Susanna Daniel http://susannadaniel.com Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:35:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Bookzilla http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/30/bookzilla/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/30/bookzilla/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:57:41 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=776 The weeks leading up to the release of one’s first book, I’m finding, is very much like the time leading up to one’s wedding — it’s pretty much the only thing on my plate, crowding out most everything else. In addition to all the worrying — and, me being me, there’s a lot — I’m [...]]]> The weeks leading up to the release of one’s first book, I’m finding, is very much like the time leading up to one’s wedding — it’s pretty much the only thing on my plate, crowding out most everything else. In addition to all the worrying — and, me being me, there’s a lot — I’m also planning a great big launch party.

I’m doing this because, as I’ve said before, I was told again and again by writer friends that for the Big Day, which for me feels pretty much on par with other big days in my life, like the day I married my husband and the day my only son was born, a person really should make her own celebration.

My husband and I aren’t the type to do things quietly — so this party is shaping up to be significantly larger than only other really big party we’ve thrown together. Except this one is at our house. Which is not anywhere near as large as the grounds of the historic site where we were betrothed.

There are other similarities: I’m not sleeping well (evidenced by the bleary 4:30am blog post), I’m disproportionately concerned about what I plan to wear, and I’ve become an insufferable bore who can only think and talk about one thing. I am working through a to-do list like my life depends on it; today I toted my toddler on a total of eight errands. (He was a trooper, despite that fact that his mother was, and continues to be, a bit of a madwoman.)

In the flurry of something like a wedding or a book launch, it’s likely — especially for scatter-brained me — that I will forget to acknowledge publicly some of the people who were instrumental in making the day happen.

Like all my in-laws, who are experts in logistics and planning and execution — not to mention terrifically supportive — and without whom neither the book nor the party could happen. And especially my sister-in-law who is handling part of the food, who is infinitely more capable of doing so than I, and my mother-in-law, who has taken on the act of worrying about logistics right along with me.

And my husband, who when I said, tentatively, “Maybe we should have a little party,” replied with enthusiasm, “We should have a BIG party!”  And who matches every minor detail I relate during this phase of Bridezilla-like one-track-mindedness with seemingly bottomless interest and camaraderie. (Sometimes I think that’s a big chunk of what makes a marriage — can your partner match your obsession over minutiae? If so, then put a ring on it!)

And my friends, close and semi-close and even could-be-close-if-only-we-saw-each-other-more, who have been so unbelievably supportive that I want to give each of them a hand-made gift and make them a three-course-meal.

Special note here for my friends Jen and Ashley, who sent me the sweetest package this morning, ahead of my party — which they can’t attend because we all live ridiculously far away from each other — and who have been the bridesmaids to my bridezilla, responding to every little book-related communication with unflagging glee or consternation. Another note for Heather, who is pregnant with her second and is flying in from Canada (with only an hour to pack after getting home from a different trip) for one night, to help with the party. I know that I’m not nearly as generous, committed, or energetic — but you inspire me to try to be!

As excited as I am for the party and the launch in general, I’m also looking ahead, to that quieter time afterward, when the party is over and the book is out there and my long marriage to it — and I hope it’s long! — is underway. And I’m looking ahead to a time when I can really shift my focus to Number 2, which right now is being sorely neglected, like a well-liked acquaintance who didn’t make the cut when the guest list was settled.

For now, I hope I can remember — and I’m not sure I completely succeeded in this at that other big celebration, my wedding — to really enjoy it while it’s happening.

–Sd

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/30/bookzilla/feed/ 0 My secret is out on Slate.com http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/16/my-shameful-secret-is-ou/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/16/my-shameful-secret-is-ou/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:16:48 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=747 I don’t know if I’ve ever answered the question “How long did it take you to write your novel?” the same way twice. I don’t mean to lie — it’s just that it’s a loaded question, to say the least.

This week, I answered the question at length for Slate. Please check it out.

I’m getting the [...]]]> I don’t know if I’ve ever answered the question “How long did it take you to write your novel?” the same way twice. I don’t mean to lie — it’s just that it’s a loaded question, to say the least.

This week, I answered the question at length for Slate. Please check it out.

I’m getting the feeling, already, that I’m not alone. What a wonderful thing to know.

