GUEST BLOGGER PATTI LACY: Brainstorming the Next Novel ... It’s All in a Day’s Thought (and Giveaway!)

Julie here, and let’s face it— “brainstorming” means different things to different people. To Ruthy, Mary, Audra and Pam, it’s sitting in a room at the Hyatt during the ACFW Conference, fleshing out each other’s plots. To me, it’s praying out on my lower deck, crying and pleading with God to give me an impossible plot twist like He did with A Heart Revealed. To my artist husband, it’s flipping through an Architectural Digest magazine to get his creative juices flowing. And to my dear friend Patti Lacy? It’s all in a Day’s Thought, and trust me—this woman is so cerebral and creative, tapping in to her brain leaves me gaping like Alice in Wonderland, in a constant state of shock and awe.

I had the privilege of endorsing Patti’s new book, Reclaiming Lily,which releases October 1^st through Bethany House, and I was so moved by this incredible story and the evolution of it, I asked her to write a guest blog. So the article below will show you how a seed of an idea took root in a very fertile brain and blossomed into one of the most beautiful pieces of fiction I have ever read. Please welcome one of my dearest friends and favorite people, author Patti Lacy.

Hey, Seekers! What a blessing to cozy into y’all’s couch!Today I’m sharing a secret. What else would you expect from the Spanning Seas & Secrets writer?

While my Seeker friends could disconnect half of their creative synapses and roll out novel after novel, I’m scratching my head and doodling all over that sheet of paper headed The Next Great American Novel.

Anyone relate?

Oh, I’ve got random thoughts all right: Did they really kill sparrows during the Chinese Revolution; Romans 8:28; it’s sunny, praise God; at age eleven, my mother’s cancer doctor nursed her parents back to health; speaking of health, Lord, heal my friend with cancer; tomorrow’s teaching day; why is my stomach bloated; remember when we walked Boston’s Freedom Trail; that new lady at church self-mutilates…and so do lots of teens, particularly girls. Please help, God; what’s for dinner, Texas ranks #1 for frequency of tornadoes, little Lucy’s adjusted to the U.S., praise Him; where’s all my pens, the dog needs to be fed, our pastor’s wife had a miscarriage—

Hey, brain cells!

How can ANYONE write with this going on?

On second “thought,” at least I’m noggin’ nogging, though the literary value’s sinking to the level of last year’s want ads. How can I tame my Twitters au natural and create a cohesive, have-’em-turning-that-next page book? The answer may be closer than you think.

When your imagination has packed its bags and gone to … Seekerville, grab a sheet of paper and corral those random thoughts! Yep, go ahead and label it The Next Great American Novel. They teach you to think big here at The Ville. Scribble out some headings, and let’s g---rrrr---ooooo----www!!!! Here's a stream-of-consciousness peek at what I did with Reclaiming Lily, pulling from my thoughts, my experiences, my own history to craft a story that was part fiction, part truth and all mined from those crazy thoughts that just might lead you to a story ...

CHARACTERS ... CONFLICT ... SETTING!!

CHARACTERS:

Brave Chinese doctor … Chang Kai? (I interviewed Dr. Chang, whose story broke my heart yet inspired me to think sacrificially. How I want to share it with YOU!

Wife of a pastor…Gloria? (I admire my pastor wife friends who must constantly guard their hearts…and their husbands…against all that’s said and done in the name of religion. Surely they’ll share…won’t they?)

A troubled teenaged girl…Lily/Joy? (Oh, dear God, what can we do to help self-mutilators? What research/treatment is available?I make phone calls. Read. Already I’m seeing a determined, almond-eyed beauty, a grieving wife, an alienated young girl … How can I lasso them and then pull the string taut with conflict????

CONFLICT:

Hmmm. Could the troubled teenager (Lily/Joy?) be a lost girl of China and the daughter of Kai?

Could childless Gloria span seas and secrets to adopt “Joy”?

