Mississippi Trial, 1955: A Book Review and a Writing Exercise

I recently submitted the fourth draft of Half-Truths to Rebecca Petruck for her critique. In a future blog I'll clue you in on my marching orders for Draft #5, but today I'm sharing a specific part of her feedback about writing scenes. This is a longer blog than normal, so grab your favorite beverage and get ready to learn about a great book and about the writing craft. 

Craft-wise, writing scenes is your weakest element. That’s partly why I asked you to write the slow down scene. You might want to read Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld. For exercises, I suggest choosing a few scenes from three novels and deeply analyze the arc—what did the MC want as she entered the scene? What did she get? How did the author show the external action? The internal action/reaction? How much dialogue is used relative to narrative text? How did the author set the scene? End it? 

Then, look at one of your own scenes, and critique it for the elements listed above. Does the scene have an arc? Is there room for the reader to experience what’s happening? Time for the reader to feel what’s happening? How might you deepen the scene? How might you create more tension? Raise the stakes? - Rebecca Petruck

The first novel I chose to study scene making was the award winning book, Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe. I anticipated learning more about Jim Crow. I gained that, and much more.

Crowe's debut novel (Penguin Putnam, 2002) is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. Crowe created a believable white protagonist, Hiram Hillburn, whose life is irrevocably changed following Emmett's kidnapping and murder. 

As a young child, Hiram spent several years in Greenwood, Mississippi living with his paternal grandparents. He has fond memories of Grampa Hillburn and a town steeped in cotton and Southern traditions. Hiram doesn't understand the deep conflict between his father and grandfather and blames his father for the alienation between the two men.

At 16, Hiram returns to Greenwood after his grandfather suffers a stroke and meets Emmett who is in town visiting his uncle. Hiram reconnects with R.C. Rydell, a boyhood friend who drinks too much and bullies Negroes; and R.C.'s sister Naomi who he likes. R.C. convinces Hiram to go fishing together, and the two meet up with Emmett who is cooling off in the river. R.C. mercilessly bullies Emmett while Hiram stands by helplessly. Afterwards he feels ashamed of himself and later becomes convinced that R.C. was involved in Emmett's death. 

This scene follows Hiram reading a newspaper report of Emmett's death:

When I put the newspaper down, my hands were shaky and cold. Emmett was dead, murdered. The article said nothing about R.D. Rydell, but I figured the sheriff must still be looking of him. Was R.C. involved in the murder? I knew he was, and I hoped the police would find him--soon.    

And what about Naomi? If R.C. skipped town or ended up in jail, she'd be left alone with her dad. I didn't even want to think how much more miserable her life might become in that shack down along the Yazoo.    

Grampa interrupted my thoughts when he whistled softly after reading the article. "I can't believe they killed that boy." He rubbed his hand across his face and muttered to himself, "There's going to be hell to pay now." He still looked pale as he folded the paper on his lap, creased it carefully in half, and set it on the table next to his chair. "Hiram, those boys went too far, way too far. For his sake, I sure hope your friend [R.C.] wasn't involved in this mess. I never did think much of R.C. Rydell, but I never took him for a murderer."    

"R.C.'s not my friend, Grampa," I reminded him without looking at him. "I told you how he acted."  

 "Of course he's not your friend. A Hillburn usually has better sense than getting mixed up with people like these." Grampa rapped his knuckles on the folder newspaper. "People all over the United States are hearing about what's happened down here and wondering what kind of uncivilized brutes live in Mississippi. Those peckerwoods who did this are a shame to all of us in the Delta. No self-respecting Southern gentleman would lover himself to of this far."    

Grampa's reaction bothered me. He seemed more concerned bout the negative press than about what had happened to Emmett Till.    

He kept on complaining. "The radio said that colored boy's mama up in Chicago is blaming everyone in Mississippi for what's happened, said she said, 'The entire state of Mississippi is going to pay for this.' The woman's grief is understandable, Hiram, but she's go tho cause to blame all of us for what a couple redneck peckerwoods did in the middle of the night.  

 "Before we know it, the NAACP and all those bleeding-heart Northerners are going to use this as another excuses for integration. They're going to come down here and cry about how we treat our Negroes and how we've got to mix the races in our schools. That's what really makes me mad, son: Those ignorant boys have stirred up a hornet's next of trouble."    

