I write the words that make the whole world read? February 26, 2011
Posted by Brandie in ghostly doings, something to talk about.1 comment so far
My apologies to Barry Manilow.
Today’s lesson: how to recreate dialogue from conversations that A) happened 50 years ago; and B) you weren’t even alive to experience.
Well, I say it’s a “lesson.” But I have few words of wisdom in relation to this topic, because it’s been a learning experience for me as well. In the past few days, as I’ve constructed the skeleton of my ghostwriting subject’s narrative (for the sake of ease, from this point forward, I will call her Mimi), I have found it necessary to fill in the conversational holes, as it were. Obviously, Mimi cannot remember every.single.word of every.single.conversation she ever held in her life–though her memory is quite remarkable, considering the details she has recounted thus far–and it falls to me to craft believable dialogue that not only recreates the moment for the reader, but also manages to sound age-appropriate for that particular period of her life while still capturing Mimi’s unique “voice.”
Oh, and there’s the language barrier to deal with, too.
When Mimi talks, she switches back and forth between Spanish and English frequently. It’s the kind of “Spanglish” talk that is common among Latin American transplants to this country–when the corresponding English word just won’t work for the situation, you might as well throw in the Spanish term instead. Gets your point across much more clearly, right?
In theory, anyway.
I have enough of a background in Spanish to be able to comprehend what she’s saying 95% of the time. The other 5%, I have to ask her to explain. These are the only times I ever see her get frustrated by this process. “How I can explain it to you…?” she wonders aloud, trying to gather her thoughts and get her point across as clearly as possible.
Eventually, we get there. But I still find myself questioning how to faithfully recreate the natural rhythms of Mimi’s speech. There is a musicality to the Spanish language that is sorely lacking in the heavily Germanic-influenced English tongue. Not for nothing is it labeled as a “romance language.” So when I’m writing Mimi’s dialogue for the book, how do I translate that smooth, tuneful rhythm into clunky English, without it sounding rote or stiff?
Thus far, I’ve found it to be easier to maintain some of the “Spanglish” sentence structure in writing about Mimi’s confrontations with other people. When Mimi talks to someone about the family’s main mode of transportation, a donkey, I use her terminology–he’s a burro. When Mimi greets someone, she says, “Hola!” And when Mimi talks about her family, they are not father, mother, godfather, son–they are padre, madre, padrino, hijo.
I’m discovering that the insertions of somewhat familiar Spanish words in the dialogue lends it a more natural air. When I went back and altered the way in which I wrote particular scenes, I found myself feeling much more confident about the ones in which some of the dialogue was rendered in Mimi’s native tongue. If it sounded clunky before, it seems more natural to me now, in revisiting it. And I feel like I’m finally capturing “her” voice–the lovely, sometimes tongue-tying transmutation of English and Spanish that defines who she is.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that ghostwriting is an “easy” job. I’ve actually been told by someone recently that it’s not a “real” job, because you’re writing someone else’s story and all you have to do is record their thoughts. Oh, would it be so simple. But you’re not just writing down memories. You’re recreating an entire life on that page.
It's alive!
In many ways, it is much more difficult than simply sitting down to write your own characters. You have a level of responsibility to your subject, to make sure that the story you build around their recollections is truthful to their history and reflects not only who they were in the moment, but who they are now. You have to mold their story into something readable and honest. You have to put yourself in their shoes, and ask yourself, “Is this how it really happened? Is this feasible? Is it even close to accurate?” And you have to ask that with practically every page you write.
I can’t fully relate to you how stressful this is, or how often I second-guess myself and wonder if I’m doing a good enough job. But when I’m feeling particularly worried, I simply tell myself that I can do this–I have the skill and the talent and the writing ability to overcome my own self-doubts and produce a really solid memoir for Mimi.
And when I still feel like I can’t, I can always come over here and bitch about it until the writer’s block melts away.
Boo. February 19, 2011
Posted by Brandie in ghostly doings, something new.2 comments
Woo … I’m a ghost!
Okay, not really. But I am, for the first time, trying my hand at ghostwriting.
My client is an older woman who has led a very interesting life. Her family–led by her enthusiastic significant other–have been pushing her to tell her story for years, and she has finally decided that she is ready to do it.
Here’s where I come in. My subject is from South America, and though she is fluent in English, she still finds herself stymied by certain words or turns of phrase. So I am functioning as the “pen” for her voice.
My main concern is making sure that I am capturing that voice in as true a spirit as possible. She has an excellent story–in just the week I’ve been working with her, we have only talked about her life up until age 18, and–ye gods!–the material I have to work with is amazing. And there’s still another 40 years to go.
Can't you see I'm trying to write, Mr. Grant?
I have the great opportunity to live with her and her family while I’m writing her story. In the cozy basement apartment of their lovely lakeside home, I sit at the kitchen table–an appropriately warm and homey place in which to scribble–and I write. When she goes to the office during the day, I parse my extensive notes from our previous conversations, arranging and rearranging the narrative structure of her story, and I conduct my research, gathering information about her country–its background, culture, and traditions–so I can position her personal story in its broader historical context.
