Where the West Begins

I was talking to a friend “back East” about where the West truly begins. At one time, Nebraska was the frontier, and a famed Nebraskan created a show, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” celebrating it. Now, it’s hard to be exact about where the Midwest ends and the West begins. The true cut-off line (if there is one) is debatable. The amount of rainfall each year plays a big part. Official lines that have been cited are the 98th or 100th meridians in the middle of Nebraska – everything beyond them is “The West.” 

For me personally, all I can say is the feeling I get about it. Lincoln seems  midwestern with the sounds of lawn mowers cutting green grass in front of suburban split foyers. I really don’t get much of a ”western” feel here.

As you head west down Interstate 80, by the time you reach Grand Island, you begin to see road signs about western stuff. I have a G.I. friend who was a rodeo queen (you know who you are, Sherry!) The land seems to get a little drier. By the time you reach Gothenburg, you’re seeing a sod house by the side of the road and hearing about the Pony Express. At North Platte, the river divides, running south into Colorado or north into Wyoming. I normally end up going south to Denver. As soon as I cross the state line, I’m suddenly into the dry plains of Colorado, feeling like a “rider of the purple sage.”

So where, exactly does the West begin? It’s just a feeling. When my daughter moved back here from out west (Albuquerque), she said the first thing that made her feel like she’d come home was the sound of lawnmowers whirring on the grass. 

Open with a Bang!

In previous posts, I wrote about the two most common mistakes I see when editing novels. Here’s the third one: Opening Chapter One with background material.

It’s so important to hook a reader in the first pages of a book. Many readers will give a book a chance for a few pages; but if the material doesn’t hook them, they’ll put it down and never pick it up again. My sister, Morgana, says she gives a novel about 30 pages to hook her. There are just too many other books out there, waiting to be read.

So often, I see authors begin Chapter One with travel, where the character is sitting on a train, in a car, on a boat, thinking of what is to come. Just have the character there already!

The most egregious error, however, is when Chapter One begins in flashback mode, telling readers a lot of ”necessary” background history. Here are two examples: Is it really necessary for the reader to know in Chapter One that “I had completed my formal education overseas, at the University of London, graduating with a law degree from Kings College in 1975″? or “The Fifth Brigade, a notorious army corps trained in North Vietnam, had been set loose on a rival ethnic tribal group that was in political competition with the new regime”? Nope. Nope.

In his book Revision, David Michael Kaplan explains why flashbacks are a problem:

• “Beginning a story and then almost immediately going into a flashback, particularly one that lasts longer than the paragraph or two that opened the story, is almost always suspect. First, it usually stalls the main story. And if it’s a long flashback, by the time we get back to the main story, we’ve often forgotten it. Secondly, the reader can’t help wondering: If the flashback is so important that we have to leave the story’s ‘present’and get to it lickety-split, then why didn’t the story simply start there? For that matter, why isn’t it the main story?”

The way to fix this problem? Merrily include all the background you want in the first draft, then go back and delete that chapter. Start Chapter One with a bang — in medias res, in the middle of the action. Once readers are caught up in an action scene with a dynamic character, they’ll read on, and they won’t mind being filled in on the background history later.

Bare Minerals

Ok, men — tune out. This post is about makeup!

Since everybody liked hearing about my purchase of a Scunci Steamer, I thought I’d tell you about my latest discovery — Bare Minerals makeup.

Have you ever bought anything from a late-night infomercial? I never thought I would, but I was remoting around the channels recently, and there it was! The definitive makeup experience! The women were having such fun “swirling, tapping, and buffing” the lovely colors. I almost hate to admit it — but I broke down and bought the damned stuff. (It’s really not that expensive.)

I’m glad I did! Since it arrived, I’ve been swirling, tapping, and buffing with glee. Bare Minerals is pure foundation that’s so good for your skin, you “can sleep in it.” It has no talc, fragrance, or messy ingredients, but it does have a sunscreen. It feels weightless on, and covers everything from rosacea to zits. The colors are truly awesome. I love it! 