Could Kai want to reclaim Lily/Joy? (*needs to be INTENSE)

Which family will bear the burden of the killer disease PKD?

*Check dates on Cultural Revolution, Western adoptions from China

*Research PKD by calling MD contacts, Barnes Hospital, where friend was treated. Call friend…

SETTINGS:

China? (*this’ll take research galore. Can I swing a trip? Find the resources I’ll need?)

Boston? (*ditto, though my memories and Google and friendly Yanks might make it happen.)

Fort Worth? (*Can I use the time period when we lived here? Big plus. Another big plus: plenty of Cowtowner connections to lasso bucking bronco plot issues

I order books. Visit the library. Turn pages. Take notes. Let my fingers do the Googling.

You want the good news first, don’t you? Kai, Gloria, their love interests, and Joy can entangle like fine Oriental silk thread when I knot them with a mother’s protectiveness, a sister’s longing, and a desperate killer, PKD. The end result? I love…Reclaiming Lily! My agent’s saying, “Maybe.”

Oh. You wanted that bad news. Yeah, so did my crit partners.

Kai CANNOT be Lily’s mother and make the dates fit for both the Cultural Revolution and Western adoption.Would my readers flex their credibility muscles enough so that Joy could be Kai’s sister?

Agent says rework synopsis and let’s think about it.

Crit partners say….

YES!!!!

Eventually, agent says…YES!

Stan Williams’ The Moral Premise flies off the shelf.

No, I didn’t tape cards on my study door like Stan does, but I did brainstorm on wants and needs and moments of grace and, of course…

THE MORAL PREMISE!

Energized fingers tap, tap, tap Chapter 1 into a Reclaiming Lily file.

After a signed contract, trip to China, first draft, and two revisions, here’s our hook:

When a deadly disease strikes the Wang family, Harvard graduate Dr. Kai
Chang alerts Lily, the sister Kai left on orphanage steps. Standing in her way is Gloria Powell, a Fort Worth pastor's wife who distrusts Kai. Surely their troubled teenager, who’s skipping school and youth group and layering on attitude as thick as her makeup, can’t handle more drama in her life. Andrew, Gloria’s husband, disagrees…and brings Kai to Cowtown.

A Texas-sized tornado whirls about the meeting place of Kai and Gloria. Tempers and cultures collide. Can Kai, Gloria, and Joy reconcile their differences, surrender their dreams, and allow God to implement a joyful, miraculous plan that will save them all?

So ... how 'bout you? Do you weave snippets from your own life into the rich tapestry of your writing? If so, tell me how you did it. If not, just leave a comment and we will include you in the drawing for a signed copy of Reclaiming Lily. And if you haven’t tried this technique, are you willing to scratch that noggin’, then get started?

Thanks, Seekers, for the visit! Y’all made the 2011 ACFW conference ROCK!!!!!!

PATTI'S BIO:

At the age of fifty, Patti traded in her grade books for a writer’s pen after the Still, Small Voice encouraged her to novelize the story of her best friend. Patti’s first three novels, An Irishwoman’s Tale, What the Bayou Saw, and The Rhythm of Secrets, explore the secrets women keep and why they keep them. Patti’s fourth book, Reclaiming Lily, a Bethany House title, transports readers to the steps of a Chinese orphanage, where two cultures and two women collide. Patti soothes her itch to teach by leading seminars, facilitating writing classes, and speaking at women’s events. Patti and her husband, Alan, a college administrator, live in Normal. They have two grown children and a dog named Laura. You can contact Patti through her website at Patti Lacy Website.

GOT RHYTHM? (Guest Patti Lacy And Book Giveaway!!!)

“Go, baby, go, baby, go! Don’t upset
the rhythm, though!” (The Noisettes)

“Get rhythm when you get the blues.It only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe. Does a million dollars worth of good for you.”(Johnny Cash)

Trailer for Rhythm of Secrets by Patti Lacy

Musicians sing about rhythms. Artists capture it on canvas. How can we writers find rhythm on the “long and winding road” to publication? (Thanks, Beatles!)

