Women of Wednesday--Imagine...

I received a politically-oriented email Mother's Day weekend regarding the 2012 elections in New Hampshire--don't worry, this is not going to be a politically-oriented post. The message reflected on the history of women in NH governance. It noted that in 2009, NH was "the first legislative body with a female majority in the country," and "New Hampshire is also the first and only state in the country to elect a woman as both a Governor and United States Senator--Jeanne Shaheen."

We had a Women of Wednesday post three years ago about the NH legislature. Wow, have things changed in three years time--and not for the better as far as women are concerned. Back then we ranked #2 of all the states, now, we're #22! At the time 37.7% of NH's legislature were women, now it's 24.8%. We had a majority of women in the state senate--13 out of 24--now we have 6 out of 24. NH is moving backwards.

New Hampshire's Senate chamber in the Capitol Building in Concord is the oldest chamber still in use in the nation, having been in continuous use since 1819, the year the Statehouse opened. Photo and caption courtesy NH State Senate.

The elections in November 2012 are critical to restoring women to the NH legislature, and hopefully restoring some of the "people-oriented" services that have been drastically cut over the past two years.

Our present governor's term ends this year and Governor Lynch has decided not to run for a fifth term. I know there are women who have declared their intention to run. On the federal level, NH has two female senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte [note: surprisingly, three other states also are represented by two women in the Senate--California, Maine, and Washington]. As a small state, we have two congressmen, both of whom are men. Now just imagine...after November's elections, our new governor may be a woman, our two congressmen could be women, and our two senators already are women! I wonder where that would put us in comparison to the other 49 states? At the state level, we can only hope that women who are fed up with the way some of the men in the legislature have been acting, will run in opposition! Imagine...

If you can imagine it, it can be made to happen! Run for office, if you can. Vote in the primaries. Vote in the elections. It's your right--exercise it!

--Diane

Making an Entrance

No matter what kind of novel you write, your characters all have to make entrances.  Most times, they’ll simply walk into a room.  Passing from one place to another is all the moment calls for.  But there are moments when an entrance is important, where it needs to be more and do more.

Introductions

The most obvious entrance is when a character steps on stage for the first time.  In this case, she won’t necessarily be walking through a door.  She isn’t entering a room, she’s entering the story.  It’s a moment of introduction.

Many beginners introduce a character by describing things like height, age, and hair color.  Another common introduction is naming a character and telling us where they are – John Smith stepped off the school bus.  Mary Jones walked into the party.  It’s done all the time and is perfectly acceptable, but both types of introduction are generally pretty blah.  An introduction should make us curious enough about a character to prod us into reading on.

 Consider the following introduction from Madapple, by Christina Meldrum.  It’s the first time we see the main character.  It’s also the entire first chapter. 

 -Please state your name for the record.

-Aslaugh.
-And your last name?
-I don’t know.
-You don’t know your last name?
-No.
-Your mother’s name was Maren Hellig, was it not?
-Yes.
-You are Aslaugh Hellig.
-Mother called me Aslaugh Datter.
-So your last name is Datter?
-No.  I mean, I don’t know.  Datter means daughter in Danish.  I’m not sure it’s my name.
-What was your father’s name?
-I don’t have a father.
-You don’t know who your father is?
-I don’t have a father, other than the one we share.
-You mean God in heaven?
-I never said God is in heaven.
-But you mean God, am I right?
-Yes.
-Well, I’m referring to your biological father.  You don’t know who he is?
-I don’t have a biological father.
-Your Honor, the witness is being nonresponsive.  She’s being tried for one count of attempted murder, and two counts of murder in the first degree, and she’s playing games—
-Do you have a birth certificate for the witness, Counsel?  It seems that document may clarify this matter.
-She has no birth certificate, Your Honor.  At least none we’ve found.

We know who she is, where she is, and what the initial problem is.  We know she’s Danish, that her mother is dead, and even have a hint at her religious beliefs.  We know she has a backbone because she doesn’t back down from the Prosecutor.  And it only took 190 words—less than a page.  Do you care that you don’t know her hair or eye color?  Probably not.  You’re probably wondering if she really is a murderer, and who did she kill, and why.  And how can anyone not have a biological father?  And what’s that bit about God not being in heaven, and why doesn’t she have a birth certificate?  Something’s obviously rotten in Denmark.  How can you not turn the page?

 Setting Tone and Mood

That is how Bartimaeus enters the room in The Amulet of Samarkand, The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.

