This is a review of an audiobook. Although I like "talking book" better!

Narrators:  Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, MacLeod Andrews, Rebecca Soler

Musician: Corky Siegel

Echo is one of the most enchanting books I've listened to in a long time. Published by Scholastic, its intended audience is middle school children, but its gentle message of hope transcends age and genre.

The book is in five parts.

The first part sets up the fairy tale in which a magic harmonica is introduced. Yes, a harmonica. Or mouth organ, mouth harp, blues harp, however you want to call it, that musical instrument which is often more considered as a toy than a serious instrument. In this tale, it has magic, mystery, and music.

The next three parts are three distinct stories of children whose lives are changed by the advent of the harmonica as it falls into their hands. There's the 12-year old boy in 1930s Germany whose family falls under suspicion of the Nazis. The tale brings us to the point where he is going off to rescue his father from Dachau when he is discovered on the train by the very brown shirts he's trying to flee. Then there is the orphan boy in Pennsylvania followed by a little girl in California. Each child faces an overwhelming challenge, and each child has the magic of the harmonica to bring them hope.

The fifth part of the story weaves the fairy tale and the three children's lives together with a thread of music that resonates throughout. Although the harmonica is the "star" of the story, each child has a specific musical gift apart from the harmonica. Friedrich is a cellist, Mike is a conductor, and Ivy is a flautist.

I don't know what it would be like reading the story off the printed page without the wonder of music that flows through the talking book. Various songs, such as Brahms' "Lullaby", Beethoven's "Für Elise", "America the Beautiful", "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", "My Old Kentucky Home", and others played on cello, piano, and/or harmonica create a soundscape you can't find in the pages of a book. Corky Siegel, as the only musician listed, plays the cello, piano, and harmonica, bringing to life the author's descriptions of the music. The four narrators create another kind of magic as they tell each child's story, capturing personality, history, culture, and atmosphere. To quote the book's description as found online, it is "richly imagined and structurally innovative...(and) pushes the boundary of form and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories."

This website is probably like the majority of websites out there in the cyber-sphere. Good strong beginnings, and then a petering out. It's probably been five years since I did anything here, and yet I've written so much deathless prose on Facebook that could be shared here! So, here's an acknowledgement but not a promise. But I'm going to try.

I just saw this being discussed in another forum, and I chimed in because I've thought about this a lot. I like to write fiction, after all. Sometimes it seems that Christian movies and novels can seem so lame!

Novels and movies are different media, but they face similar challenges. Let's see if I can articulate this. Maybe it comes down to the fact that truth is invariably stranger than fiction. There are certain "rules" writers of fiction follow with varying levels of success. One "rule" is believability. Ray Bradbury could write about fantastical situations that stretch credibility about as far as it could go, and he'd get away with it because his characters were so home-spun, so ordinary, so much like you or me. Or Rowling's Harry Potter, a fantastical character in a fantastical situation, can be believed because of those common, earthy, day-to-day things that anchor them to our own experience of life. There has to be truth in the story in order for it to speak to us.

But there's a lot about real, gritty, in-your-face life that doesn't work on page, stage, or screen. A friend of mine once wrote a novel loosely based on her own life. A publisher rejected it because it was too much to believe. All that stuff couldn't happen to one person. Point in fact, all that stuff can and does happen to people in real life, but it doesn't work like that in fiction. For some obscure reason, readers can believe that a little boy could grow up to be a wizard who defeats the evil that killed his parents when he was a baby, but can't believe that someone can overcome a really muddy, complicated, trauma-filled past.

Another friend spoke in church this morning about her mission trips to Jamaica. I don't think a novel about her life would work, and this is where I get to the "Christian" part of my "essay" here. Her past is muddy, complicated, trauma-filled beyond belief. Sexually abused by age 5, into the occult by age 7, gang-raped 3 times, countless miscarriages, an abortion, 13 suicide attempts, survived a car crash that killed two people, name-a-drug and she did it. I think a good movie or novel could focus on just one of those and work, but if you add all the rest to it, it becomes just too fantastical to handle. Truth, after all, is so often stranger than fiction. And then, what would the novel or movie do with her conversion? How did she manage such a complete and total turn-around?

