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Every Draft Counts… Our stories often need to fall apart before they will fall into place

Dec31

The number of drafts it takes for the writer to craft before the story is complete varies between authors, and even between each writer’s own pieces of work.  Some might only write two or three drafts while others may write many more. 

Take for instance, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which took seven drafts to complete and Margaret Mitchell’s nine drafts over a ten year period to produce Gone with the Wind. It is also said that it took J.K. Rowlings up to fifteen drafts to write her famous first book in the Harry Potter series.  The point is that the final, finished product is not achieved overnight, or easily.  It takes much “tearing down and rebuilding”, or trial and error, and getting things wrong first to get things right. But, all of that hard work will be worth the effort because in the end, regardless of the final draft tally, each attempt builds upon the last and adds value toward the overall story.  Each draft counts, because- you see- our stories often do fall apart before they can fall into place.

Ernest Hemingway once said; the first draft of anything is shit. In fact, it is said that he rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms forty seven times before getting it to finish the way he wanted.  Anne Lamott in her “Bird by Bird” book on writing suggests the same idea when she said; Write an incredibly shitty, self indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft then take out as many of the excesses as you can. She referred to her own three draft process of writing the first draft as the down draft or child draft in which she writes freely whatever comes to mind, like a child, to get it all down.  This is followed by the up draft in which she begins the editing/ revision process and finally she produces the third and final draft, where she line edits.

Recently, I was drawn into a relationship breakup between two people I love very much.  They met when they were in college and remained in their relationship for several years before each of them had made enough poor decisions to wear down the integrity of the bond they shared.  In the end, those mistakes became too much.  The weight they carried eventually grew too heavy to uphold the framework of their relationship- pushing it to crumble into pieces like a neglected old barn that could no longer weather the storms. 

That relationship “tear –down” is not about me, however. I am merely standing on the outside watching their relationship fall apart like a reader with an emotionally provoking book in her lap. They are their story’s main characters who feel the direct brunt of their pain.   All I can do is offer my love, support and sought after advice.  And in that advice, I remind them that it can take many attempts (drafts) to eventually come up with the final product.  They may need to go through several  tear-downs and rebuilds and relationships before they find the right partner OR they could one day rework this very relationship narrative once they have fixed themselves enough to finally get it right.

Each effort we make will help us to know what we truly do want or do not want, what we need or deserve, whether out of a relationship, from a partner, or from a job or anything else, because each attempt moves us forward, either toward someone or something else with whom we are meant to be or toward a restructured version of the earlier failed chapter that will work this time around.  Sometimes, our starting point might be the place we were meant to be all along.  Or -sometimes not.  The only sure way to figure that out is to keep drafting.

Because truly, our stories often do need to fall apart before they can fall into place. None of us are perfect and rarely do we as human beings hit the lottery the first time we play or place first in the race the first time we run.  But, one thing is as certain as the sun rising each morning- every one of those drafts will count toward the end result that will work best for us.

In a February 2009 Writers Digest article, Author Elizabeth Sims said; youneed to give yourself permission to make mistakes because you haven’t forgiven yourself for past ones. Unless your throttle is wide open, you’re not giving it everything you’ve got.  T here will be trial and error, and drafts that contain excess you won’t need, thoughts, ideas and words that won’t work.  But none of that is a waste of time or effort because it will always point you toward the final draft that will work.  

Y.A Author and Playwright D.M. King said in his 2016 Writers Digest article: Six things to consider after you write your first draft”  when he was comparing his first girl crush to writing drafts;  I was so sure she was the one” (she wasn’t). ..that first draft was so easy to fall in love with because of the countless hours you’ve spent together drawing upon the muse and flooding  the page with your once-in-a –lifetime story. In other words, in your first draft you pour it all out- onto the paper letting every thought and word fall out freely without edit or revision or second thought.  You make a big fat mess, like a three year old with all ten fingers dripping in paint as he glides his fingers back and forth to cover the canvas.  He has no idea what his masterpiece will look like when it is finished although he has his expectations in mind, but that won’t stop him from allowing his creativity and imagination from taking the reins in the meantime. 

First drafts will contain errors, mistakes, and even failures. The first draft attempt is where the writer gets to know her characters- what they look like, how they think, what they want from life, and it is where she builds the world in which they will live. It is where she chooses between the different paths they might take and the potential endings they might have.  She will overwrite and underwrite here, but that is okay.  She will figure it all out later when the frenzy fades and she can see more clearly.  This is the place where she lays the concrete for her foundation, where she tills the soil in preparation for the garden she will grow, where she lays down the first layer of primer to prep her walls and it is where she gives birth to the story inside her.

