Guest Blogger Rebecca Entel on the Tricks that Helped Her Finish Writing a Full Novel

Rebecca Entel’s first novel is Fingerprints of Previous Owners (Unnamed Press, 2017). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Guernica, Joyland Magazine, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Cleaver Magazine, The Madison Review, and elsewhere. Rebecca is an Associate Professor at Cornell College, where she teaches multicultural American literature, Caribbean literature, creative writing, and the literature of social justice. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin and a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Rebecca grew up in Cleveland and currently lives in Iowa City.

Please welcome Rebecca Entel.

Maybe it’s part of my process to imagine having better writing days than I actually have. In my mind’s eye, there I am at my desk or on the couch or at a table in the library, fingers flying as I produce and produce and produce. It’s much harder to be inside that body I’m imagining watching from afar – to be the one staring at the screen, resisting the click-away temptation of the internet, believing in what could come next.

I had been writing and teaching writing for many years before publishing Fingerprints of Previous Owners. Part of my process in writing that first novel was seeing if I could, in fact, even finish one. I got to travel many times for this project, which takes place at a Caribbean resort built over the ruins of a slave plantation. I even learned how to use a machete to reach those ruins for my research. But most of my time was spent staring at the screen, feeling frustrated. I’d spend too much time trying to get the conditions right for becoming the writer that existed in my mind, and then when I actually sat down to write, I’d feel fundamentally not up to the task. Those images of watching myself writing prolifically had become one more weight getting in my way.

The only way I seemed to get anything done was when I tricked myself into writing, by using all the tricks I’d counseled my students to use when they were feeling stuck. Two of these tricks had a major impact on the development of the book.

What’s something you know about that your readers may not?

A grad professor of mine once recommended we think about this question, finding something unique to describe that might inject some energy. Posing it to myself, I thought back to learning how to use that machete. I’d been taught it was a tool of gravity, not of force. No matter how strong you were, hacking away wouldn’t do much good. You need a sharp blade and the right angle, then let gravity do its job. I began free-writing about this and discovered a voice that belonged to Myrna, the book’s main character, who was secretly excavating the ruins. The machete became thematically important, too, since Myrna didn’t have much power, physical or otherwise; she had to be sharp and find the right angle to get where she wanted to go.

What will you learn if you free-write from a minor character’s perspective?

I advise my students to find multiple ways to jump away from the main thrust of their stories. This particular exercise isn’t necessarily about writing material to be included in the text; it’s about the writer discovering new information.

On the days I felt most stuck, I let myself write short narratives from the perspectives of minor characters in my protagonist’s community. I learned a ton about the island’s history, more than my narrator could know, and much of it allowed me to add texture to the fictional island I was creating, where what does not get talked about fuels Myrna’s machete adventures. That secretive aspect of the book hedged me in because I couldn’t reveal anything beyond Myrna’s perspective, which, combined with the typical limitation of the first-person narrator, and her intense focus on her excavations, isolated her character from friends and family.

Some of these free-writing exercises eventually became parts of the book in which I let other characters speak. These characters never would have come to life if I hadn’t let myself experiment with their voices. In talking to readers, I’ve learned how important these side stories were to their reading experience. They needed these breaks from Myrna’s perspective. So perhaps my feelings of being mired in the writing was actually a clue into what my readers might feel, too.

I wouldn’t have finished Fingerprints if I hadn’t relied on these tricks to help me stop thinking about the to-be-finished Fingerprints. I hadn’t thought of the various exercises I offer students as necessarily related before, but I came to see that many of them focused on relieving writers of the pressure of writing a book –  distracting writers from that larger aim so they could write something.

In speaking with other writers, particularly students, I’ve also been reminded how helpful it is to hear writers speak honestly and practically about what their processes were before their books were ever books.

Connect with Rebecca at her website, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

She is teaching an online novel writing workshop for Catapult beginning in June.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- August 25, 2017 Edition

> Flesh out your fictional characters by thinking of them as...horses? Yes, says Roz Morris.

> This Quartz piece's stance is a bit strident, but I do agree that sometimes talking, talking, talking about writing projects can often drain them of creative energy. 

> Indivisible and the Op-Ed Project offer some tips and guidelines for writing editorial advocacy materials (scroll down).

> Literary journals open and close to submissions according to predictable--and often unpredictable--schedules. AuthorsPublish offers this list of journals that are always open.

> Ever have someone scrawl in the margins of your work: Head Hopping! or POV shift? ...and not be precisely sure what this means or how to avoid it? Here's a primer.

> Brag Box Times Two: 

           Since I'm already partial to stories in which the weather is a kind of character, that makes this flash piece, written by my former MFA student Bethany Petano, twice as nice.

           Many congratulations to my former client Kathryn Sollmann, on her book contract with Hachette for Ambition Redefined: Creating Lifetime Security (Without Neglecting Your Family or Yourself) in a More Flexible Workplace. It was a pleasure working with Kathryn on the book proposal that helped her land the agent who sold her book! 

> Finally, you have until August 26 to leave a comment on Melissa Palmer's guest post and maybe snag a complimentary copy of one of her books.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons-switthoft

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- January 27, 2017 Edition

> At Women on Writing, Chelsey Clammer's series on submissions this time tackles formatting -- how and why writers are asked to submit their work differently for different venues. And more.

> Helpful interview/craft advice about writing backstory, from Lisa Cron, author of Story Genius, over at Writers in the Storm blog.

> At the Penguin/Random House site, a friend stumbled across this short round-up of (PRH-published) books by authors from, or about, New Jersey. Looks like it's part of their United States of Books series.

>AWP, the largest gathering of writers in North America, takes places in February in Washington, D.C. If you're going, and are interested in writing about any part of it, I'd love to talk about a guest post. Email me! (see side margin)

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons-1950sUnlimited

Guest Blogger David Galef on: One Solution to a Lot in a Little Space -- The Flash Vignette

In the world of creative nonfiction, where I swim most of the time as a writer, brevity is not only a craft goal, but also closely associated with Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. What follows, however, is a post adapted from a new fiction craft book, entitled, yes, Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook.

Now that we've cleared up any possible confusion, I'm pleased to introduce the book's author, David Galef. David is not only a fellow New Jersey writer and an accomplished author, but also the head of the creative writing program at Montclair State University, where I teach on and off (at the moment, I'm "off"). David would argue—and I agree—that much of what he offers in his new book is equally applicable to narrative nonfiction, as it is to fiction writing. I'm finding it particularly helpful myself, as I'm revising my first two pieces of fiction—one a medium-length short story, and the other a piece of flash which, like this introduction, is crying out for, well, brevity.

Please welcome David Galef

            By definition, flash fiction is rendered in miniature. But what happens when you start cutting down on words? What becomes of plot, character development, and thematic depth? Obviously, some of what you can attain in a longer story is going to have to go. Forget the long landscape description or the three scenes showing the grandmother’s slow decay from Parkinson’s. On the other hand, some treatments are particularly suited for the short run. One well-known form is the vignette.

            The vignette started in fifteenth-century printing as a decorative border of vines around a page, then turned into what the vines enclosed, usually a page with an illustration. We now think of it as an illustrative scene, a literary sketch. The French coined a term for this form, calling it tranche de vie (literally, “slice of life”), and its ingenuity lies in what any cross-section reveals: the hidden depths of an interior view.

            Picture two eight-year-olds playing croquet: those unwieldy mallets, the lawn sloping unfairly, and one ball headed for the bushes. This vignette, just begun, might be called “Game.” It shows the seemingly innocent fun had by two small children on a Sunday afternoon, with more than a hint of pre-tween rivalry. We’ll name the children Ivan and Sandra and make them neighbors. You can hear the smack of mallets on the balls along with some conversation about school. But after the first paragraph, Ivan says something nasty about Sandra’s mother. Sandra responds not by hitting Ivan’s ball with hers but by kicking it. The “game” escalates from there.

            As you can see, “Game” isn’t a story with a proper beginning, middle, and end. It’s a moving picture that becomes a sketch or scene, suggesting something beyond. The term “sketch” is all the more apt when you think of visual art, in which a sketch is the essential lines of a drawing, but not filled in.

            Here are some guidelines for creating a vignette:

            Focus on a moment. If you start to chronicle any substantial duration stop, and instead deepen the presentation of what’s already there: waiting half an hour for a date to show up, a missed five-minute opportunity to help a stranger.

            Develop only as much as you need to register an impression of either a character or an event or even a mood. One trait indicates a sunny personality; a distorted shadow indicates trouble.