This is one of the most difficult things for writers to conceptualize because that inner working of the Spirit on the spirit can be so subtle, so patient, so beyond human understanding. I'm having such a hard time here explaining myself. I could write a character like my friend, and paint myself into a corner with it because there is really no way out beyond a deus ex machina, and when writers pull one of those in a book I'm reading, I get all annoyed and accuse "cheat"! But the truth of the matter is, God really did reach down to her, and she responded.

Movies and novels have a precarious balance to maintain between that which takes the watcher/reader beyond themselves and their lives, and that which grounds them in reality. I just think it's very, very hard to write realistically about the "God-element" within the limitations of fiction. I would not want to read or write a novel about my friend's story, but I would definitely read (or write) a memoir about it. When you know what you're reading actually happened to somebody in real life, and it has that transcendent, triumphant, inspirational victory, it is so much more powerful than a made-up story where the author is behind the scenes, pulling the strings to make it happen just so.

So what's wrong with Christian movies and novels? Well, nothing, really, except that when God comes into the picture, the truth becomes too fantastical for the limitations of fiction. Truth is not just stranger than fiction. It's wilder, gentler, stronger, more amazing, and infinitely more compelling. That's all.

I did a retelling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)  yesterday. I wove 1 Corinthians 13:3-8a throughout it. It was the children's story during a Sunday morning church service. But this one was a little different, because the church service was followed by my sister's wedding.  She wanted something that would be lively and could engage her grandchildren, of which she has many.

Here is an outline of the story, which I told in my own words. The outline gives the main story line from Luke, and I embellished it by giving the prodigal a name (I used my sister and her new husband's initials), and bringing it up to contemporary times by adding a Harley, dumpster-diving, and subway sick cars--among other things. It took about 15 minutes. 

I'm posting the outline here so that anyone can use it to tell the story in their own words.  It's amazing how well the two passages blend with each other. If anyone wants the text of my retelling, I can post it, but I really want to encourage people to develop their stories in their own words.

Prodigal Son:
Luke 15:11-32; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Congregation reading:  1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (ESV) Put the scripture on slides 
LEADER: Love is patient and kind; 
WOMEN: love does not envy or boast; 
MEN: it is not arrogant 5 or rude.
WOMEN: It does not insist on its own way;
MEN: it is not irritable or resentful;
WOMEN: it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 
GIRLS: Love bears all things,
WOMEN: believes all things, 
BOYS: hopes all things,
MEN: endures all things.
ALL: Love never ends.

Introduction

Talk about what’s happening today, and segué into the story.

Story beginning

 ·        Jesus scolded by Pharisees for hanging out with "bad" people, so he tells story

·        Family business--mom, dad, two boys

·        Son doesn’t like hard work; he wants out

·        Parents give him money

·        He heads for big city to live it up

·        Parents sad because they love him.


And love is…


CONGREGATION: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a. (Repeat the Congregational Reading)

Story middle

 ·        Son lives it up

·        Runs out of money

·        Homelessness, poverty, desperation, remorse

·        Point of decision: he decides to go home

AUDIENCE MEMBER reads: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.

Story end

 ·        Family working hard

·        Parents see son coming down road, run to him

AUDIENCE MEMBER reads: Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful.

·        Welcoming the prodigal home

·        Celebration

AUDIENCE MEMBER reads: Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

·        Older brother’s resentment

·        Father: The lost is found

CONGREGATION:  Congregation reads the last part of the passage
GIRLS: Love bears all things,
WOMEN: believes all things, 
BOYS: hopes all things,
MEN: endures all things.
ALL: Love never ends.

Interpretive Reading10/04/2013

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Interpretive reading is a very important facet of both storytelling and public speaking. Sure, it's standing in front of a group of people and reading a printed text, but it's much more than that: it's reading from the heart. Do not confuse it with "cold reading", which is reading something you haven't studied, practiced, made your own. If you're asked to do the scripture reading at church as you come through the door that morning, that's "cold reading." Put up your hand if you've had to do that. Yeah, me too. 

The Vocal Coach, Chris Beatty, talks about the Ear-Brain-Larynx connection in regards to singing. (http://vocalcoach.com/blog/2012/10/thinking-about-the-larynx/) I want to talk about the Heart-Mind-Body connection. If you have a few minutes, take a look at the Vocal Coach link, because there is much that relates to the craft of the storyteller.

