"So You Think You Can Write?"

Sometimes in the solitary world of a writer, a window opens and a neighbour from across the street calls over, “Saw your picture in the TC!” and gives you a thumbs up. Since Sunday’s newspaper hit the streets introducing the judges for the “So You Think You Can Write?” contest, I’ve become a little more visible.

This morning, my favourite birder, who walks Dallas Road with his walker in hand and a pair of binoculars around his neck, stopped me. “I didn’t know you were a writer,” he said. “I wish I could write.” I wish I knew a tiny fraction of what he knows about waxwings, but all I could do was smile and nod.

I’m not used to the attention. Not used to having a man call down from his ladder, “Didn’t know we had a celebrity judge on our street!” I didn’t know there were so many people who read the Times Colonist. Would they follow the contest? I wondered. Would they vote for their favourite writer? Would they boo the judges’ decisions?

I’ve already been tagged as the “emotional judge.” In an interview for the Camosun website, I confessed to liking stories that moved me to laughter and tears. Isn’t that what all good literature does? But I guess people are looking for different kinds of experiences when they read. So, I’ll take the title and try not to get too emotional about it.

I’m looking forward to the contest, to learning the names of the finalists. We don't know yet who the writers are because it was a blind judging. I'm looking forward to the actual part where the writers perform before the reading public and the judges get to talk about writing. It’s a conversation I’ve been having for a long time with students and other writers. But this is a chance to have it right out in the open, like cleaning one’s gutters or weeding the garden.

In closing, I wanted to thank TC's Tanya Chasse whose idea it was to run this contest. Without her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. “So You Think You Can Write?” contestants will be announced this Sunday in the TC and I, for one, will be running next door to steal my neighbour’s newspaper to learn the names.

Blocking the Movement of Characters

A word of advice as you move your characters around the page. It's not necessary to block each movement because the details can overwhelm the reader. An example to address this is changing: "Ellen comes around to the armchair and sits down. Her whole body is shaking." To: "Ellen's whole body is shaking as she lowers herself into the armchair."

In the first quote you have a sentence that is pure blocking followed by a sentence with the interesting detail. Merging the two lends authenticity to the interesting detail, eliminates a less dynamic sentence and allows the reader the freedom to imagine the layout of the room to suit them.

In first person it can be especially intrusive to block the characters' movements and you end up with something I call the "cooking show" effect whereby it sounds like this: "I'm adding two eggs and then I'm folding them in." Characters shouldn't be narrating their lives as they go, just living them.

Example,

I opened the door and found my wallet lying open on the seat. (cooking show)

Inside the car, my wallet lay open on the seat. (not the cooking show)