And when her workday is done, she pours a cup of tea, and I pop open yet another can of diet Coke, and we chat. Well, she talks … and I type ferociously. She has a lovely demeanor: kind and generous, with a quick memory and an even quicker wit. I can’t fully express to you the sheer pleasure I get in just talking to this woman, seeing the world–and the past–through her eyes.
Listening to her stories, I have found myself laughing and crying in equal measure. And, I admit, I find myself feeling a sense of shame, at times, comparing her struggles to my own, seeing my paltry (in comparison) problems put into harsh perspective.
This isn’t my first experience with oral history, of sorts–I worked on a compilation of oral histories during my undergraduate internship. But then, I just transcribed interviews that had already been conducted and recorded. And while that in itself was an amazing experience–hearing the stories of strong, beautiful women with whom I am proud to share an alma mater–I still felt somewhat removed from the subject because I had not personally experienced the interview. I had not sat down with the subject, drawing her out of her shell and leading the discussion to certain points of interest, jogging her memory lest she forget some significant detail.
What I am doing here, now, is different, and thrilling, and a little scary. The responsibility for gathering information and details and nuances of story–that’s all on me. I have to make sure that my subject stays focused and is comfortable relaying the sometimes uncomfortable aspects of her personal history. And when all is said and done, I have to take her often fragmented tendrils of thought and piece them together in a narrative that fully encompasses her truly remarkable story.
It’s a daunting prospect, indeed.
This might be me, soon.
And yet … even in the mere week I have been here, it has been one of the nicest experiences I have ever had. My subject has welcomed me with open arms, and she has dived into the pool of her memory with gusto. My research has gone relatively smoothly, and thus far I’m confident that, given time, between the two of us, we’re going to produce something that is truly special.
But even if this book goes nowhere–if my subject decides she doesn’t want her story to leave the family, and chooses to keep her memories out of the public eye–I will have zero regrets about spending my time here, with this lovely woman, hearing her beautiful, tragic, heartfelt, hilarious, and just plain wonderful story.
I am truly lucky, and grateful, to have been trusted with this project.
Ideas out of nowhere. January 27, 2011
Posted by Brandie in young adult.add a comment
A fever dream in the midst of a nasty bout with bronchitis last summer led to the idea for the young adult novel I’ve been sporadically working on for the past six months.
I haven’t really done too much with it in that time–a prologue, the beginnings of the first chapter, and another beginning chapter. Other that that, nothing. My only excuse is that I’ve been preoccupied with working on romance. But this week, I’ve been dwelling on the YA idea more and more–maybe that’s due to the rejection letter I received this week, or perhaps it’s just that I’m finally in the ”right” mindset to get underway with this novel. Who knows? But whatever the reason, this morning, I was hit in the face with an abundance of inspiration.
Have you ever had a plot point that stuck in your craw, driving you absolutely bonkers as you tried to figure out the best way to get around it? I’ve been trying to figure out how to construct this particular point for a few months now. And now that I know what I want to do, I feel like I can get moving on this story in earnest.
It seems crazy sometimes, the way ideas just kind of emerge from the ether when you least expect them. This is why I try to keep a notebook near my bed, so when I get these random thoughts, I have a way to record them (I swear, I have to have the world’s worst willfully short-term memory).
This novel will be the first time I have attempted to write a first-person narrative. Even though I’m a little nervous about pulling it off, I can’t think of a better way to tell this particular story.
Here’s hoping today’s burst of inspiration wasn’t just an anomaly …
Reject. January 25, 2011
Posted by Brandie in i'm a reject.add a comment
If you’re going to be a writer, you have to prepare yourself for the very real possibility of rejection. It’s the rare person who slides into home their very first time at bat. When you submit a query letter or synopsis or manuscript, you have to expect that you’re going to have to face a rejection … or twelve.
Knowing that, however, doesn’t make it any easier to take.
I received a rejection letter–well, a rejection email–today.
I’m sad.
It’s hard not to take it personally when someone tells you that your story isn’t “strong enough” to publish. When you spend so much time with a set of characters, lovingly crafting a setting and composing dialogue and creating backstories for them, those characters become a part of you. You believe in them, because you’ve breathed life into them. You feel defensive of them, because they matter. Even if no one else can see it, those characters–your story–matters.
Except to that one particular editor.
Like I said, I’m pretty damn sad.
So I’m going to allow myself to wallow a bit today.
And tomorrow, I’ll start all over again.
Observations on love. January 19, 2011
Posted by Brandie in introspection, love.1 comment so far
How does one write convincingly about love when one is not, in the moment, actually in love?
This is the issue with which I am somewhat wrestling at the moment. As I wind my way to the end of my first novel, I find the cynical side of my nature passing judgment on my characters, particularly my female protagonist, whose journey throughout the book has resulted in her finally opening up to the possibility of love (as romantic heroines are wont to do). Writing the language of love, I will admit, is sometimes difficult. I have to force myself to actually let the characters feel things that I myself have willfully suppressed for years, and not let my own cynicism color their experiences.