I’ve snippeted rhythm definitions from our friend Webster. We’ll use FOUR of the dear man’s points to explore that elusive rhythm right here at Seekerville!!!

1. Ordered recurrent alternation of strong & weak elements in the flow of sound & silence

2. Aspect of music comprising all elements (accent, meter, and tempo) that relate to forward movement

3. The repetition in a literary work of phrase, incident, character type, or symbol

4. A regularly recurrent quantitative change in a variable biological process.

Let’s tackle Webster’s points, one by one.

1. Ordered recurrent alternation of strong & weak elements in the flow of sound & silence

Variety in writing breaks up the road trip of a novel! My interpretation of Webster’s first point? Follow a long, winding road description with a dead-end, wham-in-your-facer decision by your heroine! Here's a scene from my latest release The Rhythm of Secrets that illustrates what I mean:

Evening had fallen on the shaded part of the courtyard. Dew slicked mossy bricks. Ready for their night light, moonflowers opened wide, dotting the back wall with fragile white blooms. The scent of jasmine and mint hung in the air. The branches of an oleander bush drooped toward lush green grass. Nature held its breath, waiting, waiting. But Sheba wasn’t waiting another second. Blood throbbing at her temples, she unfolded the letter.

In this early scene from The Rhythm of Secrets, nature’s languid mood contrasts with Sheila’s desire to rip open the mystery letter Father has left on the patio table. Strong verbs complete with subtler sensory words. Rhythm? Hey, I tried!

For scenes exploding with emotion, rage, passion, intensify dialogue. Cut the rhythm of speech to FIVE WORDS OR LESS PER READING BEAT (read aloud and discover where you take a breath) if at all possible☺

Sock em’ with talk, then rock ’em with characters’ mindset and visceral reactions (Thank you, Camy Tang, for this lesson!).

Mimi leaned back, her face gray. “Of course you want my money. You’re just like your mother, the harlot.”

A gust of wind rippled the back door screen, swirled through Sheila, and impelled her to lean across the table. Her fists knotted. “How dare you say that about Maman?”

“Because it’s true.”

The table edge knifed into Sheila’s belly. She stretched toward Mimi until she could see every pore on her grandmother’s ashen face. “Don’t you dare say that about my mother.”

Mimi’s spine became a rod. “Why? It’s time you knew the truth.” Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “Your mother worked at a flophouse called Birdie’s. She was nothing but a two-bit—”

“No!” Flashes of light dazzled the room. “I don’t believe it!” Sheila grabbed Mimi’s sleeve, Mimi’s hand—anything to stop this. Her mother had refinement. Poise. Culture. Mimi was lying!

“You will when I get through.” Mimi’s lips stretched taught against lined cheeks.

Sheila gritted her teeth. Shoved away from the table. Straightened. Why, Mimi enjoyed this!

Another suggestion: Avoid time tags, like “a long minute,” “after awhile.” Instead use action (flashes of light dazzling, the spine becoming a rod.) They’ll swallow irritating road blocks and let the reader intuit passage of seconds, minutes, or hours, without a break of rhythm.

2. the aspect of music comprising all the elements (accent, meter, tempo) that relate to forward movement.

Music INSPIRES the flow of my words…and helps our reader-driver detours (a la tossing our novel on the floor!) Have you experimented with moody blues? Rule-breaking jazz? The delightful mathematics of classical literature? The circle-of-friendship feel of folk? The climaxes and depths of hymns, spirituals? The pulse of rap?

French love song, sonnets, waltzes capture the rhythm of this scene in The Rhythm of Secrets:

He let go of her hand. Turned away. Strides smoothed into a lope that rippled his back and led him to a series of dunes, separated by sloping grassy areas. She followed, stopping only to shove hair out of her eyes. She had to see every inch of him.

His swim trunks flapped against his legs as he darted between two golden mounds of sand. The only sounds were a faint whoosh of the surf and the clicking of sea oat shafts as they rubbed against one another.

