Research

I hate it.

Dang, I picked the wrong job.

I hate it but I do it.

Maybe I don't hate all research. Sometimes it's funny to me. I've had to explore floor plans for Antebellum homes, take a virtual tour of the Space Needle, and study diagrams of marionettes. I've definitely collected some bizarre bits of knowledge.

What surprises me most is that minutiae I have to research that doesn't have much to do with my story. I've spent an hour reading about the origins of steampunk to get a single, non-plot dependent sentence right.

But it pays off. I wrote an entire novel set in Seattle. I never even visited there until after I finished the novel, but I was amazed to discover that the result of all that research was that I walked around the parts of the city I had described and realized I got it right. Surreal.

Here's a top ten list of odd things I've learned while researching:

1. The homes in Audubon Place in New Orleans were protected by Blackwater operatives during the Hurricane Katrina chaos.
2. There are not a lot of spices that make great names for boys.
3. There are a lot of delicious-sounding places to eat in Seattle.
4. It's amazing how much money things will sell for in a New Orleans antique auction.
5. A surprising number of people skirt the foster system in New Orleans.
6. It's hard to research region-specific slang.
7. The cars that teens find cool are totally different between California and Louisiana
8. Any era you search between the 1960s and now, Converse All-Stars are always considered cool
9. The bad parts of Washington DC are among the worst in the country
10. The best research: sitting on Huntington Beach pier while your husband explains why the surfers are doing what they're doing.

What is the weirdest thing you've ever had to research?

First things first

I'm obsessed with Project Runway. As in I wish Tim Gunn lived in my closet or was maybe a miniature real live human Christmas ornament I could hang on my tree.

I'm really kind of obsessed with any reality show where people have to be good at something (I'm judging you, Big Brother, oh yes I am) but this is especially true of Project Runway, probably because there's a majorly creative element that you don't see in a straight up singing show (I love those too, though.)

Anyway, a few days ago I stumbled across something that tickled me as both a writer and a blogger, which is a recap blog by previous Project Runway contestants, all of whom I remember and (mostly) enjoy (not you, Laura Bennett, Mistress Meany Pants of Stuckupington).


Five former contestants from different seasons weigh in on each episode and it fascinates me to see what each of them focuses on and how they communicate it. Most of them blog exactly like I remember their personalities being on the show, except for Mychael Knight (Mr. Atlanta Urban) who comes off differently than I would have expected. The differences start with their titles, when all five of them are blogging the same episode but range from "When the Sheet Hits the Fan" to "Project Runway 9 Premiere Episode Recap."

And then you move to the opening lines. Some go for more of a fact by fact summary and some are clearly trying to entertain you. Check out the opening lines from each blog:

Peach Carr starts this way: Well, kids ... time to take a shot of pity-party mouthwash and rinse out the bad taste that the Season 8 Project Runway finale shocker left in your mouths.

But Mychael Knight starts this way: I'm baaaaack! This time as a spectator of this fascinating fashion menagerie of "Project Runway," I finally get a chance to be on the administering end of the comments, thoughts and constructive/creative critiques.

Nick Verreos starts this way: Gather your friends, uncork the red wine, get some crudités and put your best skinny jeans on

And then you've got Laura Bennett: The season starts out with a sort of designer speed dating where we get a quick meet-and-greet of 20 potential contestants.

And finally Johnathan Kayne: Ladies and gentlemen, start your sewing machines and get ready!!!!!!! "

See? Totally different voices from the very first sentence. Laura's lucky I stuck around after her boring first sentence but she ended up making some interesting points. Peach is the one I'd most want to share a couch with to watch this on the DVR. Nick is who my coolest friends would hang out with. Johnathan (from the dramatic spelling of his name all the way down the line) is just trying to dang hard. And Mychael? Meh.

I sometimes judge a book by it's cover but I always judge a book by it's first paragraph. My husband buys his books almost exclusively based on that criteria. He says the master is Chuck Palahnuik. (Yes, I'm too lazy to Google the correct spelling. SORRY.)

