Character Tool for Novelists

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Kirsten

I built this guided notebook originally for my own use, to help me create, document, and track characters as I write my novels. Now I’m making my Character Tool for Novelists available to other writers.

Built originally for my own use, Character Tool for Novelists has space to help you brainstorm and document up to twelve characters, including everything from their names, physical features, and family trees, to major life milestones and unconscious needs. The dimensions are 5×8.5 inches to make it easy to carry and store.

I use notebooks to plan and work out my novels. I know not everybody does — some writers do everything electronically. But for me, notebooks work.

One reason may be that I’ve kept journals my entire life. When I sit down with notebook and pen, something happens in my brain. I can ask myself questions and get answers back. It works great for my creative process.

Another reason is that using notebooks gives me a break from screens. I like being able to move around, sometimes, while I’m working on a novel. I like being able to switch from my desk (stand-up) to a chair once in a while.

So the system that I’ve developed over the course of my fiction career (five published novels, a half dozen in process, numerous shorts) is to use blank notebooks — usually around 5-6 x 8 inch size to make it easy to carry around including when I travel — for brainstorming novels, working out problems, and early drafts of key scenes.

When I started work on my Marion Flarey novels (first one, Once Upon a Flarey Tale, available here, second one, Fo Fum Flarey, out now too!) I added something new. In addition to the blank notebooks for general brainstorming, I bought a package of Moleskine Volant journals and dedicated them to working out the characters, using a template that I replicated for every character in the books.

Moleskine notebook I used to create characters for my Marion Flarey novels. — Ugly but it worked: one of the Moleskine journals I used to work out the characters for my three Marion Flarey novels.

This proved to be a breakthrough for me as a fiction author. I’ve come to appreciate how important it is to fully imagine my characters before I get too deep into drafting an actual novel. It makes them come alive, which helps me enormously with everything else, from plotting and conflict to voice.

Having dedicated character notebooks imposed additional discipline on my planning process. It forced me to go through the foundational work of creating my characters and bringing them to life in my mind. As a result, before I began drafting my first Marion Flarey novel, every major character for all three books was fully developed in my head, including physical appearance, personality, backstory, and their hopes and dreams.

I have no doubt that one reason readers are enjoying Once Upon a Flarey Tale so much is that I “put in the work” on character development.

My dedicated character notebooks also helped me in practical ways. If I forgot a detail about a character — eye color or last name — I could easily look it up. It’s saved me both time and hassle.

But — speaking of saving time! — what I didn’t like about my system was that I was using a blank notebook, which meant I needed to replicate my character template by hand over and over and over.

So I decided to harness my Indie Author skills as a book designer to create and publish a “notebook” that would come pre-printed with the template — and Character Tool for Novelists was born :)

A tool for writers

I published Character Tool for Novelists using Amazon KDP and set the price at $7.99 USD; at 233 pages it’s roughly the cost of a similarly-sized lined journal, and at that price I make around a buck per copy. I chose white paper to make it as bright as possible; I personally wish the paper was a little thicker/higher quality but I’m limited by Amazon’s parameters, and in any case I wouldn’t want to make the tool any more expensive.

The tool has two parts. The (very short) first part provides space to let you list all of your novel’s primary and secondary characters by name, including nicknames/aliases. One section (pictured below) is a straight list of primary and secondary character. Another section is more of a workspace to brainstorm names and track them alphabetically. This ensures you don’t use the same first letter for more than one character (generally a no-no for modern novels).

Character Tool for Novelists by Kirsten Mortensen — Character Tool for Novelists includes space for you to list all characters in your novel by name and nickname/alias. A separate section (not pictured) lets you also list them alphabetically. I use the alphabetical listing to avoid using the same first letter for more than one character (giving multiple characters names that start with the same first letter can make it harder for readers to keep track of them).

The second part of the tool comprises the character template itself, with space for 12 characters altogether. Each of the 12 templates includes space for: names and name meanings; family trees; friendships; major life milestones; physical features; dress/clothing styles; personality traits; skills, abilities, and talents; occupations and finances; possessions/properties; social identities; habits, tics, and pet peeves; interests and hobbies; conscious aspirations; unconscious needs; journeys; archetypes; and thematic roles.

Here are a couple more pictures to show you what the interior looks like.

But wait! There’s more! Since many of us need space for more than 12 characters, I’ve also built a companion notebook, Character Tool for Novelists +15. This notebook doesn’t include the part one described above; it comprises only the character template, replicated an additional 15 times. It will be out by the first week of January The USD price is $8.99 since it’s a little longer at 279 pages.

Character Tool for Novelists Plus 15 — Need space for more than 12 characters? This companion tool replicates the Character Tool for Novelists template an additional 15 times.

I’d also love writer’s feedback, so if you try the tool, let me know. Have I left enough space for character elements? Should I add sections to the template? Anything else I could do to make the tool more useful?

Thanks for reading!

A hard lesson–a revised novel

Posted on October 3, 2020 by Kirsten

If there is one thing I’ve learned about trying to “be” a novelist — more accurately, trying to pursue a career as a novelist — it’s that you get knocked on your ass. A lot. Over, and over, and over…

When Libby Met the Fairies and Her Whole Life Went Fey by Kirsten Mortensen — Revised edition coming out this month!

