If you could instruct one author to write a book you’ve outlined, which author would you choose and why?
#BlogHerWritingLab ~ Friday, April 22, 2016
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I love long-flowing, syllable-laden, descriptive sentences that flow into similar paragraphs and pages and pages and pages of the same.
I love detail, right down to the slightest movement of a shadow or the tiny periwinkle-colored scrolls on the pattern of a 17th century English tea service.
I love senses. I love warm breezes against a baby’s cheek and the sun peeking over the tallest Rose of Sharon on a cool summer morning. I love the sounds of the power of crashing waves cascading to shore. I love sand the color of a fawn and each tiny, tiny grain against tiny, tiny feet. I love the aroma of a hot summer morning in NYC when everything is still but the cafe workers and shopkeepers washing the sidewalks.
I love happy endings.
You get the picture.
But. BUT. If I were to choose an author to write a book I’ve outlined, I would call on Kurt Vonnegut…
I’d call on his declarative sentences and dark humor and understated genius. I would want detailed images in the fewest words created in the minds of my readers, knowing that Vonnegut would be masterful in painting these pictures. Art gallery masterful. Kindergarten innocence masterful.
I would call on Vonnegut’s social consciousness, not to preach, but to teach. Aloof and visionary.
I would call on Vonnegut to bring my characters to life, characters filled with humanity and often defined by their flaws of humanity. I would trust Vonnegut to crawl into the minds of my characters, revealing what even the characters don’t know about themselves because it’s easier to not know… to make them fragile and strong, too. Deep and shallow. Vengeful and kind. Because the are. We all are. Each character and all characters.
I trust Vonnegut with my comedy and tragedy. I trust him with the unassuming and the arrogant. I trust Vonnegut with my thoughts. I trust Vonnegut with my written moments.
“There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.”
I trust Vonnegut to plant the seeds of my story in someone’s brain and life and watch the seeds grow over decades and decades. Because the human condition is ever-evolving. And ever-the-same.
Of all the authors I’ve read and/or studied in my lifetime, the raw truth of Kurt Vonnegut’s stories and characters have stayed with me. I want this to happen to MY STORY.
Channeling from Heaven? I’m sure there’s a most profoundly interesting Literature Circle in the sky.
And so it goes.
BlogHer Writing Lab April 2016 Prompts! Why not join in and tell your story.
