Author: Ann Aubrey Hanson

Books from Childhood

/ Ann Aubrey Hanson / Leave a comment

I’ve been a voracious reader since childhood (if we discount the years from third to fifth grade when I thought books were boring and would much rather have been out playing baseball and tennis than sit and read). From an early age, I would sit in my parents’ laps and listen to stories, or lie on the floor by myself, looking at the pictures in the books and telling myself the stories. (This latter habit led me to strongly dislike that fellow Abraham for several years, until I learned that he never killed his son whom he had laid upon an altar of stone.)

My parents read to my brothers and me as often as we asked and they had the time. But then, once I learned to read, the world opened up to me. This morning, I was looking at my bookshelf and saw some of my childhood favorites, a couple of which I’ve had since childhood, the others which I bought on eBay: Ann Can Fly; Little Black, A Pony; Look Out for Pirates; The Whales Go By. I’ll still read these books today, simply to immerse myself in memories, and the feeling of pride I had as I learned to read each one all by myself.

My childhood was replete with sports, activities with my brothers and friends, and travel — but some of my fondest memories focus on the books of my youth. Once I’d passed beyond the Dr. Seuss books, I soon discovered Nancy Drew, and then the Hardy Boys. Not a huge fan of the Bobsey Twins, but I loved the Railroad Children. And how many standalone books did I devour, time and again, haunting the juvenile fiction shelves in our local libraries?

 

This post isn’t simply a trip down Memory Lane, but a reflection on how books helped influence who I am today, what I do, what I love, what I teach my children, what I seek as comfort, and where I draw from for hope and enlightenment.

 

Today, I continue to read “juvenile” fiction: the entire Harry Potter series, the recent Hunger Games series, The Chronicles of Narnia, and so many more. Fiction books abound, and I’ll never read as much as I want to, but my desire to read was launched when I was a little girl. Really, what better gift can you give a child than a book? If you don’t know what books to give or recommend, I’d suggest looking for the Caldicott Award Winners. Or, look into your memory. What books did you enjoy as a child?

Plot Device

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There is a fun film called “Plot Device,” which every new writer, and any writer feeling a sense of stagnation or disinterest, should watch. Watch, and then play this game that I thought of as I watched the film.

Here’s the short film, “Plot Device.” Watch and enjoy.

Now, how do we apply this to writing? Too often, I encounter writers who know where they want their stories to go, but must force the stories along that pre-determined path, insisting on following the story arc even when the characters and developing storyline resist.

To these writers, I say, step back and be prepare to be surprised. As in the film, just see where pushing the Plot Device button might take you. You could be pleasantly surprised. Granted, you could be horrified, as the hero is from time to time in the film, but, like him, you still have the option of hitting the button again and taking a different tack.

Be willing to try something new, something unexpected, in your writing. Without some surprises, you writing will be humdrum and predictable. In other words, your stories will fail.

So, you’re writing a love story, between a young man and a young woman. You want them to meet, encounter some obstacles, and eventually end up together. Great. But the story’s been done. It’s going to take something special to keep your readers interested. Otherwise, yawn. Closing the book.

Let’s hit the Plot Device button. Wait a minute, she isn’t young after all! She’s actually several hundred years old, and uses a serum to keep herself youthful and appealing. What will our hero do now? Will he run from her, frightened of what he doesn’t understand, or will he try to understand her, and grow to love her more, finally devoting himself to her in marriage?

Or, push the Plot Device button again, and he is actually a serial husband, marrying women in different cities around the nation, or the world. The reader finds out, but does the wife? If she does, how does she react? How will you keep the reader interested in this multi-wedder while also maintaining our interest in and compassion for the wife, or wives?

Hit Plot Device again. The lovers have just met, but are doomed to die before they can spend their life together. Oops, nope, that was “Titanic.”

Hit Plot Device again. Just as they are about to be married, the wife falls down a mine shaft (during a picnic) and he dies trying to save her. But she falls in love with one of the rescue workers, so the reader doesn’t feel too bad. Okay, so that’s for a romance novel, where we keep everybody happy.

But it’s as easy as that. If your story isn’t flowing as freely as it should, try using your own Plot Device button, shaking things up, rattling your characters, and getting your creative juices flowing.

Push the Plot Device button. Uh-oh, hadn’t you killed that spider in the cupboard earlier this morning?….

Colin Firth and Honesty

/ Ann Aubrey Hanson / 1 Comment

Last night, I watched “A Single Man,” starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Nicholas Hoult. I had no idea what the movie was about, but enjoyed it for what it was. Simple story, really. A man loses his partner of sixteen years, and decides that his life isn’t worth living. Then the people in his life show him otherwise.

Nothing super-dramatic; in fact, incredibly nuanced. I was intrigued by the director and cinematographer’s use of color tones and hues in the movie, as subtle devices to show the mindset of the main character (George). But what truly brought the movie to life was Colin Firth, whose portrayal of George, while understated, was absolutely honest. Firth outdid Firth on understatement in this movie. It was the eyes first. From the moment he receives the call about Jim’s death, when he sits stunned, and his eyes slowly fill with tears, Firth had me hooked. Tears in his eyes, with only spasms of grief twitching across his face, he  walks robotically around his house, before running to a friend’s house, where his despair and loss pour out. It was all so carefully underplayed. So honest.

