Ode to My Kitty

MavenLand is a funny place. See, I had a deeply affecting weekend also, but not at all in the same way as Maven Carrie. But like Maven Carrie, I'm going to try my best to tie my life experience into writing. Actually, it won't be too hard. I'm nearing the end of Her Wicked Ways and can hardly stand to be not writing right now and pretty much every aspect of my non-writing life and writing life are blurring together. (Hmmm, how is being Girl Scout Cookie Mom feeding into my WIP? Must ponder...)

Friday evening we got some bad news about our beloved cat, Belle Kitty. Belle was a beautiful Maine Coon we adopted from the Humane Society (I picked her because she was cute, hey I knew nothing about cats!) as a kitten. Isn't she pretty? (She knew it too.) At 14 1/2 and after having diabetes for several years, Belle's kidneys were failing. She was fairly miserable and had stopped eating and drinking. Nevertheless, she still had plenty of love and bouts of purring to share, which made our decision to euthanize her on Saturday incredibly painful. Belle was my first cat and, truly, my first "baby." Mr. Burke and I can hardly remember a time when we didn't have Belle and of course she's always been in the Burkettes' lives. Our daughter, Quinn, is 7 and is doing pretty well with the loss. She's a smart, brave, and empathetic little girl. Every now and again she mentions Belle (today in the car she told me that Belle lived in our hearts, awwwww) and shows me just how resilient our spirits can be.

So what does this sad story have to do with writing? Especially since I'm not writing a sad story? Hopefully I am writing an emotional story and if nothing else, this weekend was an emotional roller coaster. And feeling emotional is a great way to write an emotional scene, right? Definitely! I was an actor in high school and college. Method actors (which I wasn't) live what they're playing. They completely plunge themselves into the character, the emotion, the circumstances. As a writer, I like to draw on personal experiences to really color my characters. As I write a scene, I (try to) put myself completely in the POV of that character, much as an actor inhabits the role they are playing. Since I am entering the last act of Her Wicked Ways, there are lots of juicy scenes with big emotion and huge stakes (I hope!).

I'm not saying anything new here, I realize. I've read plenty of blogs where people talk about things that get them into the mood of a character: a song, a scent, a picture. At the onset of a scene I try to think of myself as that character. What do they see, smell, hear, and most importantly feel? As I write my turning points and then storyboard, I think about the emotional arc of the character. Sometimes I even write the character's driving emotions on the scene notes.

Something else Belle's passing reminds me of is that like the books we write, we need dark days along with the ones when our heads are in the clouds (I've had a few of those lately, but more on that maybe next week!). Even terribly sad moments can be turned upside down as you celebrate a shared memory or find humor in something that can't possibly be funny to anyone not in your position (hopefully that makes some amount of sense). And every day is an adventure filled with high highs and low lows, all of it excellent fodder for the words we churn out every day.

Your turn: What helps you get in character? Are you a method writer? (Did I coin a new phrase? Doubtful.) Are there moods in which you write better/worse or more/less or just plain different?

Important Maven Note: Next Wednesday, be sure to stop by when Tanya Michaels/Tanya Michna will be here guest-blogging. I met Tanya at the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference in Atlanta last fall and we had a great time at our table! She's a multi-published author in several genres and reminds me that she was once a second place Maggie finalist, just like me!

Finally, sleep the good sleep our belle Belle Kitty.

Sensodumping

The Mavens welcome debut author Tessa Dare to our blog!

We always talk about the dangers of infodumping (chunks of backstory that are poorly integrated and slow down the story) but I’d argue there’s an equally insidious phenomenon of “sensodumping”—long swaths of sensory detail that may be beautifully written and evocative, but have little relevance to the actual story. Worst of all, the two — infodumping and sensodumping — often go hand-in-hand, especially in opening scenes where the writer is trying to establish the story’s physical and emotional setting.

Have you ever read a book that started something like this?

It was cold. The winter air nipped at Mary’s ears and rasped in her throat, erasing the lingering taste of her morning tea. Thin crusts of ice glazed each rut in the footpath. The wind whistled through bare tree branches; somewhere in the distance a man was chopping wood. The smell of smoke hung thick in the air. A single snowflake twirled from the sky, and Mary caught it in her palm and watched it melt.

Gathering her threadbare cloak around her, she hurried down the path. The little village she called home was simply not the same this year. Ever since the tragedy, Cotswold seemed to have entered a permanent winter. But although Mary was poor in coin, she was rich in imagination. Even in this gloomy chill, optimism warmed her heart. Unlike the rest of the villagers, she would not wait for springtime to live again.

There’s nothing especially wrong with it, is there? You get a sense of the physical setting, and you learn a bit about Mary and her backstory — but the two are completely separate. There’s a paragraph of sensodumping, followed by a paragraph of infodumping. Unfortunately, I tend to do this kind of thing a lot.

