Our aunt Meterling stood over six feet tall, a giantess, a tree. From her limbs came huge hands, which always held a shower of snacks for us children. We could place two of our feet in one of her sandals, and her green shawl made for a roof to cover our play forts. We loved Meterling, because she was so devotedly freakish, because she rained everyone with affection, and because we felt that anyone that tall had to be supernaturally gifted. No one actually said she was a ghost, or a saint, or a witch, but we watched for signs nevertheless. She knew we suspected her of tricks, for she often smiled at us and displayed sleight of hand, pulling coins and shells out of thin air. But that, said Rasi, didn’t prove anything; Rasi had read The Puffin Book of Magic Tricks and pretty much knew them all, and was not so easily impressed.
Thus begins the novel As Sweet As Honey by my good friend Indira Ganesan. It’s just been published by Knopf.
Indira’s writing possesses a beautiful tone: warm, seductive, lots of colour and sense experiences. And in this book she brings to life a whole set of characters from a family whose lives take us to a fictitious island in the Indian Ocean, and then to England and the United States. It’s an intriguing and magical story about the surprises life throws in our way, and how families deal with them; ultimately, for me, it’s a book about how we make our homes.
And at the centre of the book is this amazing figure, wonderfully rendered: Meterling, the giant aunt. We’ve all had important figures in our childhoods, in our families, and we’ve also all met memorable characters in our reading. Meterling is the character who looms large, quite literally, in this book, and she does so through the simple fact that she’s so tall.
I remember Indira sharing early selections from this book at readings, and that giantess really stuck in my mind ever since. It’s such a simple yet powerful thing to do (and the most powerful things are usually the simplest): giving a character a distinctive physical attribute. And it can be helpful in letting the character take over the writing, too. Indira says: ‘Once I let Meterling become the protagonist, the book became so much easier to write.’
External features, in many ways, also define the inner lives of the characters who possess them, but not always in predictable ways. And this is where the writing gets interesting. As well as Meterling, I’m thinking of one of my favourite characters of late: Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf wit and scheming genius of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. But there are other traits, not just height: scars, missing limbs, extra limbs, freckles (Anne of Green Gables), hair colour, hair deficiency, hairiness, body weight, big feet, little hands, harelips (Precious Bane! Her mother: ‘Could I help it if the hare crossed my path – could I help it?’).
So, this week, write the opening page of a novel in which you introduce a character who, by dint of some physical attribute, will loom large in the lives of all the other characters.
And do read Indira’s book as well! Amazon might be the easiest place to buy in the UK, but try to support your local indie if you can, especially if you are in the US. It’s also available from HarperCollins India in South Asia, and as an audiobook from Audible (this might be a lovely one to have read to you, in fact). And here’s Indira’s Facebook Page, too.
From the comments, I notice that some people seem to object to the idea of lists of tips and advice. In which case, either: lighten up (none of this is gospel, and as in all things creative some things will contradict themselves). Or: bugger off and write your own book then, and keep your damage to yourself.
From Matt Haig’s list, I particularly note several things: choosing agents wisely (should like to know the story there …); the need for editors (yes!); the idea there are now more gates for the gatekeepers to manage; and also:
Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth. The cure for writer’s block is therefore to read.
The Three Guys One Book comments included one of my favourite points:
I was at the Writers’ Workshop Getting Published day as a book doctor on Saturday. I met a number of writers to give them feedback on sample material for their proposed submissions to agents, and I also led a workshop on voice, in which I talked about the value of the natural speaking voice. It was a lot of fun, as it always is when you get to meet writers directly. And as ever the Writers’ Workshop people were fun and well organised and direct in addressing the needs of writers: thanks to Harry, Laura, Nikki, Deborah, Lydia, John, and everyone else involved, and it was great to meet the other book doctors again or for the first time.
Here are a few notes to follow up, including some of the resources mentioned during the day.
The workshop * To start, we discussed the idea of trusting the natural speaking VOICE as a vehicle for your writing, and considered how TONE in writing particularly concerns itself with introducing an emotional quality.
* We looked at some examples of professional writing for the structures and patterns we often use in business or academic contexts (e.g., an objective tone; lots of subordinating clauses). Such voices often lack personality, and intentionally. But in fiction or more creative forms, a neutral voice can feel colourless, and fiction can start to feel cluttered by certain forms of syntax that let us pack in or even bury information when we need it. Yet very often, these have become the ways we write – our natural way of writing.
* By contrast, thinking about the NATURAL SPEAKING VOICE (and thinking and remembering voice), we read a selection from Joe Brainard’s ‘I Remember’, and wrote our own versions and then read them aloud. This form is natural and easy to use, and it is notable how it relies on simple sentence structures (okay, we’re going to introduce sentence variety later). It also has the strength of instinctively focusing our writing on concrete and specific words, especially nouns and verbs (adjectives and adverbs are so rarely needed, even if they do add a certain something).