But I can't go forward with a story until I have a great first line. It can and often does change later but those are the ones that are burned into my memory because I just loved them so much when they came to me.

From The List: I needed Matt Gibson in a bad way.

From Not My Type: A handful of mayonnaise makes a decent projectile in a pinch.

From Belles and Beaux: There's gross and then there's gross.

From Twitterpated: The rolled up yoga mat bounced off of my roommate's head with a satisfying thwack.

That last one will change, but see what I mean? I love a great first line.

Hook me, baby, and I won't even fight it when you reel me in.

Freaking hilarious. Let me diagram it for you . . .

This one time, I felt sorry for Robison Wells and it's not even because a horn is trying to erupt from his forehead. That in itself is not a big deal. (I mean, if it's a unicorn horn it would be pretty cool. If it's a goat horn, well then . . . yeah. Okay, that's a problem.).

Anyway, I felt sorry for him because he was talking about how he had to put together a class on how to write humor for a writer's conference.

Now I also pity Sarah M. Eden for the exact same reason. She's stuck with this topic, too. I think they are both brave and good people (of questionable sanity) for taking this on . But I still feel sorry for them.

Here's the thing. I don't think you can teach people to be funny. You got it or you don't. It's that indefinable thing that makes someone become a massive pop star and someone else never make it at all when they have equal talent and looks. The "it" factor, maybe. (Oh, and minus any sleeping with the right people hijinks. (Cheating slutty McHohos. [I'm looking at you Susan McBoyle. {I'm totally not, cuz I'm writing about jokes, see? See how I did that?}])

But you're funny . . . or you're not.

Unless you're like me. In which case, you are HILARIOUS to the people that know you and often lock up around everyone else.

But, and for the sake of this argument and also because I think it might be true, my books are pretty funny and those jokes are cracked in front of thousands of people I'll never meet. And yet if you put me in a social situation where I  know less than 20% of the players, most of the time I morph into this interested observer and nothing funny to say comes to mind at all.

Get me in a room full of friends, I kill.

Get me in a room full of friends who are also funny, I lock up again. I think I can only be funny if I'm the clear alpha funny dog or if I've known everyone in the group FOREVER.

It's a weird thing.

Anyway, the point is, I know funny. I am funny. This has been voted on and ratified by the marketplace, so say the sales of my book. That's the expertise I'm claiming. Oh, and you can ask the 25 classes worth of 8th graders I taught over five years. They'll tell you: I'm funny. And get me in front of a room full of teachers in a staff development meeting? I will destroy them.

The thing is, I can't turn it on or off. I just am or am not. There's no deciding I want to be funny and then the jokes come. They're there or they aren't.

I truly believe most funny people are this way.

It comes down to this: as soon as you explain a joke, it's not funny anymore. Or put another way by Sarah Eden, "In my experience, classes on humor are the unfunniest classes at all."

I bet if you surveyed the attendees in Sarah or Rob's classes on humor (and I've been to other classes they taught and can vouch they are each hilarious), this is what you would find. 15% of attendees are friends or acquaintances who are there for a good laugh and didn't even read the title of the class. The rest are people who have no inherent funniness and will leave with lots of earnestly taken notes and still no clue how to crack a joke, much less a good joke.

Case in point: This Wired magazine article from May looks at humor through the lens of science, trying to quantify what makes something funny. (Yes, I read my  husband's magazines in the bathroom. If he can stay in there with it for an hour, so can I. Also, I'm suddenly a genius when it comes to buying his gifts because, hello? I could blindly point to any item on any page in that magazine and he'd want it.) And while it's an utterly un-hilarious article about humor, it's fascinating. This is kind of the nutshell, although seriously, go read the whole thing:

It makes perfect sense.

But if you have to explain it to someone . . .

