tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12892256562938169372023-06-20T21:54:27.189-07:00Florence's blogFlorence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-48647264724828173412019-03-17T09:01:00.000-07:002019-03-17T09:01:45.427-07:00History Repeating ItselfFriday, awaking to the horrific news of the massacre at the Mosques in Christchurch New Zealand, I was shattered to think it was happening again, still happening, starting once more. Hatred for the other seems to know no bounds.<br />
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In the past month, I completed a novel which begins with the pogroms in Lithuania in 1905, where hundreds of Jews were massacred because they were Jews. Yesterday, one hundred and fifteen years later, Muslims are murdered because they are Muslims. We do not seems to know how NOT to hate the other.<br />
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In 1905, pogroms barely made the news. Most people did not know about them. In 2019, the shooter posted live footage of his carnage and it went viral on social media. Everyone know what happened. But whether we are inundated with violence, week after week, or the stories are ignored, it does not seem to matter. People who hate will find a way to murder those who are different from them.<br />
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The numbers of good people who rush to help the victims, who deplore violence and try to stop it, far outstrips the numbers of deranged perpetrators, but we still cannot stop the murderers. <br />
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It is hard not to feel despair.<br />
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<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-42174519874517717522014-02-14T14:13:00.000-08:002014-02-14T14:13:23.490-08:00Finishing my novelI am feeling terrific.<br />
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Finally, finally, I have completed my novel in linked short stories, How To Make A Life. <br />
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It is the story of four generations of a family over one hundred years, from 1912 to 2012. The book traces the lives of the family members, sometimes through their own voices and sometimes through the voices of outsides, as they confront mental illness, accidental death, unfaithfulness, old age and illness, while they learn to love and forgive one another. The stories interweave as we learn about the fate of one character in the story of another and all are impacted by the events of the times.<br />
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I started writing this book with single stories, about six years ago. Gradually, I realized that I was writing about people who I felt were connected to one another, much the way family members are connected. I began to think about them as a family.<br />
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About three years ago I began to write stories that were deliberately linked, that followed the decades chronologically and over time, traced the children and grandchildren of the original characters. I got enormous satisfaction out of determining their fates, and writing their stories.<br />
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Now I will have to go down the long path of trying to publish the book. I will keep posting on the process, here.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-67039835758314651982013-04-19T14:57:00.001-07:002013-04-19T14:57:52.583-07:00World Events, My Life and My Fiction Like most of you, I have been glued to my television for the last few days, watching the wrenching events taking place in Boston, at the marathon and later in and around Cambridge and Watertown. I go about my daily routine and then come back to the TV to see the latest developments and watch the drama play out on my screen like scenes from The Bourne Identity, or another equally improbable movie. It is impacting my life on a day to day basis.<br />
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So is the explosion in Waco Texas at the fertilizer plant. I keep thinking about the people living nearby, feeling the blast like an earthquake, shaking their house and their security. I think about the shootings in Newtown Connecticut and Colorado and Hurricane Sandy, and the people I know who were impacted by these events. <br />
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And I think of the people in my stories. Every single one of them lives his or her life influenced by the events of the times. I have to remember to place them in real time and think about what was happening in the world when they were living, even if it was far away from them. Even if it only made them anxious and gave them bad dreams about tsunamis or about terror attacks, the world is always with them. Using real events in the world in my stories gives characters new ways to react. It enriches the story, gives readers a way to connect, to say, oh yes, I remember that.<br />
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I will go back over my linked short stories and make sure that I have used, whenever I can, the events that were taking place in the world during the time of the story. It's good advice for all fiction writers.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-17765147002215827452013-04-10T10:44:00.003-07:002013-04-10T10:44:55.281-07:00Bucket ListI was traveling with my husband for a week in Sicily, enjoying the vibrancy of the green hills, the different shades of green and yellow and pink that cover the land in early spring, trying to describe it in my head, feeling incredibly lucky that I am able to travel all over the world. As we drove through the country side we talked, as we often do, about what else is on our "Bucket List." <br />
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For the first time I realized that my bucket list consists of only one thing now: finish and publish my book. And after that, write another one (I already have ideas swimming in my head). It isn't that I've accomplished everything else I want to do in the world. It isn't that I have been everywhere in the world I want to go. It is that nothing right now is as important to me as giving life to my characters and putting them out there in the world.<br />
