A Novel Lie by Kathleen Kudlinski
On jumping back into fiction and starting a novel
I’m a writer coming home. I started in fiction. I love its power to move children; to touch them deep and deeper still. I love spinning characters out of the air, building them layer by layer until they rise from the page to walk into the reader’s mind. The plot, too, is a joy to construct, inventing events that escalate to an unbearable crescendo. And then I get to dream up a resolution that will satisfy me, my characters, and my readers. But it is all a lie: the characters, the setting, the story – all but the theme. That is my truth. The rest is gold, spun, Rumplestiltskin-style, from very humble straw (me.)
A private school in Massachusetts tossed out every book in its library this summer. Cushing Academy has gone digital. Paper books may be lost in the great transition of the twenty first century. Does that slow my momentum? Hardly. People are as hungry for story now as they were before books, before scrolls, before clay tablets, and before writing itself. Back in the mists of history wandering bards were welcomed in crude villages and earlier still, tales were told around the fire to spellbound cave moms and dads. And the cave children leaned close, their faces bathed in firelight and wonder. Can’t you see them? People will have their stories, in one form or another.
Story spinning is a skill. It can be taught (I’m teaching it this fall.) It is learned through practice. Its techniques have served me well in writing biography and science books for the last decade, but I’m ready for the thrill of seeing gold materialize from invisible mental effort.
I’m reading through my novel-writing reference books again. Dog-eared, underlined, and cluttered with margin notes they taught me once. I offer them here in the hopes that readers might suggest other books that have given them the skills and courage to commit fiction.
- Fiction Writer’s Brainstormer by James V. Smith, Jr.
- Writing Screenplays that Sell, by Michael Hauge.
- Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.
September 11th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I heartily recommend reading lots of novels, at the grade level you’re thinking of writing in. I’ve always learned best that way.
This is exciting Kay!
September 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Kay, This is such an exciting adventure. Where in the world and in time are you going to take us?
September 12th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
talk, talk, from e.l. konigsburg.: “home for a writer is going home to where things were started.” from chapter 4, going home.
invitations to the world, from richard peck: “a novel must entertain on every page, but a young-adult novel needs to annoy on three.” from chapter 12.
radical change: books for youth in a digital age, from eliza t. dresang, is a handbook for learning about the scope of children’s literature and analyzing texts, a way of thinking about story which is a boon to my emerging fiction.
on writing, from stephen king. although not directed at writers of children’s lit., his respect for the reader is a boost for any storyspinner.
i also like jane smiley’s, 13 ways of looking at the novel
kay, this is a long reach back to the conn. shore but didn’t we meet once thru the annino family at westbrook?
(if i’m making the wrong connection, then sorry ’bout that.)
congrats. on all your books & with this site. this looks like a good group.
-jan godown annino
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