The temperature of the room dropped fast.  Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling.  The glowing filaments of each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out.  The darkened room filled with a yellow choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled.  From far away came the sound of many voices screaming.  Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing.  It bulged inward, the timbres groaning.  Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk.

 The sulfur cloud contracted into a thick column of smoke that vomited forth thin tendrils; they licked the air like tongues before withdrawing.  The columns hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcano.  There was a barely perceptible pause.  Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.

All that happens here is that Bartimaeus appears.  It only takes a second or two, but Stroud stretched those few seconds out to build the moment, to create an eerie, magical, and mysterious tone and atmosphere.   You know what kind of book you’re getting when you read that.  And even though all we see are his yellow eyes, we can infer Bartimaeus is powerful and someone to be reckoned with because Stroud made the moment big.  Bartimaeus doesn’t just appear in a cloud of smoke, he makes all those other things happen first.  He’s grandstanding and making a show of it.  He thinks highly of himself.  He has an ego.

 Characterization

Not all entrances will be big, but they can still add something to your manuscript.  Here’s a short excerpt from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Haymitch, mentor in the games to Katniss and Peeta, enters the room.

Just then, Haymitch enters the compartment.  “I miss supper?” he says in a slurred voice.  Then he vomits all over the expensive carpet and falls in the mess.

We’ve already seen Haymitch drunk and falling off a stage.  Now he’s obviously drunk again.  He’s clearly an alcoholic, and we have to wonder what he can possibly do to help these two kids out in the game.  But why does it matter that he came through the door?  It’s only three sentences, and it’s already been established he’s a drunk.  Why throw in this entrance?

Because coming through the door says he tried.  It says he cared about these kids.  It says he may drink his life away but he hasn’t given up.  He hasn’t sunk to the point of no return.  He may have arrived late and drunk, but he arrived.  Somewhere inside him, there’s a bit of hope that he can come back.  He hasn’t given up on himself.

None of that is in the excerpt, but it can be inferred because he made the entrance, because he walked through the door.  If the kids had found him sitting in his own vomit just outside the door, it says he didn’t care enough, he didn’t try hard enough, he gave up.  It’s the entrance, the coming through the door that changes the way we see him. 

 
Choosing an Entrance

And finally, remember that entrances aren’t always made through doors and they don’t always lead to rooms.  Stepping up to bat and diving into a pool are both entrances, as is falling into a manhole.  And consider your mode of entry in relation to your story.  Why enter Narnia through a wardrobe?  Because it’s a land of perpetual winter and they needed those fur coats hung inside. 

Next time, we’ll look at exits.  In the meantime, take a look at the entrances in your own work and make sure they add something to the story, your character or, preferably, both. 
 

Poetry Friday--Playing Baseball (Like a Girl)

I don't know if you heard the recent news about a Fundamentalist Catholic high school baseball team in Arizona that refused to play in a state finals game. The opposing team had a female second baseman. The gist of the story is that the girl, in deference to the objecting team, didn't play against them in regular season games, but when it came down to the crucial game in the finals, she stepped up to the plate! Unfortunately, the game was forfeited by the parochial school, and she didn't get to play.



I admire the confidence and spirit of the young woman who was able to try out for, and play with, the "boys" team. It's too bad her team won by default. As for the forfeiting team--they are truly losers--the 21st century is here to stay, and women are not going back!

By way of celebrating Paige Sultzbach, here's a poem by J. Patrick Lewis:

First Girls in Little League Baseball

December 26, 1974
Title IX of the 1972 Education Act is signed, providing for equal opportunity in athletics for girls as well as boys.

The year was 1974
When Little Leaguers learned the score.
President Ford took out his pen,
And signed a law that said from then
On women too would have the chance
To wear the stripes and wear the pants.
Now what you hear, as flags unfurl,
Is "Atta boy!" and "Atta girl!"

Head over to Write. Sketch. Repeat. for this week's Round-Up.

--Diane

Women of Wednesday--The War on Women

Warning: this post is slightly political, but mostly I see it as a discussion of power--who has it, who doesn't--and our role in the "war."

Last year, at just about this time, I wrote a post where I mentioned the trivialization of the reality of war by the constant use of the phrase, "war on" (as in "war on marijuana," "war on Christmas," "war on marriage"). You can read it here.

The "war on women," however, although not a kill/be killed type of conflict, is one with far-reaching implications, and one that effects more than 50% of the U.S. population.