–Sd

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/16/my-shameful-secret-is-ou/feed/ 1 Hardcover in the house http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/06/hardcover-in-the-house/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/06/hardcover-in-the-house/#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:35:19 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=723 So here’s my experience of receiving one hardcover copy of STILTSVILLE (and only the one I’ve received so far — my editor sent it out hot off the presses, and my contract copies will follow at a later date):

The package arrived. I opened it. Then I put the book high up on a shelf, and [...]]]> So here’s my experience of receiving one hardcover copy of STILTSVILLE (and only the one I’ve received so far — my editor sent it out hot off the presses, and my contract copies will follow at a later date):

The package arrived. I opened it. Then I put the book high up on a shelf, and ignored it for twenty-four hours.

The toddler agrees with Booklist that Mama's book is "written with great delicacy and discretion"!

I can’t say why, exactly. After twenty-four hours, I started circling it like a buzzard, stealing sideways glances. Finally, I picked it up. I looked again at my weird author photo. I read the acknowledgments, tentatively.

On my next circle around, I picked it up again and read one paragraph from the middle of the book. OK, that wasn’t too painful. I actually kind of enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll read another . . .

Another twenty-four hours later, I’d read roughly fifty paragraphs, all chosen at random, and all while standing next to the bookshelf, ready to drop the book back into the shelf at any moment.

But, hey, this isn’t so bad! I thought. I actually like a few of these sentences. I’m not cringing at every turn of phrase — I actually think some of this reads pretty well! Sure, I’d change this word if I had another go at it, and I’d maybe drop this sentence, and maybe add something here to clarify meaning . . . But again, I’m not having tremors or running screaming from the book.

To my surprise, I was actually kind of enjoying the experience of reading random chunks of my novel.

Twenty-four hours later, I sat down on my living room sofa, the book in hand. My toddler son was shooting hoops on the back porch, my husband was making dinner. I opened the book at the very beginning, on the dedication page.

I read the title page, the blank pages, and the first page of the first chapter. Still not so bad. I sipped from my lemonade. I relaxed.

Then, my stomach dropped. There it was. What I’d been dreading, and what I knew — though I hoped against hope — I would eventually find.

A typo. And not deep into the novel, around page 200 or so, where it might be swept up into the momentum of the narrative. No, this typo is on page 9.

Let me say that I pride myself on being a pretty clean writer. Even my first drafts are pretty clean, though not perfect, of course. I have training as an editor, and still read with that eye for mistakes. But what I didn’t realize before going through the publishing process is that most of the typos in a book — and there are always typos in a book — are not made by the author, because the author’s mistakes are fixed early on by the slew of editors, proofreaders, and copyeditors who work on the manuscript when it’s at its roughest.

That’s not to place blame elsewhere, but rather to highlight how many times a book is read — and improved — before it’s published, and how many times fixes are made. And we all know what happens when we mark up a manuscript and then input our corrections — a few new little typos are made. And then those are fixed and a [much smaller] number of even newer typos are made. And then those are corrected, and so on.

The book must be get out the door sometime, after all.

I understand how it happens, and I am certain that the people who worked on it did much, much, much more good than harm. But still, I had to put the book down. I will probably pick it up again when that feeling that makes my stomach turn and my shoulders tighten and my face flush fades a little.

And really, it’s wonderful to finally have the finished product, even if it’s just going to sit on a shelf. It’s wonderful to put it in my toddler son’s lap and watch him point to the jacket photo and say, “Mama!”

“That’s right,” I tell him. “Mama’s book.”  Mama’s book. My book. And, truly, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

–Sd

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/07/06/hardcover-in-the-house/feed/ 2 Win book club picks for a year (including 10 copies of STILTSVILLE) http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/28/win-book-club-picks-for-a-year/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/28/win-book-club-picks-for-a-year/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:49:22 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=697 The writer Leah Stewart has just announced a contest meant specifically for book clubs. Forty-eight writers — including me — have offered 10 copies of a book, and 4 book clubs will win enough books to keep them going for a year (12 books, 10 copies each). Winners will also have the option of having [...]]]> The writer Leah Stewart has just announced a contest meant specifically for book clubs. Forty-eight writers — including me — have offered 10 copies of a book, and 4 book clubs will win enough books to keep them going for a year (12 books, 10 copies each). Winners will also have the option of having the author call in when the book is discussed.

I have some personal favorite authors on this list, including Miriam Gershow (THE LOCAL NEWS), Dean Bakopoulus (MY AMERICAN UNHAPPINESS, forthcoming), Julia Glass (I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE) and Benjamin Percy.

