For those of you who don’t know, I spent this past weekend in Fairfield, Iowa showing my little sister around my alma mater. Well, truth be told, I did very little of the showing. Actually, I hardly ended up seeing her at all. One of the things I ended up doing there was, for the second time, I spoke to the group of prospective students that were visiting about my book. They were an attentive audience, but quiet, and maybe five minutes in I found I had told what I had intended to tell, so I went my default route for filling up time in a talk. I read an excerpt. In that excerpt, there was a particular paragraph that struck me. Or, rather, there was a sentence. That sentence was, “After that I’ll have to see what else I can come up with because one good picture is never enough.”
As I read that aloud, I found myself wondering, why did I include that line? I have a tendency to decide which sentences are important and which ones can be cut largely by feel. If there is some emotional potency to it I tend to keep it in, while if I feel like the line is there just for extra detail, I’m more inclined to cut it. Yes, that bit did foreshadow Katie’s struggle with getting her pictures done on time, which ultimately leads to a very important plot point but right there, right in the middle of a scene so packed with emotional nuance, why did I underline the fact that she’s a student?
I understand it now.
I actually came into this blog post intending to tell you guys about how this trip gave me some clarity and perspective on the writing process, thanks to friend and former teacher Cullen Thomas. We had an excellent conversation about publishing and what your debut novel means (hint: not a lot). But as I started writing, I started to think more and more about what this means to Katie. It’s interesting how a line in a book can encompass a whole struggle for your character, worthy at least on an entire blog post, and a whole different journey to you as a writer. So, we’ll save the first for another day, and right now we’ll talk about Katie.
I wonder if I could tell you how each line in Untold contributes to teaching you about Katie as a person. I certainly hope so, and might be interested in looking into taking that challenge. When you’re writing in first-person, it’s actually fairly difficult for each sentence not to have at least some kind of exposition because every single thing you write is going on inside your protagonist’s head. In this case, we’re looking at Katie’s knowledge of what’s enough. Or rather, what isn’t. She found some profound glory in finally exploring the feeling of lack inside her, but even while high on the feeling of catharsis she knows that there will be a comedown. This isn’t the end, this isn’t the answer. This is one strong moment in a story that is far from its resolution.
One thing about Katie is that she is extremely intuitive. This may not always come across, as she tends to stubbornly ignore her intuition. That’s actually one of the things I love best about her as a character: how she is capable of so much knowledge of the underlying truths that run through her life and simultaneously so capable of ignoring them. This moment when she knows that this picture of which she is so proud isn’t enough for a whole project directly precedes a scene where she goes to Geri without anything else to show. And here we have her problem.
Katie’s struggle was really a fascinating one to explore. Early drafts of it had me so frustrated with her (“why is she so back-and-forth on this?”), and even now I wonder if she could have made the whole thing easier on herself. But that isn’t who she is, is it? So there she is, lying on the grass totally aware of what she has to do, and promising herself she’ll do it. “But first…”
What were some of her excuses with Robin? Anyone remember those? I think they have a lot to do with this same tendencies of hers, and I’d be interested to see what of those you guys remember. More to say on this idea of “never enough”, but that’s going to come later.
Until next week!
— Amy
Reading, reading away.
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