You never know where your pen will take you

You never know when you begin

where your pen will take you.

It's like stepping into a boat

and setting sail across a lake

hoping for the wind to point you

in the right direction.

Or like diving into a pool

hoping you can float.

It's always a mystery how one word

leads to another, how you can create

a trail of words and a path appears

that didn't exist before you began.

It's always a surprise what you find 

along the way, something unexpected, 

something you've never seen before,

something you're able to see in a new light,

from a new perspective. 

You never know what you'll find 

each time you begin. It's like going 

on a treasure hunt, like being pulled 

by a magnet you can't see, can only feel 

tugging at your heart.

Hooking the Reader

How does an author grab our interest from the first page and pull us into the story so quickly and deeply that we are reluctant to shut the book for fear something might happen while we're gone and we might miss something exciting?

In her Newberry Honor Book The War That Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley hooks the reader's attention on the first page—in the very first line—and creates the kind of momentum that makes the story feel like a freight train picking up speed and careening down a hillside.

Here’s the opening paragraph:

“Ada! Get back from the window!” Mam’s voice, shouting. Mam’s arm, grabbing mine, yanking me so I toppled off my chair and fell hard to the floor.

In that opening word —“Ada!”—we are introduced simultaneously to the main character, Ada, and to the person who is her greatest antagonist, her mother, calling her name.

Ada—although we don’t yet know her age— appears to be in immediate danger sitting or standing too close to the window, and her mother’s concern—the shouting, the grabbing, the yanking away from the window—seems to reflect a mother’s natural worry about a child in danger who has gone too close to an open window and is at risk of falling out. 

But then the second paragraph reveals that our assumption might be incorrect, that there’s something else underlying the relationship.

Here, take a look at what comes next:

“I was only saying hello to Stephen White.” I knew better than to talk back, but sometimes my mouth was faster than my brain. I’d become a fighter, that summer.

Ada has become a fighter. We still don’t know her age, only that she has discovered her own strength and is willing to stand up to her mother’s unreasonable demands. This second paragraph shows us that Ada wasn’t at risk of falling out of the window, as we might have feared in the first paragraph. She merely wanted to say hello to a friend.

So the question Bradley has planted in her reader’s mind is this: why would Mam object to Ada simply sitting at a window and saying hello to a friend?

The third paragraph reveals the fundamental truth and sadness of their mother-daughter relationship:

Mam smacked me. Hard. My head snapped back against the chair leg and for a moment I saw stars. “Don’t you be talkin’ to nobody!” Mam said. “I let you look out that window out a’ the kindness of my heart, but I’ll board it over if you go stickin’ your nose out, much less talking to anyone!”

We are only three paragraphs into the story, and already our heart is aching for Ada, whose mother seems not only overbearing but cruel in ways that appear unfair and border on abusive. We aren't yet finished with the first page of the book, yet already we are wondering how Ada can possibly survive such a relationship.

Still, it’s unclear why her mother wants her to stay away from the window. Before the end of the first page, though, we learn the reason.

Ada, in her defense for looking out the window, says her younger brother, Jaime, is outside, reasoning why shouldn’t she be allowed to look outside, even if she’s not allowed to go outside?

And her mother responds, revealing the reason for her severe treatment of her daughter:

“And why shouldn’t he be?” Mam said. “He ain’t a cripple. Not like you.”

Ada is a cripple. We don’t know yet how or why she became a cripple, only that in her mother’s eyes being a cripple is a kind of sin, a stain that she can’t erase. But as becomes obvious over the course of the story, Mam nonetheless tries to erase the “stain” of her daughter’s crippleness from the world by keeping Ada out of sight. 

And so we have the beginning of the story. The weight of the challenge for the main character is clear. Not only does Ada have to overcome an abusive mother but she has to face the challenge of living the life of a cripple.

As the story unfolds, we hope, like Ada, that if she learns to walk—she was born, it turns out, with a club foot—perhaps she might be able to gain her mother’s love or, if not, then escape her mother's abuse. 

So… Ada begins to teach herself how to walk at great physical and emotional expense … and the reader joins her every step of the way.

For more info about Bradley and her work, visit her website: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Grabbing the reader

How does a writer draw the reader into a story?

Here's what I think: the words have to add up to more than words.

If there's a formula, it might look like this:

C(haracter) + W(ound) + S(truggle) = (Compelling) Storyline

A character appears on the page, catching your eye the way you might notice someone stepping into an empty doorway, and you don't just see him but want to meet him. Something about the way the character holds himself makes you want to know him.

