Hannah: A Vignette

This week Curtis (he’s very wonderful) turned 24. To celebrate we ate barbecue and ice cream cake (not together). We ate at a small restaurant in Big Rapids (not to be confused with Grand Rapids, Eaton Rapids, Elk Rapids, Long Rapids, or Maple Rapids. Michigan loves her rapids).

Moving casually, our waitress told us she’d be right back. She returned to take our order and stood leaning on an empty chair behind her, only pulling out her pad of paper as an afterthought. Tan and mellow, her grin showed bright white teeth and her long dark hair hung in a loose braid. Wearing a black shirt and cotton denim shorts, she was decidedly informal. Adorning her wrist was a tattoo in a script font that read, “Hannah.”

She was a great server, and she’s probably a normal person with a normal life (although, are any of us, really?). But if she were in one of my stories . . .

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It's Good for You

I believe in the Scottish proverb, ‘Hard work never killed a man.” Men die of boredom. They do not die of hard work.—David Ogilvy

When my siblings and I were kids, we took piano lessons from a lady who lived two miles away. My mother, eager to raise us with an appreciation for physical activity, encouraged (it wasn’t really voluntary) us to ride our bikes to our weekly lessons.

As often happens to children on those dirt country roads, both the way to the lesson and the way home was completely uphill, often both pedals fell off our bikes, and some strange magical transformation always turned our tires to squares ten minutes before departure time*.

Every week on lesson day, we worked hard to convince our mom that she should bring us in the car. We’d often contract high invisible fevers right after lunch, or spot some wispy cloud on the horizon that “LOOKS LIKE A TORNADO!” One time out of fifteen, she’d buy . . .

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The Two Sides of Characters

Normal people never really make an impression. If you’re walking down the street and see a dozen perfectly average folks, dressed well and walking in a straight line, you’re not likely to remember any of them.

But when you see a scruffy looking fellow digging around in the trash can on the street corner, you probably go home and tell someone. Or when you see a lady hunched over and rocking back and forth outside the drug store, perhaps you even stop to make sure she’s alright.

We’re trained to believe that the only activity worth mentioning in a story is exterior (hair color, arm gesture, “Then he crossed the street.”)—something we’re able to see, identify, and describe.

But that’s a misconception—and the thrill—about telling stories. There isn’t just one type of activity. There are TWO.

Outside. Yes, there are all the weird quirks and habits that people have that we can see. Like how your aunt always puts mustard on her scrambled eggs, or how your next door neighbor puts a leash on his cat and takes it walking. These are the tangible parts of a story that help us see what’s going on. They pique our interest, fascinate us, and make us stare a little bit. After all, when someone’s doing something weirdddd, it’s a little bit hard to look away.

Inside. This is the unacknowledged part of every narrative, but it’s actually the more important of the two. Maybe only two in ten people are doing something odd on the outside—but ten out of ten people are experiencing a specific emotion in their hearts or minds. Outside, the lady at the grocery store is completely normal. But inside, she’s worried about raising her children alone, wondering why her ex-husband really left her, and hoping that the repairs on her car won’t cost too much. And it’s the inside story that makes readers be able to relate to the characters. And it’s the inside story that keeps people coming back to a character again and again. Because even if he’s simply unremarkable on the outside, I just feel like he’s so . . . real.

Should you create weird characters? People who save seats for their invisible friends at the opera and collect worms from the dirt in Central Park? Absolutely. But more importantly, remember to make them interesting from the inside out. Fill them with human ideas, concerns, and struggles. Make them someone you’d want to be friends with, and your readers will want to be friends with them too.

5 Disjointed Thoughts on Life Transition

Stepping into transition is like standing on the edge of the pool deck thinking about jumping into the pool, when suddenly your well-meaning but somewhat misguided friend shoves you into the water. It always seems to come before you’ve quite prepared yourself.

Living through change is like going on a run and never quite being able to catch your breath.

Preparing for the future is like planning a birthday party with a guest list of 200, but not asking for any RSVPs.

Leaving one place for the next is unsettling—but not bad. We’re just creatures of habit who take comfort in familiarity, and new places are habit-breaking and very unfamiliar.