How about a makeup party at the RWA Conference in Dallas? 

Crazy Horse

The new “One Book One Nebraska” selection has been picked for 2007. For those of you who don’t know, this is a program where a year is devoted to a single book, and hopefully everybody in Nebraska reads it. There will be discussions, presentations, celebrations, and conferences about it throughout the year. This year, the chosen book is Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz.

I’ve never jumped on the One Book bandwagon. But this year, I think I’ll run right out and get this book. I’ve always loved Mari Sandoz. In fact, I prefer her to Willa Cather.

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, this book, published in 1942, is a description of one man’s life. He defeated Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. “Crazy Horse was also known for his appearance (lighter skin and curly hair) and his demeanor (calm and sometimes introspective). The book is also an in-depth look at the culture and spirituality of the Oglala Sioux.”

I’m looking forward to reading this book and attending at least one event about it this year. Want to join me? I’ll be posting about it here.

If you’d like more info, you can go to the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center:  www.csc.edu/sandoz. 

Writing in Scenes

In the post before last, I said I’d write about the second error I see most often in editing — the failure to write in scenes. It’s a shame, too, because after one reads Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, the error is very easy to fix.

Swain said every scene has three parts, in this order:  goal, conflict, and disaster. But what does that mean?

Every character has a book goal. For example, Scarlett wants to marry Ashley. But she also has a minor goal for every scene. What is the Point of View character trying to achieve in this scene? For example, Scarlett wants to sneak downstairs during naptime to confront Ashley with her love and make him break off his engagement to Melanie. So many beginning writers just have their characters rambling around, eating dinner, traveling, having boring conversations. There’s no point to the scene, it’s flat and boring – all because the character doesn’t have a scene goal — something important she’s trying to accomplish. And you can’t assume the reader will deduce the goal — you have to tell her outright what the goal is. Why make her guess?

Then, there is something (a conflict) that prevents the character from achieving that goal. For example, Ashley tells Scarlett that he loves Melanie and won’t break off the engagement. This makes for excitement, and the scene moves along with meaning.

Then the scene ends on a note of disaster. So often, beginning writers just let the scene drift away, or, worse yet, they have the character going to bed and falling asleep. Snooze. That’s just what the reader will do. There has to be a major or mini-disaster to keep the reader eagerly turning pages. Things get worse. The disaster doesn’t have to be an earthquake — it could merely be the raising of an eyebrow, but it signals disaster to the character. For example, Scarlett discovers that Rhett was lying on the couch and overheard the whole humiliating discussion.

What could be simpler? And yet, when I try to teach this in classes, lots of writers balk. I guess they think it sounds too mechanical, or they resent having to follow “rules.” But why, when it ’s so simple, and it makes the pages sing with meaning?

Scenes are followed by sequels, where the character thinks about what just happened and forms a new goal for the next scene. For example, Scarlett cries under the stairs and decides to marry Melanie’s brother, Charles. Voila! Her new goal, and the next scene is her wedding!

Fiction writers — run, don’t walk — and get Techniques of the Selling Writer! You’ll be glad you did.

Different Loving

Oh, the joys of BDSM and D/s. Robin posted about these today, and I started to answer her post with a comment. My comment got so long, I decided to post about it here instead. So at the risk of eliciting some readers’ “ick factor,” I’ll get into this fascinating subject.

For those who didn’t read Robin’s post, D/s means “Dominant/submissive” and BDSM means “bondage, discipline, sado-masochism.” They’re not as scary as they sound.

Of course, nothing will ever take the place of good ol’ vanilla sex. But BDSM and D/s can add real spice and fun to a relationship. There are many reasons why they’re such a turn-on for so many. 

First, I agree with Robin that relationships like these are built on trust (or at least they should be). This seems to deepen a relationship, by making couples address trust issues that most couples never talk about or just take for granted.

Secondly, this kind of play is about consensual power exchange. Many people (both female and male) find it liberating to give up control – you can forget all society’s restrictions and lose the guilt, because someone is making you do it!

