The Bestseller Puzzle Reading Challenge

You've heard of the Goodreads Challenge. I participate every year (but this may only be my third year--can't recall), but I do wish Goodreads tracked a category for books readers attempted but abandoned. You can only delete them or mark them as "read." The former might lead to you trying the same lousy book again, as middle-aged forgetfulness creeps up on you, and the latter just isn't true. All of which to say is, I "read" 125+ books last year, completing my challenge, but at least five of those were dumped books, and by "dumped" I mean I gave up usually before I hit the 5% mark.

Anyhow, I signed up for the Goodreads Challenge again in 2017 but thought I'd add my own variation to it and invite any of you to come along.

Welcome to....the Bestseller Puzzle Reading Challenge!!!

This Christmas I gave my youngest a puzzle, which we worked on together.

Very fun puzzle, and fascinating to see how many bestsellers I'd never read. Historically speaking, not every bestseller turns into a classic, but seeing which stand the test of time is too tempting to resist.

If you're a reading addict like me, this challenge won't be too daunting because you've probably already knocked off many of the titles. Which are (if you can't see them in the little picture):

1. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. (Done. Read it a couple years ago.)
2. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. (I should get credit for reading this about 800 times because I have three children.)
3. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. (Done in high school and again in grad school. Plus, I've seen it in movies and live several times--NOT THAT THAT COUNTS IN THIS CHALLENGE.)
4. Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metallious. (My book club read the original Peyton Place, and it was not high literature by any means. I may not get to this one for a while.)
5. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. (Another new one! I saw five minutes of the Maggie Smith movie, but again THAT COUNTS FOR NOTHING IN THIS CHALLENGE.)
6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. (I've only read a couple of these. Should be fun and annoying because Holmes is fun and annoying.)
7. Sanctuary by William Faulkner. (I have a love/hate relationship with Faulkner. I love As I Lay Dying and I've abandoned his incomprehensible The Sound and the Fury.)
8. To Kill a Mockingbird by the non-senile Harper Lee. (I think we can all safely cross this one off.)
9. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales edited by Maria Tatar. (Ooh! I put the library edition on hold for this one, since it's illustrated.)
10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. (Read this in grad school. Once is enough.)
11. Bare Fists by Marshall R. Hall. (This one may actually be the last to be completed. The story was published in a pulp magazine, and I bet I'll have to visit a library collection to see it.)
12. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. (Check.)
13. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. (Check check.)
14. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. (Check. Thanks, book club!)
15. The Case of the Lucky Loser by Erle Stanley Gardner. (Boom! The library has it. Thanks, KCLS.)
16. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. (Check. Great book, apart from Lucy Manet's ditherings.)
17. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk. (Just read it and it was fabulous!)
18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. (Looking forward to it.)
19. Animal Farm by George Orwell. (Somehow, growing up in California, neither Orwell book got assigned in high school. Now's my chance to correct that deficiency.)
20. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. (Check.)
21. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. (Read the play in college, saw the Liz Taylor version, bought the t-shirt. Done.)
22. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. (If you look carefully at the picture, you'll see Black Beauty somehow made it into the puzzle twice. What the heck? Does that mean I have to read it twice? I'm pretty sure I already have. I even remember my older sister crying over it.)
23. Stuart Little by E. B. White. (Check.)
24. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. (I'm guessing the dumb-show version in The King and I doesn't count.)
25. The Little Red Hen by ??? (The name is blocked out, but I've read all about this little red hen and understand her ungenerous mindset after years of slaving away for my ungrateful children.)
26. The Godfather by Mario Puzo. (Could it be anywhere as good as the movie?)
27. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. (I have high hopes the book will be so awful it's wonderful. Rather like the movie version.)
28. War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. (Sci-fi is a genre I am discovering in my middle age, and this one's so famous it's a shame I haven't yet read it.)
29. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. (This whole book challenge is so phony.)
30. Jaws by Peter Benchley. (Great fun.)
31. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. (East of Eden is still my favorite of his.)
32. Love Story by Erich Segal. (Yay! Can't wait!)
33. The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. (Which explains why Ralph Ellison called his novel Invisible Man, with no definite article.)
34. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. (Why did Peter get to bring his cat???)
35. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. (Just read it a few months ago, to see if my teenage son might like it. Uh...doubtful.)
36. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. (H. G.! Stop spinning out the bestsellers! Give someone else a chance!)
37. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. (It's hard to read books after you've seen an adaptation with Whoopie Goldberg, but I'll give it a shot.)
38. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. (All it takes is one year of gardening and a rabbit eating your sugar snap peas, and you will be firmly in Mr. MacGregor's camp.)
39. The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock. (Ooh! A period piece!)
40. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. (Check.)
41. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. (Check. Good book.)
42. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White. (Check.)
43. The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley. (Who knew it was a book?)
44. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. (Very dated, but we listened to the audio book and cringed our way through.)
45. 1984 by George Orwell. (See #19 comment.)
46. Heidi by Johanna Spyri. (I used to think the midday snack Heidi and Peter shared was the tastiest thing imaginable.)
47. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. (The rare case where it takes less time to read the book than to watch the movie(s)!)
48. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. (You can tell it's written by a man because no woman on the planet would breastfeed a grown man, even for the literary symbolism of it all.)
49. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. (A wonderful book that has never had justice done to it in film.)
50. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Ditto.)
51. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. (Strangely, a follow-up book to #6, but with a shorter title that makes you think the other one should be the follow-up.)
52. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, because, at this stage in the game, you need a freebie, and you already read this one at #22.
53. The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett. (Loved this. Loved her A Little Princess more, but this one was right up there.)

