What did she say?

Have you ever had a conversation and then later started thinking about what you might have said instead? A very cool thing about being an author is that I have time to think about what people should say before they say it. Sometimes this is simple and fun. I just let the characters talk. Sometimes I get stuck though. Sometimes I don’t know what I want someone to say, and I need to brainstorm possibilities until a response feels exactly right.

What follows here is an example of the latter from A Perfectly Good Man. The main character (Heidi) is talking to someone named John. Olivia is his 5-year-old niece and Kim is his sister and Olivia’s mother.

  “Of course you’re nice,” I said, shifting under the weight of my own guilt more than any perceived interrogation. “Olivia thinks so and she seems pretty smart.”
  He smiled. “You know she also thinks I work for Santa Claus.”
  “What? She doesn’t really think that, does she?”
  “She does.”
  “Why would you tell her that?”
  John put his hands up defensively while he laughed. “It wasn’t me. Kim said she asked about my job and she didn’t want to scare her with how boring it really is so she said I worked for Santa, that I work on a program that helps him keep up when kids move. I tried to tell Olivia the truth, but Kim had told her that I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”

How should Heidi respond to this? I was stuck long enough that I started jotting down everything that popped into my head. Here are several ideas I had for continuing this conversation.

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “So that’s why Olivia likes to hang out with you.”
  John rewarded me with amused sarcasm. “Thanks for pretending that was a mystery.”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “Wow. You are like the tallest elf I’ve ever seen.”
  “Nobody said I was an elf. They make toys, not software.”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “That’s funny.”
  “It’s funny until she tells a bunch of kids that she has an uncle who knows where they live. Then I sound creepy.”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “Wait a minute. Did you tell Santa I moved? Is that why I didn’t get a plant last year?”
  John laughed, but then he said, “Did you really want a plant?”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “I’m surprised she didn’t say you worked on the naughty and nice list.”
  “I think Kim didn’t want Olivia to think she could ask me to tweak that list.”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “Interesting. Next time I see Olivia, I’ll tell her that Blitzen considers you his best friend.”
  “Why?”
  “Everyone knows Blitzen is the coolest reindeer.”
  He sighed at me. “I meant why would you encourage that?”

…I’d have to deny it because keeping the secret was part of my job.”
  “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
  “Really? That’s because I haven’t told you what Kim did to me when I was ten.”

I don’t think any of these ideas are really bad (I’m not sharing the ones that were bad), but the trick was that I wanted John and Heidi to end up talking about something else. I needed to figure out which response I could use to steer the conversation towards that topic. Which ended up in the final book? If only there was a way to find out.

Coming Soon

I post something here about once a month and whenever possible, I like to make it relevant to what I’m currently working on. What I’ve been working on most recently is the cover for my next book. I have no artistic background so this process involves a fair amount of trial and error. I save a lot of reject files along the way because I know going backward remains a strong possibility until I’m completely finished.

Rather than write – again – about the steps and difficulty of creating a cover, I have decided not to let all those saved, non-cover-worthy images go to waste. I narrated a brief video montage. Watch the new cover take shape here.

Like it Was Yesterday

I was asked a while back what I have against baseball hats. The answer is nothing. There are times and places I’d say wearing one is inappropriate, but I don’t generally have anything against baseball hats. I was asked to defend the opinion because it was expressed by a character in one of my books. While I admit to some overlap, my protagonists do not think and talk just like me.

Sometimes my characters say something I would never say or do something I would never do. Sometimes I have a lot of fun when I get to invent an opinion and especially if there’s a memory behind it.

This is what I was working on recently. My next heroine, Heidi Ray, likes the smell of bacon. Partly she likes it because it reminds her of something. I amused myself for some time coming up with different fictional anecdotes for that particular memory before I settled on one that fit the story. You’ll have to read the book to know what it is.

I think these memories tied to our senses are some of the strongest because they can catch us by surprise. A sound or a scent floats by and you’re carried ten years or more into the past without warning. It got me thinking about some of my own memories, and I decided to speak for myself for a change. For each of the five senses, I thought of something that immediately reminds me of something else.

Taste: chocolate no-bake cookies
One of my aunts made these for family gatherings. It was the only place I had them as a kid. My sister found a store nearby that sells a very similar cookie. One bite and I’m at my grandmother’s house in my head.

Sound: Mr. Jones by Counting Crows
This song was popular when I was in high school. (And now it’s listed under classic rock. Am I really that old?) I can’t say it’s my favorite song of the time or that I even listened to it all that much, I just know that nothing makes me think of my teenage-self more than this song popping up on the radio.

Touch: a certain heavy blanket
My mom has a blanket made by her sister. It has hung on the back of her couch (several different couches actually) for longer than I can remember. We always left it there, just as decoration, unless we were sick. Any time I had to spend a day lying on the couch, I pulled that big heavy blanket down on top of me. Its weight was like a warm, comforting hug. My siblings did the same thing. Now and then I’ll feel that blanket and remember only the good parts of staying home sick from school.

Smell: printer ink
Not the ink from my home printer. I mean more large scale. For some years, my mom had a work-at-home job that involved stuffing folded flyers into grocery store mailers. (I’m wondering if anyone does this by hand anymore.) Sometimes she let me help fold the flyers. I didn’t even realize they had a distinctive smell until many years later when I opened a church bulletin and got hit with a very familiar scent.

Sight: the horizon
I’m looking forward to triggering this memory soon. I currently live in North Carolina. There are too many trees and hills for the sky to touch the ground here. But I grew up in rural Ohio, which is mostly flat farmland. Every time we drive up there to visit family, there comes a point in the trip when one of my kids (who have always lived in NC) will look out the window and shout, “Look how far you can see!” That’s when I look past the clumps of trees moving impossibly slowly by us to the distant sky and think, “It looks like home.”