Unlikable Characters: My Take on Craig Mazin's Take

I recently subscribed to yet another podcast, Scriptnotes, which describes itself as a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

If you've followed me on social media or here on my blog for any amount of time, you know that I'm not a screenwriter. (The screenplay I wrote with my high school friend Sam doesn't count, but it sure was fun and a great learning experience.) I'm a fiction writer. I primarily write novels and novellas. Yet I love this podcast and recommend it to writers of all kinds.

Scriptnotes is hosted by Hollywood screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin. After listening to a few episodes, you can't help but like these guys, even if Craig is full of umbrage (and disdain for religion).

Episode 223, from November 10, had a section about the least helpful notes screenwriters get. Turns out that Craig's least favorite (read: most despised) note is to be told that his characters aren't likable.

Craig argues that movies are filled with characters we don't like, and that characters are supposed to change anyway, so it's okay if we don't like them at first. Plus, we like curmudgeons! Unlikable quirks can make a character more interesting anyway. So stop telling us to make our characters more likable! (Totally paraphrasing here. Listen to his rant; your mileage may vary.)

And he has a point . . . to a point.

He's right that flawed and/or curmudgeonly characters are interesting. We enjoy watching characters like that, while characters who seem too perfect feel flat or fake. Even if we don't like a character, we'll hang on to watch more because we're entertained. We often start liking them as the movie progresses.

Besides, a movie is only a couple of hours long, and chances are, you paid to see this show, so you'll probably stick it out to the closing credits to see how it all turns out anyway.

In other words, Craig's advice clearly works for screenwriting.

Alas, that wisdom doesn't carry over into formats like the novel. I've learned this the hard way. Over and over and over again.

Consider this: A novel takes much longer to read than a movie takes to watch. While some people can devour a novel in a day, most readers read a chapter or two here or there, often before bed. They end up spending days if not weeks or more with the same book.

As the author, you don't have the luxury of assuming the reader will hang on until the character is sympathetic, or that the reader will trust you at all to go beyond the first page or two, that eventually, they'll see that they were in good hands all along. (An exception exists for really big names, who can pretty much break every rule and still sell millions because their name is a trusted brand before word one.)

With novels, readers may well toss a book aside if they hate the characters after a few minutes of reading. Not so with a few minutes of a movie. Readers simply won't devote hours and hours (or days) of their lives to your story. No way. They'd rather re-watch their most hated movie and get it over with in two hours or so.

That said, readers don't want perfect characters either. They want flaws and they want growth, just like moviegoers do. (Two groups with a ton of crossover, of course.)

The result is that fiction writers face a double challenge: Create characters who are human and flawed but still likable enough for the reader to hang on and care enough to keep reading, and make all of that happen on page one.

Oh, and be sure to open at precisely the right moment. Starting a even a few minutes (or, heck, seconds) earlier or later in story time could kill the opening.

No pressure or anything.

If you've hooked your readers with the opening, they'll likely turn the page. If you've managed to carry them to the 25% mark, they've invested enough time that you've got a good shot at carrying them to the end even if the characters start making really unlikable choices. Which they often do, of course.

To get to the point where you've earned a reader's trust, you must somehow get them pretty far into the story. And you get a page or two to hook them initially. That's it.

For me, one of the biggest challenges I've faced is beta readers and critique group members telling me that they hate the main character because she's acting so mean or hateful or whatever. And then I sit back and wonder where they got that from, because in most cases, that's not how I meant to write the character at all. I unravel what made it to the page compared to what was in my head in an effort to figure out what's missing and how to get it to the page.

But in some cases, I did mean to show the main character in a harsher light, although I still hoped the reader would sympathize. In one case in particular, the main character has been through a lot of raw, bitter stuff. The book opens with her being angry and upset. She has open emotional wounds. To make a long story short, I needed to open the book at a certain point in her life, show X, Y, and Z, and then get out of that situation, all by the end of chapter one.

Turns out that "wounded" is really hard to write without coming across as witchy (keeping the blog family friendly . . ). I must have rewritten that chapter fifteen times. In each version, she felt weaker and weaker to me because I had to keep softening her edges. But readers were slowly starting to connect with her.

Even though I wanted to show her realistically angry and pissed off in chapter one, I couldn't. Readers had no way of knowing enough about her at that point to have any kind of sympathy for her. You read vitriol and assume the character is a pretty awful person. So anger and even depression in that context only made her look bad.

My theory is that closing a book after two pages and tossing it to the side is far easier than standing up and walking out of a movie theater two minutes into a film, when you haven't even seen the opening credits. No one walks out that early, and few people walk out ever.

Lots and lots of people give up on books, though.

I could have left the chapter as it was, I suppose, but I can guarantee that by doing so, I would have lost a lot of readers in short order. They wouldn't have held on until they sympathized or even empathized with her.

I've been writing for a very long time (writing seriously for over two decades now), so when I first heard Craig saying that this particular note was pure crap, I wanted to cheer. Oh, how I wanted to. But I couldn't, because for a fiction writer, his opinion doesn't apply. (I wish!)

Sometimes I think I've learned how to write a flawed yet likable character who works from word one, yet far more often than I want to admit, I get the rug pulled out from under me yet again. Betas (had-picked readers I trust) point out why the character isn't working. After initially pulling on my hair and muttering things under my breath, I return to the keyboard and revise yet again. Because when everyone is saying the same thing, they're probably right.

I suppose in some ways, reading about a character in a new book is a lot like meeting someone in real life. You don't tell a new acquaintance about every skeleton in your closet, every bump in your road, every emotional injury. Rather, we get to know people a little at a time, and their personalities and characters are revealed gradually through actions and words. The same goes for characters, even those we've got a tight POV on.

Watching a movie is more like people watching; it's easy in real life to watch completely awful people interact and be nasty. We don't walk away from boredom. (Heck, we'll probably pull out our phones and start taking a video so we can entertain our friends.)

I'll continue working on making my characters just likable enough in the beginning for readers to agree to go on the ride.

But I confess that I'll forever envy Craig Mazin and his fellow screenwriters for their ability to ignore that note, even if the note drives them nuts.

Compelling Characters: The Great Blogging Experiment

Today is The Great Blogging Experiment, hosted by Elana Johnson, Jen, and Alex. Visit the links to find all of the gajillion bloggers talking about this topic today. Should be fascinating to see how so many writers view characterization differently.

