Tackling Tension, Horizontality, and Verticality

In this series about my online writing class, Plot and Structure, through the Center for Writing Excellence, I last posted definitions and examples of horizontality and verticality in What Happened to Goodbye. Our next assignment was to play around with creating tension in our own work. Here are some samples from Chapter 2 of Half-Truths.

In the lesson on tension, Bethany Nuckolls said, “Tension is simply a byproduct of pacing and manipulating time.  Conflict in a story can be heightened or diminished by how fast or slowly you narrate it.  Slowing a scene down and writing longer sentences builds tension… Speeding a scene up and writing shorter sentences gives the reader a sense of movement.  This is particularly effective in action scenes where the character is reacting instead of preparing to react.  This kind of tension is less suspenseful and more shocking.”

In this writing sample I created tension by using short sentences:

"Kate felt a tightness in her chest, like a band pulled taut so she could hardly breathe. No way was there enough space here for Eileen. Or for Speckles. Or for her. How could she ever feel like this was home?"

Bethany commented: “Choppy sounds great.  It's closer to the rhythm of her nervous heartbeat, or her thoughts jumping from one worry to the next.”

In this second sample, I created tension by using verticality (multiple events or times present in the same narrative moment). In this passage Kate jumps backward and forward again in her mind:

"Brave. She tried the idea on as if it was a new pair of riding boots. Took some breaking in, but would fit if she stomped around in the notion long enough. Kate kissed Eileen on the snout and squared her shoulders.  If she’d been brave enough to help birth Eileen in the middle of a hailstorm that threatened to flatten the whole county, she was brave enough to face Grandmother Dinsmore and all her rules and plans.  And hopefully brave enough to walk into Alexander Graham Junior High and make friends with a bunch of snobby, rich girls."

Bethany agreed that the hailstorm was an example of verticality.

In this third sample I created tension by using horizontality (narrative that moves chronologically):

 "Grandmother crossed her arms and scowled. Her eyes traveled from the wisps of hair that had escaped Kate’s braid all the way down to her mud-covered loafers."

Playing with sentence length helped me realize that I tend to write run-on sentences. Breaking them up added oomph and made the narrative more present to the reader.

Bethany summarized this to another student when she said: “There is no ONE rule to apply to all situations.  Rather, this is about realizing how sentence length can change the mood in a scene, and be willing to exploit that fact to your advantage.”  

Horizontal or Vertical: which appeals to you?

Discovering Tension in "What Happened to Goodbye"- Part II

If you live in the Carolinas and are a Christian writing either for the young adult or children's market, please note that registration for Write2Ignite! 2014 is now open. This is a great opportunity to learn more about your craft, meet knowledgable professionals in the field at a very reasonable price. Please go to

 http://Write2Ignite.com for more information. 

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In my ongoing blog series about the writing class I'm taking through the Center for Writing Excellence, I learned two new ways to produce tension: Horizontality and Verticality. 

Horizontality, as Bethany Nuckolls instructed,  "refers to narrative that moves chronologically."

Verticality "happens when multiple events or times are present in the same narrative moment."

Our assignment was to find examples of tension in our reading novel.  McLean, the protagnoist in What Happened to Goodbye? is both drawn to her next-door neighbor, David, but also afraid of getting involved in any type of lasting relationship because she and her father always leave town. This passage comes immediately after a scene in which he is close enough to kiss her but doesn’t; the talk and action subsequently turns to basketball.   

Here is the passage I chose; my analysis follows.   

  He sat up, choosing to ignore this. “You know, you talk this tough game and everything. But I know the truth about you.”

     “And what’s that again?” I said, getting to my feet.

     “Secretly,” he said, “you want to play with me. In fact, you need to play with me. Because deep down, you love basketball as much as I do.”

     “Loved,” I said. “Past tense.”

      “Not true.” He walked around my deck, grabbing a broom there and using the handle to fish around beneath.” (Horizontality) “I saw how you squared up. There was love there.”

     “You saw love in my shot,” I said, clarifying.

     “Yeah.” He banged the broomstick again, and the ball came rolling out slowly, toward me. “I mean it’s not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It’s, like, part of you for good.”

     I wondered what he meant by this, and in the next beat, found myself surprised by the image that suddenly popped into my head: me and my mom, on a windy beach in winter, searching for shells as the wave crashed in front of us. (Verticality) I picked up the ball and threw it to him.