And since I follow a few writers on Twitter, I see a fair number of who are crumpling. In real time.

I can relate. I’ve been there more times than I can count.

The lessons this business teaches are hard lessons, and the tools it uses to teach those lessons can be brutal.

Been There, Done That

One of the worst lessons I’ve had to endure started shortly after I published one of my first novels, When Libby Met the Fairies.

It was 2012. Self-pubbing was still pretty new.

I ran a KDP giveaway. A successful giveaway! A 23,875-people-just-downloaded-my-book giveaway! And I thought I’d made it. I thought that, with that many people reading one of my novels, my future was a gleaming bright golden road with golden coins showering down around my ears from endless sparkling rainbows.

From the days when running a KDP giveaway was so easy, a total newb could do it…

Boy, was I wrong.

Readers hated the book.

Okay, not all of them. And maybe “hate” is too strong a word. But in those days, Amazon used reviews in its ranking algorithms (although I’m told that’s no longer the case now) and I got slapped with enough 1- and 2-star reviews to kill the novel — and with it, my dreams of eeking out anything like a living self-pubbing novels.

At least in the near-term.

I tried to be brave, but in the end, I crumpled. I cried. I (stupidly) tried to argue with the critics on this blog (post since deleted).

And, eventually, I just gave up and unpubbed the book. It wasn’t selling anyway, and those reviews hurt. Better to pretend the novel had never existed …

But this post is about lessons, not mistakes.

Specifically, it’s about a lesson that was once so painful to my ears that I refused to believe it could be true.

I don’t remember where I read it. Probably on one of the lit agent blogs that were all the rage back in the early 2000-teens. It went something like this.

Write your first novel. Set it aside. Write your second novel. Set it aside. Then go back to your first novel and and re-write it.

I remember my reaction when I read those words. It was something like, “Are you kidding me?

“Do you know how much time and effort and energy I put into writing my first novel? Do you know how HARD I worked to make that book as good as it could possibly be? How can you tell me that there is ANYTHING I can do to make that novel any better?”

And so I made my peace with deep-sixing Libby forever. After all, I believe looking forward, not back!

On the other hand, I’ve always loved the novel’s premise. And it’s my favorite type of book to write: a book that set in the real world but admits to paranormal elements. And has romance. And family.

Kind of like real life ;)

So this spring, I picked Libby up and looked at it again for the first time in seven years. And guess what?

The readers were right.

Not in their specifics. They’re readers, not writers. They didn’t really understand why they didn’t like the book.

But since pubbing Libby, I’ve written several other novels and a ton of short fiction. And — even more important — I’ve read, and re-read, dozens of books on the craft (which I’m slowly reviewing for my blog; if you’re interested look here and here).

I’ve learned things. And because I’ve learned things, I could now see huge problems in Libby that I’d missed back when I was laboring away at the novel in 2010, 2011.

So this spring, I took that long-ago advice and began a re-write. Practically from scratch.

I changed a lot.

I switched the voice from third person to first.

I did a major deep-dive into my characters’ motivations — especially Libby’s — and re-wrote plot points to better articulate why they do what they do. (This was critically important with regard to one of the reasons readers disliked the last edition of the novel. They didn’t think Libby showed agency. This criticism baffled me at the time. After all, I knew why she made the choices she did! But I hadn’t done my job, as a storyteller, to reveal her motivations — so to readers, she came across as weak — a pushover.)

I tightened scenes that dragged. I created new scenes to add more texture and depth to the story.

And I found a designer (Lara Wynter) to re-do the cover.

And on October 23, I’m re-releasing Libby.

I have mixed feelings, to be honest. My experience in 2012 was incredibly humbling. I’m one of those writerly people who’s been told, my whole life, how good I am. “You’re such a good writer.” I’ve heard that a million times. It was hard to find myself being pilloried — to find myself being told that I was a total loser.

But I’m also hopeful that I’ve made enough progress as a writer that I can redeem this failed novel and turn it into something that readers will love.

Because, after all, that’s what I’m trying to do. Write books that readers will love …

Welcome back, Libby … wishing you the best of luck.

She’s seeing things that don’t exist.

Her boyfriend thinks she’s crazy.

And then the Internet found out.

When Libby Met the Fairies. E-book available now for pre-order at the sale price of only $2.99. Click here to browse available formats and place your pre-order!

Covid-Time Writer Craft: Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Kirsten

Some two decades after its original publication, this how-to by an industry insider is still well worth a read.

While my 2001 edition has bits about the industry that are somewhat dated, there is a lot to be learned from this book.

I met Donald Maass, once. It was at a writer’s conference, a few years after he published Breakout — which gives you a clue about how long I’ve been at this crazy business. Amazon had not yet released the first Kindle. You had only two choices, if you wanted to become a working novelist. You could land an agent. Or you could send your manuscript to a publisher and hope it didn’t get lost in the slush pile.

I was at the conference in the hopes that I’d find an agent for Loose Dogs, and I managed to schedule a pitch meeting with Maass, which felt like a huge deal at the time.

He didn’t take me on. Therefore no, I’m not typing this on a solid gold keyboard. But I also attended a talk he gave that was based on Writing the Breakout Novel, and after I got home I ordered a copy.