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The act of writing validates me, roots me in the world as nothing else does. I just got home and I am focusing on this one big goal; I will not stop until it is accomplished.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-70974369075374673192013-03-19T07:54:00.000-07:002013-03-19T07:54:13.378-07:00More on Writing What You Know and What You Don't Know I received a number of comments from my last blog on whether we writers should only write what we know. Lots of encouragement. "You go, girl." "It's good to take risks." "Don't be afraid to do something new."<br />
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One friend really got me thinking: "Do you feel like there's a difference in how creatively you can write when you write outside of your own experience?" Now that is a good question.<br />
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In some ways embellishing on a true story is harder than making one up. When I write about things I know, people I know, experiences I have had, I am always fighting the urge to tell it like it really happened. Also I worry about people recognizing the original event, saying "That's not what happened," or "I know where you got that idea." It can be inhibiting.<br />
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Here are some other random thoughts:<br />
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<li>I've noticed that for fiction, true happenings do not always make the richest and most interesting stories. It's necessary to intensify drama and change dilemmas to get a good story arc where characters learn and grow. That's probably true for some non-fiction also.</li>
<li>When I make up stories about people I don't know, having experiences I never had, in places I haven't been, I have to find a hook back to what I do know. But love is love, anger is anger, fear is fear, whether it is being felt by me or a big brawny man or a child. Hearts pound, throats close, hands shake. A jungle in Brazil is different from the rain forest in Costa Rica, but I can imagine the smells and sounds of one, having been in the other. So with research and delving deeply I can make connections. </li>
<li>Good writing always goes back to detail, particulars, honesty. When I write from experience the details that really hit the mark are already there. When I write from imagination I have to push myself more to pick the right ones.</li>
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The process of writing is fascinating. Writing this blog has made me look more carefully at what I am doing and why. I'm really glad I started doing it.</div>
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<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-7734893721329136222013-03-13T13:40:00.000-07:002013-03-13T13:40:14.694-07:00Should We Only Write What We Know? Beginning writers are always told to "write what you know,"and the advice is usually taken to mean "write about your own life and experiences." I have even been told by a well respected writing teacher that a woman or a man should never try to write from the perspective of the opposite sex--it simply won't ring true. For the most part, I guess, I've heeded that advice, and I have done what most new writers do. I've written about family, as I have known it. I've written about people, thinly disguised, that I have met. I've written about things that have happened to me or to others in my life, knowing that the details I can bring to the writing will make it come alive. And most of it, although not all, has been from a woman's point of view.<div>
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But I have begun to re-think this advice. If writers only write what we know, we would not have historical fiction, murder mysteries, science fiction or fantasies of any kind. The twenty year old Stephen Crane, born six years after the end of the Civil War, would never have been able to write The Red Badge of Courage, which depicted the terror of a young soldier in battle so well that veterans of the Civil War were convinced Crane had been there. So many bold and beautiful stories and novels have come from writer's imaginations and hard research that if we restricted writers to only write about what they know from first hand experience, it would be far too limiting.</div>
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Why am I thinking about this now? Because my penultimate story (the next to last one I am writing for my novel in linked stories) started out being about a road trip, camping across the United States. I have done that twice. But my main character is a retired cop, a veteran of World War Two and a man--none of which I have been. He meets a Viet Nam veteran. I haven't been that either. I'm a little scared to be writing this story, although it seems to be propelling itself where the characters need to go. Truth to tell, I'm a little scared posting this blog too and exposing my <i>chutzpah</i> in writing about something I don't know from my own experience. </div>
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But I'm going to do it anyway. And if it rings true to my first reader (my husband) and my second readers (the seven wonderful writers in my Monday night writing group) then I will include it in my novel of linked short stories. Let's see what happens.</div>
