Face It

I recently bequeathed my entire childhood collection of Breyer Horse models (all 17 of them, complete with tack) to my daughter. And my childhood horse book collection (go Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry!) - you couldn't tell that I'd been a little horse crazy in my day and wanted to pass it on, could you?

My diabolical plan worked, and her interest in horses was piqued. In theory at least.

A week or so ago she went with three friends to her first horse riding lesson. The kids chattered and giggled all the way there, all the time they were putting on their boots, and while strapping on their helmets (who knew bike helmets are now required horse riding gear?).

And then they stepped into the stable.

I was a little surprised by the number of horses peering over the stall doors. They were beautiful!  And there was that delicious smell of horse and leather and hay, and the whiffle and huff and stamp - ah, I was in heaven.

My daughter, however, wasn't. First she looked up, up at the nose of the horse looking down at her. Then she sidled closer to me. Closer, and then grabbed my hand. Breyer models are apparently a lot smaller and a lot less alive than real horses.

Only two kids could practice at a time in the arena, and I saw my daughter shrink to the back so she wouldn't get chosen. The first horse was a large palomino gelding, the second a fairly small pinto mare with some seriously beautiful lines. As my daughter's friends sat, and then walked, and then trotted around and around, my daughter whispered to me, "Do I have to do this?"

When it was finally her turn, she picked the horse I'd expected, the small mare. She climbed the mounting block steps like she was climbing the steps to the guillotine.

Her instructor got her situated. They started at a gentle walk. And then told her to close her eyes. And put her arms straight out from her sides. I held my breath. And then she was flying! Around and around, comfortable, confident. In under and hour she transformed from a nervous wreck to a beaming equestrian (with excellent form, I might add). She can't wait for next time.

What changed?

She faced it. She shouldered through, marched on, she persevered.
Sometimes, I guess, the only way to get over something is simply to do it.

Thanks for reminding me, daughter of mine.

~Susan

Thriller

I just finished one of the most perplexing books I've ever read - courtesy of my dh, again.
This time instead of a self-help book, it was a thriller.

One Shot, by Lee Child.

There's a movie coming out based on it starring Tom Cruise (who, my dh will inform you is all wrong for the part. The main character, Jack Reacher, is 6' 5" and blond - guess we'll see how well Hollywood can work its magic :)

Lee Child is a New York Times best selling author. He has multiple books in this series, all translated into just about any language imaginable.

And this is how he writes:

The man with the rifle drove north. Not fast, not slow Not drawing attention. Not standing out. He was in a light-colored minivan that had seen better days. He was alone behind the wheel. He was wearing a light-colored raincoat and the kind of shapeless light-colored beanie hat that old guys wear on the golf course when the sun is out or the rain is falling. The hat had a two-tone red band all around it. It was pulled down low...

And on and on for 466 pages. It was driving me nuts. All the 'was'-es, all the telling not showing. As far as my memory serves, he never once let us know how anyone was feeling - other than by terse dialogue like, "I want that guy dead." The perspective was so distant the reader might as well be on the moon.

From a literary point of view, his writing is, well, distinctive. It ignores just about every rule that's been pounded into my novice head, including strange sentence fragments such as, "For the summer heat." And weapon descriptions right out of The Christmas Story (ala the Red Rider BB Gun): "It was a Springfield MIA Super Match autoloader, American walnut stock, heavy premium barrel, ten-shot box magazine, chambered for the .308."

It drove me nuts - right up until it hooked me.

So, I spent a lot of time trying to pinpoint how a guy who technically does so many things, if not wrong, then at least non-conventionally, writes so compellingly. And if there's something to be learned from it. Here's what I've got so far:

Simplicity. The sentence structure is just about as short and sweet as you could imagine. It made reading very easy, which kept the story humming along.

Description. Okay, on first read the description seemed just over the top - I mean nine sentences about a concrete floor? But, he made it very easy to picture everything. And eventually, all those little details built upon each other and were in the end, vital to solving the story's mystery.

Characters. Because of the distant perspective, there was not a lot of emotional buy-in on the characters. Like the hard-boiled detective novel that it was, most of it was told in a just-the-facts manner. Once again, though, as he laid down layer after layer, we did get to see the characters as more than cardboard, even if I wasn't completely invested.

The Story. The biggest draw was the story. For the first pages I fumed, I read passages in funny voices to my children, I just couldn't believe his style. But my dh continued to encourage me to read a little farther. And he was right. It was a great thriller with a top notch mystery.

Take away, the story comes first. Make it compelling.
 Second, keep the readers vision clear. Your words are the only thing the reader has to visualize a story.
Third, pace. Whether this is done by writing structure, or interest within the story, the reader needs a reason to stay hooked.
Fourth, make the reader root for the main character. Reacher wasn't particularly likable, and quite ruthless in the end, but he was a meticulous investigator with his own code of ethics - create qualities the reader has to admire.

It was a very strange experience to read this book from a writer's perspective, and on the other hand enjoy it as a reader. But, I think it did serve to remind me that there's no one right way to write. And that the story, in the end, is king.

~Susan