And then recently, I picked it up again and realized (cliche alert!) that the book has stood the test of time.

Break-out success = word of mouth

My edition of Breakout was released in 2001; there are industry bits at the front of the book that are definitely dated. But there’s also plenty of material, even in the introductory chapters, that’s as true today as ever. For example, at the time two-thirds of all book sales were going to “name-brand authors” — but even unknown novelists could potentially achieve best-seller status, because, Maass writes,

The next biggest reason folks buy fiction is that it has been personally recommended to them by a friend, family member, or bookstore employee.

“Savvy publishers,” he adds, try to seed this process via ARCs, sending out sample chapters via email, websites, etc. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And uncanny. It’s exactly what self-published writers do, today, to prime the word-of-mouth pump.

Premise and Stakes

Once the book moves from “why write a break-out novel” to the how’s, Maass tackles what he calls premise, which he presents as more of a process than anything else — a process, by the way, that you should start before you begin writing your actual novel. Maass advises that you consider a number of elements that are key to the break-out novel, like originality and gut emotional appeal. It makes for a useful checklist that, in my opinion, can help us novelists become more clear-eyed about our work (and potentially help us avoid creating problems in our novels that will be a lot more challenging to fix 80,000 words in).

The next chapter is about stakes, another thing we need to understand because it’s so fundamental to conflict. Our characters need to care about what happens to them, and they care what happens to them because there is a price to be paid if they don’t get what they want.

Time and Place

Maass then does a chapter on what he calls “time and place.” And you might be tempted to think he’s just found a new way to say “setting” but it’s more nuanced than that. There’s a section on the psychology of place, for example–a concept that fascinates me and that I try to consider in all of my fiction; I think of it in terms of places being characters that impact my human (or humanoid!) characters.

Once Upon a Flarey Tale by Kirsten Mortensen — We interrupt this post to remind you that I have a new book out. And it’s the best book I’ve ever written. Available on Amazon for print or Kindle, or click here to browse other e-formats.

The next chapter, Characters, covers another handful of concepts that you’ll find in other craft books. For example, “dark protagonists” should not be two-dimensional, but have sympathetic qualities, and all stories are ultimately character-driven.

But there are some unique nuggets here, too. For example, one tip (which I’ve internalized since I first read Breakout) is to look for places to combine characters’ roles. In When Libby Met the Fairies (which I’ve revised and am re-releasing next month, now on sale for pre-order! $4 off!) I made Libby’s boyfriend her employer as well. That let me simplify the book in terms of cast of characters (I didn’t have to create a separate character to be her boss and work him into the plot) while also enabling me to add interesting conflict to the dynamic of Libby and Paul’s relationship. She was dependent on him for income as well as intangibles like emotional support. More better stakes!

Plot

The last third or so of Breakout mostly digs into plot. There’s a chapter on plot basics, one titled Contemporary Plot Techniques, one on elements like viewpoints and subplots, and one titled Advanced Plot Techniques.

In a way, I suppose plot is the real heart of the book, because one thing that is probably true about all break-out novels is that they are plot-driven. They are stories that grip readers from the first page and then keep them interested until The End.

And to my reading, this is where Maass’ background as a long-time industry insider pays off. For example, there’s some excellent material about types of plots (fable, frame story, facade story, visitation plots) that I’ve not encountered elsewhere. Depending on what kind of novel you’re writing, there’s some rich veins in the sections on subplots and advanced plots as well.

Theme

Which brings us to the closing chapter, which is on Theme.

“Have something to say,” Maass writes. “Allow yourself to become deeply impassioned about something you believe to be true.”

Which is interesting advice, considering that Writing the Breakout Novel is a book about crafting commercial fiction, and when we think “commercial fiction” we think about money, don’t we? We think about sales and bestseller lists and the sound of corks popping out of expensive bottles of champagne.

But it’s possible that we writers (with a lot of work and a bit of luck) can have it both ways: we can be commercially successful while also exploring Big Ideas that potentially enrich readers’ lives or even change hearts and minds.

Do you agree?

And have you read Maass’ book? What did you think?

Interested in more posts like this? Click here to read my review of Story by Robert McKee.

The croissant diet, update

Posted on September 16, 2020 by Kirsten

Since someone took the time to mention in a comment that he found this blog because of my croissant diet post …

It’s been over a year now and yes. I think there’s something to it.

when people eat butter like it’s cheese …

As I mentioned in my first post, if you ran into me you probably wouldn’t think “overweight,” but my entire life I’ve had a tendency to put on extra pounds. As I’ve gotten older especially, I’ve floated at the upper end of what would be considered a good weight (based on hip:waist ratio).

I’ve kept things under control by watching carbs, periodic keto, and intermittent fasting. I work out (lift heavy things) twice a week and am fairly active otherwise. I use a standing desk to write.

But in 2018-19, everything stopped working as well. It seemed harder and harder to keep those few extra pounds from creeping back on.

So when I learned about the croissant diet, I thought, “hmmm.” Brad seems smart. He looks at the science. As a keto-literate person, I’m not shy about ingesting fats, but the more I dug into Brad’s blog posts, the more I started wondering if my issue was the kind of fats I was eating.