This is a huge topic, so I'm going to boil it down to what I feel are the basics that make up compelling characters.

I think the most compelling characters are the ones who are the most developed, the "roundest," as they often say. But those terms don't really do the concept justice.

Compelling Characters

They are not easily figured out by what they look like on the outside. They think, feel, and have depth, layers. (Like those from The Help.)

What others think of them isn't necessarily the entire truth. (How about that Mr. Darcy?)

Their background and past experiences have shaped and defined them, and those things impact the current story and how they behave in it. (Easy example: Harry Potter.)

A compelling character isn't perfect, but is doing their best, even if that means standing facing danger, public ridicule, or something else. (Montag sure has a fight.)

It's someone I can relate to, even in a small way, and even if they're in a bizarre situation I'll never be in. (Katniss, anyone?)

A compelling character needs weaknesses and flaws, but ones that aren't so huge I dislike the person. To balance the flaws, they need a redeeming quality. (We'd hate John Cleaver without his redeeming quality. With it, he intrigues us.)

I like seeing characters who have weaknesses that can be turned on their heads to become strengths in the final, crucial moments of the story. (Stealing from myself here: this one is very Tabitha.)

Most of all, a compelling character is someone who has become so real to me that even after I read the last page and close the covers of the book (or turn off the Kindle, as the case may be), I keep thinking about them for a long, long time.

Writing Journey: Pronunciation Guides

Up today: Answering a question L. T. Eliot (also known as Lexicon Luvr) posed some time ago:

[Writers creating pronunciation guides for audio recordings] is a new phenomenon to me, and I've only ever heard it mentioned once. How long has that been going on?

I can't speak for other writers and their experiences with their publishers, of course, so what comes below is based on my experience.

For my first five books, Covenant released an audio version on either cassettes or CDs (in one case, both). In each case, the book was abridged.

My first two novels (Lost Without You and At the Water's Edge) are my shortest ones. I had to cut them down to 48,000 words, but since they were each right around 70,000, that wasn't terrible to do. It wasn't fun by any means, but I could cut out descriptions, shorten dialogue, delete actions and tags, take showing portions and make them telling, and the like. Abridging took out a lot of the voice and personality of the book, but the basic story was left intact.

And then . . . well, THEN I had to cut House on the Hill. It clocked in at 102,000 words. Remember, it had to be hacked down to 48,000.

Yeah. Had to cut that puppy by more than half. The final version had entire scenes and subplots stripped out. For example, readers didn't see Abe's father or even know much of Abe's background. There just wasn't time for it.

At the Journey's End was even longer, by more than 10,000 words (I think it was around 114,000 words total). By that point, they were toying with whether they'd still do a cassette version. If not, I'd get to keep an additional 5,000 words because CDs hold more. But the final decision wasn't made early enough, so even though that book is only on CD, I still had to cut it to 48,000.

Spires of Stone was a bit shorter than At the Journey's End, and I got to cut it to 53,000, so it wasn't quite as miserable to cut, but I still hated it.

If memory serves, Spires was also the first book they requested a pronunciation guide for, but what they asked for was relatively minor. I had to clarify any names or terms that might be confusing. I remember writing character personality descriptions, but not much else. That book was released fall of 2007.

In hindsight, had my sister not been the one reading At the Water's Edge (2004), I probably would have needed to submit a guide, because it has Finnish names and words that would totally throw off your average American reader. That's why I requested that Mel read it: she knows Finnish pronunciation as well as I do, so she didn't need a guide.

By the time Tower of Strength came out, a new decision had been made: Covenant heard its customers asking for unabridged books and agreed to do them! (And there was much rejoicing in the land!)

However, there was a consequence to that decision: unabridged books are (obviously) longer. Therefore, they cost more to produce (both in actual CDs as well as in paying for a reader and other costs). Ergo, they couldn't afford to put every book onto audio.

So while they'd have fewer novels on audio, those that got audio versions would all be unabridged.

The result: Tower of Strength (2009) wasn't given audio. I was rather relieved: no butchering of my book! On the other hand, if it had gotten audio, there wouldn't have been a need to butcher it. But cutting it down wouldn't have been as painful, since Tower is my shortest historical.

I didn't have a 2008 release, so between the small guide for Spires in '07 and no audio for Tower in '09, the first "real" guide I've had to do was for Band of Sisters. (Did you catch that? It's on unabridged audio!)

The pronunciation guide for Band of Sisters was rather involved. I was surprised at how many names and terms they wanted me to explain. I had to include actual pronunciation symbols based on Merriam-Webster's style.

I also had to describe the characters, but this time it wasn't only their personalities. I had to describe their voices. Does Nora have a high or low voice? What about Kim? Does Marianne have a noticeable accent? Does Jessie have a unique tone? What about Brenda? Does she talk fast? And so on.

I had to go reread portions of the book to really listen to my characters talk so I could describe their voices. (That probably sounds bizarre to anyone who isn't a writer, but to me, these women are real, and I can hear their voices in my head. No, I don't need medication.)

Back to the question: How long have the pronunciation guides been going on?

Short answer: somewhere in the ballpark of three or four years, and in that time (at least in my experience) they've become more specific and detailed.

That's a good thing, I think. I don't mind spending a little extra time on a guide since I'm no longer sweating over abridgments. And the guides really benefit everyone. The final product is better, since the actor reading the book knows going in how every person should sound and how to say possibly confusing terms, and the listener has a better experience with the story.

The guide avoids problems like the actor finding out 2/3 of the way through the book that whoops, this character has a southern drawl or this one has a gravelly voice, and this one speaks low for a woman . . . and that they've been reading it wrong the entire time!

Personal Wagons

In recent years, I've had a particular lesson hammered home many times:

Life isn't perfect . . . for anyone. 

That's simply a fact, no matter what someone's life looks like from the outside. No human being will escape this life without their share of trials, unwelcome surprises, and burdens. 


But somehow, we either forget that, or we don't realize it, or, often, we simply don't believe it.
 
I've had people say to my face that I must have no clue what stress is like, that gee, I should be so grateful for having such an easy life . . . all because they see just a little piece of my existence from the outside.
 
While I might not have experienced their particular trial (one such commenter was divorced, and no, I've never been through that), I do have trials of my own. Everyone does. Just because I don't proclaim mine from the rooftop in neon lights doesn't mean they don't exist.
 
The same goes for other people. I continue to be stunned when I hear about long-time friends who have gone through this or that trial, really big things I never knew or suspected. But I shouldn't be surprised, because no one is immune to this thing called mortality, and most trials aren't obvious to the casual observer.