So there you have it! How many can you cross off, right off the bat? I've got 32 of 53 out of the way, which is the ideal way to start off a reading challenge, and the next BPRC book loaded on my Kindle is Erich Segal's Love Story. Whee!

Happy New Year to all.

Emily of Deep Valley Prep Questions (Mother-Daughter Book Club)

School is out, and it's time to kick off reading for the Mother-Daughter Dim Sum Book Club! If you're participating virtually, here's the info I sent out to our little circle of participants. It's a pretty sweet, simple read, so I hope they all enjoy it! My 14YO is hip-deep in Gone with the Wind right now, so Emily will probably seem pretty retiring after Scarlett O'Hara, but Emily picks herself up and dusts herself off as much as Scarlett does, and with a heckuva lot less collateral damage!

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EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY is a pretty short book, written in 1950, but set back in 1912. The author, Maud Hart Lovelace, wrote several books inspired by her own life and the lives of friends she grew up with.  So although the book was technically historical fiction by the time Lovelace wrote it, she was writing about a time she lived through herself.

When we read, here are some things to consider:

Title. Why did the author call it what she called it? What significance is it where Emily is from? How would Emily feel about being called "Emily of Deep Valley" at the beginning of the book? How would she feel about it by the end?

Setting. When and where is the book set? Why does that matter? Do the time and place have any impact on the options available to Emily? Look at the micro-settings, too. How does Emily feel about her home? Her cousin's home? The slough? Where, in Deep Valley, does she belong or not belong?

Characters. Who are the main characters in the book? How do they see Emily, and how does she see them?

Character Development. How does Emily grow and change, over the course of the story? What triggers these developments? How does her view of herself and of Deep Valley change?

Conflict. The conflict is what drives the story. What's at stake. If there's no conflict, there's no real plot. The conflict in Frozen, for example, is, can Anna save Elsa and their country from the destructiveness of Elsa's own powers, and can she restore their lost relationship? What is the conflict in EMILY? What might happen to Emily, if she cannot overcome/resolve the conflict?

Themes. Look at some of the recurring ideas in the book. Old-fashioned versus modern. Growth versus stagnation. Insider versus outsider. Defining yourself versus letting others define you. Do you notice any others, as you read?

Symbolism/Foreshadowing. These are standard literary devices, where an author uses one thing to represent or hint at something else. Look, for example, at "Decoration Day." Why have it twice in the book, near the beginning and at the end? What is the same, and what is different? How is Emily's attitude the same or different? Also look at when Emily is at Roxey's drugstore and sees "an attractive-looking girl" in the mirror, who turns out to be herself! How does this moment represent what is going on with Emily?

Allusion. An allusion is a reference to another book or work of art. Lovelace alludes to the Slough of Despond from John Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. How does that add to our understanding of the story?

And finally, a paragraph question, for some writing exercise! Pick one:

1. Emily picks a Shakespeare quote as a self-motivator: "Muster your wits; stand in your own defense." Why is this appropriate for her? If she has to defend herself, who are her accusers? What would they accuse her of?

