Meet My Experts III- Vermelle Diamond Ely

Congratulations to Joyce Hostetter who won the autographed copy of Darlene Jacobson's book, WHEELS OF CHANGE.

As promised several weeks ago, I want to share more about Vermelle Ely, one of my generous experts for Half-Truths, my WIP which takes place in Charlotte, NC in 1950.

Vermelle and I in her Charlotte, NC home
March, 2017

As anyone who writes historical fiction knows, you can't use every detail you glean from your interviews--no matter how delicious it is. In no particular order, here are some of the snippets I learned from Vermelle which have informed Half-Truths. 

• In the late 40's and early 50's, a light-skinned African American girl was treated like a queen. If her hair was long and fair, she was even more special.
• Sometimes people passed for convenience: to go out to eat, get their hair done, get waited on, or to move up to the front of line. Kids at the time might think, "In the movies no one would know know if you’re white or black.  Let’s see if we can do it just for fun."
• Vermelle commented on my two characters that, "Lillie could have gone anywhere with Kate because she was so light. But Kate would have stuck out in the black community. She would have been accepted, but the police would have questioned her."

I found these posters at Vermelle's house and
photographed them. They were taken in 1968 to commemorate
the Queen City classic rivalry between
Second Ward and West Charlotte High

• According to Vermelle, the girls would have been too scared to go to the movies or library together, but they may have talked on the phone. 
• About 100 students who attended Second Ward lived in Biddleville and it took them 30 minutes to walk to school, including going through a cow pasture near Thompson orphanage. 
• "We didn’t know, 'separate but equal.' We heard our parents talk about it though. We got all the hand me downs from the white schools. Books would have so many names in them, you couldn’t even put your name in it and the backs were off. We got stuff from Central High and inherited blue and white because that was their school colors."
• Vermelle’s great-grandfather was from England and her great-grandmother was native American. When her maternal grandmother and grandfather died, the family went to Wilson, NC for the funeral.  She discovered that her great-grandfather  was buried in the white cemetery and her great-grandmother was buried in the black cemetery. “I was grown before I knew it. Nobody talked about race. My mother said her mother’s family was very fair and her father marched in the Elks parade."

Vermelle as Miss Queen City Classic in 1948

• Vermelle remembered that the black WACS in WWII had to go up the backstairs of Montaldo's (a very expensive department store in downtown Charlotte) to try on their uniforms. 

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Vermelle has struggled with poor eyesight for years and can no longer read printed material. Recently I read several chapters to her. You can imagine how pleased I was when she nodded and agreed with my descriptions and the characters' interactions. Sharp as ever, she made comments on what was true to life and what wasn't. Happily, she didn't find much that was inaccurate. 

I am indebted to Vermelle and my other experts, who have shared their life stories so that my story is more authentic. 

Free Expressions Takeaway Part III: Building Imaginary Worlds

I used to think world building just pertained to creating a science fiction or fantasy world. And although it is generally associated with those genres, all novelists must create believable, fictional worlds in which reader immerses themselves.  

For example, even though Half-Truths takes place in a "real" time and place-- Charlotte, NC in the 1950's--I must show the sights, sounds, smells, textures, emotional tone, and sociological and political atmosphere of the two areas of the city in which my story unfolds. There is historical data which helps me construct this world such as this 1939 article from The Charlotte Observer:

It is my job as a novelist to weave this information into the fabric of the world I am building. What will it mean to my white and black characters that there is a separate hospital for Negroes? A lot. 
Here are a few takeaways from Brenda Windberg's class on world  building:

• Consider the psychological and political world of your character. There is always someone who has power and people who rebel.
• The structure of your character's existence will create the context of your story.
• Describe concrete, highly specific worlds. It should be fully immersive because of the high level of specificity.  Brenda used the Harry Potter Theme Park as an example of the huge amount of details which JK Rowling included in her books; this makes the theme park a totally immersive experience. 
• Writers must ask questions such as: "What if?" "Why" and "Why not?" Find the boundaries of your world--which is more than just a physical world. 
• Brenda's advice: "The rules and parameters of your character’s emotional reality can set the tone for your world."
•  Use details in a way that adds emotional content. Let them show a purpose. The place the character’s eye goes to is what you record. “Let your character react to details, don’t note them.”
•  Limit what the reader needs to know to propel the story forward. Weave this through your story. Readers want to experience the world as they come into it. 

Our incredible Free Expressions leaders:
Lorin Oberweger and Brenda Windberg

Brenda generously shared her two handouts from the class. You can access them here:
World Building Exercises
Description as a World Building Tool 

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Since  I have a lot to say about writing a tight query letter, I'm going to save that for the next blog post. 

