A Fight to the... Middle?
They say conflict clarifies. I hope that's true.
Before we begin…
Do you, as a person or as a writer, avoid or seek out conflict? How has that been going for you?
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UPDATE
If you scroll down or click here, you’ll find some new info about the drawing we’re doing for those of you who comment on this post. I’ve just learned that the three free subscriptions to Courtney Cook’s Survival By Book will be good for an entire year, not just one month so take a look down below and share your two cents on conflict or what books you’re reading or anything you feel like talking about and you’ll be entered.
The Fight
I’m in the middle of a fight that has been suspended long enough for me to get this note out to you this week.
In my real life, I don’t especially seek out conflict (but watch out if I’m cornered). On the page, however, I go looking for it because, as my then 11-year-old son once reminded me from his sickbed years ago: “no conflict, no story.” We were watching Old Yeller in his hospital room over a long, cold Thanksgiving weekend and he was sick of my annoying suggestions to rewrite the story so everyone would just get along (and Old Yeller would live). He had good teachers back then and was a good teacher to me in all kinds of areas, including this one.
The fight that concerns me now is taking place between two women I wrote into being and now won’t let me alone until I’ve finished their story. For the past several months, I’ve had a huge draft of that story that has a pretty solid beginning, a decent ending, and some appalling gaps in the middle. In desperation, I decided that if I could write the pivotal scene – the moment when they reach a crisis or moment of decision in the novel, then I would understand how best to fill those gaps. I am not entirely sure it will work but writing is, after all, an act of faith and it was either this or facing my own pivotal decision: abandon this project forever or finish it.
So far, it feels right. Writing the scenes that bring each woman’s spoken and unspoken fears to a head, imagining their next steps is shining a brighter light on the important moments that led up to this point. So I am going to stick with it. I want to have those gaps in the middle filled by the end of the year when I will/should/hope to have a complete, if ugly, draft.
The Writer You Help May Be Me…
To you writers among us: what process, tricks, methods have worked for you to get from the beginning to the end of your story? Are you one of those writers who starts from the beginning and won’t go on until you are satisfied? Or, do you start anywhere and stitch together scenes later when the pattern emerges and the story crystallizes? Do you have an outline? Do you use it? Does your approach vary with each project? Please share even if you’ve thought about this or talked about this a million times - you never know when what you do helps another one of your brethren out of a rut.
An extra incentive…
In fact, to entice you to help us (me) out, I’m offering three free full-year subscriptions to Courtney Cook’s Survival By Book where three of you will be rewarded after a long session of reading or writing with some beautiful reading. Cook’s essays reach into your heart, wake up your brain, and always leave you thinking. The incomparable Judith Solberg of Doodle Dispatches provides the art. You’ll also be able to read Courtney’s own memoir-in-progress, College, A Love Story a look at how a writer grapples with her story piece by piece.
Here’s how the gift subscription works: you comment below, I pick three names at random from all those who have commented and send the winner a happy email with a link. The subscription after one year is over automatically unless you choose to continue. The deadline is Thursday, October 20 at midnight Pacific Time.
Here’s a taste: a look at how a gifted writer handles it when her ex-husband lifts details from her life for his own book:
Tyranny, Sherlock, Armand, and Cradles of the Reich
When I stop writing, I keep reading and adding new books to my TBR list as if I will ever live long enough to read them all. Here’s a glimpse at a few that I’ve reached for in the recent past.
Just finished (for the second time)...
Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: 20 Lessons From the Twentieth Century. This was unplanned. My husband checked it out of the library after we watched the Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust. I’ve decided I need to read this thin but powerful book every year or more often because it is so easy to believe that I am not capable of falling prey to the kind of fear and need to belong that feeds authoritarianism. Resisting requires awareness first, and then taking as many of the actions outlined in this slim volume as I can.
Am reading…
The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Lindsay Faye and Still Life, the first book in the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. Fall, with its moody weather and warnings of winter, creates the right atmosphere for mysteries and suspense. The Faye collection is yet another book pilfered from my husband’s latest library haul. I sought out the Penny book after subscribing to the free, limited series on Substack, Notes from Three Pines. Both books offer what my brain is looking for when I emerge from a day of banging on my own novel: good characters, problems that are engaging, and a look at how very good writers lean on structure in order to focus on rich characters.
Want to read…
Jennifer Coburn’s novel, Cradles of The Reich, came out this week. I’ve been looking forward to reading it since she announced it over a year ago. A carefully-researched book of historical fiction, the book is about three women involved in the Lebensborn Society, a little-known initiative to breed Aryan children during Hitler’s reign over Germany. I found this account of what led Coburn to this book and the research she did to bring it to life, fascinating. I’m eager to read the book that resulted from it all. I’m also eager to speak to Jennifer herself next month when she is back from her book tour. If you read the book and have any questions for her, share them with me and I will get them answered.
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What About You?
What are you reading or want to read these days? Share away. In fact, send a photo of the stack of books that you’ve got going by your bed so we can feature it in upcoming issues of Spark ( send photos to elizabethmarro@substack.com). Remember, everyone who comments is in the drawing for one of three free one-month subscriptions to Survival By Book.
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That’s it for this week. Let me know you are and what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in an upcoming issue of Spark, let us know! Use the comment button below or just hit reply to this email and send your message directly.
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Ciao for now.
Gratefully,
Betsy
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P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…Come, walk among us
The color beckons. Mary D. shared this glimpse of the foliage from northern New Hampshire where the dead are surrounded by beauty one more time before the snow falls.
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
Ok, it feels like the internet is trolling me because I just saw On Tyranny somewhere else and was like, that’s such a good freaking book! Literally shared it again to my audience on Ig. Then open Substack and see this. The universe is telling me something! So good. Very wise to read it every year.
As to the question on middles and conflicts. The middle is always the hardest part for me as well. On my last book, I got feedback from betas that the main character was “too mean” and others thought he was “too emotional” basically seemed like he was causing too much conflict. This got me to delve into character arcs as a means of improving the story and I used the Myers Briggs type theory to analyze my two main characters. Then I re-examined the plot based on the findings of that activity. Used a giant poster board for each of the character’s to compile it all, and lots of colored markers which was fun.
"On Tyranny" sounds like essential reading. I will add it to the list FOR SURE so thank you. I just revised my write schedule partly b/c I am finding myself unable to keep up the reading I do on Substack and my books. I am sure in my life I never had six books in progress at the same time. I feel unsettled. They are all over the map genre-wise and I like them all. I suppose I will finish the loaners first to get that off my conscience :)