However, people who think it’s not feminist or PC don’t understand – the submissive has real power, because he/she can withdraw consent at any time. It’s the submissive who sets the limits on what she’ll allow and she has the “safe word” to halt play at any moment. The “Master” who forgets this does so at his peril, because he’ll soon lose his playmate.

It’s amazing how the romance novel industry has embraced these concepts lately, especially online publishers like Ellora’s Cave and Liquid Silver. In their writer’s guidelines, EC says that BDSM and D/s are two of their top-selling themes.

Lots of things to think about with these subjects. That’s why D/s and BDSM have been called the “intellectual approach to sex” — something we eggheads delight in. 

The Fiction Code

I was going through my notes the other day and came across this  piece of writing advice I’d saved. When I first stumbled across it, it felt like the cracking of a code. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found it or who wrote it, but it’s so good, I just have to pass it on: 

     “In fiction, many authors get into serious trouble by writing as an author, instead of writing as a character. Your job is to inhabit your characters’ lives, not report on them. Become your characters. Your goal falls more in line with method acting than reporting.

     You have to strive to see the world through your character’s eyes. What details and events will your character focus on?

     Take on a fictional persona and write through that mask. Lose the burden of being clever or lyrical in your writing–unless your character is clever or lyrical. And don’t have all your characters be equally clever or lyrical.”

Maybe this is old news to you, but it was a revelation to me. It’s also probably the error I see most often when editing my own and others’ work — well, that and writing in complete scenes. But that’s a topic for another post.

Write on!

Out to Sea

I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep a straight face!

Basically Ballroom, the studio where I take lessons, is starting to get ready for its 1st Annual Recital, where all students will dance a 2-minute showcase dance. At lesson today, I chose to dance a Rumba. It’s a slow, sexy Latin dance with lots of hip action. I could get a red dress and look very sensual. All well and good.

The next step was choosing the music, so my teacher, Sean, and I sat down to pick out a tune. We listened to lots of rumbas, and we kept coming across different versions of “Sway Me Now.” Each time, I broke into laughter about this song. If you’ve ever seen the movie Out to Sea, you know why. Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon play two aging lotharios who pretend to be “dance hosts” so they can get a free cruise. In reality, they can hardly dance and they keep getting into trouble. Brent Spiner, aka Data from StarTrek, is the boss who keeps spying on them and trying to keep them in line. At one point, Data sings and dances to “Sway Me Now.” He’s being perfectly serious, but it’s played strictly for laughs. One of the song’s lines is “My eyes will see only you,” as he stares with a menacing glare to threaten the two miscreants on the dance floor. It’s so comical.

I knew I could never dance to this song; but slowly, it began to dawn on me that Sean kept returning to it. And he was answering every objection I came up with! 

“Why not ‘Light My Fire’? I love that one.”

“Nah, that one has a rhythm variation that makes it hard to dance to. Now this one . . . “

“But I’ll just laugh out there.”

“That’s good. Then you’ll be smiling on the dance floor.”

Blah, blah, blah.

Finally, I said it as an accusation – ”I think you like this song! Don’t you?!?”

“Yes. We’re doing this one.”

Try to talk a Leo out of running the show! (You Leos out there know who you are, and you know what I mean!)

So, come the dance recital, I’ll be out to sea. Sean even looks a little like Brent Spiner — tall, thin, and dark-haired. OMG, I just hope I can keep a straight face.

Nebraska Scenery – Not!

No matter how often people assure me that “Nebraska is beautiful,” I fail to see it. We’re supposed to be loyal to “Nebraska — the Good Life,” so I smile and nod politely. But inside, I’m thinking, “Bullshit.”

I read something sad in December 24’s Lincoln Journal Star that seems to confirm my feelings. Tom Lynch wrote, “Scholars tell us that residents of the Great Plains have the least developed environmental imaginations of any people in the U.S. The reasons for it are fairly obvious. The Great Plains has the smallest allotment of public land of any region in the U.S.; and the tall-grass biome is the most degraded biome in North America. So opportunities to experience extensive tracts of real nature in anything like a wild state are hard to come by. The consequence, unfortunately, is that our environmental imaginations are almost as impoverished as the environment itself.”