It is in the subsequent drafts where she will cut, tweak, and add accordingly. That will be where she will pull the weeds, smooth out the cracks, and toss out the junk to create something new, something better.  She will tear down and she will re-build.

In the last two chapters of the bible, in revelations 21:1 the word new means fresh or renewed. The new earth will be the old earth made new again by purging out all the age long evidences of sin and the curse, decay and death. The very “elements” will be melted and dissolved in fervent heat…. It is a tearing down of the current sin-broken world and creating new through a complete and perfect recreation. This is true in our stories, in our relationships, in our dreams and in our lives.  As Author Jack Smith says in “ A Writer’s Guide to Second Drafts”  in The Writer Nov/Dec 2022 issue;  If seasoned writers know one thing, they know this; you don’t get it right the first time.

To this point, Victoria Gilbert, mystery writer also says in that same Nov/Dec 2022 article; don’t be afraid to make major changes, you can still retain the heart of your novel while doing extensive revisions.  Don’t be afraid to cut, shift or even add material.  You aren’t destroying your vision-you’re enhancing it. And in that same article Author Marjan Kamali  adds;  you may need to do a complete retstructuring/regutting of the first draft.

Likewise, in the Larry Brooks’ Writer’s Digest May/June 2020 “Revising: Beginning your Story Fixing Efforts”,  Brooks says it this way: A Great Story is like a House of Cards- Each level bears weight and demands artful balance, and when you swap out one card for another the whole thing teeters for a while, until you make it work.  The principles of gravity and balance are the only forces available to make revising that house of cards so successful.

It IS a tearing down, a swapping out of the parts that do not work with the parts that do.  You may need to tear it down more than once but that is okay because our stories often need to fall apart more than once before they will fall into place.  And that is further okay because every one of those drafts counts.  In “Dig In or Cut Yourself Free” written by Andromeda Romano-Lax in the Writer’s Digest Jan/Feb 2022 issue:  the author quotes  Andre Bubus III with this;  I don’t exaggerate when I say that 90 to 95 percent of whatever I put out into the world rose from the ashes of what failed or from what I wanted to write.  To which he adds; Sometimes, he laughs, You throw it all out.  Jordan Rosenfeld in her May/June 2021 Writer’s Digest article; “Open Endings”,  also says it this way; Sometimes it takes multiple drafts to achieve the ending you’ve been seeking.

Like the broken relationship between the two people I love, torn down to allow the time and the space to rebuild themselves – to ultimately land them in the right relationship that will work, the broken pieces from our drafts can be fixed, and made better or discarded to make space for the pieces that will fit. And regardless of how many tears shed or how many promises were broken within each relationship we had, each draft that we thought perfect and permanent while we were there in that chapter at that moment, laid the foundation for a new, improved chapter later.

Each draft, whether in a real-life relationship story or any other life- story, or in the fictional story we craft, has a time and a purpose and those drafts we write and rewrite will always be worth our time, effort and heartbreak because in the end after those parts of our stories fall apart they will fall into place because, well-  every draft counts.

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Dear Reader, I thank you once again for following along on my blog journey this thirteenth year and I hope as you worked on each of your own chapter drafts of 2025, they carried with them much joy, love and good health in addition to the lessons they taught and the memories they created, and that the chapters ahead continue to build upon them.  In the words of Richard Paul Evans’ in his heartfelt story; “The Christmas Stranger”; The promise of life, like a book, is that the end of each chapter is the beginning of the next.  It is my wish that each of your beginning chapters carries with it those lessons and love from each previous chapter.   Because, as is quoted by Soren Keirkegaard  in Evans’ novel’s  acknowledgments;  Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. 

Literary Fiction adds Depth and Interest to what we create, what we read and how we live.

Jun29

Although some say Literary Fiction might at times be dark or depressing, even too difficult to define, that it is not a genre on its own, it IS at the very least an impactful writing style that lends itself to other genres- to explore the many different facets of the human condition. Blending within other literary genres like added flavors combining to create a more superb recipe, fragments of literary fiction can melt inside historical fiction, fantasy, mystery, and other genres like butter in a cake batter that is at first bland or possibly even tasteless until the finishing ingredients are added.

Jessica Dukes says in her Celedon Books article the following; Character-driven stories, social and political themes, irreverence for storytelling norms- these elements set Literary Fiction apart. She adds that it is generally considered more “serious” than genre fiction. But, she continues, if one universal theme could be applied, it’s this: No-one has figured out the meaning of life, other than to acknowledge that there’s more than one way to live it.

