I read the first two books of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy a couple years ago and I’ve just started the third. Why did I wait so long to crack open the copy of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest gathering dust on the bookshelf? Because, even though the first novels were entertaining, the lack of editing was too distracting – I kept getting pulled out of the story by redundancies and unnecessary exposition. What made me pick up the third novel? The latest movie version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

David Fincher does a great job of directing but it’s the work of the screenwriter, Steve Zaillian, that makes this 158-minute movie a thrill to watch. Zaillian cut what wasn’t essential to the story and left in the elements that make the novel so entertaining. (The script also makes one significant change that I won’t go into here lest I spoil it for you.) With the fat cut away, the story emerges leaner, meaner – and better.

The movie reminded me that Larsson created a fantastic character in Lisbeth Salander.

Characters grab our imagination when they work against our expectations, and this is certainly the case with Salander. She is petite and young and we expect her to be vulnerable yet she is fierce; she is (apparently) mentally incapacitated yet also brilliant. Above all, though, is the fact that this character so brutally treated by powerful male villains uses her strengths to get back at her tormentors in ingenious ways. This is a female action figure no one had seen until Larsson gave her to us. The screenwriter pared the story to its essentials, thereby letting Salander shine more brightly, but it was Larsson who imagined her  into life. Back home from the movie theater, I decided that for a character like Salander, I could put up with poor editing. After all, no book is perfect.

I’m about halfway through Hornet and despite glossing over several passages of unnecessarily detailed background, I am enjoying it. However, the best thing about this trilogy, our tattooed heroine, has spent over two hundred pages lying in a hospital bed doing basically nothing. I hope Larsson gets her out of bed soon. But I have no doubt that even if he doesn’t, a good screenwriter will.

For more on the Larsson/Salander phenomenon, see

• Is the Hoopla over Stieg Larsson Undeserved?
• The Author Who Died and Left a Story Better Than His Blockbuster Novels

Regular readers of this blog know my adoption of e-reading is underway, but at a cautious pace. ( iEvolve? Will e-readers end bookshelves?) My last post – Will Fat Books Sell More E-Books? – was about whether or not doorstop books would be enough to make me take the e-reader plunge. Well, yes and no. No, I did not put an e-reader on my Christmas wishlist. On the other hand, seriously researching electronic reading devices has made me realize that I’m going to “cross over” soon. I’m guessing 2012 will be the year. That’s assuming I find a reader that offers the features I want at a good price. What do I want my e-reader to do?

• Brighten my day. I like the lack of glare from grayscale e-ink technology but I also want the option of colour – I’ll be reading newspapers, not just books, and who wants to absorb all the things going on in the world these days in black and white?
• Show me what it means. I want a dictionary and I want it at my fingertips. I was seriously considering the Kobo Vox, which has great colour, but unfortunately no dictionary. (What were these designers thinking?)
• Tell me how to say it. It’s not enough to know a lot of big words – what’s erudition without proper pronunciation? My smartphone and computer offer a speaker icon so I can find out how a word is pronounced (and thereby not embarrass myself when I repeat said word at a dinner party) and I want the same feature on my e-reader.
• Don’t try to force me to love only you. I dislike proprietary formats. Why should I buy books only from your bookstore?
• Gain a little girth — without adding any weight. While each e-reader I looked at was light enough to hold for several chapters without straining my arm, they just weren’t…big enough. I want something that more closely mimics the feel of a book in the hand. (I know – tablets are bigger. I did linger at the iPad table, and I almost went for a PlayBook.)  I tried flipping one e-reader sideways, expecting the text to go horizontal as it does on my smart phone, but it didn’t work.
  

Am I too fussy? My husband thinks so. But I’m betting that by my birthday, there’ll be a couple new e-readers on the market that will satisfy me.

Meanwhile, in my research I discovered a few good sites with information on e-readers. I recommend Good e-Reader. If you want to let me know what I missed in my research, please comment below.

(Photo credit: goXunuReviews)

In my family, the pleasures of Christmas have always had more to do with good food and drink and thoughtful conversation than with gifts. But we do give each other presents and by far most of these (since mp3s pushed CDs off the list) have fallen into the literary category. I make my husband’s life easier by giving him a list of books I’m interested in and letting him choose a couple. This year, I’m interested in Stephen King’s 11/22/63. At least, I was until I went to the bookstore and checked it out.