On the list you’ll find novels, memoirs, and story collections, several of which aren’t even out yet. Among the writers are award winners, bestsellers, and Oprah, Target, and IndieNext picks. Over the next several days Leah will be featuring them individually on her Facebook page. In the meantime, please look through the list below, check out the websites, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The contest closes at 5 p.m. EST on Friday, July 2. There are three ways to enter, and you can use them all, (though please don’t use #1 or #3 more than once):

1) Comment on or like Leah’s post on Facebook.

2) Tweet or retweet info on our writers and the contest (you can use the link http://bit.ly/90QmVW). So that Leah can find your entry, be sure to include the hashtag, #yearofbooks.

3) Join the book club contest’s mailing list for information on future publications and promotions here.

You do not have to be in a book club to enter, although if you win it would certainly be a good time to start one. If you are in a book club, encourage other members to enter to increase your club’s chances of winning.

The books range from literary fiction to beach reads, and everything in between:

Husband and Wife, by Leah Stewart
@leahcstewart, http://www.leahstewart.com/

The House on Fortune Street, by Margot Livesey
http://www.margotlivesey.com/

The One That I Want, by Allison Winn Scotch
@aswinn, http://www.allisonwinn.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allison-Winn-Scotch/49841196684?ref=ts

I See You Everywhere, by Julia Glass

Love in Mid Air, by Kim Wright
@kimwright, http://www.loveinmidair.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LOVE-IN-MID-AIR-by-Kim-Wright/359234790765?ref=ts

Diamond Ruby, by Joseph Wallace
@joe_wallace, http://www.josephwallace.com/

Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos
http://www.marisadelossantos.com/
http://www.facebook.com/marisa.delossantos?ref=ts

Pictures of You, by Caroline Leavitt
@leavittnovelist, http://www.carolineleavitt.com/, http://carolineleavitt.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/carolineleavitt?ref=ts

Good Things I Wish You, by A. Manette Ansay
@amanetteansay, http://www.amanetteansay.com/

The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard, by Erin McGraw
http://www.erinmcgraw.com/

Girl Trouble, by Holly Goddard Jones
http://www.hollygoddardjones.com/, http://hollygoddardjones.blogspot.com/

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, by Kevin Wilson
http://www.wilsonkevin.com/, http://wilsonkevin.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=4712089&ref=ts

Miles from Nowhere, by Nami Mun
http://milesfromnowherethenovel.wordpress.com/bio/

The Nobodies Album, by Carolyn Parkhurst
@CParkhurst1, http://www.carolynparkhurst.com/, http://www.octaviafrost.com/

Red Hook Road, by Ayelet Waldman
@ayeletwaldman, http://www.ayeletwaldman.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ayeletwaldman?ref=ts

Disaster Preparedness, by Heather Havrilesky
@hhavrilesky, http://www.rabbitblog.com/, http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/heather_havrilesky/index.html

Stiltsville, by Susanna Daniel
@susannadaniel, http://www.susannadaniel.com/

My American Unhappiness, by Dean Bakopoulos
http://www.deanbakopoulos.com/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/dean.bakopoulos?ref=ts

Sea Escape, by Lynne Griffin
@lynne_griffin, http://www.Family-Life-Stories.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LynneGriffin?ref=ts

Real Life & Liars, by Kristina Riggle
@krisriggle, http://www.kristinariggle.net/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Novels-of-Kristina-Riggle/250614105762?ref=search&sid=540474396.407354928..1

The First Husband, by Laura Dave
@lauradave, http://www.lauradave.com/

The Local News, by Miriam Gershow
@miriamgershow, http://www.miriamgershow.com/
http://artist.to/miriamgershow

Good Enough to Eat, by Stacey Ballis
http://www.thepolymathchronicles.blogspot.com/

Refresh, Refresh, by Benjamin Percy
http://www.benjaminpercy.com/

How to Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed, by Theo Nestor
@howtosleepalone, http://www.theopaulinenestor.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-Sleep-Alone-in-a-King-Size-Bed/226636320553?ref=ts

The Truth About Delilah Blue, by Tish Cohen
@tishcohen
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tish-Cohen/118720878150252

A Maze of Grace, by Trish Ryan
@trishryan, http://www.trishryanonline.com/

The Love Goddess’s Cooking School, by Melissa Senate
@melissasenate, http://www.melissasenate.com/
http://www.facebook.com/MelissaSenate

