The face's role in conveying emotion

 
This morning I heard about a very interesting bit of research on NPR. You can read their report here.

Basically, a researcher showed subjects photos of victorious and defeated tennis players with extreme facial expressions. When the face was shown along with the body, people could easily tell which photos were of losers and which were of winners. But something interesting happened when they showed the photos with either faces or bodies missing. The subjects could readily identify winners and losers by looking at photos of bodies without faces. But faces with no bodies? Not so.

In essence, the research suggests that, to accurately perceive someone else’s emotions, we rely more on body language cues than facial expressions. Fascinating!

This got me thinking about writing. How often in literature do you see phrases like “His eyes were filled with sorrow,” or “Her face lit up with glee”? In fact, how much time is spent describing the face? Often, you’ll know the color of every character’s eyes. In daily life, do you really notice the eye color of every person you encounter?

I’m just as guilty of this as the next writer. In fact, my beta reader pointed out a scene in my unpublished novel in which a character observes the tawny eyes of her opponent in the midst of a swordfight. My beta reader summed up the problem for me succinctly: “Noticing hair during fighting: fine. Noticing eye color during fighting: dead.” After a chuckle, I took the advice and nixed the sentence.

Do we spend too much energy focusing on our characters’ faces in our writing? Is a shrug more evocative than a smile? How can we use this research to inform our writing and make it more realistic and subtle?

On setting

No matter the genre, setting is a critical component of any novel. I would argue that setting is as important as characters, plot, and dialogue. Indeed, in many great works of fiction, setting IS a character on its own. Consider The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Middle-earth is sometimes a friend to Bilbo Baggins, as in the salubrious Last Homely House in Rivendell where the adventurers are rejuvenated. Middle-earth is also a foe to Bilbo, as in Mirkwood, the fearsome dark forest that harbors man-eating spiders, enchanted rivers that cause forgetfulness, and nary a good thing to eat or drink for weeks on end. Bilbo’s tale is all the richer for the dangerous lands he passes, the terrible weather he overcomes, and the nostalgic serenity of the good places that bolster his courage and his waistline. How much better the story is, for example, that a terrible mountain “thunder battle” between two mighty thunderstorms drives the party to be captured by goblins, instead of mere bad luck or coincidence.

Can you tell I’m re-reading The Hobbit right now?

A book’s setting doesn’t have to be a completely fictional world (like mine is in my own novel) to stand out and propel the story. Suppose you want to write a tale of forbidden love. Suppose, even, that you decide to set it in New York City. How different would the story be depending on the part of New York that is revealed? It might take place under bridges in cardboard boxes, or in retail stores on 5th Avenue, or in a high-rise condo, or in Central Park… and on and on and on. Each setting calls forward a different love story, with different travails, different conflicts, and even different characters. Though each story’s bones may rooted in one theme (forbidden love), the various settings will, portrayed well anyway, demand different tellings.

Choose your setting with care, and let it live and breathe and walk like a character on its own feet, and watch your story come alive.

What novels come to your mind when you consider setting as a character?

The stages of writing

Image: Creative Commons: pixelperfectdigital.com

 

I read a post by author Veronica Roth in which she says, “I hate writing first drafts and love to revise. When I say I hate first drafts, I really mean it— I mean I dread starting them and grumble through every second of them and generally try to get them over with as quickly as humanly possible so that I can actually do the thing I like, which is to FIX THEM.”

That got me thinking. There are lots of stages of book-making and all writers love and hate different steps. I’m Ms. Roth’s opposite: I love the freedom of creating something new, especially in the beginning half of a manuscript. I struggle more with finishing fresh material, and I am pretty good at (but hate) the revision stage.

I’m currently in the submission stage, which is my own personal writing hell. Summarizing my fantasy novel in a paragraph or sometimes even a sentence is torture to me. The exercise is teaching me to be a better writer, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Ha.

To break the cycle of horrors, I’ve plans this weekend to give myself a break and work on the opening chapters of book two. Hopefully doing what I love best will reenergize me.

I'm not even mentioning the other stages I haven't experienced yet, like marketing and promotions. Book covers and artwork and trailers, oh my!

So, writers, which stages do you relish? Which stages do you dread?

What is NaNoWriMo?

Image: NaNoWriMo.org

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, located at http://www.nanowrimo.org) has been around for a while. It’s a movement to challenge writing newcomers and old hats alike to get serious work done on a new project in one month (November). Here’s a quote from their rules:

•Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
•Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
•Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!

I am a wimp. (Hey, at least I can admit it, right?) I am not participating this November, nor have I ever participated. I think it is super-cool and I admire people who participate. A friend of mine discovered writing by participating one year, and she is well on her way to publishing the novel that started out with NaNoWriMo. And she’s certainly not alone. The movement is powerful AND empowering.

