Book II

I have not posted a blog entry for some weeks. My mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in November and died in December. Since then, I’ve dealt with health insurance paperwork, cremation, the memorial, cleaning out her apartment, and other family issues—not least, my own feelings. I didn’t stop writing, but my efforts turned sharply towards memoir, probably as therapy. Today, I’m publishing the first of the pieces I worked on during this period, On the Deaths of my Parents. Because it is a longer piece, about 1500 words, I’ve elected to add it to my essays.

A result of my writing about family issues is a delay in publishing my second novel, The Door Behind Us. Nevertheless, I hope to get that book out soon. The only step remaining is to design or commission a cover for it.

I have been thinking about first impressions. In a romance, there is a moment when two characters meet and form impressions of one another. The impressions they form may jive with those the writer has planted in the reader’s mind, or they may be false and contrast deliciously with what the reader knows to be the truth. In the latter case, the story is shaped by the change from that initial impression to one more pleasing.

I know that long descriptions full of unnecessary detail can bore the reader. If I get to the description some time after the character first appears, I run the risk of describing the character in a way which conflicts with the reader’s already formed impression, thus jarring the reader out of the story. The best descriptions are short, offering one or two key details. They often rely similes that allow the reader to fill in the details on his or her own.

First impressions are formed in a particular time and place. A chunk of description dropped into the scene without connection to the setting or circumstances of the characters is a stumbling block. I’ve been known leave such blocks in early drafts to be hammered out in the editing. I ran across the following paragraph from the scene in The Door Behind Us where Frank really sees Jersey for the first time.

It was like waking from a daydream. Frank was aware of his surroundings, but unable at first, to connect anything. He was mucking out the barn. He smelled manure and watched hay dust drift down in the shaft of sunlight from the open shutters in the hayloft. The light reached a young man on a three-legged stool. He recognized the source of the voice that had haunted his dreams for weeks. The man—boy really—was slight. Narrow shoulders cut his shirt like a hanger. He balanced on a three-legged stool on uneven thighs, one well-defined and the other bone thin. He had green eyes that looked almost gray until the sun hit them, and curly dark hair longer than army regulation with flecks of hay in it. A nose like a blade led to a wide mouth, now wavering uncertainly between a smile and a nervous grimace. He realized that this man had been with him, had been talking to him for days. The words were gone, but they hung in the air with the dust.

While not wholly without merit, the description is long and dry. It feels disconnected from the rest of the scene. Here’s the edited version.

Frank woke from a daydream. He was mucking out the barn. He smelled manure and watched hay dust drift in the shaft of sunlight from the open shutters in the hayloft. The light reached a young man perched on a three-legged stool just inside the barn door, and he recognized the source of the voice which had haunted his dreams for weeks. It was as if he were seeing him for the first time. The man—boy really—balanced on uneven thighs, one muscled, the other bone thin and ending in a stump. Catching Frank’s stare, he tilted his head, his wide mouth wavering uncertainly between a smile and a grimace. Frank thought the boy’s eyes were gray until he moved and the sun transformed them to sea green. He laughed at the trick, and the boy’s smile steadied and widened. The boy had been with him, had been talking to him for days. The words were gone, but they hung in the air with the dust.

The new description is twelve words shorter and contains fewer details, but contains action. Frank and Jersey interact in a way that adds to the scene. I can move on to the next impression.