The Embers, by Hyatt Bass
@hyattbass, http://www.hyattbass.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hyatt-Bass/121019377925649?ref=ts

[TBA] by Jason Pinter
@jasonpinter, http://www.jasonpinter.com/, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/

The Last Will of Moira Leahy, by Therese Walsh
@theresewalsh, http://theresewalsh.com/, http://writerunboxed.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Therese-Walsh/135862286426942

Life After Yes, by Aidan Donnelley Rowley
http://ivyleagueinsecurities.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000061574617

Not Ready for Mom Jeans, by Maureen Lipinski
@maureenlipinski, http://www.maureenlipinski.com/

After You, by Julie Buxbaum
@juliebux, http://www.juliebuxbaum.com/blog/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julie-Buxbaum/119804978055852

The Lost Girls, by Amanda Pressner, Holly Corbett, & Jennifer Baggett
@lostgirlsworld, http://www.lostgirlsworld.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Lost-Girls/155815108248?ref=ts

Exley, by Brock Clarke
http://arsonistsguide.com/author-blog

The Seven Year Switch, by Claire Cook
@ClaireCookbooks, http://www.ClaireCook.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Claire-Cook/24954647610?ref=ts

Stay, by Allie Larkin
@AlliesAnswers, http://www.AllieLarkinWrites.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allie-Larkin-Writes/116227021725680?ref=ts

Pieces of Happily Ever After, by Irene Zutell
@irenezutell, http://www.irenezutell.com/
http://www.facebook.com/irene.zutell?ref=ts

Pug Hill, by Alison Pace
@alisonpace, http://www.alisonpace.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alison-Pace/110942295604233?ref=mf

The Opposite of Me, Sarah Pekkanen
@sarahpekkanen, http://www.sarahpekkanen.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Pekkanen/215202723761?ref=mf

The Transformation of Things, by Jillian Cantor
@jilliancantor, http://www.jilliancantor.com/

Out of the Shadows, by Joanne Rendell
@joannerendell, http://www.joannerendell.com/

Love Stories in This Town, by Amanda Eyre Ward
@amandaeyreward, http://www.amandaward.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amanda-Eyre-Ward/69247505328?ref=ts

Trophy, by Michael Griffith

Tethered, by Amy MacKinnon
@amymackinnon, http://www.amymackinnon.com/
http://www.facebook.com/amy.mackinnon1?ref=ts

The Language of Light, by Meg Waite Clayton
@megwaiteclayton, http://www.megwaiteclayton.com/
http://www.facebook.com/megwaiteclayton?ref=ts

Miss Me When I’m Gone, by Philip Stephens
http://www.philipstephensauthor.com/

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/28/win-book-club-picks-for-a-year/feed/ 0 Booklist review http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/23/booklist-review/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/23/booklist-review/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:39:31 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=683 I’ve just been forwarded an advanced copy of Booklist’s review of STILTSVILLE. It’s great! I’m so pleased. Here it is:

Stiltsville. Daniel, Susanna (Author) Aug 2010. 320 p. Harper, hardcover, $24.99. (9780061963070).

Frances Ellerby travels from Georgia to Miami for a wedding and meets the two people who will change her life. One is the glamorous, sexy Marse, a [...]]]> I’ve just been forwarded an advanced copy of Booklist’s review of STILTSVILLE. It’s great! I’m so pleased. Here it is:

Stiltsville.
Daniel, Susanna (Author)
Aug 2010. 320 p. Harper, hardcover, $24.99. (9780061963070).

Frances Ellerby travels from Georgia to Miami for a wedding and meets the two people who will change her life. One is the glamorous, sexy Marse, a native of Miami, who introduces her to the two great loves of her life: her husband, Dennis, and the sun-drenched landscape of Biscayne Bay. The author’s organization of the story into seven sections, each of which recounts a seminal year in Miami history and Frances’ life, is a surprisingly successful technique for creating suspense in a book characterized by lushly descriptive and complex writing. The first-person narration provides a vivid look at the characters important to Frances as she becomes a deeply involved wife, mother, and friend. Perhaps the most important character in the story is the city of Miami, which always looms large in Frances’ consciousness until the bittersweet ending of her story—an ending that could have been melodramatic and maudlin but is written with great delicacy and discretion. This promising first novel will appeal to readers of family stories, literary fiction, and southern writing.