It wasn’t a bad reaction to his writing – I always read the first page or two to help me decide whether or not to buy and these did not disappoint – but the size of the thing. It’s a doorstop of a novel, weighing in at 2.9 pounds. (That’s 1.3 Kg in Canada, where I read.) I hoisted a copy off the display table and held it up with both hands: Did I really want to go to bed with this baby? Was it going to feel comfortable on my lap? Shouldn’t it come with some sort of padding?

Another book I’m interested in is Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. (A big year for Steve books, no matter how you spell it.) This one is 2.2 pounds, an improvement, but not by much.

So far, I haven’t officially added either of these books to my wishlist. I’m thinking about them. But now I’m also wondering if this should be the year I break down and get an e-reader. (It took me weeks to decide on a smartphone; it would take me at least this long to do iPad/Kobo/Kindle comparisons. On the plus side, by then we’ll be into January sales.) Meanwhile, I’ve decided to browse the bookstore for some “lighter” fare. There’s no reason I can’t wait until my local bookstore has 11/22/63 and Jobs in paperback for me to try it out. Or until it has a sale on e-readers.

For more on the subject, check out Deccan Chronicle’s Future of fat books.

Have you ever struggled to understand new software on your computer? I’ve just spent several frustrating days this way. The package I installed has six different programs and I’ve Googled and YouTubed away a great many hours trying to figure out how these fancy tools can help me get my job done. Eventually, I decided to try to concentrate on learning one program. This was more successful, and now my project is (more or less) complete. This strategy could also be applied to writing.

There are many literary techniques a writer can use to tell a story. But how many writers are ever going to excel at plot, dialogue, point of view, metaphor and everything else in the colorful literary toolbox? You’re better off trying to master one thing at a time.

Say you’re writing about estranged lovers meeting in a café. Concentrate just on the dialogue, or descriptive detail or metaphor–whatever. Choose one element and get it right. If your reader is drawn in by your gripping dialogue, she won’t notice if your description’s a bit thin. We notice specific instances of excellence more than we note broad adequacy. Let’s get away from writing a moment and consider gardening. Walking the dog one recent fall day, I passed a tidy yard with border plants neatly lining the front path. Nice, I thought. The lawn of the next house was littered with leaves and stray toys, but on the porch was an urn the size of a wine barrel, overflowing with scarlet geraniums. “Wow!” I told the dog.

To improve your writing, choose one thing to excel at. Which, come to think of it, is good advice for mastering life. And software.

Ah, NaNoWriMo. There are a lot of neat things about trying to write a novel in one month, and maybe the best is experiencing the joy of self-expression. Even if you don’t complete a novel worth publishing (and I seriously doubt anyone can in the space of 30 days), you’ll get yourself well on the way if you start December with a good-sized draft. Or, maybe you’ll find out you don’t want to write a novel, after all. Either way, this is valuable. But one side benefit I never hear much said about is the fact that novel-writing – regardless of the quality of the end product – produces better readers. (And everyone who enters NaNoWriMo is also an enthusiastic reader, right? I mean, why would people try to write books if they didn’t also read them?)

I know someone who recently took up sculpting. She chisels hard lumps into shapes that give the illusion of lovely, soft forms. Because of this new pursuit, she notices the shape of everything. Once ordinary objects – a fencepost, a rock, an apple – now fascinate her. She studies areas of light and shadow, angles and lines. It’s as if a whole new world has opened up around her, she says.

In a similar way, a person who writes begins to notice new things in the books she reads. Look at the way this author builds tension, she might think to herself; see how this other author uses dialogue to build character. To read like a writer is to notice the light and the shadows and the lines of a story. Write a novel – good or bad – and you’ll never read one quite the same way again.

You’ve heard this many times: If you want to write, you have to read. Read widely, outside your usual genre and notice how different authors utilize various literary techniques. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this month and find that the endeavor opens up a whole new literary world for you, you’ve spent your time well.

For more on NaNoWriMo, read this post from last year.

What kind of ghost story do you like? If you want to write a great ghost story, you need to understand the answer to this question.

I know what I like: stories that fall into a sub-genre of ghost fiction often referred to as psychological ghost stories. In this kind of fiction, emphasis is on the mental state of the victim rather than on the actions of a ghost. I’m led to wonder about the reliability and mental stability of the protagonist and I don’t really know if the ghost is “real.”