Instead, our private burdens are just that: private, personal and between us and the Lord.
 
About twelve years ago, when I had a 2-year-old and a baby, a neighbor apologized for not calling earlier about something, explaining she'd had a crazy, stressful day. I said, "Don't worry about it. I totally understand being stressed out."


Her reply: "No you don't. I have four kids. You have two."


In shock, I stood there with the phone to my ear with no clue how to respond. She had no right to assume anything about my life and its stresses, regardless of the number of children I had at the time. (So now that I have four children can I say I understand stress? Puhleese.) To this day, I can't think about her with warm fuzzies.


I had something similar happen recently, only it wasn't cruel like that other situation; it was simply an offhand remark from a friend who didn't know what she was talking about. I was with two friends, and they were commiserating about the problems their teenagers were wreaking on their families. One turned to me and said something like, "None of your kids are like this. Aren't you glad that the only thing you have to worry about is promoting your new book?" It was all I could do not to cry. As it was, my eyes stung, and I made some flippant remark before leaving.

Yes, I know I am very blessed. I know I have some things many others yearn for (among them: a publishing contract. Trust me, I don't take that for granted). But that knowledge doesn't mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I don't have trials. Daily ones. HARD ones. I just don't broadcast them. I'm willing to wager that any blogger who appears to "have it all" . . . doesn't. NO ONE DOES.

Some days, I envy bloggers who can dump their problems freely into posts. I can't really do that, because this blog, while very much an honest part of who I am, is only a slice of me. That slice is the professional writer/editor, and sometimes the mom. This isn't a forum where I put my problems out for the world to see. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. I believe it's unfair for anyone to compare trials. 


"What I'm going through is so much harder than what she's dealing with. She has it so easy." You know what? You can't know that. Only God can know the burden each person pulls in their wagons. They may have dozens of trials you haven't ever considered.


And even if you happen to know what all their trials are (which is unlikely if not impossible), what is excruciatingly heavy for one person to bear might not be so hard for another, but that doesn't discount the suffering the first person is going through. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, once compared suffering to a gaseous substance. He said that a gas will fill up any container it is placed into, regardless of size, and suffering is the same: no matter what type of suffering we're dealing with, the pain fills the person completely. 


This means that if one of my daughters has trouble with her school friends, it might rock her world just as much as something so-called "bigger" rocks mine. As her mother, a more mature adult, I can look at her problem and see it as trivial or small (it would be small if I were to magically be a fifth grader again with the maturity of a 36-year-old). But to her, it's not trivial. It is a heavy burden, and the pain fills her completely.

As I said, this idea has been on my mind a lot in recent years, so I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise when it showed up in Band of Sisters. Several of the women in there assume things about one another and about their individual struggles, or supposedly the others' lack of problems. But the reader sees behind the curtain and knows that each and every woman in the story has a heavy load she must pull in her wagon, even though each burden is of a different stripe. 


In real life, we don't have the luxury of seeing behind one another's curtains, but perhaps we can be more compassionate and give one another the benefit of the doubt. As they say, if you assume that everyone you meet is going through a difficult time, you'll almost always be right.

The Office

Not the show. MINE.

The back story: We moved into this house four years ago. (We moved to this CITY almost five years ago. That year in the stupid, cramped apartment is a nightmare best forgotten . . .)

When we picked out this floor plan, one of the main floor bedrooms was identified as my future office. Yippee!!! I couldn't wait! But I had to; see, we still had a little person in a crib. While the other kids were old enough to sleep in the basement (with a monitor so paranoid Mommy could hear them sleep), the littlest one used that future office as her bedroom until she was a big enough little girl to venture downstairs for the night.

So what would end up, someday, being my oldest daughter's bedroom has been my office for the last four years. It was odd recently thinking about all the work I've done in that "temporary" space: I wrote a good chunk of House on the Hill in it (although I began it in our previous house and did some work on it in that stupid, stupid apartment). I did all the edits and proofs of it in that office.

At the Journey's End and Spires of Stone were born there as well, aside from the jaunts I took with drafting on my Neo elsewhere. I remember one all-nighter I pulled with a Spires rewrite deadline down there. Oy. What a memory.

Drafting Tower of Strength (to be released in April, if you're keeping track). I remember times of writer's block and when the flow just came. I remember creating this blog. Researching and revising. Coordinating meeting with my critique group. E-mailing with the LDStorymakers. Getting good publishing news and bad publishing news. Of planning this spring's writing conference.

Man, so many memories.

And yet, in a lot of ways, I detested that office. It was relatively dark, being a basement room. And although it had a decent-sized window, the sun came through it at just the right angle to blind me, so I generally had the blinds drawn. I felt like I was in a freaking cave half the time.

I never decorated it (or really organized it, for that matter), because it was "temporary."

I never thought that would mean four years.

But the littlest one is downstairs now. All three girls are squeezed, sardine-style, into the same room during the renovation and switch. My (real!) office has been painted. It's got a gorgeous walnut floor and built-in bookshelves that hubby made himself. The trim is to die for (and I'm a teeny bit proud that I did the caulking myself . . . if you knew how much tools and I dislike one another, you'd be very, very impressed).

I've got a great rug (actually, a two: a rug and a runner). My desks are moved upstairs. My computer is hooked up. Moving my books and files took the better part of a week. (And dejunking the old office was a bit shocking . . . holy cow, HOW did I manage to collect so much GARBAGE?!) The most recent addition was Honey hanging up the door yesterday.

I still have to put up pictures and organize a couple of last things.

In the meantime, now that I've moved out of the basement, we're working on what will be my oldest daughter's new room. One wall needs another coat of paint, and then we have to touch-up the trim a bit, but then we're moving her in. It will be happy day in the Lyon house when that happens.

I'll be posting pictures soon, not only because finishing up these projects has totally usurped my summer so far and I want something to show for it, but because I'm so dang thrilled to have the office of my dreams. In a weird way, I feel more like a "real" writer now. Plus, it's also nice that I'm a bit for accessible to the kids and even to the front door.

(Before, even though I was ten feet from the door . . . but in the basement, if someone rang the doorbell, I'd have to dash across the basement, take the stairs two at a time, and I might still miss the person. Now I can meander slowly and get there in seconds!)

Hubby has been taking pictures of the entire process, so you'll get to see before, during, and after shots. (Can you tell I'm giddy?!)

