By
Regina Jennings
Blame it on Mary Ingalls. Ever since reading the Little House Books as a child, I’d
always wondered what it would be like to be blind. How would I find my way
around? How would it change my relationships? How would a character describe
the world when she can’t see it?
When I first heard about the novella collection A Match Made in Texas I started thinking
about creating a blind heroine. I knew that writing from a sightless point of
view would be challenging, so a shorter story was the perfect chance to try
something new. Enter Grace O’Malley. When the book opens she has already lost
most of her sight and is limited to what she can catch through a very limited
tunnel of light. Expecting that she will soon lose even that, she is trying to
prepare both physically and emotionally to live in total darkness.
So, the obvious challenge I faced was describing the
setting so that readers could picture it, even when the heroine couldn’t. In
Grace’s case, she would rely heavily on her memory.
It wasn’t cheating to let her describe a room as she
remembers it. Another fix was to have her mourn the loss of the beautiful
scenery of the canyon surrounding her, giving the readers a chance to picture
it, too. And while getting accustomed to her new cabin, Grace shares what she
hopes it looks like, allowing readers a glimpse into her preferences even if
the description might not be accurate. Another help for setting the scene was
to use other characters to describe something to her—a realistic solution as
her friends help her adjust to her new situation.
So there were several options available for describing
her surroundings. The real challenge came where I didn’t expect it—describing
the action and dialogue.
Currently, it’s the fashion to use action beats instead
of tags when writing dialogue. Instead of “he said/she said” we’d rather see
our characters conversing. We don’t need to hear “he teased” when we can see
his smile, but what about Grace? If someone is with them, then maybe they could
comment on his physical reaction, but at some point Grace and our hero Clayton definitely
needed to be alone! What do we do for beats then?
Let’s look at an example. In this scene, Clayton has
insisted that Grace allow him to cook for her. If Grace had her sight, the
scene might be written like this:
Grace washed her hands and face as
Clayton stoked up the fire. Once the flames danced, he closed the iron door and
reached for the skillet. By the time the ham was charred, Grace’s stomach
grumbled. She pinched a piece of cornbread from Emilie’s tin.
“I saw that.” Clayton pointed a fork at
her, his eyes twinkling.
Grace shrugged and popped the stolen
bit in her mouth. “I wish my rolls would’ve taken. They’d go perfectly with
that delicious ham.”
“Stop your belly-aching,” but his smile
softened the order. He slid the iron skillet across the table, wrinkling the
tablecloth in the process. She only had time to smooth it before he passed her
a plate and took his seat.
Of course, this won’t work for Grace. Clayton’s twinkling
eyes won’t be visible across a table, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know
what’s happening in the room. And how boring would it be to read “She heard him
sit…” “She heard the plate hit the table…”? There had to be a better way.
Better verbs. Here’s another stab at it using Grace’s true POV:
No longer needing to count her steps,
she hung her bonnet on its peg. The pump groaned and water gushed into the
basin.
“Your turn.” Clayton handed her a
towel.
While she washed her hands and face he
poked at the fire until it crackled and soon the ham sizzled in the skillet.
Grace’s stomach grumbled, so she pinched a piece of cornbread from Emilie’s
tin.
“I saw that.” Clayton slid the bread
away from her.
Grace popped the stolen bit in her
mouth and sat at the table. “I wish my rolls would’ve taken. They’d go
perfectly with that delicious ham.”
“Stop your belly-aching,” but there was
a smile in his voice. The table groaned under the weight of the iron skillet.
The heat rolled over her face like the ripples of a sun-warmed stream. A plate
slid to her.
Can you hear those verbs? Groaned, poked, gushed,
crackled, sizzled, slid? Even though Grace can’t see anything in the room, she
knows exactly what is happening, which is natural. We instinctively know what’s
going on around us, even if we aren’t looking in that direction. For instance,
right now you can tell what’s going on in the next room—unless you have
unusually stealthy children—in which case you might want to go check on them.
So instead of worrying about all the descriptions I
couldn’t use, I made a cheat sheet of noisy verbs to help me.
How fun are those? And you know what? I found myself
going to this list even after I finished writing Grace’s story. Why? Because noisy
verbs talk to us. When writing in deep POV, we often hesitate to describe anything
out of sight for the protagonist, but these verbs free us up from that
limitation. They pull double duty. Not only can you hear them, but they also
create a visual image of what is happening, and the more senses you can
involve, the more immersed your readers are in the scene.
Although I’d thought that writing through a blind
person’s eyes would limit my descriptions, it forced me to dig deep into the
tool box and come up with a broader range of verbs and that improved my writing.
I guess I owe Mary Ingalls a thank you, after all.
Look at your own work. Find a sentence and spice it up with a noisy verb then post before and after in the comment section. Leave any comment to get your name in a drawing for a copy of A Match Made in Texas.
Also, if you've already got the book, I will substitute a Post-It Note Cube with a picture of A Match Made in Texas on the side. The winner gets to choose, book or Post-It Notes.
by Karen Witemeyer, Regina Jennings, Carol Cox and Mary Connealy
There's a secret matchmaker at work in frontier Texas!
In the small town of Dry Gulch, Texas, a good-hearted busybody just can't keep herself from surreptitiously trying to match up women in dire straits with men of good character she hopes can help them. How is she to know she's also giving each couple a little nudge toward love?
In the small town of Dry Gulch, Texas, a good-hearted busybody just can't keep herself from surreptitiously trying to match up women in dire straits with men of good character she hopes can help them. How is she to know she's also giving each couple a little nudge toward love?
Regina's book--An Unforeseen Match
Hoping to earn an honest wage on his way to the land rush, Clayton ends up on Grace's doorstep, lured by a classified ad. He may have signed on for more than he expected though--and he may have found the one woman who can keep him from moving on.
Regina Jennings is
homeschooling mother of four from Oklahoma. She enjoys watching musicals with
her kids, traveling with her husband and reading by herself. When not plotting
historical fiction she plots how she could move Highclere Castle, stone by
stone, into her pasture and how she could afford the staff to manage it.
Regina’s novella An
Unforeseen Match is included in the collection A Match Made in Texas. She is also the author of Sixty Acres and a Bride and Love in the Balance. She loves to hear
from readers at her website - www.reginajennings.com
and on Facebook,
Twitter or Pinterest.
About A Match Made in Texas:
