Friday Filler: Pointless Rambling!

I've been reading some new novels and some old novels the last couple of years, and I think I've noticed something worth mentioning. Yes, whenever I notice anything I think it's worth mentioning because of my tremendous ego, but this might actually be important. Anyway, if you compare the books of D.H. Lawrence and Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf with the books of Salman Rushdie and Philip Roth and Jhumpa Lahiri and Iain McEwen, for example, you might think that the older books (hell, Lawrence and Woolf did some of their most famous writing ninety years ago) are, well, old-fashioned and that the more recent books have their finger on the pulse of modern life. You might think that because modern writers are more casual in the way they write about sex, and appear to have less respect for the form of the novel, and are awash in a sea of metafictional irony, that they are more sophisticated than their forebears. And you know what? You'd be wrong.

For some time now, bouncing as I do from reading the most recent literary fiction to the classic works of the Western Canon, I have been feeling that something in today's novels is lacking. And what that is, I have come to see, is emotional depth and honesty. Yes, you have protagonists in Roth who are not charming and have selfish motivations and you've got people fucking around behind their significant others' backs in every other novel these days and you've got antiheroes and you've got explorations of madness and you've got people who are conflicted and hide their true feelings and you've got the constant irony of people not really knowing anything about those closest to them and being surprised when their One True Love is leaving them. But that's all very old stuff, and books that were written ninety years ago explored all of this already, and did a Much Better Job Of It and got A Lot Closer To The Emotions of the Characters.

Nowadays everybody who's writing literature is giving knowing looks and winks and there is a lot of insincerity and holding-at-arm's-length of characters and their emotions, and I think more of it's being presented as a sort of prettily written but clichéd entertainment (or--worse yet--social statement) than a real exploration of life. Freedom bothered me a lot because all of the action seemed to take place behind a wall of glass, as if Franzen was putting on a puppet show but didn't actually care a whit about his characters and really didn't want to get too close to them. They'll admit that they sometimes despise themselves and each other and that they're really all very selfish people, but that's as deep as the analysis goes. And I see that over and over in book after book. Modern writers, I have decided, are writing in too shallow a manner, too cowardly.

This is all a bit rough and not well thought out, I know. It's something I'm working on. But it does seem significant that Virgina Woolf and David Lawrence, writing ninety years ago, were able to expose more truths about the human heart than anyone writing today seems to be able to do. Literary writers of today: we aren't trying hard enough.

How To Tell If Your Writing Is Any Good - Part 2

(Read Part 1 Here)

I have had the most interesting experiences with my writing as of late. The most exciting experience has been what I like to call THE RIFT in feedback. Among many, many other reasons why I self-published my novella, Cinders, one reason I did so was to get feedback on my writing - writing I felt was the best I had done up to that point. I knew without at doubt that by keeping the book unpublished and handing it only to people I had some sort of connection with, that I would never find absolutely honest feedback. My way of thinking was that I would never know if my writing was truly any good. I thought it was good, but what did I know? Readers are who mattered.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20.

I see now that my way of thinking was terribly wrong. Although I would have never put my own work out there without feeling it was really good, I still ultimately put all my hope in the opinions of others more than in my own. Every time I read a crushing review or received less than 4 stars, my heart sank and my opinion of my own work withered. Then, on the other hand, every time I read a 5 star review by someone who really seemed to understand the work the way I intended, my heart soared and my opinion of the book blossomed. Talk about a roller coaster.

This is THE RIFT, and it will happen with every single word, sentence, short story, and novel I ever share with others.

If I'm not careful, I'll fall into that rift and never emerge. This is one of the reasons I don't feel reviews are for writers. It's good for me to know how readers react to my work, but one of the things I learned very quickly - all those reviews were the exact same reactions I received from beta readers and friends who read the book, just on a much larger, more dramatic scale.

So, with no further babble from me, let's look at the paragraphs from yesterday's experiment. We're the Literary Lab, after all. We like to experiment.

#1
The owl lives behind my home in a tall pine that is bald on one side and heavy on the other with frost-laden boughs that groan with every snow fall. At night, when flakes gather in drifts and heaps against my back porch, the owl plunges from his hunting perch, his sooty brown feathers driving tunnels through snow until all that is seen are whirlwinds of white—feathers and snow creating silence in chaos. I strain to hear any sound at all, but only succeed in finding the crashing thumps of my own heartbeat. Solemnly, after I know the kill has taken place, I enter my cabin, assured in the warmth of my small, but necessary fire.