Is not that what is so poignant and powerful about inspecting the humanness of life and adding that depth to the stories we create and devour, to understand our human strengths and our inevitable flaws as best as possible, to help us live our best lives?

In addition to standing majestically on its own, a sliver of literary fiction can ripple through literary genres like a skipped stone impacting a still water pond. The water, at first is calm and solid, predictable and steady, but when the stone is introduced, that same surface transforms into a more moving, metaphoric, and  magnificent kind of beauty -full of interest, exhilaration and life.  The ripples we set in motion extend in size, trajectory and depth just as the narrative we create can be greatly reshaped by the measures of literary fiction we inject.

Guest writer Sanjida O’Connell in Jane Friedman’s February 18, 2025 Publishing Reporting blog describes Literary Fiction this way:

First, for me, is that it should be Intellectual. A literary novel is about ideas

I think literary works have Depth

And last but not least is Style. I think we all expect a classic novel to be written in such beautiful prose it makes you want to weep, pause and stare at the sky or feel the words rolling through your mind like pebbles smoothed by the sea.

Some write and read to entertain, to memorialize an experience, to describe and learn about a current event, to explain or understand a piece of history, or to address or be introduced to a prominent individual. Others write and read ALSO to share or expand on an idea, to provoke, inspire or extract thought or emotion, to bring meaning to something about life or to better understand our purpose in it, to make sense of the big questions that have eluded us like seashells shoved further out to sea by the endless and powerful undercurrent, perpetually outside our grasp…yet always there.

Similarly, within our stories of fiction, whether historical, mystery, suspense, science fiction, romance, dystopian YA, or anything else, regardless of the reason we write or read, there is always an undercurrent of thematic importance present.  It may be as simple as rain or as complicated as the Riemann hypothesis, but every worthwhile story in my opinion is derived from a work of literary genius that inspects, depicts, magnifies or questions the human condition at some level. Whether the story evolves from a basic plot line or a serious question, it mirrors who we were, who we are and who we might become. And therefore, even if fleeting and although not always clearly evident, there could be to some degree, a bit of literary fiction in every narrative.

Editor, MICHAEL WOODSON In his March 2023 Writer’s Digest article; What is Literary Fiction?, provides this definition of Literary Fiction;

In my experience, contemporary literary fiction is a creative and unique writing style coming from a truly diverse range of writers where all the rules get to be broken. Literary fiction can be any genre and should be for the masses, because at the heart of every work of literary fiction is the human experience.

….Literary fiction is often slower in its pacing and welcomes readers to take their time in the process; to dawdle in the details. It’s often observational, conflicts arising from the internal, with some aspects of the story still left open in the final pages.

The human condition is the foundation upon which all thoughts and actions are forged. The music we listen to, the artwork we admire, the movies we watch, and the books we read all parallel, depict, tell about, question or come from some feature of the human condition. The plot-line holding up the story within commercial fiction is only as sturdy as the internal humanness tagging along beside it, like a supportive fan feeding momentum to the scaffolding design.  Essentially, literary fiction acts as a story’s synergist, ensemble and champion, adding universal connection, contemplation and clarity to emotionally heighten or elevate ANY story.

The following snippets of Literary Fiction reflect how its ripples of human interconnectedness can add to ANY of our narratives and subsequently to our minds, our hearts, our souls and ultimately to our lives:

In Sean Dietrich’s Kinfolk:   But then, life was full of overlooked miracles. And miracles never happen the way you expect them to. They are softer than a baby’s breath. They are, at times, as noticeable as a ladybug. A miracle is not a big thing. A miracle is millions and millions of small things working together. But then, this didn’t matter. Not really. Because Minnie had come to believe that life was not about finding miracles, or happiness, or success, or purpose, nor was it about avoiding disappointment. It was about finding people. People are what makes life worth it. People are the buried treasure. People who understand you. People who will bleed with you. People who make your life richer. Your people. Your kinfolk.

In Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano:

 William turned toward her and found himself looking directly into Sylvie’s eyes. He had the strange sense she was looking inside him, to the truth of him. He hadn’t known this was possible. When Julia gazed at William, she was trying to see the man she wanted him to be. She couldn’t see, or didn’t want to see, who he actually was.

” ( And on page 101) William didn’t understand what had happened to him and his sister-in-law on the bench that night but it felt dangerous, like a shining dagger that could cut through his life as if it were made of paper.