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-88686997107505161112013-03-07T07:18:00.000-08:002013-03-07T07:18:46.130-08:00I'm Back<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> I took a long break from my blog: life, family, weather and lots of travel got in the way. Then it became harder and harder to get back to it. How do you start</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> after three months away? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> Last week my very good friend presented me with an entree. She told me that her adult daughter, a wonderful, burgeoning writer, had asked what happened to Florence's Blog? She said she missed it. She said she was interested in what I had to say about writing and linking short stories into a novel! That gave me an incentive to start up again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> My writing teacher suggested I should start with what I found useful about writing a blog that focuses on linking short stories. So here's my list of what I like about blogging, and what I hope to offer other people through it:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">1. Blogging makes me </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">concentrate on the linkages in my story/novel. It was through my blogs that I realized I needed at least one family story for each decade between 1941, when the novel starts, and 2012, when it ends. Otherwise the gaps were too huge. Other novels in linked short stories would have to have another kind of thread going throughout, but you always need a thread.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">2. Blogging makes me think about story arc...not just the individual story, but the arc of the novel from one story to the next. If I haven't done it already, I need to drop in references to former events and characters in other, earlier stories.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">3. Blogging pushes me forward. When I was writing a blog each week, it made me think actively about my writing, and my novel. How much was already written? How much was there still to write? If I'm not producing I have nothing to write about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"> So now I am ready to put myself out there again. I am anxious to finish the first draft (almost there, and more about that next time). I am looking forward to posting regularly over the next months.</span></div>
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-80420055902634970232012-12-09T07:24:00.000-08:002012-12-09T07:24:51.265-08:00Hurricanes, Holidays and Hiatuses Life does get in the way. First there was Hurricane Sandy at the end of October, and although we were more inconvenienced than hurt, we did have two weeks without power and the internet.<br />
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Then came preparations for Thanksgiving and the shopping and cooking for twenty-five guests on Thursday and various groups of family all the rest of the weekend.<br />
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Finally there was a long awaited adventure trip to Costa Rica with kayaking, whitewater rafting and hiking. And all the while I kept thinking I should be writing, I should be writing. And I actually did make some notes for another story in my novel of linked stories.<br />
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But suddenly it is December, and my self-imposed deadline to finish the first draft of the book by the end of the year is looming. I have to face the fact that it is probably not realistic any more. I still have two stories to write. I think I know what they will be about, but they are currently floating amorphously on the right side of my brain.<br />
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So I have to ask myself, is it terrible to let self-imposed deadlines slip, or just disappointing? And if I am disappointed in myself, can I stop the self flagellation and get on with the writing? I guess there is no other choice. Sit down at the computer, or at the table with notebook and pen, and just get to it.<br />
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And keep the mantra going: I'm almost there, I'm almost there, I'm almost there.<br />
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-44694316070298789032012-10-16T14:08:00.002-07:002012-10-16T14:10:06.658-07:00Surprise! I have often heard writers say that while they were writing, thinking they were going in one direction, their characters took on a life of their own and insisted on going another way. I barely believed it, myself....that is until last week.<br />
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There I was, convinced I knew the reason that my character behaved the way she did, when all along she had a secret that she kept from me. It came out, as a total surprise, in a conversation she was having with her daughter. It put a whole new slant on her behavior and explained better than I ever could have why she felt guilty and depressed. (And no, I am not going to reveal it here. You will have to read the story and be surprised.)<br />
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The thing is, it made the rest of the story flow so much more easily. I won't say it wrote itself, but I did complete the story quickly, and I like the result.<br />
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I don't think I can force my people to "take over," or reveal a hidden truth. But if I try to really know them, to be true to their lives and their characters it may happen to me again. I would be very happy with another surprise.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-28384594130849057992012-10-10T10:23:00.001-07:002012-10-10T10:23:17.245-07:00Figuring out a Plot Summary This week I was assigned to write a plot summary in my novel writing course. I'd been thinking of the story arc, the map of my book, with birth-dates and marriage-dates and death-dates, but I hadn't thought of a plot summary. If I'm calling it a novel I guess it should have a plot.<br />
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In my mind the characters intertwine in the stories, which take place over the decades from 1941 through 2012. Although a story may be about one character, in each we learn about what has happened to some of the others. Ruby's mental illness impacts her siblings, her husband, her children throughout the book. Sam's recklessness causes a rift between his sister and wife, and ultimately the loss of everything. We see some of the siblings age badly, others well. Their children and grandchildren are impacted also. But this is not a plot.<br />