This is what the "war" is about--power, and how it can be kept from women. It is all about manipulation and bullying. It is an exercise for aging, white men in Congress--one last chance to be in control. (Yes, that is a broad brush to use, but bear with me.)

In a recent article by Kerry Kennedy, she wrote about the roles people take in any instance of bullying:

Will I be a perpetrator, a victim, a bystander or a human rights defender?

And each time she makes that decision on which role she will play, she is exercising a muscle. Like any muscle, the more she uses it, the stronger it becomes. And its strength defines who she is in her school, her family, her neighborhood, and most importantly, who she sees when she looks in the mirror.

The same choices exist in the "War on Women."


As a reader of this blog, I trust you may be sympathetic to our interests in seeing women, to paraphrase the army ad from several years ago, "be all that they can be." If that is so, then the only role you can take in the "war on women," is as a defender of human rights. Humans--and that includes women--denied rights can never be all that they can be. Become a defender of human rights, exercise your muscle.

Exercise that muscle by educating yourself, and then educating others. If you're a writer, you can follow in the footsteps of women such as Clementine Churchill. She knew the value of wit and humor in presenting an idea. Click here to read a letter she wrote 100 years ago in response to another letter from a anti-suffrage male.

Politicians, full of hot air, can be deflated, and they can be defeated at the polls. If you do nothing else in your role as defender of human rights, you can vote and make a difference. When you look in the mirror you'll be proud of what you see.

(Okay, now to address those other aging, white men in Congress. My favorite member of Congress is Bernie Sanders who said, "We are not going back." Others exist--support them!)

--Diane

Photo taken Concord, NH, April 28, 2012.

Mentor Monday: Revisiting the Topic of Setting

How important is a story’s setting?  Let’s try an experiment and see.  Here’s some dialogue from a well-known novel:

“Jess?” her voice flowed through the receiver.  “Miserable weather, isn’t it?”

“Yes’m.”  He was scared to say more for fear she’d hear the shake.

“I was thinking of driving down to Washington—maybe go to the Smithsonian or the National Gallery.  How would you like to keep me company?”

He broke out in a cold sweat.

“Jess?”

He licked his lips and shoved his hair off his face.

“You still there, Jess?”

“Yes’m.” He tried to get a deep breath so he could keep talking.

“Would you like to go with me?”

Lord.  “Yes’m.”

We have one male and one female in this conversation.  We know the weather is “miserable” but not bad enough to prevent travel.  The male is obviously nervous.  The female is in charge.  The story could change based on where this conversation took place. Read the conversation again. Imagine the story takes place today. The male character is a 20-something office worker.  The female character is his boss. He is out with a girlfriend with the phone rings. He sees the caller ID.  It’s his boss. She’s a beautiful, aggressive 40-something. He needs this job. He can’t NOT take the call.

 

Read the conversation again. Change the setting. 1960s, New Jersey. He’s a young, undercover cop.  He’s spent months working his way into a mafia-like gang. She’s the head man’s daughter and she’s taken a shine to him. He doesn’t know how to handle her request. Will he get in trouble with his bosses if he goes with her? Will he get in trouble if he doesn’t?

The conversation is actually from Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.  The book was published in 1977—before cell phones and home computers. Jess is a fifth grader. He comes from a poor family and he loves to draw. The woman is his teacher, Miss Edmunds. She is offering to bring Jess to Washington to visit his first art gallery. Her goal is simply to inspire him. 

The dialogue seems to change as we 1) change the characters’ ages but also as we 2) place them in different settings. Doing so makes the same words read differently in our minds. The setting makes a huge difference. It changes our feelings about both the characters and how the story will play out.

Nineteenth century novelists devoted pages and pages to describing setting. Modern readers don’t have the patience to comb through this much detail but an author must still provide the reader with a sense of place. We do so with well-placed and well-paced actions.  In Bridge to Terabithia, for example, Paterson never says that Jess’s family lives in the country.  She shows us:

“Where are you going, Jess?” May Belle lifted herself up…

“Sh.”…The walls were thin…

“Just over the cow field,” he whispered…

On the very first page we have a sense of place. A house that has thin walls is not worth much. If it’s near a cow field it’s not in the city or even the suburbs. Our minds assign a different set of issues to people who live in this kind of place.

How important is a story’s setting?  Ask yourself: could my story have occurred anywhere else?