Best of 2022

It’s been a while since I’ve done a yearly round up but here are a dozen of my favourite reads (so far) this year. In no particular order:

Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel (novel): The stand out in this novel is its first person protagonist, a former street kid turned office peon who lives in a slum and is underestimated by everyone she meets. But Rakhi’s no one’s bitch.

Because of Nothing At All by Paul Sunga (novel): Full of surprises and riven with dark humour.

Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend (non-fiction): Accessible and fascinating history of the Aztecs that kept me company in a cold and dreary January.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu (short stories): One of the most inventive collections I’ve ever read, each story its own madcap experiment.

Sequence by Arun Lakra (play): This brainy script kept me on my toes.

We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama (novel): There were passages in this novel during which I unconsciously held by breath.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek (novel): Finally a truly well written whodunnit.

Animal Person by Alexander McLeod (short stories): The stand-outs in this collection are the first and last stories which are brilliant on their own and subtly reflect on each other making them stronger as a pair.

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews (novel): The sentences are sublime.

Botticelli in the Fire by Jordan Tannahill (play): A romp!

The last two are new releases coming in 2023 and well worth pre-ordering:

Birnham Wood by Eleanor Catton (novel): Un-put-down-able. A masterclass in juggling multiple points-of-view.

Desperada by Sofia Mostaghimi (novel): If you’re over the white-lady-goes-abroad-to-find-faux-enlightenment story and ready for something more honest and raunchy, this one’s for you.

And a bonus trio of pop culture goodies:

Slash/Back (movie, Crave): Shot on a shoestring in Pang, Nunavut, with a cast of non-actors, this light-hearted horror about a group of teen girls who go alien hunting, has all the appropriate jump scares and spectacular visuals. But for me the stand out was the sound track. Here’s the trailer.

Astrid and Lily Save the World (limited series, Crave): A binge-able delight about two best friends who accidentally become monster hunters while dealing with all the usual highschool bullshit. Big Buffy vibes except instead of a creep-o showrunner it’s all women and non-binary folks behind the camera and the gaze shows. Have made the appropriate witchy sacrifices in hopes of a second season.

Articles of Interest (podcast): Avery Truffleman is one of the most thorough and throughful content producers in audio. This season’s seven episode arc is all around preppy style. Turns out I’m interested in fashion? You will be too.

Tell me without telling me

The other day I put on a coat I hadn’t worn in several months, put my hand in the pocket, and pulled out a scrunched up poop bag.

You know that “tell me, without telling me” meme that went viral a couple of years ago? Here’s a funny example from TikTok. And a zinger from Twitter:

It occurred to me, when I found that poop bag in my coat pocket, that it was one of those revealing details I’m always harping on about in my writing workshops or with the authors I work with and mentor. Show don’t tell. Cut the tell; leave the show.

Showing is a muscle you strengthen with time and practice. You practice on the page as you write. You practice on the page as you read and notice how other authors reveal rather than explain. You practice off the page, as you live your life, as you put your hand in your pocket and find crushed up dog treats or a soother or a lighter or a piece of chalk or a crumpled medical mask. Tell me it’s the 2020s without telling me.

Workshops

Head’s up: I’m leading two workshops in January. Space is limited in both so get a jump on those resolutions and sign up fast.

STORY DISSECTION

The first workshop is IN PERSON. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!! I’ve been cooking this session up since, I kid you not, 2019. I was talking to Memorial University about being their Writer-in-Residence for an upcoming semester and got this great idea for a small group session called Story Dissection. Here’s how it works: we close our eyes and listen to a story together. (Seriously, how nice does that sound? Don’t you want to return to story time on what will probably be a grey and freezing Saturday in January?) And then, we roll up our sleeves, get out the literary scalpels, and conduct a dissection. We’ll understand how has the author used all the tools of craft to build their story, to ensure sufficient tension and curiosity and interesting characters. Join this session you’ll leave having learned a thing (or six) about craft AND you’ll hone your dissection skills. I ran a virtual version of this workshop last year, when I was the writer-in-residence at Memorial. It went well but in person will be more interactive and fun. And if you were at that session in 2021, know that we’ll be dissecting a totally different story. This workshop is free and made possible by The Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are lucky to have them. You must be a member (and in St. John’s on the 14th) to attend. Membership is free for writers who are Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Colour. If you write, you’re a writer so tell your imposter syndrome to take a running leap off Signal Hill and sign up already.

Saturday, January 14
2-5pm
The Lantern in St. John’s (35 Barnes Road)
Free! Space is limited and you must register here by January 4 to attend. Registration doesn’t guarantee admission. Selected participants will be contacted by January 9.

MASTERING DIALOGUE

The second workshop is virtual and focused on dialogue. This one’s for writers who are past the beginner stage (ie. Do you know the difference between direct, indirect, and summary dialogue? If so, giddy up). It’ll be focused on how to write dialogue that multi-tasks and how to write conversations that surprise, with a hat tip to that elusive unicorn: subtext. And we’ll get into the more esoteric too, like the philosophy of quotation marks.

Saturday, January 28
12:30 - 2pm NST
$17. Attendance is capped at 15 and already half-sold out. Sign up here. Vite, vite!

My dialogue workshop is part of The Winter Writing Weekend hosted by the Afterwords Literary Festival. There are other workshops, interviews, and panel discussions that weekend. Check the whole schedule out.

Care a lot

Recently, a straight white guy tried to mansplain threading and bikini waxes to me. I smiled and wandered away. No, actually, I’m not sure about the smile. It might have been a scowl. Difficult to say. I’ve never had much of a poker face and my days of tolerating the senseless monologues of idiotic men are over.

A few days earlier, at the park a different white man had asked where my accent was from. I could have said Ontario. Or Japan. Instead, I channelled Lucille Bluth (RIP), called my puppy, and walked away.

via GIPHY

We are living in a liminal time, still in a pandemic but partially vaxxed. Like hibernating animals, gradually, sleepily, returning into the world. I don’t know about you but I’m finding the transition strange. Small talk is a forgotten language. I’m happy to see friends but interacting at length with acquaintances is a bridge too far. And navigating awkward or infuriating conversations? That’s a core competency I’ve lost. I propose this is for the best. Why did we waste so much time and energy frantically searching for the verbal off-ramp in nightmare conversations with people we’d never met before and please god would never meet again, when all the while we could have been at home in soft pants re-watching Spaced?

Let’s leave politeness behind in the beforetimes. Politeness is toxic waste anyway - gaslighting and/ or misogyny and/or racism poorly concealed in the guise of civility.