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As a stop-gap I listed the stories I plan to use. Seeing them on the page, with the names of the characters and their connections to one another, helps me to think of the book as a whole, instead of as individual stories. I am wondering if the connections are enough, and I am busy reading other books of linked short stories to see how the authors handled the question of plot. I am looking at recent books, like Molly Ringwald's "When It Happens to You," Elizabth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge," and Amy Bloom's "Where The God of Love Hangs Out." There are older books too, such as "The Women of Brewster Place," by Gloria Naylor. I will continue to do research as I complicate my character's lives with more and more conflict.<br />
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And meanwhile, I have a flash fiction story called "Home Visit," published as a Showcase story on the homepage of Echook Digital Publishing. Go to www.echook.com. and look for my picture.<br />
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<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-80618326024432012162012-10-03T08:43:00.004-07:002012-10-03T08:48:38.507-07:00A private writing retreat Last weekend my friend Virginia and I spent two days, without husbands, kids, grandkids or friends, at my house in the Berkshires, writing, sharing each others morning production, walking, talking, dreaming. The weather contributed. It rained on and off all weekend, reducing the temptation to spend all our time outdoors, where the trees were showing off their fall foliage.<br />
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We both got a huge amount done. Somehow, knowing Virginia was in another room writing away, was an incentive for me to stick to my computer and produce new pages. I also spread out my "map" of family, dates and stories, and revised it, updating with new information, cutting out characters, changing a few names.<br />
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My novel in linked short stories now has a more complete story arc. I identified three gaps in the arc and began to work on the first story to fill it. I have renewed energy and excitement for my project and I am moving forward with it.<br />
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And Virginia and I have "penciled in" our next writing retreat.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-65190006472782359942012-09-22T08:09:00.001-07:002012-09-22T08:09:39.751-07:00Examining my own Process I have started a process notebook. On the advice (and assignment) of a novel writing teacher, I have begun to write a daily journal of what I am writing and how I am feeling about it. I've set myself a goal of five pages a day, and, at the end of my session I plan to collect my thoughts and jot them down.<br />
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This week I was re-writing the third story in my novel of linked stories. I am sure I generated five new pages, in bits and pieces, but the new production of pages definitely fell off. Two of the days were holiday--the Jewish New Year--and I didn't write. That left three days of work. Well, I finished the story. I am reasonably happy with it. I will let it sit for a while and then re-read it to see how it feels.<br />
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This is what I also realized, something I knew but didn't articulate. I find re-writing a lot easier than producing new material. My imagination takes off around the scenes I created, and I can open up, enrich and deepen the material I wrote. But re-writing doesn't substitute for generating pages. And now I know that every day, even if I am re-working a story or part of the novel, I need to start my day with free-writing new work. I have to remind myself that I can let those first pages come out as stupidly as they wish. No one is going to rush out and publish it as it is.<br />
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-16915087457567716102012-09-04T12:15:00.001-07:002012-09-04T12:15:50.919-07:00September Song September feels like the real New Year. The lazy vacation days are over. School is starting. The weather is getter cooler and, yes, in my culture it is the New Year, with the high holidays coming sometime in this marvelous month.<br />
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In September I feel like I am coming up from a long, slow swim underwater, taking a deep breath and swimming along with my head bobbing above the waves, looking for the shore. The shore is where I will put my feet on the ground and get back on the trail.<br />
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In September I do not make resolutions. I make to-do lists. Sometimes my lists read like resolutions: I list things like clean my drawers out, practice my piano, take a walk or a yoga class. Each day, on my to-do list I have a line of telephone calls to make: the piano tuner, my dermatologist, my podiatrist. <br />
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In September I start new things. Maybe because school begins in September I have always begun new projects in the fall. I pick up a book at a book sale on having beautiful indoor gardens. I plan our theater subscriptions. I change my clothes from summer to in-between, meaning more long pants and shirts and fewer shorts and tees.<br />
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But no matter what, my daily to-do list always starts with one imperative. WRITE. I am trying to get myself to write a certain number of words or pages each day. And I get great satisfaction from checking each item off my list. And if I do it every day, I know I will finish my novel of linked short stories. I did not complete the first draft by Labor Day, as I had promised I would. But I did make great progress this summer. And I think I will have it done before the end of the year! Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-7747115088546286932012-08-06T08:09:00.001-07:002012-08-06T08:09:51.434-07:00Playing Favorites Sometimes, as writers, we fall in love with sentences or phrases we have used in a story and, while we are editing we move heaven and earth to keep them in the text, even when they may not be serving a useful purpose. I know we should "kill those little darlings."<br />
