Do you mean to tell me they love each other?

I do not know these people.

The young man is going to marry the girl soon, and they are sitting in his future mother-in-law’s living room. They want to have four children. He already has a house on a lake and a good job. She thinks marriage will make everything all right.

These two people look like my parents and my grandmother told me they were my parents. I wouldn’t have a picture of strangers, so my parents they must be. But look at them–sitting together in a chair meant for one.

I don’t know who they are, but they are not the people I know.

In fiction, you get to put any character with another character as long as you can make your reader believe in it. Seeing is not enough. The words must come together in such a way that the reader knows those people must meet, and all contrivance is so cleverly hidden as to be unperceived or forgotten. Of course, Oedipus was on the road the same time as his father. Of course, the message missed Romeo. Of course, in the great, vast ocean Ahab could find his one, white whale. Why doubt it?

I was told the story of how these two people in the photograph met while sitting in cars at an intersection. Of course, that sounds completely contrived and ridiculous to me.

Everything is in a name.

My mother and I share the same first name because of an argument my father won.

One evening my step-mother shouted down the hall for me to come to the kitchen. She used a name she thought I should have. I turned to my step-sister. “What is she doing?” I asked.

“She doesn’t like your name,” N. said.

“Well, I’m not going.”

My step-mother shouted my new name again.

“You’ll get in trouble,” N. said.

I was a 10 year old who ran from adult disapproval as if I were playing a game of tag and that adult frown were It. And my step-mother could do more than frown. “I don’t care,” I said.

N. didn’t believe this. “You better go.”

The new name again.

“No. She uses my name, then I’ll go.”

My step-mother shrieked this time. I sat on the edge of my bed, put my hands in my lap, and waited. I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see N.’s Shawn Cassidy poster.

The house was silent, and N. sat next to me.

“MARTA! I’m calling you!” Yes, I fell in love with the sound of my own name right then when her voice cracked shouting it through the house.

With the sleeve of my nightgown I rubbed my eyes so that my step-mother wouldn’t see they were wet. “Now I’ll go,” I said and stood.

N. looked up at me as if I were someone she didn’t know. “Wow,” was all she said. We are both amazed she didn’t come into our room breathing fire.

How much thought do you put into a character’s name? How do you know you’ve even found the right name? Have you ever changed a character’s name again and again frustrated that none of them work? You’ve got to get it right or the character won’t come.

What are your favorite names in fiction?

Stealing the Silverware

She left my dad and me one fork. Maybe it was the third time she moved out. I can’t remember exactly. I was in the 5th grade, and she took all of the silverware except for the one fork. She took the pillows, too. She took Christmas presents. Another time she took the dining room table and the afghan my grandmother had knitted for me when I was two.

After a couple months gone the second wife would always come back, and so my dad refused to buy more silverware. I remember a friend spending the night and the look on her face when I explained we couldn’t have cereal for breakfast because we didn’t have any spoons. (Dinner hadn’t been an issue–we’d had pizza.) That’s when I started bringing home sporks from Wendy’s.

Dad and I couldn’t eat at the same time until we had those sporks, which often broke in ice cream.

She came back, of course–with the silverware but not the Christmas presents.

Those specific details say many things about characters in fiction. This is the kind of person who leaves and takes more than her share. This is the kind of person who believes she will come back and who thinks she’s worth the emptiness in the kitchen drawer. Do my dad and his second wife look like those people in the photograph?

You’d Never Know

Those thousand words could be any words at all. They could be lies. Wishes. A dead language. What words do you think are in this photograph? Quick–before I tell you and ruin the surprise.

This is my mother in 1965 at the lake in front of my father’s house–the year she got married and three years before I was born. I could bracket this photograph with more befores and afters, but that will do for now.

They say don’t start a story with a description of a photograph. The grand exceptions that spring to your mind not withstanding, I tend to agree. Photographs are still, they edit, and they make us forget what isn’t in the frame. Have you ever known anyone to let a photograph speak for itself? No. The person must always explain it. If you look at this picture of this 21-year-old girl, and I tell you no story, you’ll read a different narrative entirely–and where will my mother be then?

I love this photograph. You’d never know how her life was going to turn out.

To Prevent Crying and Injury

Suggestion: When you decide to face the comments you’ve gotten on your novel, do so in a public place. Keeps the wailing and self-inflicted injury to a minimum.

(Please note that the amazing friends who’ve given me feedback have made helpful and encouraging comments. I am grateful for their time and energy spent on my account. But I still want to pound my head against something heavy when I see how many times I type “you’re” instead of “your.”)

A Girl, a Man, and a Lie

“If I’d caught that boy doing that to my daughter, I’d have killed him,” he said. “But your dad’s not like that.” With that our neighbor looked me up and down and walked away.

I was 10 and had no idea what he was talking about. I knew the boy in question. He was in college and used to live down the road from us, and I’d just said I didn’t like him. My step-sister and my neighbor’s granddaughter were talking about him, and I’d said the boy had babysat me a few times, but I didn’t like him. “Why?” my step-sister asked. I wasn’t paying any attention to my neighbor–a heavy set man who liked to note that my father and I no longer went to Mass–when I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

My step-sister, N., rolled her eyes because as far as she could tell, I never liked any boy at all.