            Think in psychological terms. Your sketch has a meaning beyond its mere existence because of what it represents: an old woman who can’t enjoy a summer afternoon, a boss who won’t take no for an answer. Here are five pointers for this kind of treatment:

            1.         Don’t merely describe. Follow the action. Dramatize.

            2.         Do more with less. One short scene from a day is plenty.

            3.         Be representative. One small portion can stand in for a whole life.

            4.         Go for evocative, concrete details, not abstractions.

            5.         If possible, find a way to give shadows and depth to your sketch. Make it mean more than what it seems on the surface.

            If you're interested in trying a vignette, Here are a few exercises:

            Think of yesterday as a sequence of events. Then choose a common incident, such as lunch, an hour at work, or a car ride. Now describe it, animate it, and dramatize it so that the reader gets a vivid picture of what’s going on, on both an exterior and an interior level.

            For instance: With a smile, I serve plate after plate of the daily special, spaghetti and meatballs, at Abe’s Diner, but I really hate my job. Or: She hitches a ride home with a coworker, a man she’d like to ask out, but she hasn’t got the nerve.

            What incident did you choose, what did it show, and why was it significant? How much of the character did you reveal, and in what ways? Did anything change over the course of the event?

            Try conveying emotion or attitude in miniature. Here are some specific directives: What slice of life—the more ordinary, the better—would you use to show envy at the way your parents treat your brother? How good does your friend think she is at driving versus how inept she really is? Why is that man on the curb accosting passersby by asking the same question over and over?

            When your vignette is complete, you’ll know it, or your readers will. From one angle, it may look like a line segment, a point that travels from A to B. But viewed as a segment cut from the whole, it’s character dealing with event in a way that reveals the line as a lot longer, back into the past or into the future. A good vignette extends far beyond its narrative span; it displays a life.

David Galef has published flash fiction in Agni, Smokelong Quarterly, NANO Fiction, Norton’s Flash Fiction Forward, and in his book My Date with Neanderthal Woman. He is the author of the novels Flesh, Turning Japanese, and How to Cope with Suburban Stress; edited an essay anthology, Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading; and co-edited the anthology of fiction, 20 over 40. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, and  The Village Voice, among other places, and he is a humor columnist for Inside Higher Ed.  Connect with David at his website and via Twitter. 

Author Interview with Lisa Lenzo on her short story collection, Strange Love

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to occasionally edit essays and short stories for Brain, Child magazine—a most enjoyable freelance editing gig. That's how I met Lisa Lenzo, whose short story collection, Strange Love (Wayne State University Press) was published in 2014. I so enjoyed working with her on "Aliens," a story that first appeared in Brain, Child, that I knew I'd want to follow-up one day with an author interview. When I read the book, I was captivated not only by Lisa's prose, storycraft, and characters, but by the setting along Lake Michigan, and the role the lake and weather plays in her book. 

Strange Love is a current finalist for Foreward Review's IndieFab Book of the Year, and was also chosen as a Michigan Notable Book for 2015. Bonnie Jo Campbell, in her endorsement on the back cover writes, "These stories will surprise you with their intensity and intimacy, and Lenzo's language will mesmerize you." 

Lisa L. was kind enough to answer my nosy questions.   

Please welcome Lisa Lenzo

Q. The stories move in a chronological way, with the same central characters – Annie and her daughter Marly – over 10-plus years, but also leave out chunks of time. Did you write them in that order? Did you write additional stories to make the collection fuller? Were there other Annie/Marley stories that you left out?

LL. I wrote the first story, “Still Life,” many years ago—it was finished in time to include in my first book, Within the Lighted City, but it wasn’t a good fit for that collection. I didn’t write my next relationship story until a decade later, when, after coming home from another date with an odd and interesting yet frustrating man, I thought: This is ridiculous! This is hilarious! I need to write this down. And I proceeded to write down scene after scene from that relationship, which I then transformed into a story. At some point I had three long stories about my relationships with various men, and I realized I could write several more and have a collection.

I ended up with five or six long stories, which I showed to my writing group. They really liked Marly, Annie’s daughter, who appeared in many of her mother’s stories, and they wanted to see more of her. They also thought the stories about the mom’s boyfriends should be cut way back. So I cut the five stories I had about Annie by about half and wrote four Marly stories, which I then interspersed between the Annie stories. That makes it sound easier than it was.

