One Writer's Process: Cynthia Lord

As a way of learning more about her characters, Cynthia Lord keeps a list of questions that she likes to ask herself.

“What does she want, and why hasn't she achieved that before the first chapter?” says Lord, whose first novel, Rules, won a slew of awards, including the Newbery Honor Award, and who relied on these questions to help her find out more about her characters in her second novel, Touch Blue, another award-winner.

But mostly, Lord admits, she discovers her characters through writing about them.

Lord starting writing in elementary school--book reports, biographies of famous people, and essays about what she did on her summer vacations–but didn’t start writing fiction until she entered high school.

“One of my first attempts was a ghost story,” she says. “After a few chapters, I was giving myself nightmares! I remember lying in bed, staring at the dark ceiling shadows, afraid to move, saying to myself: ‘This is so stupid! You wrote the story! You KNOW it’s not real.’”

In college, some of her short stories were published, and she remembers that one of those stories even won a contest. “The prize was a whopping $25 and publication in the magazine that had sponsored the contest.”

Years later, with children of her own, Lord still loves watching words jump onto the page and making people laugh and cry and shiver with her writing.

She rises from bed long before dawn, tiptoes through her dark kitchen so she won’t wake her family, turns on the coffeemaker, and sits down at her desk to work.

“That's my own time, the just-me time to open my heart and spill it across white pages,” she says.

On her desk she keeps displayed a quote by Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

The quote reminds her to keep writing every day, she explains, even when she doesn’t feel motivated.

“In fact, sometimes my best writing comes on days I’m not feeling especially inspired,” she says.

When children ask her for advice, she suggests they “read, write, learn, and dream,” the things that help her move forward as a writer.

And she suggests that they learn to revise their work and to recognize that “just because it's true doesn't mean it belongs.”

Recently, Lord, who lives in Brunswick, ME with her husband and children, took some time from her work-in-progress to share thoughts on writing with wordswimmer’s readers:

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming, how do you get into the water each day?

Lord: I show up ready. That sounds simple, but there are always a million reasons not to do something. So I treat it as a job. I don't ask myself whether I feel inspired or not --I simply show up ready to write each day, and I write.

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

Lord: I try to set daily reasonable goals, and I keep working until I've met them. Also having partners (family, critique partners, publishing professionals) who will encourage me and push me is really helpful, especially on a longer goal. Any long project has those fun times when it's flowing easily and other times when it feels like you're walking miles in baby steps. Surrounding yourself with positive people who understand your struggles is really helpful getting through those rough times.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

Lord: When my writing isn't going well, I always promise myself that I'll write for 15 minutes. I show up ready to work, open the file, and set the timer for 15 minutes. At the end of that 15 minutes, I can quit if I want or do other writing jobs (answering mail, etc.). But I don't usually stop when the timer sounds, because by then I've crossed the threshold of getting started. Sometimes opening the file and getting started is the hardest part!

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Lord: The hardest part for me is a first draft. Once the excitement of starting a new story has worn off (around page 40 for me), fear creeps in. What if I can't do this? What if the story will never be as good as I imagine it? What if I can't make this work? Will readers who loved my other books be disappointed by this one?

But it all does come down to something I learned about swimming! I grew up on a lake and I swam all the way across that lake several times when I was a teenager. It's a long, hard swim. Whenever I'd stop in the middle and look at all those waves still between me and the opposite shore, I would feel overwhelmed by how far I still had to go. But when I only thought about the next stroke, it was easier. Not worrying about the entire journey helped me to get all the way across the lake. So when I'm writing a first draft, I do that, too. I focus on one chapter at a time all the way through the first draft.

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

Lord: I have many friends who are writers. They're always ready to listen and give me advice. Being a writer can be lonely and having support and community with other writers is important to me.

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

Lord: I love when I send a book out into the world and it comes back to me, wrapped in a reader's own experiences. Knowing a book that I wrote has mattered in the life of a reader--nothing beats that.

For more information about Cynthia Lord, visit her website: http://www.cynthialord.com/index.htm

Or her blog: http://cynthialord.livejournal.com/

And for more interviews with her, visit:
http://blog.sarahlaurence.com/2010/08/touch-blue-by-cynthia-lord-review-and.html
http://www.debbimichikoflorence.com/author_interviews/2006/cynthialord.html
http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2006/03/author-interview-cynthia-lord-on-rules.html
http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/09/05/interview-with-cynthia-lord-newbery-author-of-rules/
http://slayground.livejournal.com/72045.html

Where the River Ends

The other day Kathleen Bolton at Writer Unboxed, one of my favorite blogs on writing, described the difficulty of drafting the final chapter in her current work-in-progress.

She had reached the end... but wasn't sure exactly how the story should come to its conclusion:

I mean, I have a vague idea of how it should end (hopefully leaving the reader slavering for more), but I’m waffling between an upbeat ending or something more artistic (e.g. sad)...

Bolton asked readers what they wanted from an ending, and here's how I responded:

What I want from an ending is to feel as if the tumblers of a combination lock have fallen magically into place, opening a door into my heart.

Or maybe what I want to feel is a door clicking softly shut, but not before revealing one last glimpse into the character’s heart… as his or her struggle, which began on page one, comes to a conclusion that feels both surprising yet inevitable.