Also in Hello Beautiful:

We’re part of the sky, and the rocks in your mother’s garden, and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is. Your mother and sisters don’t have that awareness. Not yet, anyway. They believe they’re contained in their bodies, in the biographical facts of their lives

From The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni:

 Our skin, our hair, and our eyes are simply the shell that surrounds our soul, and our soul is who we are. What counts is on the inside.

From The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare:

My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice,” I say. “I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping.

 Also from The Girl with the Louding Voice:

 I want to tell her that God is not a cement building of stones and sand. That God is not for all that putting inside a house and locking Him there. I want her to know that the only way to know if a person finds God and keeps Him in their heart is to check how the person is treating other people, if he treats people like Jesus says–with love, patience, kindness, and forgiveness.

From Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.

From The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

From John Boyne’s, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

From Kristin Hannah’s, Winter Garden

 They would always be a family, but if she’d learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn’t a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

From Kelly Rimmer’s , The Things We Cannot Say

Life has a way of shattering our expectations, of leaving our hopes in pieces without explanation. But when there’s love in a family, the fragments left behind from our shattered dreams can always be pulled together again, even if the end result is a mosaic.

And finally in Susan Meissner’s older 2005 novel; A Window to the World, a story built around a simple plotline that would not necessarily be considered “Literary Fiction”, there is a passage that provides an example of how some degree of literary fiction exists in any good story, regardless whether the tale is character or plot driven; David was quiet as Megan slowly began to grasp how Jen’s disappearance had shaped her, how something twisted and wrong had nevertheless been used by God for better purposes, how the people she had met after abduction had influenced her, how there had been beauty after and within the misery.  She suddenly thought of the canyon, which like so many things was nothing but a memory. She remembered how wild and scary it was and yet how stunning and majestic….. “ You think your past is something to be buried and forgotten but it isn’t, David said gently “ Your past, all of it- the good and the bad- is what God used to make you, you.”

Although some of these passages are taken from clearly identifiable literary fiction,  others share living space within the seemingly confined walls of historical fiction or other genres, where  the lines of separation between plot- driven and character- driven genres can blur, become more forgiving and less restrictive.  Each genre’s gate can be opened to allow fragments of literary fiction to run rampant though-out any composition, not to cause destruction or harm to the story’s carefully constructed foundation, but to enhance and strengthen it.

Julia Alvarez, in her post script at the end of In the Time of Butterflies”,  considered to be historical fiction, says A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.  She later added to this in her 2019 updated Author’s Note: Stories operate in such indirect and invisible ways that often we come out of a story or poem that has moved us as a different person than before we started reading. Novels are not polemical arguments, mobilizing people with ideology and propaganda. Instead they work one imagination at a time, rooting conviction in the heart, stirring us deeply and thereby bringing about a more profound and lasting transformation. The muscles of compassion we exercise as readers are, after all, the same ones that motivate us to change the world.

And so, Literary Fiction to me is not too dark or depressing or difficult to define. It does not need to be an island all by itself; isolated and alone, restricted to its own solitary lane within literature. Rather, Literary Fiction and its corresponding introspective examination of our humanness have earned a place within all genres wherever and whenever there is a profound or transformative message or idea to convey, share or question. Like each musical score in a grand classical composition, performed by 50 separate instruments, each one majestic by itself but spectacular when blended together to culminate in one elaborate and powerful symphonic masterpiece that stirs, lifts or transforms us, the literary fiction experience is about so much more than it is  by itself.

Literary Fiction is about more than the score paper upon which the notes are written, or the recipe card we set up and follow, or the temporary ripples in a pond. It is about the way its contemplative and omniscient message becomes the catalyst to awaken, impact and incentivize us, and how that experience continues to stir and transform us- that adds real depth and interest to what we create….. what we write, what we read and ultimately how we live.\

To note: This was completely created artistically by the author without any AI help

Turning Points and the Direction of our Stories

Apr26

All successful stories should contain multiple turning points at each section of the narrative, with the most substantial turning point located at the tip of the rising action, otherwise known as the story’s climax or the point of no return.  Resting beneath that point are the turning points in each of the second largest sections – the acts, followed by those in each chapter beneath and finally at the smallest sections on the bottom- within each scene. The turning point size and importance diminish relative to each smaller section, lining up beneath one another like Russian resting dolls or steps on a ladder. 