“It is the summer of caring a lot but not giving any fucks,” says writer Lyz Lenz. AMEN. For me 2021 is shaping up to be this kind of year: lots of care, zero fucks given. Last year, I worked a lot. Too much. Because it turns out the only holidays I take involve planes and since all my trips were cancelled, I just kept thoughtlessly working. And then it was the end of December and I hadn’t taken a break beyond the 10 days I was in Ontario and I was furious. Sometimes burn out manifests as rage. This year my resolutions were: 1. get a puppy and 2. work less. The two are incredibly compatible.

Yeah, I like money. But I’m also a writer and a lot of the work I was doing was unpaid or underpaid. This year, I’m focusing my energy on work I care a lot about. Some of this is mentorship. Some of it is volunteer. A lot is my actual work: writing. For the rest I’m being strategic, saying no quite a bit more than yes.

I used to feel bad (okay, I still do sometimes) turning down requests. Which is illogical. Feeling bad about not wanting to do something is akin to politeness: a waste of energy. Heading into the after times I want to give zero fucks about the silliness that doesn’t matter and care a lot about the things and people that do.

Diversity road to no where

Originally published June 15, 2020

Last week #publishingpaidme blew up on Twitter, highlighting the ugly truth Black authors have long known, that they are offered a fraction of the advances white authors get, even when the Black authors in question are well established award-winners with an international fan base and a history of successful books, and the white authors in question have untested debut manuscripts or less, perhaps just a single essay that went viral. How can this be, this appalling and unfair disparity? IT’S WHITE SUPREMACY. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

White supremacy isn’t just pillowcase-hooded lunatics and tax-payer funded terrorists who call themselves cops. Supremacy is an entire industry - publishing houses, literary journals, literary agencies, books’ columnists, Bookstagram influencers, the faculty at MFA programs - overwhelmingly staffed by a homogeneous group of people. Is it any wonder they unconsciously undervalue the voices and work and stories of authors who don’t look like them? Is it any wonder they publish books stuffed to the gills with moronic tropes? Is it any wonder the books about Black characters that net the big money advances are written by white authors and feature said tropes? Some publishers have vowed to do better, Penguin Random House included. And I’m sincerely rooting for them, not least because they have been a good home to The Boat People. But I’m not getting my hopes up prematurely. We shall wait. We shall see.

Fact is, I’ve already been down this diversity road to nowhere. Last year I was asked to join an advisory board for a literary journal. They wanted to diversify their content and created a new volunteer board. Except they didn’t have a plan for how this board would accomplish the job. There were no meetings. In hindsight: a red flag. And in requesting my unpaid labour, they weren’t giving me any decision making power (apart from the ability to curate 25 pages in a special issue). I had my reservations, a bad feeling in my gut that these were, well-meaning perhaps, but ultimately, empty words about diversity, perhaps only a check box on a grant application. But years of reading literary magazines have proven how few Asian and Black and Indigenous authors get fiction published. My own experience is the stories I’ve written featuring white protagonists are more readily accepted. So I said yes to the volunteer work I did not have time for, because holding the door open is important. As anyone who isn’t a naive fool might have guessed, my good intentions backfired. A year later it became obvious that despite being on something that purported to be an advisory board, my advice was not wanted, thank you very much, and they would publish a known and unrepentant plagiarizer, despite the fact that I’d made it abundantly clear on Day Zero that this was the one non-negotiable about my involvement. Surprise! They didn’t want my counsel so much as my on-trend brown skin and the false veneer of diversity it conferred on the masthead. (Related: Isn’t it curious how mediocre white guys keep getting second and third and infinite chances?)

Fast forward to the present. In the overdue cultural reckoning that has resulted from George Floyd’s brutal murder, many an empty word has been uttered. Companies large and small are preening for back pats while simultaneously doing nothing. Or worse. An indie clothing store in St John’s posted their commitment to anti-racism on Instagram along with their grand plan to start a book club, of all things (this store that doesn’t sell books save the kind of amusing trifle you might find in a downstairs loo). Punchline: They want a black/ indigenous/ person of colour to lead said book club. It is what my mother would call a “goo contract.” Naturally, there is no mention of payment. Hey guys! We’re looking for slave labour. Spread the word. #blacklivesmatter.

“The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won’t be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way.”

— Tre Johnson, Washington Post

Tre Johnson, in a searing and thoughtful Washington Post essay on book clubs, writes (emphasis mine): “The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won’t be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way — be they at your job, in your social network, your neighborhood associations, your family or your home. It’s not just about amplifying our voices, it’s about investing in them and in our businesses, education, political representation, power, housing and art.”

Dismantle the systems. This is the work. The revolutionary work. Organizations could scrutinize their staff, their leadership teams, their payroll, their tenured faculty, their editors and gatekeepers, the merchandise they choose to not just sell but heavily promote. Companies, yes, even an entire industry, could diversify all of this if they wanted. If they were earnestly willing to tear down the systems that artificially prop up one group’s supremacy at the expense of everyone else. If.

RECEIPTS

Because there’s always some fragile bro piping up ”but…but…” here are:

Pie charts, bar graphs, and hard numbers illustrating demographics from the 2018 Canadian Book Publishing Diversity Baseline Survey and America’s Lee & Low 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey Results.

Here’s a first person video account from someone who works inside the industry. Here’s another.

Finally, you don’t have to be on Twitter to pay attention to @BIPOCPub.

How to revise your novel (part 5)

Originally posted: September 14, 2020

The last several posts have tackled the most common issues that plague manuscripts - beginnings, endings, dialogue, characters, pacing, conflict, flashback, interiority and action, and that old cliche: show vs. tell. To conclude, I’m going to offer some more general advice.

1. Read your manuscript out loud. Each and every word. Pay attention to your annoyance and your boredom, the passages where your eyes glaze over. Pay attention to the cadence of your sentences, the unintended tongue twisters, prose that trips you up.

2. Set the manuscript aside for a few weeks or a couple of months. Come back to it afresh.

3. Every scene should reveal character or advance plot. Better still: do both.

4. At every stage along the way think about specific details. Julia cuts class and lounges in bed with a book. Julia skips calculus and lounges in bed with the new N.K. Jemisin. See?

5. Most manuscripts would be improved if 70-90% of the direct dialogue was removed. You can quote me on that.

6. A common blunder is to repeat the same word on the page, often in the same paragraph. A keen eye and a thesaurus are your friends here.