I can't wait to experience the memories that this office will hold for me. What plots and characters will be born here? I can't wait to find out.

As Brillig would say, the place is frickin' brackin' awesome!

In It Together

Last night at critique group, some of the commentary about my WIP got me thinking about my characters. I noticed something about them that struck me as interesting.

(A caveat: All of them are real to me, so you'll have to pardon the fact that I'm going to talk about them like real people.)

These five women, as different as they are, have one big thing in common. It's not just the one big situation they're in together. It's something else, too.

And, sadly, it's something that a lot of us women share: we compare ourselves to one another.

In general, we come up short in the comparison. She's smarter, prettier, skinnier, is a better mom/wife/housekeeper, and so on.

Or maybe we're judging in the other direction, being harsher on the other person to make ourselves feel better, like the woman who told me once, when I had a toddler and a baby, that I had no idea what stress was like, because she had four kids, and I only had two.

When we compare, we're judging—another person and ourselves.

That can't be healthy. I know that it certainly isn't for the ladies in my book. They range in age from twenty to fifty-five. One is a newly wed. The other four have children. One is an empty-nester. One's a nurse. They are all now dealing with the same difficult situation, yet each responds to it differently. And they're all judging and comparing.

In addition to the one common burden, each woman has her own additional struggle to face, something she keeps back from the others, because of course they wouldn't understand, or they'd judge her, or they'd think it was silly, or they wouldn't be able to relate.

She thinks.

The the truth is, if they could all take off their social masks and get real, they'd discover that while their individual trials are different, that all of these women are very, very human. They're all under pressure. They're all imperfect. They're all barely keeping their heads above water.

What a comfort such a revelation would be to them.

Somehow I don't think my characters are alone in this. I think we all put up barriers, put on a face for the rest of the world, and then compare ourselves with everyone else's pretend faces.

So now I have to wonder . . . what would happen if we all dropped those social masks? What if we let one another know, really know our insecurities, fears, and weaknesses?

I imagine that at first it would be terrifying. But eventually, I think it would be liberating. I imagine we'd actually judge one another less because we'd have more compassion and understanding. I imagine we'd be able to find strength and support among other women because we'd rally around one another instead of worrying about what each other thinks. We'd stop pretending.

I hope the five women I'm writing about can learn to trust one another like that. They'll need one another's support to get through what they're facing. But they'll have to learn to let down those barriers first.

Maybe I can learn a thing or two along with them.

My First Kill

I think I was fourteen at the time. I’d gone with my mother to the BYU bookstore, where she agreed to buy me a binder for my writing. It was a rosy pink with “Brigham Young University” in silver on the spine. The binder still sits on a shelf in my office.

Once home, I eagerly filled it with notebook paper, then plopped onto the living room couch and began scribbling.

I had no concrete story idea; I was just in the mood to write. I began with an image and went with it: a little girl walking through a meadow where her imaginary friends lived. I’m sure the idea was a direct result of the fact that at the time, I constantly poured over the work of L. M. Montgomery.

In the brief story, the girl greets the fairies and other mythical creatures and bemoans how she has no other friends. The other children mock and tease her. She feels welcome only there with her magical companions. As I wrote, I discovered that the girl also has a serious illness and rarely gets to go out to her meadow.

She lies on the ground, hidden from sight by the flowers above and around her. Then she closes her eyes and whispers, “My dears, I’ve come to join you.”

And dies.

A perfectly melodramatic story for a teen to write. But overdone as the two-page ditty was, the ending hit me with a bolt of lightning. I closed the binder and stared at it, feeling not a little shaky.

A little girl was dead, and I had killed her.

It didn’t matter that she was fictional, that she hadn’t ever really inhabited this world, experienced life, or had a family to mourn her passing (I worried about her poor mother—would she be able find her daughter under all those flowers?). In those few minutes I’d lived with her on the page, she had been real to me.

The sensation was odd—a creative rush combined with the sensation of intense guilt almost nauseating in its strength. The little dead girl seemed to haunt me for days afterward. I’m sorry, I wanted to say. I didn’t mean to kill you. I didn’t know you’d die. It took a week or two to get over the guilt.

Then I had my first dip into research. I had to figure out what she’d died from, so I cracked open one of my mother’s many reference books and read up on various fatal illnesses that could strike children. For reasons I don’t recall, I settled on aplastic anemia, a disease I knew nothing about save for a brief description written in tiny text. The fact that a child minutes away from death wouldn’t be in a position to frolic in a meadow was pretty much irrelevant to me.

Since then, I’ve killed many fictional people, but I’ve reached the point where I no longer take responsibility for their deaths. I grieve when they die; they’re my friends, in a way. But it’s not my fault. Sometimes characters, just like people, die.

About a year ago, after reading At the Journey’s End, a man in my neighborhood came to me and said, “What is your problem with death?”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“By the end of the first chapter, three people are dead.”

At first I was taken aback. THREE? No way. I thought back. One person dies in the prologue. One in the first chapter. Oh, wait. Two. Yep. That makes three. But both deaths in chapter one were real historical figures. I didn’t kill them. They really died on that day in history; I just told about it.

As if that made it so much better.

So I thought back to my other books. Lost without You has a mother already dead before the book begins, which is pretty much what the plot revolves around. Plus a little girl’s kitten dies. Oh, and a man dies in the girl's presence. Almost forgot that one. At the Water’s Edge has two deaths. And House on the Hill? Several pretty major deaths, plus a dog.

Wow, I thought. I do have some kind of fascination with killing people off.

The best response I could come up with for my neighbor was, “Rest assured, no one dies in my next book.” I paused to double-check, thinking through Spires of Stone just to be sure—did anyone—or anything—die in it? Even a cat or dog? A mouse? Nope. No one dies. Phew.

However . . . I can’t say the same for my upcoming Tower of Strength. Sorry. It does have two deaths, plus one more in the back story that we don’t see. My obsession with the end of life is apparently quite healthy.

But I’m innocent! I swear, I didn’t kill anyone in that book. It’s not my fault, and I won’t feel guilty over it.

Okay, so I still cried writing about them.

Goodness, we writers are certainly an odd lot . . .

Coming Spring 2009 . . .

It's official!

My next book, titled Tower of Strength, has been accepted for publication and will be released next spring.

My fourth temple-related book, it's set in 1884 Manti, a few years before the temple there was complete. Much of the story centers around events (both real and fictional) that took place in and around the city's Temple Hill.