Each turning point has the potential to change the narrative direction, to either draw the protagonist forward toward her goal or desire, or conversely, to push her away toward her story’s antagonist or the doom awaiting her, even if that doom is self-made…the one she may have created for herself.  Without turning points, our characters remain flat, unremarkable and stuck, without any growth or transformation.

In our own lives, we as the protagonists of our life stories, wind our way across the peaks and valleys we create for ourselves in addition to those created for us. We face opportunity and risks, we find hope and we encounter despair as we stumble around and over roadblocks, sometimes running head first into wind gusts so strong we feel momentarily helpless, ready to turn back or give up. Occasionally; however, we reevaluate and change direction as we reassess, or learn from the consequences of our decisions or we awaken to a glaring truth to which we were previously blind.  These opportunities and road blocks make up the turning points of our lives, the crossroads where we make decisions or take actions that move our story in some direction.

It is important in the stories we create to include turning points that impact our entire story, that change the story direction, or impact the character in some profound way, whether the actions are loud and thunderous or as quiet as tears sliding silently down a child’s cheek. Although our characters will have various moments throughout their story to make decisions, form opinions, or become impacted by situations and unfolding events, it is only those moments that  affect the  full story  that we would consider to be turning points.  If what happens alters the story’s path, or prevents the character from going back to her original status quo, or if it enlightens or transforms her through an epiphany or moment of discovery, it is a turning point. Conversely, if what happened does not alter the overall story it would merely be something that happened.

Jamie Gold, in her article on Turning Points, distinguishes between events that are and are not turning points, describing it this way:  the triggering event in a scene—big or small, loud or quiet—doesn’t determine whether it’s a turning point. What makes the difference is if the response or the immediate results indicate significant story-sized change beyond just this scene and the next, and beyond just the normal cause-and-effect chain that links scenes together in stories,

Building on this idea, Courtney Carpenter, in her June 2012 article; Writers Digest; Scene Structure; How to write Turning points, adds ;  Turning points can occur without direct confrontation. A turning point scene might be wholly internal, as when it leads up to a character making an important decision or coming to see the truth about a situation without necessarily voicing that awareness.

Your turning point scene—and it must be a scene, not a summary—can show this change in the character’s life or consciousness through thoughts, action, or dialogue. But it must grow naturally out of what comes before so that the turning point is credible.

We identify turning points in our lives as a crossroad, the moment of truth, a milestone, the climax, an important juncture, the culmination, a critical moment, the point of no return, a pivotal moment, a hinge or transition.  Despite the label we give it; however, and whether that moment is large or small, loud or quiet, black or white, the impact that moment makes on our overall story’s outcome is monumental,  our life forever changed because of it. 

Sue Mell says in her July 2022 Writer’s  Digest : 5 tips for Writing and structuring effective turning points for your characters: A turning point is just that: a left turn here, a right there, a bit of round and round, until something gives way to change—or a stance against it.

One example of a well known literary turning point is when in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird,  the protagonist narrator Scout Finch, observes her father/lawyer Atticus Finch, defend Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape. This turning point propels Scout to confront the harsh realities of her world, forcing her to face the deeply ingrained narrow-mindedness and injustices that saturate her world, serving as a trigger for Scout’s moral awakening, consequently reshaping her beliefs as she maneuvers through the convoluted pot holes of the human condition. That turning point is where she learns the true meaning of kindness and open mindedness toward others. It is her point of no return.

Two other examples of famous turning points include when in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, the protagonist’s sister Prim, is selected for Tribute, and the protagonist, Katniss voluntarily replaces Prim in order to save her, forever changing Katniss’s life direction, and similarly, when in L. Frank Buam’s Wizard of Oz, the protagonist Dorothy discovers that the wonderful  and mysterious wizard of Oz is nothing more than an ordinary man who does not have the power to grant her  wishes, that the true power she sought was hiding within her own heart and will all along.  

How many times in our own lives have we made a life- altering decision we later wish we made differently, or engaged in a  life- changing behavior we wish we could erase, or said something we deeply regret? Or we observed an act that permanently changed our world view- all of which impacted the direction of our overall life story.  If only, we could turn back time, rewind or erase that moment, and reverse what we did or what we observed or what we heard.  If only….. Maybe things would have turned out differently? Better?  Or on the other hand, what about the opportunity we took that led us to the good fortune we have now?  The decision we made that led us to the people in our lives-that were meant to be there; the places where we decided to hitch our tent and call home?  The family we grew?  The lifestyle we achieved for which we worked so hard and now get to reap the benefits of the seeds we once sowed. 

