Endurance Training for Writers

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into story.”*

I’ve recently added a new component to my workouts: guided aerobic walking using a weighted Walkvest. My coach, Debbie Rocker, is on CD, helping me work on endurance. Of course I naturally transfer her coaching to my writing, because that’s endurance work as well.

The word endure comes from Latin indurare, which means “make hard” or “harden.” Endure now means “continuing to exist,” or “to undergo without breaking.” In Rocker’s words, endurance in a walking workout means “going all the way . . . staying strong on the road.” For me it’s becoming strong enough to stay on the road. In endurance training “you challenge yourself, you work purposefully with intention, you create a powerful position from the inside out.” And you find your endurance zone, your endurance level. Once you reach your endurance zone, you challenge yourself to stretch a little more, go a little farther, work a little longer, or add a little weight (not to your body, but to what you carry as you walk).

While endurance training in a physical activity helps your body work more efficiently, endurance training in writing helps your mind and muse work more efficiently. When I was studying for my MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, my first adviser told me that I was a good writer, and I could get by, but if I challenged myself to work hard, I could be better. I could aim for excellent. I’m not there yet, but I’m in endurance training. Each book I write is a challenge – which is exactly as it should be. As Susan Fletcher, another of my advisers, once told me, “Every book teaches you how to write that book.” Each new story you write brings new challenges.

Writing a novel is endurance training. It teaches you to go all the way, to stay strong on the road of the story. A writer works purposefully with intention and creates a powerful position from the inside out – from the inside of self onto the pages of the novel.

Something else I noticed: The shape of a story echoes the shape of a workout. You start a walking workout slowly and increase the difficulty incrementally. Periodically you plateau and then back off, letting the heart rate lower a bit. Then you raise the bar and increase the heart rate again. After the most challenging peak of activity, you slow the pace and cool down. The shape of most stories follows a similar pattern, starting with a warm-up, your intention to go the distance and take the reader with you (a “this is what we’re here for”). Then the tension varies – rises, backs off, rises – until it peaks at the climax of the story. After that comes the cool down. As Rocker says, “ease your way home.”

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into story.” So writer, know why you are here, bring it all to the novel, and ease your way home.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing, Happy Life!

*Quote adapted from William Barclay by replacing his glory with my story.

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Violence in Novels: Useful or Overdone?

What’s the most challenging physical pain you’ve ever experienced? For me it was having a baby. I hear that kidney stones are a close second. A broken arm, a leg cramp, a sprained back – ouch. I won’t go on. You have your own memories. In real life some of us have a higher tolerance for pain than others do. The same goes for fiction. Readers have differing levels of tolerance for fictional pain, which in novels is often associated with violence.

I recently finished two newly published YA novels, both containing violence and gore. The violence was integral to each story, but novel #1 witnessed the violence and moved on, while novel #2 wallowed in it and pushed deeper, piling anguish on injury. But even novel #1 contained a scene that tempted me to roll my eyes and say, “Really? She can survive that?” And therein lies the danger for a writer.

Yes, our heroes must face daunting threats. And, yes, for readers to take those threats seriously, writers must show that the danger is real – which means someone has to get hurt, physically, emotionally, mentally, or all three. The conflict has to be gripping and the stakes high. So you might think that adding one violent, tear-jerking scene after another would do the trick. Not so. There’s a tipping point at which violent events become unbelievable. A writer’s primary task is to lure the reader into the “fictive dream” (as John Gardner puts it) and keep him there. What can wake a reader from the fictive dream? Anything from poor grammar to weak characters to illogical plot points – and over-the-top violence.

Kathi Appelt, one of my advisers at Vermont College of Fine Arts, counseled me to avoid killing off too many characters. The death of one strategic character carries greater impact than the deaths of dozens. I suspect that principle is transferable to the use of violence. Less may be more.

To be effective, violence must be a natural and necessary part of a story. It’s there for good reason, it’s treated with the shock and disgust it deserves, and at best, it’s balanced by hope and goodness. That makes violence much more effective than page after page of brutality that overwhelms the story.

Overdoing violence risks making characters – both heroes and villains – appear unreal or even cartoonish. When a character gets punched, burned, kicked, trampled, starved, and deprived of sleep, and then, in a great deal of pain, fights his or her way out of captivity, walks miles through swamps, scrambles to avoid attackers, and fights off bandits . . . well, I stop believing the story and lose connection with the character. I also wonder if the writer has ever experienced pain, because most of us aren’t very good at dealing with pain. We’re quick to grab the aspirin and call the doctor. And although heroes should be tougher and smarter and more determined than the run-of-the-mill person, they, too, surely have their limits. I’m willing to go the extra mile with a hero and admire her persistence and courage, but there comes a point at which, even in fiction, enough is enough.

I once heard a radio program on the subject of gang violence. One of the interviewees worked at a hospital and recalled the night a young gang member was admitted for a gunshot wound. He’d been shot in the leg and kept yelling, “It hurts! It really hurts!” Well, yeah. He didn’t expect violence to hurt?

The point is, we most often experience violence as spectators, and we get a pass on the pain. It doesn’t hurt. We flick off the screen or close the book, then go order pizza, visit the mall, or whatever. But in real life, violence hurts and people cry, “Enough!” And if we writers want to make our stories believable, our heroes will not only hurt, but they will need their writers to cry, “Enough!”

But why write violence at all? Why do readers want to read it? Why do publishers want to publish it? What’s the purpose of evil in a story? And how do you write a violent scene without turning off a reader? Over the next few weeks I’ll take a stab at those questions. (Yes, violent pun intended thanks to my rapier wit.)