This paragraph comes from a long short story I wrote in college titled "Sounding Light." I wrote it at the brink of my awareness with language, and decided to experiment with merging prose and poetry. I was really happy with the end product - a literary, quiet story, which oddly enough, was part of the inspiration for my spy thriller novel, Monarch. "Sounding Light" was published in the literary journal, Touchstones, in 2002.

Hmmm, there were 15 solid votes for this paragraph as the best written and liked. It came out as the winner. General consensus:

• easiest to read
• too generic
• good imagery
• both poetry and prose
• strongest writing
• grammatically wrong
• good technical quality
• sentence structure is strange
• style over narrative
• compared to several classic authors (not in a good way)

#2
They questioned him the day after Naomi’s disappearance, although he didn’t know anything. Naomi hadn’t shown up to his house the night he asked her to, and that was that. “You were the last to speak to her,” the police kept insisting. “And you’re her best friend. Can’t you give us some clue to what could have happened? Would she run away?” Brad only shook his head, fear clawing at his heart. He was most likely more frightened than Naomi’s own parents, who believed she had just not come home for awhile. She was frequently away from home, but when that happened, she was with Brad. She was not with him now.

This paragraph was written somewhere between 1996 and 1997 while I was in high school. It's the beginning paragraph of my novel, The Breakaway, which I've rewritten more times than I can count. I am currently working on this novel to submit for representation. The paragraph above no longer exists, even remotely, and the beginning is now much altered.

This paragraph came in 2nd place at 12 votes as the best written and liked. General consensus:

• felt like newbie writing
• good sense of plot
• felt flat
• too telling
• was in the character's head strongly (in a good way)
• easy to read
• immature
• strongest story
• immediate hook
• author isn't trusting voice
• confusing narrative

#3

I buy a snakeskin bag today, lizard green and shiny patent leather and the silver accents catch the sun on a sunny day before the clouds decide to come. When they do, they split open and rain all hell down for five minutes, plaster my hair to my skin, soak through my white shirt so the boys on the corner smoking pot whistle and lick their lips and yell, “Nice tits!” and I roll my eyes and think immature and wish I’d remembered to bring my long jacket that goes down to my calves. At least my green bag looks good with my green skirt, my six-inch green heels and green toenails that are starting to chip and I need to schedule another pedicure tomorrow and pull out my phone to punch in a reminder. I feel like a walking lime tequila.

This paragraph was written in 2010 as part of Loren Eaton's Six-Birds prompt. It is from a flash fiction piece titled "True Colors." You can read the entire pieces on my author site, if you're interested.

This paragraph came in as the third best written and liked with 11 votes. General consensus:

• strong voice
• great sense of voice and confidence
• too much description, sentences too long and run-on
• felt flat
• great sense of character
• style over narrative (not good)
• last line was cheap
• last line was too cutesy
• last line was a treat

I think the most interesting thing was how several readers mentioned that they hated #1 or #3 because of the present tense or first person POV, yet didn't say that this bothered them in both of the paragraphs. This confused me. Did you not notice that both 1 and 3 were both in present tense and first person POV or was I misunderstanding what you said?

Moving on, I think it's quite clear from the general consensus lists that feedback overall (on anything) is extremely subjective. I don't wish to focus on that today, though. I want to point out that each of these excerpts was taken from a different period of my life. #2 was from when I very first started writing novels, #1 was from college when I started experimenting with language, and #3 was from only a year ago when I was really starting to feel confidence in my writing. I think from the general feedback given in the comments that many of you picked up on these things in my writing. Many of you seem to favor plot and a good hook over technique or prose - at least in a small excerpt like this. All of this tells me that feedback is helpful to hone my writing, but I should never rely on it to direct my writing, or even worse, tell me if my writing is good or not.

One of the most important things I have learned over the years is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to judge a writer's worth or abilities from a short excerpt, maybe even from a whole chapter or short story, or even an entire novel. I have read absolutely amazing pieces by authors I truly admire, and then read something else of theirs that fell completely flat for me. Overall, though, I still admire their work because I have read enough of it. What does this tell me? Simply that I must turn this around and see if from the other direction. If I get feedback that rips me to shreds, does that mean I'm a bad writer? I think the answer is obvious, and it leads directly into the question: How can you tell if your writing is any good?

