My bedside reading this week included a memoir of a wife and mother who had a successful career as an advertising executive in the 1960s — a tell-all book by a real-life version of Mad Men‘s Peggy Olson. When I craved a chickflick, I watched Sarah Jessica Parker pretend to be a successful career woman/frazzled mommy in the early 2000s. In view of my week’s entertainment, and the fact that Mother’s Day is fast approaching, it made me wonder: What makes a story about a working mother successful?

I opened Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the ’60s and Beyond wondering  how author Jane Maas managed societal disapproval, childcare and all the other hurdles career women faced in that time. But it turns out Maas, while suffering a few raised eyebrows from other mothers, faced little else in the way of domestic challenges. She freely admits her priorities were job, husband and children — in that order — and that this worked only because she had a live-in housekeeper/nanny. While she had to endure the rampant sexism of the time, she made no big sacrifice to achieve her career goals. I recommend this book to anyone interested in what female copywriters had to do to get ahead in this era, but if you’re looking for a good story about a working mother, you won’t find it here.

I Don’t Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson, was a big literary hit in 2002, largely because of the subject matter; one reviewer called it an “anthem for working mothers.” I’m always interested in the transformation from page to screen, which is why I watched the movie despite knowing of its lukewarm reviews. Protagonist Kate Reddy is a hedge-fund manager with two small kids and a neglected husband. You know what’s coming: Working mothers can’t do it all, so Kate has a big choice to make. Was anyone who read the book or saw the movie surprised that she chooses her family? Great stories require characters who have to make hard choices — as in, the harder, the better. The movie and the book provide entertainment for frazzled working moms but as for a great story, not so much.

I picked up Maas’s book because I’m a big fan of the series Mad Men. A few of the show’s female characters struggle with issues of motherhood. For example, Peggy, young, single, and at the bottom of the typing pool, has to hide her pregnancy. She gives birth secretly. Though she gives the baby up in order to continue with her life on Madison Avenue, the look on her face as she turns away from her son makes clear this is a heartbreaking choice. It’s a small part of a big show, but one of the most powerful scenes.

Great stories about mothers are like all great stories: They show characters faced with tough choices who are forced to make painful decisions.

(For more on stories about mothers, working inside and outside their homes, check out 10 Novels With Notable Mothers.)

Any writing instructor will tell you that revising is a crucial component of the writing process, and a big part of revising anything — from an academic essay to a short story — is cutting unnecessary words. If you want your writing to excel, take the advice a step further: Cut unnecessary information. Aiming for less is especially effective when it comes to writing screenplays and novels.

Consider Margin Call. This script by J.C. Chandor was nominated for best original screenplay and many reviewers have commented on the film’s great dialogue. In one scene I particularly admire, top executives Sarah (Demi Moore) and Eric (Stanley Tucci) sit in awkward semi-silence as they await details of their severance packages. “You have kids, yeah?” Sarah asks him. He shrugs an affirmative. And that ends the topic.

Here’s what Sarah doesn’t say: I spent my best years on this company when I could’ve had a proper life with a husband, two kids and a dog…coulda, shoulda, woulda. She doesn’t say any of this and we don’t need her to because we know what she’s thinking. Chandor doesn’t slow the story down by feeding us needless information. We fill in the details. And because we do a little work here, we’re drawn further into the story as a whole and deeper into the story of this character. I certainly have more empathy for Sarah after this scene, but if I’d had to sit through another lament of a middle-aged career woman who realizes she’s sacrificed too much for the corner office, I would’ve merely yawned.

When you come across great writing, try to figure what isn’t there as well as what is.

Less is more is worth taping over your writing desk. Don’t slow your story down by making your reader plow through unnecessary information. (The key, of course, is to provide what is necessary; good writers don’t confuse readers.) Make a reader work, in a good way, and she will be more drawn into your story.

I’ve been cleaning my office and today, in the file cabinet, I found a rejection letter from a literary journal dated October 17, 1992. The message is two lines, the standard thanks-but-no-thanks. After these two printed lines, though, is a handwritten note that runs all the way down to the bottom of the 8×11 page.

I can’t read this longhand now and can’t remember how much of it I was able to make out when it arrived in my mailbox almost twenty years ago. Sure, a few words are legible – character, timing, the odd pronoun – but nothing I can make out gives me a clear idea as to why my story was rejected, nor is there anything to suggest which story of mine the note refers to. Apparently, when I stashed the letter away it didn’t seem important to note details. Probably, I couldn’t imagine ever being able to put the title of the story that provoked this rejection out of my mind.