* I read aloud the opening from Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal, and noted not only its gossipy quality, but how every sentence in that first paragraph is directed towards the idea of STORYTELLING or NARRATION. (And what is gossip, if not storytelling?!) We also noted that the voice and tone here belong to a specific PERSONA (in this case, judgemental and even bitchy), and this can enrich the CHARACTERISATION in our work (this being the persona, not the bitchiness – though maybe that too!).
* We also looked at and listened to Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’ as an example of writing that takes a particular tone, again a judgemental one. I wish I’d had a bit more time to discuss tone, so I’ll mention it briefly here: there are specific ways we can vary the tone in terms of not only form (e.g., word choices, using different parts of speech, sentence lengths, modes of address), but also content (the narrative ingredients selected for observation and inclusion).
Something I did not mention in the workshop was this great statement on simplicity in writing from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well:
the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
That might sound a bit extreme, especially if you’re working in a more literary mode. But this emphasis on simplicity – the simplicity found in the natural speaking voice – is perhaps one of the best foundations for most good writing.
Book doctoring It was interesting that the writer whose voice I thought most striking and fresh from her submission turned out not to be a native speaker of English. Which perhaps accounted for the number of slips in spelling! But even those sorts of slips just go to show that a good voice shines through anyway. And also that there are differing definitions of perfection – after all, we need to keep some work for the copyeditors. Anyway, I’d never have guessed she was not a native English speaker; a particular name, in fact, made me think she was an English woman of a certain age, and that was what I was expecting. Wow. To do that in a language you weren’t born into; puts most of us native English speakers to shame.
In addition, this writer comes from a part of the world that might bring a fresh perspective to an established genre, and I encouraged her to think about introducing more of that into the writing too. Good luck to her!
Some of the things that came up in other samples: writing that packs too much in too soon; various other issues of pacing; developing a narrative focus, and letting unfolding action tell the story; overwriting, especially overexplaining (fiction can suggest, be allusive); using point of view to give a story an edge; prose style needing more life, texture, and colour (specific and concrete imagery often add a spike of energy, as do well-selected verbs and nouns).
It’s also a good idea to know your genre, and what might be expected of it – everything from conventions you can use, to trends, to word lengths. This knowledge can grow your own instinct in writing. It’s worth paying a visit to a larger or specialist bookshop, maybe during the morning when you might be able to chat with a bookseller about trends and popular writers. Pick up some recommended books, if you have not read them already, and sample them for what you can bring to your own work.
And beyond the writing, writers often need to think about the profile and platform that might help an agent or publisher promote your work. Even in fiction. In fact, personal experience can often inform the writing in good, instinctive ways, lending it depth and authority. Though of course we must always allow for flights of fancy and imagination, too.
Finally, don’t forget that publishing is something of a lottery. I tend to think that the best books eventually find a home, though whether they sell once published is another matter. And of course some not so great books get published and become roaring successes – but that is usually because they connect with something or other among a readership. What is that thing in your writing that might connect?
Recommended reading Regardless of the genre you’re working in, these are some of the most useful books on writing. And yes, you probably can gain from doing a bit of studying of this sort, either on your own or in a creative writing class. Understanding techniques in writing will just add depth to your work.
Sin and Syntax, by Constance Hale Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin The Making of a Story, by Alice LaPlante How to Write, by Harry Bingham On Writing, by Stephen King The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler 20 Master Plots, by Ronald Tobias
One of my very favourite people on Facebook is Anne Rice. She really understands how to use technology to connect with her readers. Her status updates are full of warmth, wisdom, and curiosity, and they have also sent me to various clips of her speaking on YouTube. Whether she is explaining why she quit organised Christianity or talking about plotting or the process of outlining (or not-outlining), her observations contain great insight, generosity, and inspiration. E.g., when you get stuck, ‘the worst thing you can do is go off and think.’ She is a very instinctive writer. Elsewhere she also makes a very emphatic statement that she thinks her books have been successful because readers connect to the characters. (How might readers connect to your characters?)
Above is a warm, funny, and touching interview with ‘the high priestess of modern gothic fiction’.
It’s been a while since I first read Interview With the Vampire, which is surely one of the two greatest vampire novels (Salem’s Lot being the other, for me; though its vampire-monsters lack the complexity of Louis, Lestat, Claudia, et al., it will always scare the hell outta me, and that’s a fine achievement in any novel). Interview With the Vampire has such a simple idea: a vampire tells the story of his life in an interview with a journalist. But it opens up so much, and it touches on two (again, simple) things I often find myself emphasising when I am working with writers: faith in the natural speaking voice as the mode of writing, and by extension the telling of a story (tell me a story – a great mantra). Like many of the best bits of advice, these are really obvious principles, though sometimes they can get a bit lost in other conversations about technique and revision, or overshadowed by the desire to impress (something we can usually do without).