7. Watch for other forms of repetitions: characters repeating themselves in dialogue, the narrator giving the reader the same information two or three or seventeen times, scenes that are re-enacted. These repetitions are a sign you aren’t trusting the reader.

8. On that note: resist the urge to over explain. The delete button is your friend.

9. As the author you must know all, far more than what is on the page. Hemingway’s iceberg theory is a useful metaphor: the reader sees only the tip of the story; the rest they intuit. Or, said another way: "A few things I have found to be true. If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened. If you leave or skip something because you do not know it, the story will be worthless.” (ps. most of what Hemingway writes in that piece is absolute tosh but there are a couple of gems if you’re willing to have a scavenge)

10. Every author has their own cache of ticks - words and phrases we tend to overuse. (Look and relief are two of mine.) At some point at a late stage in revision, cull the ticks. I keep a running tally of tick words in my notebook so that right before an important draft (say the one that goes to submission), I’ll do a quick search and replace.

11. Speaking of ticks, here’s my hands down, numero uno pet peeve: smiles, nods, and eye rolls. Give yourself a cap, say no more than seven smiles, three nods, and one eye roll allowed per manuscript.

12. Exclamation marks should be used sparingly.

13. For God sakes, make sure you haven’t written a rotten egg.
    

If at this point you’re feeling overwhelmed by the work ahead, take heart. The trough of disillusionment is a normal and necessary part of the process. And if you still feel uncertain or would like a fresh set of eyes and specific editorial advice, drop me a line. This series has only skimmed the surface of my expertise.

How to revise your novel (part 4)

Originally posted: September 7, 2020

This is the fourth post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action.  Part 3 tackled beginnings, endings, and dialogue. Today it’s that old saw: show don’t tell.

SHOW NOT TELL

Here it is, the single most common weakness of every work-in-progress: too much telling, not enough showing. Sometimes we tell instead of show. Other times we show and tell, illustrating a scene in perfect detail only to explain to the reader the very thing they’ve just witnessed. That’s how worried we are that the reader won’t get it. In the case of the latter, the solution is a quick backspace. In the case of the former, the work is more difficult.

Adjectives and adverbs are telling signs. Instead of saying Mary eyed Bob suspiciously, describe what’s suspicious in her manner. What does suspicion look and feel like? Instead of the adverb, show us the feeling or action.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but: you don’t need adjectives on dialogue tags. He said furiously. She asked anxiously. They cried dolefully. STOP. Stick to he said and she asked. If dialogue is accompanied by an emotion, find a way to embody the emotion.

BE SPECIFIC

Abstraction is another telling sign. First drafts, by their nature, tend to lean heavily on words like suddenly and something. I think of these as placeholders we drop in the ground as we write toward a first draft. In second and third and seventh drafts though it’s important to return to those placeholders and fully articulate the suddenness or what the something is. Don’t tell the reader the lights went out suddenly. Make the lights flame out in a way that feels sudden for character (and by extension reader). Hot tip: most of the time you can just delete the word suddenly without doing anything else.

Ditto vague descriptions. You could tell us there were eagles in the sky and rain on the way, sure. Or you could show the eagles “beating muscled wings, threading in and out of black thunderclouds” as Valeria Luiselli does in her Lost Children Archive. You could tell us Edgar feels vulnerable or show him grasping opposite wrists as Ian Williams does in Reproduction. Weeks after finishing the novel, this visual has stuck with me, more importantly the feeling of tenderness it inspired has lingered. That’s the power of specificity.

FILTERING AND MEDIATION

Stories are most immediate and immersive when they can get right in close. But too often writers filter the story through an unnecessary lens. Compare two versions of the same scene:

“Outside, Gillian noticed two neighbours squabbling. She saw them jab their fingers at each other across their property lines and heard their voices growing louder.”

“Outside, Gillian’s neighbours squabbled. They jabbed their fingers at each other across their property lines, voices rising.”

There’s no need to tell the reader that Gillian is seeing and hearing the action. Remove the filter words notice and saw and what happens? The pace quickens and the reader is drawn closer to the action.

Here’s another telling move: mediating flashbacks. Compare two version of the same flashback:

“Jim thought of Blake with a smile, remembering how they first met on a plane to Mexico City. They were stuck in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

“Jim and Blake met on a plane to Mexico City, in the middle aisle, sandwiched between two frat boys.”

IN CONCLUSION

Narration and exposition have a place in fiction but if that’s all you are doing, the reader will skim. Stick to your bones fiction is writing that reveals, that leaves room for interpretation. Let’s say you have this line: “Marty served his guests tea.” That’s fine but consider this version instead: “Marty’s mugs were a motley collection, branded freebies from conferences and radio station give-aways, the white ones stained with years of tea and coffee, most of them chipped.” The mugs show Marty’s mugs and the reader may draw further conclusions about his personality and home life from those mugs.

Writers have a tendency to worry too much about the reader. Take my hand, dear Reader, we seem to say. Allow me to be your tour guide on this journey. NO. STOP. Create the world, animate the characters, then get out of the way. Let the reader wander unchaperoned. Trust them to read between the lines and connect the dots. Be open to the narrative being understood in a different way than you intended. Your story will be stronger for a multiplicity of interpretations.

The next post (the last in the series) is a laundry list of advice.

How to revise your novel (part 3)

Originally posted: August 31, 2020

This is the third post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action. This post tackles beginnings, endings, and dialogue.

BEGINNING

If you are new to fiction, if this is your first novel, odds are good the true beginning of your story is lurking somewhere past the first few paragraphs/ scenes/ chapter. It’s very likely your prologue, beautifully written though it might be, is unnecessary. Especially if it spoilers the ending. Go find the real start of the story and then delete all the stuff that comes before.

Does your novel begin with a character waking up? (Mine does!) It might be fine but be warned that characters getting out of bed is a very, very common and cliched beginning. And now that I’ve told you this, you’ll start to notice it everywhere.

ENDING

I’ve blogged about endings before but it bears repeating: Do you need that epilogue? Really? Are you sure? Because 99.9% of the time, epilogues, like prologues, are unnecessary. In fact, the last sentence/ paragraph/ scene/ chapter of an early draft is usually redundant. Resist the urge to tie up all the loose ends. Trust the reader to get the story.

An earlier draft of Butter Tea at Starbucks had this final sentence: everything feels miraculous. Someone in my writing group suggested that last line was too on the nose so I removed it and sure enough, the ending was stronger.

