Solving problems

My wife recently described my writing process like this:
You approach writing like you approach life, as a problem solver. You create complex and elaborate problems for your characters, and then, after you’ve gotten them into trouble, you find ways to solve their problems. I think this is why you enjoy writing so much. You like to solve problems. In real life and in your fiction.

I’ve never thought of writing in this way, but I think she’s right. This is why outlining a novel seems so bizarre to me. The process must be organic. If I already knew the solutions to the problems that my characters will face, where would the fun be?

Second review!

The second review of SOMETHING MISSING was forwarded to me today, a starred review (the highest praise a book can receive in this publication) in the June 1^st issue of Booklist Magazine. 

Even more positive than the first!

BOOKLIST

Issue: June 1, 2009

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) is about a young, autistic amateur sleuth. Monk is a popular television series about a detective with an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This debut novel introduces us to a character who appears to have elements of autism and OCD, but here’s the twist: he’s a professional criminal. Martin Railsback is a housebreaker with a short list of “clients” from whom he’s been “acquiring” things for years. He makes regular visits to their homes, cataloging their possessions, tracking their purchases, learning their lives. Most of his thefts are small—food from the pantry, toiletries, books of stamps. Only occasionally, and only after a great deal of precise preparation, will he help himself to an object of actual monetary value. And here’s another interesting thing about Martin: when one of his clients gets into a sticky situation, Martin will risk his own safety to help them out of their jam, even if being a hero means he may have to come into actual, physical contact with a client. This is a splendid novel, written with loving attention to character and detail; Martin is so vividly realized that he threatens to step off the page and into the reader’s own living room. A loopier Bernie Rhodenbarr? A less lethal Dexter? Martin falls somewhere in between, but with a little word of mouth and some shrewd promotion, he could be the next big thing.

— David Pitt

First review

My first review came out today in Publisher’s Weekly. Though it contains some criticism which I will attempt to process over the coming days (is the book really rambling and repetitive?), the review is quite positive and very exciting.

Something Missing Matthew Dicks. Broadway, $14 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-7679-3088-8

An expert thief unexpectedly finds himself aiding his victims in Dicks's charming if rambling debut. During his hours off, barista Martin Railsback burgles the houses of folks he calls his “clients,” taking only what they won't notice is missing: for instance, “three boxes of long grain rice... two rolls of toilet paper (in Martin's estimation, the Gallos had excellent taste in toilet paper), three cups of olive oil” and, on occasion, something really valuable. The system works beautifully until the day Martin drops a client's toothbrush into the toilet and feels compelled to replace it. This act of simple decency sets him on an entirely different course, and pretty soon he's breaking into houses to improve the lives of their occupants. Martin's own life starts looking up, too, with the possibility of romance and a new avocation, but the specter of real peril looms. Dicks struggles with digression and repetition—Martin's obsessive allegiance to the rules of his pastime becomes exasperating—but he's created a winning hero in Martin, a crook with a heart of gold. (July)

Ironically, Nicholson Baker, one of my favorite writers, also has a new book reviewed in this edition. 

My new hero

Anonymous, brilliant and brave.

Latest adventures with my book club

I’m a member of a book club that I enjoy very much. We are currently reading Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago. It was chosen by my wife, Elysha, who views her opportunity to choose a book as an intense and weighty process that involves research, analysis, and great deliberation. She scans websites, reviews lists of popular book club novels, solicits recommendations, and gathers all the information possible before selecting a text.

As a result, she now finds herself saddled with a novel that is too depressing for a new mother to read. Her previous choice, a Margaret Atwood novel entitled The Blind Assassin, wasn’t well received either, despite its numerous literary awards.

I think she might be over thinking her choices a bit.

When it’s my turn to choose, I just pick books that interest me or authors who I like. This process seems to work out well. In the past year, my choices have included a book of essays by Nicholson Baker and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

When Something Missing hits the stores in July, my book club has agreed to read it as our next book. This means that I can either re-read my book or work from memory. But what I may say when we meet is still a mystery to me.

How am I supposed to comment on a novel that I wrote?

Should I respond to my fellow book club member’s conjecture?

Should I defend myself against their possible criticism?

Should I be offended if someone doesn’t finish the book before we meet?