I think it’s time to reread Interview With the Vampire, and catch up on some of her other books.
The rose that is in the garden is red. In the first sentence, the rose that is in the garden is red, as opposed to, say, the rose that is in the vase on the mantelpiece, which could be red too, though that is not specified; the other rose could be white, or yellow, but that’s immaterial, because we’re talking about the rose in the garden. We use that because the fact that that rose is in the garden is crucial to clarifying which rose we are talking about. That garden needs to be bolted to that rose, so we use that, and a that, at that(!), that’s unseparated from the rose by commas. The clause ‘that is in the garden’ is a restrictive clause, i.e., it restricts or specifies meaning, and our understanding of that sentence fundamentally depends on it: we’re talking about the rose in the garden.
The rose, which is in the garden, is red. In the second sentence, the fact that the rose is in the garden is supplementary information – extra description, perhaps, but not essential to our understanding. The core meaning of that sentence is that the rose is red. The fact that it is in the garden is secondary. You could cut it and bring it indoors and we could then say: The rose, which is now in the vase, is red. The fact that it was previously in the garden remains secondary; the fact that it is red is foremost. The clause ‘which is in the garden’ is a nonrestrictive clause, i.e., it does not restrict or specify meaning, and our understanding does not depend on it; we could in fact remove that clause and we’d still understand the basic meaning of that sentence: the rose is red (and it just happens to be in the garden).
Also note that the nonrestrictive which clause is set off by commas; it can be whipped out of the sentence, along with those commas, because it’s not essential.
For years, I was lost. I did not know the difference, could not see the difference, between the relative pronouns that and which. My lack of formal grammar training (back then) and my reliance on gut instinct left me floundering (I had seen many whiches that I was told should be thats – but why, o why?!). My friend Helen at work tried to explain, but I was too stupid (she’d been to Oxford and had a degree in German and Russian; I’d been to Hull and had a degree in American Studies).
Then one day, it just dawned on me. Ding! And now I get it. Not so stupid anymore.
This distinction is something that is not always easily grasped. Like many matters that are so often a matter of instinct, you need to hear it time and again, and in different voices and from different perspectives, before it sinks in. A further useful explanation, I find, is the one given by Bill Bryson in his Dictionary of Troublesome Words.
Of course, that is a word that also serves other functions: demonstrative pronoun (That is mine), demonstrative adjective (That man), subordinate conjunction (I am so happy that I could cry). So you can end up with sentences like ‘I noted that that that he talks about is rubbish’. I have to say that in a perverse way I really quite like that. Oh, that word again.
Does this matter? Grammar descriptivists would say not. Meaning is clear, they’d say. But is it, always?
I’m not really a prescriptivist; I far prefer the notion of usage to the idea of rules. I once had a lecturer whose books were full of whiches where I would now put thats. Never mind, and we all survived (and the lecturer clearly was not stupid; he ended up a professor at Cambridge – sorry, Helen, I know it’s the other place, but). Some writers simply prefer the rhythm of a which (though I can no longer hear that music, I’m afraid), while others propose that UK practice often favours which where the US would insist on that, a point supported by Oxford Dictionaries.
And a lot of publishers and editors do not worry about that vs which, though I have known copyeditors who’ve got in trouble for changing whiches to thats, so clearly someone worries, and some editors are even stirred to action. The wonderful Grammar Girl tells us that:
In fact, having a client try to overrule my correction of a which to a that was one of the things that pushed me over the edge and made me start the Grammar Girl podcast.
But various usage guides and other authorities tell us not to fuss, either. There are more important things to concern ourselves with. (Like the freedom to end sentences with prepositions.)
However, there can be a clear distinction in the use of that and which, and there is a beauty in the availability of such clarity. Some of us do care, even in the UK.
I recently copyedited a work in translation, and I changed a which to a that. When I checked over the translator’s responses, I saw he’d flagged the margin with an ‘EEK!’. Eek, said I back; was this an eek of horror at my purism, or his oversight?! I double-checked, and at this point he told me of his ‘own insistence on this useful distinction (sadly in abeyance here). It shocks me that so many really fine writers seem unaware of it. It can radically alter meaning.’
Of course late at night, updating my blog, it’s hard to come up with examples. But we know you’re out there! And I’m going to start collecting examples of such instances. (Updated 23 September 2013.)
March 2019 update: Things change, life moves on, and I’m not sure I would be so ardent in changing whiches to thats nowadays! Though I do still prefer this distinction in my own writing, today, if I were editing I’d simply ask writers if they prefer to follow the difference themselves. Have I just grown slack? Or maybe it’s simply that I’ve seen so many whiches in place where they really don’t hurt that I figure it’s best to leave them as they came out.