Somewhere along the line, I noticed that my favorite writers avoided both of these sins by using sensory detail to drive the revelation of characterization and backstory — and the result packed a stronger emotional punch. Take, for example, this utterly brilliant passage from the first page of Julie Anne Long’s recent release, The Secret to Seduction:

The Libertine. It was the sobriquet by which he was known throughout all of England, and his reputation was in fact such that the word of it had managed to waft, like opium-and-incense-scented smoke, all the way to the tiny, tucked-away town of Tinbury, Derbyshire—where the air, incidentally, had never been scented by anything more controversial than roast lamb, or maybe once or twice a cigar, and where life was as sedate, predictable, and pleasing as a minuet. The gentle green hills surrounding the vicarage, not to mention the Vicar of Tinbury himself, seemed to prevent local passions from becoming unduly inflamed. No one in Tinbury seemed in danger of writing sensual poetry.

What a gorgeous, vivid picture this gives of the town of Tinbury; yet the sensory description is not random sensodumping. Every detail proceeds organically from the story.

So, how could I improve Mary’s opening? Perhaps with something like this:

It was cold. The freezing air nipped at Mary’s throat where her too-small cloak gaped in front. There hadn’t been money for a new cloak this winter. Nor the winter before. Gathering the threadbare garment about her as best she could, she hastened her steps along the ice-crusted path. The distant thwacks of an ax cleaving wood cut through the thick blanket of silence. A thin curl of smoke from a nearby cottage disappeared into the winter-white sky. All was grey; all was quiet—just as it had been ever since the tragedy. This was Cotswold’s season of sorrow.

But a smile warmed Mary’s cheeks, for the air tasted of snow—crisp with anticipation, sweet as a secret. A lone snowflake twirled from the gray silence, and she caught it in her hand, admiring the bit of crystalline lace as it melted on her palm. And then it was gone. The first snowflake of winter, and a scrap of beauty none but her would ever see. The rest of the villagers kept to their thatched-roof cottages, or trained their eyes on the loamy soil beneath their feet… but not Mary. Mary looked to the sky.

Okay, JAL it isn’t, but it’s an improvement at least, don’t you think? Hopefully the sensory details draw you into the unfolding story, rather than feeling like an obtrusive break from it. The reader gets the idea that Mary is whimsical and optimistic by experiencing the scene through her senses, not by being told she’s whimsical and optimistic. (No, I’m not writing any book about a Mary in tragedy-stricken Cotswold, it’s just an example.)

Sensory description is always something I’m looking to improve. Some questions I try to ask myself as I write description these days: How would this character perceive this setting (or character) differently from anyone else? How would s/he perceive it differently than s/he has in the past? What details of the environment can evoke the mood I want to create?

Thanks for joining us, Tessa!

Do you ever notice “sensodumping” in your own writing, or in published books? What kinds of questions do you ask yourself when envisioning and incorporating sensory detail?

What Kind of Mood Do You Smell?

On Monday's post, B.E. commented:

While I was writing tonight, I discovered that I write using different senses for different scenes. I don't think you could write them all for every scene because it would be sensory overload. Think about the way you sense things in your life. At different times, different senses are prominent. First thing in the morning, you may be smelling the coffee brewing, or in the dark, only hearing things. So it is with your characters. Sometimes everything is moving so fast, only once sense comes into play.

As I said in the comments of that post, this gave me pause. When I went back to read the comment and put it in this post, however, I realized I'm not entirely sure why that comment made me think of something entirely -- well, almost, since I'm going to blog about it today -- unrelated.

When I got back my Release Your Inner Vixen comments, I had one repeating observation that really stood out. Judge A said, "The hero and heroine seem disconnected. We hear their emotions but don't feel them." Judge B said, "This was very well written, especially how you made the heroine fight to make the scene non-emotional, and in turn made her so rootable and real." Judge C said, "Love scene was so sad and dark for characters that it weakened the romantic and sexual tension. Suggest a bit more emphasis on the joy and pleasure they feel to balance the anguish, a hint more of the sweet in bittersweet."

In other words, when you put all their comments together you get the effect I was going for; that is, a deeply moving, dark, sad consummation of a love that must end... the finality of a love that cannot go on forever.

Which is awesome.

But not perfect. It looks to me like two of the judges were concerned about reader/character interaction. I think part of this is because at this point in the book, I figured the reader would already know how it feels to feel through the fierce, passionate, yet distanced heart of a warrior, and part of it is because I got so wrapped up in conveying emotion -- last week's topic -- that I forgot to convey the five senses.

One of the judges observed in another comment that we lose track of the setting very quickly. The room and the bed (which is never described aside from being in the room when she walks in) and the time of day (or night, as the case may be) and the season -- is it cold, warm, or raining outside? You don't know -- are all left out. If there is a fire in the grate, it's not warming the room. If there is there a rug on the carpet, it's not soft between the heroine's toes. Whether she's in a man's room or a woman's is not apparent, and with a cultural divide that kind of detail seen through her eyes might be interesting. What we do have is, very simply, two people existing in their own tiny, private universe for just one demanding and emotionally draining night.