I would agree with that. Sometimes I feel starved to be out in nature, so I’ll take a ride into the country. What do I see? Parceled-off farms, all neatly measured into squares of cornfields with some scattered trees planted as a windbreak near farmhouses. There’s really no place here to be “in the wild.”

When I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, I was refreshed by a cornucopia of nature. I could easily drive west to the Smoky Mountains. An hour to the east lay the Atlantic Ocean. The nearby James and York Rivers ran deep, wild, and beautiful. I loved the green trees and lush forests. You could even drive up to Washington, D.C. and New York for a different kind of ”nature” — the big city.

Here’s a verse from Twyla Hansen that seems to sum up Nebraska’s scenery:

             “Time was: a great plain

          plumed with grass

             now all gone by way of the

          steel plow.”

Sometimes, it just makes me want to cry.

The Midnight Ride

     “There was something sinister in the air. Therefore, ‘fun’ was expected.” That’s how historian Charles H. Gere described the fight over the location of Nebraska’s capital.

     Early Nebraskans were a contentious lot! Fist fights in the legislature were a common occurrence. The biggest bone of contention was the location of the Nebraska State Capital. When Nebraska was named a Territory in 1854, the capital was located in Omaha, north of the Platte River, where Republicans ruled. But when Nebraska became a state in 1867, Democrats from south of the Platte elected one of their own as governor and they held a majority in both houses. Their day had finally come. They wanted the capital located south of the Platte; and, by damn, they weren’t above indulging in some subterfuge and danger to get it there.

     At midnight on a Sunday night in December, 1868, J.T. Beach of Lincoln sneaked into Omaha with a covered wagon and a two-horse team. Mr. Carr with a four-horse team accompanied him. They’d been secretly hired by John Gillespie, the State Auditor, to steal the Nebraska State Law Library, with its furniture, desks, and books, and take it all south of the Platte. For where the Law Library was located, there the capital was. The two men loaded their wagons in the dead of night. By 4:00 a.m., they were on the road, and snow began to fall. ”Miles of ground had been covered before the people of Omaha awoke.”

    That Monday morning, they had to cross the river on the Kimble Brothers Ferry just above Plattsmouth, but the pulley was broken! Beach later swore that the Kimball brothers were in sympathy with the northern faction – that they broke the pulley on purpose to delay the movers and hike the fare. But help arrived! A local “desperado,” Tom Keller, chanced on the scene. He may have been a ne’er-do-well, but he was sympathetic to the South Platters and helped repair the pulley.

      The intrepid travelers crossed the river in a blinding snowstorm “with much inconvenience and considerable danger.” The river was two feet deep and filled with ice. A huge chunk of ice drove the ferry onto a sandbar, but somehow, it struggled across.

     Once on land again, the thieves continued until nightfall, when they approached Stove Creek near Greenwood. The only shelter they could see was a settler’s dugout on the open prairie.  When they knocked on the door, the ornery settler wouldn’t let them in, so they decided to pass the freezing night in his haystack. This, of course, didn’t work; so they later knocked again and begged to come inside. They were finally allowed to sleep on the floor of the dugout.

     The next day, the duo carried on. By Wednesday night, they finally reached Lincoln. However, it was three days before the Omahans discovered that the library had been removed. The Lincoln Journal Star tells how John R. Meredith, a prominent Omaha churchman, wandered into Gillespie’s office in Omaha and asked innocently, “Hmmm, where has the library gone?”

     “To Lincoln,” replied Gillespie.

     “Who sent it?” demanded Meredith.

     “I sent it,” Gillespie calmly replied.

     Meredith stormed out and returned with Gen. S.A. Strickland, who shouted, “By the eternals, that library is coming back here and it’s coming right away!”

     The blustering didn’t work. The deed was done. The Nebraska State Library had been effectively removed, and Nebraska’s capital was now located in Lincoln.