character

Do your feelings about an author affect your feelings about his or her work?

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Today’s post from Erika Dreifus deserves a look-see. She comments on a recent NY Times essay by Margot Rabb entitled “Fallen Idols,” then adds her own reflections, touching on various writers with Anti-Zionist or antisemitic beliefs, such as T.S. Eliot and Alice Walker (the latter of whom has recently made headlines). I invite you to read both pieces (the links are embedded above).

An interesting aspect of the writer-reader relationship that Rabb touches on is that readers get to step inside the brains of authors. For this reason, there are some Chareidim who only allow their children to read books written by people who are either Orthodox Jews themselves, or are otherwise respected and considered to have good character. While I don’t have this “policy” myself, I do understand that it’s reflecting a genuine concern. Authors don’t have to have a conscious agenda to slip all sorts of allusions to their beliefs in their work. For example, English authors are particularly well known for their antisemitism, which pops up in all sorts of weird places (Georgette Heyer’s The Great Sophy, several works by Dickens, and so on). The science-fiction/fantasy author Phillip Pullman is a proud atheist, and his work reflects this viewpoint.

Then again, if an author uses their money to donate to causes we don’t agree with, a political cause that does not have anything to do with their writing, is that a reason shun their work? Or, to take it a step further, protest their work?

One of the commentators on Erika Dreifus’s blog mentions Orson Scott Card. There are people who want to picket the movie adaptation of his book, Ender’s Game, because they disagree with his political and religious beliefs. (I happen to not agree with the commentator’s assessment of Card, but he’s a good example.) Ender’s Game does not mention the particular beliefs that the protesters find repulsive in Card’s public statements.

Personally, I can see forgoing a trip to the theater, or skipping a book, if you disagree with an author or artist. But a public protest seems excessive to me unless the novel/play/whatever is actively preaching the message you disagree with in that particular piece of work.

How likely are you to read a book by someone whose character is deeply flawed or who espouses beliefs you find repugnant?

Lights to the Nations: Two Jewish thinkers release their books for the secular–even non-Jewish–audience

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Wow.

That’s pretty much all I could say. I read an amazing blog post by Ann Koffsky this morning (thanks Ann for sending me the link!) where she interviews the unforgettable writer Gila Manolson. The interview is chock full of advice to writers, advice to parents, and other neat stuff. But the biggest revelation to me is that Manolson has created a website to promote her upcoming book–her first book for a non-Jewish audience.

Manolson is not alone. Continue reading →

How Texans lost their accents and the newly religious found one

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How do we place a person? Partly by the way they talk. But the accents that we use to locate people are constantly in flux.

Apparently Texans are losing their distinct accents. Still others have mastered mainstream American dialects as well as their own distinct drawl and codeswitch according to the demands of the situation, a recent study at the University of Texas asserts. The L.A. Times article on the subject explains some of the reasons, which include exposure to mass media and immigration to Texas from a variety of sources.

The article piqued my interest in part because I happen to be reading Sarah Bunin Benor’s new book Becoming Frum,  which contemplates the ways the newly religious adopt the language and cultural markers of Orthodox Jews. Like with the Texans discussed above, some use of the in-group dialect is conscious, while other use is not. But in either case,  it marks the users of certain types of speech as members of a distinct group.

What this means to writers: A sprinkle of regional dialect or in-group word choice can help establish a character in the social landscape of our story/book and make them sound authentic. But misuse of language based on out-dated understandings of a community could annoy readers just as much as heavy-handed overuse. Pretty soon, we might not be able to write characters with Texan drawls anymore without sounding ridiculously retro. It’s good to have a handle on these nuances of language use before jumping in to this writing strategy.

Who’s talking? POV, Voice, and Narrator as explained in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird

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book cover

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

There are few books that come up with my writer friends more often than Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. In the same way that I feel like I’m not quite smart enough because I’ve never taken Calculus, I’ve felt like a slacker because I never got around to reading it.

And I should have felt guilty–because it’s great.

Okay, so it has a lot of rather vulgar language, but Lamott’s writing is so funny, and yet so useful, that I’m pretty much in love with the book.

One of the interesting bits of advice that Lamott gives writers is a gem she attributes to the author Ethan Canin. The most important way to improve your writing, he says, is to employ a likeable narrator.

Here’s the thing that struck me about this advice: for many, many years, I always wrote in third person. Continue reading →

How to teach people while you entertain them: Modern-day Moshels

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To those unfamiliar with the term, a “moshel” is the Hebrew term for a parable, a story told with the intent to illustrate a lesson (usually a moral or theological one). I equate moshels with the soda your mom would offer you as a chaser after taking whatever foul-tasting medicine the doctor had prescribed you. It makes it easier to get the lesson down, and you might even look forward to the next dose.

Moshels–particularly those of the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, and the Ben Ish Chai–are familiar to most readers with a Jewish education. They often appear in Rabbis’ drashos, and they sometimes make their way into children’s books. Several authors have recently attempted to update classic moshels and make them more appealing to tweens and teens–most successfully, perhaps, Steve Sheinkin in his entertaining Rabbi Harvey series, which take place in the Old West. One of the most challenging aspects of this genre is that you want to convey the lesson accurately without sounding pedantic, boring, or preachy. Also, some of the settings and situations detailed in traditional moshels don’t appeal to contemporary readers, or (more often) are so unfamiliar as to complicate comprehension of them.

I have my own spin on the Modern-day Moshel that I’ve been trying to market, which I’m not sharing here (because, like many authors, I’m terrified of people copying my idea before I can sell it myself–see this post). However, I thought I’d provide a heads-up to my readers what I’m thinking about right now.

More crazy ideas from yours truly

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I’m sorta infamous among my friends for having lots of whacked-out, creative-but-slightly-off-kilter, usually (but not always) impractical ideas. Here’s my latest:

Rabbi Aryeh Leib Nivin–a motivational speaker/life coach/teacher/rabbi–speaks of everyone having a yeod, a unique life mission with which they are supposed to serve G-d (and people), and a tikkun, a soul correction they have to make in order to maximize their potential (by fulfilling their yeod). Also, a person has short-term lessons that must be learned as stepping stones to reach their yeod and tikkun. This self-development paradigm is very useful for those of us who want to build ourselves (especially now that we’re in Elul, the introspective month that leads up to Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur).

“That wacky Mrs. Klempner has some weird idea again!”

As I mentioned in a post last week, I’m going to be rewriting (yes, again!) the novel I wrote last year. One of the areas I want to focus on is character, really fleshing each one out better and more coherently. Many expert authors suggest strategies about developing character such as:

1) Learn about Myers-Briggs personality types and assign one to each of your characters.

2) Consider what each character most wants, most fears, their biggest secret, and what they have to learn.

3) Use drawing, cut-and-paste, or the like to assign an appearance for your character. Brainstorm their likes, dislikes, etc. Paste such items on your character chart.

4) Pretend to interview your character for a magazine.

All these strategies make sense, but they didn’t appeal so much to me. Then I thought, “Hey! Why don’t I apply Rav Nivin’s rules to fictional characters?” Assign a tafkid, a yeod, to each one, and a tikkun, as well?

So that’s what I think I’m going to be doing. Maybe not exclusively, but I think it will bring a Jewish approach to my mostly Jewish characters and subject matter.

Has anyone else out there tried “unorthodox” (pun definitely intended) ways of developing characters or doing other work that usually isn’t done in a “spiritual” or “religious” way?