     “You ready to play?” Dave asked, bouncing it.

     “I don’t know,” I said. “Are you going to cheat?”

      “It’s street ball!” he said, checking it to me. “Show me that love.”

       So cheesy, I thought. But as I felt it, solid against my hands, I did feel something. I wasn’t sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. “All right,” I said.
“Let’s play.” (p. 273)

  

I think this is the original cover; I like it best!

Analysis: Dessen probably used the verb “fishing” purposefully to describe David’s action of getting the ball out from under the deck. This fits in nicely with McLean’s flashback of her and her mother at the beach, searching for shells.  Horizontality is shown in his three chronological actions of retrieving the ball.

I think verticality is achieved when there is something about David’s words about love that trigger her memory of her mother. Although McLean is trying hard to distance herself from her mother, memories of pleasant and loving times keep popping up. Her mother, like it or not, “is with her for good,” as the rest of the novel attests to.

Tension is created because it takes McLean the entire page to decide if she will play basketball with David. Her slow deliberation over what he has said to her intensifies the conflict for the reader (who of course wants her to say “yes!”).

The chapter ends with a cliff-hanger letting the reader know that McLean is indeed, allowing herself to “play” and get involved with David.

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Now you try it. Has an author you have read included tension in her novel? How have you included it in your own work?

Plot Elements and What Happened to Goodbye: Part I

Congratulations to Ann Eisenstein who received a copy of Odette's Secrets in last week's giveaway.

In this ongoing mini-series of blog posts, I share more nuggets from my online writing class, Plot and Structure, with instructor Bethany Nuckolls.  

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As our class proceeded into analyzing Act II of our novels, Bethany explained the concept of Shock: “Shock is the moment when the protagonist’s world comes crashing down, their ideals prove to have a fatal flaw, their companions betray them, or their desire proves to be short of expectations.  This is the darkest moment in their journey thus far.  For the first time, success will seem impossible.  Doubt becomes certainty, bringing about the third point of Act II: the Critical Choice.” 

Since I had just finished listening to What Happened to Goodbye? by Sarah Dessen, I decided to use that to discuss this concept and  explore why I felt the book was emotionally compelling. I have included some of the previously discussed plot elements as well. 

McLean, the 17-year-old protagonist, chooses to live with her father after he and her mother divorce. Her father’s job is helping faltering restaurants to either survive or close.  In the last two years, McLean has gone into each new school and established a new identity for herself along with a new name.  At one school she is a drama diva, at another a cheerleader, and most recently the student council secretary. Along with new names, McLean makes sure she never got attached to any of her friends since she knows she will be leaving soon.  This is her Stasis (original state).

She moves to a new school (Trigger)  and her pattern changes when she “accidentally” introduces herself as McLean and allows herself to develop new friends and a special friendship with the boy next door, Dave. As Dave and her group of friends work on putting together a model of the town (a superb example of an objective correlative of McLean’s life) she builds relationships and enjoys eating at one of the girl’s homes (Food, and the lack of eating together with her father is another objective correlative). When her friends look on a popular social media website, and discover that her email address is associated with four different names, they question who McLean really is--a question she is already asking herself. They react with distrust and she sinks into self-doubt.

I don’t remember if I cried at this point (although something in this book triggered tears); Dessen built up to this Shock point very cleverly and logically, but it still took me by surprise. McLean’s sense of loss when she realizes she has betrayed her friends by not revealing these past “selves” totally makes sense. It is definitely her "Point of No Return." After this, the book moves into the end of Act II when McLean faces her Critical Choice: Will she join her father when his next job takes him to Hawaii, or will she find a way to finish her senior year with her friends? 

After I posted my analysis, Bethany commented, “Indeed, the Shock is not necessarily supposed to shock the reader (via the definition of "surprise"). Rather it shocks the lead character, and if the reader has drawn close enough to that character in the meantime, it should emotionally affect the reader as well.

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Next week I'll continue my review of this beautifully-written young adult novel and will share examples of the tension elements which Dessen employed. 

Odette's Secrets, Plot & Structure, And a Giveaway!

I am taking an online writing class, Plot and Structure with Bethany Nuckolls, an instructor in the Center for Writing Excellence.  I am learning names for plot elements that I had barely considered--and some I didn't even know existed! As a student, I am encourage to find these elements in a book of my choice. In a mini-blog series about this class, I plan to share some of what I have learned by analyzing two novels. 