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/23/booklist-review/feed/ 0 Publishers Weekly review http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/14/publishers-weekly-review/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/14/publishers-weekly-review/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:44:41 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=657 I’ve been anxiously awaiting Publishers Weekly’s review of STILTSVILLE, so I’m very pleased that it was so positive. I am pretty sure nothing about me has ever been called exquisite.

Stiltsville

Susanna Daniel, Harper, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-0619-6307-0

With its lush flora and constant sun, South Florida is the true star of Daniel’s exquisite debut, which follows a [...]]]> I’ve been anxiously awaiting Publishers Weekly’s review of STILTSVILLE, so I’m very pleased that it was so positive. I am pretty sure nothing about me has ever been called exquisite.

Stiltsville

Susanna Daniel, Harper, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-0619-6307-0

With its lush flora and constant sun, South Florida is the true star of Daniel’s exquisite debut, which follows a marriage over the course of 30 years. In 1969, having traveled from Atlanta to Miami for a college friend’s wedding, 26-year-old Frances Ellerby meets glamorous Miami native Marse Heiger, who introduces her to Dennis DuVal and his house on stilts in Biscayne Bay. Though Marse has set her cap for Dennis, he and Frances fall in love and marry within a year. “I had no idea then,” Frances says, “what would happen to my love, what nourishment it would receive, how mighty it would grow.” Dennis and Frances have a daughter, Margo, buy a house in Coral Gables, and their life together proceeds as a series of ups and downs, beautifully told from Frances’s pensive, sharp perspective. As the years pass and Miami changes, so do Frances, Dennis, and Margo, and the nuances of their relationships shift and realign, drawing inexorably toward a moving resolution. (Aug.)

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/06/14/publishers-weekly-review/feed/ 0 Where does fact meet fiction? (3 of 3) http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/28/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-3-of-3/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/28/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-3-of-3/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 12:26:31 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=478 Hurricane Andrew was the focus of the discussion that started this three-part saga. In writing about Andrew, I relied on memory and research both. Both memory and research, though, are sometimes faulty. Whether I was wrong about being in the eye of Andrew or not (I [...]]]> What should a fiction writer sacrifice for factual accuracy?

Hurricane Andrew was the focus of the discussion that started this three-part saga. In writing about Andrew, I relied on memory and research both. Both memory and research, though, are sometimes faulty. Whether I was wrong about being in the eye of Andrew or not (I still don’t quite know — I think it depends on whether the house in the novel is north or south of the Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, which is a difference of blocks, and which wasn’t noted in the novel), I would say that this was not, ultimately, one of my writing sins, since the eye did pass over the area at large.

But it’s a good example of a writing sin of another kind — the sin of including something that tears a reader out of the story and sets him to scratching his head instead of continuing to the next page. We don’t want that, and we should do what we can to avoid it.

Recently I read a review of a novel that featured some sort of weaponry — I don’t recall what type, and I didn’t notice when reading the book that the weaponry, according to the reviewer, would never have been used in the situation of the novel. That author lost the fraction of readers who actually know about that stuff, maybe. Maybe the loss, in this case, wasn’t terribly huge — but I bet if someone had brought the inaccuracy about the weaponry to the author’s attention during the revision process, she would have changed it immediately.

It’s not that writers don’t care about detailed accuracy — it’s that our knowledge is limited. We research, yes, but often we don’t even realize what we should double-check. We skim over a sentence and find it absent of flags, and we move on.

However, I think most writers would admit that they would, in some select instances, after giving it a good amount of thought, sacrifice a few intimately knowledgable readers for the many who don’t quite know the world as fully, and might be less inclined to notice a wayward detail. It’s a contradiction, because in most ways the readers who know your world intimately are the ones writers crave and appreciate the most, as if they are reading your work on several levels. But, still.

For example: I had doctors read my book to check the medical stuff. One of them said to me, “This wouldn’t happen, medically, but most people wouldn’t know that. And I think you should leave it in, because it’s beautiful.”

After some thought, I ended up writing around it (which means I did a little writing to acknowledge the problem on the page), but I left it in. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but that’s what I did. Because ultimately I agreed with the doctor friend — it was beautiful, and it was true to my characters and their relationship.

Do I cringe when I think of the readers who will be jarred by the details I got wrong, intentionally or unintentionally? Yes. Take the above not as an excuse, but as an open apology, and a promise that, if I may boldly speak for others, writers don’t mean to make these kinds of mistakes, and we will continue to try our best not to.