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles draws in the reader with a description of the narrator returning to Devon School fifteen years after he had been a student there, and describes (on page 2) how living at the school had felt to him:

     Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.
     I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky.

Knowles gives the reader the character, hints just enough at the wound and struggle that is to come, and the reader is hooked, wanting to know the story and how it might unfold.

And here's how Robert Lipsyte draws us into The Chief. Again, you don't have to look further than pages 1 and 2:

     It's usually a good sign, Sonny on edge. Means his reflexes are hair-trigger; he's ready to rock. But this feels different. He's cranky, off his rhythm. After two years with a boxer you can read his moods like a weather map. He's got a lot shaking around inside his head. His mom is on his case again to move out West with her, and the knuckle he broke two months ago still hasn't healed. But he's lived with this before. Something else is cooking, something bigger. he could be ready to snap, bail out, dump the dream. Last night, on the Reservation, he used the word "futile." Not a Sonny kind of word. He's beginning to think the heavyweight title's out of reach. I told him I thought he was wrong, but I lied.

And the reader is hooked. You're given a character with a wound--something deeper than a physical injury like a broken knuckle--and a struggle ("could be ready to snap, bail out, dump the dream"), all of which adds up to a compelling story (told by a mysterious narrator who lies) that has drawn you in.

One more example, this time from Chris Lynch's first novel, Shadow Boxer, which packs a punch on page 1, in the first paragraph:

I was nine years old, younger than Monty is now, the first time I hit my father and made him bleed. He was proud.

That's the first paragraph of the story, and already Lynch has given us the character, the wound, and the struggle, enough information, at any rate, that we want to know the character and how he survives.

Part of the key to grabbing the reader, I think, is to give the reader a sense of the character's wound--the sore spot that a reader can intuit, even if it's not yet visible--as soon as possible.

The author must reveal the character's weakness, not a flaw necessarily, just a sign of the character's humanity, and convey a sense of this weakness, a sense of what the character is suffering (or has suffered) and needs to overcome.

What else draws the reader into a story but a strong desire to know how a character manages to handle his or her struggle? How does he or she deal with whatever caused or is causing the wound--the sadness, the fear, the ache (physical or emotional), the lack of confidence?

It's why we read, I suspect: to learn if the character can cope, or if the struggle will overwhelm him or her?

So, when you review your story-in-progress, ask yourself if you have set up the beginning to draw in the reader. Or are you just clearing your throat, dancing around the character's wound or weakness, hoping the reader will happen to fall into your story the way someone might fall into an open manhole?

Grabbing a reader's attention isn't accidental. It's intentional, and it happens within the first page or two.

Why not check out a few of your favorite stories and see if you can identify what grabs you? What information does the author share to pull you into the character's world? Why do you keep reading?

Go, Write!

In the beginning, the page is blank--just blue lines and white spaces.

It’s like looking into a mirror of still water.

The page serves as the release mechanism, the trigger, the catalyst for thought.

But thought itself doesn’t take place on the page.

You may look at the lines and the spaces between the lines, but what you see is the image in your head, the image that is not yet on the page.

A thought unfolds inside your head, and the page lets you see this thought, in words or pictures, as your pen or pencil move across the paper’s smooth surface, reflecting your thoughts as you set them down.

The magic of writing takes place inside your head.

And the key to writing is to touch that magic and bring it to the page.

It’s time to begin, to push aside distractions, step around obstacles, sit down, and pick up your pencil.

Let the page inspire you to reach inside yourself, to step into that still water, to touch that magic.

The year has begun.

Go, write!

The Path to the Sea

Here is the path that we’ll take to the sea.

It’s the beginning of our journey.

We don’t know where the path will lead us.

(We have no maps, no clues.)

All we can do is walk toward the clouds ahead and hope we’ll find the sea.

The clouds offer a glimmer of hope, a way to go.

And we head toward them 

It’s a hunch, an intuitive feeling.

And we follow that feeling wherever it leads.

Perhaps to the sea.

Perhaps to the swamp.

Perhaps to the forest.

There’s no way of knowing where we’ll end up. 

We simply have to trust the path will take us where we need to go.

Maybe it’s not the sea that we’ll reach this morning.

Maybe it’s somewhere else that we hadn’t imagined before setting out.

A new locale, an unexpected place.

And maybe we'll forget the sea and set off on a different path.