Keto/primal typically gives the green light to olive and avocado oils. And yes, unless you are scrupulous about keeping a food diary or updating a tracker app, it’s hard to attribute weight gain to diet with any real precision. But I was eating a LOT of monosaturated fats. Half an avocado nearly every day for breakfast, cooking with avocado oil, drenching salads in olive oil. All good for you, right?

I was eating a lot of bacon.

So I made the switch. Quit those oils entirely for several months. Cut way back on bacon (I know — eep). Cut back on chicken and pork, and when I did serve them, I’d cook them in generous amounts of butter or beef tallow. (Memory: my grandfather adding a little real sugar to his coffee after the saccharine “to take the devil out.”)

Began dousing vegetables liberally with butter and/or tallow. Started snacking on butter. See pic :)

And guys, something started going right with all this. I am down several pounds from my peak 2019 weight, and I seem to be stabilized. I’m not struggling to keep it off.

I still do all the other things I’ve been doing all along. I do a 20-24 hour fast 2-4 times/month. I don’t gorge on carbs, but I also don’t avoid them entirely. I eat bread once in a while. I eat popcorn (with butter!) once in a while. I drink beer once in a while, although I’m careful with that, favoring tequila neat or dirty gin martinis :)

Your mileage may vary.

But I’m in. And psyched that Brad is now raising low-PUFA pork. It’s about time someone did — I’ve been worried about the fat profile of chicken and pork for a long time (ICYMI, they’re both fed grains, so even organic versions tend to be high PUFA).

Firebrand Meats CSA/subscription here.

And I’m almost afraid to do this, because I’d rather hoard this find to myself … but the crackers in the photo at the top of this post? The are called Finn Crisps, and I found them after hunting for a store-bought cracker, any store-bought cracker, that’s not made with industrial seed oils. If you buy a case of nine boxes on Amazon the cost is under $3/box. So, not too bad. And the ingredients: rye flour, water, salt, yeast.

Nice crunchy vehicle for those slabs of butter :)

Reviews v. Endorsements v. Critiques. A Proposal for Writers.

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Kirsten

Writers want to support other writers, but when it comes to leaving reviews, we’re torn. What if we don’t like a book? What if we spot flaws? Fortunately there are options — if we change the way we think about “reviews.”

If you’ve ever hit the “publish” button on Amazon or Smashwords or D2D, you know how terrifying it is to put your novel out there for everyone to see — and judge.

You also know how badly you need reviews.

And as you meet other writers on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, chances are you’ve faced another dilemma: should you review other writers’ books? And if you’ve read a book and don’t like it — or, worse yet, spot what you think are flaws — what should you do? Share your thoughts publicly? Contact the writer privately? Drop the whole thing and enter the witness protection program? All of the above?

As a writer, you know first-hand how much negative reviews hurt.

Negative reviews dampen sales — and that’s not even the worst of it. Getting a negative review is personally painful for writers. It’s discouraging. No matter how thick-skinned we try to be, it feels so, so personal.

On the other hand, you also know the importance of feedback.

I speak from experience! As much as I hate negative reviews, I learn a LOT from them. I get data from negative reviews that helps me become a better writer and better understand my audience.

I’m currently doing a completely re-write of a novel based on input I got via negative reviews. Yes, those reviews tanked my rankings. I was just starting to get traction as an author, and poof. Everything I’d built was gone; years later, I still haven’t fully recovered. But when I’m done with the revision, the novel will be a better book. MUCH better. (If you’re interested in this story, by the way, stay tuned. I’ll be sharing more about it in a future post.)

In other words, there’s nuggets of gold buried in negative reviews, if you can stomach looking at them.

But that doesn’t mean that writers should use reviews to point out flaws. Especially when there are other ways to support each other. Better ways.

A New Framework: Review, Endorsement, or Critique?

As writers, we need to get more comfortable — even a little cynical — with what we all know is true. Reviews exist because the platforms where we sell our books use reviews to drive sales.

Reviews may benefit authors, too, but that’s not really why Amazon lets us post them. Amazon lets us post reviews for one reason only: because it’s good for Amazon!

Writing and posting reviews also requires us to invest time and energy. When you publish a review, you’re creating content and giving it away. Sometimes it makes sense to do that. But every minute you spend creating content to enrich the Amazon platform is time you could have spent working on your novel.

Fortunately, there are two other ways to support our fellow authors.

The first way is an endorsement. You publicly praise a book and recommend it to others.

And see what I did there? Because guess what. You can use a review to make an endorsement. But all that really means is that reviews are a vehicle for publishing endorsements. It doesn’t change the fact that reviews and endorsements are two entirely different animals.

In fact, when I stopped mixing up the concept of “review” with the concept of “endorsement,” I saved myself a ton of headaches, because the question “review or not review?” is now extremely easy to answer.

“No. Nope. And no.”

I never just “review” other writers’ books.

Instead — time permitting — I sample read other writers’ books, and sometimes buy and read other writers’ books, and then, if I really like something I’ve read, I’ll endorse it. I’ll post an endorsement (what everyone else calls a “positive review”) on Amazon. I’ll sometimes share my endorsement in other ways, e.g. Twitter.