DIALOGUE

A common issue in early drafts is an over-reliance on dialogue. It’s the rare, exceptional author who can successfully use direct dialogue to carry a story. Remember that there are many, many other ways to convey information to a reader including: action, narration, and scenery. And when you’re writing dialogue, don’t neglect summary and indirect dialogue.

Coming up next: show don’t tell.

How to revise your novel (part 2)

Originally posted: August 24, 2020

This is the second post in a series about novel revision. In part 1 we considered characters and pace. This post will tackle conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action.

CONFLICT

Or rather, lack thereof. After flat characters, lack of conflict is the second most common problem in manuscript after manuscript. Including my own! Being a published author doesn’t make you immune to shitty first drafts.

Are your characters too virtuous? Are they too obliging? Does every conversation end with everyone getting exactly what they want? Are you letting your characters off the hook too easily or too quickly? Put your characters in peril. Make them morally complicated and imperfect. Make the people in their lives intractable and difficult. Let bad things happen to your beloved protagonist. A common pitfall: dumping all the problems on the side-kick. That’s how hard we work to spare the protagonist! But now your sidekick has the more compelling storyline so why should the reader care about the supposed main character?

There is a scene in The Boat People where Mahindan is in a detention camp in Sri Lanka. The war is over and he’s trapped in a literal hell. In a very early draft, my writing group pointed out that in the entire scene, Mahindan was the only character who didn’t seem hungry/ in pain/ in physical discomfort/ scared. This was a huge failure of imagination on my part. I went back to the drawing board. Added hunger pains, insect bites, the ick factor of being without a bath, the hum of anxiety, the high pitch of terror. It took time to really settle into that uncomfortable difficult place with Mahindan. But writing is work. Suffer for your art.

FLASHBACKS AND OFF-STAGE

A while back I read a manuscript by a promising and talented author. Most of the scenes were framed inside a flashback. Now this framing structure can work well. The novel A Little Life is narrated in this structure and the device adds to the sense that life is happening in a circular way for the characters, blurring the lines between past and present. For that book, with its particular themes, and its excess of conflict and tension, the flashbacks worked. But that’s rare.

More often flashbacks, like minor characters, can be vestigial organs. You started writing without really knowing what was going to happen and mid-way through a scene you realized “oh, this important thing has to come first” and rather than pause the flow of your work, wrote that thing as a flashback. That’s a reasonable first draft strategy. But later, in revisions, scrutinize those flashbacks. Would the action unfold better in real time?

One sneaky way we writers avoid conflict  is by making it happen off-stage and/or in flashbacks. Flashbacks can be useful but they lack the immediacy, the heart-stopping quality, of real time events. So be sparing when you are utilizing it to relay senes of conflict. Similarly, if Banquo’s going to get knocked off, bring the action centre stage. Don’t fade to black just as the tension is rising and then have some characters recounting the big fight in the following scene. (Booooo! complains the reader)

THOUGHT VS. ACTION

Perhaps because the stories take place inside our own heads, many of us have a penchant for letting characters live too long inside their own heads too. Even if your main character is in a coma and the entire story is taking place in their dreams, there will still be action, right? The character will think they are out in the world running and jumping and having fights about the fence with the belligerent neighbour. And you have to convey those memories or dreams in such a way that it feels like it’s really happening.

Conversely, some manuscripts are all action and zero interior thought so that characters become puppets. The balance between inner and outer life will be different for every book but it is a balance. You can’t just have a character involved in a high speed car chase - say - without giving us some idea of what she’s thinking, how her heart is pounding, how her mind is racing, how her reflexes are taking over, why she’s doing this, what she hopes to gain, what she fears to lose etc.

The next post is about beginnings, endings, and dialogue.

How to revise your novel (part 1)

Originally posted: August 17, 2020

Manuscript evaluation is one of the things I do for a living. In a nutshell: I read someone’s manuscript and return detailed notes to get them started on re-writes. Every story is unique but there are several common issues that plague all our drafts (mine too). If you’re struggling to revise your manuscript, here are three things to watch for:

UNFORMED CHARACTERS

In early drafts most secondary characters are blanks and the antagonists are one-note. Protagonists might be morally complex and more fully formed but there’s often something still missing, usually motivation. What’s making them act destructive? Why are they so helpful? Why do they care so much about this issue/ person/ place/ thing? When it comes to characters, you need to interrogate them thoroughly until you know everything about them.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS

Squint at each character. Make sure they earn their place. Sometimes characters are vestigial organs. Though necessary at the start to help you understand the protagonist, you might find they’ve served their purpose by draft two or six. Thank them for their service and then let them go.

Two or more minor characters can often be merged into one. A couple of years ago I was reading my friend Jamie Fitzpatrick’s novel, The End of Music. There’s a character who appears on the first page, who sparks a nostalgic memory for the protagonist, Carter. Later, she re-appears unexpectedly as the manager at his mother’s nursing home. She’s a pretty minor character but plays a necessary role. In earlier drafts these had been two different characters but somewhere along the way Jamie’s editor advised him to merge them. The merger makes the story stronger. It gives the reader a little dopamine hit to meet the woman again and remember her from the first page. And her presence in both parts of his life strengthens the theme of nostalgia and memory (which his mother in her old age is losing).

PACE

When it comes to our own work, most of us are terrible judges of pace. But readers are very very good at sensing slow parts of the book. Does every scene advance plot and/or character (ideally both). If not, jettison the scene. Or strip it for parts to graft on elsewhere and trash the rest. Much of revising is also moving the puzzle pieces around. Swapping around scenes and chapters, shifting beats within a scene, passages of prose, action and so on. Think about arcs, not just character arcs, not just story arc, but the smaller arcs that happen within a scene or chapter or even a conversation. Are the stakes present early enough or do they arrive at the very end like a footnote. And if so, is this what you intend?

This is part one of a series on re-writing and revising. The next post covers conflict, flashback, and action.

Put the toast to work

Originally published: August 23, 2017

Dialogue is one thing but what about the stage business? Action in a scene - a character moving through a space, physically interacting with other characters - serves several functions. It enlivens the narrative while grounding it in a fictional reality. And it paints a picture, allowing the reader to visualize the story. I'm a fan of interweaving stage business with dialogue, sometimes even using it to replace dialogue tags (he said/ she said). For example, consider:

I don't know, John said. It was there this morning.
vs.
I don't know. John buttered his toast. It was there this morning.

This example came from fellow Port Authority writer, Jamie, who smartly pointed out that the toast only deserves to be in the scene if it serves a greater purpose. It's not enough for the toast to highlight the speakers.