She slipped as she pounded up the steep incline, only to slide backward in the powdery sand. He reached out and pulled her up and over the crest of the dunes. Gritty fingers covered her eyes, led her through a sea of sand.

“I’ve got a surprise, sugarplum.” A ground clove smell blended with pungent salty sea spray to intoxicate her. She staggered into his arms…

3. The repetition in a literary work of phrase, incident, character type, or symbol

I LOVE repetition, both metaphorically and through alliteration and repeats of words and thoughts. Not one but TWO fires horrify Sheila in The Rhythm of Secrets. At novel onset, fire acts as a destructive force. At the climax, fire cleanses and allows my Sheila to start anew.

Interweave repetition in your scenes through word patterns. Events. People.

“I hoped we could have dinner. Friday night. Do you know a place?”

She closed her eyes to concentrate. He had such a lovely voice!

“Ma’am? A place?”

His business-like tone muffled her heart music. She’d best gather her wits. “Y-yes.” She cleared her throat to stall for time. Somewhere discreet. Out-of-the-way.” “Yes,” she repeated, “Etienne’s.” Her voice sounded shivery, distant. Like it belonged to someone else. And wasn’t she somebody else? Three somebodys?

Repetition, not only of the question by Sheila’s mystery caller, but of Sheila’s rattled “Yes” answer, establishes Sheila’s shock. I also used slight alliteration of the “s” sound because to me “ssssss” connotes mystery. Action. (I know. I’m weird. Blame it on all those solitary hours at my keyboard☺) What’s cool is you can use music and wordplays to find rhythms in YOUR writer’s voice. Fun! Fun!

The obvious repetition in the above scene is Sheila’s reference to being somebody else. Hopefully those thoughts heighten mystery. Hint at conflict. Elements that make our readers travel through your pages!

It’s almost time to leave Seekerville. Shoot! I love it here. My last point has NOTHING to do with the mechanics of writing. No, I’m not digressing THAT far! It has everything to do with rhythms...

4. a regularly recurrent quantitative change in a variable biological process.

Last week I received an e-mail from a promising young writer:

I'm a little discouraged right now. Ok, maybe a lot discouraged. I have not had time to write since before Christmas. Every time I have some free time I favor a nap instead. Being pregnant is exhausting! Everyone tells me it gets worse after the baby is born. I don't want to pause my writing for 18 years. Do you have kids? Were you writing at the time? If so, I'd love some pointers

Dear friends, I did not “pick up a pen” except to write embarrassing love letter, maudlin poetry, and boring master’s papers in my literature studies, until I was FIFTY!

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

“To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn” (“Turn, Turn, Turn,” The Byrds)

Rhythms, dictating the Hand of God. Rhythms, adding a beat to this song. Rhythms—God has perfect ones for YOUR writing journey. I pray that you will grip that steering wheel and let God’s navigational system, whether it be a sleek new GPS device or a tattered old map, direct you to His perfect destination.

See y’all there!
Blessings,
Patti

Check out how I linked music with chapter themes at Music/Chapter Themes. For slices of my life, visit me at Patti Lacy's Website. Wanna know what’s been on my nightstand? Go to Patti's Nightstand.
The old Humanities instructor side of me posts daily ART BITES (paintings that inspire, enthuse, instruct and entertain) on Facebook! Friend me and join the fun!

Literary Fiction: Highbrow or Raised Eyebrows?

Julie, here, and today I have the pleasure of introducing one of my favorite authors and a dear friend, Patti Lacy. Her debut novel, An Irishwoman's Tale, pretty much blew me away with its beauty and depth of writing. But I have to admit, it is her second novel just recently released, What the Bayou Saw, that has haunted me long after I devoured the last page. And after you read Patti's blog below on "literary fiction," it will be easy to say why I think Patti Lacy is one of the best voices in Women's Fiction today. Without further ado, I give you Patti Lacy:

When an editor mentioned that An Irishwoman’s Tale contained literary elements, I cringed. Should my debut novel be tossed in the recycling bin? Should I hold down the “delete” button until “those elements” disappeared? What were literary elements, anyway? Logic trumped fear, and I busied shaky fingers by turning to Webster’s.