I love the title they picked; Tower of Strength can refer to both the temple (the towers are under construction during the story) as well as the heroine. Tabitha really is a tower of strength, and that plays a huge role in the story.

This book has been an interesting ride. I loved uncovering the story and characters. I struggled with some of the research. I laughed. I cried.

And in the end, I'm excited for my readers to meet Tabitha Chadwick and get to know her for the strong woman she is . . . even if they have to wait almost a year before meeting her!

Seeking My Plot

Most successful writers I know have no dearth of story ideas. The majority tend to have so many ideas that they often have to sort through them to decide which book to write first.

There was a time when that described me, too. I had plot ideas swimming in my head all the time, and I have several unpublished manuscripts to attest to that. I worked on them before and shortly after the time that I wrote House on the Hill.

For years I had felt compelled to write something about the Logan temple. I'd had a love of Cache Valley and the temple there for a long time and knew that there was a story I had to write about it. At the time, I had no plans for sticking with the historical fiction genre or for writing more books about temples.

In fact, the next book I wrote was a murder mystery, a sort of sequel for Lost without You, my first book, that takes place ten years later when the daughter, Angela, is a high school senior. I had a ball writing that one (it was totally awesome when my cop brother didn't guess the bad guy).

And then House on the Hill sold. Really well. And readers were suddenly clamoring for more. That's when I got a call from my publisher that boiled down to, "Hey, let's do more of that."

When I went back to the drawing board, I realized that I really loved doing historical fiction. In a lot of ways, writing it came more naturally than some of my other, contemporary, work had. The problem was that my writing mind had left the historical arena. I had that murder mystery plus two other contemporary novels I was working on.

The question loomed large: What should I write next that would be historical?

I decided pretty quickly to write a follow-up to House on the Hill, because the number one question I was getting from readers was, "What happens to Abe?"

Well, I'll find out, I thought.

When talking it out with my husband, he suggested writing about another temple. And then doing a whole series of temple books. I loved the idea and jumped all over it.

That was a few years ago. Now I've got three temple books in print, a fourth written and awaiting acceptance, and a fifth in the research phase. It's great, and I'm loving the experience. I've learned so much Church history, things we don't generally hear about, and I've come to appreciate and respect the early Saints so much more.

The trick, though, is that I no longer have the luxury of thinking about plots ahead of time. I have no inkling of what storyline my temple books will have until I start digging into the research.

How in the world could I decide what would happen in At the Journey's End until after I read up on the types of events that really occurred on the Honeymoon Trail? I couldn't.

For me, the location and its history become a secondary character to the book, the backdrop to the main story. I still maintain that I don't want the history to become the point of any of my books. The history is and always will be the backdrop for the plot and characters. The stage, if you will. You won't find a history textbook, with gobs of things that are "good for you" shoved down your throat. Ick.

The bottom line for me is I can't come up with a viable storyline until I know what constitutes the stage: what was going on in a particular area at a certain period in time, what the "personality" of the place was.

I thought I was an anomaly in my method, but in the most recent Writer's Digest, I came across a quote in an interview with Sara Gruen, author of the best-selling novel Water for Elephants. I don't have any delusions about being the next Sara Gruen, but something she said made me think that maybe I'm not entirely loopy for working the way I do. Talking about her latest book, she said:

"I didn't think about story until I'd done a fair amount of research into the backdrops, but then it was clear."

Yes! I wanted to shout from the rooftops. That's how it is for me, too! Someone else writes this way!

Maddie from At the Journey's End popped into my head fully formed after about two weeks of research. Tabitha from my upcoming Manti book trotted "on stage" one day with her name, a great line of dialogue, and her back story after I'd been reading up on Manti for several weeks (and starting to worry that I'd never have story to tell about it).

This is the point I'm at right now. For drafting purposes, it's getting a bit late in the year for me to not have a story in mind if I hope to turn in a manuscript by the end of the year, like I usually do. There's a bit of pressure growing, that same bit of worry I've felt before.

You've been reading about that place off and on for weeks now, it says. You have no story. It won't come this time. Who are you kidding?

As much as I talk myself out of the worries, the calendar ticks away one day at a time, and I do get a bit anxious. But then yesterday I was (yes!) smacked in the face with my heroine's first name. I don't know who she is yet; I'll have to spend some time getting acquainted with her and her family. I do know she has a brother she's very close to who will play a big part. Beyond that, it's very sketchy.

But it's coming.

This morning I opened up one of my research books that I've been putting off, and I read thirty pages. It's a sign that I'm getting stoked again. The characters will show up when they're ready, and the story will, too.

I can't wait to meet them.

Book Club Questions -- 3

Two more questions from the book club, and we'll move on to other topics.

I get these these two questions a lot, from both readers and aspiring writers alike.


1) How do you find time to write?
The short answer: I get creative. (I'm a writer; we're a creative lot, right?)

The longer answer: My writing time has shifted over the years. It sort of has to when adding babies to the family and as the kidlets go through different stages. The key for me is finding where the gaps are. It used to be nap times, for example. But I've also learned to use what I call "brainless" moments to plan ahead and to write in small snatches and with distractions.

I use brainless moments (like driving the car or sorting laundry) to think ahead to what scene I need to write next when I get the chance. And then when I have 45 minutes in the dance class lobby, I make sure to have my AlphaSmart Neo with me so I can make the most of that time.

This school year is a new one for me, though: My older kids are all in full-time school, and my youngest has preschool three days a week, giving me six hours alone at the computer. It rocks.

Another big key is prioritizing. I watch very little TV. I have very few hobbies. You make time for what is important to you, whether that's scrapbooking or writing.


2) How do you get your story ideas?
Since turning to temple-related historical fiction, I have a different answer than when I wrote contemporary novels. Back then I could point to a vivid dream, a radio show, a newspaper article, or other modern source for my ideas.

Now, I don't have any inkling about what I'll be writing until after I start research on my next temple. I read up on the settling of the area and the construction of the specific temple with no preconceived notions about what story I'll be telling about it.

This can be a bit unnerving. A couple of times I've gotten worried, when, a few weeks into research, I still have no characters or plotline.

But if I keep reading, immersing myself in the new time and place, it happens. Maddie from At the Journey's End popped into my head fully formed after a couple of weeks of researching the Honeymoon Trail. I had a similar experience with Tabitha, the heroine of my Manti book (currently awaiting acceptance with my publisher).

