"The Thirteenth Tale," by Diane Setterfield

I found Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale by chance.  I pulled it off the shelf at the library and sat for twenty minutes there in the aisle, devouring the fabulous first pages, until I knew I would be late.

It's the story of a popular but reclusive writer, Vida Winter, who has never told a single word of truth to any would-be biographer.  Now she's dying, and wants to finally get her real story down on paper.  Accustomed as she is to telling stories, the yarn she spins is layered with truth and lies:  the tale of the sometimes unhealthy but irreplaceable bond of twins.

After the brilliant beginning, it slowed a little:  lots of big words, long descriptions, repetitions, and slow pretty scenes that didn't quite keep me on the edge of my seat.    

I also have a personal pet peeve about books written as if they were oral stories, told one evening around the campfire, or accounts written overnight by a character who suddenly needs to get it all out.  My problem is that all these things would be rough drafts, and I can't quite suspend my disbelief when I find this polished book masquerading as a rough draft.  Yes, I'm quirky that way.  This novel would have been more believable than most, because the storyteller is a magnificently creative and talented writer and storyteller in her own right, but the problem is she tells the story to Margaret, the biographer, who remembers it word for word by just jotting down a few notes.  Then she transcribes it perfectly later.  Ugh.  Really, this isn't a deal-breaker, by any means.  I'm just not sure why writers insist on this sort of device. 

The plot itself, though sometimes slow, is interestingly dark and twisty, full of neglect and obsession, unique personalities and mistaken identity.

The biographer's preoccupation with her own twin, and her poor-me-no-one-understands-me attitude gets a little annoying.  The end is too perfectly tied up, with a tacked-on romance, but overall it's a good read.

The best thing, however, are the fantastic quotes (mostly in the beginning) about reading itself, and the power of stories. 

Here are some of my favorites, beautiful, profound, or unsettling as they may be:

"I've nothing against people who love truth.  Apart from the fact that they make dull companions.  Just so long as they don't start on about storytelling and honesty, the way some of them do.  Naturally that annoys me.  But provided they leave me alone, I won't hurt them…My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself.  What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story?  What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?  When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails?  No.  When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid.  What you need are the plump comforts of a story.  The soothing, rocking safety of a lie."

—in a letter from Vida Winter, from The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield.

"Still in my coat and hat, I sank onto the stair to read the letter.  (I never read without making sure I am in a secure position.  I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles.  Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out.  I can still feel the scar under my fringe now.  Reading can be dangerous.)"

—Margaret Lea in The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

"All children mythologize their birth.  It is a universal trait.  You want to know someone?  Heart, mind, and soul?  Ask him to tell you about when he was born.  What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story.  And nothing is more telling than a story."

—Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

"A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth."

—Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

My rating: 4

For more about why we need fiction, read my blog post here.

For more on Diane Setterfield, click here.

Buy the book here.  

First Day of Nanowrimo: 3112 words

So today, being the first of November, was the start of National Novel Writing Month, where a bunch of us crazy writers write whole rough drafts in 30 days.  I started writing at midnight last night, and got in my first thousand words.

Then, this afternoon, I went to a write-in at Bookmans, where I and about 25 others sat and wrote on our laptops, our notebooks, or--get this--our typewriters.  Yes, one guy had a vintage green typewriter.  Says it helps his creativity.  When I'm stuck, I go to paper and pen.  When I'm in line or in a boring meeting or at the kitchen table eating cereal and have to write something, I certainly do it on paper.  But boy, I'm glad for my computer, where I can cut, paste, erase, erase again, switch things around, search and replace, etc.  Still, the sound of those typewriter keys clicking away was something special.  It even drew quite a few looks from the innocent non-writer bystanders in the book store.

Despite the distractions inherent to a write-in, I got 2000 words down.  And I don't think it's trash. :)  Only 47,000 to go.   Good luck all you other nanowrimos!

Nanowrimo 2011: write that novel!

For all you aspiring writers out there, hold on to your hats:  National Novel Writing Month is nearly here!  November is the month where thousands of writers band together and each pledge to write an entire novel in a single month.  There's no one critiquing your work.  You won't get a publishing contract the moment you finish.  There are no judges giving out awards for the best novel.  What's it's about is motivation, and getting your body into a chair and writing. 

The goal is 50,000 words, which averages to about 1700 words a day.  If you're a writer, you know how many words that really is.  Doable, but challenging.  It's only a rough draft, obviously, so the words don't have to be polished.  They just have to be written. 

Regional groups hold local write-ins and other activities, and the website has great forums where writers inspire and word-duel each other.  It's also one of the few places where you don't have to be afraid to ask a questions like "How much does a tattoo cost in Estonia?" or "How many hippo steaks can you get from an average hippo?"  Even better, after you ask such questions, you'll get answers.  Lots of other fun stuff on the forums will give you plenty of procrastination excuses, but don't forget that the whole point is to work those fingers on the keyboard.    

So, if you've never written a novel but always wanted to, or if you've published sixty-two of them, join us for National Novel Writing Month at www.nanowrimo.org.  It's free, it's fun, and it's yours if you choose to accept the challenge.  

Pioneer Pass, Arizona

When I was little my Dad took me camping a lot, and my favorite place was always Pioneer Pass, in the Pinal Mountains up a windy dirt road from my hometown of Globe, Arizona. 