“But Kirsten,” you say. “What if I read another author’s book and for some reason I don’t feel I can endorse it?”

Glad you asked, because that leads me to the last category: critiques.

Critiques, unlike reviews, are private. They’re feedback — just like negative reviews are feedback — but they don’t embarrass the writer or hurt rankings and/or sales.

I’m a lifelong reader and a lifelong professional writer. I’m also a self-published author who has been working on novels for over twenty years, now.

I’m far from perfect! But when it comes to novels, I’ve learned a little bit about what works and what doesn’t. And I’ll be blunt: I immediately spot serious flaws in the majority of self-pubbed novel I sample.

Am I going to buy a flawed indie-pubbed book, slog through it, and post a public review that details its problems?

Hell, no.

Because who would benefit?

Not me! I’d be taking time away from writing and from reading books I actually enjoy — not to mention the rest of my life.

And certainly not the writer! See above. Negative reviews do real hurt. And what writer wants to hurt other writers?

On the other hand, if you came to me and asked me for an HONEST critique, I’d read a few pages and don my fire suit and tell you what I honestly think could be made better. Even though, mostly likely, you won’t like it. Even though there’s a very good chance you’ll think I am completely wrong and don’t understand your book and don’t understand you as a writer or what you’re trying to do and everyone else who’s looked at your book told you it’s AMAZING.

I know you’re likely to respond that way, because that’s the way I respond to “negative reviews” (which are actually critiques … by people who have chosen to make them public).

But I’d be supporting you in a way that is a lot kinder and more useful than pretending your book is wonderful when it’s not, or telling the world I think your book has issues …

Or staying silent.

So, what do you think?

Maybe, instead of committing to public reviews, we could start offering other writers either:

A. Public Endorsements or

B. Private Critiques …

We’d be helping each other.

We’d be avoiding sticky promises that make us feel deeply uncomfortable.

We’d avoid hurting each other.

What do you think?

Novels for you…

Featured

Posted on August 24, 2020 by Kirsten

Extraordinary favor

COMING SOON!

He thought she was the one.
She asked him for a favor.
He agreed.
And that’s when things began to get truly strange...

An Extraordinary Favor of Unusual Proportions
Sign up for my newsletter! Be the first to know when my new novel is out!

Once Upon a Flarey Tale

Meet Marion Flarey.

She believes in Fairy Tales.
Her new apartment?
It's a Tower.
Does that mean her Prince is on his way?

Once Upon a Flarey Tale
Available on Amazon for print or Kindle, or browse here for other e-formats.

1st place 2020 Incipere Award for Women's Fiction, Clean, Once Upon a Flarey Tale by Kirsten Mortensen

Fo Fum Flarey

She's Back!

She's got her prince.
Finally.

IF she can figure out
how to keep him...

Fo Fum Flarey
Book 2 of my Marion Flarey series.

Available now on Amazon (print or Kindle) or browse here for other e-formats.

Happily Flarey Ever?

Now available!

She's lost two Princes.

But Fairy Tales teach the power of threes--and Marion's third Prince has suddenly reappeared.

Does this mean Marion will finally find her Happily Ever After?

Happily Flarey...Ever?
Book 3 of my Marion Flarey series.

Available now on Amazon (print or Kindle) or browse here for other e-formats.

Libby

Oh, Libby...

She sees things that don't exist.

Her boyfriend thinks she's crazy.

And then?
The Internet found out.

When Libby Met the Fairies
And Her Whole Life Went Fey

Available on Amazon for print or Kindle, or browse here for other e-formats.

Character Tool

Are you a writer?

I built this guided notebook originally for my own use.
Now you can try it, too.

"It helped me keep the characters organized...I definitely recommend it."

"Helped shape my characters and their backgrounds. There should be more like this."

"I loved the first copy I got so much I got another one for another work in progress."

Character Tool for Novelists
$7.99 on Amazon (print only).

The novel as a form

Posted on August 24, 2020 by Kirsten

I’ve have been thinking about the novel as a form. And how — despite what I once deeply believed — I no longer see the “genre” v “literary fiction” as a useful model for understanding the publishing industry.

Here’s how I see it, now.

Novels their start as medium for long, drawn-out stories, serving increasingly literate middle class audiences. Think 17th-19th century, pubbed in serial form in newspapers.

The best novelists realized the form would enable them to explore large ideas as well — for example the human condition, politics, marriage.

Next came the Modernists and as long as I’m indulging in assertions, how about this: they were hugely influences by what was going on in the visual arts (modernism, cubism) and as a result, writers started to think of novels as art. Writers approached novels as if they were a textual versions of Modernist paintings. Linear narrative was less important than evoking emotions or responses. Examples: Finnegan’s Wake, Virginia Woolf’s novels. Good times good times.

Then in the 20th century an industry grew on the shoulders of the early 20th century Modernists. The MA in Writing was born.

Novelists were no longer self-taught. The publishing industry hunted for degree’d “authors” who would uphold the Modernist ethos. Genre was sniffed at because it bypassed Modernism and continued to emphasize story, i.e. it viewed itself as entertainment and emphasized “spinning a good yarn.”