There’s always someone in our group who has not quite finished the book by the time we meet, and in the case of Death with Interruptions, it may very well be my wife.

In preparation for this possibility, she found this list of discussion points for members who have not yet read the book, which is quite amusing.

Much improved

Just after complaining about my ability to write dialogue, I receive an email from a friend who just finished reading a draft of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO.

Finished the book last week.  It's a good story - well written and you're a very good dialogue writer.  The dialog between Emma and Milo is excellent.  Even though I recognized your own views in a lot of that dialog, I could still picture the conversation happening.

Nice to hear that my hard work may have paid off.

New Yorker insider

Dan Baum has been twittering about his brief career as a staff writer at the New Yorker, and it is fascinating for anyone interested in the literary world and learning more about how freelance writers earn a living. In addition to my job as an elementary school teacher, a mobile DJ, a secular minister, a life coach, and a novelist, it has been my dream, as it probably is for almost every writer, to write for New Yorker, despite Baum’s less than austere description of the job.

A couple years ago, I submitted a very short story entitled Drama Queens to The New Yorker, foolishly hoping that my first attempt would lead to instant success.

I am still waiting to hear back from them.

Two. Period.

In the recent debate over how many spaces should come after a period, I unequivocally come down on the side of two. In the words of this blog’s author, “Taking the extra space away from a period strips it of its dignity.”

Unfortunately, it appears that there are forces mounting against this belief, including the Associated Press and the much despised MLA:

"Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence." -- The Associated Press Stylebook

"Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual.”

Global warming and nuclear proliferation have nothing on this vile and dangerous movement to remove the second space after the period. It must be stopped. Please join me in opposition to this insane and unnecessary movement.

Speaking of periods, the iPhone has a glorious feature that allows the user to automatically place a period and a single space after a sentence just by hitting the spacebar twice on the virtual keyboard. While I adore this feature, I’ve found that I text and email so much on my iPhone that I have begun to do this in Microsoft Word, which lacks this feature. So instead of periods after my sentences, I will sometimes find three spaces and no punctuation whatsoever: two spaces from my attempt to activate this iPhone feature plus the extra one I always add in order to have the requisite and appropriate two spaces after a period.

I suddenly find myself hoping that Doubleday agrees with my opinion or I may find my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, maligned with one space after each period.

I shudder to even consider this possibility.

Bad dialogue

Each time I sit down in front of the laptop, one of my goals is to craft dialogue that is crisp, well paced, realistic and original.

A daunting task depending upon the day.

I’m much better at this than I used to be. The first draft of SOMETHING MISSING contained almost no dialogue, and though not intentional, I suspect that I was subconsciously drawn to a relatively isolated character like Martin out of fear of having to write any dialogue at all.

Eventually dialogue found its way into the book and my skills and confidence improved considerably, but my first drafts still tend to be littered with overly-dramatic monologues at key moments in the story, and I still have difficulty managing conversations between three or more people. But I’m working hard at improving on these elements as well.

This is why I was so offended by a conversation I overheard in the men’s room at the Bristol Clarion on Saturday night. I was standing in the handicapped stall, changing into my tuxedo in preparation for a wedding that I was about to DJ. As I was removing my clothing from the garment bag, I heard a man enter, and a moment later, another.

The first man, who I will call Bill, was considerably younger than the second, who I will call William. They began their conversation with hearty greetings and it became immediately apparent that the men knew one another well but had not seen one another in quite some time. Bill was recently divorced and works in insurance. William is a retired minister who recently moved to Wethersfield. As I listened, I couldn’t help but be simultaneously surprised and offended by the quality of their conversation. Exchanges between the two included:

Bill: I don’t know if you heard. We got divorced last March. After fourteen years, she just decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore.

William: So sorry to hear that, Bill. But it’s her loss. She let go of a good man. And when you’re ready, just remember: there are many other fish in the sea.

And this:

Bill: Are you preaching anymore?

William: Yes I am. I thought I had retired, but they asked me to handle a few services and now I’m working harder than ever. Who would’ve thought? Ha! Ha! Ha!

Bill: The Lord takes us down mysterious paths. Doesn’t he?

William: He most certainly does.

And this:

William: At least the rain held up until after the ceremony. Right?

