Reading, 'Riting, and Ramblings

I recovered from my crisis of confidence, but I still have yet to begin Rainie Day #2 because of matters of life and death. Literally. In the past month, I attended two conferences and a funeral. (Not quite as catchy as Four Weddings and a Funeral, but believe me, it's been just as manic and emotionally fraught around here as that movie.)

I have many things to write about, but I'll save the heavy subjects for another day. Today I want to talk about that ubiquitous and well-meaning, yet ultimately reductive "rule" of writing, "Show, don't tell."

The morning after I came back from the funeral, I dragged myself to work and opened my email accounts to find some feedback on my manuscript for Whacked in the Stacks: "There's too much telling rather than showing in the opening pages."

This email was upsetting for many reasons, and only one of them was the sender's accidentally horrible timing.

1. There is no such thing as "too much telling." A writer might bog down a story with irrelevant telling, or tell when showing would be more effective, but she can't tell "too much." There is no hard-set maximum of telling allotted per novel.
2. I'm a meticulous writer. Every sentence I type, I choose after carefully weighing it against the many other sentences I might type instead. And then I revise, revise, revise. So it's infuriating when someone dismisses all of that careful thought with a blanket statement like, "there's too much telling."

I wrote those pages the way I did for a reason: they do what opening pages ought to do.

What Opening Pages Ought to Do

A good number of published novels start with fast-paced action right out of the gate. They begin with startling dialogue and dangerous confrontations. They drop readers head-first into adrenaline-pumping action.

Many times, in many places, I've read that the opening pages of a book need to "grab" readers and "suck them in." Writers often interpret this to mean they need to stuff page one with thrills and chills. They write prologues showing the last terrifying moments of a victim's life, or a grisly crime from the perspective of the unhinged serial killer. Or they write a short teaser of the life-threatening climax of the novel, and then they fly back in time to start the story properly at the beginning.

This approach can suck readers in, but it can also push them away. "Bait and switch" openings can come across as cheap and manipulative. Readers get invested in the characters on page one, only to see them bite the bullet on page three. Then they have to start over and get to know the real protagonists.

Most importantly, dropping readers in the middle of Crazy Town with no context is disorienting. When I read the first pages of these fast-paced novels, I don't know who these people are, or what's going on, or what the heck these stories are supposed to be about.

The opening pages of a novel should answer three basic questions for a reader.

1. Who is the hero, and will I like him?
2. What is the setting, and will I enjoy it?
3. Where is this story going, and will it be interesting?

Simply answering these questions satisfactorily will "grab" readers who will enjoy the story. You don't have to dangle the heroine off of a cliff on page one, you just have to give readers an accurate idea of the reading experience they're in for.

Telling Orients Readers

Below are the first 300 words, thereabouts, of the manuscript for Whacked in the Stacks. Arr, there be telling ahead!

I'm not a superstitious person, but the morning of Friday, March 13 nearly turned me into one.

First I ruined my best skirt. That was my fault. I should know better than to read emails on my phone and eat strawberries & cream oatmeal at the same time.

Then my cat, Mr. Rochester, coughed up a hairball on my favorite Mary Janes. That was also my fault. I should know better than to leave my things on the floor, where Mr. Rochester can and will destroy them.

After I changed my skirt, scrubbed my shoes, and jogged through the freezing rain to my car, the engine wouldn't start. That wasn't my fault. I'd taken Cindy the Civic to a service center the weekend before, and the mechanic had said there was nothing wrong with her. Cindy disagreed. She grumbled and screeched when I turned the key. I petted her dashboard and gave her compliments until she started up begrudgingly.

I checked the clock compulsively on my way to work. With every minute that passed, my blood pressure rose. It was the worst possible day of the month to run late.

At 8:47 I turned onto Duvall Street, the main thoroughfare for Downtown Sea Breeze. At 8:49 I passed the Rocket Burger, where a five-foot plastic astronaut named Buzz All-Beef saluted me with one hand and held up a giant double cheeseburger with the other. At 8:51 I reached Fields Park, a.k.a. "The Fields." The magnolia trees stood with buds at the ready, itching for the go-ahead from the sun to burst into bloom. As I imagined the lighter skies and pink flowers soon to come, my blood pressure lowered a bit. If nothing else went wrong, I'd arrive at the library a few minutes before nine.

Of course something else did go wrong. Very, very wrong.

Looking at the list of questions opening pages ought to answer, I hope it's obvious why I wrote mine this way.

First, I aimed to give the reader a general picture of my heroine in the short space of one page. She's humble and readily admits her faults, she's modern in her habits yet conservative in her dress, and she responds to problems with patience, not tantrums. Also, she's highly educated and bookish, as one must be to name a cat after a classic literary character.

