write as much as we want if we can support ourselves doing it.

Bestsellers.

Those are what we must write if we are to find fulfilment in writing for a living. But how do we write bestsellers?

Identification.

We drive by wrecks all the time. I drove by one not too long ago as a limp, bleeding woman was pulled gingerly out of a bent, steel coffin of a car.

Drivers slowed almost to a crawl. Me, too. It was an irresistible force tugging my eyes to the sad scene. For the other drivers, too. We couldn't help ourselves.

Why?

We identified with that woman, who just minutes earlier had been driving down this same highway as we were doing then. We could be her. In a sense, we WERE her.

Vulnerability.

That is it. We are all vulnerable. We know it deep down though we live mostly in denial of that fact. When we see someone struck down by circumstance or cruel fate, we pause, drawn to the scene. We identify with that person.

Subconsciously, we pull for that person to overcome the challenge -- because we identify with that person. When she or he triumphs over the overwhelming crisis, in a way we do as well. When she slumps in defeat, our spirits slump with her.

It is the spectral nocturne we try to ignore : the dirge of natural selection, the arabesque of convoluted evolution, and the haunting refrain of our need for survival.

This tearing of this veil of denial is the common cord that binds the human race together.

Identification. Vulnerability. The bleeding wound. They work every time.

If your main character is not vulnerable in every chapter, you have a problem. Your MC must face loss himself or face the loss of someone for whom he cares deeply. He must be worried and afraid in some sense.

If he doesn't care deeply in each chapter, the reader won't either. And the first reader you will lose will be the agent. And you will lose your sale.

Ouch! That's a loss all of us writers can identify with.

To write a bestseller, write what you know, what all of us know : life is fragile, unpredictable, and shorter than we would have it.

Write each scene, each chapter ending worse for your hero or heroine until the ringing climax. Make it hard for the reader to put down the book.

Write danger, threat, vulnerability ... write hard-won, almost lost victory, and you will have your bestseller.
***
A movie that ignores all the above advice, promising to be a cult classic anyway :

JUST KISS ALREADY BLOGFEST_THE COLOR OF LOVE IS ... BLOOD

Go here for more kissing madness :

http://www.write-brained.com/2011/01/just-kiss-already-blogfest.html

This Valentine's Day scene is an excerpt from THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH. It is just after midnight at the crypt of Marie Laveau. Victor has met the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, for the first time. He has so far avoided becoming a late night snack. She asks him how he got the slashes on his face.



I hitched myself up on a marble slab and patted the place next to me. “Pull up a

seat. It’s a long story.”

She flowed like mist up beside me. I reached out and softly took her left hand. Saying a silent prayer, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and pressed her hand against my heart.

Maybe I could do a type of encore of what had happened in front of Marie Laveau’s crypt.

Sometimes in life you get more than you ask for.

I stiffened as a swirling sea of her emptiness, her loneliness, her joy at being in touch with another hurt spirit swept me up. And I drew her into me, into my memories of burnt out ends of smoky days laced with pain and strife, of the withered leaves of others’s masquerades, of the tiny thousand misunderstandings and clumsy gropings of my heart to the life-hardened hearts of others.

The autumn world of my days on the streets came rising up over the dark horizon of my regrets. Lost friends, mocking enemies, the haunted, loving eyes of Mother. The glittering, insane eyes of Baboon Face and his goon friends. The snap of the neck that cost me Suze and brought the mysterious undead Captain Sam into my life.

The yellowed papers of recollection curled up around us from Detroit, to Cleveland, to Boston, to that strange bus ride to New Orleans.

The light of relief and hope shot through the black shutters of fear and loneliness as images of me wandering lost through the madness that was Meilori’s. Dim figures of Billie Holliday and Daniel Webster wavered before us like shimmering mirages of fear. My sort of betrayal by Elu, my being an unwilling teaching aid for Strasser, Toya’s hot jealousy, my losing everything as I decided that for Captain Sam to live I had to die.

The cry of her anguished heart calling out to me as she struggled to escape her own private hell. Her spooky entrance into my life. My confusion. My own loneliness reaching out to hers.

The circle completing its circuit. Resurfacing from the waters of shared spirits as I gently pulled her hand from my chest. Our fingers parting. The shiver of separation as her pale face looked at me haunted.

I shivered as our union shattered left me soul-cold. Alice was shivering as well. My head was spinning. Something was wrong with my heart.

It wasn’t empty anymore.

What had I done to me?

Maybe you couldn’t see, really see, into someone without it changing you. And you couldn’t show them the you that you really were without the two of you never being the same anymore.

I looked into her strange neon blue eyes. My changed heart skipped a beat. She was looking … looking at me as if she was feeling the same. Her eyelids lowered slightly. Her hand softened around mine. She squeezed it soft. So soft. Yet so cold. But not as cold as loneliness.

A wild thought came to me.

I grabbed all the courage and desperation I had stored in my bruised heart and decided to go for it.

I brought her cold, cold hand up to my own cold lips and kissed it. Her fingers were quivering. Or was that my lips?

Alice’s lower lip trembled. “How could you?”

“C-Could I what?”

She took her hand from mine and softly traced the line of one of Strasser’s cuts on my left cheek, kissing me on the lips even softer. “Turn out so special.”

***

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO DANCE

No. Not about the sales for THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.

http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1297477317&sr=1-1

I'm not saying they're low, but poor Hibbs is having a case of the bends!

But it takes time for momentum to build in ebook sales I'm told.

No, this morning I awoke coughing, feeling terrible with a relapse of that terrible cold that has been going around.

I opened my email box and found :

The Legend of Victor Standish Friday, February 11, 2011 7:20 AM


Hi,

While browsing online recently, I came across the pitch for your YA novel.—It sounded most intriguing! I’m most not sure where you’re at in the process, but at whatever point the book is finished and ready to go, I would love for you to send me your query and the first 5 pages to consider.

Have a great day,

{Agent who does not accept unsolicited queries}

Now, I don't post this to do the Calvin and Hobbes Happy Dance (well, maybe a little) but to say to all of my blog friends out there :

You never know who is browsing online.

I believe the agent browsed on this particular post :

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2011/02/but-first-things-first-michael-di-gesu.html

The general agreement among blog experts is that no one gets a request from a top-notch agent from said agent just dropping by and liking what she sees.

Sometimes the experts are wrong.

And sometimes you just have to dance.

***

Now, for something that a grown-up Calvin might do for laughs :