wombmates

I missed family relationships blogging day. I had wanted to participate in it, but then I completely forgot about it. When Tuesday rolled around, I wrote about swine flu instead. You can blame my absentmindedness on said swine flu, if it makes you feel better. It does me.

I cribbed the following from Writers Inspired:

WOW! Women On Writing has gathered a group of blogging buddies to write about family relationships. Why family relationships? We’re celebrating the release of Therese Walsh’s debut novel today. The Last Will of Moira Leahy , (Random House, October 13, 2009) is about a mysterious journey that helps a woman learn more about herself and her twin, whom she lost when they were teenagers. Visit The Muffin (http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/blog.html) to read what Therese has to say about family relationships

So, here's my post anyway, even though the moment is over.

Last night my twin brother called me just as I was falling asleep, around 10:45.

Him: I'm sorry, did I wake you?
Me: Well, um, kind of. What's up?
Him: What's the name of that soap, the blue and white one, with the commercials where the people were all bright-eyed after taking a shower?
Me: (after a couple of seconds) Coast.
(Yes, I'm ashamed to say I knew exactly what he was talking about. No, it's not a twin thing, it's my sad attention to soap commercials.)
Him: (yelling to his girlfriend) It's Coast!!
Me: You woke me up for that?
Him: It was an emergency.

This is the way our phone conversations usually go. This, or some West Wing trivia (I'm sorry to say he's better than me), or a debate over the best Pop Tart flavor, or some other recital of something requiring cartoonish voices. Regardless, we end up in laughter. I end up in tears, grabbing my side, sometimes literally falling over.

But my twin brother also often asks me what I'm reading. He's always reading something impressive. Something on a recommendation from Ray Bradbury or Dan Simmons. Those conversations are much more serious, more passionate. I always learn something from him when we talk about reading. And I learn something about him, too.

We always called ourselves the yin and yang twins: He's tall, I'm short. He's right-handed, I'm left-handed. He's straight hair, I'm curly hair. He's got brown eyes, I've got blue eyes. He's smart, I'm beautiful (ok, so I'm smart too...). And so on. We're both writers. He writes literary science fiction, the likes of Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon and Jorge Luis Borges, guys way over my head. I'm more commercial, a completely different prosaic style. He's downright elegant, poetic in his prose. Mine just is. He learned to write by reading. He absorbs what he reads, and he reads voraciously. I was much more academic in my learning. But we even complement each other there. I think rhetorcially. He thinks literary.

He taught himself to play Keith Emerson solos by ear. By ear, the rat-bastard. I can draw portraits by copying from photographs.

Stephen King talks about the writer's Intended Reader (for him, it's his wife, Tabitha). Aside from my writing partner, the reader whose opinion I value most is my wombmate's. I have learned just as much (if not more) about writing from him as from King or Aaron Sorkin or Andre Dubus III or Nora Ephron or anyone else.

I love each of my siblings, each one for special reasons. But my twin brother is probably my most favorite person in the world. I cannot imagine a day, an hour, a minute without him in my life. I can't even begin to conceptualize life as a non-twin. Nor do I want to. It doesn't matter that we're both readers and writers, or that we're as different as can be. We don't believe in twin telepathy, and we don't live down the street from each other. But when it comes down to the real important things -- soap, pop tarts, Toby Zeigler impersonations, cats -- we're right there. We get it.

I've already written a protagonist w/ a twin brother. I doubt the manuscript will ever get finished, much less published, but it's one of my favorite character relationships. I'm drawn to characters w/ chemistry. But I love those two because I understand them so well. And I love that they understand each other.

So, this post is for you, dear wombmate. You fill me w/ joy.
And check out Therese Walsh when you can.

always put your characters somewhere they don't want to be

When we're not discussing Pop Tarts or trying to stump each other with lines from The West Wing, my twin brother and I talk writing. He's the one who always gives me the best advice, all of which he learned from other writers. For example, he told me to "always start as close to the middle of the story as possible". This came to him via Kurt Vonnegut. Like Stephen King, he admonishes me when I litter my manuscript with adverbs. And then there's the advice he gave me from Larry Gelbart: always put your characters somewhere they don't want to be.

Gelbart was likely thinking in terms of comedic effect when he dispensed this advice (and that's how I often use it), but I find it works well for any story that warrants conflict. And really, if there's no conflict, then what kind of story is it?

Think about it: On Northern Exposure, Joel Fleischman is stuck in Cicily, Alaska, away from his beloved New York. On M*A*S*H, Hawkeye is stuck in Korea. On Gilmore Girls, some of the best scenes are "Friday night dinner" at Lorelai's parents' house, a condition of the elder Gilmores paying for granddaughter Rory's tuition. And how can I not include Josh Lyman's disasterous press conference while CJ is forced to sit and watch it in her office, her mouth swollen after emergency dental surgery ("I had woot canow") on The West Wing.

In FAKING IT, there were a number of places Andi didn't want to be, whether it was in Devin's apartment stripped down to her underwear in broad daylight, or a freezing cold movie theatre, or a bad first date. More so, Andi began the novel not even wanting to be in her own skin, not wanting to be Andi. Hence, that someplace doesn't necessarily have to be physical in nature, but situational. Someplace could be a state of mind.

Characters need conflict. They need to have their back against the wall, be put in a position where either fight or flight is required. The funniest characters succumb to fits of temporary insanity, the wrong choice at the wrong moment with a series of consequences that fall like dominos.

Your characters will tell you where they want to go, and if you listen closely, you'll find out exactly where they don't want to be, which is exactly where they belong.