Stasis: This is the character's original state.

For Odette's Secrets, it is life in Paris in 1942 for a twelve-year-old Jewish girl:

“My name is Odette.

I live in Paris,

On a cobblestone square

With a splashing fountain

And a silent statue.

My hair is curly

Mama ties ribbons in it.

Papa reads to me and buys me toys.

I have everything I could wish for,

Except a cat.” (p.1)

Trigger:  Bethany explained that this is, "usually some calamity or opportunity that directly affects the protagonists and their fortunes, awakening them from their Stasis hibernation."

It's Saturday , so Mama and Papa take me to the cinema.

On the huge screen,

Soldiers march, 

Their legs and arms straight as sticks.

A funny looking man with a mustache

Shouts a speech.

His name is Hitler.”  (p. 1-2)

Objective Correlative  This is a new term to me. The Miriam-Webster online dictionary defines it as something that "symbolizes or objectifies a particular emotion and is used in creative writing to evoke a desired emotional response in the reader." In this book, Odette loses her beloved doll Charlotte, a gift from her godmother. When her mother replaces it with a new one, Odette thinks:

“Before long, a new Charlotte peeks out at me

from Mama’s knitting bag.

This Charlotte has a china face too,

And curly brown hair.

She looks the same as the real Charlotte,

Even though I know she’s not.” (p.12-13)

The doll is a marker to the reader about what lies ahead for Odette- she may become "not real" herself. 

Launch of the main problem of the book  Her father joins the army, German soldiers invade Paris, and Odette's life changes. 

“Hitler and his solders are called Nazis.

Papa can’t wait to fight them!” (p.20)

Odette’s Growth begins after her father leaves. Just as he is confident that the French army will return victorious, Odette has confidence that she and her mother will be safe in their small apartment in Paris. The building’s caretaker and godmother, Madame Marie, is Odette’s bastion of refuge: 

“My godmother is like the perfect moon.

Always round.

Always full.

Always there.” (p. 8)

Madame Marie disciplines Odette when she skips school one day and informs her that she “needs to clean up the mess in your heart." (p. 37) Although she doesn’t instruct Odette to confess to her mother that she played hooky, the message is clear--tell the truth. Later, Madame Marie lies to soldiers who come looking for Odette and her mother.  This second message cements in Odette’s brain: some secrets and lies are acceptable.  Odette grows as she learns she must keep her identity secret in order to stay alive. She is learning to navigate a new world. 

First Odette, and then her mother, move to the country where they take on a Catholic identity. Odette thinks she is doing this successfully until her world comes crashing down (Shock) when some village children attack her for being Jewish. Although she denies it and her mother successfully enlists the mayor’s “pretend” support, Odette fears that her true identity will be discovered.

“Mama gives a party to show the villagers

that we are still ready to be friends.

…

I pretend to have a good time.

I keep all my sadness and anger buried inside,

Like all my other secrets.

It’s safer that way.

I can’t stop being scared, though.

So scared, that one day I stop going to school.

So scared that I even stop talking.” (p. 146-7).

When Paris is liberated, Odette’s mother decides they must return home. Despite the troubles she endured, Odette hates to leave her country village.  She says goodbye to her favorite places, her cat Bijou, and then gives her friend, Simone a present:

“The morning Mama and I leave,

I give Charlotte to Simone,

To make sure she’ll look after Bijou.

I don’t trust Simone, not really.

I have never told her that I’m a Jew.

Mama and I agree about this.

We still keep it a secret here that we are Jewish…

a secret from everyone.” (p. 169)

Odette’s Critical Choice comes in two parts: first, she must turn her back on her Catholic identity and the safety of her country home; and second, she returns to Paris and resumes her Jewish identity. 

Before a ceremony when the ashes of French Jewish dead will be buried, Odette wonders where she belongs. At the cemetery, a woman comes forward and clings to her as if she was her own daughter. That night Odette concludes:

I don't need to hide anymore,
and I don't want to keep any more secrets.
Secrets stand in my way.
They stop me from knowing who I am.
I am a Jew.
I'm sure of it.
And I will always be one. (p. 205)

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I trust you will find this book as powerful as I did.  Bloomsbury has generously provided a copy of Odette's Secrets to one fortunate blog reader.  Here is how you can win:

1. Leave me a comment. Make sure you leave your email address if you are new to my blog.

2. If you want to have your name entered twice share this post on your favorite social media site and either tag me or let me know in your comment. 