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/28/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-3-of-3/feed/ 2 Where does fact meet fiction? (2 of 3) http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/27/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-2-of-3/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/27/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-2-of-3/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 09:45:55 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=449 (The post arose from a brief discussion on my Amazon Author page and started with an earlier post about the thinly veiled autobiography myth.)

In some novels,  what comes from the author’s experience is not character or plot, but setting. This might seem obvious, but a [...]]]> Using true-life settings in made-up books. With examples and a quiz!

(The post arose from a brief discussion on my Amazon Author page and started with an earlier post about the thinly veiled autobiography myth.)

In some novels,  what comes from the author’s experience is not character or plot, but setting. This might seem obvious, but a lot of writers depend much more heavily on the places they’ve been than on replicating the circumstances of their lives. The schools and homes and roller skating rinks and ice cream parlors and boat marinas and city halls of their experiences are, often, the landmarks of their novels.

Which begs the question that I think confronts every writer at one point or another: How close to the facts should fiction stick?

I’m not talking about historical novels, which it goes without saying should be pretty darn close, or even re-imagined historical novels (I’m thinking of Ian McEwan’s excellent ATONEMENT, which is an imagined story deeply entwined with an historical event). I’m talking about novels that are not heavily reliant on historical events, but happen against a true-life backdrop.

I’m talking about being true to setting, which includes place and period.

Here’s an example. (This is not an example from my writing.)

Let’s say your novel is set in Florida City, Florida, in 1999. Your main characters, two brothers, live in a duplex on Thelma Terrace, and in their backyard is a hammock that swings between black walnut trees, and there’s an easement on the property that cuts through the backyard of a gas station that’s been closed for years, and at the far end of that lot there’s a creek where the characters sometimes wade on hot days. And let’s say they wade in this creek, together, on July 4th of that year.

Next, a quiz! There are no wrong answers.

Now let’s say you have a reader who lives in Florida City, and has lived there all her life. She knows Thelma Terrace. It’s a one-block residential street lined with banyans — but there are no duplexes on Thelma.

Is this changed detail a fact-and-fiction sin? Was it a mistake to include it?

Now, let’s back up. Let’s say there ARE duplexes on Thelma — the block is full of them, actually, but there are no black walnut trees there. In fact, there are no black walnut trees in Florida City. In fact, there are no black walnut trees in all of South Florida!

Is this detail a fact-and-fiction sin?

Now let’s say you’ve changed black walnut trees to mangrove trees, so you’re safe there. But let’s say there’s no gas station, open or closed, in the Thelma Terrace neighborhood, though there is a tackle shop. And there’s no creek — although there is one a few miles inland.

Do these inaccuracies rise to the level of writing sin?

Finally, let’s say that on July 4, 1999, there was a major event that affected pretty much everyone in Florida City — say, a storm during which several people were killed by fallen lines and the whole city lost power — only you didn’t include it in your novel at all, even though the novel covers that period, and Florida City is not very big.

Sin?

So let’s air our answers to the above hypotheticals. Is it a “writing sin” to put your characters in a duplex on a real-life street, if in real life there are no duplexes on that street?

No, I don’t think this rises to the level of sin. I think it’s a good idea to use a real street name if you’re writing about a real place, since presumably you’ve chosen to write about a real place for a reason. I think it’s a good idea to choose a street that suits your characters and their demographics. But sometimes real street names stink, or sometimes they’re perfectly named but in the wrong part of town. I don’t think you should move around real streets, geographically, in fiction, but I do think you can fudge a bit regarding what sits on that street. Maybe don’t put a shopping mall in the middle of an historic neighborhood, but otherwise I think it’s OK.

How about the black walnut tree?

Yes, this is a sin, in my opinion. The first example is a writer embellishing on reality, but staying basically true to the spirit of the real place. The second is just an easily avoided error. (As one might guess, there’s a lot of flora in STILTSVILLE, and I had readers with much greener thumbs than mine look for inaccuracies. But I wouldn’t bet my life that there are no flora-related mistakes in the novel. And those would be examples of errors, not license.)

Next example — I think it’s OK to add an invented gas station and a creek to Thelma Terrace, as long as they are, as I mentioned, true to the spirit of the location.

NOTE: I definitely know at least one writer who would disagree with me on this. She would say that if you’re going to use a real street, you shouldn’t futz with the buildings or anything else. Because — and I’ll elaborate on this in tomorrow’s post — it will interrupt the reading experience for anyone who knows the true-life neighborhood.