And then, after we’ve explored this path, we'll get back on the original path and begin again, heading for the sea.

Our hearts are pulled by the clouds, by the feeling of water and by the need to immerse ourselves in it.

We want the words to flow over us like water.

We want to taste them on our lips and tongue.

We want them to drip from our pen onto the page until the page is soaked with words and we are drenched from the effort of swimming in them.

We want to dive into the sea of our story.

And the path will take us there.

If not this path, then another.

All paths lead to the sea if we trust them to take us where we need to go.

We are in search of our own inner ocean.

Each journey takes us closer and closer to the depths of ourselves.

So, take that first step, and follow the path wherever it leads.

See You Later, Alligator

There are days when writing feels like tiptoeing past alligators lying in wait, eyes aglow, watching as I struggle to keep my balance on the slippery stones leading across the swamp.

No matter when I start writing, the alligators are always there waiting for me to fall. They are my fears, anxieties, and doubts waiting to ambush me.

The moment I set foot in the water, the alligators are ready to pounce and wrestle away my desire to put words on paper. The mere sight of them fills me with dread, and I fear they will drag me under and drown my love of words and stories.

But one of the things I’ve learned about writing is that, even though alligators are lying in wait, I still have to get into the water.

No matter how frightening they may appear, I have to stare down their hungry eyes, confront their rows of sharp teeth, and dive past them into the story that I need to tell.

These alligators are the gatekeepers. Before I can write, they want proof that I have the courage to tell a story. They require evidence that I need to tell this story. (How badly do I need to tell it? Badly enough to wrestle alligators?)

And here’s the other thing that I’ve learned about alligators lying in wait for me.

The moment that I jump into the water and begin writing, the alligators—each and every one of them—disappear like ghosts scattering at the first hint of dawn.

They are nothing more than illusions trying to keep me from writing.

The simplest movement of my pen, the slightest sound of my keyboard, sends ripples across the page scattering away my fears, anxieties, and doubts.

It happens every time.

It’s part of the magic of writing.

If you want to write but are afraid of alligators lurking beneath the surface, pick up your pen and begin anyway.

Then watch your fears and doubts scurry away in the time it takes you to say: “See you later, alligator.”

For more on getting past the fear of writing, take a look at:
http://allume.com/2013/07/how-writers-can-overcome-fear-with-one-word-begin/
http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/10-ways-to-harness-fear-and-fuel-your-writing
http://www.prolificliving.com/overcome-fear-of-writing/
http://badredheadmedia.com/2013/10/05/get-past-fear-just-write-guest-rebeccatdickson/
http://www.makealivingwriting.com/definitive-guide-overcoming-writing-fears/

Accepting the Invitation

When do you accept the invitation to step into the water, to begin the process of swimming that will take you into the unknown territory of a new story?

The invitation can come at any time or place. You might be standing in the shower rinsing your hair or getting into bed or folding laundry after dinner and, as you reach into the laundry basket for another napkin to fold, the invitation strikes with such force that you need to sit down with a notebook and pen and start writing.

It can come in the form of an idea for a plot or in the shape of a character, or it can come as a wisp of desire, a hint of emotion, a faint stirring of something that you’ve never seen or felt before, and you know that you’ve been invited into another world.

But do you accept the invitation?

Do you make arrangements to put aside whatever you think needs to be done--finish this e-mail, empty the dryer, pick up the groceries--in order to explore this invitation further?

Do you leave the laundry unfolded, the dishes in the sink, the beds unmade?

Does the invitation compel you to sit down and write? Or does it frighten you, make you anxious, cause you to wonder if you have the stamina, the endurance, the talent, the ability to accept the invitation and dive into this new world?

At some point, you’ll need to make a decision to accept the invitation or put it aside. You’ll have to choose whether you want to leap into the unknown or stay on shore a while longer with what you already know.

It’s a mystery, isn’t it, how we receive these invitations, and why we receive them and not others, and what we feel in response?

The invitation can find you anywhere–in bed, in the shower, in the garden, on the dance floor, on a bike, on a yoga mat.

Will you accept the invitation?

Or will you decide to wait until your life is perfect and there are no distractions and you have enough time?

It’s your choice.

What will you decide?

For more on the challenges of starting new projects, visit:
http://the-confident-writer.net/tag/goal-setting/
http://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/2012/02/starting-new-writing-project-is-like.html
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/12/staring-at-abyss.html
http://www.squidoo.com/unfinished-writing-projects