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I like some of my stories better than others. Perhaps they come from a deeper spot inside me, or convey a truth that particularly represents how I feel. Sometimes it is just that I like the cadence of the words, the sounds of the sentences. Certain phrases may stick in my head and keep repeating over and over.<br />
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One such story is in the August issue of The Blotter Magazine (<span style="background-color: white; color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;">www.</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px;">blotter</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;">rag.com/</span>). It is called "A Normal Man," takes place in a Bikram Yoga Studio and describes a certain New York experience which is dear to my heart. It is also has a complex construction, using present, past and future, to give a full picture of the characters and the lives they are living, lived and will live. I like the way it works. You can check it out at the website above. <br />
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But it's important not to get too attached to the stories, or sentences or phrases in them. We need to write them down and move on. There is more where that came from, more waiting to be written. We just have to get to it.<br />
<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-52287741107259769612012-07-27T07:11:00.001-07:002012-07-27T07:11:51.386-07:00Did That Really Happen? People always ask me if my stories are autobiographical. "Did that really happen?" they ask. I always respond the same way. "I write fiction," I say, "not memoir." Of course, if I am being totally honest, I admit that many of the experiences are based on life.<br />
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In one of my stories the heroine climbs Mt Kilimanjaro. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and wrote about each breathless step from my visceral memory, but my story, "Push," (published in <i>Peeks and Valleys</i>) is about my character's climb, not mine. <br />
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I traveled to India, and the sights and sounds and impressions of that immensely colorful country are re-created in my story "A Hard Place for Soft Women," (published in the <i>Evening Street Review</i>). But the story is not about me; it's about a daughter, her mother and her aunt and how their different ways of experiencing the world impact their relationships. <br />
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I take Bikram Yoga twice a week, sweating for ninety minutes in a room heated to close to one hundred degrees. In my story "A Normal Man," my character sweats through his first Bikram class while reliving his marriage. His marriage, not mine. You can read that story in <i>The Blotter</i>, coming out August 1 at www.blotterrag.com. <br />
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My novel in linked short stories is about multiple generations of a large extended family. I come from a large extended family. Am I writing about my family? No--with reservations. Some of the events in the novel were triggered by events in my family, but the people are made up and so, ultimately, are the stories themselves. If, as Tolstoy said, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," then, since the stories are often about unhappy families, or troubled families, or families going through a crisis, each family is different from the others, and also different from mine.<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-64606090056903634702012-07-12T10:21:00.001-07:002012-07-12T10:21:46.112-07:00Writing From Scratch At my Monday night writer's group we were talking about how hard it is to write the first draft of a story. One of my colleagues who is writing a YA novel said, "If I had known how hard it would be to write I don't think I ever would have started. It's agony." Another, an experienced published writer, whose work I greatly admire, said she has been spending time doing research for a creative non-fiction piece she wants to write, but every time she gets near starting she decides she needs to do more research. "Anything to avoid the blank page."<br />
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I was reminded of something I read years and years ago as advice to a novice writer. It was: <i>Let those first words come out as stupidly as they like. No one is going to rush out and publish it as it is. </i>Over the years that has become a sort of mantra to me. Every time I face the computer and am about to start a new piece of writing, I repeat those two sentences. I tell myself over and over again, just get it down, get anything down. You can change it and revise it and rearrange it and polish it a million times over before you send it out for anyone to see. <br />
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In fact I am aware that I am doing that very thing right now, just getting it down. And after I get it down I will reread it and make sure it says what I want it to say before I push the button at the top of the page that says <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: orange;">Publish</span>.<br />
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-10316981191409645202012-07-04T04:12:00.001-07:002012-07-04T04:12:50.216-07:00Current Events Shorthand One of my writing teachers, June Gould, often told our class, not only to look to our inner thoughts and feelings when we are writing but also to look to the outside world. I have taken that advice to heart, and many of my linked stories are rooted in the happenings in the world at large.