For me, the research process is like making a new friend. I have to find out all I can about the area and the temple, and as I do so, the "friend" (the book) reveals itself to me. (No, I don't need a strait jacket . . . I don't think.)

At times the characters and storylines pop into my head. For others, I can point to specific moments of research that led to certain character or plot element, such as a BYU paper I read about Mormons adopting or indenturing Native Americans in the 1850s. I immediately knew that a major character House on the Hill would be an adopted Shoshone boy. (Abe has since arguably become my most popular character.)


That's it for book club questions for the time being.

Next time, I'll explain what led up to this question posed to me several years ago:

Are you a nurse?

Book Club Questions -- 2

We're moving on to a few other book club questions regarding Spires, which I'll try to answer without any major spoilers:

1) How did Hannah change over the course of the story?
In a nutshell, I think she went from girl to woman.

Some book clubbers wondered why she was so trusting at first. To me, it was simple: Hannah was innocent and pure in heart and it never would have crossed her mind that a person she trusted would do something intentionally cruel or deceitful.

Lesson learned the hard way.


2) What kept Ben and Bethany at odds for so long, when their fight began from single argument?
In a nutshell, individual pride. It's that pride that kept each of them from making the first step toward reconciliation for so long. Pride is what led to the fight in the first place. It's also what fueled their banter.


3) Why did Claude have to go away?
In his eyes, it was the only way he could live with himself. In my eyes, it was a way for him to find redemption.


I love getting reader questions, especially those that make the characters feel as real to the readers as the characters feel to me.

One of my favorite reader questions of all time came from a woman, a second wife, who had read Lost without You. Her question was reported to me through another person, but this was the gist:

"How did she know what it feels like [to be a second wife]?"

When I heard that, I felt such satisfaction. How did I know? I didn't, not really. I tried to imagine what it would be like. To think I hit the nail on the head was gratifying.

Next up:
1) How do you find time to write?
2) How do you get your story ideas?

Book Club Questions -- 1

As promised, I'm (finally!) getting around to addressing some of the questions the book club in West Jordan posed. Several of their questions were really great, and since I've heard some of them a few times now, I thought I'd answer them here as well, because I'm pretending other readers will care!

Today we'll address two questions:

1) How do you pick your characters' names?
I keep a running file with potential character names, with a column each for female, male, and family names. I add names to those lists (or sometimes into a notebook first that I carry with me) whenever I come across common names from the 1800s that I like or might want to use sometime.

The places I find those names are generally while doing research, such as in books, theses, or cemeteries. As I use a name from one of the lists, I take it off so I don't inadvertently use it again later.

As a result of all that, my character names often reflect people from real life, although to my knowledge I've never used both a first and last name of a real person.

However, the answer to this question is a little different for Spires of Stone, seeing as it's s retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. I tried to keep similar names to those in the original play.

So for that book we got the following (Much Ado names are on the left, Spires on the right):

Benedick = Ben
Beatrice = Bethany
Hero = Hannah
Claudio = Claude
Don Pedro = Phillip
Leonato = Leo
Margaret = Marie

One note on that, which I know I've mentioned before: Phillip actually play two roles in the book, that of both Don Pedro and that of Don Jon. But since Phillip is a good guy and ends up causing trouble accidentally (instead of deliberately, like the evil Don Jon), I named him after Don Pedro.


2) Why did it take 25 years pass before what happens in the epilogue?
Okay, so they didn't ask it quite that way, but I don't want to post a spoiler.

The lady who asked this question thought that maybe 25 years was meaningful to me or to the one of the characters in some way, that one person in particular needed a quarter century to heal and reflect before that final section.

That sounds really good, so we can pretend that's the reason I set the epilogue then.

The real reason, however, is far less noble: I wanted to include more information about the temple than I had already, and the capstone celebration was a perfect day to show more of the history. It also provided a great backdrop for the final (what I hope are emotional) moments of the story.


Next time I'll answer a few more questions:
1) How did Hannah change over the course of the story? (A great discussion followed this one.)
2) What kept Ben and Bethany at odds for so long, when their fight began from single argument?
3) Why did Claude have to go away?

I'll do my best to answer them without any big spoilers. :)

If you have a question for me, drop it into the comments section and I'll answer it.

Calibrating the Rude-O-Meter

I've gotten used to people thinking I'm weird. Characters talk in my head, I find bizarre and otherwise useless facts interesting (and wonder how they could work into a story), and so forth.

But I had no idea I was abnormal in other ways. I continue to discover just how many areas this covers when my critique group calls me on stuff my characters do or think.

Things that apparently are NOT normal.

The biggest eye-opener was with the first book I brought to the group. Everyone kept saying how completely unlikeable the heroine was. She was rude and snotty and all kinds of things.

I was horrified as they pointed to bits of dialogue to prove their point—parts that I never in a million years intended to be rude or snotty. Parts I never realized could be interpreted that way.

Apparently my rude and snotty meters needed adjusting. I know I'm not the most socially-talented person on the planet, but I suddenly realized that yikes—I had probably said lots of things in the past that had been interpreted as rude, because Brooke had to talk like me on some level, since I created her.

Learning to tweak and change how Brooke talked and behaved was a major social education for me. It was a challenge to reflect how I saw her and make readers like her.

Continuing to create likeable characters has been an on-going process for me, one that I never expected to be so hard. I also never expected the lessons to reach into my daily life. But they have. It's not uncommon for me to pause and think through something before I say it and try to run it through the rude-o-meter. (The fact that I often misread the meter is another issue.)

I've had other moments along the same lines that aren't so dramatic and life-changing, such as a critique meeting in Provo a couple of years ago. I was told in so uncertain terms by at least two group members that something my heroine did was juvenile and completely unrealistic—that any woman who would do such a thing was immature and childish. "I would hope she would have grown up since high school," was one comment.*

Oh. I guess I'm completely immature and childish, because that detail was based on me.

(I didn't tell them that, though . . . because really, people, I'm not THAT socially backward.)

*This was for a contemporary book I have shelved in favor of my historical work. (In case you were wondering which heroine in my temple books ever went to high school.)

Horses Are Like Snow

There's something magical about watching snowflakes flutter to the ground, especially on a moonlit night where the stars twinkle magically behind the white flecks carpeting the ground and transforming the world. I love curling up with a mug of hot cocoa and watching the mesmerizing view as peace descends and all worries melt away.