So many turning points with so many potential directions to which they could take us, so many different possible endings to our story.  It is these turning points of our fictional stories and in our real lives that shape who our characters become and where they end up, that shape who we become, that map out our overall life narrative, and determine our characters’ and our own ultimate fate that awaits us in the final sentence of the last paragraph on the last page of the last chapter of our story.  All because of those turning points that changed the direction of our story.

How Point of View benefits everyone’s story.

Feb28

Our point of view determines the lens through which we see the world and the way others view us, our message or our opinions, beliefs and values. It helps to close or widen the emotional gaps between us. We develop and foster our point of view with regard to our political views, religious beliefs, cultural differences, societal rules and customs, the law, morality, current events and pretty much everything.  Often, our relationships with loved ones, family, friends, coworkers and neighbors revolve around it, or at least become impacted by it.  Stemming from our childhood, our backgrounds, and our experiences, our point of view might twist and turn, readjusting itself throughout our lives as we continue to write the chapters that make up our life story.

Likewise, in writing, the point of view from which our story is told reveals to our audience the identity of our narrator and the emotional distance she wants to place between her audience, her characters and herself as the creator.  Expressed through pronouns and the angle from which she wants her to narrative to grow, she determines whether the story should be written from first person (I am writing this story), second person (You are writing this story), third person (She/He/It is writing this story) or more recently fourth person (We are writing this story as a group).  This choice of perspective establishes how the audience will experience the story’s plot, observe or connect with the narrator, the characters and the story world in which they live, and understand or relate to the theme. 

When contemplating from which POV to write, there are several different types to pick:

First Person Central is told by the narrator who is also the story’s protagonist.  An example of this would be The Catcher in the Rye written by JD Salinger, in which Holden Caulfield tells his own story from his point of view or in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, narrated by the central/ main character, Scout as she recounts her story.  The author usually writes from this POV to invite the reader into the protagonist’s head, to view the world from the protagonist’s perspective.

First Person Peripheral is a point of view told by a character close to the protagonist to allow the reader to observe the protagonist’s actions without really knowing his thoughts.  The writer might select this POV if she plans to have the protagonist killed off at the end of the story, or to create mystery if she wants the audience to wonder what the protagonist is thinking, or wonder if the character is hiding a secret, or if the protagonist does not have a character arc in which the character changes over the course of the story while the narrator/ witness to the protagonist changes his own view of him from his observation of the protagonist.  A great example of this is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in which Nick Caraway, Jay Gatsy’s neighbor, tells Gatsby’s story from Nick’s perspective.

Second Person is used when the writer desires for the reader to be the protagonist.  It is typically used in non-fiction or instructional work such as recipes, advertising, instructional pamphlets or blog posts.

Third Person omniscient is employed when the narrator writes about everyone and everything in the story, with access to all characters’ thoughts.

Third Person limited is used when the writer wants to keep thoughts and feelings limited to one main character, in which the audience is only privy to the thoughts and feelings of that main character.

Third Person Objective is selected when the narrator is neutral, dependent on the observations of the characters as opposed to getting inside their heads the way the audience will in first person POV.  Some refer to this POV as writing from the perspective of the fly on the wall, merely observing without subjectivity.

To take the point of view discussion further, when evaluating its  relevance when creating our own real life chapters,  Jessica Shrader discusses in her June 2019 The POWER of PERSPECTIVE TAKING,  how leaning in can expand our worldview and relationships.  How we see our lives is how we live our lives. Our perspective is arguably the single greatest aspect of our uniqueness. It is also the foundation for one of the most powerful tools through which we can relate to and build relationships with others.    In other words, in addition to standing behind our own point of view and how it affects our world, it is important to step outside our perspective when the opportunity presents itself- to truly make a difference.  By making the effort to pay attention to, respect, and actively listen to other viewpoints, we subsequently learn from the way others view life which in turn expands our own perspectives and how we observe and understand the world. Through point of view we can constructively manipulate how we want others to view us and our thoughts and behaviors and at the same time we can better understand and learn from others and how and why they see the world similarly or differently.