Since the 1970s, scholarly types have thrown paper wads in faculty meetings and fired off verbose barbs when debating this term. According to Judi Clark, literary fiction “…draws you in with language, imagery, character insight, and sense of place.” Joyce Saricks notes that literary fiction is “critically acclaimed, often award-winning fiction…often more character centered than plot oriented.”

Other heavyweight critics dump these ideas in the “reject pile.” B.R. Myers quips, “Many prize-winning contemporary novelists simply use trendy stylistic gimmicks to cover up a lack of talent.” More creatively put, David Lubar calls literary fiction “pompous, dull, plotless, and overly academic. If you're ever in doubt about whether a story is literary,” Lubar says, “there's a simple test. Look in a mirror immediately after reading the last sentence. If your eyebrows are closer together than normal, the answer is yes."

Books labeled literary fiction tend to transcend their genre, whether mystery, women’s fiction, or romance, perhaps by “breaking the rules” of the who-dun-it or letting the heroine not live “happily ever after,” instead focusing on life’s realities, powerful messages, the unique distinction of the writer’s voice.
Whether you set out to write literary fiction or not, use its elements to your advantage. Instead of cold-eyed squints, command the bated breath and quickened pulse of a hooked reader. Here’s how to make literary elements work...with examples taken right off my sagging bookshelves.

1. Work out a tight narrative plot in your usual way.
Use SOP (seat of the pants) (Lynn Austin) or Snowflake (Randy Ingermanson) methods. Agent Nathan Bransford writes, “Sooooooooo much literary fiction I get in the old query inbox is plotless. It's just a character musing about the vagaries and eccentricities of everyday existence. The prose is lush, the character detailed, but one problem -- absolutely nothing is happening and thus it's (forgive me) extremely boring. Good literary fiction has a plot. It starts in one place and ends in another.”

A giant glitch in my first baby’s draft revolved around a lack of plot. Two women went to Ireland to check out the mystical cliffs, perhaps dig into their heritage. “Nothing’s happening,” critique partners kept telling me. “But they’re in Ireland,” I protested. “The country’s beautiful. The people are marvelous. And I really captured the land on paper.” “So what?” someone finally said, slapping me in the face with bluntness—and the truth.

2. You’ve written a new-wineskin-tight draft. How do you move your story out of the “reject” pile and into the “look at this writing, Joe” pile? Elevate your description of the landscape until it becomes a character in the novel.
1940s New Orleans from Mary O’Donnell’s Those Other People: “…Bound together by their balconies, the old houses inhaled and exhaled quietly. A smell of human sleep flowed from them; a smell of dusty rugs and wicker furniture and ash trays. From the gutters rose a smell of uncollected garbage…a smell of urine in a shop doorway, and here and there, the swift sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine leaped over a courtyard wall.”

Wow. O’Donnell’s got me walking with her heroine down a French Quarter alley…or wishing I could.

3. Once that description is elevated, tie it to the character’s thoughts, moods, or emotions.

Tina Forkner’s Ruby Among Us: “I balanced my teacup on my knees and watched the hummingbird dart around us. It paused near my shoulder, its wings buzzing, as if studying the splashes of color on my dress. Was he accusing me? I glanced at Kitty again, but she said nothing, as if it was an expected thing to have a hummingbird fly right up to me on the day of my Ruby’s funeral.”

Camilla Quinn’s WIP: “I thought the prairie my bosom friend that summer until a hot wind kicked up the army worms from some unseen world beneath. They marched into the Indian corn, ravaging the winter profits of my father and other farmers who had purchased quarter-sections of land in hopes of becoming rich. I saw the men writhing in the smoke, black as demons, digging trenches where the fire stampeded the worms and sent them back beneath the earth with towering flames that seemed to me like the great red yawn of hell.

