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A participant in my online private crit group recently asked:

I’m wondering if you would clarify something for me about your approach to writing. On your web site, in your critiques of others, and again with your advice on my last posting, you come down pretty hard against dialogue. I can see why in many cases. A lot of us have the habit of using dialogue in place of exposition, and it ends up sounding wooden and slowing down the story. That’s one of my biggest challenges, I think.

But it seems to me that there is another type of dialogue — one that is in itself the action. If two people are having a verbal disagreement, that’s action. If someone is threatening someone, that’s action. So long as you keep the dialogue on the matters of the here-and-now, and resist the temptation to use it for backstory, isn’t it part of a "scene" rather than "exposition" or "narrative"?

What are your thoughts on this?

Here’s my answer:

Of course dialogue can be in an action scene and it can be used to progress the action. That’s not how you’re using it. If you did a point form list of the actions your character makes during the dialogue, you’ll see that they’re talking heads.

I have taught many writing workshops in addition to what I do here and there is a distinct pattern in the progression of writers who are working on first novels. Here’s what I’ve noticed:

1. Talking head syndrome.

The over-reliance on dialogue indicates to me that the writer hasn’t mastered some of the other techniques for story progression. I’ve seen dialogue being used instead of an action scene, instead of a flashback (which is essentially an action scene), and most commonly, I’ve seen dialogue used to tell backstory. My five word rule for dialogue on my website is a measuring tool. I posted that so that people could check their own dialogue and see whether they were doing this stuff or not.

2. Unclear point of view.

This can be head-hopping, where the narration meanders between a number of people in the room, or it can be a narration from several people at once — "we did….". First person is the most immediate and the one that first novel writers gravitate towards but it is also the most difficult one to pull off effectively. A third person intimate perspective is very close to first person, but it gives you the ability to change points of view in alternating chunks when you need to — ie — writing a chapter from someone else’s point of view. This can also be done with two first person Ps of V, but is harder to pull off and perhaps shouldn’t be attempted until a subsequent novel.

3. Beginning a story with backstory rather than plunging into action.

Writers have all sorts of interesting snippets of research and background material on their characters and stories and there is a great temptation of sharing all of that with the reader. Only 2% of what you want to be in your story should end up in your story. The writer will know the rest, but will keep it and dole out snippets like gold. But there is this tendency in first novel writers to want to start way too early in a story, or give a prologue which is another form of backstory.

4. Giving too much information.

A painting with some canvas showing through is more intriguing that a photographic rendering of a subject. In the same way, a story is more intriguing by what you hold back as much as by what you show. That’s what causes pull and mystery. No matter what the genre, there has to be something there to propel the reader to want more.

5. Undeveloped characters.

Each person in a story must be unique within themselves. A key indicator that they’re not is when there is that "we" POV. What makes a character distinctive? Their inner life. Their thoughts and desires. For every character, you must know what they want, what they love and what they need. A story is all about one character’s wants/loves/needs clashing with another character’s wants/loves/needs.

6. Lack of precision in concrete detail.

And by this I don’t mean than one should list everything in a room, or what a person is wearing or what a person looks like. One small unique item can say so much about a character or circumstance. For example, who cares if someone has blue eyes? Is that a character trait? But if a person’s thumbnail is bitten down to the quick, that shows a lot about the person’s character and circumstances without the writer having to tell it.

Elizabeth Yates just posted this youtube link of me reading from Stolen Child. Thank you for making this video, Elizabeth!

The good folks at the OLA who organize the Forest of Reading celebrations asked each nominee to provide a youtube of a brief reading from their nominated book. Since Call Me Aram is nominated for the Silver Birch Express award, I needed to do this.

The timing was not ideal. The email arrived in my inbox on Jan 10th with a due date of Jan 15th. My first Stolen Child book launch was scheduled at the Brantford Public Library on the 11th. Jan 15th was Family Day, and on Jan 17th, I had five events for Stolen Child scheduled in Toronto!

I emailed my contact at the OLA letting them know that I could not meet the Feb 15th deadline but would do the best I could.

Fate intervened in a lovely way. My friend Elizabeth Yates emailed to ask if she could do a video of me reading from Stolen Child at the book launch on Jan 11th. I told her absolutely, and if there was time, could she please also do a video of me reading from Call Me Aram? She agreed.

I’ll post about the launch later, but suffice it to say that there was no time to do those videos on the 11th.

But I got another email the next day, from Roy, the owner of Green Heron Books in Paris. I love this independent book store. Roy is very supportive of Canadian authors and always stocks books by authors who live in the area. He wanted to know if I could drop into his store to sign stock copies of Stolen Child.

I said sure — on the 16th. And then I asked Elizabeth if she could do a video of me reading Call Me Aram at Green Heron Books. So she met me there. Ironically, Roy had sold out of most of the Stolen Child by then so I dropped by again on Thursday.

Here’s the youtube video.