When we read silently, our hands hold the book, our eyes read the words, our minds take it in, and every so often, it touches our hearts. When we read out loud, we engage more of our minds and hearts because now our mouths speak out the words our eyes see, and our ears hear them. This involves so much more of our senses, and it becomes that much more potent to our hearts. (As a writer, I read my material out loud as an important part of the editing process!)

All of us, at one time or another, have had to read aloud before an audience. I daresay most of the time we were seeing the text for the first time ("cold reading"). For some, this can be a frightening experience. Many people have a hard time getting their tongues around the words they are reading; others have a hard time just reading. This kind of reading rarely reaches the heart because the mind is in too much of a panic mode—the reading becomes stilted, stumbling, and strained.

But, oh my goodness, if we can throw our hearts into what we're reading, it takes it to a whole other dimension. This will take work. We need to believe what we're reading. We need to own it. We need to practice it. And we need to make the Heart-Mind-Body connection. The reading will be more dramatic when we throw our hearts into it, but that's okay because it's the heart speaking. When the reader's heart speaks, the listeners' hearts respond. It is an inside-out process. It's sinking into the words, allowing them to fill us, and then expressing their truth. Have you ever heard anyone read Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham with character voices and over-the-top expression? (Dr. Seuss kind of calls for over-the-top treatment!) Have you ever listened to somebody reading the Bible with so much heart it brought you to tears? I have.

So how do we master interpretive reading?

Step 1: Pick the piece
If it's a church service, chances are real good you will be assigned a reading; you read what's in the lectionary or what the preacher has requested. At other times, the choice is up to you. Take into consideration who the audience is, what the time limit is (sticking close to time limits is a way of making sure you're invited back), and what is appropriate for the situation. Most of all, pick a piece you can believe in.

Step 2: Feel the heart
Read through the passage out loud several times. Allow it to speak to you. Start to get a feel for its flow: should it slow down or pick up speed? Should you pause now and then? Should you repeat any phrases? Feel the rhythm. Are there characters you should use different voices for? Are there any gestures or movements you can use?

Step 3: Own the truth
Practice! Practice it out loud sitting down, standing up, and walking around. Let the words become a part of who you are. Plant them in your heart. Exaggerate the drama: have fun with it (then scale it back to what feels right). Master the pacing, gestures, vocal inflections. Get so comfortable with it that you will be able to look up from the page more often and hold eye contact with your audience. That makes the reading personal.

Step 4: Share the wonder
Present the reading to your audience. Let your heart speak to theirs. Allow the words come from within you and out. The inside-out process. And have faith that as you took these words into yourself, they will find fruit when you speak them out.

Ah, POV! It can be brutal! When writing a story, I have to consciously choose which POV I'm going to write in. Without that choice, I can bounce between several characters' heads, which can be a bit dizzying for the reader. It doesn't matter if I know where I'm at if the reader doesn't.

For good discussions of POV try these links:

PROS and CONS of Writing in Omniscient Point of View
http://www.redroom.com/blog/catherinestine/pros-and-cons-writing-omniscient-point-view 

They're Just Techniques, People! Observations about flipping viewpoints
http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2006/11/16/theyre-just-techniques-people/ 

The following is an exercise I did for a writing course.  It is the opening paragraph(s) of a short story I wrote, "Happily Ever After." The first sample is one of my earlier drafts, which I wrote in first person, present tense. Then I retooled it to play with third person limited and omniscient points of view. I had a lot of fun with it as I saw the different effects the choice of POV can make on the mood and atmosphere of a piece. 

POINTS OF VIEW

First person

The sun is shining, although I can’t see it. Thin rays of light penetrate through the cracks of tightly-nailed shutters, painting stripes on the rough floor boards of my attic room. Dust motes dance drunkenly in the beams, and I don’t like it. When the morning dance starts, they come. I don’t like the dark, either, but at least they leave me alone then, my single candle burning, burning, burning, until it gutters in a pool of molten wax.

The dust motes dance faster and they come. The man with the paper and the ink. The woman with the tray of porridge, tea, and hot water. The cat with the blank, unwavering stare.

