Tag: Families

Admitting the place of geography in a piece

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Much of my literary writing has attempted to capture the unique sense of particular landscapes, sometimes to the extent that the locale becomes a character of its own. Serious wine drinkers might see this as a matter of terroir, meaning distinctive local flavor.

In my novel What’s Left, I tried to avoid this touchstone but wound up developing the neighborhood around the family restaurant anyway.

In placing it in a college town in southern Indiana, I created an inside joke all the same. If you’re familiar with the region, you’ll know the Ohio River is much more than an hour from Indianapolis. The college town where she lives is defined by both, and thus in a site uniquely its own. If only it actually existed!

Still, I think the flavor is right.

~*~

I know I’m not alone here.

Tell me of a favorite book or movie where you think the location becomes a character in its own right. Let’s make this a long list!

~*~

There’s nothing quite like an American diner in Paris …

Sometimes a character dictates the story

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

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?

~*~

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.

The paperback cover …

Structuring a big book

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

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? 

~*~

In my novel, the family’s upgraded Carmichael’s restaurant could have emerged like this one in London. Instead, they took a bolder direction, even if a Greek menu wasn’t a viable option where they were.