3. Become a new follower of my blog and let me know--I'll enter your name twice!

4. A winner will be chosen on Friday, November 15 and announced in next week's blog. 

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If you don't win, you can read six chapters for free on the Odette's Secrets Facebook page as well as a Teacher's Guide. Or, of course you can order your own copy!

I hope you'll stop by next week when I analyze parts of Sarah Dessen's book, Whatever Happened to Goodbye. 

Of Violins and Orchestras

Congratulations to Joyce Hostetter, who recommended Yankee Girl to me. She won her very own autographed copy! 

Many years ago my husband and I spent time and money on violin lessons for my daughters. By the time they hit middle school, other activities became more important and they lost interest. Everyone realized that there was a lot more involved in playing a violin than listening to Suzuki tapes in the car every day.  

Lisa, Lori, & Lydia Baldwin
fiddling around 17 years ago

But that experience probably was the reason why, when my brother emailed me recently and asked, “So, when is your book coming out?” I wrote back with the following answer:

 “Thanks for your interest, but I am a long way from holding a hard copy of Half-Truths in my hands. Think of it this way: you don't sit down to learn how to play a violin and automatically start playing in the orchestra.

“I have learned a tremendous amount in the years I have been working on this book, but still have a way to go. It's like I created my own master's degree in writing. I am start a new draft which has potential to be "THE" story. Remember, I made my job much more complicated by deciding to tell the story from two points of view; that’s very hard to pull off for a brand new novelist. 

“WHEN I am done with this draft I will need to polish it before submitting it to an agent. Hopefully by then it will be in great shape and I’ll find someone to represent me. But then that agent will shop it around to publishers. After a publisher accepts it (and who knows how long that process will take!)  it’ll be two more years before the books come out. That will be the time for edits, cover design, and creating a marketing plan. 

"It's a long process, but by the end, I hope to be playing in the symphony!”

The Charlotte Symphony

My brother, like many who aren’t in the writing/publishing industry, had no idea how long it takes to birth a book--especially a first one when a novelist is learning so much about characterization, point of view, plot, etc. To be honest, I didn’t either. But as I look back on the conferences, writing workshops, and classes I have taken I recognize that in fact, I have been teaching myself how to write a novel. No small task.

Now, pardon me, while I get back to work. 

Anybody seen my rosin?

Yankee Girl and a Giveaway

My apologies if you receive this blog post twice. I am reposting it since it didn't seem to get sent out  the first time and I wanted you to have a chance to win this fantastic book.

Two girls. One white, one black. The South and civil rights. Given my own work-in-progress, Half-Truths, how could I not read Yankee Girl?

Drawing upon her own childhood experiences, the author, Mary Ann Rodman, writes in her author's note: "Like Alice (the protagonist), I was the daughter of an FBI agent. In the summer of 1964, my family moved from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi. My father was one of 150 special agents ordered to Mississippi by President Lyndon Johnson." These agents were assigned after three young civil rights workers who were helping African Americans register to vote, disappeared.

As the title suggests, Yankee Girl is 6th-grade Alice Ann Moxley's story. Her "new normal" opens with the moving truck unloading her bike in front of her new home. Fresh from Chicago, she encounters the Southern drawl, pimento cheese, and whites who call colored peoplenigras. Her parents are sympathetic to civil rights and Alice is torn between her concern for Valerie, the lone African American girl who integrates her school, and wanting to make friends with the kids in her class who ostracize and mock Valerie. 

Alice's internal struggles make up a good part of the novel as the reader sees Alice's awakening to what Valerie experiences. After Alice doesn't stop her classmates from sending Valerie mean Valentines, Valerie stays home from school. When she calls Alice ostensibly to get their math homework, Valerie shares some of her anxiety about her father's upcoming civil rights event with Dr. Martin Luther King. After Valerie shares some of her painful childhood experiences, Alice dreams thatEmmett Till challenges her to stand up for her friend. 

After Valerie's father dies, she moves out of town and Alice regrets never telling her that she was sorry for not befriending her. But in the final image, Alice moves on to junior high where she meets Valerie's cousin. Despite the whispers of "Nigger lover, nigger lover" all around her, Alice brings the new girl to her cafeteria table, where two of her friends are waiting.

