Juggling Multiple Points of View

It’s hard enough to juggle one or two balls in the air, never mind four, but that’s exactly what Barbara O’Connor does in her newest novel, Greetings From Nowhere, spinning a tale from four different points-of-view with the dexterity of a master juggler.

How does she do it?

Here are the four points-of-view from which the story is told:

* Aggie, an elderly widow who can no longer keep up the Sleepy Time Motel in the Smoky Mountains that she bought years earlier with her husband, Horace, and decides to sell it.

* Willow, whose mother Dorothy recently walked out on Willow’s father to live with her sister in Savannah, leaving Willow and her father alone.

* Loretta, a girl who has never met her birth mother (her "other mother," as she calls her), and receives a package from her after her death filled with keepsakes that offer hints to who she might have been and where she might have gone.

* And Kirby, who is being sent to a school for unruly boys where his mother and step-father and father hope he’ll learn to control his anger and improve his behavior.

It’s Aggie’s decision to sell the hotel that sets the story in motion.

When Willow’s father sees the ad in the paper, he decides to buy the motel, hoping to start a fresh life.

At the same time, Loretta receives a box from her "other mother," and one of the keepsakes in the box is a charm bracelet with charms from different places. As a way of helping Loretta imagine what her mother might have been like, her parents decide to take her to a handful of places .. and the first charm leads them to the Smoky Mountains and the motel.

Just as Willow and Loretta are setting out for the motel, so too is Kirby and his mother. When their car breaks down by the motel on their way to his new school in the mountains, they have to wait there for Kirby’s father to send them the money so they can repair the car and get on their way.

Ultimately, all the characters end up at the motel, and the four different points of view converge on one another, and the individual plot-lines build into a larger story as each character struggles with his or her own problem.

That’s the back-story of Greetings From Nowhere, but it doesn’t begin to describe the rich relationships that O'Connor develops between the children... or the unexpected affection the children feel for Aggie or that Aggie feels for them.

It’s as if each child–and Aggie, too–finds at the motel, if only for a short time, the family that they yearn for most, even Kirby, who arrives at the motel and crosses out the heading on one of the post cards that he steals from the motel office, changing it from “Greetings from the Smoky Mountains” to “Greetings from Nowhere.”

By the end of the story, Kirby no longer feels like he’s nowhere but someplace quite special, which is how I feel whenever I open one of O’Connor’s books.

She’s that rare author who can create characters with voices so distinct and pure that they linger in your heart long after you turn the last page.

For more on juggling points of view, visit:
http://www.gillianroberts.com/lesson06.html
http://allkindsofwriting.blogspot.com/2006/02/right-point-of-view-protagonists-pov.html
http://www.sff.net/people/nankress/about.htm
http://geeknotions.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/vantage-point-has-a-point-for-writing/
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/headhop.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module20p

For more on Barbara O’Connor, visit her website:
http://www.barboconnor.com/

One Writer's Process: Barbara O'Connor

Barbara O'Connor lives in the North now, but she's an author with deep Southern roots and her novels--Beethoven in Paradise, Moonpie and Ivy, Me and Rupert Goody, and Fame and Glory in Freedom, GA--still retain strong echoes of her childhood home in Greenville, SC.

You can hear these echoes in her voice as soon as you open the pages of one of her books. Her voice contains a magical, easy-flowing smoothness, sweet as molasses, but deeper and richer, full of life's pain and loneliness, yet tinged with a touch of Southern humor, too.

O'Connor, who recently finished the draft of a new novel ("I've finally written those two glorious words: The End!"), was kind enough to share some of her thoughts on writing before beginning revisions ("I know there will be rewrites, but for me the first draft is the biggest hurdle.")

Wordswimmer: How do you get into the water each day?