“Like this troubled land, I have felt cleft in two since I was thirteen years old. Everything changed that summer, in the way of land that never knows whether the rain will bring life or whether it will be staid from falling.”

4. Capture “Every Man’s” or “Every Woman’s” dream, fear, or hope in your book. Write a story that tugs at the heart of all generations, regardless of the “target audience” you’ve tagged on your proposal.

In his book The Plot Thickens, agent and author Noah Lukeman uses the term “transcendency.” To achieve this “bigger-than-life” effect, create multidimensional characters, room for interpretation, timelessness.

Cara Putman “transcends” in Canteen Dreams. Hero Willard Johnson itches to make sense of his brother’s death by enlisting in World War II. However, he must stay home and tend to the ranch. Though I’ve never been drafted and am generations removed from Willard, I empathize with his dilemma of duty conflicting with my dreams. Don’t you?

5. Have characters think or say truisms that make readers love—or hate—them.
Colleen Coble’s Abomination: “The harsh sunlight streaming through the open doors threw the pale bones of the woman Bree and Eve had found into stark relief. Was this all a human being was reduced to in the end, this small pile of calcium and phosphorus?”

Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory: “In three days, he told himself, I shall be in Las Casas: I shall have confessed and been absolved. The thought of the child on the rubbish-heap came automatically back to him with painful love. What was the good of confession when you loved the result of your crime?”

Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose: “I have a son who, though we are affectionate with each other, is no more my true son than if he breathed through gills. That is no gap between generations, that is a gulf.”

Julie Lessman’s A Passion Most Pure: “Sisters are overrated, she decided.”

6. Become best friends with Mr. Thesaurus to carefully craft every word on your page. Listen to music or read poetry to create mind pictures. Capture them on paper, then turn off the music and read your sentences aloud. Can you “hear” the mood that you want to create? Perhaps a slow cadence for low-tension times, upbeats for lively moments?

Choose verbs that ping off the page, they’re so active. Adjectives that blush with meaning. Nouns that capture ideas, emotions, scenes. Vivid, fresh metaphors that make us see as well as feel.

Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible: “Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight…a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever.”

I “hear” a slow, solemn death march as I read this description. The mood of decay. Suddenly it’s hard to breathe in my den!

Gayl Jones’ The Healing: “Ever since I seen that movie about the middle passage, though, and they talked about them Africans coming to the New World being packed in them slave ships like sardines in a can…every time I eat sardines, I think of that.”

A snappy jazz tune pulsates through me when I read Jones’ work.
With practiced reading, you will began to pick up “the music” in different voices, music that can influence your own masterpiece!

7. Insert snippets of culture to show the reader your character’s class, status, age, era, personality.

Tosca Lee’s Demon: A Memoir: “His voice reminded me of fine cognac, the Hors d’Age men drink aboard their yachts as they cut their Cohibas.”

Susan Meissner’s The Shape of Mercy: “A classmate, Lira, walked by as I was writing down Abigail’s phone number on a Starbucks receipt I’d found in my backpack.”

8. Discover that image that grabs your mind, jolts you awake at two a.m., and won’t let go, then capture it on paper!

In my second baby, What the Bayou Saw, it was twelve-year-old hands, one dark, one light, reaching through the gaps of a chain link fence in a desperate attempt to bridge segregation. I just had to write about those two precious little girls and what happened to them on the day Kennedy died.