By truly listening to one another, and opening our minds to other points of view and even placing ourselves momentarily in the shoes of others, we foster understanding, emotional growth, empathy and compassion.  As Stephen Covey said in his “The Seven habits of Highly Effective People; “ Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

As I always say, in fiction we mirror real life, which is why I regularly compare writing to life and life to writing in my blogs.  Fiction writers make up stories about people, places and events as we attempt to attract and engage our audience.  One of the ways we do this is through point of view, to allow our reader to connect to and understand our characters; what they are thinking, why they are thinking what they are thinking, why they behave as they do, what drives them, as well as to connect to our plot and our theme.  By determining the POV that will work best to do that, the audience’s reading experience is expanded and the relationship between reader and writer is greatly enhanced, just as it is between speaker and listener in our relationships in life.  Do you, as your narrative creator want your reader (or listener) to connect with you inside your head, to feel what you feel and think as you think at least for a moment as you convey your message, or is your goal to create mystery and distance as a way to prove a point or motivate your audience to figure it out on their own.  Point of view can be the vehicle through which you achieve either one as it shapes how we present ourselves and view others, consequently validating the window through which our story is told, which in turn impacts the way the audience interprets and feels about our perspective or our story.  And in the end, whether we are potential authors writing a story to be published, or individuals creating the chapters of our real life stories, it is through our own unique point of view that we construct a plot that most satisfies our audience, and design the steps that will have the most potential to awaken, excite and fulfill us as we pursue our own life’s journey.

Recipe for writing Creative Nonfiction and Memoir:  Blending Fact, Focus, Imagination and Creativity

Dec31

Truth versus imagination.  Nonfiction or fiction?  What are the guidelines when writing under one genre versus the other and where does creative nonfiction fit in?   In nonfiction, the author writes truthfully and accurately when representing real people, real places and real events, as opposed to writing a fictional story pulled from imagination.  Nonfiction can include news articles, cook books, academic papers, biographies, auto-biographies, speeches, essays, blog posts, technical pieces and other narratives based in fact. It can also include memoirs and creative non-fiction, which is a blend of fiction and non-fiction- sort of!

Before ultimately narrowing the focus to one of the latest trends in creative nonfiction- the memoir, let’s first break down the genre families for clarification.  Unlike fiction, in which the author is permitted, and in fact, expected to make up people, places and events;  to pretend, fabricate, invent, stretch truths and to basically fib, nonfiction and creative nonfiction carry stricter rules to which the author is expected to observe.

Although the two opposing classifications are indeed related, each one a member of the writing family, with their own appeal and place on the family tree, each with their own extender branches, there are traits that set them apart.  In fiction, towns can be made up (like Stephen King’s Derry, Maine based on his hometown of Bangor, Maine), people are fake, and events can occur as fabricated daily life activities; animals can behave and talk like humans, dystopian governments might oppress their citizens, civil wars might break out between fantasy worlds- all existing first in the author’s mind before coming alive on the page.  The fiction author has open reign over what she conjures up for her readers. There is no accountability to truth, no trust to be broken, and no risk of being called out as a liar.  She is essentially above the “writing –world” family law.

This is not the case for nonfiction, in which stretching the truth, fabricating or fibbing is prohibited.  Non-fiction pieces live in a monochrome world of straight facts.  No dressing up truths to look like glamorous actors or impossible scenarios; no sprinkles of fairy-tale dust thrown in for extra effects.  It is straight forward black and white in the non-fiction world; the narrative is either true or false.  No blurry in-between grey areas to fool or entertain the reader.  Such and such happened on this date, in this place and had this real consequence.  

With that being said, there is the increasingly popular extender branch of creative non-fiction that allows for some deviation- with a tiny dose of literary sparkle and disguise.  Not enough to alter a fact, or break any rules, but just enough to make the evidence look shinier, more enjoyable or compelling.  Just enough to ignite the writer’s flame and spark the reader’s interest

In the March 2024 edition of Writers.com, Poet/ Storyteller/ Screenwriter Sean Glatch describes creative nonfiction as a form of storytelling that employs the creative writing techniques of literature, such as poetry and fiction, to retell a true story. Creative nonfiction writers don’t just share pithy anecdotes; they use craft and technique to situate the reader into their own personal lives. …. There are very few limits to what creative nonfiction can be, which is what makes defining the genre so difficult—but writing it so exciting. 

Unlike the nonfiction narrative’s fictional cousin – always trying to take center stage, hogging the lime light, demanding extra attention and stealing the show,  nonfiction work will uphold the sacred contract of reality between writer and audience, to stick to the truth and nothing but the truth. No lying, no cheating, no stealing, or manipulating allowed in this orderly arena. 

However, within the creative nonfiction branch of the family, a dash of ornamental literary tactic is allowed, to disguise the story’s legitimacy only enough to make the factual narrative look more flattering.  Although fictional storytelling elements are included (writing exposition followed by rising action, climax, falling action and resolution, adding plot, narrator, point of view and setting), the truth is not sacrificed. You are still writing about facts, and doing your research, but you are permitted to flower up the narrative a smidgen and add your own reflection.