Second, I aimed to root the reader in the setting of the stormy Oregon coast. The freezing rain, the quirky seaside resort town, the hint of spring in the air.

Third, I aimed to signal to readers that the upcoming pages hold conflict aplenty. My very first sentence announces that many things are about to go wrong. Not only is my heroine about to meet disaster head-on, but more disasters await her when she arrives to work late.

Now, here's how I might have written the opening pages if I believed showing to be universally better than telling.

The oatmeal fell from my spoon in slow motion, pink and shimmering in the fluorescent light of my kitchen. Plop! The warm glob of strawberries & cream landed right in the lap of my best navy pencil skirt. Dry-clean only, of course.

"Nooo," I moaned. "Not today!"

I put my phone down on the table and grabbed a napkin to wipe off the oatmeal. It was my fault, I knew. I should know better than to read emails and eat breakfast at the same time.

As I was scooping up the last oat flake, I heard a suspicious hacking noise behind me. My heart sank even lower.

I turned just in time to witness my cat, Mr. Rochester, cough up a hairball on my favorite Mary Janes. I swallowed my irritation. This was also my fault. I should know better than to leave my things on the floor, where Mr. Rochester can and will destroy them.

I sighed and rose from the table. I grabbed my Mary Janes and headed to my bedroom. I scrubbed my shoes in the bathroom sink and dug through my dresser for a clean skirt.

Ten minutes later, I jogged through the freezing rain to my car. I rubbed my hands together to warm them and slipped the key into the ignition.

The engine wouldn't start.

I dropped my head onto the steering wheel. Why today, of all days? I'd taken Cindy the Civic to a service center just the weekend before, and the mechanic had said there was nothing wrong with her. Cindy clearly disagreed.

Taking deep, calming breaths, I tried again. Cindy grumbled and screeched when I turned the key. I tried again, and again, petting Cindy's dashboard and giving her compliments until she started up begrudgingly.

I checked the clock compulsively on my way to work. With every minute that passed, my blood pressure rose. It was the worst possible day of the month to run late.

This isn't a bad opening, but it doesn't do what the real one does.

First, I cover much less in these 300 words than I did in the first 300 words of my manuscript, because "showing" takes up a lot of space. I don't even get to the setting. This could be any woman in any city in an English-speaking country. Readers won't know where they are, and they won't see anything that might entice them to stick around.

Second, this passage gives readers no reason to care about the heroine, and the story doesn't seem to go anywhere. So she had a bad morning and she's running late for work. So what? Why should anyone be interested in a glob of oatmeal falling from a spoon, or a cat hacking up a hairball? As I wrote in "Show, but Sometimes Tell," the purpose of showing is to get readers emotionally invested in a scene. Only the most melodramatic of fashionistas would be emotionally invested in an oatmeal-stained pencil skirt.

Third, and most important to my mind, the humorous voice of the heroine is now buried under all of the showing. She seems to take herself and her apparel much too seriously. Imagine if The Wonder Years had no witty voice-overs, and it was simply a drama about a cute kid growing up in the 70s. The tone of the show would be completely different, right? Similarly, the way Rainie tells the story says as much about her as what she does and how she feels.

It is possible to orient readers through showing, but telling conveys much more, much faster.

Telling Respects Readers' Time

When I read some of these fast-paced novels, I get irked by the authors. They seem to purposely withhold crucial information, forcing me to dig through their words for clues about the characters and the events taking place. Here's the first page of one random title on Amazon.

Every Southern belle knows it's not so much what you do, but rather what you're wearing while doing it. And when in doubt, always apply more lipstick.

Good thing Sandy had never been mistaken for a belle, because there was no shade of lipstick in the South that matched grand theft auto charges while wearing ducky galoshes.

"Either get on or get out of the way," Sandy said to the stubborn male standing between her and freedom.

Diablo had mammoth thighs, a trunk for a neck, and as Mr. Ferguson's contracted stud bull, horns that could tear through a steel wall. And right now those horns were pointed at Sandy.

But she wasn't about to let some misinformed male with caveman tendencies and bad breath stop her from doing what was right. Even when doing what was right sucked. Even when it accompanied a brutal summer storm, interrupted the only solid sleep she had gotten in weeks, and landed her smack dab in the middle of trouble.

Even then. Because Sandy could live with trouble. But regret was something she never wanted to feel again.

So who exactly is this woman, and what's going on? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that the heroine lives in the South and her situation involves grand theft auto charges, ducky galoshes, a bull, a thunderstorm, and sleepless nights.