From that point on, it didn’t matter what the storyline was, I believed Firth. And, most importantly, I cared about George.

In writing, as in acting, it is vital to make your characters believable. Once you accomplish that, and adhere to the straight and narrow road of honesty with your characters, your book will succeed. You will pull your reader into your writing and make them care what happens to your characters, good and evil though they may be. Once you’ve defined a character, you must be honest with both that character and the reader. Otherwise, your writing will fail.

You cannot create a character who acts like Gandhi in one scene, and then turns and  destroys a town in another. The only way that works (and I think it would make a great character), is if you write it so that others see the character as a Gandhi, but you, as the writer, give the reader the tiniest glimpse of the monster who lurks within. In that way, you have been true to the character and, thus, to the reader. But, thereafter, the reader will know the monster, and the character must abide by that truth. It won’t work if you have the character have a change of heart for a happy ending. Remember in “The Wizard of Oz,” the Wicked Witch of the West dies. There is no miraculous transformation as a result of her interaction with the purity of Dorothy and her friends (especially Toto). No, that could never be. She was evil, and evil she would remain until her death.

So it is with your characters. Once you have defined them, so they must remain. Of course, there is some character transformation that can take place, growth and change through atonement, for example, but the seeds of that growth and change must already lurk beneath the surface, and must have already been infinitesimally visible to the reader. In that way, you stay true to your characters, and honest with the readers.

Before you begin writing, know your characters, inside and out. And look for those little hints, the tiniest suggestions, of possible growth and change. These tidbits can surprise you as a writer, and delight your readers.

‘Alphas’ on SyFy: Am I An Alpha?

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The SyFy channel is offering a new series this summer, “Alphas,” which is about run-of-the-mill humans who each have one extraordinary trait, the Alpha trait, which sets them apart from the rest of mankind. (David Strathairn, a favorite of mine, is one of the leads.) One character is able to sense what events transpired in a room by “reading” objects, pulling from the objects the scent of sight and sound of what has transpired. Another is able to manipulate the thoughts of others, enticing them to act as she desires, whether encouraging a Highway Patrol Officer to eat the ticket he had written for her, or convincing a truculent hotel clerk to give her forbidden guest information. My favorite is the Alpha who can see certain non-visible waves, such as cell phone transmissions or the Internet. I love the fact that he can scroll through the waves, searching the air as though he had a computer touchscreen in front of him.

So, this got me to thinking. Say I were an Alpha, what special powers would I have? I don’t have stupendously accurate hand-eye coordination. It’s good, excellent, in fact, but there’s nothing Alpha about it. I have a will of iron and can often convince others to do my bidding. But, again, nothing extraordinary, so no Alpha trait there. I’m attuned to the emotions of others, and can read a mood or environment well, but an inanimate object remains inanimate in my hands, unless I chuck it across the room. No sensory feedback, so no Alpha trait.

But, wait. I have this innate ability to proofread, and have had since I was a child. I’m forever finding errors in signage, books, menus, and newspaper articles, wherever the written word exists. If there is an error, chances are I will find it. This seems to be an inherited skill, passed along to me by both parents. (I wonder whether all Alpha traits are inherited?) When I take editing tests, as I must do for every new publisher client who wishes to hire me, I feel I’ve failed if I find 98% of the errors, though my potential clients are thrilled. That 2% niggles at me, driving me to improve the next time. Okay, so maybe there’s no Alpha trait there, given a 2% error rate, but that’s my best guess as to any latent Alpha ability I possess.

Not sexy, I know. How would they even use me on the series? Alpha Editor! Maybe I could compare a recently delivered hijacker note to previously known hijacker notes and see a pattern for identification, but I don’t really see myself saving the free world with that talent.

And so, I remain unknown, flying under the radar of the DOD (Department of Defense), righting wrongs in my own little world, but unsung and unchallenged on the world stage. Still, I am content. I am Alpha on my own stage. The Master Editor of all I survey. (David Strathairn, I’m here if you need me.)

Harry Potter: The End of an Era

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I will finally get to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” this week. The show has been sold out in my town since it opened. I was hoping to reread the last part of the book before I saw the movie, but I don’t know whether I’ll have the time. I want to see the movie, NOW.

But part of me is reluctant to go see the eighth and final film, just as I was reluctant to read the final book; I don’t want the era to end.

What JK Rowling accomplished with Harry Potter simply astounds me. She created a worldwide phenomenon. There must be few of the 193 nations on earth where the name Harry Potter is unknown, thanks especially to the remarkable movies that were made from the enchanting books. Had the movie franchise not been so successful, Rowling’s achievement might have gone less global. But Chris Columbus launched the movies with his excellent crew, with notable designers who had clear visions of what the world of Harry Potter should look like. And the result, MAGIC!

