For a while now I've been trying to come up with a title that aptly describes the content of this blog. I think I've finally found one! We'll see if I still like it in a week.
Already one person has bought and finished my new book...okay, so this person happens to be a close friend (close enough to ask me to be one of her bridesmaids, anyway!). Honoring the code of Best-Friend's-Manship, she was honest about what she thought. She liked it...but had some questions about plot issues that weren't quite resolved. I'd like to explain those issues here.
First of all, this is a book about "real life," so naturally, not everything is resolved neatly in the end. I won't give away spoilers, but I will just say that the conclusions we are looking for often take time, and to include that time in a single novel would require lots of filler pages describing all the things we do (or don't do) that are mundane and impractical because we are waiting for something to happen. I created two characters who are done with waiting for things to happen: waiting for justice, waiting for people to change. So I don't make them suffer like the reader would suffer if I made everything end neatly.
In one chapter, the character Katherine sporadically decides to go by a different name (unofficially). She says "Call me Kate," but nothing further comes of that. She is not called Kate by any of the characters for the rest of the book. Why is that?
This scene happens after she is trying on a new hat; a replacement for the old one that was once her trademark. It's the same style of hat, but a different color. In essence, she is putting on a new identity, and as I of all people would know, sometimes starting over means re-inventing yourself, and for some, that could mean a name change. Even if that name change is only a nickname.
But as my friend pointed out, the name change doesn't stick. This is to show that starting over isn't as simple as changing your surroundings, or trying to be somebody else. The past follows the person who was there. The long-term issues that need to be dealt with don't just disappear because we want to. For anyone who has been through something awful and is trying to start new, there are moments in between "Trapped in oblivion" and "The new normal" that give us hope. There are moments of happiness that are fleeting, but enough to encourage us to keep going. The thought of being someone else as a form of escape is enticing...but it isn't always realistic. Eventually, hopefully, we will learn that who we are should not change with our circumstances. But the convictions we gain from them do. We are more than what life throws at us.
So, I hope that made a bit of sense. And I hope you won't be afraid to ask me any questions that you have, or maybe leave some customer feedback on Amazon? That would be great! (And yes, this time I published in paperback AND e-reader format!).
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, used the "green light" and other symbolism in his roaring twenties novel now a feature film.
ReplyDeleteDuring my high school years in public school we were compelled to read The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne and made to wedge a symbolist interpretation into our class papers and discussions of one of the most popular early American novelists. My take on the seaweed wrapped baby upon the shore was that the baby was a new life cast back from the depths of the "subconscious." I thought that because seaweed is greenish brown, the water gives life (although the Atlantic Ocean is a salt water body), and Hester Prynne followed her natural organic-lust in the Puritan village then my explanation was plausible. Symbolist interpretation I believe has little place in public school, but that's the spynne I'm taking. You see, the Ocean's water is undrinkable, Prynne's hasty behavior and the baby's birth taken together counter weigh the heavy judgement of the village elders: she behaved as a woman of nature in the new world, where nature was being conquered. A feature film featuring one D. Moore featured scenes of a ribald nature as her feature films often did. The result of my youthfully hasty interpretation of the short and round tenth grade teacher: a sneer, with a dismissal. There are details within the letter, as you'll read, which render counter evidence to the villager's reaction to such hasty behavior on Prynne's part. Read the letter, 'A'?
Now as to Katherine's name change and other elements of your wonderful novel (an accomplishment that I'm trying to surpass, though it is squarely underway, in the works, and probably untoppable) I believe you should not shortcut the reader's span of attention from the names of your characters to the theme of the novel. A breathing character needs recognition throughout, she ought not be a cipher. Is your novel a didactic lesson or a passionate drama for young readers? Combine both. Katherine, made Kate might send readers to the moon with the possibility that they've lost track of who is who within your story.
My palms are itching to hold this tome in my hands, but not to worry, I have so many reads, stories, books, AND texts to go over that I may not be able to read yours for quite some time. I always look forward to reading sharp writing, barring the annual visit of the Barnum and Bailey Circus when I'm out of town, I have a book in both hands. A gripping read is the best thing in the world these days.
When I have all my papers and outlines together I wouldn't mind you reading my M.S., Sarahbeth.
Sincerely, Excessively "Creepy."