So if it’s so great, why am I not participating?

I could offer all the lame excuses. My full-time day job, long commute, and busy home life prevent me from having the time to crank out that many words in a month. Or I’m scared of failure. But really? I suffer from an affliction that many writers struggle with: lack of self-confidence. Could I take a few days off work and focus on writing to get in the hours? Probably. Could I cancel all my other engagements? Yep. But could I convince myself that I have it in me to churn out 50,000 words in a month? Heck no.

I throw to the wind the advice I have often heard: don’t edit while writing. Just get the words down, get the scenes in place, and go back and fix everything later, they say. That makes my perfectionist’s brain fizzle and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies with Alka Seltzer added into the milk. So it takes me a little longer to write than many writing superstars.

My book is now beginning the arduous submission process. I am so close. But it took me a while to get here. Granted, I have not been working on it steadily, and indeed I put my manuscript on a shelf for a couple years, but you know when I wrote the first chapter? I was nineteen years old. I’m now on the high side of twenty-eight. We’re looking at a decade-long process. I’m not ashamed of that. It took perseverance to get to where I am, and I am confident.

As organized as I am in many other facets of life, I am a mess when it comes to writing. I am essentially a “pantser” (somebody who writes by the seat of his or her pants, writing organically with little pre-planning). That means I could write 300 words one day and 4,000 the next. It just depends on where the story takes me. Accomplishing 50,000 words in a month requires a lot of planning. I don’t think this means that, once I get published, I will struggle with meeting deadlines and getting my pages turned in on time. I’m good under pressure. Just not self-imposed pressure.

I keep telling myself that I will write book two in less than a year. That’s my personal goal. Based on past performance, it’s a lofty one. If I accomplish that, maybe the next book can be drafted in a month. Maybe.

BEST WISHES AND HAPPY WRITING to all the NaNo’ers out there. I hope you find inspiration and energy and success in your new projects. Kudos to you for being braver than I!

Research and the info-dump

Research is something all writers have to do, but the genre in which they write certainly plays a role. I write epic fantasy. My late-teenaged self (the girl who wrote the first chapter of my novel) thought that meant I had very little research to do. I could just make it all up. Right?

WRONG.

As I began to write—seriously write—I realized how important it was to be authentic. So I Googled medieval farming techniques to help me set a scene that had very little to do with farming. I read Wikipedia articles on horse terminology before my protagonist mounted her first steed. I watched YouTube fencing tutorials before the first swordfight. I even trolled medical sites for herbal remedies as I made the decision not to simply imagine up an herb every time a character in the book got sick or hurt (spoiler alert: this happens a lot).

The Internet wasn’t my only source, either. I devoured and highlighted the crap out of the books by Frances and Joseph Gies, Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Castle. I also referenced Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Medieval Warrior: 1000-1500 AD by Martin J. Dougherty.

But with research comes a perilous danger: the dreaded info-dump. Once I knew all about oxen, mouldboard plows, and planting seasons for every vegetable you could possibly dream up, I wrote a terrible chapter that included multiple pages of tedious description of how the villagers were spending their days in the fields. It was boring. It was unnecessary to the plot. It didn’t carry the story forward at all.

Of course, I axed almost everything, and ended up leaving in just enough to make the setting breathe and have color. I owe my writing group for helping me do that.

Do I regret learning so much if I could only use a tenth of my newfound knowledge in my novel? Not at all. The research I did helped me write a convincing, colorful couple of sentences that (hopefully) make the novel richer.

I suspect, like everything related to the writing process, research techniques vary by the author. I’m certainly not saying my method was the best or only way to go about it. But it worked for me. This time, anyway.

My writing space

My wedding dress was the first one I pulled off the rack. Yes, I tried on several and went to multiple stores. But I came back to the dress that stole my breath… the first one.

My house was the same way. We sifted through hundreds online and narrowed it down twenty or so. The first one we toured, we walked in and clutched each other with wide eyes. It was perfect. And then the realtor opened a door to what I assumed would be a walk-in cabinet off the kitchen. Instead, it was a rec room filled with ugly sofas and a television. But my husband pointed at the outside wall. A FIREPLACE. The realtor left us alone in that room and my husband grabbed my hand. “You could write in here,” he said. There wasn’t even a question that the room would be mine if the house became ours.

We visited numerous houses for sale following that one, but we kept driving by the first one we had seen. And we eventually beat off the contract it was under and bought it for ourselves.

Since then, I have painted the room walls (three are yellow and one is blue), replaced the carpet with hardwood flooring, and added my own furnishings. My friends say it looks like a psychiatrist’s office with the chaise lounge and the huge desk. I tend to agree.