Not only does the page not tell me what's going on, beyond vague hints of "trouble" and "regret," but it plays with readers' heads. When someone writes the word "male," a reader images a human male. I formed a picture of the scene in my mind based on what the author told me was happening. Then she tore the picture up and made me rebuild it from scratch, mid-sentence, by revealing that the "stubborn male" is a completely different species. I was left disoriented and very annoyed.

This author must have been under the impression that if you confuse readers, they'll be intrigued and feel compelled to keep turning pages to figure out what she's trying to say. I know from personal experience that readers have the exact opposite reaction to muddy writing. If they can't tell where and when they are, and who exactly they're reading about, they get angry and put the book down.

In my early novels and short stories, I tried to be fancy. I tried to show everything in creative ways instead of telling people point blank what was happening. The comments in the margins from critique partners frequently looked like this.

• "I was confused about who said this line."
• "I can't really tell what just happened."
• "Wait...how much time has passed since the last chapter? Where are we?"

And then they would stop critiquing after chapter three and never contact me again, because I had committed the unpardonable offense of wasting their time.

Being fancy forces readers to put time and energy into interpreting scenes. This is a good thing for creating emotional investment, but a very bad thing for conveying simple concepts. There's no point in making readers work hard to determine...

• Who is acting or speaking
• What the actors are doing
• When and where the scene takes place

In other words, you shouldn't show readers what's going on. You tell readers what's going on, and what's going on shows them more complex ideas.

I haven't written a word of fiction since I finished Whacked in the Stacks. I haven't even outlined Rainie Day Mystery #2 in detail.

To be frank, I've been battling a crisis of confidence in my writing. The query process is long and psychologically draining. As the form rejections pile up, I start to wonder if I was naïve to write a low-concept, character-driven cozy mystery. I wonder if I should have written something "sexy" instead. Rainie Day doesn't live in a lighthouse-turned-bookstore off the coast of Scotland. She doesn't explore ancient ruins for a living while doing aerial acrobatics for spare change. Evil wizards won't destroy the planet if Rainie fails to find the killer before he strikes again.

But then I remember all of the Betty Crocker baking mix novels out there. I'm sure the authors of those books didn't set out to write bland, formulaic paperbacks. They set out to write great books, but then they caved to real or imagined commercial pressures.

Every year, thousands of writers turn out sexy high-concept manuscripts that never see the light of a literary agent's bedside reading lamp. Even if I were to stick my heroine in a Cirque du Soleil costume and set her loose in the evil-wizard-infested ruins of an ancient city underneath a Scottish lighthouse-turned-bookstore, I might never sell the book anyway. I might as well write the books I want to write and let the chips fall where they may.

Finally I decided, yesterday, that I'm going to forge ahead with Rainie Day #2...as soon as I can pull myself away from my shiny new sewing machine.

While doing battle with my confidence, I found an outlet for my creative energy in sewing my spring wardrobe. Tired of hunting through the stores for hours for attractive clothing that fits me, only to return home empty handed, I dusted off the Kenmore sewing machine I bought in college and started stitching away. Then a crucial part of the machine broke, and the local repair shop said they would charge $125 to service it. Sears doesn't carry Kenmore sewing machines anymore, and the part that broke was discontinued years ago.

So I wheedled Sweetie into paying a teensy weensy bit more to get this super-cool computerized wonder instead. It has an automatic needle threader! And it adjusts stitch widths and lengths on its own! And the stitches it makes are so pretty and even...I was appalled when comparing them to the valiant efforts of my poor old Kenmore.

Below are my creations so far, modeled by Missy Mannequin.

Missy is my birthday present from Sweetie: an adjustable dressform configured to my basic measurements. She's not a perfect replica of me, but she's pretty close. Our biggest differences are in the neck (mine is a bit smaller), the arms (mine are much smaller), and the slope of the shoulders (mine isn't as steep).

My hips also don't flare out in a bell shape like Missy's, but that's not her fault. She was designed to have a more balanced waist-to-hip ratio than I do. I'm Chinese on the top and German/Irish on the bottom. When configuring Missy, we had to keep the top and waist at the near-minimum, then crank out the hips to the near-maximum. So some things hang a little oddly on Missy, but they look fine on me.

First I made a purple dress out of Sew Classic Knit Ponte from Jo-Ann Fabrics. I hadn't sewn with knits before, so I chose this thick polyester fabric with a two-way stretch because it would be easy to sew. I made my own pattern, because that's how I roll. (And because I've used patterns in the past, and they always required major adjustments. I might as well draw the pattern from my measurements to begin with!)