Thank you, Elizabeth and Roy!

I attended my very first SCBWI conference at the end of January and it was amazing! A great opportunity to hear some luminaries of children’s and YA lit speak. I loved Libba Bray’s presentation! My favourite presenter of the weekend was Jacqueline Woodson.

One of the highlights was meeting up with three of my fellow Canadians. Here’s a picture of me with Marc’e Merrill, Debby Waldman and Joan Galat:

Hope to see you at my Stolen Child launch in Toronto on Wednesday, February 17th. It will be held at :

The Ukrainian National Federation Resource Centre from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Here’s the address:

145 Evans Ave.
Toronto

Books will be available for sale and autograph.

 

 

 

 

I was thrilled to receive my first advance copy of Stolen Child in the mail yesterday. It was an emotional roller coaster to write this novel. It was inspired by my late mother-in-law’s WWII memories in Ukraine.

The novel will be coming out on Feb 1, 2010.

Here’s a bit more about the book:

In an effort to boost the birth rate of the master race, the Nazis instituted a frightening program called Lebensborn (the Fount of Life). SS soldiers were encouraged to breed with females deemed to be of racially valuable stock. Some were German, others were women and girls of captive nations and in 1942, an even more sinister aspect of the Lebensborn program was established. The Nazis believed that there were lost seeds of the Aryan nation amidst the Slavs. In an effort to reclaim these supposed lost Germans, children were stolen from their parents and shipped to Lebensborn homes for further testing and brainwashing.

In Stolen Child, Marsha Skrypuch imagines the story of twelve-year-old Nadia Krawchuk, who has immigrated with her parents to Canada, but her re-location triggers disturbing dreams and ultimately vivid memories of another family and a girl she recalls as Gretchen. This is a powerful, moving and disturbing tale of one of the lesser known horrors of Hitler’s racial obsession.

And an excerpt:

Dark shadows dance on the scuffed white walls. Someone else’s fingernail scratches are etched around the glass doorknob and there are tiny splinters of wood fraying from the door itself. For a few trembling moments I look out at the dirt-trampled snow far below my window. Why am I a prisoner in this house?

My throat is raw from screaming, and my fingernails are bloodied from scrabbling at the doorknob. I lie on the wooden floor and stare up at the bare lightbulb. I can hear nothing but my own gasping breaths.

Shuffling. A struggle. A child screams down the hallway. A door slams shut.

Another stolen child.

http://roverarts.com/2009/11/a-new-life-in-canada/

By Neil MacRae 22.11.2009

Aram Davidian and his friends are among thousands of children orphaned by the Turkish effort, at the end of the First World War, to eradicate its non-Muslim Armenian population. By 1923 many of these children, together with a small number of fortunate adults, had taken refuge on the Greek island of Corfu.
During the same period, Armenian Canadians organized the rescue of small groups of children and brought them to Georgetown, Ontario, where they were educated and trained in farming methods, and started toward lives of safety and possibility.
Aram’s Choice describes the exodus of one young boy and his grandmother from Turkey to Corfu, the decision he must make to leave her in Greece for the sake of his own future, and the loneliness and uncertainty of his journey to Canada. Call Me Aram tells how he is able to grow into his new country and its customs, understand and make himself understood, and embrace his new circumstances while holding firm to his own identity.
Aram does not dwell on the horrors of the Armenian genocide, nor do Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, who gives him voice, and Muriel Wood who provides images of Aram and his life. All reflect on the sadness of his experience and its consequences, and all reveal his curiosity, confusion and wonder at the new life and world that opens before him.
Fitzhenry and Whiteside note that the New Beginnings series, of which these books are part, are “historical chapter books for newly independent readers.” Both these books admirably fulfill that mandate. They are written with a simplicity of language and phrasing which should be, for young readers, familiar enough to be readily understood, and yet challenging enough to maintain interest. Skrypuch’s writing and the story are also engaging to an adult reader, allowing a shared reading and learning experience for young people, their parents and teachers. Wood’s illustrations are vivid, well drawn and well placed throughout the text, adding immediacy and support to the narrative and sustaining a high level of involvement and comprehension. In addition, the books feature a brief historical explanation of the story’s context and suggestions for further investigation of that history, both in print and on film, that provide guidance and direction without the intimidation of a lengthy bibliography.
It is not possible to understate the importance of fostering historical curiosity and perspective in young readers. Equally critical that those readers be drawn, as early as possible, toward an understanding of unfamiliar cultures and experiences – and provided with the insight that regardless of the diversity of our backgrounds, we are all exposed to the pains of loneliness and separation, the confusions of foreign custom and language, the comforts of friendship, and the shared capacity for compassion and discovery. And it is no less essential to inspire the growth of young readers into lifelong readers. These two books represent impressively positive steps toward those goals.

Neil MacRae is a poet and musician from the Maritimes who has recently, finally, found his home in Hinchinbrooke, Quebec.