The Power of Words

Words have power. They can make someone’s day. (“You have beautiful eyes.”) Or, they can break someone’s heart. (“I don’t love you anymore.”) We writers know about proper sentence structure and how to place our carefully chosen words within a sentence to create the effect we want. And we strive to do that in our novels.

But what about in our daily interactions with others? Do we stop and think how we want to phrase something before we open our mouths or type a quick reply to an email? Sometimes, it’s not what we write or say but how we do it. Communicating our thoughts to others so they understand exactly what we mean can be difficult; misunderstandings happen all the time and, occasionally, despite our best intentions, people misinterpret our words. It happens; we can’t control the world.

There was a forward going around online a while back which suggested there should be a font for sarcasm. Who knows? Maybe there should be. I do know that a lot of people use the smiley face symbol to lessen the impact of words which are blatantly sarcastic, instead of taking responsibility for what they mean. I prefer honesty; say what you mean and mean what you say. :) (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.)

A few days ago, I had the radio on while I vacuumed and dusted my apartment. I like to hear lively music when I clean house. A commercial came on and I only caught a couple of words. I distinctly heard “lighthouse keeping.” Now, I happen to love lighthouses so my interest was immediately piqued. I had watched a special on TV not long ago about an old lighthouse in Maine where you could pay to stay there and assume the duties lighthouse keepers used to perform in the days before lighthouses were automated. My first thought was that maybe there was a lighthouse closer to home, which offered the same opportunity. I was intrigued.

I stopped what I was doing and listened to the rest of the commercial. Turns out it was an advertisement for a local cleaning service which performs light housekeeping. I laughed out loud. Was it the way the announcer emphasized the words or was it my subconscious hearing what it wanted to hear?

How do you choose a Title?

How do writers choose the titles for their novels? When I think of some of my favorite authors, Mary Higgins Clark comes immediately to mind. She often uses the titles of old songs. For example, You Belong to Me, Let Me Call You Sweetheart and All Around the Town. James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club Series starts with 1^st to Die and is up to The 10^th Anniversary. And, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone mystery series utilizes the alphabet: A is for Alibi through the latest, V is for Vengeance.   

So, how do I choose my titles? Titles are very important to me. Since I write mystery/suspense, I want my titles to reflect the genre, at least to some degree, because I don’t want to mislead readers; I want to entice them. And, I like my titles to have a double meaning. Here’s how I came up with the title for my first mystery/suspense novel.

In Mixed Messages, a serial killer is attacking women in their Westwood homes, where the main character, Ann, her husband, David, and their two children live in the downstairs apartment of an old Victorian. David is an alcoholic and his behavior toward Ann is becoming more and more erratic; one minute, he’s the kind, loving man she married and, the next minute, he’s cold and cruel.

Lawrence Berger, the son of Olivia, Ann’s landlady, is infatuated with Ann. When, instead of the usual love poems from Lawrence, Ann receives several ominous biblical quotes, she is confused and frightened.  

Desperate for someone to confide in, Ann tells their priest, Father Andrew, about her husband’s drinking and the problems in her marriage, but instead of consoling her as she expected, he points a finger at her and shouts, “Divorce is not an option!” He refers her to Dr. Susan Thatcher for counseling and, at her first session, Ann tells the psychologist, “I feel like I’m living in a world of mixed messages.”    

How do you choose a title?

In the Spirit of Halloween

My mystery/suspense novel, Mixed Messages, takes place the last week of October in 2008, which, of course, includes Halloween. As I was doing research for the book, I discovered some interesting facts about the combination secular and religious origin and history of the holiday.

The holiday we call Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. For the Celts, November 1 marked the beginning of the new year and the coming of winter. The night before the new year, they celebrated the festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, when they believed that the souls of the dead, including ghosts, goblins and witches, returned to walk among the living. In order to scare away the evil spirits, people would wear masks and light bonfires.

When the Romans conquered the Celts, they added a few rituals to the festival. They bobbed for apples and drank cider. However, in 835, Pope Gregory IV moved the celebration of what would be later called All Saints Day to November 1. The night before became known as All Hallow’s Eve. Eventually, the name was shortened to Halloween.

Stories of ghosts first became associated with Halloween in Ireland. The Irish believed that, if someone you knew had died the previous year and you were still holding a grudge against them, that person would appear to you on Halloween, startling you so badly that you would do anything to get rid of your grudge.

Our custom of trick-or-treating began in Ireland too. Groups of farmers would go door-to-door collecting food and materials for a village feast and bonfire. Those who gave were promised a good year; those who did not give got threats of bad luck. Costumes were symbolic; they were meant to scare away the evil spirits so that the next day, on All Saints Day, the saints could celebrate without fear. And, the following day, All Souls Day, people could remember those who had died, especially in their immediate families, secure in the knowledge that they were at peace. When a large number of Catholic immigrants came to the United States, they brought the custom of trick-or-treating with them.