I still wonder how Rowling came up with an idea that so captured the imagination of the world. Other stories of magic have been written, but somehow she found just the right combination of characters and fashioned an astonishing story arc that carried her readers through eight very lengthy (for the most part) tomes. Her stories were fantasy, but the appeal came from the truth that ran like life’s blood through the stories. Readers could identify with the struggles of Harry and Hermione and Ron and the others. Their troubles may have taken place in a magical school that doesn’t exist, but their fears, hopes, dreams, and desires are firmly rooted in our world. Rowling simply transported us to a parallel universe, and we went willingly along: intrigued, enchanted, and smitten.

But now, the movies have been completed and released, and the final book had an epilogue. It is finished. After  fourteen years, the ride is over.

And I’m one melancholy Harry Potter fan. What can we look forward to now? Who has the next idea waiting to take the world by storm? I wrack my brain, but I’ve got nothing, not on that scale, anyway. But that’s the fun of the challenge: what stories enchant, and how can they be remastered for today’s new readers? What new era is about to begin?

Popular Phrases Can Date Your Writing

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I finished an editing project today, sent it off, and let me client know I had done so. Then, because I would be doing another project for the client tomorrow, while IM-ing with my contact, I typed, “See you tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel.” Then it occurred to me that she might have no idea what I was talking about. So I queried. Sure enough, she had no idea. When I told her it was from the days of the “Batman” series on TV, she said she wasn’t sure, but thought that was before she was born. I said mid-1960s. She admitted that she had been born in the late 1980s. Gak.

So, this brought to mind the warning I give to my writing students, and try to follow in my own writing: beware that popular phrases and sayings can date your book more quickly than anything besides putting actual dates in your story. For one generation, “same bat time, same bat channel” has meaning. For another, it’s simply cause for wondering how odd the person on the other end of the conversation actually IS (odd, and old). Think about it. Those of us who know “Here comes the judge,” or “Veeery interesting,” or “Sock it to me” can all recognize one another and have a conversation about those lines, but those who don’t remember Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In probably think we’ve popped a gasket.

Remember “Twenty-three skiddoo”? Well, I know it only from reading, but I know it was a popular saying in the 1920s (or think so). What about Zoot suits or peddle pushers, or spats or saddle shoes? Remember cut-offs in the summer? Well, those are back, so no mystery there.

Talking with my kids a week ago, I found out that they’d both had to look up the term “tight” to know that Hemingway was writing about a man being drunk, whereas the meaning was absolutely clear to me. So, I did some research, and came across a website that lists current and past terms for being drunk: http://freaky_freya.tripod.com/Drunktionary.

My point is, if you’re going to use slang, or phrases from a certain era, know that they will date your work, which can be a good thing if you’re writing a time-period piece, but which can also make your writing seem quickly outdated. If you do need to know what had been created by a certain time period, you’ll want to bookmark sites like this: http://www.localhistories.org/tech48.html, which lists inventions since 1948. Sites like this abound on the Internet, and you’d do well to save those sites for times when you need to check era-specific details.

A fun site for slang from Slappers to Rappers is http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/generation_test.html, the AlphaDictionary. On the site, they have a fun quiz that asks you questions and your answer will determine which era you grew up in for you high school or college years: for example, What did your generation call an awkward, unsophisticated person from the country? Yahoo or rube is from the 1920s, and again from the 90s; bumpkin or hick is from the 40s; clod or clodhopper is from the 50s, particularly down South; klutz was a Yankee word from the 60s; Redneck arose from the Civil Rights movement of the 60s; and Bubba came to popularity in the 80s.

Of course, there will come the day when phrases that were popular in YOUR childhood suddenly become what USED to be said, in the olden days. But, chill, it happens to the best of us. Until then, “Relax, you’re soaking in it.”

Music for Writing and Editing

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I frequently get recommendations for new music to listen to from my son and daughter; they know what I like, and often find new groups, or groups I’ve never heard of, for me to try. One of my current favorites is Mumford and Sons. Another is Aqualung.

But I find that I can’t listen to their music, or any others where lyrics are featured, when I am editing. No matter how hard I try, I cannot keep the words of the songs from registering on my mind, and interfering with the task at hand–that is, editing other people’s words. For editing, my choice is classical music, preferably symphonic. I’m not a lover of classical piano music or violin features, but give me the full symphonic sound and I can happily edit for hours. Sometimes, if I’m in a specific mood, I’ll choose specific composers (Vivaldi, or Moussorgsky, or Wagner, or Telleman, or Mozart). Other times, I leave the selection to Pandora, willingly accepting most of what I am offered.

On the other hand, if I am writing fiction, I often choose music with words, especially if I am trying to feed a certain emotion, or build an environment for myself in which to write. Oddly, I think most people would say, I find that music from the Civil War is great for eliciting emotions of various kinds. I also like Edith Piaf, for other emotions. And Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Mahalia Jackson are great for  depth, as they plumb the soul.

I can’t listen to music constantly throughout the day; my ears simply get tired and it all becomes just noise. But I know when I need to feed my mind, my spirit, my emotions…or simply get carried away as I edit, lifting my mind off the page and into that realm where I work without effort or noticing the passage of time.