storytelling

Jenny Crusie has been really kind to me at various points in my career when I needed encouragement and advice. There have been some phone calls which were memorable for me because I got off the phone feeling better and with an idea of How to Proceed. On the few occasions I've spent any time with her, she has made me laugh. It was Jenny who encouraged me to smuggle my dog Tuck into a restaurant on Whidby Island, so he could sleep on my lap while a whole table of authors drank too much and told stories out of school.

And I love her stories. I truly admire the knack she has for building female characters of a certain kind, and her flare for dialogue. And all the rest of it. She and I are nothing alike in the way we approach storytelling; I couldn't be her, and don't try.

So Jenny's had a roughish time the last year or so. She tells the story of Hitting the Wall and then finding a German Shepherd to help her get over it on her blog, here. Jenny is collaborating with another writer -- an ex Green Beret (Bob Mayer) who loves violence as much as she loves shoes -- and I can't wait to read the result. It's coming out next May, and it's called Don't Look Down. If you go over to her blog you'll find links to more information about the book, and also an inspiring story for those of us who are coping with the inevitable trials of women in their fifties.

There is also a huge and chatty Yahoo group to discuss Jenny's books and everything else under the sun, here. I don't belong to this group so what goes on is a matter of curiosity for me, but on the other hand, it would feel like intruding, so I don't knock on the door. But you could.

Posted by at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

She asks:

This is my most burning question. When I wrote of your series to my book group, I used as a subject line "A book that takes liberties with a movie that took liberties with a book". That you did not adhere to strictly to the tale did not bother me. The stories you wrote are of Hawkeye's later life. However, I do have one gripe--the name changes. It didn't bother me that you stuck with the movie's switching from Cooper's plot and having Uncas'passion for Cora transfered to Hawkeye. I also understood completely that Bumpo was replaced by Bonner (even Michael Mann did not use Bumpo). Furthermore, Nathaniel is much to be prefered over Natty. But why didn't you let Hawkeye keep the name Nathaniel instead of giving it to his and Cora's son? I found it very confusing that Hawkeye is no longer Nathaniel but Daniel. Daniel is a good name choice because of the relationship of Daniel Boone and Kentucky but wouldn't it have worked better to let Hawkeye keep the name that Cooper and the movie gave him, and call his son Daniel instead? It took me the longest time to sort that out-- especially since some of the dialogue that takes place between Nathaniel and his "Boots" (love that appellation) in INTO THE WILDERNESS was dialogue that occurred in the movie between Hawkeye and Cora ("I'm looking at you, Ma'am"). As a result, it is hard to sort out the personality distinctions between Hawkeye and Nathaniel in your books. These characters blur in my mind so that sometimes when Nathaniel is speaking I see Daniel Day Lewis' face when that is the face I should be giving to his father Daniel.

I am sorry to have confused Karen (and anybody else whose trying to sort through the various fictional lives of these long-lived characters).

However. When I sat down to tell the story, I had to make it my story. Not Cooper's, not Michael Mann's (who directed the lovely movie version with DDL). Which meant rethinking things, and for me, that started with the names. So I talked to the characters and thought about it a lot. Thus my Nathaniel and Elizabeth, and Nathaniel's father Daniel, and all the other characters.

Here's a bit of trivia you might find interesting. When I am working with a less ... admirable character, one who I don't like and think my readers probably won't like for whatever reason, I usually find a name for that person in my own family's genealogy files. I named the Widow Quick after a great (9) grandmother of mine. I suppose that sounds mean, but it's better than foisting her off on somebody else, no?

Also, people have asked me if I named Elizabeth after my daughter, or my daughter after Elizabeth, to which the answer is a resounding NO. My daughter's name is not Elizabeth. My daughter's name is Elisabeth. This may seem like an overly fine distinction to you, but to me they are completely different. In the same way, somebody pointed out that I named Will Spencer after my husband. Which really threw me for a loop, until I remembered that Will and Bill are both short for William. But my Bill is not a Will, and could never be. So no, one was not named for the other.

And that's all I have to say about my character's names, except that the whole process of naming them is draining to the extreme, because they are usually more obstructive than helpful.

Posted by at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)