If you missed the first two blogs in this series, here they are:
Free Expressions Takeaway Part I- Voice and Deep Point of View
Free Expressions Takeaway Part II- Deep Scene

When "The End" is Only the Beginning

I’ve been composing this blog in my mind for days. But I told myself I couldn't actually write it until I'd reached "The End."

sanja gjenero

Lately I've been spending days pushing through the first draft of my WIP (work in progress), Half-Truths. These have been days of sitting down at the keyboard and feeling worried because I only had a vague idea of what might happen next. Days of looking up two or three hours later and being amazed that I’d written another chapter.

At the end of October I’d written 19 chapters. Challenged by two SCBWI friends, I decided to try and finish during NaNoWriMo. I wrote 20 chapters in 20 days. But my story wasn’t done.

My new goal became to complete this draft by the end of 2010.

When I wasn’t writing, I was thinking. Thinking about how I wanted the story to end. Thinking about how I was going to get my characters to that point. And wondering if I could I make it happen by New Year’s Eve.

When I first started this novel I wrote tight. I started each day by revising what I’d written the day before. I researched facts as I wrote. I tweaked adjectives and verbs. I was very slow. A chapter could easily take a week to write. Sometimes longer.


But in November my method changed. I learned about writing loose first drafts by reading Becky Levine’s blog. Instead of trying to pencil in the small details, I began to see that crafting this draft was like starting a painting with large brush strokes. I didn’t stop to figure out what road Kate would take coming home from school. I didn’t figure out which birds she listened to, which bus she took to get uptown, or how much it cost to ride that bus in 1950. There are hundreds of details that I’ll add later.


I started a HUGE “to do” list of things I want to consider layering into my story. Here is part of that list:


• North Carolina, United States, the world in 1950

• What else was going on in the Charlotte African American community?
• Clothing- who wore what where
• Buildings, cars
• Glass (yes, glass. You didn’t think I could waste all my research about glass without using it somehow, did you?)

• Characters- their physical descriptions, mannerisms

• Vernacular- southern, African American
• White and black debutantes
• The one drop rule


Did I say this is only part of my list? I have my work cut out for me.


How long will this take? I have no idea.


As long as it takes to get 53 short chapters or about 200 pages into shape.


As long as it takes to bring this novel to “the end.”

http://petesaloutos.com/

As long as it takes.

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Oh the Places You'll Go!

You may associate the title of this blog with the popular Dr. Seuss book of that name. But in this case, I’m referring to the places that an author such as myself goes to in order to research historical fiction. On Tuesday, that meant going to the celebration of the United House of Prayer’s 84th convocation in Charlotte, NC. It also meant eating delicious food and listening to trombone bands, vocal choirs, and brass choirs as they played for 200 appreciative fans.


What is my connection to a gospel shout?


For those who are new to this blog, I am writing an historical middle grade novel which takes place in Charlotte in 1950. The main plot is about how a 13-year-old-white girl and a 14-year-old-light-skinned African American girl discover that they are second cousins. In the process of researching the story I have read books, interviewed scores of people, and tried to capture life in Myers Park and Cherry—the neighborhoods in which my main characters lived.


One of the stories I heard was about the annual Daddy Grace parade that wound itself through Brooklyn, a neighborhood torn down in urban renewal during the 1960’s. Thinking that could be an intersecting point for my characters, I’ve researched Daddy Grace and his influence in the African American community. Although the original House of Prayer for all People which he founded in the 1930’s was razed, a new building now draws hundreds of people to its location in North Charlotte. When I found out that the Levine Museum was hosting a concert there, I suspected I would find a detail or two that would find its way into my book.


I was not disappointed.


Since pictures are worth a thousand words, videos must be worth several thousand each. Here is a sampling of what I saw and heard.


Here is Felton Weather, first lead trombonist:


 


And the rest of the Clouds of Heaven band:





The youngest musicians:

Jaydon Caldwell, age 6, plays along with his Daddy, a trombonist

I listened to the music and wished the trombonists would parade through the auditorium in the same way that 60 years ago, musicians wound their way through Brooklyn. (Click here and then click on Brooklyn for a video from 1959.) I understood how crowds gathered and how people were drawn to Daddy Grace.

 Members of the United House of Prayer Bailey String Praise band and choir.
Photo by T.ORTEGA GAINES, Charlotte Observer

How will attending this event inform my story? I gained three words: pulse, rhythm, and throb. I am richer as a novelist, for having heard, and felt, this Charlotte musical tradition.

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