Now consider this:

Where's the cheque book? Nora asked, searching the junk drawer.
Dunno. John buttered his toast. It was there this morning.

Better right?

I'd probably take it a little further, show John swiping a pat of butter off the block, describe the dry scrape of knife on toast. Nora, meanwhile, pulls out scissors and rubber bands and junk mail and pens. John dips his knife into the jam and spreads a thick glob of strawberry over the greasy toast. Nora slams the junk drawer shut, yanks another one open.

This is a lot of unnecessary detail and most of it would be cut back in revisions but do you smell what I'm cooking? The toast now tells us who is speaking, suggests something about motivation, and gives insight into character. It furthers the action. The toast provides subtext - something unsaid to read between the lines. The toast is multi-tasking.

Dialogue tips from the Port Authority

Originally posted: February 24, 2020

My writing group was exchanging emails about dialogue, why it flatlines and how it can be revived. Putting words in a character’s mouth - words that sound authentic and are compelling to read - is no easy feat. So the next few posts will be devoted to dialogue.

There are no hard and fast rules for good writing and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or ignorant. But there are guidelines that will serve you well 75-90% of the time. Note the spread: 75-90% of the time, you can safely defer to the playbook. The other 10-25% of the time, you’re better off improvising or breaking the rules. Caveat aside, let’s begin.

To start, here are The Port Authority’s collected thoughts on good dialogue:

1: Characters should talk to each other, not the reader. Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information that you think the reader needs.

The last part of that sentence is important. Often, what you think the reader needs is quite a bit more than the reader actually needs. Restraint is part of the discipline of writing. Leave room for the reader to use their intuition.

As a manuscript evaluator, I see this a lot: Character A says something that Character B surely already knows. Can the dialogue be prefaced with the phrase “as you know”? If so, delete. 

2. Pay attention to how you and people around you speak. Rarely do we formulate our thoughts in smooth, complete sentences. We speak in fragments, double back, pause, hesitate, um, ah, jump from subject to subject, use slang, drop inside jokes and so on. If two characters are speaking too fluidly they are going to sound like sociopaths or robots. Now maybe your story is about sociopathic robots looking for love in a post-apocalyptic world. If so, as you were. Otherwise, delete.

3. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue at a time is usually plenty. I like to write lots and lots of dialogue in a first draft and then cull it back later. As someone who reads my own and other people’s drafts for a living, one thing I’ve noticed is there is often a gem of a sentence lurking in a paragraph of dialogue. Liberate the gem. Delete the rest.

4. Delete the inessentials (“Hello. Nice weather we’re having. Those Leafs, eh?”). Go straight to the juice. (See #7)

5. The best dialogue has a thrum of tension. Perhaps it’s right at the surface - characters at each other’s throats, airing pent up grievances. But often it’s an undercurrent, a frisson that electrifies some mundane chit chat. Our best teachers are stories. Pay attention to how other writers pull off this trick. Short fiction is a good place to start. The excellent ones are chock-a-block with barbed dialogue.

6. If Character A wants something from Character B (let’s say it’s the answer to an important question), Character B should not oblige. Leave things unsaid. Leave someone wanting.

7. Related: If Character A isn’t quite sure what Character B knows BINGO! Now you’re getting into the realm of subtext. The best dialogue exists on two planes: there are the words that are being said and all the unsaid stuff lurking underneath, the unspoken elephant in the room, ill will or discomfort. All of this non-verbal material is subtext. And subtext is ripe. Subtext is the juice.

8. Imagine a tool box. You’ve got a hammer, a wrench, a tape measure, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, a drill and so on and so on. In your writing tool box you’ve got narration (a voice in first, second, or third person conveying a story), exposition (background information conveyed by the narrator), time shifts (flashback and flashforward), action and so on. Dialogue is only ONE type of tool.

Where many writers - even published, established ones - go wrong is they forget there’s a whole box and grow too reliant on a single tool. That tool is usually direct dialogue. (Groan) Listen, a Robertson screwdriver is handy but you can’t build a whole house with one. Also, there are other types of screwdrivers! There are other kinds of dialogue too: summary and indirect. Direct dialogue is the easiest tool to use poorly. Summary and indirect dialogue to the rescue.

9. Ideally, dialogue is hard working. Great dialogue does more than one thing: reveals character, advances plot, dials up tension, adds to the mood etc etc. But writing dialogue that multi-tasks is not easy. The good news is, you don’t need dialogue - especially direct dialogue - as much as you think. Circling back to the first point (Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information), sometimes you don’t need dialogue at all. Use a different tool. The reader needs to know something? Give it to them via narration or exposition.

You might have noticed that most of this advice boils down to: delete. In the next four posts, we’re going to pick up our pencils, lick the lead (gross), and get into how to actually write it well, beginning with summary dialogue.

How to write summary dialogue

Originally posted: March 2, 2020

This is the second in a series of posts about dialogue. If you missed the first post, go back. 

In my last post, I promised more practical advice on how to write dialogue. I also likened dialogue to a screwdriver and said there are three types, each with its own specific use. This post is about summary dialogue. My understanding of the three types of dialogue (summary, indirect, direct) is heavily indebted to Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. If you only read one book on how to write fiction, let it be Burroway’s.

Summary Dialogue

Summary dialogue is condensed conversation. It conveys the gist of a conversation (or a whole series of conversations) without the actual words. In Lesley Nneka Arimah’s “War Stories” the adolescent protagonist has gotten in trouble at school for humiliating a classmate at recess. At home, the protagonist is questioned by her father:

“ ‘So what is this your mother is telling me?’ he asked, giving me another change to explain myself. I had the words this time and told my father about Anita and bras and the machination of girls. He listened without interrupting, stealing my pawns as I moved them on the board. When I finished, my story dangled in the air between us. Then my father began to tell one of his own.” — Lesley Nneka Arimah “War Stories” from the collection What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky

Imagine if Lesley had instead used direct dialogue, and had her protagonist tell the entire story of this recess drama and all the action and ill will that led up to it. She’d have needed more words, for one thing. Summary dialogue moves fast. If you find your pace is flagging, consider replacing direct with summary dialogue.

Pace aside, note what else this passage does. The narrator tells us her father listens without interrupting. That reveals character. They are playing chess and he’s taking all her pawns. That bit of action animates the scene and again reveals character. This is not a man who is going to let his young daughter win at chess to artificially prop up her ego. And then of course, he has a story of his own. At this point, there is a whole lot more direct dialogue. Because guess what? This playground drama is not the main point of “War Stories”. The real story belongs to the father. With the switch to direct dialogue, Arimah slows the pace right now to indicate that this, this is the important stuff. Pay close attention now. (If you want to know the father’s story or what happened at recess, read “War Stories.” It’s great!)