My writing space is fantastic all year round, but my favorite time to write is on a cold winter evening. The fire is crackling merrily. I am wrapped in a blanket, pecking away at a scene while my dog cozies down in my lap. Bagpipes play softly in the background. I sip hot mulled wine. Comforting smells waft from the adjacent kitchen. And my characters truly come alive in my mind.

My favorite reading memory

I grew up on a farm. Well, sort of. It was sixty acres of pasture and scrubby juniper forest. My mom kept a massive garden and we ate fresh and home-canned veggies all year. We had five to six indoor dogs, fifteen cats, a bird, a frog, a couple sheep, and six horses.

My horse was Phyllis, a gray dappled appaloosa mare. She’s still around and approximately thirty years old. She’s a crotchety old lady now, but when I was in elementary school, boy, did she and I have some good times. We used to ride those sixty acres and canter across sun-drenched fields. I gave her apples and carrots and brush-downs; she gave me nuzzles so powerful I was lifted off my feet.

My favorite reading memory has to do with Phyllis. I used to brush her down, give her some treats, and take her into the backyard where the grass was greener. I’d climb up bareback with a book in hand and she would meander slowly across the yard, grazing peacefully. I would lay down with my bare feet dangling beside her powerful neck and my head resting on her rump. In that way, I would read for hours and hours, listening to her pulling the grass, the swish of her tail, and the occasional puff or snort.

I was a lucky little kid.

My favorite book

My favorite book of all time is The Giver by Lois Lowry. You can go read a thousand reviews to get a synopsis of the plot. I’m not going to provide that here.

Why is The Giver my favorite book? I read it when I was still in elementary school. This book ROCKED MY WORLD. It helped me appreciate—really appreciate—life and living. It helped me realize that there was a bigger world than met my narrow view. I truly understood at a tender age how pain, relationships, families, laughter, communication, love, tears, and life are all precious treasures to be cherished and fought for. I apprehended that history and world events were about real people suffering or exulting.

I have 6 nieces and nephews, and my Christmas tradition for years has been to give them books. I was so excited when I finally gave my oldest niece and nephew each a copy of The Giver. If the book spoke to them as powerfully as it did to me, I was the most awesome aunt on the planet for sharing such a glorious piece of literature with them. I can’t wait to share it with the others.

My favorite quotation

“The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
—Mark Twain

I love this line from Mark Twain. In October of 2008 I visited his home near Hartford, Connecticut, where he wrote some of his most famous work including the adventures of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I was duly impressed. At the nearby museum honoring Mr. Clemens, I learned he was fastidious about the quotations he spouted. He scratched out dozens of drafts with the wording changed slightly in just a sentence or two before he settled on the right phraseology.

I love this about Mark Twain. I wonder how many drafts the above quote went through before he landed on perfection.

Being a good writer is knowing how to excise the waste and strike lightning into the hearts of readers with a turn of phrase that is just right. I strive to reach that pinnacle of writing and frequently fail. But when it happens, it fills me up and my readers notice.

The new direction for this blog

The fiction portion of this blog has run its course. From now on my posts will be writing-related. Thank you for reading and commenting on my work.

Abandonment

Something has changed. I wasn’t told of the change, so I learned of it piecemeal. Bit by bit, the new way of things has become increasingly clear. I’m not sure when it happened, exactly. Perhaps I am at fault, but I have searched my memory and don’t recall any offending incident.

I walk along the streambed and watch the tiny fiddler crabs burrow in the brackish mud. The Spanish moss drapes me, caresses my shoulders, shuts me out from the world. I leave no footprints in the grass. My white jacket flutters in the hot summer wind.

This place is beautiful, but I am so alone. My loneliness is a gulf that stretches to the horizon and back. My people, my friends, they have left me here to burrow in the mud. Even the fiddler crabs skitter away from me when I approach them.

When I reach out to my people, I am spurned. I can see them across the flowing waters; my people are out there, laughing and playing and living. Without me. I need to climb this tree and put them out of my mind, for I am out of theirs.

I lean against the tree, the ache in my chest too great to move further.

Rage

Your altered state of contentment is my destruction. Push the button. Push all the buttons. Covet your vision of perfection. I stand with fists clenched and teeth grinding, waiting for you to rocket into the stratosphere. But you don’t. You keep talking. My ears are bleeding, my brain liquefying and pouring from my eyes as you talk. My tears fall on my hot cheeks and I wipe them away angrily. My fury is a coiled snake in my chest. My rage boils my blood; the froth in my veins moves to my heart and fills it with bad air. My feet lift off the ground and I float away, carried by the bubbles. I am left with an empty husk of a soul, shredded and burned. I will do my best never to see you again.

Rain dance

You were gone, long gone, and I could no longer smell your scent as I walked through the empty house. I couldn’t bring myself to unpack the boxes, and they lurked like a forest of overgrown drab Legos.

