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  • EXCERPT: Inner Compass
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Making a Scene

5/22/2013

7 Comments

 
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Have you ever cried while reading a book?  Ever thrown a book across the room or squirted coffee out your nose while reading?  If you've experienced these or any other involuntary bodily functions (but not for longer than 4 hours) during the act of reading, congratulations.  You're my kind of reader!

If a great book can stimulate none of these reactions in you, then OMG, somebody take a pulse.

So, given the emotional potential of the written word, imagine the force of those emotions on a writer as she creates a powerful scene.  It can be exhilarating, stressful, overwhelming, exhausting.  Anytime you stagger from the computer feeling drained or bounce away on your toes, you know the scene you just wrote is a keeper.

One of my highs while writing Grand Theft Equine was the scene where Joan and Brie are playing Topsy Turvy, a lesbian sim game that lets you cruise women in a leather bar.  My partner kept coming into the room to make sure I was okay during that one, I was laughing so hard.

Then there were those two dark days when I had to write the loss of an animal.  I nearly stopped.  Almost couldn't go through with it.  During that, my partner wasn't drawn to the room where I write, because there was only silence.  But a few times during that couple of days, she'd look at me during dinner or something and say, "Are you okay?"

As wrenching as that scene was, though, it was cathartic for someone whose childhood pets were magically immortal. Purely out of love, and not realizing that children need to create their pathways to grief, my parents shielded us from the deaths of pets when my sisters and I were small.  Dogs always "ran away."  When our turtles died, my mom told us they jumped into the toilet while she was cleaning their bowl, and she was certain they swam straight to the river, where they were very happy to find their mother again.  Yes, we were extremely gullible. To keep us from being sad over roadkill, they told us those were stuffed animals on the side of the road, accidentally dropped from windows of passing cars. For the longest time, I thought country kids must be awfully careless, because they seemed to lose a lot of their stuffed animals this way.  And what was up with all the toy raccoons?

Anyway...I'd love to hear about scenes that you've had a visceral response to, either as a reader or a writer.


7 Comments
Nigella
5/22/2013 02:02:25 am

Most of the final few chapters of Les Miserables had me doing the sobbing ugly cry.

And then there was the time I was in the hospital hooked up to heart monitors reading Seabiscuit, and in the book's climactic scene featuring the race between the titular horse and War Admiral, my pulse and breathing rates increased so dramatically that a nurse came in to check on me. Actual proof of a physical reaction!

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Margo Moon link
5/22/2013 03:17:50 am

Wow. Actual biofeedback.

Seabiscuit!

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Robin Roseau
5/22/2013 05:49:08 am

In my younger years, I was pretty immune to everything in a book except a dog dying. Over the last several years, I've become increasingly sensitive, both in books and movies.

I recently had two books where I had to stop reading and calm down. One was yours, Margo. When Sassy talks to Cailen in the back yard, I had to stop reading for hours. Another was Autumn Leaves by Barb Winkes. I haven't gotten back to that one.

When writing, I sob all the time. I'm fairly quiet about it unless it's a death scene. I have a few novels I've cried for an entire weekend or over the course of several nights while working through a difficult section. My emotions and the emotions of my characters feed each other. If I'm in a sad mood, then my writing is sad. If my writing is sad, it makes me sad. So if in my books you see that my main character is crying, chances are that is a reflection of my mood while writing that particular scene.

I also have written a few books that have left me disturbed. The latest is Fox Mate, due out in June. In Fox Mate, Michaela is dealing with her PTSD, her memories from her past, and trying to understand pack customs and fully integrate with the pack. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep as I muddle through Michaela's issues. I'm still struggling to give her the closure she needs so that I can have the closure I need.

Robin Roseau

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Margo Moon link
5/22/2013 06:10:48 am

I kinda want to hug you for being that sensitive, yet putting yourself out there anyway, Robin.

I remember your comment about having to stop reading a book, and since I knew you had it in the queue, I wondered if it was mine. That comment of yours, actually, was in part what got me to thinking about this in the first place.

Michaela's past is so very heartbreaking. I know you can't answer this, but I keep wondering if she'll ever get to relate with others of her own kind, or if her integration and place in the wolf pack will be her whole world.

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Robin Roseau
5/22/2013 06:18:28 am

Hello, Margo. I did finish after I calmed down, and it was a nice read.

Michaela is struggling with the integration issues. The wolves are actually very good about it. Foxes have become exceedingly rare. Beyond that, I don't have even so much as a teaser for you.

Mary Anne
5/22/2013 05:50:21 am

Recently there have been a number of books that made me laugh so hard I cried. I guess I have an easily accessible funny bone. Books that make me cry are very rare. The two that come immediately to mind are Bradshaw's "Out on the Panhandle" and Gerri Hill's "The Cottage".

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Margo Moon link
5/22/2013 06:12:32 am

Goddess knows I love to laugh until I cry, Mary Anne. I'ma Kindle up both of these this evening!

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