Dear Reader,
Today’s guest, Caroline Coleman, is the author of the novel Loving Soren and she recently released a children's picture book If I Were a Tiger.
Caroline used to be a lawyer and she now teaches English literature as an adjunct at Hunter College in New York City.
About: If I Were a Tiger...
Meet Tim Bone. He has a big imagination, and when it roams wild, he's afraid of a lot of things. Fed up with being frightened, Tim comes up with a bold solution: He's going to become a tiger so he can be fiercer than his fears! There's just one problem: If he's a tiger, he can't be Tim. Could there be a better solution?
Caroline is giving away five copies of If I Were a Tiger, to enter the drawing, send an email with your preferred shipping address to: [email protected]
ON...SMART READERS
One day as a child I put down a book that had transported me to another world and thought, 'I'd love to be able to do that for other people.' I didn't know it yet but I'd already begun my training. I was sending my brothers on elaborate scavenger hunts.
I invented clues. Each clue was a puzzle to solve. To finish the hunt, my brothers had to be smart.
It's the same for writing novels. Readers want clues, puzzles and hunts. It makes them feel smart.
Here's a (dumb) example:
'”Darling." Violet stepped closer to the man with the snake tattoo.
"I've hated you since the moment I first laid eyes on you." She kissed him passionately.
He pushed her away. "Mrs. Oakes. Please."
She flicked her cigarette ash in his eyes.
"I'd like to ask you again." He looked down at his clipboard. "Are you allergic to anything other than penicillin?"
"Cigarettes," Violet said. "Who are you?"
"I just told you. I'm Dr. Downer, your brain surgeon."
Why do I need a brain surgeon? Violet ran fingers through her hair. It was gone. Her bald scalp felt prickly.
"Just lie back," Dr. Downer said, snatching the cigarette out of her hand.
Terrified, she bit his snake tattoo and lunged for the curtain.'
The plot is thickening like cheap gravy. What would have happened if I'd just written this?
'Violet found herself in a hospital. A doctor said she needed brain surgery. She didn't know how she'd gotten there. She was scared, so she ran.'
Neither version is particularly good. But at least the first version has details that engage the reader's brain. In the second version, the reader is bored. There are no clues. The reader doesn't feel her intelligence is being honored. The reader expects to find out more about the snake tattoo, the doctor, why Violet smokes, why she kisses strangers and whether she needs brain surgery.
The important thing about clues in a story is that they should weave together in order to engage the smart reader.
Chekhov supposedly said that if there's a rifle on the mantelpiece in the first act, it should go off by the third act.
Or, as we say in the writing world, 'don't orphan your details.'
Once a reader feels that the details in a novel aren't being orphaned, that everything is there for a reason, they pay attention. When details return, readers understand that nothing is wasted. They get the satisfying sense that the details of their lives are similarly woven together, that they're greater than the sum of their parts, that they're valuable--and that they're loved.
And that, dear reader, is why it's smart to read.
-- Caroline Coleman
To enter the drawing for one of five copies of If I Were a Tiger, send an email with your preferred shipping address to: [email protected]
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
This month's Penguin Classic is The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, Introduction by Rachel Syme. Start Reading and enter for your chance to win a copy of your own.
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