"But what about Emmett?" I asked. "They killed him. Doesn't that make you mad?"    

"Of course those boys went too far. Whatever that colored boy deserved, he didn't deserve getting shot and tossed into the Tallahatchie, that's for sure."      

I wanted to yell at Grampa. A boy was murdered just for acting cocky! I wanted to say something, something mean and hard that would knock some sense into him, but I knew nothing I could say would change him, and I had a glimpse into why Dad and Grampa never got along. (p. 123-5)

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Here are Rebecca's questions:

What did the MC want as he entered the scene? 

Hiram wants comfort/justice over Emmett's death. 

What did he get? 

He got a "glimpse" into why his father and grandfather don't get along, and a new picture of his grandfather. 

How did the author show the external action? 

Reports the grandfather complaining, shows Hiram arguing.

The internal action/reaction? 

Hiram's observation that his grandfather was more concerned about negative press than justice is a huge "Aha!" moment. His appreciation for his father initiates a change in his attitude. 

How much dialogue is used relative to narrative text? 

Dialogue and internalization carried this scene; not much narration. 

How did the author set the scene?

"When I set the paper down." Opens the scene.

End it? 

With Hiram's new realizations. 

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I picked this scene because it was pivotal to Hiram's burgeoning questions of the culture he accepted as a child as well as his new understanding of the tensions between his father and grandfather. The reader sees Hiram's conclusions so that when there is a switch at the end, Crowe has paved the way for a surprise ending. 

Rebecca has told me before that I need to go deeper into my character's internal experiences (I guess I'm a slow learner!). But copying out a scene pushed me inside Hiram. I saw his grandfather and father in new ways and found a model for what I needed to work on in Half-Truths.

How about you? Have you ever deeply studied a scene from a novel? If not, I hope you'll try this exercise. If you have, what book did you study? I'd love to hear from you. 

And I hope you'll read Mississippi Trial, 1955. You won't regret it; and besides, you need to discover the surprise ending which wraps up this important book so well.

How to Get Your Foot Inside of Schools and What to Do Once You’re There: Tips from Alan Gratz

For many authors getting inside schools feels as difficult as finding an agent or publisher. But according to Alan Gratz, an award-winning North Carolina author, it is not only possible, but it’s a great way to build buzz and sell your book.

Alan Gratz at Hillcrest Middle School
Greenville, SC 2015

One of the best ways to get started is to hook up with a local bookstore: either an Indie, Barnes and Noble, or Books-a-Million. “Let them know you are interested in going to schools. They usually have relationships with the media specialists and often will create a flier with prices, which can be sent home with students in advance of a visit,” Alan says. But be forewarned: schools that book author visits through a bookstore don’t expect to pay an honorarium to the author. They get an author visit for free in return for the bookstore getting to sell books. Authors can’t afford to do visits like these all the time, financially speaking, but they’re a great way to get that foot in the door and to get experience before booking paid visits.

“At each school visit make sure you ask for the names of other area librarians who might be interested in hosting you and leave extra school visit brochures for all the librarians’ friends. Ask them to help spread the word that you’re interested in visiting more schools.”

In addition, contact your state’s Association of School Librarians and ask if you can appear at their next annual conference. Each state hosts its own conference, usually in the fall or the spring, and most like to invite regional authors, either to present talks or to just sign and sell books. Once you’re invited, bring school visit fliers and hand them out to everyone you meet. Local arts councils also frequently sponsor teaching artists such as writers in the schools.

When Alan arrives at a school, the bookseller either comes with him or has already delivered the pre-sold books. Gratz usually signs pre-ordered books at the school, and invites students who didn’t pre-order a book to join him right after school at the local bookstore, where he has arranged to meet and greet visitors for an hour or two. “I get book sales, the bookstore makes money, and sometimes they even give the schools a cut, or a discount. Everyone's happy! And I didn't have to haul boxes of books and a bag of cash with me.”

When he first started doing school visits in 2006 after his first book, Samurai Shortstop was published, Alan’s honorarium was $500 a day. It quickly went up to $1,000, and as word spread among librarians he was doing upwards of 20 school visits a year. Then the economy took a nosedive. “The money for school visits dried up when the economy tanked, but now that things are recovering, schools seem to have money again.” He’s back to scheduling about twenty school visits a year and his rates are between $1200-$1500 a day.