Oh, literary friends (that’s you!), if you haven’t read Kim Edward’s brilliant short story, “Gleaming in the Darkness,” get ahold of a copy now (in Secrets of a Fire King). The image that seizes Kim’s mind is a mysterious, magical jar in Marie Curie’s lab:

“What can I say of what I saw? All the jars upon the table were glowing softly, as if each contained a small star that had fallen, as if shafts of moonlight had been gathered into each. The simple mud she had worked on for so long had become a thing of magic. I fell on my knees as if to pray, but I could not take my eyes from the light caught within those jars. It was so beautiful, so unearthly. I wanted to take one home, keep it in the cupboard…”

9. Weave elements of other humanities genres into your work (music, sculpture, architecture, dance, theater, and painting) to lend credence to your setting.
Charles Martin’s When Crickets Cry: “And while the jukebox is filled with rock-and-roll titles, all the records have been replaced with gospel music. G5 may read “Hells Bells” by AC/DC, but when the quarter’s dropped in and the unsuspecting bar hopper sits back with his beer to combat the writing on the walls with some good old hard rock, he’s greeted by the Atlanta Gospel Choir singing, “Ain’t No Rock Gonna Cry in My Place.”

10. Now that you could pass a pop quiz on Literary Fiction 101, pull out musty old classics and learn from the masters! This will help develop a key element of literary fiction—a distinctive voice that is Eau de Life of every book you’ve read, every emotion you’ve felt, every second you’ve lived! To define voice reminds me of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter’s attempt at defining pornography in 1964: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced…but I shall know it when I see it.” Can you identify a favorite writer by cadence, word choice, and style? Congratulations! You’ve found VOICE! To keep this post from being longer than a Lessman romance, I’ll refrain from arguing whether voice is inborn or can be developed. (Think nature or nurture—it’s gotta be a little of both, don’t it?)

To nurture voice, gobble up classics labeled “literary”—Stegner, Hemingway, Austen, Dickens, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Mann, Cather, et al—and modern writers noted for literary elements—Kingsolver, Edwards, Morrison, Atwood. A few of many Christian novelists who have literary elements itching to be underlined: Mary DeMuth, Charles Martin, Lisa Samson, Penelope Stokes, Athol Dickson. Yes, folks, cover those pages with ink! Ferret out the above-discussed elements and plot the concepts into your WIP. A great plan is to commit an hour a week to reading research, unrelated to your own future plot and setting.

11. Place inanimate objects into powerful positions. “A slam of the door changed his life.” “Never had a smile meant such a nasty thing.”

George Howe Colt, The Big House: “After gorging on summer for three months, the house has gone into hibernation.” Big House is a literary feast!

Silas House, The Coal Tattoo: “I love you so much,” Anneth whispered. Only the leaves heard.

10. Hopefully I’ve given fresh perspectives on literary fiction. Now grumble at author/reviewer Magdalena Ball, who mentions this “single most important distinction between literary and other types of fiction: Rewrite. Work that is timeless takes time. There’s no other way to achieve literary fiction besides rewriting, dozens, and maybe many more, times.”

Reread the above examples and see how often just a few words, like Hors d’Age, Starbucks, sardines, strangling, overrated, gorged, created a literary effect.

Ball continues, “It isn’t glamorous, nor is rewriting dependent on a muse or inspiration like the first draft is. It is just going over and over a work until every word is relevant and integral to the story. This process cannot occur solely in the fingers of the author. Almost every writer of literary fiction requires an ideal reader, a critique group, a mentor, or someone who can provide the kind of objective advice that will transform your inspiration into a stunning creation.”

I’d like to leave you with Automat, a 1927 painting by Edward Hopper. Wow, there’s a definite narrative plot: a well-dressed woman, alone in a clean, well-lighted place. The loneliness of this café becomes a character, a theme in the work. Hopper uses dark and light to create emotions in the woman (we can do the same with our “word painting” of the landscape, friends.) Automat is screaming to us of isolation, perhaps desired, in the midst of so much light, in such a public place. The woman’s clothing and the positioning of her arms on the table were carefully crafted to define the subject by class, style, and status. Yet Hopper leaves room for interpretation in this timeless work. A read-through of Hopper’s biography informs that he studied for years at the New York Institute of Art and Design and that he struggled for years to perfect paintings now considered some of America’s most spine-tingling.

Analyze works you love, whatever the genre, for literary elements; soon you won’t be defining them, you’ll be weaving them seamlessly into your own great stories!