This is especially true because my stories span the years from 1941 and WWII up to 2012.<br />
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There are so many events to chose from that impacted people during those years. After WWII there was the Korean War, Kennedy's assassination, the Civil Rights movement, Woodstock, Viet Nam, the Challenger, and of course, the defining event of this relatively new century--9/11. I could go on and on. <br />
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While every story is rooted in the current events of the time, in some the event is more important than in others. In one a character's whole future revolves around getting to the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. In other stories it is a passing vignette: the character is reading a newspaper headline that shows him in a particular time and place.<br />
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Placing the stories in the midst of current events, helps me to figure out what the characters are thinking and feeling and doing. None of us live in a vacuum. My characters live in the world at large and that world shapes the way they think and act, just like the events of 2012 shape me. Putting the characters in a specific time and place tells the reader many things about them, without my saying it on the page. It is a kind of current events shorthand.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-66119186582654204252012-06-25T18:51:00.000-07:002012-07-04T04:13:18.516-07:00TMI: Too Much Information I am writing a new "Story 2" and in my haste to make sure that it links clearly to "Story 1" I noticed that I was putting in too many names and relationships from the first story. I had to remind myself that the linkages have to happen naturally and each story has to stand alone. If I put information in one story about a character in another story, there has to be a reason--and it had better relate to the one being read at the time.<br />
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That is the most important thing to remember. Each story has to stand alone. Too much data from a previous story, or foreshadowing of something that will happen in a later story, will compromise the integrity of the story I am working on. I will confuse the reader with names and information that really belongs someplace else.<br />
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The linkages have to be subtle. The reader should come upon them and say, "Oh, that's what happened to Ruby. I wondered about that." It should satisfy the reader's curiosity without infringing on the interest, the plot or the characters of the story that is being told.<br />
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It is tempting to put in everything I know about the characters, the background and the events that happen to them, but it is dangerous. Plainly, too much information, gets in the way of a clean story line and can often confuse the reader.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-27035563466848790832012-06-18T09:00:00.000-07:002012-06-18T14:39:10.606-07:00Jotting It Down Ideas occur to me at the most inopportune moments. I am driving my car for the ten-thousandth time down I-95 to the Mamaroneck Avenue exit on my way to the city. I am loading or unloading the dishwasher, or worse, sudsing a pot with my hands full of Brillo. I am power-walking with weights, far from pencils, paper or computer. <br />
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I have learned, sadly, that I can't rely on my failing memory to retain these gems. If I'm in the house, anywhere near a pad and pencil, or on the street or in a store with my purse on my shoulder, I can stop and jot the idea down in the little red notebook stored in my bag. Somehow the act of writing it down cements the idea in my head, even if I never look at the note again. But when I'm driving, I can't write it down. I've taken to repeating out loud, over and over again, whatever it is I am trying to remember: "Max sees a photo of his sister Frieda's wedding and remembers;" "Sarah's red hair is from her grandmother Ruby." I say it several times and hope it sticks until I am somewhere safe to write it down in my red book.<br />
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But it's amazing how even then, I reach my destination and the brilliant nugget has drifted out of my head. I have completely forgotten it--until I am lying in bed in a half awake state, just before drifting off to sleep. Then I battle with myself: get up and jot it down on the pad on my bedside table, or fall asleep with the half formed idea in my head believing I will remember it in the morning. Usually, if I don't write it down, it is gone forever. In the battle between an act of discipline and an act of faith, I know which one works better every time.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-51143386214443693522012-06-11T08:42:00.000-07:002012-06-11T08:42:11.131-07:00Thinking Like A Novel A funny thing happened on the way to linking my short stories. I started thinking about them as a novel. Yes, I know that each story has to stand alone, with its own beginning, middle and end and its own conflicts and story arc. But the stories also have to comprise, all together, a story arc for all of the family going through the years. <br />
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It is amazing how the idea of the novel has taken over the process of linking the stories. <br />
Suddenly I am focusing on time passing, what happens to each character, how one character's events impact on another's life. Over seventy-one years each family branch in this extended family tree has marriages, births, deaths, love affairs, disappointments, accomplishments. I found that a simple family tree is not enough of a map.<br />
