I am a writer, blogger, and dog rescuer. I live in the darling town of Woodstock, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley with my husband and three rescue dogs (who rescue me on a daily basis). Find more information about my books, my dogs, and all my writing adventures at CaraWrites.com.
Finally! After a three year drought, I have a new book coming out in 2025! And this one was sure worth waiting for.
Note: Maybe this is old news because you follow me on Facebook or subscribe to Another Good Dog. So if that’s the case, you have my permission to skip this blog post. Or you can read it again because, hey, this is good stuff and there’s dog pictures!
My newest book is a little different. It’s a passion project, for sure, and it’s been five years in the making. It’s also a nonprofit venture.
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve refrained from commenting or posting or engaging in discussion of AI. Initially, I just thanked my lucky stars that my kids are already grown and out of school, but secretly I really hoped this was a fad and it would go away.
I only made it halfway through my Bird by Bird book club. The book sits on my desk now, taunting me. You didn’t finish, you didn’t finish, what a loser, once again, you didn’t finish. Not that, for one moment, I can imagine Anne Lamott would say that to me.
In fact, she mentions several times in the book that perfection is the oppressor. Not that only making it halfway is even remotely in the same country as perfection. Still.
The cows are crying. (not a sentence I ever imagined writing)
A few times a year, our little street echoes with the bellows and moans and outright wails of distressed cows. This means that one of our farmer neighbors has separated the mamas and babies, presumably so that the babies can go to be auctioned.
The sounds of the cows are heartbreaking. I doubt they know that their babies are likely destined for a slaughterhouse, but change on any level is hard.
I don’t think I’m unique in my writerly tendency to find stories just about anywhere. I think it’s a human tendency. Although this one was a little different from the stories I normally tell (there were no dogs involved). It would involve police and investigators and maybe a murder mystery!
It all started on an average Sunday in which Nick and I found ourselves spending the entire day taking care of things at our two rental houses.
The title of the chapter is ‘False Starts’. It’s about characters, essentially, how they change the longer we hang out with them. There’s a deeper truth running through this chapter, though, one that we all can probably learn from whether we write or not.
This might be my favorite chapter in Bird by Bird. It’s super short (all the chapters are short, but this one is only four pages). And it is mostly the story of Anne visiting a nursing home for years despite the fact that she hated going there.
The nursing home illustration shows that once you strip away a person’s outer beauty and busyness, you are left with who they are at their core—and often, that’s nothing like the outer covering.
My most recent novel, Blind Turn, has had the longest and most winding road to publication of all my books. I looked back through my files to try to figure out when I started writing it – as best as I can tell, I began writing it in 2010.
I was inspired to think about this because it was chosen to be the Ereader News Book of the Day for this Friday, August 30. For one day it will be just 99 cents!
So, if your reason for not buying a copy has been that you don’t want to spend the money, here’s your chance to get an e-copy for less than a dollar. There’s not much you can buy for less than a buck these days, so I hope you’ll take a chance on me..]
Back to my long and winding story, which I’ll try to keep brief by sharing it in a timeline:
The next chapter in Bird By Bird is titled, “Set Design”, or in other words, setting. Setting is critical, but it can also be nauseatingly overdone (and underdone, as my sad story will reveal).
The reader needs to be able to picture your characters somewhere. And not just somewhere, but in what kind of weather? What time of day? What season of the year?
Now, I think I love Anne Lamott more than the average bear. I’ve read everything she’s written, stalk her a bit on Facebook, even listen to the sermons she’s given at random churches throughout the years. But…
Here’s the thing. We teach best what we most need to learn. As a mediocre rider, I learned A LOT teaching riding. As a passionate, but unstructured, often too-wordy writer and struggling, lazy marketer, I am good at teaching writers to write and publish. Because I’ve had to work so hard for it. When something doesn’t come naturally, you have to pick it to pieces to figure it out. If you’re a natural, well, how do you teach that?
Anne Lamott, while a wonderful teacher in many ways, is not the best at teaching dialogue. Why? Because she is a master at writing it. How many times have you read her work and felt like she was talking to you from across the booth at your favorite coffee shop. Or thought, ‘she totally gets it.’ (If you don’t believe me, read Operating Instructions.)
This very short chapter on dialogue is pretty vague with lots of ideas but nothing truly concrete beyond listen to your characters well so that you can make them speak authentically.
She also advises listening to people everywhere in your life and remembering cadences, tones, turns of phrase.
Unless you’re walking around with the recording app going on your phone. Which seems brilliant until you realize you will never actually listen to all that dribble and ums and mundane conversation about the weather and how ‘totally fine’ you and everyone you run into are doing (when in reality you are struggling to make it to lunch time and the freedom to play Match 3 unencumbered on your phone, which will be dead by then because of all that recording).
And, for the most part, we don’t remember the words people say. Instead, we remember the feeling we got from those words.
Another brilliant writer, Maya Angelou, said it best when she said people will not remember what you do, but they will remember how you made them feel.
I’m not saying that reading the chapter on dialogue won’t teach you something. Everything you read teaches you something.
Instead, I’m going to offer you a mini-version of the class I teach on dialogue.
Dialogue is the best way to reveal characters.
Use characters’ names sparingly. We don’t say each other’s names very often in real life. Using a person’s name every other line is awkward (try this in real life).
Use only dialogue tags that are necessary and use primarily “said.” Avoid adverbs at all cost! (if you have to describe how someone said something, then re-think what they are saying. Not to beat a dead horse, but show, don’t tell.)
Read it outloud. If you really want to hear it, read it outloud with someone else. (You can also try using the voice on your computer to read it to you.)
Don’t use dialogue to dump information. (That’s lazy writing.) No soliloquys. People don’t talk like that, and if they did they would have no friends.
You don’t need all the hellos and good byes, or the small talk of real life, it’s boring and drags down the dialogue.
Characters generally sound better and think faster than we do. Be clever and funny, whenever possible.
Punctuate correctly – learn this. Doing it wrong is a giveaway that you are an amateur. There are lots of resources for this – study them.
You don’t have to give complete conversations. That’s too tedious for the reader. Jump in mid-conversation and jump out before it’s completed.
People have distinct speech patterns, but they may be subtle. Kids sound different than adults. Educated sounds different than uneducated. Think about who your characters are – none should sound the same. In fact, once we know our characters we should be able to tell who is talking by the way they talk.
My personal golden rule: Characters don’t waste words. If it doesn’t move the story forward or reveal character, cut it out.
I usually teach that in about 90 minutes with lots of examples and exercises, so if any of it doesn’t make sense, please raise your hand. I’m happy to expound on any of it.
Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.
Honored,
Cara
If you’re curious about what else I’m up to, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.
If you’d like to subscribe to my twice monthly emails, click here.
My latest novel, Blind Turn is a mother-daughter story of forgiveness in the aftermath of a fatal texting and driving accident. It won the Womens Fiction category of the American Writing Awards in 2022. Learn more about it and find out how to get your copy here.
My most recent memoir, 100 Dogs & Counting: One Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey Into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues is available anywhere books are sold, but if you’d like some help finding it (or want to read some lovely reviews), click here.
It’s where pantsers and plotters part ways. I have never been able to plot. The times when I’ve plotted out a story before starting to write, it’s felt stilted and uncomfortable and forced. Like doing a homework assignment. Check that rubric – are you hitting all the right notes?
Once I’ve regurgitated what I’d planned, I feel let down. Like I was waiting for this great thing, and it disappointed. The idea seemed so much better in outline form.
My Life in Paragraphs 