So why write romance at all, you may ask? Well, just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean I don’t believe in love, with all of its intangible possibilities and potential. There’s a part of me that is broken in regards to loving another person in a romantic way, but I hope that I won’t always feel that way.
And therein lies my motivation as a romance writer. Even when it’s difficult, even when I feel I will never get to the point where I will be ready and able to let love happen for me, I can explore its magical (yes, magical) effects on others. There’s something strangely beautiful in that, when you stop to think about it.
I like being an observer in this manner. I think all writers are, first and foremost, observers of human nature–good writers, anyway. When I think about all of the writers whose work I enjoy above all others, they all have one thing in common: their work makes entertaining, startling, and sometimes pithy commentary on the things that make us human–functions, flaws, foibles, and everything in between.
There ends today’s moment of unrelieved introspection. Back to the salt mines (as it were).
We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. November 14, 2010
Posted by Brandie in alice and company, influences.add a comment
If you know me, you know that I am almost unhealthily obsessed with Alice in Wonderland.
It’s been one of my favorite books since I was young, and the source of one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. I’ve read this book more times than I can remember, and it’s had a bigger influence on me than anything I can ever recall reading: for all of my characters, I find, are searching for something, each having lost their way somehow.
I identify with Alice in many ways. I wake up some mornings and blearily wonder, “How did I get here?” This is not where I expected to be at this point in my life; had everything gone according to plan, I’d be in the midst of my second year of Ph.D work in literature. That’s where I was headed, anyway, when I graduated from college in 2007.
Two and a half years of graduate school showed me that, much as I enjoyed teaching, and as natural a fit I may be to the world of academia, it was not where my heart lay. Not by a long shot. It would have been nice to realize this before the student loans … but, bygones.
I can’t change the past. I’ve accepted that, though grudgingly. I’ve slowly come to realize that I need to embrace my passions and forge a path for myself doing something that makes me happy, something that makes it worthwhile to clamber out of bed in the morning.
That “something” is writing. I am at my happiest when sitting in front of the computer, typing merrily away, or lounging in bed with a legal pad and a brain brimming over with ideas. And if this is where my passion lies, this is where my path will take me.
I’m giving myself a shot, and I’m putting myself on the line by submitting my novel to the editors next month. I have a pathological fear of rejection, and I know I will have to fight very hard against that in order to even hit the “send” button on my submission. I have to constantly tell myself that, should this novel be turned down, it is NOT personal and it is NOT the end of the world.
Alice conquered her fears and made her way home through determination and sheer cheek. And while I’m not looking to make my way home, per se, I am seeking my future, and I will need every ounce of determination I can muster.
That, and a constant source of caffeine.
And some headache medicine.
And maybe a cookie. Or two.
Let me introduce myself. November 13, 2010
Posted by Brandie in introduction.add a comment
My name is Brandie. I’m a graduate of a small liberal-arts college in Mississippi and a recent escapee from graduate school. I hated pretty much everything about grad school except for teaching–which was fulfilling in a way my classes just were not–and the opportunity to meet some awesome people. Of course, the awesome people were tempered by the big-headed academics, many of whom had inflated egos and self-worths that were wholly unjustifiable. Being smart does not automatically give you a pass to be unkind, snooty, or excessively contemptuous, people.
I am a writer, which is a fancy word assigned to those who get paid for their various ramblings about as often as the Cubs win a World Series. I maintain a couple of blogs, the most prolific of which is the classic movie blog I maintain with two of my college friends, wherein we share our fervent fascination with all things classic film. I also have a sporadically-updated cooking blog, wherein I brag about my somewhat feeble accomplishments in the kitchen. Hey, I’m proud of that basic pasta dish I’ve made fifteen times and those brownies that could have been made by apes in the wild.
I’m in the midst of completing my first romance novel, which I will be submitting for judgment next month. Romance is a field that is vastly underrated, in my humble and ever-biased opinion. I was routinely teased in grad school for my proclivity for “woman porn.” My answer to that is a middle finger and a couple of raspberries. Well, maybe not the middle finger. I am a Southern lady, after all.
Oh, who am I kidding. Middle finger up.
I enjoy reading romance because happy endings never go out of style (and no, I don’t mean *that kind* of happy ending–minds out of the gutter, folks). Romance is fun and flirty and enjoyable to read. It’s the Twinkie of the literary world–sure, it has little substance, nutritionally-speaking, but it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than a freaking salad.
I like writing romance because it combines a multitude of avenues–it can be funny, sexy, serious, mysterious, suspenseful, dramatic, charming … sometimes all in the same book. There are few limits to writing romance. You can write inspirational stories, slapstick comedy, murderous happenings–anything goes, really. And I love the freedom that goes along with this genre. It truly allows you to explore whatever piques your interest. Want to learn all about Aztec hieroglyphics? Make your hero or heroine an archaeologist. Want to vicariously experience the lives of the rich and famous? Write characters who embody your wildest, wealthiest fantasies.
My intent is to use this blog as a way to vent my frustrations, share my triumphs, and just enjoy the writerly journey.
And maybe I’ll take some time to review some books along the way, because writing won’t replace reading … not by a long shot.
Welcome to my site!