Third person limited

Thin rays of light crept through cracks in the tightly-nailed shutters and fell across Eddi’s face. She stirred and opened reluctant eyes. She hated the morning sunbeams that ushered her into another day. If only she could stay asleep, not having to face the man, the woman, and the cat. Heaving herself up off her bundle of blankets, she stretched, her muscles protesting the movement. She sat down at the table and they came: the woman bringing her breakfast, the man thrusting more paper and ink at her, and the cat staring knowingly at her.

Third person omniscient

The girl sleeping on the pile of blankets in the dusty attic stirred as the morning sun sent thin rays of light across the room. For some, a new day heralds new challenges, new adventures, but for Eddi, it just meant being nothing but trash. She got up and shuffled to the window and tried to block the sunbeam that shone through the cracks of the tightly-nailed shutters. She’d welcome the sun if she were allowed to see it, if the morning didn’t bring the man thumping paper and ink on the table, the woman bringing the cold, lumpy porridge, and the cat. That cat watching the dust motes dance.

Another attempt at omniscient

It’s too bad, really. The girl sleeping on the heap of blankets looks almost—well, not peaceful, not happy, but—relaxed. Yes, relaxed. She never looks that way when awake. And why not? It is in sleep when she can escape the prison of the attic room, the demands of the man, the accusations of the woman, and the disdain of the cat. Sleep—the girl’s only refuge—soon to be torn from her by the inexorable sunbeams penetrating the cracks in the old wooden shutters and creeping, creeping across the floor. The light sweeps across her face and she stirs, grips the frayed edge of the blanket, and mumbles a protest, even as footsteps ascending the stairs can be heard through the locked door that keeps her in but not them out. Too bad. Too, too bad.

My final draft (if there ever is such a thing)

Thin rays of light penetrate cracks in the shutters, painting stripes on the rough floorboards of my attic room. Dust motes dance drunkenly in the beams, and I don’t like it. When the morning dance starts, they come. I don’t like the dark, either, but they leave me alone then, my single candle burning, burning, burning until it gutters in a pool of molten wax.

The dust motes dance faster and they come: the man with the paper and the ink, the woman with the tray of porridge, tea, and hot water, the cat with the blank, unwavering stare.

Nellie McClung (October 20, 1873 to September 1, 1951), was a Canadian activist, feminist, and politician. It was largely through her efforts that women won the right to vote and hold public office in the province of Manitoba in 1916. (The Canadian government granted women these rights the following year.) While McClung's biggest campaigns were for women's suffrage and temperance, she also championed for better health and dental care for school children, property rights for married women, mothers' allowances, and workplace safety legislation.

A tireless worker, some of McClung's greatest strengths were her sense of humour and her gift for public speaking. In 1914, after the premier of Manitoba, Sir Rodmond Roblin, suggested that giving women the vote would be tantamount to breaking up the home, McClung and her fellow suffragettes staged a mock parliament of women. They took all the patronizing platitudes that had been tossed at them and turned them around on the men. In this comedy, it was the men who were lobbying for the vote, and the women who brushed them off. Full of zinging wit--the centrepiece of which was McClung's speech "Should Men Vote?"--the mock parliament and McClung's robust impersonation of Sir Roblin have been seen as a turning point for the suffrage movement.

"Should Men Vote?" is a prime example of the power of humour to move and persuade a crowd--and ultimately bring about needed reform. I wanted to use this speech in a Toastmasters' meeting but couldn't find the text of it anywhere until I learned that McClung had included the text of the mock parliament in one of her novels, Purple Springs. I copied it from there. I am reproducing the speech here, with the narrative deleted--although I changed some of it into stage directions, which I italicized in parentheses. At the time I uploaded this, I believed this to be the only copy of the speech to be found online. It is in the Public Domain, so no copyright considerations apply.


Should Men Vote?
Nellie McClung

 (Hands in front, locking fingers with the thumbs straight up, gently moving them up and down, before speaking….Teeter back on heels.) Gentlemen of the Delegation, I am glad to see you. (Cordial paternalism) Glad to see you—come any time, and ask for anything you like. We like delegations—and I congratulate this delegation on their splendid, gentlemanly manners. If the men in England had come before their Parliament with the frank courtesy you have shown, they might still have been enjoying the privilege of meeting their representatives in this friendly way.