The phone rang occasionally. I didn’t even realize I had a phone connected until the first time the shrill sound reverberated through the house. I didn’t know where the phone lived under the detritus of newspaper, food cartons, and tissues.

When the knocking started, I ignored that, too. The newspapers stopped arriving and the phone and electricity stopped working. I paced in the darkness, avoiding the shattered mirrors on the walls. How they ever got hung I couldn’t remember.

One day it began to rain inside. The thunder rolled and rolled and rolled like a train rumbling by and the leak sprang in the roof. I watched the raindrops fall on the blue floor and ached to be anywhere else. Ached tiredly, without energy behind it, not enough to stand outside and bathe in the rain. I stood under the trickle from the ceiling and felt the cool water drip from the tip of my nose.

I stood there for a long time, letting the rain seep into my filthy shirt, before I felt the call.

I went to the kitchen and unpacked a single bowl. It had been your bowl. I placed it on the floor under the leak and listened with satisfaction to the plink-plink-plink of the raindrops in the bowl. My hands moved without my volition, and I began to unpack. I could do this.

Despite the rain, there came a knock at the door. I stumbled across the messy floor and unlocked the door.

Anxiety

I sit at my computer, my fingers hovering over the keyboard expectantly. I have opened a new window but I don’t recall where I was going to go. Someone walks by. My heart seizes in my chest as if I have done something wrong. The footsteps recede, and a massive adrenaline dump makes me woozy. I can barely see straight.

I worry about the last thing that came out of my mouth, twenty minutes ago. Worry that it may have been taken the wrong way. Worry that I gave something away I shouldn’t have. Worry I seemed stupid when I said it.

I open the new window on my computer again and freeze. What was it I wanted to do? I check the usual sites. Nothing has changed in the two minutes since I last checked.

My breathing is shallow. My heart, stopped only moments ago, now races to make up for lost beats. I feel a slow thud forming behind my left eye. I clench my fist around my pen. My knuckles don’t turn white; they are blood-red. I dig the pen into the flesh of my wrist until there is a large stain of blue ink there.

It will be hours until this goes away. Maybe until I wake up tomorrow. Worse, it could be days. This anxiety is going to kill me.

Alone

I match the gait of the person ahead of me. Step left, shuffle, step right, pause. My gaze is glued to the sticky concrete sidewalk. The flashing lights do not draw my eyes. A roar of conversation fills my ears, wrapping me in an anonymous cocoon. People yell across the crowd at each other, elbow each other, laugh and even sing bawdy songs. No one speaks to me. Though I don’t look up, I’m sure no one glances my way.

I pause as the Converse sneakers in front of me pause. I hold out my ID and allow my hand to get stamped without glancing up. I wait until a large group squeezes through the narrow black door, jostling each other and fighting for prominence. When the doorway clears, I enter the room.

A blast of loud music punches my chest, empties my lungs of air. I take a deep breath; I taste the sickly tang of smoke and sweat and alcohol. I make my way to the edge of the crowd and hover in a bubble of space that no one is willing to pop. I wrap my arms close to my chest and plunge into the crowd. I slide against sweaty arms long ponytails. I am invisible, short, unobtrusive. I make my way through the crowd between elbows and knees. I reach the center of the mob and pause. There is so little space here that I am being touched by four people around me. The music blares and the people around me scream to be heard. Some hold hands or touch each other lightly on the shoulder to be noticed.

I do none of these things.

I am utterly alone.

Leaving the larkspur

“I don’t know, Sissy,” said Starla. She brushed her blue hair from her eyes. “What if we get caught?”

Sissy fluttered her translucent wings impatiently. “Who cares?” she said. “We’ve never been out of the faery patch.”

Starla took flight and hovered uncertainly over the deep purple petals of her mother’s house in a tall, proud larkspur. It was one of a million in the hillside patch, but it was her favorite. She had hatched just a week and a half ago in this very larkspur.

“You know the larkspur doesn’t bloom forever, right?” Sissy said. “All the faeries will have to find new houses when the flowers turn brown. So we’d just be getting a head start.”

“Oh, all right,” Starla said.

The two tiny faeries took off together. Their wings made a faint buzzing sound, softer than a hummingbird. They passed ladybugs headed out to market and honey bees with pollen-speckled faces. They laughed as they spun higher and higher on a gentle updraft. Soon the vast larkspur forest was spread out below them like a green sky filled with deep purple stars.

Sissy took Starla’s hand. “Are you ready?” she cried over the rushing wind.

“Ready!”

They snatched at a passing dogwood petal and clung to it, screaming with glee. “Where will we land?” Starla yelled.

“Who knows? It could be anywhere!” Sissy replied.