Bill: Yes. Thank goodness for that. But it looks like rain tomorrow, too.

William: Really? That’s too bad. I had a church picnic planned.

Bill: Well, you know those weathermen. When was the last time they got something right?

William: You let me know when they finally do!

William and Bill: Ha! Ha! Ha!

I was beside myself. For a moment, I wanted to throw open that stall door and shout, “Are you kidding me? Is this the best you guys can do? My editor would be drawing huge lines through this dialogue! Could you be more boring? Could you be more cliché?”

Time and time again I read that the great writers of dialogue are excellent listeners and professional eavesdroppers, but whenever I take the time to listen in on a conversation, as I did on Saturday night, all I seem to get is drivel.

Then I started to worry. Are most conversations boring and cliché? Is mindless banter about the weather and the use of tired idioms like there are plenty of other fish in the sea more tragically common than I thought?

Worst still, could I also be this boring in real life?

I guess that in the end, all I can hope for is that the dialogue that I write to be more vibrant and entertaining than the dialogue that I hear in restrooms.

Sadly, that might not be so hard after all.

Abbreviated

Another amusing Twitter application:

Converting classic novels into 140 character tweets. From the Guardian comes an article about this new medium and this treatment of Pride and Prejudice, one of my wife’s favorite books:

Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.

Or how about this Tweet of Ulysses:

Man walks around Dublin. We follow every minute detail of his day. He's probably overtweeting.

I thought I’d take a crack at a couple as well. Feel free to try this yourself, perhaps with one of your favorite novels. 

You can follow me at twitter.com/matthewdicks.

Lord of the Flies:

Boys survive plane crash on island and separate into warring tribes. Simon is mistakenly killed. Piggy is murdered as the navy arrives.

Julius Caesar:

Caesar is killed by friends who fear that he will be made King. If conspirators would listen to Cassius, all would be well. They do not.

The Road

Man and boy should have remained in the nuclear fallout bunker full of supplies. They don’t. It ends badly for the man and for the boy, too. Probably.

The good and the bad

I think it’s important for writers to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Awareness allows the writer to take advantage of his or her strengths while mitigating the weaknesses.

In this spirit, here are my three most prominent strengths and weaknesses as a writer, as I see it.

Unfortunately, it was much easier for me to come up with weaknesses than strengths.

Feel free to add or take away from either list if you have thoughts of your own. I’d be interested in hearing differing opinions.

STRENGTHS

Character development

A bounty of original and unique ideas

Humor

WEAKNESSES

Physical description of characters

Over-emphasis on characterization to the expense of pacing and plot

Effective and realistic dialogue between more than two characters at one time

Fiction set in real life

I read a piece in The Guardian about Project Bookmark Canada, an organization that’s mission is to “place permanent markers displaying text from stories and poems in the locations where they take place.” What a novel idea (pardon the pun).

Though I am a writer of fiction, my first two novels are set in the real world, with only minor geographic variances here and there for a variety of reasons. For example, I invented several streets in Something Missing in order to avoid misidentifying any real homes located in the area with the homes described in my book.

I wouldn’t want people to mistakenly assume that one of Martin’s clients actually lived in an actual home, though the homes used in the book were loosely based upon the homes of friends and colleagues in the general vicinity.

In fact, both stories take place within the same geographic area, and for a while, I actually toyed with the idea of Martin, the protagonist in Something Missing, running into Milo, the protagonist in Unexpectedly, Milo.

I didn’t think my wife or my agent would like the idea, and they tend to be my litmus test for ideas.

Both stories are set near and around my own home, in the towns of Newington and West Hartford, CT (though Milo takes a long and significant road trip at one point in the book). My new book is set in a fictional Vermont town, but I am drawing many elements of this town from my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts, as well as the waterfront district of Rockport, Massachusetts.

It’s just easier this way.

But if Project Bookmark Canada wanted to make an excursion south to the United States, it might be fun to imagine some of the markers that they might place in honor of my first two books.

Mill Pond Park in Newington, CT, a location of some significance in both books

West Hartford’s Town Hall

The Newington Public Library

West Hartford Center, specifically The Elbow Room and Max’s Oyster Bar, two local restaurants

Never mind. I guess my locations aren’t as glamorous as I had originally hoped.