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My family map now has notations in each column. What impact does Matti, Anne and Paula's trip to India have on Karen when she thinks about it? How old is Ellie when Karen goes to Africa? What world events impact which character? I fill in the time line for each person and note how old each is at which time, even in the stories in which they don't appear.<br />
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This process engages my mind even when I'm not actively writing. I find it is, surprisingly, fun.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-55554684286070119492012-06-05T07:49:00.000-07:002012-06-05T07:51:55.426-07:00A Map of My Family I've spent a good part of the past week working on a map of my family...my fictional family, that is, not my real live family. I made a spread sheet on Excel tracing each of the six children who appear in the first of my linked stories, delineating the dates of their births and marriages, their children's births and marriages, down three generations.<br />
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Next to each of the separate genealogical lines I wrote the names of the completed stories in which the characters appear; I also wrote the dates when the stories take place and any world events which happened at the same time. WWII, John F. Kennedy's assassination, Woodstock, The Challenger disaster, 9/11, all impacted the world and thus the individuals I am writing about.<br />
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When looked at on one large sheet of paper I can see how the sweep of world events was important in the lives of the family members. I also saw a few gaps. I have no stories set in the 70's and 80's. I am thinking hard about that since twenty years in a family's life is noticeable in a novel told in stories. I may have to write one or two more tales to fill in the holes.<br />
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In the meantime, I still have unpublished stories circulating to print journals and e-zines, hoping to find a home. Happily one has just been accepted for publication in Writes for All, a new on-line magazine. I will post the link as soon as it appears.<br />
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Meanwhile check out a couple of my earlier on-line stories:<br />
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"Home Visit" which is in the Archives of The Boston Literary Magazine, Fall 2007 under Quick Fiction and "What They Tell Her" which is in the Archives, Fall, 2008 under Flash Fiction: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;">www.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;"><b>bostonliterarymagazine</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009933; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;">.com/</span> <br />
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"Distant Relations" which is in the Archives of The Write Room, November, 2010: <a href="http://cs.infospace.com/ClickHandler.ashx?ru=http%3a%2f%2fwww.thewritemag.com%2f&du=www.thewritemag.com%2f&ld=20120604&ap=1&app=1&c=cablev.assist.search&s=cablevassistsearch&coi=239137&cop=main-title&euip=69.117.52.146&npp=1&p=0&pp=0&pvaid=34430755566c4eeb84481e94305f35c9&ep=1&mid=9&hash=A71583F1B6E6260F6A7AF2C2974A44D5">www.thewritemag.com/ </a><br />
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"How to Make a Life," which is in the current issue of SNReview at <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="http://www.SNReview.org/" target="_blank">www.SNReview.org</a></span><br />
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"It's Him I Hate," in June, 2007 issue of WriterAdvice: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="http://www.writeradvice.com/">www.writeradvice.com</a></span><br />
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<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-3374374562308209102012-05-29T08:52:00.000-07:002012-05-29T08:52:28.132-07:00Making Bad Things Happen to Good People A writer friend of mine commented to me recently that she has a hard time making the stakes high enough for the characters in her stories. I understood what she meant. I frequently have the same problem. I like my characters and I feel uncomfortable making bad things happen to them.<br />
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As I am going through my stories, linking them to one another, I am constantly evaluating whether the conflicts and problems that I present my characters with are high enough stakes to matter. And they have to matter not only to the original character but to succeeding generations as well since what happens in one story reverberates in the others. <br />
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If a character suffers from mental illness, or a character divorces or dies, it is easy enough to see how others can be touched by the crisis. But not every story is about life or death. Some stories involve little changes and small developments; the impact on a character's life can seem subtle at first, and then have larger implications later. My job is to make the conflict, the crisis or the problem be important enough to change the trajectory of a character's life, to make it believable, to make it heartfelt, to make it matter.<br />
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Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-47668130286870706652012-05-20T15:39:00.000-07:002012-05-20T15:39:54.298-07:00Plan your Work and Work Your Plan I have made a plan. By Labor Day I will have the flow of my linked stories completed, and all the stories will fit together. How to get it done is the big question.<br />