O'Connor: While I'd rather just jump right in, I usually find it most helpful to wade in--down the steps and through the shallow end and then gliding on into the deep end. In other words, I find it helpful to read through at least a portion of what I've written the day before. This refreshes my memory about where I left off, but also gets me into the rhythm, tone, and voice of the piece--elements that are particularly critical for me.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

O'Connor: For me, "short work" means a chapter and "longer work" means the whole book. I tend to treat each chapter as an individual unit with a "life" of its own--primarily with regard to structure and pacing. I use chapters to help me pick up the pace of the whole piece by moving along in large chunks of time or by creating tension to spur the reader along. I also structure the chapter with a beginning, middle, and end, similar to the whole piece.

[In terms of structure,] I find that studying scriptwriting is very beneficial. Scripts have very tight structure. They must pull the reader in immediately and must have quick pacing. One book I particularly like is Making a Good Script Great by Linda Seger. Her explanation of the three-part story structure, the use and placement of backstory, the necessity of turning points and the placement of the climax have taught me a lot about the overall structure of my books. In fact, I used her book to set up the structure of Me And Rupert Goody.

I think what keeps me afloat with a piece of short work is being 150% inside the character's head. Since my books are, for the most part, character driven (as opposed to plot driven), the character is the critical element for success.

As far as the longer work (i.e., the whole book), I'd like to say what keeps me afloat is knowing where I'm going. But, alas, that doesn't always happen. So I guess I'd say, then, at least having hope that the ending will reveal itself to me eventually.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

O'Connor: I get frustrated when I hear people say to just keep writing and push your way through a dry spell. When I've hit a block or am not feeling inspired, if I try to write anyway, I invariably get frustrated and, worse than that, usually produce some pretty crappy stuff. Those situations, for me, are almost never productive. I find that I'm better off getting a little distance from my work--either by a nice long walk (or two or three) or even by reading authors who inspire me. It might sound a tad strange, but, since I write Southern fiction, I sometimes take a break and listen to country music--and often get a nice kickstart back into my work.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

O'Connor: The hardest part, for me, is getting through those dry spells mentioned above. I'm lucky in that I think I've found my own distinctive writing voice and, fortunately, have learned when I'm on track with it and when I'm not. So when I write and start getting that "this-is-not-my-voice" feeling, well, I hate that.

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

O'Connor: I try not to swim alone. I really think that all writers need someone to help in the critique process. Sometimes we need someone to confirm a doubt, to point out an inconsistency, etc. Sometimes we need someone to validate a storyline or who "gets" (or doesn't "get") a character. But, with that said, I also think that writers need to trust their own instincts in many situations, even if others disagree. While it's hard, and I sometimes fail, I really try to figure out what advice/critique to take and what to leave. I think doing that well just comes with experience.

As far as who I turn to for critique, I belong to a fabulous writers group. They are my first line of fire. I also have a friend, whose opinion I value, who reads the final first draft. And then, of course, my brilliant editor.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

O'Connor: When characters take on a life of their own and pull you along with them through the story. I love that. And I love that rush of a feeling when everything just clicks into place--the voice, the character, the story--and you know where you're going and you can hardly get the words down fast enough. I wish I could say that happens a lot, but alas, it doesn't. But when it does...it makes up for all those icky staring-at-a-blank-piece-of-paper-with-no-ideas times.

Wordswimmer: Thanks, Barbara.

O'Connor: I've enjoyed chatting with you and really admire what you are doing. It's a wonderful resource for all levels of writers.

For more information about Barbara O'Connor and her work, visit her website at http://www.barboconnor.com. Her next book, How to Steal a Dog, is due out in Spring, 2007.

(P.S. - Wordswimmer's next post will appear on Aug. 20th.)

A Magical Voice

Southern storytellers are known for weaving magical spells, their voices rising and falling with the mesmerizing rhythm of the sea.

They draw readers close with voices as inviting as gentle waves, as silky smooth as molasses.

Barbara O'Connor is an author with deep Southern roots (Greenville, SC) who now lives in the north (Duxbury, MA). She may have moved far from home, but her voice still possesses the easy-flowing pace of the South.

The moment that you open any of her books--Beethoven in Paradise, Moonpie and Ivy, Me and Rupert Goody, and Fame and Glory in Freedom, GA--you can hear O'Connor's voice, as sweet as sugar, but containing much of life's loneliness and pain, too.

