In my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s grandmother and her sister marry two brothers. One is named Pericles.
Does the idea of siblings in one family marrying siblings in another bother you? Or does it seem like a natural possibility?
Tag: Families
Sometimes a character dictates the story
For a writer, nothing is more magical than when a character begins dictating the story. Sometimes, you can’t type fast enough to keep up with her.
As I was saying about the “zipper” that sometimes appears while revising a work? This one, I’d say, is the most satisfying.
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Now that I’ve confessed, it’s your turn.
Do you ever hear “voices” while doing something? Do they help or hinder your action?
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My novel’s available at the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Smashwords, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook distributors and at Amazon in both Kindle and paperback.
Love springs from some kind of attraction
Cassia’s father grew up in a conventional middle-class family in the middle of the country. It was much, much different from her mother’s upbringing not that many miles away.
As they say, opposites attract. So, from your experience, how about an example?
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Structuring a big book
As a reader, you probably don’t pay much attention to the bones of a book — the number of chapters it has or how many sections they fall into. For a writer, of course, these can be central considerations. Ideally, there’s a beginning, middle, and end for each chapter and each section as well as the entire book itself.
In my psyche, one ideal structure is the symphony — typically, but not always, four movements, each one different, having an underlying unity that ends in an exciting climax. (Oh, there are some gems that do end quietly — so much for expectations!) A typical novel, on the other hand, may be twenty to thirty chapters of roughly 20 pages apiece running in chronological order, not that I’ve ever stuck with that convention.
In What’s Left, my novel I set out hoping you could start or end in any chapter, yet in some way they’d join to build the tension and resolution of the whole. The model that inspired me appeared to use chapters as mosaics or panels that could be moved around independently, if the reader desired.
I can’t quite see doing that in the final version my work, though a reader might leap over a chapter or two, if needed, and still pick up on some action — if, that is, the chapters are complete enough in their own right. Think of a string of short stories.
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If you’ve had a chance to read What’s Left, give me your feedback.
Does this structure work for you? Would you rather I’d broken the novel out into two, three, or four shorter books as a series? Did you skip over any parts? Would rearranging any parts work better?
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The world opened up
The hippie movement opened Cassia’s father’s horizons. He wound up trekking through the Himalayas. Many others hitchhiked through Europe.
What’s the most exotic place you’ve been?
Walk right in, see for yourself
Nita didn’t tell him much about her family. She knew he’d like her younger sister.
Have you ever been thrown into a social situation you knew little about – but that changed your life? The kind where the door just opened for you?
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A big family like theirs needs a big house
In my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s extended family revolves around a big Victorian house, one that’s undergone extensive restoration.
Do you ever dream of living in a big old house? What most attracts you?
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Ten ancestors I wish I could meet
As a genealogist, I’m not alone in facing situations where key questions are unlikely to ever be answered. If only we could go back in history and ask the individuals themselves, hoping they might know. (Dealing with more recent situations, I’ve found three different people often have quite different recollections. Take that as a caveat.) And that’s presuming we could even understand each other, considering the differences in dialect and customs.
So, back to the ancestors. They had to be dead before I was born, right?
- George Hodgson, 1700/01-1774. I want details on the ill-fated ocean crossing, including the names of his parents and siblings, who perished on the trip.
- His wife, Mary Thatcher, 1712-1764. There are enough hints to make me suspect she was far more independent, even rebellious in the face of her tyrant father, than we might expect of a Quaker maiden. In addition, I imagine she would have much to add about their relocation to the Pennsylvania frontier, in what’s today’s Adams County, and then on down to North Carolina’s Piedmont region as one of its first English-speaking settlers.
- Someone on his mother’s side. For now, their neighbor Moses Harlan, 1683-1749, seems a prime candidate.
- George’s father himself. So far, this is the weakest link in taking the family back to Cumbria, England. I want confirmation for my circumstantial argument, or at least correction.
- Peter Ehrstine, . Who were your parents?
- Elizabeth Ehrstine, if she is indeed his mother.
- Pleasant Hodson, 1827-1908. I would especially like to his account of “bushwhacking” in the wild rather than serving in the Confederate Army.
- Pleasant’s mother, Delilah Britton, 1794-1883. She was born to an unmarried mother and apparently orphaned between 1800 and 1804, when she was recorded as 10-year-old and assigned to the Eleazor Hunt household. While her surname was often reported as Hunt or Rayle, I am left wondering about a child born before her marriage to George Hodson. Her father, meanwhile, was Matthew Rayle. She lived through a lot, including the Civil War.
- John Hodgson, buried 1675, Pardshaw Meeting, Cumbria, husband of Eliner. Apparently the first of my Quaker Hodsons, he could clear up much of the early line in England. Was he, in fact, the same John Hodgson was wrote, as a former Parliamentarian army officer, a Quaker tract addressed to other soldiers or the John Hodgson imprisoned for his faith in 1660 or 1664.
- My grandfather, Cecil Munroe, 1903-1945. From everything I’ve seen since turning my attention to him about 30 years ago, he was the affectionate, even artistic, male figure who was missing in my childhood. I suspect my life would have been much different had he survived beyond his early forties.
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How about you and your roots?
Right time, right place
The hippie movement brought tensions to the family before Cassia’s future father showed up on the scene. He had no idea he never would have been welcomed by everyone even a year or two earlier, much less encouraged to stay.
Have you ever been welcomed in a situation where timing was everything?
Expectations of normal?
In my novel What’s Left, they aren’t a typical Greek-American family. Not exactly. But they’re not like Cassia’s classmates’ homes, either.
How would you say yours differs from a “normal” family?
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Jnana's Red Barn 