If you can't answer that, go back and read this post again.

Vulnerability

In our daily interactions, we often skirt around topics that make each other feel vulnerable. If a friend has just gone through a divorce or a death, for example, we'll probe around first to see if it's okay to talk about it before bringing up the subject directly.

As a reader, though, I love the experience of reading about a topic that makes me feel vulnerable. I love feeling as if the writer knows something deeply personal within me: my fears, my secrets, my weaknesses.

Sometimes stories shy away from this. It will feel like a missed opportunity. I once wrote a story about a relative who lost her mother. While I was writing it, I got scared that I would dredge up too many strong emotions in my relative, so I didn't go as deep as I could. As a result, my reviewers called the story "death-light." The material was there, but the depth and the heat of the emotion was not. For me, the result was something rather forgettable.

This weekend I started a new story that dealt with aging. As I was working on it, I could feel myself shying away from the emotions that might make a reader feel vulnerable. I caught myself in time, however, and decided to dig deeper and dare to face the consequences. As a result, I found that I was making myself feel uneasy. I began to question my own ideas about aging and its consequences. It was both scary and thrilling...and something I plan to do more of.

How do you feel about vulnerability? Do you make yourself vulnerable in your writing? Do you dare to make readers feel vulnerable?

Revealing...

A fellow blogger over at Obsessions of a Workaholic did a post today about her secrets. It got me thinking about what we reveal in our blog posts, and even more importantly, what we reveal about ourselves in our writing - consciously and subconsciously.

Fear is something I deal with daily. It's constantly nagging at my heels, keeping me on my toes. I constantly try to turn around and stare the beast in the eyes. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I think doing something drastic will kill the beast, when in reality it just gets larger in ways I didn't think possible.

For instance, I decided to write a book just for me. I told myself I didn't care what anyone thought of it. So I wrote it and published it despite stigmas existing against the method I chose. Finally, after the book has been out for a few months, I've realized how many secrets about myself are in that book. It's actually quite frightening. It's even more frightening when I read reviews and listen to some readers who didn't like the book or the character I portrayed.

That aside, I think it's important we put ourselves into our work and our blog posts. People respond to honesty in all its forms. Honesty creates artistic integrity. It's essential, in my opinion.

So. A few of my other secrets?

I don't understand politics. At all. If someone brings up presidential politics, I try to blend into the wall because I'll look stupid if I open my mouth.

I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to writing. I rely a lot on my gut instinct and what I've learned in the past. If you ask me how I write a book, I'll answer with something that sounds smart, but in reality I'm just winging it. Seriously, good writing is just lots and lots and lots and lots of practice.

Although I love them dearly, Scott and Davin scare me because they are amazingly intelligent and I respect them more than they know. I often feel like I'm a clownish figure fumbling in the corner when I'm around them.

I am deathly afraid of being forgotten.

I know some people are much more private than others. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, and because of the last secret I just shared, I tend to share more than I'm often comfortable with - both in my writing and online. Do you have any secrets you'd like to share today?

Never Let Me Go and Let Me Go

I've raved before about the beautiful and heartbreaking novel, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This weekend I cautiously watched the movie adaptation, hoping at the very least that it wouldn't ruin my impression of the book. My hat is off to Director Mark Romanek and screenplay writer Alex Garland for staying true to the book's vision and not getting all Hollywood (okay, except perhaps for the last 10 seconds, but I'm willing to overlook that). Ishiguro's brilliance was showcased on this movie, and I'd recommend both the book and the movie to lovers of literary fiction (with a pinch of sci-fi).

This weekend I also spent some time lunching with a relative stranger who asked to talk to me regarding her desire to start writing again. This person, we'll call her Kangacon Spartacus, has apparently been wanting to write since elementary school but somehow got convinced to repress that urge because it might not pay the bills. Thankfully, it sounds like she's finally going to go for it, and face her fears. So, here's to Kangacon for letting herself go and doing what she wants to do!

Question: What are your fears as a writer, and how do you overcome them?

My answer: I'm scared of people knowing where I'm vulnerable. I overcome it by ignoring my fear long enough to send my work out into the world and then worry about the consequences later.

Nobody Likes You or Your Writing

That's right.

Take it personally.

Have you seen this movie trailer?

