Sarah Ockler – Becky Levine

More Work on Understanding Scene Structure

Posted on 4 Jun 20123 Jun 2012 by beckylevine

This week, I’m hoping to get through some chapters of Save the Cat. I just barely started on the structure section, where he shows the basic outline he uses and starts explaining both sections. So far, the things he says are making little bells chime in my plot brain, which is good. I managed to work up a thematic premise for my WIP, and–as he does in his examples–I found a way to show that in an early piece of dialogue.

Which of course, will almost certainly change. But still…

The other thing I’m doing is going back to my shelves and rereading some of the YA books that have really hit me, in the tightness of their prose, in the way they move seamlessly through time without feeling in all those details of time-actually-passing. In some of these, the story takes place over a longer period of time than just a few days, and yet the pacing moves quickly and effectively. The best way I can describe it is a lack of any unnecessary clutter.

So far, the books on my to-read-again/take-apart list are:

Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen. I reread this in the last couple of days and am going back to look at her chapter endings and beginnings. I’m also checking out scene transitions, because she does short blips during a day, sometimes interspersed with stories about the people involved. Absolutely brilliant, as I remember, and fun to look at more closely than when the story has me in its tight, keep-turning-those-pages grip.
Robin Brande’s Doggirl (my discussion here)
Kathryn Fitzmaurice’s A Diamond in the Desert (my interview here) I’m not shooting for anything like as sparse as Kathryn wrote this book, but I want to remind myself of how much you really can leave out and still tell an extremely powerful, effective story.
Jo Knowles’ Lessons from a Dead Girl (my purely emotional reaction here)
Sherri L. Smith’s Flygirl (my discussion here)
Sarah Ockler’s Fixing Delilah (my discussion here)

I’d love to hear any suggestions from you. (Despite the apparent slant of my starting list, the books don’t have to have the word “girl” in the title!) Remember, I’m looking for YA, in which the author keeps their focus really tight, with almost no padding between scenes, and yet manages to convey the passage of time without confusion. I want books in which the story thread is almost always at the forefront, not shadowed or taken over by transitions or background material. (I’m not at all saying that I haven’t read wonderful books that do use a slower lead-in to scene action or take more space for those transitions. It’s just that I’m trying to push myself to a new place, structurally, and I need to be looking at some good examples of stories in which that kind of structure is used.)

Thanks ahead of time for any recommendations you want to leave in the comments!

Reading for Writing: It’s Not Copying

Posted on 27 Jul 201127 Jul 2011 by beckylevine

Years ago, when I was working on a mystery novel, I read one of Lawrence Block’s writing books. (I can’t remember which it was, and, honestly, the list of his books is TOO long to go through right now!) The most important takeaway from that book, for me, was his instruction to pick a few of my favorite (as in, written well) mysteries, and plot them. I’m not getting this exact, because it has been a while, but the idea was basically to go through each chapter & write down the important turning points of the story.

To see how it was done. How it was done right.

In other words, read to find out what the hero did, what happened to the hero to get in their way, what events increased the tension, and how the story–with all its problems–resolved itself in the end.

I still do this, and not just with plot. I talked here about Sarah Ockler’s brilliant management of the passage of time, in Fixing Delilah, and–when I get to that stage of revision–I plan to study how she did it. What she did. It’s not copying, folks, it’s dissection. It’s finding the craft behind the art–a craft the writer may or may not be conscious of, but that I do believe is there, present, for us to find and learn from.

I find myself recommending this technique to editing clients all the time. I’ll do my best to explain how goals & obstacles create tension, how middle-grade voice differs from young-adult, how dialogue beats add to the layers of a conversation or argument. And then I’ll find myself typing this: “Go by the bookstore, or your library, and pick up some books.” I tell them to look at the books they love best, to scan the New Books shelves at the library, or ask the children’s librarian for help. Find a passage (or three) that does what they’re trying to accomplish…and read it. Then reread it. Then reread it again.

One of the “downsides” of doing a lot of critiquing is that, yes, I am more critical of the books I read. In my thirties, I pretty much finished every book I started, no matter what. Now, honestly, you have to catch me in the first two pages, and I will put down a book 3/4 of the way through if the characters or story are letting me down. (And, yes, I do take it that personally!)

BUT…the “upside” of that is that, when a book stuns me, and many do, I have a resource, a tool, for my own writing. My reading eye has sharpened enough so that, as I’m being carried away, a little voice inside is saying, “OMG. Look at that scene structure!” or “That hero is totally taking the lead!” or “Do you see how that dialogue is moving the story forward?!”

I know, weird. But helpful. And, honestly, I think the resource is there for all of us, even if we aren’t realizing it the first time through. It’s why I keep the books I do keep, even with continuously shrinking shelf space–because I will reread them, and I will learn from them.

And doing so will make my writing better. This Lawrence Block says, and this I know.

Book Reivew

Time Passage in Sarah Ockler’s FIXING DELILAH

Posted on 29 Jan 2011 by beckylevine

Fixing Delilah is a wonderful book. The bottom line, for me, is that Sarah Ockler’s prose is smooth, tight, and flowing; her characters are strong and sympathetic; and the story moves along with just enough questions and answers to make me happy. I liked her first book, Twenty Boy Summer, a lot, and Fixing Delilah was just as good–but hit more personal chords for me, so I can recommend it with even more pleasure.

I’m not going to do a full review, because mostly I want to talk about one element of the book that Ockler handles beautifully, from a writing craft point of view, something I’ve been thinking about how to do as I plot my second draft. That element is the transitions, or rather the lack of transitions, from scene to scene. From moment-of-time to moment-of-time.

(If you’re interested in a more complete review, one that gives a good story summary without spoilers, check out this one at A Chair, A Fireplace & a Tea Cozy.)

Okay, on to transitions.

In the old days, one scene followed another in time and space or, if it didn’t, we pretty much got filled in about what happened during the gaps. The best writers did it trimly and succinctly, rather than giving long, rambly passages of telling, but still–there seemed to be a need for writers to explain what had come between.

Today, not so much. I love that authors drop readers into the moment, often in the middle of some action or conflict. I don’t miss the lead-up or the summary. It’s the kind of writing I want to do myself. But it’s tricky. I haven’t quite figured out yet how much time, as a chunk, my WIP will cover, but I do know that I don’t want to cover all the moments or hours, not even all the days. I want to find a way to write the important scenes and the scenes that make connections, without leaving the reader confused about when they are.

Which is why, after having thoroughly enjoyed the library copy of Fixing Delilah, I’m off to buy my own copy. Because Ockler has managed to do this flawlessly, and I want to read the book through a time or two again–to study, analyze, dissect why and how it works.

The story takes place over an entire summer. Almost three months. 10-12 weeks. 70+ days.

With 34 chapters. One of which contains a single line of dialogue, and other sets in which multiple chapters take place on the same day. Sometimes, Ockler skips hours between a scene, sometimes days, at least once–I’m sure–she skips weeks. And it’s all smooth.

The book feels just like school vacation–when you can barely say what you did for six days in a row, the an afternoon in the treehouse or hiking to a mountaintop stands out in clear, memorable relief. You get a sense of time passing–summer time, made of warmth and laziness with passages of sadness and anger and love and excitement. It’s time set away from the rest of the world, which is what–I think–makes Delilah’s story possible. This book had to take place over time, because the characters need that time–and some of that peace–to change and heal. And Ockler gave them–and us–that gift.

Lovely.