Summary dialogue is especially useful in a scene with three or more characters all speaking to each other, say at a party or a dinner. Here’s an example from Jamie Fitzpatrick’s The End of Music:

“They switch to red for dinner. Carter breaks the cork and has to push the rest of it in to pour. They drink and spit flecks of cork. Soon he is finding out things he never knew. His wife hates her hair and has never found a style that can minimize the expansive of her forehead and the impossible thick bridge of her nose. Also, even her most carefully selected shoes look absurd, big banks at the end of each leg.” — Jamie Fitzpatrick, The End of Music

This summary dialogue is multi-tasking. First, it reveals mood and setting. They have switched to red for dinner which suggests they were drinking white or something else before this. He’s broken the cork but they continue drinking. So they are not snobs but also the wine is not the key thing here so much as the company and the conversation. The line “Soon he is finding out things he never knew” suggests a level of inebriation, of letting loose. And then of course we learn some particular and quirky things about the wife. She’s not a point of view character. But in this summarized conversation, her inner life is revealed through her preoccupations.

Next up: indirect dialogue.

How to write indirect dialogue

Originally posted: March 9, 2020

This is the third post in a series about dialogue. Start here, if you’ve missed the others. This post focuses on indirect dialogue (my personal favourite).

Indirect Dialogue

Indirect dialogue is reported in the third person so you get the feel of the exchange, without the actual words. In Susan Sinnott’s novel Catching the Light, Cathy is having trouble reading and is working with a tutor called Sarah who thinks she has dyslexia:

“Cathy had asked her father about her mother’s reading difficulties: were they really that much worse than Cathy’s? And he said yes, definitely. So she asked Sarah about that brain mix-up thing, dyslexia, and afterwards Dad said yes, Betty had all those problems too. So how did mom cover it up better than Cathy had? Dad said he wasn’t getting in to that, better ask mom.” — Susan Sinnott, Catching the Light

Like summary dialogue, indirect cuts to the chase without any tedious back and forth. It also allows you to speed through time and cover multiple conversations very quickly. In this one paragraph we are shown three distinct conversations. You can almost imagine Cathy zinging back and forth between a tete-a-tete with her father in their living room to a chat with her tutor the next day, back home with her dad later that evening. Efficient.

What differentiates this passage from summary dialogue? With indirect, unlike summary, you get a hint of the actual words characters say. You can hear them a little more clearly and as a result, have a better sense of their personalities.

Dad saying: yes, definitely. Betty had all those problems too. Then later, resisting Cathy’s questions, refusing to get into it, deferring to mom. All of that is very nearly direct dialogue. The reader can extrapolate body language, relationship dynamics and so much more from these short fragments. Now the author could have put these words inside quotation marks to indicate direct dialogue. But she’s chosen not to, presumably because she wants us to know that this is Cathy’s version of what her father has said. We’re getting her father’s words through her, not from his own mouth. It’s not 100% reliable.

Psychic Distance

Direct dialogue (which we will explore next) gives you a character’s exact words. You are right there with them as they speak. But with summary and indirect dialogue, a character’s words are mediated through the narrator. There is a psychic distance inherent with summary and indirect dialogue that doesn’t exist with direct dialogue.

Imagine a friend is telling you about a fight with their partner. Your friend is the narrator and you are getting the story (and any words that were exchanged) second hand. Summary and indirect dialogue are like that. The reader is kept at a remove. I’d argue the remove is greatest with summary dialogue. Indirect can be almost indistinguishable from direct dialogue (Dad said he wasn’t getting into that. Better ask mom). Summary and indirect dialogue have their uses. But to get in close, to close the psychic distance, there’s no replacement for direct dialogue.

How to write direct dialogue

Originally posted: March 18, 2020

This is the fourth in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

Direct Dialogue 

Direct dialogue is the one we all know and tend to overuse. It’s word-for-word what the characters are saying. It’s useful when you want to get in real close, write from within the scene, at a moment of crisis, discovery, decision, or climax. Direct dialogue not only ups the drama, it is more precise at revealing character because we have their exact words.

Character

Word choice indicates education, class, age, familiarity with language, ethnicity. When you are writing direct dialogue, think about this: who is this character? What life do they live? What’s their background? The more you know your characters, the easier it will be to put words in their mouths. Where so much dialogue falls down, I think, is when characters are skeletons without flesh, when they haven’t been fully imagined by their authors. As a result, their dialogue comes off as a poor ventriloquist act and the reader only hears the author saying all the words. You want the dialogue to sound authentic, like something this character would legitimately say.

An Example

In Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion, a young woman called Zee talks about her hero Faith Frank:

“I know she represents this kind of outdated idea of feminism,” said Zee, “with more of a narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women. I totally see that. But you know what? She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing. Also, the thing about Faith Frank,” she went on, “is that while she’s this famous, iconic person, she also seems approachable.” — Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion

Normally, I’d be skeptical of such a long passage of dialogue. Long passages of dialogue have a habit of being information dumps, which is why one tip is to pare it all back. But overall, I think Wolitzer’s dialogue here is pretty good. It’s doing more than just conveying information about Faith, who becomes a central figure in the book. Look at what is revealed about the speaker, Zee. Hers is a millennial and current take on feminism. It’s woke. It’s mature. But lines like “I totally see that” and “But you know what?” signal that the speaker is still young, in that liminal space between girl and woman. (Zee is a first year in college). Also, note the change in register. “Narrow focus on issues that mostly affect privileged women” sounds like something that could be in an essay. But then Zee switches to simple language when she gets earnest and speaks from the heart: “She’s done a lot of good, and I think she’s amazing.” See that? Head and heart. The dialogue is working hard and multi-tasking and it’s sounds real.

Advice

1. Don’t forget about body language. Gestures and ticks reveal character. A character who constantly rubs their nose as they speak is indicating something. A penchant for cocaine, a lie, nerves, a pimple.

2. The way a character speaks is revealing too. Is she loud? Are they quiet? Are his sentences choppy and short or long and convoluted? Remember: if you’re stuck on dialogue, the problem is you don’t know the character well enough.

3. When you are revising a scene, read all the dialogue out loud. Every single word. Read it all slowly. If you get bored, have the urge to skip sections, if you are squicked out by how awkward and false it sounds, those are strong clues something’s wrong.