Meanwhile, happy reading!

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Fantasy’s “Bite”

A good fantasy should bite you. Whether it makes a frontal assault or creeps up behind you, it should bite –meaning it should startle you, catch you off-guard, grab your heart, make you think. The only way a writer can achieve such a feat is to first draw you into the story by creating an imaginary world that seems real.

In Breath of Angel, Melaia smells the sweet, pungent scent of drying herbs in Hanni’s stillroom. She hears treetops swish in the wind, tastes the tang of a dried apricot. A fantasy herb, dreamweed, tastes syrupy sweet mixed with the juice of a pealmelon. It makes Melaia’s tongue feel thick, her eyelids heavy. Details from our real world mixed with imaginary objects make the fantasy seem real.

Susan Fletcher, one of my MFA advisers at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, pointed out that connection to the real world can give fantasy its bite. Details of ancient Mediterranean culture provide some of the setting for the Angelaeon Circle novels, which is why I blog about it. Even the ancient world is so distant it can feel like a fantasy. But it, too, comes alive when we connect it to our own senses. What did they hear? Smell? Taste? See?

More important, how did people respond? While the world has changed, human nature has not. Perhaps our common human experiences are the most important details a writer can bring to the fantasy world. Dilemmas, responsibilities, tragedies, opportunities – and emotion: anger, fear, vengeance, hope, courage, love.

Strange and imaginary elements draw us into the corridors of an imaginary world, sensory and emotional detail keep us believing, then we turn a corner and suddenly we’re looking into a mirror. For me, that’s the bite.

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Creative Leap

What did you dream last night? I’m guessing that dreams are one of the most creative things we do. Our sleeping mind seems to let down its guard, and the muse has a party, dancing, painting, singing, riddling, connecting the shards of our fear and anger, our hope and joy into a stained glass window of dream. It’s a trick to coax the same muse to work in our waking hours, but as we let down our guard and give our muse practice, it gets easier. (As Anne Lamott says, “Don’t look at your feet . . . Just dance.”)

Now that I’ve given my muse permission to dance around for a paragraph, I’ll give my left brain its turn with the subject of creativity. According to the lead article in the summer newsletter of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, creativity has been viewed traditionally as a linear process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and implementation. But theorists now encourage us to think of creativity “as a continuous, cyclical process of observing, reflecting, and making.”

To enter the creative cycle, artists take a leap, not knowing whether they will succeed or fail. “Often we fly a bit, while other times we hit the pavement. Either way, it is our nature to leap again.”

The amazing thing is, every time we leap and land, we learn – even if we learn only what not to do next time. “If we stick with it,” the article says, “we begin to succeed more than we fail. With our successes, we become more comfortable with the risks. So we leap again – farther. New challenges lift us over our previous boundaries and limitations. We become more creative.”

Maybe I’m thinking about the creative cycle because mine is about to start all over again. I just got the proofed and copyedited version of Eye of the Sword for my stamp of approval. (It’s due out in March.) Meanwhile the acquisitions editor is presenting a proposal for books three and four in the Angelaeon Circle to the acquisitions committee for their approval (or rejection as the case may be). Plus, I just finished a rewrite of novel #3, and have begun to dip into the observations and reflections I’ve accumulated in preparation for the leap into writing novel #4. Creativity does indeed feel like a cycle to me.

So if you have creative aspirations, go for it. Observe, reflect – then take the leap. Here’s wishing you a fantastic landing!

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Inns and Interview: A Cynsations New Voice

Breath of Angel is featured in an interview this week as a “new voice” on Cynthia Leitich Smith’s fantastic  blog, Cynsations. Cynthia is herself an award-winning writer of a variety of books,  including whimsical picture books and YA novels about angel-types in the contemporary  world. She also teaches in the Writing for Children and  Young Adults MFA program at  Vermont College of Fine Arts – and she somehow finds time to connect writers, readers,  teachers, and librarians into a sharing, caring community. Thanks for your generosity and  encouragement, Cynthia! (Tantalize starts a series. Could be just the thing to take along  when you travel this summer.)

Wealthy travelers in the ancient world sometimes carried scrolls to read – classics like The Iliad and The Odyssey were relatively new back then. I heard of one man who took his entire library with him when he traveled. On camel. Of course at night, you’d have to read by light from a torch, an oil lamp, or the moon.

In ancient times your best bet when traveling was to stay overnight with relatives or friends. It was safer and cleaner than an inn (depending on the relative or friend). If you had a wealthy friend who owned a villa, you were really in luck. You could probably stay there even if your friend was out of town. Of course without his slaves to heat the water, you’d probably have a cold bath.

Inns were usually situated in cities and along main roads. But they were reserved for wealthy travelers. Most inns contained a small number of bedrooms that lined two, maybe three sides of an inner courtyard. One side of the yard might hold a kitchen. The fourth side, the entrance by the main road, might hold a small restaurant or tavern. Stables would be nearby. But again, these inns were for people who could afford it.

If you weren’t rich, you could camp out. The wise traveler journeyed with a group, so the entire group would make camp and take turns throughout the night watching for wild animals and bandits. As an alternative you might stay at a caravansary, which was walled like a small fort. The inner area was open to the sky. Small rooms around the sides were for paying guests. The room might have a locking door – or not. The rooms also might be upstairs above stalls for animals (you can imagine the smell). In a caravansary if you couldn’t afford a room, you’d sleep under the stars in the courtyard – or in a stall with your animals.

In Breath of Angel, Trevin and Melaia stay in a caravansary. See an illustration on my website. If you’re traveling this week, I wish you safety and health and a good place to spend your nights.

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