Old man

In her latest series of notes on UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO, Taryn indicated that I use the phrase old man quite a lot. Scoffing at the suggestion, I used the Find feature in Word to count the number of times I used this phrase in the book.

Forty-six times later, I was no longer scoffing.

In good company

A while ago, I wrote about TIMEQUAKE, the last novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I have yet to finish. I’ve been purposely reading the novel at a snail’s pace for the past few years, in fear that I might one day finish and not have anything new to read by my favorite author.

In terms of this unusual approach to reading, it appears that I am in good company. Last night my wife and I were watching Battlestar Galactica, a show that we are both enjoying very much. In the episode, Admiral Adama takes a seat beside the hospital bed of the President of the Colonies, who is dying from cancer, with the intent on reading to her. Just before he begins, the President asks Adama if he likes the ending of the book, an apparent classic in their world, and he tells her that he does not know how it ends. He loves the book so much that he has never finished it, he explains. He doesn’t want it to ever end.

I realize that I’m in good company with a fictional character, but this is Admiral William Adama, call sign Husker and savior of the human race. Even if he is fictional, he’s still a great man, and I felt a little bit of pride in knowing that he feels the same about our favorite books.

And this is nothing new for me. I once dated Jaye Tyler, the fictional protagonist from the short-lived television series, Wonderfalls. Perhaps I’ll write about it sometime.

I pity the publisher…

My agent, Taryn, informed me that after my fourth New York Times bestselling book, I’m allowed to write an entirely character-driven novel without any thought or concern for plot.

This makes Taryn the perfect person to negotiate my next book deal, since it’s clear that she drives a ridiculously hard bargain.

Characters and their names

Last week, a student asked me for a lesson on creating strong characters for his fiction, including tips on how to generate the names of characters as well. I tried my best to answer some of his questions and share the process by which I develop characters, but to be honest, I had little to say to the young man. It’s so odd how my own writing process can be such a mystery to me. But like my student, I am incredibly curious to find out how other authors develop and name their characters and will do some investigating on the subject when there is time.

As for me, my characters often begin in some way with someone I know. For example, the character of Cindy Clayton in Something Missing is based upon a real woman named Cindy, whose real last name was taken from a different friend of mine. The Cindy of real life is a teacher in my school and the mother of two who is married to a police officer. The Cindy in Something Missing is also a teacher (different grade level) but she has no children and is married to a contractor. Other than the fact that both husbands are bald, the men that Cindy and her fictional counterpart married have nothing in common at all. And while the real Cindy enjoys a happy and loving marriage, the Cindy in Something Missing does not.

In this way, I often use real people as the foundation of my characters and then slowly begin to manipulate and change them into the characters that belong in my story. I provided the example of Cindy Clayton in this post because she shares an unusual number of similarities with her real-life counterpart, whereas most of my characters eventually become indistinguishable from the real-life person with whom I started. I compare this process to working with clay: rather than starting off with an unformed ball of the stuff, I prefer to begin with a block of clay that has already been molded into the general form of a human being and work from there. This has proven especially useful for me in terms of the physical description of characters, an aspect of writing in which I am quite deficient.

But there are also many times when I find myself beginning with the unformed ball of clay as well. Typically, the more important a character is to my story, the more likely that I began from scratch, whereas minor characters or characters that play smaller roles in the story often have stronger roots in reality. In Something Missing, for example, the character of Laura Green is not based upon anyone I know, nor is Martin’s father. These characters are more central to the story and seemed to have already existed in my mind, whereas a character like Cindy Clayton, who Martin never actually meets, did not.

As for Martin and Milo and now Wyatt, the protagonists in all three of my books, I like to think that they all began as a seed within me, a possibility of something that I could have become had the circumstances of my life been different. They are original and unique and certainly not based upon me in the strictest sense of the word, but they share qualities and experiences with me and represent a part of me that never fully formed.

For the most part, thankfully so.

And as for names, they are quite often plucked from real life. Laura Green has the first name of my high school sweetheart and my wife’s maiden name. Daniel and Sarah Ashley are combinations of former students’ names. But then there are characters like Sophie and Sherman Pearl and Clive Darrow, who seemed to have names from the moment they appeared on the page.

As for the choice of Martin’s name, I’ve written about that before.