Pioneer Pass Campground, near Globe, Arizona

Sometimes it was just the two of us, and he'd make fancy food in the Dutch oven and we'd go looking for deer at dusk.  Once we built little houses out of the sandy dirt at one of the campsites, and he figured out how to light tiny fires inside, so when night fell we had our own glowing little village.  He taught me how to pick the best firewood and how to lay a fire and how to light it with my boy scout hot spark. (I always wanted to be a boy scout...if only they let in girls.)

Sometimes the whole family went.  We'd play Rook, a card game I always associate with the outdoors.  We read a lot.  I remember devouring The Black Cauldron there when I was quite young, sprawled on the big boulders that were so fun to climb around on.  I pretended I was Princess Eilonwy, a character in the book, and made up my own scenes around her.  When I try to think back on when I started writing stories, I often find myself there, clinging to a rock and imagining trolls and bandits around me in the woods.

My brother David has always liked hiking.  The mountains rose gently up and up away from Pioneer Pass, and the two of us would climb, climb, climb up the slope slippery with fallen pine needles.  It would look for a moment like we were almost to the peak, and David would call out "to the TOP of the MOUNTAIN!" like a hiker's battle cry.  We'd reach the point we thought was the top, only to reveal more mountain above.  We never did reach the top, but I didn't mind.

Alligator bark, Pioneer Pass, Arizona

My church had group camping trips there too, where all us kids would have pine cone fights and elaborate cross-country games of capture the flag.  We'd use those pine-needle-slick hills like sledding runs.  Once we went on a magical midnight hike, with the owls and other nocturnal birds providing creepy background music.

A butterfly that literally flew into my camera frame, Pioneer Pass

Arizona wildlife:  a sleepy black rattler

When I was in high school, one of those years so dry we were all praying for rain daily, the heavens answered, pouring water for days, flooding low-lying towns and saturating the normally parched ground.  The Pinals, soaking with moisture, finally gave way into mudslides, one of which crashed right through Pioneer Pass, grinding boulders through the campsites, destroying the water system, burying picnic tables in rubble, washing out the road.  I cried.  Pioneer Pass had been such a part of my childhood.  Though the Forest Service slowly began to rebuild, I couldn't stand going back for years.  Finally, Dad took me.

The old-fashioned water pumps are gone.  The sites have rearranged themselves.  I can't recognize where we hung the pinata on one church campout, or where Dad and I made the village of sand and fire, or where I and all the characters from The Black Cauldron fought off the bad guys.  But I remember the feel of it.  The quiet happiness.  The times I spent with my dad.

And at night, in the crisp mountain air, the stars still shine as bright.
     

Recommended Fantasy Literature for Teens

Enjoyed by generation after generation for its adventure, its grandeur, and its dragons, fantasy can also provide interesting social commentary. Much is written of children's fantasy, but sometimes young adult fantasy slips through the cracks.

For a list of my favorite YA masterpieces, like Hilari Bell's fantastic Fall of a Kingdom, and Victoria Hanley's The Seer and the Sword, read my whole article on Helium.com 

Recycling Plot Lines

There are only so many plotlines in the world, and stories often borrow elements from each other.  I don't mind that.  Authors reuse story lines because we like them.  I love tomatoes, and could eat them every day of my life.  So I'm not going to reject a meal with tomatoes in it just because it's not original enough.  But some books take this too far.

Recently I read The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.  A young, semi-orphaned, misfit boy, around whom mysterious events sometimes happen, discovers that he's not normal.  He has magic powers.  So he goes away to a sort of school for other people like him, who are divided into different houses.  Once there, he makes friends with a smart, rather know-it-all girl, and a clumsy, somewhat cowardly boy.  He learns of prophecies surrounding him—the Chosen One—and discovers he is the only one who can avert the upcoming doom.  Hmm…  Sound familiar?  Really, Rick Riordan, can't you at least make the male friend the brainy one and the female friend the clutzy one?  Or give him three friends?  Or NOT divide the school into houses?  Or make Harry…um, I mean Percy...less of a misfit to begin with?              

Haven, by Kristi Cook, features a girl who goes to a new school and there meets an incredibly hot guy.  Instant mutual attraction.  All her new friends are like, "What?  He never even looks at girls!"  One day he's perfectly attentive.  The next he disappears for days.  It turns out he's super fast, super strong, and cool to the touch.  Everyone's attracted to him.  He can read minds.  Her blood drives him wild.  Oh, yeah, and he's a vampire.  Kristi Cook, couldn't you at least not make him a mind reader?  Or make him rather warm to the touch?  Or make her blood smell bad? 

Midnight for Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo, is the story of a boy who has unpleasant relatives and magic power, a legacy of his ancestors.  He goes to a special boarding school, finds Ron and Hermione-like friends, and solves a magical mystery.

Of course, I guess none of that's as bad as the book I saw on the shelves in the Czech Republic, showing a boy with a lightning scar, a girl with frizzy hair, and a red-headed friend.  I think it was called Harry Trotter, but I can't find it on the internet.  I find Barry Trotter and Harry Pouter and various other spoofs.  A spoof, I appreciate.  A book that is not a spoof, yet borrows so heavily…that's just sad.  

My Cinderella Story

I have a new story published in Enchanted Conversation:  A Fairy Tale Magazine.  Each issue is based on one specific fairy tale.  This issue retells Cinderella, and my story, "Ethereal," appears among them.  If you enjoy it, please add a comment.  Enjoy.