2. What is the significance of Emily's slough, geographically and symbolically? How does it compare and contrast with Bunyan's Slough of Despond?

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And a last little reminder: hope to see some of you at University Book Store Bellevue this Saturday (6/28) at 5:00 p.m. for some Regency readings and ramblings!

Fights, Flirts, and Love Scenes

I suppose, for alliterative purposes, a better title for this post would have been "Fights, Flirts and Fistulas." Or "Fights, Flirts, and Farmworkers." But, since my topic is Dialogue and Favorite Scenes to Write, I'm afraid fistulas and farmworkers don't make the cut.

My time has been split this week between generating "lessons" for my online writing workshop and getting cracking on my latest fictional WIP. The two have something in common, though--getting me thinking about dialogue. Dialogue--the indispensable core of any good fight, flirt, or love scene.

The writing course, which I've titled "Polish and Publish," has its own private blog for students, complete with lessons, publishing how-tos, writing nuts and bolts, and homework. And one of the fun nuts-and-bolts posts I drafted this week was this one on Dialogue:

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I'm a dialogue fiend. Love the stuff. Good dialogue reveals character, moves the plot forward, makes the reader laugh or cry or swoon. Nor is it limited to fiction--even nonfiction histories get a boost when they quote conversations or correspondence, and self-help and instructional books get spiced up by anecdotes and case histories with a little back-and-forth.

One writer who consulted me about self-publishing told me that, when she first sent her MS to friends for review, they were gentle and encouraging, but several of them suggested she "add some dialogue." Reminded of that scene in Amadeus where Emperor Joseph tells Mozart his music has "too many notes," I asked, "Were there specific places they wanted more dialogue?" And she replied that, actually, her YA story had no dialogue at all! Wow. All I can say is, hang on to that critique group. They're on to something.

So let's talk turkey. What are some things we should put into practice with our dialogue, and what are some things to be avoided?

Do

• EAVESDROP! Hang out at a coffee shop and listen in. How do people talk? What do they say, and how do they say it? What is being said between the lines? Effective dialogue sounds like real people talking. I remember, with my first novel, sending in an excerpt to a literary contest. One judge commented that a certain character used a word that people don't really use in conversation. I would have agreed that that was something to be avoided, except that I myself tended to use that word in conversation. Alas. But in general, his advice was sound.


• USE DIALOGUE TO REVEAL CHARACTER. I touched on this in the Show-not-Tell discussion. Is your character witty? Tongue-tied? Bold? Insecure? Not a native speaker? Show us with his words.


• GIVE EACH CHARACTER A DISTINCT VOICE. Your readers should be able to tell your characters apart. I'm not saying dispense with dialogue tags, or give characters bizarre "tells," but do think about how people you know might have expressions they tend to use. Or different levels of education. Or different vocabulary. Or different styles of speaking. Some people take a very long time to get to the point; others lay it out there lickety-split. Some people worry what everyone else is thinking and spend a lot of time smoothing feathers; others are less sensitive. In one MS I edited, I noted that several of the characters used the same unusual exclamation when they were surprised or irritated, and I flagged it.


• USE IT TO MOVE THE PLOT ALONG. Not only does dialogue reveal character, but it can keep things in motion and add excitement. Consider:

Waving his gun, Henry ordered everyone to put their hands up. Duke bound them with cords and gagged the ones that were making too much noise.

Perfectly fine description of action, if a little ho-hum. Could the addition of dialogue accomplish the same thing, with a little more thrill?

"Put your hands up," Henry shouted, waving his gun. He jerked his chin at Duke. "Bind 'em."

"You won't get away with this," the bank manager declared amidst the screams and cries of the customers and tellers.

"And while you're at it," Henry added, "shut them up."

Used very occasionally, dialogue can also save us time, so the writer doesn't have to describe the action:

"There's something I wanted to tell you," Ray said. "No--just hang on a second. Sit down and hear me out."

When we read the lines above, we understand without being told that Ray's listener didn't want to hear it and tried to leave.

And now for the dialogue pitfalls to be avoided.


Don'ts

• Don't TAG EACH SPEECH if there are only two speakers present. The reader knows that, if it isn't one person speaking, it's the other. Just do it once in a while, so the reader doesn't lose track of who's speaking. In Cormac McCarthy's wonderful novel The Road, he opted out of quote marks and dialogue tags altogether. I understand the point he was making stylistically (spare-looking text for a spare world), but there were many times when I had to go back and count and track with my finger to tell who was talking!