But I hate dealing with snow. You know what I mean: the driving on slick roads, the shoveling, the wet boots, the cold hands, the lugging coats around and all that other miserable stuff.

If I could have a winter where I could just see it without dealing with it, I'd enjoy the season far more than I actually do.

With my current WIP, I've got a similar phenomenon when it comes to animals of the equine persuasion. Horses are beautiful creatures. I love watching them (or watching people ride them) as their muscles ripple and their manes and tails fly in the wind.

I do not enjoy dealing with horses, whether that's riding them or working with them in the writing world. Currently, my frustration with horses in the literary arena is of an intensity I cannot express greatly enough.

For a historical novelist, horses are a given. If you have characters go anywhere, guess what animal is pulling the conveyance? Unless you're lucky enough to be writing about a railroad, yup, it's almost always a horse. At the Journey's End had two wagon trains traveling for a good chunk of the book. I thought that was a challenge and that after writing those scenes, surely I had the horse stuff in the bag.

Besides, I have a friend who knows horses better than almost anyone, so I always run any relevant scenes by her. (She's saved me from looking really stupid many a time: "No, Annette, that would be a halter . . . and that body part is called a flank.")

So with Lynda behind me, I could manage simple horse stuff. I never went into great detail about what went on, but I wrote up enough to get the job done. Plus, after writing about those two wagon trains, surely I could handle whatever other horse scenes I'd ever need to do.

Ha!

This WIP had the audacity to add a horse as a main part of the plot. (I say this because it wasn't my idea. The horse jumped into the story and stuck. I about died when I realized that I needed to hit the Internet on a major new research kick.)

To say that this mare has given me fits would be an understatement. Lynda has the horse pages now and recently called to let me know that there were several "big" things that needed changing. (When I get her notes back, I'll be hoping those "things" aren't issues that will necessitate revamping the entire plot!)

So I'm hereby pleading with my readers: If I ever flirt with the idea of including a horse as a main character again, stop me. Do whatever it takes. Confiscate my keyboard. Anything. Just don't let me go through this again!

Horses are for looking at and admiring, not for writing about.

More Dot to Dot

As I've mentioned before, I like to incorporate elements that connect my books to one another. The connections are always small threads, but I include them sort of like those "Easter eggs" you discover on DVDs, or a way for me to say hello to readers whether they recognize the message or not.

Just this last weekend as I had some holiday book signings, a store employee came up and asked about a young boy who appears briefly in Spires of Stone.

"Was that the Indian guy from your St. George book?" she asked.

I grinned. Yes, I told her. Yes, he was. His name is Abe. I'm so glad you caught it.

She clapped her hands and then turned to a fellow employee. "I told you it was him!"

I promised in that previous dot-to-dot post that my upcoming (and still untitled) Manti book would connect to Spires, but I was unsure for a long time of what the thread would be. I figured it out a few weeks ago as I was finishing it up. One character from Spires shows up briefly in one scene in a way that makes sense for him to be way down in Manti instead of Salt Lake City.

(I'm realizing that I need to clarify how old he is now, because this book takes place quite a bit later than Spires did.)

It'll be fun to see if readers notice him for who he is.

The other day another connection dawned on me, sort of a duh moment. Generally, I connect a book with the one that was released immediately before it. But this time a second possible connection occurred to me, so I'll be adding it.

This one will jump backward a couple of books, connecting Manti with my first historical temple novel. The thread will be in chapter one.

When this book is released, keep your eyes open for Lizzy from House on the Hill as she shops on Main Street.

Executive Decisions

I feel a little sneaky; a moment ago I wrote, "Chapter 6" at the top of a page.

Lest you think that makes no sense, I'll explain. Since I often write out of order, jumping ahead to scenes, coming back to flesh things out and bridge gaps--and since my first attempts at beginnings are rarely set in stone--I generally begin my chapters with plain old, "Chapter" until I know for sure that there's nothing missing before that one and it's clear where it belongs and what number it would be.

At least two months ago, I decided that chapters 1-5 were solidly in place and ready for their designations. In went "Chapter 1," "Chapter 2," and on through "Chapter 5." But looking at the next section, I wasn't sure.

I hesitated, going back regularly to look at it and thinking that I really should return to another character's storyline after Chapter 5 before continuing with Tabitha's situation, which was the next one written. But I didn't yet know if there was something significant happening at that point in his story to warrant a new chapter.

So, in typical skipping fashion, I'd leave it and go on my merry way to write something else. Every couple of weeks, though, I've returned to that spot and stared at it.

IS there something missing there? Or should I just continue from what is now Chapter 5 to the next scene with the same character?

Now I'm in the final crunch. I'm rereading the whole thing from page one, filling out and fixing things as I go (which, by the way, makes the word count CREEP up slowly and sometimes even reverse . . . but I AM making progress, even if the counter over there doesn't reflect it).

This morning when I came to the end of Chapter 5 and had the single word, "Chapter" staring me in the face, I remembered: Oh, yeah. I was supposed to figure out if a new scene belonged here.

What did I do? I left the computer and had lunch. I figured that maybe while I sipped some soup I'd be able to figure out what belonged there.

Lunch ended, and I had no brilliant flashes of insight. I'm taking that to mean that no, nothing belongs there, at least right now. If I tried adding something without knowing why it's there and how it plays directly to the main conflict, it'll probably be fluff.

I hate fluff.

So I sat down, planted my hands on the keyboard, and added a "6" after the word, "Chapter."

I feel so liberated. And a little like I got away with something, as if there's part of the story I decided to play hookie on.

As if it's not my story.

Writers are so weird.

Abnormalities of a Writer

I've got a wooden sign on my office wall made by Josi that declares the following:

I will NOT live like a NORMAL person. I AM A WRITER!

Truer words were never spoken.

A few pieces of evidence that indicate that no, I am NOT normal:

-I carry a book with me. Everywhere.

-My list of "to be read" books grows exponentially faster than my "books I've read" list.

-I have shelves lined with 3-ring binders that include research ranging from the history of denim to colic in horses.

-My bookshelves also include many classics.

-Nearby are titles that are not exactly classics: books about poisons, fraud, weapons, forensic medicine, the criminal mind, and even one on Snoopy's word of wisdom on writing.

-I think semicolons rock.

-I hear news stories and start coming up with other "what if" scenarios, imagining characters and possible conflicts that could spin off from today's headlines. I imagine what it would be like to be there myself. Or even try to get into the bad guy's head and (to me, what's more interesting) wonder what the HECK was HE thinking?