Inevitable because the ending will have grown out of the choices that the character has made along his or her journey, but surprising in that the reader won’t be able to predict it.

The key to unlocking the ending of your book, I suspect, is in your character’s heart… and in the emotional arc of the story that began with the first words that you put down on paper long ago.

And I’ll bet the key to your ending will appear in your hand the moment you close your eyes … and let go of the ending that you think should appear… and allow your character the freedom to discover his or her own destiny.

So, I was thinking about endings when I finished reading two novels this past week.

The first book, Rules by Cynthia Lord, is a touching portrait of twelve-year-old Catherine's struggle to come to terms with her younger brother's autism.

It's a struggle that takes its toll on her life as she tries to make friends with her new neighbor without the embarrassment of her brother doing things--dropping his pants in public, opening doors without knocking, chewing with his mouth open--that she's come to dread when he's around.

And the ending brings a certain relief to the reader (as it does to Catherine), coming after her painful recognition that no matter how many rules she might make, nothing will change her brother from being who he is... and that she has to accept him (and people's responses to him) as part of her life.

The book's final scene shows Catherine and David gazing into the aquarium, where a toy wizard stands on the gravel despite Catherine's rule: No toys in the fish tank.

At the beginning of the book Catherine would have gotten irritated at her brother's inability to follow the rules. But now she is able to laugh.

The tiniest knock comes, and my door creaks open. David stands framed in the light from the living room. "No toys in the fish tank."

I slide my slippers on and follow.

In the aquarium a toy wizard stands on the gravel, his wand raised, mid-spell. Standing beside the castle, he's so big only his pointy shoe would fit through the tiny castle door.

Oops! Wrong spell!

And instead of a fierce dragon to slay, a huge, curious goldfish mouths the end of the wizard's hat.

I can't help but laugh.

"'"What are you laughing at, Frog?"'" David asks, worried lines cutting his forehead.

I touch the tiny frog stamp on his hand and show him mine. "'"I'm laughing at you, Toad," said Frog, "because you do look funny in your bathing suit."'"

David smiles. "'"Of course I do," said Toad. Then he picked up his clothes and went home.'"

"The end."

Tomorrow I'm going to tell Mom she has a point about David needing his own words, but other things matter, too. Like sharing something small and special, just my brother and me.

Kneeling beside David, our arms touching, our faces reflect side by side, in the glass.

I let that be enough.

The image of the two children kneeling side by side, touching, powerfully bridges the emotional distance that Catherine has had to travel over the course of the story. It's not necessarily a surprise ending. But it does feel inevitable, like a door whooshing shut, leaving just the slightest echo behind to linger in the reader's ear.

In the second book, Hearts of Stone by Kathleen Ernst, fifteen-year-old Hannah watches her father march off to join the Yankee troops and finds her heart turning to stone as his death is followed by her mother's. And another piece of her heart turns to stone when she loses her best friend, Ben, who won't speak to her after his father joins the Confederates.

With her younger brother and twin sisters, Hannah takes to the road, leaving behind their home on Cumberland Mountain for Nashville. She's hoping to find her aunt there instead of staying home and letting the Preacher separate the children and send them to different families.

But Nashville only brings more grief, hardening Hannah's heart even more. Once there the children discover that their aunt, too, has died. And after a harsh winter--the children barely able to survive by searching for cigar ends to resell--Hannah's younger sister dies, too.

In Nashville, though, she meets Ben again, and they manage to overcome their separate grief to join together as survivors and return home.

The final scene of the book shows Hannah and Ben lingering by a river on their way back to Cumberland Mountain, hoping to rebuild the homes that they left behind at the start of the story.

I let his words and wondering pour right down inside until that empty place in my chest filled up and spilled over, all the while searching the bank for a stone. Finally my fingers closed around a good one: flat, about the size of my palm. I heft it, turned it over. Just right.

"Let's do a double," Ben suggested. "See whose goes the farthest." He chose his stone, and we perched on the bank, ready. The late sun skittered bright on the river. "Go!" Ben shouted. Those stones went dancing across the water, into the sun, out of sight.

Again, this wasn't a surprise ending, but it had the feel of inevitability, like the line of a circle coming round to meet the point where it had started.

The reader begins to feel that sense of closure strongest, not only watching the children toss the stones across the water (as if tossing the stones of their hearts away so they can feel alive again), but listening to Hannah describe her chest, empty for so long, filling up again and spilling over.

Two different books, two different endings... each satisfying in its own way.

What about you? Can you turn to the ending of a favorite story... and explain what makes the ending so satisfying?

How do you feel as the story comes to a close?

Why do you feel this way?

Can you point to the words or phrases that draw out these feelings in you?

Share your thoughts about endings with Wordswimmer when you get a moment.

If you'd like to read Kathleen Bolton's post on endings at Writer Unboxed, visit:
http://writerunboxed.com/2007/08/27/corny-endings/

For insights into how Cynthia Lord wrote Rules, take a look at this interview:
http://cynthialord.com/pdf/rwt_interview.pdf

If you'd like more information about Cynthia Lord and her work, visit her website:
http://www.cynthialord.com/

And to read about Kathleen Ernst and her work, visit her website: http://www.distaff.net/