Vampires Suck

No matter what you create, no matter how many people like it, probably even more people are not going to like it. They might make fun of it like this movie does (although I believe the entire thing is more of a marketing ploy and cash-creator than anything else). But even if people don't like what you create, that doesn't mean they don't like you. Or maybe they really don't like you, who knows.

Does it matter?

What will it take for you to feel successful?

Is publishing a prize to you? (It shouldn't be a prize. Please don't think of it as a prize. Ack!)

If you can't answer these questions, and if the title of my post offends you, you probably shouldn't be writing.

Who Created the Rules of Your Story?

While ambling through the internet, I once stumbled upon some videos of writer Kate Braverman teaching a class. I had particular interest in Kate because I had the opportunity to meet and study under two of her past students, Janet Fitch and Samantha Dunn, and according to both of these very strong writers, Kate was quite the taskmaster. (I wrote about her once before.)

In this video, Kate was telling a roomful of students that they weren't using their imaginations enough. She said that in all of our stories, we should be creating every part of it: the characters, the setting, the time...even down to the force of gravity.

I'm into pain. I like to challenge myself, and this seemingly impossible idea of creating my own gravity in my stories was something that has fascinated me for a long time. I often ask myself if I'm using my imagination enough. And, often my answer is no. And, more often, my answer is "What does that even mean?"

So, I'm throwing the question out for your thoughts on this idea. Do you use your imaginations enough? Do you create your own gravity? What does that even mean???

That Song Was Dinner

photo by D. [SansPretentionAucune] on flicker

I wasn't going to post today. I'm signing off The Literary Lab for a few weeks until January due to some personal stuff, but last week I said I'd do this post, so here it goes.

I brought up the issue of honesty in writing in my "They've Adapted" post. Honesty is a touchy subject. There were some great comments and ideas that got me thinking what makes writing honest, and how I can identify it in my own writing and others.

I'll begin with mirrors.

Do you ever feel like you're looking in the mirror and you can't even see yourself? I've done that a few times. It's as if you're dressed up for a show, decked out from head to foot, your makeup caked on, your lips bright red, your eyes popping like a peacock's plumage. In fact, you might even feel like a peacock. It might feel splendid. It might feel ridiculous. It depends on you.

I think our stories are mirrors. I've always felt this way. After I read something I've written it's as if I am looking into a mirror at myself. Sometimes it's a fun-house mirror all warped and frightening. Sometimes it's a lake with ripples. Sometimes it's a perfectly oval piece of glass showing me exactly what I am - and that's the scariest mirror of all.

Now I'll move on to music.

One of my favorite movies is Music & Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I know it's a chick flick, but the show is brilliant on many levels (and you'll see this if you grew up in the 80's), but one of the things I love most about it is how much it gets to the root of what remains honest in our work, our writing, and what we choose to share with others.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie is this conversation:

Alex: It doesn't have to be perfect. Just spit it out. They're just lyrics.

Sophie: "Just lyrics"?

Alex: Lyrics are important. They're just not as important as melody.

Sophie: I really don't think you get it.

Alex: Oh. You look angry. Click your pen.

Sophie: A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. Sex.

Alex: I so get that.

Sophie: But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It's the combination of the two that makes it magic.

Magic. That's what seems to happen when I manage to get honesty into my writing. It's like a memorable, catchy song where everything comes together and it makes me feel a mixture of emotions that reach more deeply than I thought was possible. I look into the mirror and I see me, but I don't see me. It has become a creation that took on a life of its own. My honesty gave it that life.

Throughout Music & Lyrics Sophie fights for honesty in her work. Several of the characters seem to be taking it away from her - vying to please the audience instead. Alex, the other main character, learns a valuable lesson in teaching himself how to say what he really wants to say. In the end, he writes a song that Sophie calls "Dinner" - her version of what rings honest and true.

Now I'll bring up your comments.

Amy Tate said:

But you are so right -writing is a performance, but it has to be our own. The only sort of writer that I know how to be is myself. And I've finally reached the point where I'm o.k. with that - published or not.


Lost Wanderer said:

Honesty comes from writing what you want without worrying about impressing anyone, or without worrying about how it will stand out. If it's well-written and if you have written in your unique way, it will be different than others.

That's a key point, I think - being okay with ourselves. It's a tough place to get to. It can be an uncomfortable journey - one that I'm still taking, actually.