On the other hand, if it’s obvious from the beginning that the ghosts are real, I lose interest quickly. My interest flags because I don’t believe in ghosts. At least, I don’t think I do. Still…

It’s in this ellipsis that I begin to doubt. I worry. My guts tense and my breath turns shallow. And I’m drawn, gripped with dread, into the story, where I will stay until the end.

Last night, I began to watch a horror movie, Insidious. Within the first few minutes, the overtones of horror were so heavy-handed and cartoonish, I turned it off. Maybe it would have been a good flick but I figured that, in order to enter into the world of that story, I’d have to suspend a lot of disbelief. I prefer, instead, a movie like The Sixth Sense, in which the world, if tragically violent, still operates as the world we expect and it’s only gradually that viewers are led to consider that other forces may be at work.

Think about what you like to read and why you like it. Which ghost movies do you love to watch again and again even though you know the end? I’ve watch Sixth Sense three times, just to admire how the screenwriter builds the story.

For more on ghost stories, see my post What Makes a Ghost Story a Great Read?

I teach a course called How to Read Like a Writer, and one of the first things I bring up in the class is that whether or not you’re a writer, if you learn to read like one you’ll enrich your reading experience. I compare this to art: I know nothing about the visual arts but having someone explain to me the skill and creativity that went into a piece changes my perception of it. (Anyone remember Sister Wendy from PBS? She certainly made me see the Impressionists in a new way.) Similarly, reading a great novel with increased awareness elevates the reading experience; the book touches you on many more levels. But something I hadn’t considered – until lately – is whether reading good writing might also change one’s personality. Can a great book make you a better person?

Psychologist and author Keith Oatley, a contributor to OnFiction, likens a person reading good writing to a pilot-in-training using a flight simulator: Both get to try out new experiences in a safe place. Oatley thinks one of the reasons book clubs are so popular is that they multiply the “emotional training” experience. And while reading groups deal with both fiction and nonfiction, apparently it is fiction that has the greatest effect on our brains. Oatley and his colleagues have conducted studies and observed that people show more empathy after reading a short story than after reading nonfiction. (I’d like to know exactly what kind of nonfiction the participants were given – I think a well-written memoir or travelogue would allow a reader to experience just as much emotion as a novel.) Oatley makes a distinction between literary and genre fiction; he believes it’s the former that changes a person. That makes sense to me.

So, will health experts one day prescribe, along with moderate exercise and leafy greens, thirty minutes of good fiction every day?

Packing for a flight to northern B.C. recently, I dithered over which books to put in the limited space of my carry-on luggage. I would need a few; it’s a seven-hour ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Haida Gwaii. Someone pointed out that what I needed was an e-reader. Hadn’t even thought of that but, of course, that would’ve solved everything. It was too late to go out and buy one but on the plane, I began to wonder if the time had come for me to get over my loyalty to books made of paper. Then, in a cluttered living room of a B&B in Masset, I realized a side to the e-readers vs real books debate I hadn’t considered before.

Copper Beech Guest House, owned by poet and novelist Susan Musgrave, had a window overlooking the harbor and either side of this view, shelves stuffed with novels, memoirs and chapbooks of poetry. The coffee table was piled with books about photography and painting and history. When a small group of us gathered for breakfast in the morning, I was grateful to have these books within arm’s reach. I don’t like to talk to people, especially not strangers, until I’ve had my first cup of coffee, and browsing through a cookbook not only stoked my appetite for the eggs frying in the kitchen – it also provided a way to avoid small talk.

Over a second coffee (I was more sociable now) I told my fellow lodgers about my book-packing problems. We discussed the pros and cons of e-readers and agreed they were undoubtedly convenient. On the other hand, wasn’t it true that part of the draw of travel was to “get away,” and one of the things we liked to get away from was time spent facing electronic screens?

Not only that, rooms like the one we were in wouldn’t have the same ambience if there were only an e-reader or two on otherwise bare shelves. Sure, a guest would be able to hold in one hand all the volumes in this house – but she would then miss the weight of a book on her lap, the feel of its pages and the realization that other travelers from around the world had turned those same pages before her.

I’ll be trying out e-reading soon, I know, and I’ll probably become a fan of its convenience. But when I arrange a stay at bed-and-breakfast in a distant town, I’ll be looking for a place with comfy chairs and shelves loaded with the kind of books that have real spines.