Alan admits that the key to his success is giving kids a presentation that tells them why his books are FUN TO READ. “Talk about you--who you are, and why you wrote this book. Put some stuff in there about how you write--your process, your experience getting published. But also put in there pictures of your dogs, or your office, or you as a kid, etc. Make it personal. And make it about you and your book.”

What happens after a school visit is equally as important as the visit itself. “When I'm at a school, kids get excited about my books. Then they go home and are excited about them, and sometimes their parents buy them. I see spikes in sales (after the fact) far in excess of the totals the bookstore in town reported, because kids will go home and buy things online, or at other shops. The books circulate in the libraries too, which means there's word of mouth. Writing middle grade, especially, that's the best way to get the word out about a book--through the kids themselves.”

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Alan Gratz’s most recent book is Code of Honor, a YA thriller. He won the 2015 SIBA award for the first book in the The League of Seven trilogy. 

Alan performing a reading
at Malaprop's First Storytime Day, May 2014

Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

Congratulations to Clara Gillow Clark who won "Diary of a Waitress" off last week's blog.

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Fans of Between the Lines, a young adult novel that crosses back and forth between fantasy and contemporary fiction, will be happy with the recent release of Off the Page (Delacurte Press, 2015); the companion book which Jodi Picoult wrote in collaboration with her daughter, Samantha Van Leer. [Please note that the quotes I have selected below are from the audio book. Since I often listened while I was driving in the car, I did my best to quickly record favorite lines--when I was stopped at a traffic light or back home!]

In Between the Lines readers meet Delilah, a teenager who has fallen in love with Oliver, a prince in a fairy tale. Through an amazing amount of persistence, romance, and a sprinkling of magic, the two successfully bring Oliver into the real world by having him trade places with Edgar, the son of Jessamine Jacobs (the fictional author of Between the Lines).

In this sequel, Oliver discovers some of the pleasures and pitfalls of American life that is far different from anything he has experienced in his fairy tale kingdom. He finds out that refrigerators don't magically restock themselves and real girls, like Delilah, get jealous when other girls at school crush on him. "I've been playing a role ever since I got here," he comments. "[But] I don't know how to be a teenage boy. I only know happily ever after." At one point he acknowledges, "Being in the book was so easy. In the script there were no apologies. I wish someone could turn the pages back."

Delilah on the other hand observes, "Who would dream that having my dreams come true would suck? Now I have to share him with the world." She thought he would be the outsider, but instead, "He is gaining in popularity and I'm the same. The longer he hangs out with the cool kids the less he'll hang out with me." She admits to becoming a jealous monster who she doesn't like. 

Edgar, meanwhile, is caught inside Between the Lines. And since Delilah has the only physical/real copy of the book and she is busy keeping up with Oliver, the book never gets opened and he has no idea what is going on in real life. He observes, "Without a reader, the words just sit on the page, waiting to come alive." 

I wish I could give the book an unequivocal five star rating, but although it's plotted and written superbly, I can't. When Oliver first comes to Delilah's school, he meets a guy who is gay. When others call him a "fairy" Oliver misunderstands and a scuffle ensues. The guy is head of the LGBT club at school which once explained, Oliver heartily supports. This character makes only a cameo appearance and it appears to me, was thrown in to make the book politically correct. The character offers no substantial contribution to the plot and I find his presence offensive. 

There are many incredible lines about books, life, and play-acting in this multilayered and multi-point of view young adult novel. Picoult and Van Leer's collaboration have produced another fast paced romance. 

Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

Diary of a Waitress: A Review and ARC Giveaway

Diary of a Waitress: The Not-So-Glamarous Life of a Harvey Girl (Calkins Creek, 2015) by Carolyn Meyer chronicles six months in 17-year-old Kitty Evans' life. The time is 1926; a time when young women were expected to marry and have children with few aspirations beyond that. Kitty, on the other hand, plans to go to college to become a journalist.  

The books opens with Kitty's father's announcement that due to problems with his business, he doesn't have the money to send her to college. Left with this devastating news, Kitty impulsively decides to apply for a job as a Harvey Girl waitress. She is accepted and her life, working long days in the Harvey House Hotels and Restaurants, begins. 