Emboldened by my success, I then tackled a long blue dress made from the lightweight Jet Set Knit from Jo-Ann's. I like the flowy feel of this fabric, but it is very thin. Even with a lining, every bump and wrinkle shows through. I have to be very careful about what I wear underneath, lest I end up looking like Missy here.

This is my sewing buddy, the panda. He chews on his plastic bamboo while watching me repeatedly unpick seams and try again. I bought him at Uwajimaya when I went to Portland for a workshop last week, along with a month's worth of frozen udon and miso. There isn't a single Asian market in the entirety of Central Oregon, so I have to stock up when I can.

Finally, here's an A-line skirt made from a fabric by Art Gallery, "Yinghua" from the Pandalicious collection. The pattern is the same one I used for the curtains in the background, though those are made from a cotton in the "rainwater" color and the skirt is a jersey knit in "cherrylight."

I took a few photos of myself wearing the skirt. I'm glad my garments always look better on me than they do on Missy, instead of the other way around!

Under the skirt I'm wearing a pair of white leggings made from a Robert Kaufman Laguna cotton jersey. It's made of 95% cotton and 5% lycra spandex, which makes it very soft, very stretchy, and very prone to snagging. I disliked the fabric at first because it kept getting sucked down into my machine. Then I tried sewing through a strip of tissue paper on top, and now I'm snag-free.

I can't wait to sew more leggings, pajamas, and exercise pants for myself. The ones in stores are all too long or too short, too big at the waist, and too small in the thighs or calves. Since I'm short, one pair of pants requires a little less than one yard of fabric. The cotton jerseys cost only $5-$10 per yard...so making them myself will be cheaper, too.

Not pictured is a failed project: my first attempt at making a qipao, a.k.a. a cheongsam. Qipaos are close-fitting dresses typically made from stiff satin brocade, with mandarin collars and frog closures. This is what it was supposed to look like, but with plainer fabric so I could wear it to work.

The stiffness of the fabric and the body-hugging nature of the style make qipaos very difficult to sew. I tried anyway, using a cheap satin from Jo-Ann's. The result was close, but "close" doesn't cut it for qipaos.

I'm going to try again with a stretch satin. It might be "cheating," but that's fine with me. The stretchy fabric will be more forgiving to minor imperfections in fit, and it will be more comfortable to wear.

With increasing frequency, I'm seeing a certain word in Tweets and blog posts about publishing: diversity. Agents and editors clamor for books in all genres featuring diverse characters. They want books that represent a wider range of human experience than "mainstream middle-class protagonist faces first-world problems."

This is a fine goal, but it's harder to realize than you might think. Most writers and publishing professionals are mainstream middle-class intellectuals, including yours truly. When we attempt to portray fringe voices in fiction, our own experiences and cultural conditioning undermine our efforts. In the end, we don't create diverse characters. We create mainstream middle-class characters wearing skin of a different color.

What Is Faux Diversity?

When a writer puts a solidly mainstream character in a diverse costume, I call it faux diversity. A certain fantasy we'll call Silence is an example on multiple fronts.

The premise: The heroine, Fang, lives in a completely isolated Chinese village without sound. The population lost the ability to hear generations ago. Soon the villagers start to lose their sight, too. Then one night, Fang wakes up to a sound. Using her newfound "magic" ability, she courageously leaves the village to explore the outside world and save her people.

The reality: The heroine, Fang, is a feisty Western girl with an Asian name. One Goodreads reviewer says, "If I dressed up in traditional Chinese clothing for Halloween and started calling myself Ling, I would actually be more Chinese than this book." (Ouch...but accurate.) And though sound is but an old legend to everyone in the village, Fang thinks like a person who lost her hearing late in life. She constantly bemoans that nobody can hear, which is like someone who grew up with bedtime stories of magical ancestors constantly bemoaning that no one can fly.

The author probably had golden intentions when she set out to write Silence. Her editor probably had golden intentions when she okayed the manuscript. But because neither of them were familiar with either Han culture or deaf culture, they thought giving the heroine black hair and putting the dialogue in italics would cover all the bases.

The Problem with Faux Diversity

In the case of Silence, the author's missteps were mostly harmless. She disappointed and alienated a lot of potential fans, including me, but at least she didn't portray Chinese or deaf culture in a negative light. No readers will close that book with new prejudices or erroneous assumptions they didn't have before.

However, in other cases, well-meaning authors have done more harm than good by writing about groups they didn't understand.

Another book we'll call Shadow Bride is a historical Japanese retelling of Cinderella. All right, cool. The fairy godmother character, Hikaru, is a beautiful concubine ("Shadow Bride") who turns out to be trans. Also cool...until Hikaru tells her backstory.