To elaborate on this notion further, Aminatta Forna: writes in the 2018 Literary Hub: The Truth about Fiction Versus NonFiction: As a novelist and essayist I see the two forms as conjoined twins, sharing themes and concerns, which all come out of the same brain, but flow into two separate entities.

The writer of creative nonfiction and the writer of fiction have much in common. Both employ the techniques of narrative, plot, pace, mood and tone, considerations of tense and person, the depiction of character, the nuance of dialogue. Where the difference lies is that the primary source of the fiction writer is first and foremost their imagination, followed by their powers of observation and maybe a certain amount of research. The primary resource of the writer of creative nonfiction is lived experience, above and beyond all, memory; add to that observation and research.

I ask my students of both fiction and nonfiction, but most of all those who wish to write personal memoirs (perhaps because of all the forms of writing it is the one most often confused with therapy): Why do people need to hear this story? Not, Why do you want to write this story? i.e Not what’s in it for you. What’s in it for them?

 She adds that Don DeLill once quipped that a fiction writer starts with meaning and manufactures events to represent it; the writer of creative nonfiction starts with events, then derives meaning from them.

Forna mentions the memoir here, which is a creative nonfiction piece of work written by an individual who seeks to share her own life experience, usually focusing on a particular time period in her life rather than on her life as a whole, while borrowing some of the creative storytelling bells and whistles from fiction. Memoirs can be about essentially any topic, from overcoming adversity to handling grief, guilt or anything else. The memoir’s dual purpose includes the therapeutic satisfaction from writing it, and the universal emotional connection it delivers to the reader.

 As noted by Forna in her article, ‘lived experience’ and memory act as the primary resource in memoirs and autobiographies, which are two very different types of non- fiction.  Autobiography tells the story from birth to present or death, whereas the memoir slices a piece of life off to depict an important time or theme in the author’s life.

Highlighting this idea to remain focused and mindful when writing your memoir, Sarah Van Arsdale, Author, and contributor to The Writer warns in her August 2019: No one wants to hear your whole story:  Just because your life started in childhood doesn’t mean your memoir should. Memoir is different from autobiography, which starts at the beginning, goes through your whole life, and ends near when you do– 

A good example to illustrate this advice is in Writer Digest contributing author Elizabeth Sims’,  2019 Truth and Consequences article, in which she suggests to take a “small slice and go deep”.  To explain this she refers to Tennessee Williams and his play “The Glass Menagerie”, which centers on three characters, all of whom are fragile, wounded, yearning, connected, and trapped. Williams based the main characters on himself, his mother and his disabled sister.  But he didn’t spew out the whole family story; he told about a particular, desperate time when the possibility of a suitor for the sister arises, then is withdrawn.  The story drilled brilliantly into the bedrock of toxic family, responsibility versus individual development, and the pursuit of happiness.

Writing creative nonfiction memoir, although a powerful avenue in which to probe and heal a wound, share a lesson or reveal a meaningful experience, can also be a problematic area in which the writer risks becoming lost.  To the memoirist, her life is everything.  She is the main character- the hero, the antagonist, and the victim, all at once.  In general, it is okay to write your life story as an autobiography if you are famous, or passing down your legacy to family, but for the most part, the rest of the world is too busy living as the hero/villain/victim in their own life stories to really be interested in yours. However, with the right blend of fact, focus, imagination and creativity, the creative nonfiction memoir has the ability to lure the reader away from her own potentially dull or difficult life story, at least for a temporary escape, to yours.

And here we are, dear reader, at the end of another year, with my last blog of 2024, written appropriately about the creative nonfiction memoir – the real life story we live and write, and the many individual slices of that story that contribute to who we are.  Whether you aspire to be the creative nonfiction memoirist, or you are simply the author of your own life story,  remember to create each chapter with mindfulness, gratitude and creativity, and honor the life with which you have been blessed;  the good times shared with those you love, the adversities you fought through and overcame, the sad and difficult times that strengthened you, the accomplishments you landed that changed you  in some way, the laughter, the tears, the  experiences, the new friends you made and the old ones you lost-  who added so much to your life during the seasons of which they were a part, and always-the lessons you  learned and the love you  gave and received.

I thank you for joining me this year on our writing/reading journey and  I wish you and your families and friends the healthiest and happiest of  holidays, as I look ahead to sharing more blogs on writing and life next year with you.