Now I’m stuck with a mystery. I suppose if I were to take a magnifying glass to the handwriting I could discern a few more words, and if I managed to find some of my old short fiction in the back of the file cabinet, I’d be able to match this rejection to the appropriate story and maybe even figure out what about character and timing led to this thumbs down.

But this office needs a serious spring clean. I feed the rejection to the shredder.

Some writers tape their rejection slips to the wall, some glue them into scrapbooks and some burn them. I know of one writer who keeps a spike on her desk just so she can impale her rejections upon it. Ritual probably takes the sting away. I don’t need ceremony but as I stare down at the jumble of paper ribbons in the bottom of the waste bin, I think perhaps I should have saved this particular rejection. Because here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter what that reader said, the point is that my story interested her (him?) enough to write a page-long note.

And these days, any kind of hard copy rejection is increasingly rare (as are, thankfully, requirements for hard copy submissions). So, I’ve decided that the next handwritten note from an editor I find gets put into a folder labeled Rejections Worth Saving. To be found twenty years from now when I do my next spring cleaning.

Care to share what you do with your own rejections? I’d love to hear it.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the mood to read other people’s rejections, check out literaryrejectionsondisplay.

I own 62 books on writing. I had no idea I had this many writing guides until I counted them just before sitting down to compose this post. At least a dozen of these didn’t especially inspire me and I should really get on with it and clean house but it’s difficult for me to part with any book. You never know when or why you might be able to use a certain volume. The hardcover 1996 Writer’s Market, for example, has been a great doorstop for over ten years and I’m sentimentally attached to it now. But the majority of my writing books are keepers because of merit. On the other hand, there are less than ten I’d take with me to the proverbial deserted island. Two of them were written by the same author, Jack M. Bickham.

According to Wikipedia, Bickham, who died in 1997 just shy of his 67^th birthday, wrote 75 published novels under his own name and the pseudonyms of John Miles and Arthur Williams. Two of his novels, The Apple Dumpling Gang and Baker’s Hawk, were made into movies. He also wrote six books on the craft of fiction. I own Writing and Selling Your Novel, Scene and Structure and Setting. The latter two are subtitled “Elements of Fiction Writing,” but either would be a great guide for writing literary nonfiction. I’ve read some chapters in these books ten times over the past decade and a half, and they never fail to inspire me. But oddly, it wasn’t until the other day when I was leafing through Setting and re-read the About the Author section that I realized I’d never read one of his novels.

Westerns and thrillers set in the tennis world aren’t really my thing, and much of Bickham’s fiction falls into this category. But if this guy understands so much about literary technique, he must have put a lot of this know-how into his work and I’d like to see his scene-sequel tricks in action. So, I went to my favourite used-book store and picked up a copy of Breakfast at Wimbledon, the fourth book in his Brad Smith series, published in 1991. It’s near the top of my to-read pile and once I get to it, I have no doubt that – whether or not I like the story – I’ll learn something new about scene or setting when I do. I’ll let you know.

(Want to know the titles of my other favorite writing books? I’m going to write about them in future posts.)

“Between books” on a recent rainy afternoon and loathe to venture out to the library, I perused my own dusty bookshelves and found just the thing for a dreary day: Mortification: Writers’ Stories Of Their Public Shame. I’d gone through most of this book a few years earlier but these tales of public humiliation and painful neglect are worth re-visiting.

Despite casting a wide net, editor Robin Robertson ends up with a preponderance of male writers, many of whom are poets. Numerous famous authors confess to poorly-attended readings. Jonathan Coe writes of the time he had an audience of one (which is a bigger crowd than some writers get, apparently) and how he thanked the guy for coming. “Think of how terrible it would have been if there’d been nobody.”

“Actually,” the guy said, “I’m the person who was supposed to be introducing you.”

There is much drinking going on in these pages, or did you already guess that?

As a magazine writer, I never read my stuff to anyone, and the few times I had to read my fiction out loud it was to an enthusiastic audience of fellow writing students. Nevertheless, I can imagine how embarrassing bad readings can be, and I admire the honesty of the contributors to this book. I also appreciate the humor. A lot of this public humiliation is laugh-out-loud funny.

Robertson, an accomplished poet himself, argues the world of letters offers a near-perfect climate for embarrassment and shame, that “there is something about the conjunction of high-mindedness and low income that is inherently comic.” I think he’s right. I also think this kind of comedy is balm for any writer’s wounded soul. Recommended.

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 Hornet’s 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

UPDATE: Okay, I’ve finished Hornet’s Nest now, and I have to say I’m glad it’s over. Salander didn’t do much of anything until the last few pages of the novel. It will be interesting to see how a screenwriter translates this for the screen.

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.