I'm just saying. Rob, Sarah . . . you have my deepest sympathies.

Lose the Jeep

Or maybe not lose it. But we probably don't need to know it's red yet.


Nathan Bransford, former literary-agent-turned-middle-grade-author, offered a critique of a first page for someone on his blog the other day. It's a fascinating look inside the editing process from someone who knows what he's doing, so it's well worth a look for the handful of you writers out there who don't already follow his blog. I find his red line markup especially helpful. Anyway, you can check it out HERE. He makes a GREAT point about the difference between writing and being writerly.

Seriously. Go read it. Then come back.


Well, hey again.


What caught my eye in the author's submission was the last sentence in her opening paragraph: The telephone rang, awakening me from a deep Valium-induced stupor. A disembodied voice said, ‘the Inn’s on fire’, and then the line went dead. The clock read 3:00 - the witching hour. I grabbed my dog. Still wearing pyjamas and slippers I jumped into my red Cherokee Jeep, and drove to The Witch’s Inn. 


It's the very first thing people are reading about your character and her world and her voice. So what really, REALLY needs to be there? Do we need to know that she drives a red Jeep Cherokee? And if we do need to know that because it tells us something about her character, do we need to know it very first thing? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Probably no.


Maybe we never need to know at all. Most likely at some point, as readers, we would like this little detail because the profile on someone driving a late-model Lincoln Town Car is far different than the profile on the person who is driving the red Jeep. It's a helpful clue.


Just not opening paragraph helpful.

I think this really caught my eye because I recently won a 1200 word critique from one of my dream agents, Sara Megibow. I sent her the most polished pages I could bleed out. I really thought I nailed it. 


She liked it. She didn't love it. But I'll tell you what she said and why.


Here's my first paragraph: Jolie fingered the remnant of soft gray corduroy in the moldy pile of fabric and wondered about her odds. Could she yank it out without toppling the massive stack on top of it? With a quick prayer to the imaginary saint of crazy hoarders, she jerked it and ducked, ping ponging her way between a wall of newspapers on one side and precarious piles of nearly everything else on the other.

 

Here's Sara's response:

Writing – You are using lots of imagery in the opening pages. Your writing is interesting, engaging, full of life. I really “feel” the chaotic, cluttered world that Jolie is navigating. A suggestion – it feels a wee bit as if you are trying too hard on the first two pages to insert details. It’s not a deal-breaker, just an observation. If I were reading this from the slush pile, my response would be along the lines of “new writer, trying too hard, a bit too wordy, hopefully it smoothes out.” For example:

“I fingered the remnant of soft gray corduroy in the moldy pile of fabric and wondered about my odds. (soft gray corduroy and moldy fabric) Could I yank it out without toppling the massive stack on top of it? (massive stakc) With a quick prayer to the imaginary saint of crazy hoarders, (quick prayer, imaginary saint, crazy hoarders) …I know this is just the opening paragraph and we think “goodness, that’s nitpicky” but it’s my observation. My suggestion would be to trim the details just a hair in order to make the narrative flow a bit more smoothly. ***

So, I'm thinking . . .yeah. Lose the Jeep.

Just what the world needs . . . another writing blog.

When I started my other blog, I thought I was going to spend all kinds of time writing and thinking about writing and blogging about reading.

But I realized as a novice writer, there's only so much to say.

And I quickly discovered that I'm not a super huge fan of people blathering on about writing when they don't really have any credibility. Meaning, they're not published.

I'm good with people talking about their journey and their thought processes, etc. I just don't think I can get behind someone setting themselves up as an expert on point-of-view or . . . you get the point. I'm always left with the same question: And how are you an expert?

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this new blog, or if it's even going to be a thing. I dunno.

But I've been thinking about writing so much lately, about the process of creating and breathing life into words and all of that good stuff that I had to let it out somewhere.

Oh, and also, it gives me an excuse to play around with templates. Because I needed another time waster in my life.