 The custom of carving a pumpkin for Halloween also came from the Irish. People would hollow out turnips and place lighted candles inside to scare off the evil spirits. When the Irish came to America, they discovered the pumpkin and, because it was bigger, we now carve pumpkins instead of turnips for Halloween. We call the carved pumpkins jack-o-lanterns due to the legend of an Irishman named Jack who, as punishment for never having performed a single selfless act in his life, was forced to roam the earth with only a burning coal inside a pumpkin to light his way.

Happy Halloween!

Why do you write Fiction?

October 20^th was National Writing Day. On the website “She Writes” a question was posed: “Why do you write?” Responses were limited to 140 characters (not words, characters) so, before replying, I thought about it for some time and realized that there are lots of reasons why I write and, specifically, why I write fiction.

There are intriguing snatches of conversations I’ve overheard, interesting or unusual physical and personality traits I’ve observed and unforgettable situations and events in people’s lives that they’ve told me through the years stored in my memory bank. Taking all those seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of information and creating characters and plots, combining them and transforming them into stories, gets them out of my head and onto paper and is extremely  rewarding to me.

But why? Maybe creating stories is my attempt to shed some light on the human condition and to make sense of what I’ve seen, heard and experienced throughout my life. Possibly, it’s because I want to leave my own tiny mark on the world, something that will be around after I’m gone. Or, perhaps it’s the fact that I don’t like loose ends but I do like all my ducks in a row and writing a novel is a way I can get them all lined up. My characters certainly don’t have it easy. They struggle with conflict, find themselves in some scary situations and they definitely have problems. But here’s the part I love. When I write a novel, I know there will be resolution, that all the loose ends will be tied up by the end of the book, neat and nice. Not necessarily a happy ending but a satisfying one.

Probably, the answer to why I write fiction is all of the above. My reply to the question on “She Writes” was, “I write because, for some inexplicable reason, ideas for characters, dialogue and plots swirl around in my head until I give in and combine them to create a story.” Why do you write fiction?

Maybe It Is . . . and Maybe It Isn't

Awhile back, I was feeling disappointed and discouraged; something hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped. (I don’t even remember what it was now.) My brother told me a story that made a strong impression on me. I was curious as to the origin of the story so I looked it up; it’s actually a parable from the book of Job, which I believe we can apply to our lives and our writing careers. I’d like to share this story with you.

There was an old man who lived in a tiny village. The man was poor but he was envied by the other villagers because he owned a beautiful white horse. The villagers encouraged him to sell the horse so he’d have some money but he refused. One morning, he discovered that the horse was not in the stable. The villagers all told him that he was a fool for not having sold it; that the horse was stolen and it was a curse. The old man replied, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.  We only have a fragment; only God sees the whole picture.”

Then, one day, the horse returned and brought with it a dozen wild horses. Evidently it had not been stolen; it had run away. The villagers told the old man, “You were right. What we thought was a curse, was a blessing.” Once again, the old man told them, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”

The old man had a son who began to train the wild horses so that his father could sell them but he fell from one of the horses and broke both of his legs. The villagers said to the old man, “You proved we were wrong. You are still poor and your only son will not be able to help you now. The dozen horses were a curse.” “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” the old man said.

A few weeks later, war broke out in the country. All young men in the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. The villagers gathered around the old man, crying and screaming, “You were right. Your son’s accident was a blessing. Our sons will probably be killed but at least he is with you.” The old man finally told them, “It is impossible to talk with you. You always make judgments. You read only one page of a book. How can you judge the whole book? No one knows if something is a blessing or a curse. Only God knows.”

Get Real

In one of my favorite movies, Misery, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, James Caan plays Paul Sheldon, the famous author of a popular historical romance series. Paul decides that, if he’s ever going to be a “real” writer again, he needs to produce something else. He goes to his usual writer’s retreat, a lodge in the mountains, and completes a new novel, as yet untitled; he’s very proud of the book. The new novel depicts life as he knew it on the streets of New York when he was growing up. 

 Unfortunately, on his way down the mountain in a blinding snow storm, Paul loses control of his car. Annie Wilkes, played by Kathy Bates, is Paul’s Number One Fan (she has a copy of every novel in his Misery series) and an extremely unstable woman. She finds him trapped in his car, which is buried in a snow bank, and carries him back to her house, presumably to nurse him back to health. Paul allows her to read his new manuscript. Here’s an excerpt of their conversation.

“It’s the swearing, Paul,” Annie says.

“The profanity bothers you?” he asks.

“It has no nobility.”
          “Annie, these are slum kids. I was a slum kid. Everybody talks like that.”

“No they don’t! Do I go to the feed store and say, ‘Give me some of that f---ing pig feed’? Or at the bank, ‘Here’s one big bastard of a check’?”

          While I’m not a fan of the overuse of “four letter words” or using them when it’s inappropriate to do so, I agree with Paul. I believe that, in order for fiction to be realistic, the language in the story needs to be in sync with the characters and the situation. Street kids do use that kind of language and, if the story is to be believable, the characters in it need to use it too.

            I’d like to hear your thoughts on the subject.