Concentrating on personal growth, health, and development in the middle of a hectic season is like trying to change the oil in a hail storm. Not impossible, just distracting and somewhat difficult.

Goodbye, Jenkins 8T

Almost three years ago, Curtis (he’s very wonderful) and I moved into Jenkins 8T. It’s a small apartment on the eighth floor of a building in downtown Chicago. It was empty and bare, the windows were permanently fogged, and the faded carpet was probably a charming brown twenty years ago.

A lot happened in that apartment. A few days after our first Thanksgiving, the sprinklers exploded and ruined many (most) of our belongings (and the carpet and walls). We got our first . . .

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I Should Try

Childhood is full of learning new things. Babies learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Toddlers become potty-trained, feed themselves, and discover how to put on pants. Before long in elementary school, kids learn adding, subtracting, and how to get along with other kids on the playground.

Every experience of growing up is punctuated by awe. It’s thrilling to learn how to tie your shoes, because “they” tie their shoes (who they? the big people). Each skill acquired is a step toward independence, even though kids don’t think of it that way. Their natural bent is simply curiosity and the willingness to discover (spend thirty minutes with a five-year-old and count how many times they ask, Why ?).

But somewhere along the way, it’s easy to lose the hunger to learn. We become confident in our abilities. Admitting we don’t know something is a chink in our armor rather than an opportunity. But what if, instead of a threat, every new thing you didn’t know became an opportunity?

There are two distinct mindsets involved in learning. Either, you come to a new experience, and think:

I probably can’t do that. Oh well.

Or, you venture into something new, thinking:

I wonder if I can do that. I should try.

It takes humility, confidence, and the willingness to accept that you may fail the first time—or the first five times. But if you never try anything, then you never learn anything. And that’s way worse.

3 Ways to Build Your Character(s)

If you’re a writer, creating lovable characters is a key element to helping your audience enter into your story. If you’re not a writer, but you’re a reader, you know the pleasure and delight of characters who come alive to you and become friends. If you’re neither a writer nor a reader, I’m so sorry.

So how do you create real-seeming people out of thin air?

One option is to write an exact, precise character description of someone you know and change the name: Rob to Bob, Larry to Harry, Holly to Molly. Writing about a person you have a relationship with is an excellent way to capture personality—but if you’re writing about people who read your stuff, either be careful what you say, or be very clever with your renaming (grumpy old next door neighbor becomes 17-year-old bagger at the local supermarket).

Another frequently used method is to sketch a few attributes into a character, and let them finish the development themselves. As the story develops and you throw your heroine into disastrous situations, see . . .

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Expressway-Turned-Parking-Lot

There are few places where people display their true nature, whether good or bad, as readily as in Chicago traffic. Construction, especially, is the great equalizer of society. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Tesla or a Yugo—everybody gets treated the same.

After Chicago’s astonishingly chilly winter, the roads look like an m&m cookie that some kid picked all the m&m’s out of. If you steer to dodge one pothole, you’ll hit another. To make up for this, the city of Chicago pulled up several miles of the main tollroad in and out of the city, leaving only one lane in both directions. In a city that hosts hundreds of thousands of commuters every day, this has major consequences.

Curtis (he’s very wonderful) and I left the city last Friday in the middle of rush hour. In the course of the evening, our two hour drive turned into a three-and-a-half hour drive. We sat in stop and go traffic for what felt like a year . . .

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Less Words—Greater Impact

I occasionally have the privilege to sit in classes taught by people who have decades more experience at writing and marketing than I do—and it’s always a privilege to learn from them. Today’s course was given by a man who works for a radio station in New Jersey. Here are a few of his key lessons:

  1. Good writing begins in the heart, and reaches the heart.

  2. Noble themes lead to noble words.

  3. To be a better writer, be a better reader.

  4. Be less boring—leave out filler words, predictable phrases, and unsubstantiated claims.

  5. Write to help your reader grow.

  6. People’s brains are fast. Let them fill in their own details.

  7. Cut your adjectives, double your verbs.

  8. Less words equal greater impact.

  9. Don’t mistake style for substance.

  10. Write to your audience like you’re sitting at a table in Starbucks over a latte.

  11. Build word pictures—don’t just spew a bunch of details.