Although the book warmly shows Kitty discovering her own pathway to becoming a published writer, her colorful friend Cordelia, often steals the limelight. Cordelia is a flapper, a musician, and a young woman with enough spunk to return an expensive engagement ring from a man she doesn't love. 

The "railroaders" young men who work at the roundhouse, and local ranchers, provide romantic interests for Kitty and her fellow waitresses, Emmy and Maggie. In the final chapter, when the women come together for a reunion twenty-five years later, the reader finds out the pathways that each women took. 

I enjoyed the way Meyer brought the story to a close:

"What about you, Kitty?" Cordelia asked. "Are you still writing in your journal?"
I said I was.
"You should write a book about the Harvey Girls," she said.
"A novel of romance and adventure," Emmy suggested.
"A book about us," Maggie insisted.
I promised them I'd think about it.

One of the New Mexico Harvey House Hotels
http://harvey-house.info/new_mexico_1 

Written in a diary format with black and white photographs of the real Harvey House Hotels sprinkled in, this novel will appeal to middle grade girls who enjoyed the American Girl series when they were younger. The hotels were built along the railroad lines and the book includes fun scenes where the waitresses take the trains and visit other hotels. With it's emphasis on historical accuracy, readers will be immersed in a time when waitresses were glad for a dime tip, and had to ask permission from their employer to go out on a date.  

I am giving away my gently read ARC. If you would like to win it for yourself or the middle grade girl in your life, please leave me a comment by 6 PM on October 22. If you are new to this blog, make sure you leave your email address too. 

One Stop for Writers: An Online Library Like No Other

As writers, we know how much blood, sweat, tears and perseverance it takes to "birth" a book. Countless hours of research, writing, and revising are behind every well-honed book. 

Every once in a while, something comes along that makes this process easier. I'm happy to share a brand new resource with all of you. 

Last week, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, authors of The Emotion Thesaurus, (as well as other great writing resources listed below) and Lee Powell, creator of Scrivener for Windows, unveiled their new powerhouse online library, One Stop For Writers. It is filled with one-of-a kind descriptive thesaurus collections, tools, tutorials and much more. Each one is geared towards providing the resources you need to strengthen your prose and help you write more efficiently. 

For more information, please go to Writers Helping Writers (which by the way, is a terrific blog that you should subscribe to. Their weekly posts are outstanding). Find out about One Stop and sign up for prizes. There's even a 50% coupon for any first time subscriber. 
Here's another link to their time-worthy blog.

To whet your appetite, here are some of the resources you'll find there:

Go to their Pinterest boards for more freebies and to their Dark Writing Prompts  for, well you can guess what you'll find there.

And check out this fun video!

The internet writing community is a very generous place. Thank you Angela, Rebecca and Lee for being outstanding examples. 

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For more writing resources, here's a list of books co-authored by Angela and Becca:

The Emotion Thesaurus

Emotion Amplifiers: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression 

The Positive Traits Thesaurus 

The Negative Traits Thesaurus

The Cousins Club

When my children were young, I enjoyed purchasing autographed books at writers conferences and bringing them home for birthday or holiday presents. Fast forward a few years, and now I'm purchasing books signed for my grandkids.

At the mid-year SCBWI workshop in Florida, I complained to Kim Britt, proprietor of bookmark it, that I couldn't decide which grandchild I should buy books for. 

In a moment of inspiration she said, "Start a cousins club! Buy a book and then let them pass it around to each other."

Kim Britt, proprietor
bookmarkit

She got excited explaining how I should create a pocket in the back of the book.  Each cousin could sign, date, and write what she thought about the book and leave her comments in the pocket before passing it along.

Kim's idea led to the first book dedicated to the Cousins Club by Sara Pennypacker, author of the Clementine books and The Summer of the Gypsy Moths.

And here is the first cousin to receive books:

Ebby Clark

At a recent SCBWI-Carolinas conference I asked Alan Gratz to sign The League of Seven to the cousins, which he was happy to do.

Using rubber cement, I glued this pocket into the back of the book:

Make sure the cement thoroughly dries before you insert a note (or index card) into the pocket.

If you also love sharing autographed books with the young readers in your family, I hope you start your own Cousins or Sibling Club. Send me pictures if you do. I'd love to run a follow-up post on more clubs, thanks to Kim Britt's novel idea.