-Some of my favorite people don't exist. And never have.

-I talk to these people, and they talk back.

-I read aloud to my kids or my husband and interrupt myself to go, "Wow. Now that's a cool image."

-I fall asleep at night thinking about storylines, conflicts, and lines of dialogue.

-I catch myself making weird facial expressions and gestures at the computer in an effort to explain them on paper.

-When something bad happens to me (like when I broke my nose recently), I pay special attention to the details because you never know what might be fodder for a book.

-I prefer typing to speaking. I can always go back and revise, erase, and edit words on the screen. Not so with words spoken--and all too often they come out wrong.

-I have a hard time reading books purely for the pleasure of it.

And my personal favorite from just yesterday:

My preschooler demonstrated why her copy of Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! was in the kids' bathroom: She sat on the toilet, and with her pants around her ankles, which dangled in the air, she opened up the book, saying, "See? Now I'm like you, Mommy."

Yes, folks. I admit it. I read magazines in the bathroom. These include things like Writer's Digest, publications that I write for (or what to write for), and so on.

It's called multi-tasking, right?

Recycling Gone Amiss

Last night my family was enjoying a leisurely dinner when the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it and discovered my neighbor from across our cul de sac. Without any formalities, she shoved two papers toward me and demanded, "WHAT did he say?"

Umm . . . excuse me?

To figure out what in the world she was talking about, I took the papers and looked at them. On one side were drawings my daughters had scribbled. The other side revealed manuscript pages from Spires, pages 150 and 154, to be precise. At least, of that draft. Comments in red ink were in the margins, courtesy a member of my critique group.

See, after I use one side of paper (and I use a lot), it goes into a stack, where I'll print on the back of it (saving money, saving trees . . .). My kids know that they need to use this scratch paper stack first, so they freely doodle, draw, and otherwise use up that same pile.

And then those pages often end up in the recycling bin.

From there two pages must have floated across the street with the wind and landed in my neighbor's front yard.

Now here she was, demanding to know what happened between pages 150 and 154. What did Ben say, and why is Hannah wet? And what happens next?

"Ben didn't say anything," I told her. "He and Bethany were interrupted by Hannah."

I could have told her what he was about to say . . . but didn't.

"You got me hooked," she said with a sigh. "I guess I'll just have to go buy it and read it."

I told her it should be hitting stores any day now, but that she could download the first 28 pages from my website while she waits. That didn't quite satisfy her. After all, page 28 wouldn't answer her question about pages 150 and 154.

It was so much fun to see someone hooked on two pages of my book, pulled out of context, someone who now wants to buy it.

Hey . . . maybe I should toss manuscript pages in random areas all over town . . .

Much Ado about Spires

For those who may not have heard (that would be people new here, because I haven't stopped talking about it), Spires of Stone is a retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing.

Some may recall a reference to Much Ado in At the Journey's End, which was deliberate, because I knew I'd be writing this one next (or at least thinking about it).

The first draft followed the play pretty closely for the most part, with of course historical changes and so forth, but subsequent versions started morphing the story and especially the characters. The result is a book that sort of mirrors the Bard's version, but ends very differently. (Although I admit the ending was a bit different even in my original version. I just didn't work Old Will's way!)

I've put up a character list on my website to help clarify which characters in my book are essentially representative of which ones in the original version. If you go there, you'll note that Phillip is listed next to two characters.

The reason is that Phillip has two jobs, plot-wise. Since I'm not giving spoilers, I'll refer to him in terms of Much Ado only, so that if you really, really want to (or are already familiar with the play) you can keep track.

Phillip essentially takes on the role of Don Pedro when it comes to how Benedick and Beatrice's story plays out. But he also—quite accidentally and innocently—creates a problem, the same problem that Don Jon creates deliberately in the play.

One of my early readers asked why Phillip's name begins with a P instead of a J (noting his Don Jon-like role). My answer: He's just as much Don Pedro as far as his story responsibilities go. But more importantly, his character is a very good one, unlike the villainous Don Jon. I certainly didn't want to give him a villainous connotation by naming him something with a J.

But this brings up another issue. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, so let's just say that there's a Spires character who ends up behaving very differently than in the play, and as a result, I've had at least one reader assume that this person is Don Jon.

Not so. Not in any way.

It just so happens that my characters took on lives of their own and simply refused to behave the way they were "supposed" to.

The result? A different very different ending in Spires than in Much Ado.

And that's all I'll say about the characters for now.

Countdown: We're a week away from the release!

Now for a quote from Phillip. I've cut out a bit in the middle. (How weird . . . I'm ellipsing myself . . .)

"Look, I'm not a poet, Claude. I can't write a love letter. . . . I read scientific books, not anything about love and fairy tales. Any letter I could write for you would sound like a proclamation from a newspaper."

School's Here/#4

The first week of school is officially over. The kids survived it. Jury's still out on whether Mom did. My oldest entered junior high. There is something completely sick and wrong about the entire concept of my baby boy trotting off to the land of teenagers and lockers. And about the fact that I'm anywhere near old enough to be the mother to such a kid. I mean, I remember being 12 so vividly (I was already ME then, for heaven's sake!). How could my own child be that old?!

Then there's my next two little (ish?) ones, who were so thrilled to get to school that all week they woke up before I did and even packed their own lunches. It won't be long before their enthusiasm dies down and I have to drag them out of their slumber-induced stupor each morning, but for now I'm enjoying that they're raring to go to school before I'm even out of bed.

On Monday my youngest begins preschool. At first she was wary of the idea, but her Dora backpack and a visit to the preschool itself changed her mind. (I think it was the big plastic McDonald's play set that really did the trick. Hmm. Will she be disappointed when there aren't any fries?)

As strange as it is to have the kidlets growing up, I'm looking forward to having some semblance of a routine again, something that was sorely lacking over the summer. I need a structure and a routine. Last summer I had a ridiculously strict schedule, so this time I tried to be more lax. The result is that over the last few months, the kids did fewer chores, read less, and spent far too much time in front of the television. Maybe next summer I can find a happy medium.

As for our Spires quote of the day, next time I swear I'll post an excerpt from someone besides Ben or Bethany, but I just had to do one more about them:

Even now she wondered if she could have handled the situation differently, but she still hadn't figure out how she could have mended it. It all happened so quickly, over the course of less than twenty-four hours—a one-two punch of elation and then despair.