4. A common problem with direct dialogue - which you can hear when you read it out loud - is that it comes out inert (aka boring). Rule of thumb: dialogue must do more than one thing. It can reveal character, advance plot, create tension, enhance mystery etc. etc. Writing instructors talk a good game about multi-tasking but I haven’t yet heard anyone articulate HOW to perform this sleight of pen. Listen, I don’t have a good answer for this either. For me, it’s more like, if the dialogue is weak, I ask myself is it multi-tasking? If not, maybe I just do the easy thing and erase it. Fall back on summary or indirect or try to write the scene without dialogue at all.

5. Direct dialogue is the most difficult type to master because it’s slower and more precise than summary or indirect. My advice is to use it sparingly and in passages with lots of talking, combine it summary and/or indirect.

In my final post in this series, we will look at how to do this - take summary and indirect and direct and put it altogether.

Mastering dialogue

Originally posted: March 23, 2020

This is the fifth and last in a series of posts about writing dialogue. If you’ve missed the previous posts, start here.

Putting it altogether

So now you’ve got your three screwdrivers. You know how to use them. Let’s get to work. I’ve already beat this dead horse but  one more smack for good measure: direct dialogue is the most over-used, slow moving, and difficult type of speech to write well. On trick is to use it sparingly and nestle a few sparse sentences inside a passage of summary and/or indirect.

Here’s an example from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: 

“Ammu asked for the Station House Officer, and when she was shown into his office she told him that there had been a terrible mistake and that she wanted to make a statement. She asked to see Velutha. Inspector Thomas Matthew’s moustache bustled like the friendly Air India Maharajah’s, but his eyes were sly and greedy. ‘It’s a little too late for all this, don’t you think?’ he said. He spoke the coarse Kottayam dialect of Malayalam. He stared at Ammu’s breasts as he spoke. He said the police knew all they needed to know and that the Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children Ammu said she’d see about that. Inspector Thomas Matthew came around his desk and approached Ammu with his baton. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d go home quietly.’ Then he tapped her breasts with his baton. Gently. Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket. Pointing out the ones he wanted packed and delivered.” — The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This scene is an important one. An innocent man is facing execution and Ammu must stop it. Here we have the highest stakes possible. Still, if the Inspector was polite and simply said: ‘Ma’am I can’t help you’ the scene would have fallen flat. Remember what I said in the first post: if Character A wants something, the tension is higher if Character B refuses the request.

This pace is quick here because the dialogue is mostly indirect. There are only two lines of direct dialogue and as a result they stand out. Can’t you hear the Inspector saying these words? The condescension drips. It makes the reader feel protective of Ammu and nervous for the innocent man on death row. The reader is stressed. Roy has saved up her direct dialogue for the lines that count, the ones that will elicit emotion.

In the first post, I said that the best dialogue is multi-tasking. Here, the dialogue is creating tension, evoking emotion, and conveying character. The Inspector’s dialect marks him out as lower class. But Roy isn’t just wielding the screwdrivers here. She’s reaching for other tools in her box. Through narration she reveals the Inspector’s bustling moustache, his greedy eyes (note the disconnect - this man pretends to be friendly but really he’s a snake in the grass). Through body language we see his eyes on Ammu’s breasts. Through action she shows the weaponized the baton.

When you are reading, pay attention to which tools the author is using and how they are being used. Then apply what you’ve learned to your own work.

But first!

Dialogue is the single most difficult thing to write well. Even experienced authors who write books full of beautiful prose and compelling drama, fall flat on dialogue. I’ve asked authors who do the job well for their secrets and they always say some version of the same unhelpful thing: it just comes to me/ I hear the characters in my head. To be honest, this is my experience too. In fact, I don’t like to write direct dialogue until it flows free and easy, until it strikes like lightning.

My theory is that poor dialogue is a symptom of a bigger issue, which is incomplete character development. You must do the work of building your character, of knowing them better than you know yourself. And once you have done this, created a Pinocchio so realistic he could be a real boy, he will come alive of his own volition and surprise you with what he says.

If that fails and you’re stuck and think the dialogue (and anything else) in your manuscript could benefit from professional feedback, I’m available for hire and taking bookings for the summer. Meantime, here’s a handy dialogue exercise and eight more technical tips.

Trick for dialogue

Originally posted: August 27, 2019

Recently, I was having trouble writing a scene. In this scene a man and a woman are having an argument. The scene is third person, past tense, from the woman’s point of view. So I knew more or less what she was going to say, her motivations, her fears, her desires, but I had no clue how the man would respond. Or, more specifically, I knew how he would respond but his exact dialogue and body language, all of that was a question mark.

I don’t like to write passages of dialogue unless I’m in the zone and the characters’ words are flowing freely. In my experience, forced dialogue comes out stilted and false. At the same time, this scene is pivotal and I didn’t feel I could move on until I’d gotten some kind of rough draft down. (Which is another way of saying I’ve been procrastinating on writing the difficult scenes for too long and now it’s high time).

Then one morning as I lay in bed, circling around the characters in my mind, wondering how I was going to get into the scene, I had an epiphany. Why not write the argument from his point of view? So that’s what I did. And just to break myself out of the rut I was in, I decided to write it first person, present tense. Immediately his words and body language, his inner life, appeared. Once I was in his head, I understood his motivations, his desires, his fears. And after I knew all of those things, it was obvious exactly what he would say and do.

Exercise complete, I took another stab at the scene. From her perspective again, third person, past tense. Viola.

ps. Have you got a completed draft of a novel that could benefit from another pair or eyes? I moonlight as a manuscript evaluator which means I give constructive feedback on works-in-progress. Character and dialogue, plot and pacing, it’s all in my wheelhouse. I’m taking bookings for the summer so get in touch for more info or a quote.

The voices in your head

Originally posted: February 10, 2017

Characters come into their own when I first hear them speak. And that's how I primarily write dialogue - it bubbles up from the unconscious part of my brain that is always at work. I may have trouble with story arcs and pace but putting words in characters' mouths has always felt natural.

But like any other part of the craft, there is some element of science here too. Here are some technical suggestions:

1. Don't rely too heavily on dialogue to carry plot or develop character.

2. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue? Odds are you need only one. Remember: what is left unsaid is often more powerful than what is said.

Fictional dialogue has to seem realistic without actually being realistic.
- me

3. Dialogue gets good when it isn't straight forward. When characters lie or hold back or speak at cross purposes. This is how you bake in irony, double meanings, and conflict, thereby making the scene more layered and interesting.