So the industry split. We had pulp and later mass market novels on the one hand and Literary Novels on the other. This is the state of affairs that B.R. Myers poked at in his 2002 Atlantic article, A Reader’s Manifesto.

But the end of the 20th Century also brought a couple other things. 1. The Entertainment Industry as we understand it today and 2. Shake-ups/disruption driven by the Internet and e-reader tech. The former influenced consumers’ tastes and entertainment preferences, and the latter disrupted the economic underpinnings of the publishing industry itself.

So publishers, their margins squeezed, shifted to a new hunt: Commercial fiction. Conceding that the vast majority of readers would prefer Dan Brown to yet another free associative Faulknerian clone.

Notice that today’s “how to be a successful novelist” industry teaches writers to create based on the architecture of commercially successful movies. I.e. the mechanics of “good” fiction is codified, more in more, in ways that are modeled on movies: structured as three acts, nadir at ¾ mark, driving the plot as beats, hero’s journey, etc.

So the question is: have we come full circle?

There are some fine novelists today spinning terrific yarns while also exploring large ideas. Off the top of my head: Ann Rice Interview with a Vampire (1976 early clue to the new direction) Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins.

So writers: if I’m correct, what does this mean for the future of genre? Perhaps this is why genre categories feel more fluid today than even 10 years ago? And what does this imply for Indie Authors who don’t care to write genre?

Can we write and self-publish breakout commercial fiction? Or will that remain impossible because the math to market to wide audiences is so crazy? (Because with genre, you can zero in on audience. With mainstream you are as @Alter_Space put it, a droplet lost in a tidal wave.)

Or as I think of it: Indies are trying to sell a P&G product on an Etsy budget.

So. Thoughts? Lamentations? Corrections? And let me know if you are an unpublished or Indie trying to play in the mainstream or literary fiction space…

Missing time, folklore templates, and my Marion Flarey WIP

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Kirsten

On Twitter, Midnight Myth Podcast (podcast can be found here) shared a Japanese story for yesterday’s #Fairytaletuesday.

Urashima Taro returned from the underwater Dragon Palace to find centuries had passed.

I was struck by the beauty of the illustration, of course, but also by the fact that missing time crops up in so many folklore traditions, across so many cultures.

But wait! There’s more.

What if fairy tales like this one actually encode powerful secrets?

What if stories like this one are more than “just stories”?

You may be aware, for instance, that missing time crops up outside of folklore. People literally experience missing time when they stumble into certain kinds of paranormal phenomena — they have subjective experiences of time that don’t match up to the linear passage of time in “the real world.” Missing time is an almost universal aspect of UFO abductions, for example.

After a ferocious mental struggle, during which she literally tried to crawl out of the house as she could no longer walk, all went dark. When she woke up, it was hours later. She never found out what happened to her during that missing time.
— The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained is Real, Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal

Which brings me to a question I’ve been tussling with for over a year now, as I build out my Marion Flarey books — a three-novel collection that will debut when I publish Once Upon a Flarey Tale in a month or so. [UPDATE: it’s out and you can get your copy here!]

What if fairy tales hold clues to the nature of reality — and how to manipulate it?

What if they are actually templates that — in the right hands — can be used to harness and direct emotional and spiritual energy in ways that shape reality itself?

Marion Flarey seems to think so. She detects a power in fairy tales that nobody else seems to “get” (well — almost nobody!) — but that also tends to blow up in her face when she tries to wield it. :)

And here’s where — to me at least — it gets interesting.

I think she’s right.

Or put another ways: these books are fiction, but they are also true. I am not writing “paranormal.” I’m writing reality — or let’s call it quantum reality :D

Here’s what I mean, using the missing time template as an example.

If you study the template, you can feel the energy behind it. Quite a lot of energy, some negative (anxiety) and some positive (time pressure can be a powerful motivator).

In some stories, like the one Midnight Podcast shared, the energy is partly sexual. It’s about the power of sexual love-matches to make us completely forget — completely abandon — other loyalties and ties.

The handsome they like, and the good dancers. And if they get a boy amongst them, the first to touch him, he belongs to her.
— Mr. Saggarton, as told to Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs v. 1

The missing time template also warns us to be conscious about the trade-offs we make when we decide to take a particular life-path.

You can’t take two paths at the same time. Once you have invested time exploring one path, you can never get that time back. It’s gone forever.

She hastened homewards, wondering however, as she went, to see that the leaves, which were yesterday so fresh and green, were now falling dry and yellow around her. The cottage too seemed changed, and, when she went in, there sat her father looking some years older than when she saw him last; and her mother, whom she hardly knew, was by his side …
— The Elfin Grove, from The Big Book of Stories from Grimm, ed. by Herbert Strang

There’s a profound emotional poignancy, here. When we leave our birth homes, those we loved when we were children will, in our absence, grow and age and eventually die. And we’ll miss that, because we were elsewhere — we were Away.

Because of the poignancy of this trade-off, missing time is also related to death, naturally (what isn’t?): whether we permit ourselves to be aware of it consciously or not, we are all on some level keenly aware that our time on this planet is finite. Sooner or later, Mr. Death is going to knock on the door and whatever we are working on at that moment will remain forever unfinished.