• Don't MAKE EACH DIALOGUE TAG UNIQUE. Yes, sometimes speech calls for a special descriptive tag. He shouted. He snapped. He sobbed. But you have got to believe me that these should be used sparingly. If every tag is a unique action, you distract the reader from what your character is actually saying. Stick to "said" and "asked" for most dialogue, with a few different tags thrown in, if the action described is essential.


• Don't THROW IN EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK. While I recommended you eavesdrop on others' conversations, you might sometimes come to the conclusion that people talk about some pretty dull stuff indeed. Yes, they do. Therefore, when you write dialogue, don't feel obligated to include every last thing. Every last greeting and leavetaking. What everyone ordered in the cafe. All the chitchat they indulged in before they got to the point. Such minutiae can be dispensed with with a summary phrase or sentence: "After they ordered and the waitress was gone, they got down to brass tacks." Or, "After some small talk to set them at ease, Barbara pulled out her notes and said, 'As you know, the reason I called you here was to discuss XYZ...'" There are, of course, exceptions to this advice. You may be wanting to show how your characters stay on the surface and have little to talk about. Or how they are uncomfortable with each other and dance around the subject. Perfectly okay. But make your dialogue serve your stylistic purposes. (I would also recommend you don't lead off your story with a content-less conversation, or your reader might not hang around to see more.)


• Don't USE ANACHRONISTIC LANGUAGE. This "Don't" applies specifically to writers of historical fiction or, indeed, any story not set right now. When I was writing my ghost story, where one character came from the previous century, I frequently checked her vocabulary against the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary online. Would a particular word have been in use during her time, and would it have been used as she used it? I've even consulted the OED for slang usage in the mid-90s! Great resource. Sign in with your library card.

Tips aside, the best way to learn to write dialogue is to practice.

Dialogue Exercises:

1. Revise the following paragraph to include dialogue. Have fun with it!

Jim and Fay got in an argument about where to send their daughter to school. Jim was all for private school, but Fay thought the local public was just fine and could save them some money. As always, Jim thought she was being penny-wise and pound-foolish, which really was his mother-in-law's fault, if he thought about it, raising Fay as she did. But they couldn't really get into all that, not with little Ellie sitting there.

2. Choose a passage (up to a page) in your own writing and revise, focusing specifically on dialogue. Follow with a one-paragraph analysis of how and why you made changes.

And, as with all assignments, keep to the following guidelines.

1. Electronic files compatible with Microsoft Word;
2. Double-spaced;
3. Have 1-inch margins;
4. Have your name in the right-hand corner of the header;
5. Be typed in 12-point Times New Roman (Times, if you use a Mac).
6. Title the file “Dialogue Exercise for __(Title)________.”
7. Attach the file to an email and send it to CNDBookCoach@gmail.com!

© YourBestBookForward.com. All rights reserved.

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So back to my fights, flirts and love scenes. All good fights, flirtations, and love scenes feature plenty of dialogue, which may explain why they're my favorite things to write. I even want to script people's real-live fights. One friend told me about an argument she had with her husband, and I immediately said, "Ooh! Then did you say this and this and this?" She didn't. What? What an opportunity lost, and her husband went away thinking he was right, when he was really, really wrong! I briefly considered developing an online spousal fight-coaching clinic.

Sadly (if you were thinking of signing up), the fight-coaching clinic idea didn't get off the ground, and I redirected all those energies into fiction. My characters can fight all they like. Not to mention flirt all they like, and have as many love scenes as I allow them.

In my current WIP, I'm still getting to know my protagonists and how they relate to each other and those around them, so those favorite scenes remain to be written. Something to look forward to.

"I've always heard the Irish are partial to pigs."

If you've made it through this epic post, I'd love to hear some of your favorite writers for dialogue. I'll throw one out there: Margaret Mitchell. The back-and-forth between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler* is wonderful. Revealing, biting or flirtatious, unfolding on multiple levels, and often laugh-out-loud funny (Rhett's lines, that is). A close runner-up--the delightful repartee between Lord Peter Wimsy and Harriet Vane in Dorothy Sayers' mysteries.

And you? There are no wrong answers--not even Bella Swan and Edward "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb" Cullen!

(*More about Rhett later, since Gone with the Wind is one of the books Scott and I have chosen for this year's Literary Night. Theme: Homecoming.)