4. Don't underestimate the power of indirect speech. It proceeds at a swifter pace - helpful if your characters have a lot of talking to do - and is easier to nail than direct dialogue.

5. Dialogue should multi-task. If dialogue reveals character and ratchets up tension, if it propels the plot forward and makes you laugh, then it's all much more interesting.

6. Read the work of other writers and see how they go about it.

7. Listen closely to how real people speak. Listen to rhythm and cadence, how thoughts are phrased, the way people of different ages and backgrounds sound. Pay enough attention and you'll develop an ear for dialogue and an instinct for crafting it. Also, you can straight up just steal things you overheard friends and strangers saying.

8. Which is not to say that your characters should speak the way real people do. For one thing, we talk way too much in real life. Fictional dialogue has to seem realistic without actually being realistic. Allow a sentence to stand in for a monologue. Sure, in the first draft, write all the pauses and ums and uhs and verbal ticks and quirks of accent into a character's speech. But then later, when you're revising, delete, delete, delete and just leave a few things behind, a little bit of seasoning to give the reader a taste.

No

Years ago, in the waning minutes of what would be my last day at a certain mediocre job, the HR rep hustled into my windowless office, pushed a piece of paper under my nose and declared: “You have to sign this.”

“I don’t have to do anything, Belinda*,” I said, before tossing a lit match on a trail of already-poured gasoline and burning the damn place down.

via GIPHY

Metaphorically, of course.

Everyone who has toiled in 9-5 servitude knows all the myriad and cliched ways a workplace can suck so there’s no need to itemize my grievances against this particular job or why I peaced outta there. The incident is only noteworthy because it was the turning point after which my whole professional life changed. Though of course I didn’t realize it at the time.

In the novel I’m struggling to write, the turning point is proving elusive. Which is a serious issue that’s been stressing me out. Maybe you’ve noticed the obsession? But the other night, as I was going to bed, that day from a decade ago, the unexpected pivot in my own life, returned to me. Along with the words that proceeded it.

I don’t have to do anything.

It’s a good bit of direct dialogue, isn’t it? Concise. Pointed. A struck match. I wrote it in my notebook and then took that sentence on a meditative walk.

There’s very little we actually have to do. And yet we all do a hundred, thousand, million strictly unnecessary things, things we don’t want to do, because of some vague sense of hafta. So what makes a character who has spent 200-odd pages of a novel sloughing through these self-imposed obligations, finally say enough? I don’t know. I’m still working it out. For me a lot of writing involves pondering esoteric questions and waiting for insight.

---

Meantime, I’ve been reading Richard Wagamese’s profoundly beautiful last (unfinished) novel, Starlight, and Genki Ferguson’s delightful debut Satellite Love (it has illustrations! a book for adults with pictures!). Lots of e-newsletters have popped up during the pandemic and this piece about furniture catalogues and longing at Grief Bacon is very good. Tom and I have re-started our two-person book club and are tearing through Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

We’ve also been watching the last season of Dark, which is an excellent study in plot and an example of a story that takes a circular shape. Trashy Britcom Toast of London is our palate cleanser.

I listen to podcasts almost non-stop. A recent stand out was Code Switch’s episode A Shot in the Dark about the Covid vaccine and the Tuskegee Experiment; I promise they don’t tell the story you think they’re going to tell. And I’ve been catching up on the back catalogue of NPR’s Throughline (a history podcast). This episode about astrology was fun.

There isn’t a whole lot to do in these lockdown days but I gave online yoga a go and am a reluctant regular. And recently, I got a set of grips which are coming in handy on icy trails.

*not her real name

Community spread

The handles of a bright green Sobey’s bag loop around a door knob. Moments later, inside the house, a text bubble appears on a phone. “Dropped it off. Enjoy.” A couple of days later, another ping to a different phone. “Hitchcock mystery. 1,000 pieces. Difficult. Interested?”

Jigsaw puzzles are something I deliberately avoided during the lockdown last spring. Not because puzzles seemed hopelessly dull (they did) but because I had a feeling we were trapped in a long game and some pastimes would need to be saved for later.

Towards the end of summer, after life had settled into a pandemic normal that allowed us to see friends again - albeit in small groups, often outside, with precautionary hand sanitizer and a polite Regency-era distance - I started a note on my phone. Covid Winter: a to-do list that included a couple of TV shows, cooking projects, and, yup, puzzles.

For months the list remained theoretical. September turned to October became November, then December. There was a long stretch where the case count was zero. Even when cases appeared they were travel-related and the two-week arrival quarantine meant they were immediately contained.

On New Year’s we went out to dinner with some friends then back to someone’s place for board games and laughs. We sat around a table, elbows nearly, though not quite, brushing, slapping down cards and collecting tricks, tallying up points. Everyone was eagerly discussing the vaccine which our friend the ER doc had already received. January rolled in snowy but quiet and it felt like we might avoid a second lock down, sail into the vaccine queue and straight on through to the “after” times.

Needless to say.

Puzzling

Have you ever done a mystery puzzle? It’s like this: you get a whodunit scenario. The puzzle, when completed, reveals the crime scene, full of clues you must decode in order to solve the murder. The catch is there’s no picture to guide you. The image is revealed only through assembly.

Of course this is an analogy for novel writing. It’s equally tedious and frustrating and even when you know you have all the pieces, that somehow they do all fit together to form a coherent whole, there are moments of doubt.

Turns out puzzles are fun. At least in lockdown when cracking into a new puzzle on a Friday night with a bottle of wine constitutes a big weekend “plan.”

First time around, when we hunkered down last spring, everyone was baking. Cinnamon buns, root beer cupcakes, and lemon curd doughnuts materialized on door steps, their bakers waving through the windows as they went by. This time around, there’s a brisk trade in puzzles. I think about those cardboard boxes being shared between households, crossing thresholds we can no longer enter, all the ways we hold fast to a sense of community.

On Saturday we venture out to a lake we’ve never visited to tramp around a warren of winding snowy trails. A perk of lockdown: discovering gems that have been here all along. In the car on the way home, a text from my friend Joel arrives: a photo of a leaf in a jar of water. I’d admired his ZZ plant and he’s propagating a cutting for me. One day, a plant will appear on my door step and Joel will stand on the street waving through the window.

Even as every square on the calendar remains blank, even as lock-down is extended and we’re not sure what the new normal will be when we re-open, as long as anticipation remains, so too will joy.