Mary Ann Rodman did such a wonderful job of integrating historical fact with fiction, that I tried googling Valerie's father, Reverend Claymore Taylor. When I couldn't find anything about him, I checked with Mary Ann. She wrote:

"Reverend Taylor is a combination of Medgar Evers and a man named Wharless Jackson, who was my dad's last unsolved case (and never will be solved since all the informants and witnesses are dead or deep into hiding so they will never be found.) Medgar Evers was killed in front of his three children in the driveway of his home (he was the Ms. state president of the NAACP). Jackson was a civil rights activist who worked at the Goodyear Tire plant in Natchez, Ms. Mr. Jackson was promoted to a supervisor's position, the first for a black man in that plant. That night when he got in his truck to go home, he discovered that 'someone' (most likely the KKK) had wired his ignition with dynamite. There was nothing left of him."

At the end of the author's note Mary Ann writes: "My mother once said, 'You know, someday you'll be glad you lived in this time and this place. You are seeing history in the making. You can tell your children and grandchildren about it.'

She was right."

Mary Ann Rodman at 10-years-old

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Ms. Rodman is giving away an autographed copy of Yankee Girl. Leave a comment and I'll enter your name in the drawing. I'll pick a winner on Monday, November 4. Please leave your email address if I don't have it.

Congratulations to Lisa Fowler who won last week's giveaway, Hill Hawk Hattie.

Yankee Girl and a Giveaway!

Two girls. One white, one black. The South and civil rights. Given my own work-in-progress, Half-Truths, how could I not read Yankee Girl?

Drawing upon her own childhood experiences, the author, Mary Ann Rodman, writes in her author's note: "Like Alice (the protagonist), I was the daughter of an FBI agent. In the summer of 1964, my family moved from Chicago to Jackson, Mississippi. My father was one of 150 special agents ordered to Mississippi by President Lyndon Johnson." These agents were assigned after three young civil rights workers who were helping African Americans register to vote, disappeared.

As the title suggests, Yankee Girl is 6th-grade Alice Ann Moxley's story. Her "new normal" opens with the moving truck unloading her bike in front of her new home. Fresh from Chicago, she encounters the Southern drawl, pimento cheese, and whites who call colored people nigras. Her parents are sympathetic to civil rights and Alice is torn between her concern for Valerie, the lone African American girl who integrates her school, and wanting to make friends with the kids in her class who ostracize and mock Valerie. 

Alice's internal struggles make up a good part of the novel as the reader sees Alice's awakening to what Valerie experiences. After Alice doesn't stop her classmates from sending Valerie mean Valentines, Valerie stays home from school. When she calls Alice ostensibly to get their math homework, Valerie shares some of her anxiety about her father's upcoming civil rights event with Dr. Martin Luther King. After Valerie shares some of her painful childhood experiences, Alice dreams that Emmett Till challenges her to stand up for her friend. 

After Valerie's father dies, she moves out of town and Alice regrets never telling her that she was sorry for not befriending her. But in the final image, Alice moves on to junior high where she meets Valerie's cousin. Despite the whispers of "Nigger lover, nigger lover" all around her, Alice brings the new girl to her cafeteria table, where two of her friends are waiting.

Mary Ann Rodman did such a wonderful job of integrating historical fact with fiction, that I tried googling Valerie's father, Reverend Claymore Taylor. When I couldn't find anything about him, I checked with Mary Ann. She wrote:

"Reverend Taylor is a combination of Medgar Evers and a man named Wharless Jackson, who was my dad's last unsolved case (and never will be solved since all the informants and witnesses are dead or deep into hiding so they will never be found.) Medgar Evers was killed in front of his three children in the driveway of his home (he was the Ms. state president of the NAACP). Jackson was a civil rights activist who worked at the Goodyear Tire plant in Natchez, Ms. Mr. Jackson was promoted to a supervisor's position, the first for a black man in that plant. That night when he got in his truck to go home, he discovered that 'someone' (most likely the KKK) had wired his ignition with dynamite. There was nothing left of him."

At the end of the author's note Mary Ann writes: "My mother once said, 'You know, someday you'll be glad you lived in this time and this place. You are seeing history in the making. You can tell your children and grandchildren about it.'

She was right."

Mary Ann Rodman at 10-years-old

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Ms. Rodman is giving away an autographed copy of Yankee Girl. Leave a comment and I'll enter your name in the drawing. I'll pick a winner on Friday, November 1. Please leave your email address if I don't have it.

Congratulations to Lisa Fowler who won last week's giveaway, Hill Hawk Hattie.