Angel Zapata had an interesting thought:

Don't ever write from the heart. The heart will mislead you, have you question the emotions. Write from the ear. Listen to what your characters have to say and put it to paper. Don't put words in their mouths either or try to jazz up their speech. Write it how you hear it, not how you'd like to see it. Honestly, that's how I write.

This is true. I recently received some critiques from a good friend of mine on a chapter of my book, Monarch. She was shocked at a character's choices, feelings, and reactions to another character's confession. And after she pointed it out I was shocked too! I realized that for the entire year I've been writing this book I've been ignoring my character's pleas to be heard. Sucks for my poor character, Lilian, and for me. I'm going to start listening now.

Letting our characters speak for themselves is honesty, but I also feel that, like a song, there's another aspect that makes it magic - YOU.

Nobody can tell a story like you do. Nobody.

If you try and take things from other writings you've read and studied (and most of us do this subconsciously), if you try to be clever, to impress, to be anything other than what you are, most of your readers will sense it. Davin says:

I think that some stories can succeed without relying on honesty. Many books are written as an escape. But, I think readers can tell when something is written honestly.

It's true. I've set aside books many times because they didn't feel honest to me. I didn't think of it that way: "I can't read this. The writer isn't being honest with me, his writing, or his characters. I will put this away now." No. It usually just doesn't capture my interest and I can't read any further. However, I do think Davin has a point about some stories succeeding without relying on honesty. They can. I've read many of them, and it works. I love to listen to some songs that aren't necessarily teeming with emotional honesty. They're entertaining. Something about them pulls me in.

But I must argue that it is the honest movies, honest songs, honest writing that separate themselves from everything else. As I judge entries for our Genre Wars contest it seems like I'm drawn to the stories that feel the most honest.

In the end, there's two aspects of writing that I find the most difficult, the most important to creating that MAGIC. First there's this, as Scott kindly explained in his comments:

The most honest I am is when I'm most invisible in the writing, when I'm not editorializing but simply presenting my characters as truthfully and as sincerely as I can.

Like the lyrics, I'd say - letting our characters speak for themselves (this is sooo much easier said than done). That's the first kind of honesty I can sense in writing. The other is the actual writing, the melody - what carries the lyrics. How is the story presented? Does it feel like the author is uncomfortable with presentation, with using flashbacks, dumping back story, using elaborate descriptions? Or does all that work seamlessly with everything else? If so, that's when it feels honest to me - when the writer is so comfortable with himself and the story he needs to tell that all that's left is . . . the story.

When I write something like that I look into the mirror and see me, but transformed. I think that's what the slippery term "voice" might be. The writer is recognizable, but they've created something honestly outside of themselves.

This has turned into a very long post. Hmmm. Many thoughts to share. I think I'll go eat some dinner now. Start cooking! I'll see you all in a few weeks.


~MDA (aka Glam)

It's Not You, It's Me

In a sort of continuation of Davin's post about sincerity and Michelle's post about honesty, I wanted to do a poll today.

(Poll closed, results below:)

Q: In your current novel, is the protagonist:

1. Someone unlike you or anyone you know? 41.5%

2. A stand-in for you, or an idealized version of you? 36.6%

3. A stand-in for someone you know, or an idealized version of them? 19.5%

4. A version of someone else's protagonist because you could write that story better than they did? 2.4%

In my last book, my protagonist was a minor character from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" that I expanded and fleshed out a lot and he's nothing like me except, of course, that he reads a lot and is obsessed by fine food. Otherwise he's a complete stranger. In my current book (titled "Cocke & Bull"), the protagonist is a gay Irish highwayman in colonial Maryland. Again, not so much me though we share Irish Catholicism but I've never killed anyone, at least.

If your protagonist is essentially you, why is that? If not, why is that? Discuss.

"They've Adapted"

Even if you're not a Star Trek fan, you've probably heard of the Borg, a collective-conscious race of half human, half cybernetics drones in the Star Trek universe. And they're incredible at adapting to any weapon fired at them. I've been watching a lot of Star Trek lately. Shhh, I'll blame it on my husband.

One of my favorite lines in all the Borg episodes is: "They've Adapted!", meaning "Oh, crap, we have no defenses against them now that they've adapted to our weapons. We'd better come up with something truly creative and unique to defeat them. Again."