Now, we come to the exclusion of an important local event from the narrative — July 4, 1999, in the fictional world of this example, does not include a storm and fatalities from a downed power line and a blackout. (Why not? This seems like a great setting for fiction! But that’s beside the point.)

Let’s assume there’s some other reason organic to your novel that requires the plot to be set on July 4, 1999. So you can’t simply move the date of the story to another month or year. If this is true, then that means that your novel is tied to history, at least at some other point in its narrative. I don’t think you can reasonably ignore a big event that occurred at the same time. I think you can write through it, make it incidental instead of the focus, but I don’t think you can ignore it entirely.

More often, though, it’s not a matter of excluding events, but of including them. When I wrote the first draft of STILTSVILLE, I had an idea of which historical events I wanted to include — the Mariel boatlift, the Dadeland shootings, the McDuffie riots, Cristo’s Pink Islands, the Gainesville murders — but the novel covers three decades. I’m sure I didn’t mention everything that affected people’s lives during that period. Did I miss any really big event during that time period? I hope not, but at the same time, my focus was on the events that mattered most to my characters.

But I also had in mind the personal lives of my characters, which proceeded independently of certain historical events. Maybe if I were a more organized writer — I’ve heard some writers even use outlines! What a revelation! — I wouldn’t have had the problem of matching the characters’ lives to the history of the city. But I did have that problem, and I had to intentionally include some timeline inaccuracies as a result. I wrote an Author’s Note to try to explain these inaccuracies that I believed needed to stay in the story, in service of the whole. Fallen soldiers, as I think of them.

TOMORROW: What should a fiction writer sacrifice for factual accuracy?

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/27/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-2-of-3/feed/ 0 Where does fact meet fiction? (1 of 3) http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/26/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-1-of-3/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/26/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-1-of-3/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 15:49:49 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=407 The idea for this post arose from a brief discussion on my Amazon Author page in which a gentleman who read an excerpt of STILTSVILLE in One Story magazine left a comment noting that although he liked the excerpt, he thought a detail about the hurricane described might be inaccurate. Another reader brought some more [...]]]> The idea for this post arose from a brief discussion on my Amazon Author page in which a gentleman who read an excerpt of STILTSVILLE in One Story magazine left a comment noting that although he liked the excerpt, he thought a detail about the hurricane described might be inaccurate. Another reader brought some more info to the table, and then I chimed in with my own mea culpa. I really appreciate these readers who cared enough to post messages, and they touch on a larger discussion about factual accuracy in fiction writing, and where writers draw the line.

A lot of historical events happened in the three decades covered in STILTSVILLE, all of which anyone living in Florida during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s will remember, and many of which are at least mentioned (if not described in detail) in the book. Did I get every detail right? Definitely not. Did I prioritize my fictional world over the real one? I don’t believe so, and I hope not. But it’s not as simple as it seems at first glance.

More on this later. The discussion thread got me thinking about how writers weave fact and fiction, which got me thinking about myths about writers and writing. This whole line of thought snowballed, and has resulted in a post that I’ve chopped into three sections:

1. The Mad Alcoholic Writer myth and the Thinly Veiled Autobiography myth

2. Using true-life settings in made-up books. With examples and a quiz!

3. How close to place and period detail should a writer stick?

Although most writers live domestic (read: not terribly interesting) daily lives and keep regular schedules and drink in moderation and exercise regularly and so on, there is still an ideation out there, in the American mythos, that writers are typing madly into the wee hours with a tumbler of single malt Scotch beside their keyboards. This archteypal writer is great at parties, tells stories about his benders in which celebrities and circus animals play starring roles, crashes on your couch with his shoes on, cheats on his wife and in poker. He is critically revealed and is considered one of the great minds of his generation.

This is all OK with me. That mad alcoholic writer is far more interesting than I am, and he definitely exists (just not as commonly as we all might want to believe). Whether many writers have a dark little room inside their hearts where their inner, tamed, mad alcoholic lives is a subject for another post.

I loved this Paper Cuts interview with Lauren Groff, in which she describes a typical writing day, which includes “waking up to a screaming toddler,” then going out to her “wee little space that my husband carved out of the back of our garage. We call it a studio, but that’s being kind.” Now, that’s a writing day I recognize!

Another literary myth is that novelists are writing, at the character and plot level, about themselves. Of course, I understand the misapprehension. I mean, I tell people I’m writing about a family living in South Florida in the 1980s and 90s — what are they supposed to think?