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There are fifteen weeks until Labor Day. I made a calendar delineating the progress I expect to make each week. Although each story has to stand alone, perfectly complete with a beginning, a middle and an end, each story must also contain the seeds of another--a character or event, a mention of something that links back or forward to another story. I have picked the ten to twelve stories, already written, that I hope will comprise the collection which traces the four generations of family. Now I have to refine the stories and make the links work.<br />
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This week I am rewriting the first story of the collection, "Ruby 1941-1945." The plan is to complete the first edit and go on to story number two, "Earth, Air, Fire, Water." On my calendar I have the names of the stories, the names of the characters, the dates and events that weave back and forth. I intend to complete a genogram, or family tree, so that I have a visual picture of the four generations. <br />
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If I stick to my plan then, as I say above, 'by Labor Day I will have the flow of my linked stories completed, and the stories will fit together.' To do that I have to work the plan. <br />
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<br />Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-79046177362269763612012-05-15T07:12:00.000-07:002012-05-15T07:13:02.025-07:00Hitting The Doldrums...Again<br />
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I was complaining in my writing class this week. I could not seem to progress with my book. I had decided the stories had no merit. They all needed to be rewritten. There was no conflict. Why would anyone want to read them? Even I didn't. </blockquote>
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I had started this project of linking short stories with absolute certainty that there were enough of them and they were related, and suddenly I was not so sure. What had happened to the thirteen stories I thought had? Now that I had decided they were all terrible--except maybe the ones that had already been published--I didn't have enough.</blockquote>
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Which characters were worth writing about? Following? I couldn't decide. Where was the fire? Where was the passion? I had none.</blockquote>
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My writing teacher asked "What was the thread that connected one story to another? Can you find a question you can ask at the beginning of the first story and answer by the end of the last one?"</blockquote>
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I went to sleep thinking about this, and in the magic way the unconscious works, I awoke with the beginnings of an answer. These are family stories. They revolve around the ways the family members connect one to the other, the ways they come together and the ways they split apart. So the overriding question is can we keep our connections and what happens when we don't? </blockquote>
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It helped to pose the question. I saw there was conflict, and plenty of it. I began to rethink the story links, to put together the family tree and watch what happened when a character in one story was impacted by something that happened to a character in another story. Slowly it began to make sense again. I hope I can keep the focus.</blockquote>
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But I am aware that this process is not a straight line; it is a kind of zig-zag. And I expect I will be in the doldrums again as I go through the work. The trick is not to stay there.</blockquote>Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1289225656293816937.post-76407835980380203162012-05-07T08:23:00.000-07:002012-05-07T08:24:23.537-07:00A Simple Name Change Can Help Link Your Stories It is amazing how the simplest change can link one story to another. In my writing I am linking previously published stories to others that have not yet been published. In doing so I realized, of course, that names must remain consistent in all the stories.<br />
One of my published stories, The Black Umbrella, which appeared in the 2008 Edition of The Westchester Review, was about a member of the first generation of my fictional extended family when he was an old man. This character's name was Sam. <br />
I have since written several other stories about the family and realized that I had also used the name Sam for a brother-in-law in that first generation. All of these first generation people appear in one story, and as I began to draw a family tree, with its marriages, divorces, births and deaths, I settled, once and for all, on each character's name. The brother-in-law in that first family became 'Sam.' The old man needed a different name; he became 'Max.'<br />
I went back to The Black Umbrella, nicely stored in a folder on my computer, and, with a simple "Search and Replace" function, changed Sam to Max throughout the story. I saved the story in a new folder, called Linked Stories.<br />
To underline the connection, I also wrote a new sentence in which the old man, who was already looking at a wall of old family photographs in one scene in the Black Umbrella, sees a sepia colored wedding photo of his brother-in-law and sister. Thus these two men are forever linked to one another in two completely separate stories which trace family lives over four decades.Florence Reiss Krauthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00632936873666045419noreply@blogger.com0