The Good Man at the Hour of Death, from the British Museum Image Library. After Francis Hayman, print made by Thomas A E Chambars, 1783 — The good man at the hour of death, print, London, British Museum image library

It’s scary, right? Because life isn’t fair and and the trade-offs we make, when we decide how to spend our time, are often downright cruel.

But there is one small comfort in this rather ugly mess: we have the ability to consciously shape our personal stories — the stories that, in turn, become the channels through which our lives flow.

In other words, we don’t have to be carried passively toward the inevitable penalties of Lost Time. We can recognize those penalties in advance; we can accept them with open eyes as the price we pay for a choice we consciously make.

Will this make those penalties less painful?

Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war—Congress–Stony–Point;—he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?”
— Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving

Nope. Still gonna hurt.

But it will make the experience of suffering those penalties one of conscious choice. We can therefore consciously acknowledge the richness of life’s tapestry, which is woven not only of beauty and joy and pleasure, but also of ugliness and loss and pain. And that’s something. It’s quite a lot, in fact …

This is what Marion is trying to do.

It’s hard for her, just like it’s hard for us.

It’s also absurd, and confusing, and funny, and has a tendency to backfire :)

But ultimately it’s as rewarding for Marion as it can be for you and I.

Because the better we get at shaping our stories consciously, the more aligned we become with our own sense of place, and our own sense of destiny.

And what could be a better HEA than that?

UPDATE: My first Marion Flarey novel is now out!

“Once Upon a Flarey Tale” is available on Amazon for print or Kindle, or click here to browse other e-formats.

My father

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Kirsten

He taught me how to shoot a basketball and hold a golf club, how to cast a fly rod and how to gut a fish. He’s the guy who would come quietly into my room when I was broken and sobbing and everything in the world was falling apart, and he’d put his arms around me and stroke my hair and somehow melt the grief back into acceptance and love. He’s the one who everyone said I took after, and I grew up knowing in my bones that it was true: the way we both loved dogs, and being in the woods, and history (my bookshelf full of the history books he read and then passed on to me!)

He was the type of father who had enough sense to step back and let me make mistakes—and we all know I went a little wild there, for a while—and trust that I’d learn from them and sort myself out, eventually, because above all else he knew that his trust was what I most needed to keep my feet under me as I felt my way through the dark.

He was always so very comfortable in himself. He was the guy who would sit with headphones on and music playing and yep, he’d sing along—loudly!—even though he could NOT carry a tune (oh my God he could not carry a tune!) and you’d peek around the corner at him and he’d look up and grin from ear to ear, so happy to be there “singing” along with that music. He was completely and happily comfortable with his awful spelling and the way he’d butcher words he knew from reading but not how to pronounce—butchering them a bit more on purpose just to show he knew it was funny, that he got the joke. When his hands curled up from the Dupuytrens he just shrugged, he never complained about it, he made up his mind that it was how things were, now, and he’d figure out how to live with it—it was part of who he was, part of his aging body and his Danish blood (as it is part of mine, too, with the nodes now coming up on my own right palm, a piece of what he was that I will carry always with me, to my own grave).

He was the guy who read, constantly, book after book after book. (Memory, from my childhood: Dad stretched out on the living room carpet, head propped in his hands, hardcover propped open in front of him, lost in his book.)

He was a serial hobbyist. When Mom made the mistake of giving him a fish tank (Christmas present I think?) one year, he was off and running and the next thing you know he was collecting cichlids, building huge tanks that showed his fish off like moving museum pieces, writing a monthly column for Aquarium magazine because of course he wanted to share with other people what he’d learned. After he and Mom took a trip to Hawaii it was orchids. He took over one whole end of the living room, turning it into a bank of plant shelves stacked with phalaenopsis and cymbidium and odontoglossum. He got interested another time in woodworking, converted a corner of the basement into a shop, learned how to inlay and dovetail, and any time he took a day trip somewhere he’d had to take a side-trip to some lumberyard to hunt for a new piece of exotic hardwood, and there he was designing jewelry boxes and turning bowls and clerking at the Norwich co-op (and doing their books!)

He loved gadgets. So of course he has the lights in the living room and den voice-controlled. Of course he installed an app so he could close the door to his chicken coop remotely. Of course he bought a fancy growler that uses CO2 cartridges to keep craft beer stored properly under pressure. For my dad, living in this day and time meant he could always be a bit of a kid in a toy store. He never tired of discovering new toys, never lost his delight in showing them off.

But at the same time, he was a country boy to his bones. Which, you may have noticed, is a dying breed, a relic (he might even agree with this) of our lost Jeffersonian America—he didn’t care for cities or crowds, it was his plan from the beginning to pick a spot in the country and build a home and raise a family and tend to the land—his vegetables and fruit trees and nut trees and berry bushes and flowers—and hunt and fish and read and think and make up his own mind on politics and life and God and history and philosophy.