As I write and read more and more, I've done something similar against a race my brain unfortunately likes to think of as the Borg: the collective mass of readers who may one day read my work in published form. I've seen readers follow trends, creative marketing and popular groups, oftentimes seeming as if they have no say in what they choose to read. Probably because if it's not marketed well - if it's not easily accessible or seen - they don't bother finding what else is out there to read.

So what do I do?

I panic, of course. I think I'll never get an agent's attention, a large audience, or any attention at all if my work doesn't stand out over everything else.

And what do I do to fix that?

I think, "Oh, crap, I'd better come up with something truly creative and unique to stand out."

Many times this mean upping the shock factor. Or sometimes it means an idea that's not only creative, but really stupid and makes no sense. Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm not really writing what I want to write; I'm writing what I feel will set me apart. That's not a bad thing altogether. In fact, it often drives me to more creative places than I would go otherwise. But, I have to be careful because more often than not that creative place is nothing more than a ploy.

I was the editor of my university's literary magazine over six years ago. I sat on the reading board many times. What did I see the most in all those entries? Obvious attempts to wow the judges, to come up with something so new and off the wall that we'd be blown away and impressed! I think it worked twice. And guess what? Over the years I've done the same thing with my own work to try and stand out against my peers in the classroom, or in a contest or call for submissions. Hmmm, even blogging.

I think what really sets any writer apart is honesty. I can spot an honest story five hundred miles away. Combined with a fine handle on writing, execution, and character development, honesty goes farther than any other writing device I've encountered. An honest writer can take the most boring, mundane subject in the world and make it exciting. An honest writer can blow the Borg out of the galaxy with one careful aim and fire.

Against honesty, resistance is futile.

Couldn't resist, sorry.

Scott wrote an excellent post awhile ago about honesty. A quick excerpt from his thoughts:

I have long thought that in order for a story to be a good story it must say something true, reveal something about us as a species or our times as they are, or some other truth. There had to be a revelation of some kind. This is of course one of the tropes of the modern short story: the epiphanic moment. I still think that a story has to tell a truth of some kind, but I no longer believe that what I write has to be Big and Important. I am beginning to think that I can approach my stories, my themes, my characters and more importantly my audience, with some humility and address them more quietly. I begin to think that it's possibly just as good to say, "This is interesting" as it is to say, "This is important."

Well said, Scott.


Question For The Day: Come back here next Thursday for my thoughts on what makes writing honest. First I'd like to hear what you think! What makes your writing honest? Don't tell me you "write from the heart." Think more deeply than that if you can. What blows your Borg out of the galaxy?


~MDA (aka Glam)

Where's Your Naked?

A term I use a lot when I critique other writing is sincere. "This sounds sincere to me," I'll say. Or, the alternative, "This doesn't sound very sincere." I'll admit that it's not the best word to use. Much of fiction is created, and probably all of fiction has at least a few details that aren't actually true. And, even though I've tried to stop using such a vague word in my comments to other writers, I feel that the need for it comes up time and again.

Because, don't you think you can tell when a fiction writer is describing a real event?

A writing teacher once told me a quote that I think about often. She said, "Fiction is the mask that allows you to stand naked in front of your audience." Or something like that. (And, of course I forget who the quote originally came from). But, it's an idea that I have relied on often. I am willing to be more honest with my thoughts and emotions as long as I'm allowed to call what I write fiction.

At the same time, readers read to be entertained. I've been working on my first adventure book, and already I can feel myself caught up in the events of this extremely fictional story. I started it a couple of days ago, and in the first thirty pages, literally all of it came from my imagination. Then, at around page 31, I found an opportunity to rely on my real life experiences. A couple was preparing to do something very difficult, and one was losing faith in the other. Even though the first part of the book had action and drama and magic, I found myself getting truly excited--perhaps in a different way--about this little domestic squabble. This was my naked. This was the real emotion that was peeking through all of the stuff I was creating.

I think when we read, whether we are aware of it or not, something in our brain is always looking for the sincerity in the fiction. The naked. The facts. However you want to call it. For a story to be properly memorable, I think it needs to be the perfect balance of imagination and reality. To filter out the real emotion, the heavy stuff, is to tell a story that won't stay with the reader. To ramble on only about the things that really happened is likely to bore a reader.

So, what do you do with the naked parts of your story? Do you reveal them? Hide them? Consider them unworthy? How do you balance the fun details you are creating with the parts of the story that are actually real?