The most difficult thing was to write each story so that it stood alone, yet didn’t repeat what was included in the earlier stories. For instance, when I mentioned Marly’s flame-red hair or her abusive boyfriend in one story, I couldn’t mention them again in a subsequent story as if introducing them for the first time.

Q. I understand you tried to make the collection into a novel but it didn't feel right. Can you talk about that attempt, the process of understanding whether you are writing a novel or a collection, and what drove your final decision?

LL. I knew I was writing a collection early on, and by the time I was done, that it was a novel-in-stories. But my agent said that the term “novel-in-stories” was not being used anymore, that the term in favor was “linked collection,” and collections “don’t sell.” It was my agent’s idea to turn it into a novel so that she could sell it—she thought I would be able to transform it into a novel, because it was almost one already. 

So I tried to do what she asked by filling in the chronological gaps and also filling out Annie’s and Marly’s lives, so that the focus wasn’t so much on boys and men. But I ended up with my string of neat, self-contained stories—each its own little cabin--looking as if I’d tacked them together with scrap lumber. And I found the overall story was stronger when there were time gaps and the focus was mainly on men. Of course you can’t help but get some sense of the rest of Annie’s and Marly’s lives, too, especially the mother-daughter relationship, which is the strongest and maybe the most interesting relationship in the book. Ironically, I think Strange Love as it is could have “passed” for a novel—readers and reviewers keep telling me it reads like one.

Q. Lake Michigan (often ice covered) is central in the stories, and you've said that as a Michigan native the lake is in your "bones". Do you think of the lake as a character in the book?

LL. I grew up in Detroit, which is also in my bones, but when I first came to live on the lake at the age of 18, I fell under its spell, and it has held me ever since. “Character” seems too small a thing to describe The Lake, which, from the vantage point of anyone on the beach, looks as big and wide as an ocean. It’s actually an inland sea, and for Annie, it’s as large as God—or actually, maybe larger, since she’s not sure God exists. And the Lake is Godlike—vast, mysterious, powerful, both soothing and harsh. It’s larger than life, larger than any character I can conceive of, whether man, woman, or child. It is an overreaching and underlying presence in Annie’s life and mine.

Q. Annie and Marly are variously in relationships with men and always with each other; so there's some romantic love, and some is familial--representative of the pursuit of love itself, which often does feel strange or work out strangely. I wonder what you had in mind by the title?

LL. Yes, it’s the pursuit of love that feels strange and works out strangely. And all love is somewhat strange, when you consider it closely enough--both weird and wondrous. At the same time, I think most people will agree that Annie and Marly’s men, with maybe one exception, are odd or strange or eccentric to varying degrees, and that Annie and Marly are somewhat unusual, too. As Marly says at one point, “You’re not exactly casebook normal, Mom, and I’m on medication.”

Q. We first came into contact when I was a freelance editor for Brain, Child, working with you on minor revisions for the story, "Aliens," in which a teenage Marly tries to distance herself from her mother. I was so happy to see Annie and Marly again in the pages of your book, as if they were old friends. I wonder, is that a small glimpse of what it's like for a fiction writer when you go back and revive characters?

LL. I tend to come back to the same characters, based on my family and myself. Then I need a break from them, so I write something totally different. Then I come back to my family again and, yes, it is nice to be in familiar territory, where I know the people so well that the main challenge is not in creating characters but in conveying them to the reader as richly as I can.

Q. Some writers find it easier to write about a geographic place when they are away from it, while others like to be in the environment they are writing about. Where do you fit in? Do you write best about Michigan and the lake region while there? Did you get away at any time while writing, and did that help or hinder your ability to conjure the place on the page?

LL. I think I work better when I’m in the place I’m writing about. Then,for instance, if I want to describe the ice on the lake, I can just walk down to the lake in winter and check it out. I’ve recently finished Taking the Blue Star, a novel set in and around Saugatuck, Michigan, and after one of the earlier drafts was done, I had a friend drive me to all the places where the characters traveled, at the same time of year (November) that the novel takes place, so I could look around me as my friend drove and flesh out the details related to setting.

Looking out at the fields of corn, still standing but dead, the stalks pale and dry, I thought ghost corn, unsure of whether I’d made up that phrase or heard it somewhere, and I gave that thought and phrase to one of my characters. One of the scenes happens at a nearby monastery, and another at the local gun and pizza shop, places I don’t normally frequent, and I wandered through both several times, getting a feel for them and seeing what was on display and for sale, casing both joints for whatever details I needed to use for my novel.