In a sense, I wanted it that way. But I wasn't trying to lose the reader's connection to the story. The reader needs to feel like she's there with the characters, not watching from outside. Actually, that's probably backward in my case -- I need a little more of that instead of what I have. Right now, the reader IS the heroine, and the heroine isn't concerned with the size of the hero's, er, bed. The reader is trapped by the blinders of an emotion overdose.

I think. Or maybe Judge A just didn't get it and Judge C likes a lot of sexy description.

What do you think? Are emotions connected to the character's perception of what she or he hears/smells/tastes/touches/sees?

Sensory Integration...Wha?

Today I’m getting personal. This week’s theme sort of screams for it, actually. My six-year old daughter has sensory integration dysfunction. Some of you are nodding your head because you’ve heard of this, while others are going, “what on earth is that?” I’m going to borrow a definition for sensory integration from Carol Stock Kranowitz’s fabulous book, The Out of Sync Child Has Fun*:

Sensory integration is the normal neurological process of organizing sensations for our use in everyday life.

Clear as mud, right? I’ll give you an exercise to illustrate how this works. Stand up and look at an object at eye level – a picture on the wall is easiest. Focus on that picture and then lift one leg so that you are standing on one foot (bend your leg at the knee and stick your foot behind you). It’s fine to put your arms out to balance. Still focused on that picture? Now close your eyes. How much harder did your balancing act just get?

Our bodies are constantly processing sensory information. In the exercise you (hopefully!) just did you can see (har har) how your sight impacted your other six sensory systems. Other six sensory systems you ask? You can surely name five senses, but did you know there are two more? Beyond touch (tactile), sight (visual), hearing (auditory), taste (gustatory), and smell (olfactory), there are vestibular (balance and movement) and proprioceptive (body position).

I have an overactive vestibular system (Mr. Burke has just reminded me that I can watch a roller coaster and feel ill), myself. I tend to get carsick rather easily and fast roller coasters are not for me. It’s not because of a weak stomach, it’s because of my inner ear and how I process that kind of movement. Think of it as not having 20/20 vision or not smelling certain things as strongly as others. I have a somewhat needy proprioceptive system in that I like to hug my family. (Note: I do not hug strangers, nor do I excessively touch or hug anyone outside my immediate family – but that’s a social thing, right? Right.) Now, my daughter loves to hug and touch and since she’s just 6, she’s still learning the social rights and wrongs. If she’s craving some “prop,” she might use her feet to “tickle” someone or head-butt an adult in the legs. More commonly, she’ll “hug” herself in that she squeezes her arms and legs together so hard that she may turn red in the face. All of this input feeds her muscles and her neurological system, helping her better process her other senses (in her case, she needs an auditory boost – her visual sense is quite good).

So what in tarnation does this have to do with romance writing? Well, maybe not too much, but I do believe you can use all sorts of sensory information in your stories and characterization. I’m sure you know someone (or maybe you ARE someone) who taps their foot or rocks on their feet as they stand. Or, someone who bites their nails or wraps their fingers in their hair. All of these activities provide sensory input and I believe we do these things all day long without conscious thought as a way to process the world around us. Without our senses (including the two I’ve maybe introduced you to today), how do we know the sky is blue, the chair is as tall as it is, the shoe fits, how far we are standing from the smelly guy on the subway?

Your sensory systems impact the following skills (again, I’m borrowing from Kranowitz’s book):

-Motor planning
-Gross and fine motor
-Bilateral coordination
-Social/emotional

So you can see how our senses and how we process information affect our everyday life. Whether or not you decide to use this information to enhance your characters, it's good information to have as a human being navigating a very tricky (er, tricksy if you’re Maven Erica) world, it’s good to know we all have quirks – and there’s a reason for them! I’ll stop now because I could really go on about this topic forever.

What’s your “best” sense? Do you have any sensory quirks? Is there a way this information helps you at all with writing characters? Oh, and ask any questions you want!

*Kranowitz, Carol Scott, The Out of Sync Child Has Fun, Berkley, 2003.

Senseless

I had a devil of a time coming up with a blog topic for this week's theme, possibly because I always find it a struggle to incorporate the five senses in my work in creative and meaningful ways. It nearly always takes me several passes through a manuscript to get that aspect of it "right."

So, as I usually do when I'm running short of ideas, I hit up Google. My search for "five senses writing tips" yielded page after page of matches, but I thought it would be rather declasse of me to write a blog post that was just series of links to places you could have found through Google on your own.

One article I read did give me a glimmer of an idea, however. The author suggested doing writing exercises that focus on each of the five senses, one at a time, doing your best to ignore the others.

I'm not sure I'd want to go so far as to write in only one sense at a time, but the suggestion did make me remember that I have a book (still very much in the planning stages) with a blind heroine. Part of the reason the idea appealed to me from the moment I conceived it is the challenge involved in having to write only four of the five sense to convey that character's experiences.

It sounds hard, but I think it's possible. After all, radio dramatists have done it for decades. (And some of the funniest visuals I have in my head have come to me courtesy of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. His sound effects specialists are geniuses.)

Your Turn: If you could write a book or story using only f our senses, which four would they be? Is there one sense you find easier to write than the others? Or one you find particularly difficult?