But, gentlemen, you are your own answer to the question; you are the product of an age which has not seen fit to bestow the gift you ask, and who can say that you are not splendid specimens of mankind? No! No! any system which can produce the virile, splendid type of men we have before us today, is good enough for me, and (drawing up shoulders, facetious) if it is good enough for me—it is good enough for anybody.

But my dear young friends, I am convinced you do not know what you’re asking me to do (didactic, patient); you do not know what you ask. You have not thought of it, of course, with the natural thoughtlessness of your sex. You ask for something which may disrupt the whole course of civilization. Man’s place is to provide for his family, a hard enough task in these strenuous days. We hear of women leaving home, and we hear it with deepest sorrow. Do you know why women leave home? There is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive. Would letting politics enter the home help matters? Ah no! Politics would unsettle our men. Unsettled men mean unsettled bills—unsettled bills mean broken homes—broken vows—and then divorce. (Heavy sorrow, apologetic for mentioning unpleasant things.)

(Exalted mood) Man has a higher destiny than politics! What is home without a bank account? The man who pays the grocer rules the world. Shall I call men away from the useful plow and harrow, to talk loud on street corners about things which do not concern them? Ah, no, I love the farm and the hallowed associations—the dear old farm, with the drowsy tinkle of cowbells at eventide. There I see my father’s kindly smile so full of blessing, hardworking, rough-handed man he was, maybe, but able to look the whole world in the face…. You ask me to change all this.

(Draw huge white linen handkerchief, crack it by the corner like a whip and blow nose like a trumpet) I am the chosen representative of the people, elected to the highest office this fair land has to offer. I must guard well its interests. No upsetting influence must mar our peaceful firesides. Do you never read, gentlemen? (Biting sarcasm) Do you not know of the disgraceful happenings in countries cursed by manhood suffrage? Do you not know the fearful odium into which the polls have fallen—is it possible you do not know the origin of that offensive word “Poll-cat”, do you not know that men are creatures of habit—give them an inch—and they will steal the whole sub-division, and although it is quite true, as you say, the polls are only open once in four years—when men once get the habit—who knows where it will end—it is hard enough to keep them at home now! No, history is full of unhappy examples of men in public life; Nero, Herod, King John—you ask me to set these names before your young people. Politics has a blighting, demoralizing influence on men. It dominates them, pursues them even after their earthly career is over. Time and again it has been proven that men came back and voted—even after they were dead.

So you ask me to disturb the sacred calm of our cemeteries? (Horrified) We are doing very well just as we are, very well indeed. Women are the best students of economy. Every woman is a student of political economy. We look very closely at every dollar of public money, to see if we couldn’t make a better use of it ourselves, before we spend it. We run our elections as cheaply as they are run anywhere. We always endeavour to get the greatest number of votes for the least possible amount of money. That is political economy.

(Responding to an outcry—furious) You think you can instruct a person older than yourself, do you—you, with the brains of a butterfly, the acumen of a bat; the backbone of a jelly-fish. You can tell me something, can you? I was managing governments when you were sitting in your high chair, drumming on a tin plate with a spoon. (Booming) You dare to tell me how a government should be conducted?

(Storming up and down, hands at right angles to the body) But I must not lose my temper (calming, dropping voice) and I never do—never—except when I feel like it—and am pretty sure I can get away with it. I have studied self-control, as you all know—I have had to, in order that I may be a leader. If it were not for this fatal modesty, which on more than one occasion has almost blighted my political career, I would say I believe I have been a leader, a factor in building up this fair province; I would say that I believe I have written my name large across the face of this province.

But gentlemen, I am still of the opinion, even after listening to your cleverly worded speeches, that I will go on just as I have been doing, without the help you so generously offer. My wish for this fair, flower-decked land is that I may long be spared to guide its destiny in world affairs. I know there is no one but me—I tremble when I think of what might happen to these leaderless lambs—but I will go forward confidently, hoping that the good ship may come safely into port, with the same old skipper on the bridge. We are not worrying about the coming election, as you may think. We rest in confidence of the result, and will proudly unfurl, as we have these many years, the same old banner of the grand old party that had gone down many times to disgrace, but thank God, never to defeat.


Thank you Wikipedia, Historica Dominion Institute, The Eloquent Woman