"I was one of many, many children. Some strange accident of fate gifted me with this face and this slender frame, and my parents knew that a child who looked like I did would be valuable. Of course, I would have been more valuable as a girl...so they raised me to talk, move, and even think as a girl would. I barely realized that I was any different from my sisters. When I was eight, they sold me to a kabuki theater....

"One of my patrons was a minor lord who thought it would be a very fine joke to arrange for me to dance at the Shadow Ball....I was convinced I would die. A man pretending to be a woman in the Moon Prince's chamber....I asked [the prince] if he ever wished I had been born a real woman. He said that my heart was a real woman's heart, and that was all he was concerned with."

Aw, how heartwarming. And how utterly infuriating!

According to this sweet little story, Hikaru has a "real woman's heart" because her parents brainwashed her into thinking like a woman. Therefore, if her parents had given her swords instead of silk fans, and told her to take a wife instead of a husband, she would have grown up to have a "real man's heart" instead, right?

The natural and insidious conclusion: all trans women in the real world must be acting that way because their dads let them play with Barbies.

I'm alarmed that no other readers are bothered by this. At least nobody complains about it on any site indexed by Google. Readers also say nothing about this frightening exchange at the end of the novel, after the heroine runs away from the palace with her love interest, Ochieng, an African nobleman.

"Ochieng," I said abruptly, "what would you have done if you had come here but I did not change my mind and agree to go with you?"

"Gagged you, thrown you over my shoulder, and taken you anyway," he said promptly. "I have some ropes braided around my waist. Actually, I do not know whether to be relieved or disappointed that it is not necessary."

And this threat of sexual violence is...funny? Flirty? Ochieng is super hot and adorable, according to reviewers—especially when he physically grabs and shakes the heroine in anger, kisses her without her permission, and otherwise acts like a big sexy African brute.

How to Avoid Faux Diversity

Just like you can't stick heroine in combat boots and call her strong, you can't simply stick a label that says "Asian" or "African" or "LGBT" on a character and call it diversity.

1. Research the culture.

Last year or the year before, somebody submitted a query for a middle-grade novel to a critique blog. The premise: the principal of a junior high asks a young Asian girl to organize the Chinese New Year festival. But the girl isn't Chinese...she's Korean! Incensed, the girl decides to sabotage the festival to teach the school a lesson. Hilarity ensues.

The problem: the lunar new year, Seollal, is actually one of the biggest holidays in Korean culture. A real Korean girl in this situation might be miffed that the principal assumed she'd make a good organizer just because of her ethnicity, but she wouldn't fly off the handle because she's "not Chinese." Most likely, she'd be proud to share her heritage with her classmates.

If the author of this manuscript had done some cursory research about Korean traditions and holidays, she wouldn't have made such an embarrassing mistake. Since she was clearly not Korean herself, she should have at least watched a couple of Korean TV shows. Just like most of our sitcoms have Christmas episodes, most Korean family dramas have at least one Seollal episode in which everyone makes dumplings and dresses up in traditional clothing, and the young people bow to their elders to earn their red packets.

2. Question cultural assumptions.

I admit that it's better for a writer to assume diverse characters are "just like me" than it is to assume they're totally different because they have a different skin color, religion, or gender identity. I'd rather people erroneously portray Chinese characters like individualistic Americans than like buck-toothed caricatures in old movies who start every sentence with "Confucius say..."

But still better would be for these writers to question their assumptions. People tend to think their values are the only values in existence.

For example, we in the West grow up watching countless movies and TV shows that teach us standing up for ourselves is "strong" while smiling for the sake of harmony is "weak," so we assume Chinese characters would think the same way. We're annoyed by real Chinese characters who lower their eyes to abusive elders.

Or we're dependent on our hearing to communicate and the thought of losing that ability scares us, so we assume a deaf character would be angry about her condition and long for sound. We can't fathom why some in the deaf community don't want their children to undergo surgery to fix their hearing.

Or we all agree that marriage should be based on true love, so we think arranged marriages are horrifically backwards and misogynistic. When we write books or movies about young Hindu or Muslim or Orthodox Jewish women, we tend to go on and on about how put-upon they are.

3. Rethink what "diversity" means.

Do the agents and editors asking for "more diversity in fiction" mean, "I want to see more arbitrary Latinos because that's where the money is?" No. (Well, maybe for some unscrupulous trend-chasers, yes. But you don't want to work with those people, so ignore them.)

What "more diversity in fiction" really means is, "I want to see new and interesting perspectives." Adding diversity to publishing means writing about a variety of characters who see the world in different ways, who have different values and beliefs and face different unique conflicts.

If everyone sees the world the same way but wears different hats, that's not diversity.