Q. Your introduction mentions you couldn't have completed the collection "without my writing pals". Can you talk about your writing community? Is it a matter of getting actual feedback on drafts? Or is it (instead or also) more about support and encouragement, having someone around who knows what an editorial rejection feels like?

LL. I rely on both things—feedback is essential and emotional support is, too—but since I am dedicated to writing and am not going to be deterred by rejection, it’s the feedback that I need the most. I sometimes worry that I’m missing out on greater connection to writers and writing communities, because unlike most writers, I have a nonacademic job, and I work too late in the evenings to attend most readings. I’m looking for an agent to sell my finished novel, and I wonder if it would be easier if I were in an academic setting and had access to more writers. But I’m grateful for all the writers I do know. And I truly rely on my closest writing friends to help me make my rough manuscripts into finished ones.

Q. In the online MFA program I teach in, we talk about designing a writing life, given that most students will always have a full- or part-time "day job" that isn't writing (and not every writer will want to teach). I believe that, like your character Annie, you work for a bus company. Can you describe how you organize time around your job, and how you sustain a writing life? In terms of productivity and craft, what does a writer, in it for the long haul, need to do to continue to write and not be frustrated by lack of time?

LL. I’m lucky in that, rather than working 9 to 5, I work in the afternoons, so I have the whole morning to write—more time than a lot of my teacher friends who are writers. The drawback is I usually work at my job six days a week and also into the evening, I don’t have summers off, and I’ve never had a sabbatical. Like any serious writer, I still have to draw lines around my writing time and create a balance between time for writing, family, friends, errands, etc. I worry that sometimes my friends and family are disappointed in some of my choices. But they mainly understand, I think, and it helps tremendously that I have a super supportive husband.

Q. What are you working on now? In addition to fiction, do you write in any other genre or form?

LL. Right now I’m doing research and taking notes for a book whose working title is None of Us Are Free. It’s an autobiographical and historical novel that takes place in Detroit, focusing on 1972 and 1973, when I was 15 and active in a city-wide radical movement whose main concerns were the criminal (in)justice system, the heroin epidemic, and a lethal and racist police unit known as STRESS. In addition to fiction, I also write creative nonfiction. My work often falls between the two, and I’m constantly struggling with trying to decide and define which of the two I’m creating. Some pieces are definitely one or the other, but many occupy a middle ground.

Note from Lisa Romeo: You might enjoy this Michigan Radio interview with Lisa Lenzo. And be sure to visit her website.

Swag ! Lisa Lenzo would like to send one blog reader a complimentary signed copy of her book. Just leave a comment here by Sunday, April 5. (Must have a U.S. postal address.)

Images of Lake Michigan ice, courtesy of Charlie Schreiner; others courtesy Lisa Lenzo

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, Feb. 10, 2012 Edition

►Fans of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way -- there's an app for that.

►Over at Fiction Writers Review, challenging advice on fiction writing, yearning, and being fearless, from Robert Olen Butler.

►For those who want to do more magazine writing, check out this excellent instructional post on The Science (Not Art) of the Magazine Pitch, from a Stanford University journalism professor. (via @LaurieAbkemeier)

►In a guest post on Jane Friedman's blog, C.S. Lakin has helpful tips for choosing a freelance editor. Since I do that work myself, I'm in favor of prospective clients putting a lot of thought into the selection process, and agree with her advice for a test-drive: "If you’ve found someone who might be the right editor for you, but you’re still hesitant, hire her to edit a few chapters. See how it goes—not just the editing but the overall communication and support."

►I am occasionally asked to suggest online poetry classes that, like mine for creative nonfiction, last only a few weeks, are affordable, and provide a lot of feedback. A poet friend I trust recommends the offerings at The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative.

►Poet and essayist Sheila Squillante, on saying goodbye -- to the just-folded MFA program where she earned a degree and once worked, to a writer friend, and more. 

►Northern New Jersey nonfiction writers might want to check out this ArtsQuest  one-day memoir writing conference in Bethlehem, PA on April 28.

►The ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors) is hosting a two-hour seminar on "Writing About Your Mother and/or Father," in Manhattan (also available via live webcast) on March 6.

Have a great weekend!