Month: April 2012

04/6/12

What I am Reading – The Song of Achilles

“We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.”

― Nikos Kazantzakis

 

The Greeks, really? Really!

I was not a fan of Homer. I read The Iliad in high school, took a few tests on it and forgot most of the story. Recalling only, as many do, the beauteous kidnapped Helen whose face launched a thousand ships. I think what drew me to read Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles was the fact that my father loved the stories of the ancient Greeks. I thought maybe the story in novel form would help me understand why.

A first novel for Madeline Miller, taking her ten years to write, it retells in prose, The Iliad’s recounting of the Trojan War. One of history greatest love stories, it details the boyhood friendship and ultimately the love between Achilles, the son of King Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis and the exiled prince, Patroclus.

I admire Miller’s courage in taking on not only the challenge of writing this story as a novel but in writing it in the first person, from the point of view of Patroclus. Writing in the first person is not for the faint heart. Miller is a Greek and Latin scholar whose meticulous research forms the backbone of her book and more than qualifies her to have written it.

The pages are full of riveting characters: fierce Thetis, Chiron, the good centaur who mentors both Achilles and Patroclus, Briseis the slave girl who comes between Achilles and Patroclus, greedy Agamemnon, soulless Pyrrhus, and finally, Achilles, himself, called “Aristos Achaion” – “The Best of the Greeks”.

The Song of Achilles transforms a story that many modern readers find difficult to comprehend in it original form, making it easy to read and understand. The love scenes between Patroclus and Achilles were both effective and tastefully done but at the same time complete.

It contains all the elements today’s readers look for in a story: passion, betrayal, loyalty, love, brutal battles, heroes and villains. I recommend that you read it if you are looking for something a little bit different.

If you live in New Hampshire, Madeline Miller is reading at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord on April 12 at 7 PM.

As for my question as to why my father would have liked it, he was fascinated by fate being no stranger to it himself. The Song of Achilles is full of it.

 

Picture of The Song of Achilles
Follow the Greeks to Troy.

 

 

04/4/12

Using the Write Word

“It’s always a bit of a struggle to get the words right, whether we’re a Hemingway or a few fathoms below his level.”
- Rene J. Cappon

Picture of dictionaries
Never underestimate the power of a word

I used to play a game that went like this. Take a person’s first name and find all the words beginning with the same first letter that describes them. Here is what I am talking about.

Brid: brave, bold, bitchy, beautiful, bull-headed, blunt, bossy and bewitching

Franny: fragile, forthright, fearful, forlorn, fair, faithful, fraught and frustrated

My desire to be a writer probably started with my love of words. I began to walk late but that should come as no surprise to you as I have already told you I was a failure at jump rope. I mentioned this once to a friend who said, “I bet you TALKED early.” I probably did. I love to read and began collecting and storing words early, too.

I have always liked odd words; words like eschew and inchoate. At the age of four, my daughter once brought the waiting room at the local vet’s office to a stunned silence by telling our cat that his behavior was appalling. Guess where she learned that word?

This “wordiness” has been a handicap to me as a writer. Think about it. People don’t talk like that. They use simple words. Most four-year olds would tell the cat he was being bad. People often don’t follow the rules of grammar in their speech, either.  How many times has someone leaned over to you and said, “Just between you and I…”

Writing dialogue is hard. Notice that I could have used: difficult, arduous, onerous, grueling, complicated, etc. But hard works fine. You understand what I mean. You have to make your characters sound like real people. The people you meet in Dunkin Donuts.

I found when I did create a character that spoke differently; I had to fight for her voice. Brid rarely uses contractions. The reason is because she learned to speak English as a child on the west coast of Ireland. As a result, she speaks more formally than some of the other characters in the story.

The issue of vulgar language also has to be handled carefully. Certain words have slithered their way into everyday speech. Read your Facebook newsfeed if you don’t believe me. I cringed when putting some of those words into the mouths of my characters in MacCullough’s Women. Of course, I have been known to use them, especially when I’m annoyed. Somehow it feels different when you see them written (by you!) on the page. They appear cruder and they are fixed as opposed to fleeting.

I agonized over using what my mother called when forced to address seeing or hearing it (usually as graffiti), “that F-Word” in MacCullough’s Women. Unfortunately, that word is here to stay and you hear it a lot. The characters that use it in my book do so because I feel they would. In an earlier draft of the book, I had Neil Malone use it. And then I removed it because I decided that no matter what the circumstances, he would not.

How do you feel about the use of profanity  or coarse language in today’s books? I would love to know what you think.

 

 

 

04/2/12

NH Writers’ Project Writers’ Day – March 31, 2012

“If you are destined to become a writer, you can’t help it. If you can help it, you aren’t destined to become a writer. The frustrations and disappointments, not even to mention the unspeakable loneliness, are too unbearable for anyone who doesn’t have a deep sense of being unable to avoid writing.” ― Donald Harington

Saturday, I attended Writers’ Day sponsored by the NH Writers’ Project. The purpose of this event held at Southern New Hampshire University was to bring writers from all over the state and beyond together to share ideas, learn something new and network with other writers. This was the fourth time I have attended Writers’ Day and it just keeps getting better. The NH Writers’ Project is to be congratulated for doing a great job.

Picture of Writers' Day folder.
My stuff for Writers' Day

The keynote speaker was Archer Mayer, the Vermont-based author of a series of books featuring detective Joe Gunther. He is a past winner of the New England Independent Booksellers Association Award for Best Fiction—the first time a writer of crime literature has been so honored. Archer is a death investigator for Vermont’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and a detective for the Windham County Sheriff’s Office. He could also make a living as a stand-up comic because he kept his audience laughing even while warning us that most fiction writers do not end up rich. Maybe we laughed because most of us had already figured that out.

I attended four sessions:

  • Your Book Starts Here: Three-Act Structure for Book Writers in All Genres
  • Writing Through Our Fears
  • Your Characters’ Characteristics
  • Networking for Manchester and Nashua Writers

I learned something valuable from each of them.

Your Book Starts Here: Three-Act Structure for Book Writers in All Genres presented by Mary Carroll Moore was most intriguing, providing a new way to look at building plot. The premise behind this is to use a series of questions to plot your story. Ms. Moore did a great job illustrating how to do exactly that with sticky notes. (I love sticky notes because you can move them around.) I immediately downloaded her book (Come on, you knew that I would.)

Mary Carroll Moore
Mary Carroll Moore

In Writing Through Your Fears, Mary Johnson presented strategies for overcoming the terror all writers face sooner or later. Usually, this shows up as a snarky voice in your ear saying, “What makes you think anyone will ever want to read this? Huh?” This annoying voice who I picture as coming from an obnoxious mandrill named Simon can bring me to despair.

Your Characters’ Characteristics presented by Ann Joslin Williams offered a series of writing exercises and charts to help you build your characters by defining things like: what they eat, their greatest fears, favorite stuff, etc.

Networking for Manchester and Nashua Writers brought local writers together and gave us a chance to describe what we are writing or planning to write.

I had lunch with a fellow member of my Souhegan Writers Group, Cherie Konyha Greene, whose novel will be one to watch for, and several other writers I had just met. Informal networking at its best.

Writers’ Day provides an opportunity to help writers strengthen their knowledge of the craft of writing but I think its appeal speaks to something deeper. Writing is lonely, the work for the most part being done alone and rejected and criticized far more often than accepted. Writers’ Day provides the opportunity to do something we all try to do from the moment we leave the protection of our mothers’ arms: Make a friend.