And how many people today tend the same garden for over 50 years? If you were to take a spade down into the wooded slope behind Dad’s garden and try to stick it into the ground you wouldn’t get any further than the layer of leaf litter because your spade would hit his rocks—the piles and piles of rocks that he tossed over his shoulder, year after year every spring—I can see him out there, picking rocks and tossing them over his shoulder down the hill, the rock pile getting higher every year (the way the rocks around Oxford bleach to pale beige in the sun) until suddenly the garden wasn’t rocky any more. He’d changed it. He’d picked so many rocks and tilled in so much compost (lawn clippings and leaves, manure from our pony, Patches, and then later from his chickens, kitchen scraps). And he was so proud that finally, instead of that hard, rocky glacial till that he’d first plowed fifty years ago, his garden is now deep, soft, beautiful loam. You could grow anything in that soil. (And without us even noticing that pile of rocks disappeared under the leaf litter.)

Who these days picks a spot and puts down roots and stays there for 50 years?

You may know that Mom and Dad have been adding to that land, too, over the years—growing it from the first three acres to six, then ten, and then a couple years ago they purchased their biggest chunk so far, a big piece of the wooded acreage between their house and Route 12.

That land east of their house was my real playground growing up: the place I escaped to whenever I could. I knew it by heart. I knew where all the deer trails were and where the deer bedded. I could lead you to a secret patch of sweetfern and to the hollow trees and to the best places to find Spring salamanders (they have gills when they’re young and need cold, pristine water) and Red-Backed salamanders and Northern Slimy salamanders (they can grow to over six inches long). I climbed trees (dangerously high I’m sure) and built shelters and flipped over rocks and caught snakes (garter, milk ring-necked, green) and then brought them home and lost them in the house (sorry Mom).

And then suddenly there I was, the summer of 2018. With Dad, walking his new property line. It’s all overgrown down there, now, the multi-flora rose and wild raspberries that came in after the last time it was logged, so we had to move slowly, watching our footing because under the tangle of brush the ground is littered with the treetops the loggers left behind—and of course now we were also clad head-to-toe in tick-repellent-impregnated pants and long-sleeve shirts and gaiters. But oh how sweet it was to be there with him, him telling me stories about hiking the land with Mom (stories from that year and stories from when we were kids), pointing out the oaks and cherry trees left by the loggers that will one day take over, will join their crowns 100 feet above and shade the earth again, shade out those stupid invasive multi-flora roses. Pointing out the few remaining ancient apple trees, still clinging on from when the hillside was an orchard (or so the story goes). And of course showing me all the saplings he’d planted, because that was his plan, of course, to jumpstart the land’s regeneration, to bring it back to a hardwood forest again. (He was a forestry major before he switched to teaching, did you know that? Before he got sick with the flu in ’57 and missed six weeks of school and transferred out to Cortland and met Mom.) He’d mown trails, chainsawing deadfall logs and branches to clear them (he was 80!) and he’d carved out a new little meadow around that slab of shale we call Big Rock—you have probably seen Big Rock in the pictures he caught with his wildlife cam: pics of coyotes and bobcat and fishers and rabbits and deer.

And I remember years ago, when he had his springer spaniel, Biddy, and how he’d put on his hunting vest (that dog would DANCE ON HER TOES when he pulled out his hunting vest) and disappear down the hill and later he’d be back and we’d have partridge or woodcock for dinner (how I love, still, the taste of real game bird, not that insipid crap “game” you get today in restaurants). And the time I must have stayed out too late, it was getting dark, and I looked up and he was coming toward me through the trees, calling me, and how had he known exactly where I was in all the 30 or 40 acres back there where I used to wander—how had he walked straight to me in the dusk?

And who is going to take care of your land now, Dad? Who is going to keep the trails clear and check on your baby trees and look to see if the morel spore you laid down have finally taken? Who will remember where the ramps come up in the spring?

How can you be gone when you had so much more you wanted to do?

How can we ever find our way in this world without you here with us?

Update: And Then She Followed

A (big) National Poetry Month Covid Cooped Up Project, eep

Posted on April 2, 2020 by Kirsten

UPDATE: the day I posted this, my dad was admitted into the ICU with covid. So I failed my resolution utterly …

Okay so it’s National Poetry Month, and also national stay-at-home month, so I’ve decided to read a book of poetry that I bought last summer but set aside.

The Changing Light at Sandover. James Merrill. Also, it’s over 600 pages. So 20 pages a day and it’s already April 2 and I have some catching up to do.

If you haven’t heard of this poem, here’s a NYT article from 2008, which notes that the poem is based on Merrill and his longtime partners’

adventures with the Ouija board, with which they summoned from the dead, among others, W. H. Auden, Plato and a peacock named Mirabell.

And from The New Yorker:

And Ouija boards: Merrill made the most ambitious American poem of the past fifty years, seventeen thousand lines long, in consultation with one. The result, “The Changing Light at Sandover,” was a homemade cosmology as dense as Blake’s, which Merrill shared with the “summer people”—retired naval officers and frisky elderly Brahmin ladies—who lived near him in Stonington. He knew that posterity alone would decide on his greatness; he would not be around to enjoy the proceeds. He hedged his bets by driving a small Ford with a license plate that read “POET.”

Will I finish the book? I don’t know. But being locked up and I can write my own stuff for only so many hours a day, and it feels like this April may be not only the cruelest month but also the longest …

The cup twitched in its sleep. “Is someone there?”
We whispered, fingers light on Willowware,
When the thing moved. Our breathing stopped …

kirsten mortensen

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