Writers are often gently accused of creating characters who are thinly veiled versions of themselves, and plots that are thinly veiled personal experiences. Sometimes writers claim it, proudly — after all, what’s so wrong about that? — and sometimes they break down what’s true and what isn’t in their novels, and sometimes they just say that the novel is fiction, and that’s all there is to it. Sometimes they are taken at their word; more often, they are not.

I have a friend who wrote a scene in which her teenaged main character gets into a shouting match with her much-older sister — and the author’s own sister called her after the book came out, asking “Did I really say those terrible things to you?”

By this time, my friend had a little practice answering this kind of question. “No,” she said. “It’s fiction. I made it up. But I’m glad you thought the scene seemed true to life.” And she was being truthful — the scene was fiction, wholly and completely, and so were the characters. But she was glad her sister was so absorbed by the writing as to believe it might have actually happened in real life. She said she didn’t think her sister believed her.

The thing is, I don’t write about my family. I don’t know how. If I were to try to write a novel about my father and my mother and their complicated relationship to each other and my complicated relationship to them — I would fail. Horrifically. (I might fail in writing fiction, too, but not quite as blindingly.) I would feel disloyal, inhibited, whiny, and probably even dishonest. I love my characters, but they aren’t me/my mother/my father/my husband/my in-laws/my friends.

This isn’t to say I wouldn’t toss in a detail or two from my own experience (my family really did jump off the stilt house porch, for example, and throw water balloons at sailboats), but in the context of different characters, the original implications and meaning of the detail are lost. Rather, the detail absorbs the implications of its new context, and takes on a different meaning altogether.

TOMORROW: Using true-life settings in made-up books. With examples and a quiz!

]]> http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/26/where-does-fact-meet-fiction-1-of-3/feed/ 4 How to seduce men in a witchly fashion (or, more accurately, Why I bought my own galley off eBay) http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/18/how-to-seduce-men-in-a-witchly-fashion/ http://susannadaniel.com/2010/05/18/how-to-seduce-men-in-a-witchly-fashion/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 22:53:45 +0000 susanna http://susannadaniel.com/?p=350 I knew that Harper was running low on galleys of STILTSVILLE, but last week I received a second request from a blogger for the book — she’s from Florida and had a particular interest, so I wanted her to have one, whether or not she chose to review it. Unfortunately, I think I kind of [...]]]> I knew that Harper was running low on galleys of STILTSVILLE, but last week I received a second request from a blogger for the book — she’s from Florida and had a particular interest, so I wanted her to have one, whether or not she chose to review it. Unfortunately, I think I kind of promised one without realizing that by this point not only was Harper running low — they were out.

I own three personal copies of the galley. One is riddled with my own marks, which I made when it arrived even though I would not get another pass at the manuscript — so that one’s trashed. Another is loaned out. A third sits on a bookshelf in my living room, where I’d like it to stay. And my father’s been asking for one, so I’d like to oblige.

Coincidentally, at about the same time that I realized I needed just one more copy of the galley, I also received word that one was for sale on eBay. Rescued!

I purchased it for $9.95 plus the cost of shipping. (I should say that I realize there are some ethical issues with buying galleys in the first place, and I apologize to the kharma keepers for my bad behavior.)

I sent a note to the seller saying that I hoped what I was doing wasn’t weird, buying my own book and all, but thanks. The seller responded with this message:

“Hello — you are not the first one to purchase your own — Tony Bennett bought one of his own LPs from me for instance — I also had a witch who put out an LP in the 60s about how to seduce men in a witchly fashion buy her own LP – said her house burned down and lost everything – so it’s hardly weird — Thanks, XX”

It was kind of the guy to reassure me, and I really am grateful that I found it.

But then I started thinking about my little book and its little future. I want everyone I know, everyone I’ve ever met, to read this book. I mean everyone. Not because to make it a bestseller, but because I worked a long time on it and I think it’s kind of neat — not perfect, not brilliant, but pretty OK, with some above average parts — and I’d like everyone to share that. (And if they want to blog their review, great!)

Contractually, I’ll receive 25 copies of my hardcover. Considering the length of my acknowledgements, these will be out the door as soon as they arrive (save the one for prominent display on my bookshelf, of course).

So how realistic is it to think that the galley off eBay is the last time I’m going to buy my own book? Probably not realistic at all.

–Sd

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