That’s when my neighbor piped in with, “I know why you don’t like him.”

This was news to me. His granddaughter, L., who would later be caught stealing jewelry from me, said, “Why?”

“Oh, she knows,” he replied.

L. and N. looked at me expectantly. I shrugged. “I just don’t.”

And hence his comment that he’d have killed the boy. L. and N. were unimpressed, and they continued with whatever they’d been giggling about before. But I stood there and searched my brain. What was my neighbor talking about? What did the boy do and why wasn’t my dad mad about it?

And I thought about it and I thought about it and I imagined all sorts of things. Later that summer N. and I were at his house, playing with his cousin. We were running across the yard, screaming in the way 10 and 11 year old girls will do, when he came up behind me and lifted me off my feet.

The neighbor’s words echoed in my head, and I twisted free and tried to slap him. He looked quite startled and confused. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

Flustered, I fussed with my stringy, tangled hair. “You scared me.”

His cousin put her hands on her hips. “Leave us alone!” she said, laughing.

“You can chase me,” my step-sister said. Of course.

He shook his head and went back into the house. I felt like throwing up and had to go home.

In the fictional world, how does a character know what is real and what is manipulation? Once there is a whisper of a misdeed (hmmm–famous story coming to mind, anyone? Anyone?), your character can see evidence in anything and everything. The nice thing about fiction, of course, is the revelation–oops. It wasn’t like that at all! Although usually by this time the character has strangled all that was good and beautiful. Or in some way self-destructed.

What I find difficult is making the character worthwhile while at the same time making him blind and the reader see.

Years later, I know that boy never did anything to warrant murderous, parental rage, but why does a grown man want to put an ugly idea into a child’s head? His own daughter probably could’ve explained it, but that is another story.

Does God Get Writer’s Block?

The possibilities are endless. I could kill one of them. Make one crazy. Lose one. I already know I’m going to break some hearts. Such power! What to do with it?

Do you think God had this problem? There’s was God, sitting up in heaven, tapping his fingers on a cloud, stuck in the plot. “Let’s see, I’ve got this character wandering in the woods…hmmm, where’s the drama? What’s this character want? What this story needs is some conflict! Ooo. I know, I’ll make another character! They’ll fall in love! I like a good romance.”

Then came that pesky snake, always a critic, saying, “You sure you want to do that? I don’t know if I’m buying this. It’s a bit, you know, predictable.”

“Well, smarty skin, you write it if you think you’re so clever.”

So the snake writes himself into the storyline. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” said God. “Do you even understand what I’m trying to do? Don’t you get it? Now I’m going to have to start over!” Sipping his coffee (because, yes, there was coffee before the beginning of the world), God hemmed and hawed and said, “I know. Let’s get these characters out of this garden. Nothing ever happens there.”

And God cut and paste Eden into an entirely new document, and created this known earth. Naturally, God isn’t sure he didn’t make a mistake. Maybe he should’ve stayed with that original garden plot, but he doesn’t want to start all over again, and he’s got so many ideas…

So, we can see what a plot tangle God’s gotten into. Makes my plot mess seem, well, insignificant.

Boys at the Movies

Perhaps one story changed your life. Saved your life. Revealed a secret. Or fooled you completely. Can you name them?

Plenty of books had me fooled.

Every book opened a door, an escape route, to girls I wanted to be and boys I wanted to know. Like many silly girls, I wanted a boy to love me like boys loved girls in books. I understood that lots of things were fantasy, everything, in fact, but that. Which was ridiculous considering the state of romance among the adults I knew.

When I was in the 6th grade, my father dropped my step-sister, N., and I off at the movie theater. It was our first time to go without a grownup, and N., to my dismay but not to my surprise, attracted two boys before we’d taken our seats. They were 10th graders and they had Shawn Cassidy hair and cowboy boots. One of the boys sat between us. The other sat on my left. I sat with my folded across my chest, my eyes glued to the screen, and my hatred for N. rising to new levels.

The boy to my left put his arm around me, and I pretended I didn’t notice. He talked, and I pretended I didn’t hear. He sighed deeply at the giggles coming from my step-sister. Tick, tick, went my anger, and I saw nothing of the movie.

At the end, N gave them our phone number, and she hit me when I dragged her away, pulled her to the curb, and pushed to the waiting car. “You don’t know them!” I said to her, before my dad opened the door. “They’re cute!” she replied. Maybe so, but they never did call. That N. didn’t notice they didn’t call, made me hate her even more.

I didn’t want a boy who thought he could put his arm around me without knowing my name or what book I had just read or that ice cream was my favorite food. Boys in books were worth making your father wait by the curb.