Oh, the books I packed: A classic, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, a mystery, The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly – and Fodor’s New York City, because on the ferry ride home, I wanted to do a little research for our next trip. No decision yet on what kind of reading I’ll pack.

In Report on Business today, there’s a review of The Innovator’s DNA. I blog on “all things literary” so perhaps you’re surprised I’d comment here on a book published by Harvard Business Review Press. But I’ve added this book to my very long to-read list because I think the creativity of great business minds has relevance to writing.

According to the book’s three authors, really creative people – like Steve Jobs, for example – don’t just have brilliant minds, they often engage in the following behaviors:

• Associating – Innovators rarely invent something entirely new; what they do is recombine ideas in new ways. This reminds me of something Michael Chabon told an audience at a recent AWP conference: writing is all about similes – similes span the distance between writer and reader. Chabon and other skilled writers find new ways of showing us something is like something else.
• Questioning – It probably won’t surprise you that innovators love to ask questions. Why is something done in a certain way, and how might that be challenged? Steve Jobs asked himself why a computer needed a fan and that led to a nice, quiet Macintosh. Fiction writers continually ask themselves questions, and one of the most important ones is What if? What if you woke up one day and you were a giant beetle? (The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka.)
• Observing – Business innovators are intense observers of customers, products, services and technology. As a journalist writing profiles of business leaders, I would note gestures and any personality quirks of my subjects to help give me (and readers) more insight into what made them successful. Smart writers watch people – everywhere, all the time. Why do writers take their work to cafes? Yeah, sure, I go for the double-fudge-nut-squares, but I also find inspiration in watching the other patrons around me.
• Networking – Innovators search for new ideas by talking to people who may offer a radically different view. Jobs talked to “the crazy guys” at Industrial Light & Magic…and Pixar was born. Smart writers seek out those who can provide an alternative point of view on a subject. This is true with both fiction and nonfiction. Because he takes the time to talk to people in all walks of life, Alain de Botton is one of my favourite writers.
• Experimenting – Innovators visit new places, seek new information, and try new things. Early on, Jobs took a calligraphy class; later, part of the draw of the Macintosh was its beautiful typography. Experimenting works for writers, too. Decades ago, I attended a workshop that espoused an approach to women’s health that turned upside down everything I’d assumed about self-care. That experience led to one of my first magazine articles.

If you have any other behaviors to add, please comment!

As a follow-up to my earlier post on What We Write About When We Write About Sex, I’m adding a few more points to consider:

• There are various awards for bad writing that’s funny and one of the most entertaining is the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Here’s a line from The Shape of Her, by Rowan Somerville, the “winner” for 2010: “like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.” Somerville, who is British, accepted his prize with grace: “There is nothing more English than bad sex, so on behalf of the entire nation I would like to thank you.” Great sport, that Somerville, but if you aren’t English and want to avoid writing about sex badly, you might want to re-think using the imagery of a butterfly collector in your love scenes.

• Speaking of love, there may be none at all; sex can be lust between enemies, for example. Nevertheless, “making love” is a euphemism–one of many–we often use to describe the act. My favourite euphemism (and great metaphor), from Shakespeare’s Othello, is “the beast with two backs.” But euphemisms can lead to purple prose and unintentionally hilarious metaphors and similes. (See the butterfly collector, above.) Also, IMHO, many euphemisms are just too cutesy-poo and have no place in fiction for adults.

• Here’s something that troubles many: What should we call body parts? Yes, the grown-up terms are “penis” and “vagina.” But would your characters refer to each other’s parts this way? Don’t forget who is having this sex, and write it “true” to them. And keep in mind that using anatomically correct terms can give your scene a clinical feeling.

• “How far should you go” in writing about sex? That depends on how far you go in other scenes. If your novel contains scenes of graphic violence, your scenes of intimacy will also have to be graphic. Also, consider your audience. Readers of romance, for example, want emotional detail while readers of crime fiction might want more of the physical.

• Go wild. If worry about making a fool of yourself in print is giving you writer’s block, try an approach that works with most writing—compose your hot scene with the assumption that no one but you will ever read it. You can always tone it down later.

• The above points are paraphrased tips from writers I’ve heard speak at various writing conferences. If you want to learn more, here’s a book I recommend: The Joy of Writing Sex, by Elizabeth Benedict.

Know of any other good guidebooks or web sites on this topic?  Please let me know.