Listening to her spin a tale, you feel like you're sitting next to her on the porch, sipping pink lemonade under the stars on a warm summer night.

Pull your chair closer, listen to the opening paragraph of Me and Rupert Goody:

Before Rupert Goody waltzed hisself into Claytonville, I nearly always knew how my days would start and how they'd end. Could've bet my last nickel on nearly everything in between. That's how I like things--predictable. That's how come I spend my days at Uncle Beau's.

There's a casual down-home rhythm to the voice of the narrator--a spunkiness but a neediness, too.

Above all, it's a storyteller's voice, luring readers into the story by raising questions in our minds about what will happen next.

How does O'Connor do this?

Look at the language--"waltzed hisself," "nearly always," "could've bet my last nickel," "like things predictable"--and you can begin to understand how O'Connor wraps a spell around her readers.

"Waltzed hisself..." is a clear example of the colloquial roots of this narrator, her way of talking that's unique to her.

"Nearly always..." is a stark contrast to the certainty of her opinion in "waltzed hisself"... and it's here that we begin to sense the narrator's uncertainty, a hint of her vulnerability.

"Could've bet my last nickel..." is an expression that echoes a place, a region of the country where you might hear such a phrase... and gives the reader a sense of the character's place in the world.

"Like things predictable..." gives readers a sense of the narrator's emotional equilibrium. It implies a) that things are no longer predictable; b) that the narrator needs life to be predictable (for an unspecified reason that will become clear in time); and c) that the narrator may have some difficulty relating to Rupert, the new person in town.

In O'Connor's Moonpie and Ivy, the story starts off with an equally compelling hook to pull readers into the story.

Here, come closer and listen:

Pearl wondered exactly when it was that her mama had gone off the deep end. Was it that day she marched into Pearl's fourth-grade class and gave the teacher what for so bad the police came and took her away? Was it that night she cut her hair off with a Swiss Army knife just to show that so-called boyfriend of hers a thing or two? Or maybe it was just last week, when she told Pearl to pack her things 'cause they were leaving Tallahassee, Florida, never to return.

In the opening paragraph O'Connor sets a number of tantalizing questions in her reader's mind:

1) Not only does Pearl wonder... but the reader wonders, too... if Mama went off the deep end and when... and how Pearl will respond to such an event. Will she survive? Or will she go off the deep end, too?

2) O'Connor gives specific examples of Mama's craziness...which allows the reader to experience what Pearl has had to deal with... and what she may have to deal with in the future (raising the reader's anticipation of danger).

3) The phrase "leaving Tallahassee, never to return" plants another question in the reader's mind. What happened to cause Pearl and her mother to leave Tallahassee and never return? It sets up the story as journey into the unknown. The reader knows where the characters have come from... but not yet where they're going (hinting at a journey filled with possible difficulties for the young girl).

4) And, of course, underlying all these questions is the question of whether Pearl and her mother are together... or if Pearl is alone... and, if so, how she'll survive... and whether she and her mother will ever be re-united?

The second paragraph responds in part to Pearl's anxiety about her mother's sanity:

Pearl didn't know. But her Aunt Ivy seemed fairly sure of herself as she stood on the porch behind Pearl and said, "I hate to tell you this, honey, but your mama's done gone off the deep end."

It's here that we're introduced to Aunt Ivy, a character who sympathizes with Pearl from the start. O'Connor makes this clear from the way Ivy expresses her care and concern, her warmth shining through her language and gestures.

The story will play out between Aunt Ivy and Pearl. Will Pearl find love and sanity (and stability) with her aunt? Or will she inevitably have to confront her mama once more before the end of the story?

It's with such questions--and a magical voice--that O'Connor spins her tales, drawing us deeply into the hearts of her characters.

If you want to sit on the porch under the stars of a Carolina night listening to a master storyteller, you might take a look at O'Connor's work.

For more information on Barbara O'Connor and her work, check out her website: http://www.barboconnor.com/index.htm and look for her thoughts on writing in a future Wordswimmer post.