Badgering: The Blissed Out Edition

So there sat tiny badger on the edge of the laptop, tapping his tiny badger paw on his tiny badger chin, his tiny badger legs crossed, and his tiny badger nose twitching. What, he wondered out loud was he to do about all those distractions keeping you from writing your novel? Sure, the ankle nips worked wonders for a few, but still, too many would-be novelists were wasting precious writing time with online nonsense. “It has to stop!” he bellowed in his tiny voice.

This sort of thing gets tiny badger all fired up. He leapt to his feet and stomped his good foot (The left foot got snagged in a disc drive a few weeks back. Whatever you do, don’t mention the limp). “Oh,” he lamented, “if only I could be infinitesimal badger! I’d crawl though those computer wires and chew out your YouTube, your MySpace, your Facebook, your Solitaire, your Second Life, your whatever-you-don’t-admit-to, and then, and then!” He laughed maniacally, “You’d have to write because you’d have nothing else.”

Sadly, I pointed out that there were plenty of non online distractions–children, spouses, lovers, imaginary lovers, work, chores, hang nails. The list is long.

“NO!” Tiny badger ran to the edge of the desk and stared out over his domain. He stood tall, er, tiny, and proud, and he announced that the time had come. He had to take serious action before it was too late. He would become, (dum-de-de-dum-dum!) Super Tiny Badger. That’s right. Soon, soon, he warned, he would have his tiny badger cape and he would fly, fly, fly to all his badgerees and he would bite their ankles like they’ve never been bitten before. He would gnaw on ears while they slept. He would know no bounds!

Oh! He even whispered to me his ultimate plan…

He would lower the brightness of your computer screen to set the mood. Tiny badger would find the most provocative page you’ve written so far, and he would drape those words around himself, just so, and sprawl seductively across your laptop. You will not be able to refuse! You will coo and ah over him and then he’ll have you! And he will demand that you get on your knees (or in your chair) and you will write him a scene. A thrilling scene! A scene to make his hair stand on in. Yes! Who are you to refuse him?

Go! Write that scene that will leave him breathless and asking for more. “More words! More story! Please!” he will shout, clutching his tiny badger heart. “Don’t leave me this way!”

But you are smart, of course. You will not reveal everything in one go. You will leave tiny badger hanging from that wild, unpredictable, what-happens-next cliff, where he will be blissed out and unable to nip. And you’ll want to do it all over again.

How to Scare a Gator

Dad shot the alligator in the head by accident. Sort of.

I see Dad get out his bow and arrow. “Dad, whatcha doing?” I am 19 and home from college.

“I’m going to go scare the gator,” he says.

I follow him outside. “You’re going to scare the gator? Why?”

“That gator’s keeping the catfish away.” He walks purposefully down the driveway to the road.

“Dad. You think it’s wise to scare a wild animal?”

“That gator’s scaring away my catfish. He’s got to go to somebody else’s dock.”

“And you think an arrow will scare him away?” We stop at the end of the driveway while a semi rattles by. My dad is laughing. He gets this laugh whenever he knows he’s doing something that will make me crazy. “Dad,” I say, crossing the road with him. “You don’t have a license. The game warden will arrest you!” It’s a hot summer evening, and I’m sweating already.

“I’m not going to kill it. I’m going to scare it.” We walk down to the dock. “I’m not going to get into no trouble for scaring it.” He makes a face that tells me he thinks I’m overreacting. The sun is setting and the lake is red, orange, and pink.

“Dad! You’re going to be pointing an arrow at a gator! He’s not going to think–oh that guy’s just scaring the gator. I’ll just leave him to it.”

“Well, that gator doesn’t understand that he’s scaring my catfish. All the time I come down here to feed the catfish and that gator scaring them away. I tried to tell him.” Dad makes that laugh again. “But he won’t leave.” He shakes his head. “Gators think they own everything. Well, I got news for that gator–he’s gotta find catfish somewhere else.” We’re on the dock now. The water slaps the posts, which jerk slightly with our weight. I can’t walk beside him now, and I keep an eye on my feet to make sure I don’t catch my toes between the slats or step on any splintered wood.

“Dad, you can’t shoot a gator.”

He doesn’t look at me, but I can tell he’s happy. He’s going to scare the gator and drive me nuts. “Mahda, I’m not going to shoot it. I keep telling you. I’m going to scare it.”

Sure enough, the alligator is there, a few yards from the end to the dock. All we can see, of course, is that sliver of its head, and its not moving. “Dad, you’re not really going to do this, are you?”

He puts the yellow arrow to the bow.

“Dad. What’ll you do if you hit it?”

He laughs, and takes aim.

“Dad. You’re going to get–”

The arrow flies.

“Into trouble. Oh my God.”

The lemon yellow arrow stuck out from the gator’s head. “Dad. Look what you did!”

“That stupid gator’s got my arrow,” he says. “I should’ve tied a rope to it.”

When I left a week later, that gator still had that arrow in its head and my dad still couldn’t feed his catfish.

In fiction I try to make my characters argue over things that really mean something else. You shouldn’t try and scare a gator with a bow and arrow–why don’t you ever listen to me? I want to feed my catfish–why do you always think you can tell me what to do?