Featured Book Interview - September 2006
Debrah Williamson

Debrah Williamson

How She Creates Character Sympathy

An interview with women’s fiction author Debrah Williamson        

Thanks for taking time to be interviewed, Debrah. Publishers Weekly says of your newly released SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN, “Graceful and witty, Pauly’s courageous voice is this big-hearted novel’s greatest strength.”

To what do you attribute this affect on the reader? Did you use certain writing techniques to evoke this particular mood or reader experience?

Debrah Williamson: First of all, I love “graceful and witty”. Since it’s not a term that has often been applied to me, I’m pleased to see the words used to describe my character’s voice.

My protagonist, thirteen-year-old orphan Pauly Mahoney was fun to write. I lived with her for years and got to know her pretty well. She showed up in my head one day and said, “Psssst. Hey, you! Wanna hear a story?”

I think Pauly is representative of the heroines I loved reading about as a child. And still do, for that matter. Plucky, spunky, and sassy. Throw in a pinch of sarcasm and a self-deprecating manner and it’s hard for readers not to identify.

Reader identification is key in establishing that connection between fictional character and reader. It wasn’t until you asked this question that I really thought about how I did it. There are many ways to create character identification, but here are a few I used with Pauly:

• Heap undeserved misfortune on the character
• Make the character yearn for something she can’t have
• Give the character a universal goal that anyone can understand
• Take away the character’s real power, but give her strength and humor
• Allow the character’s fate to hang in the balance
• Never let the character whine or feel sorry for herself, no matter how bad the circumstances
• Make sure the character has a positive impact on the lives of everyone she meets

I think Pauly’s voice sold the novel. Let’s face it. A coming-of-age story set in 1955 with a first person narrator who is a child? Tough sell. Who’s the audience? How do you market the novel? I’m happy NAL was willing to take a chance because for some reason Pauly’s voice speaks to people.

From a writing standpoint, narrative voice grows out of character. You have to love your characters but you can’t be afraid to hurt them. You have to let them experience their story, mistakes and triumphs and all.

The fact that the PW reviewer used the term “big-hearted novel” was extremely gratifying. It makes me think readers will “get” what my writing is about. Heart. I firmly believe “feel-good” novels that aren’t depressing and don’t end on a down note are just as valid as those that do. Funny movies rarely win Academy Awards. Dramas walk off with the Oscars. And yet it is harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry.

SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN has been called “delightful”, “charming” “a feast for the heart”. That suits me just fine. I believe happy, upbeat books have literary merit too.

Hmmm. Maybe that says more about my personal optimism than it does about my writing.

DC: Does Pauly get a sequel to SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN? If not, what can we look forward to next from the Williamson pen?

DW: Surprisingly, people have already started asking me about a sequel, though my editor and I have not yet discussed the possibility. I guess a lot depends on how readers receive SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN, and how much interest in a sequel Pauly’s story generates.

As I have mentioned, I would love to tackle another novel with a twenty-something Pauly as the protagonist. Matter of fact, Pauly has been stopping by for “chats” lately, and I’m beginning to get a pretty good idea of what the 1960s held for her.

Writing about the 1960s would be an especially gratifying experience for me, as it was such a watershed decade for America. Personally, I would like to explore some of the issues inherent in that time period.

More than that, I think it would be fun to revisit characters from SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN. Not only to share intimate details of their lives again, but also to see how they change as American society undergoes a profound rebirth from the idealistic 50s to the radical 60s.

But maybe what I want most is to experience new adventures with Pauly. She was such a hoot of a character as a child. I think she'll be even more intriguing as a young adult.  

DC: I just love Pauly’s voice and emotionally complex world. How did you transition from writing short, tightly plotted romances to longer, more complex women’s fiction?

DW: Thank you! SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN was the first book I wrote solo. I pubbed twenty three category and historical romance novels with a collaborator, before starting a solo writing career.

I guess you can call SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN the book of my heart. I had been toying with the premise and characters for nearly twenty years, but was too busy writing romances and raising my children to really do anything with the idea.

I finished the original draft more than seven years ago and sent it out to exactly one agent. I received a very nice rejection letter that made me see what was missing from the story. Worried that I might not yet be ready for mainstream, I set the manuscript aside. I concentrated on category romances, a genre with which I had more experience, and which I felt were more marketable at the time.

My goal was to sell five romances before moving on. Once I reached that goal, I wrote a women’s fiction proposal and set out on an agent quest. That proposal caught the attention of my dream agent, but she wanted to see something complete before agreeing to represent me. Without giving myself time to slip into self-doubt, I mentioned SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN, assuring her it needed some work. Understatement of the year!

I had returned to the manuscript several times over the years, tweaking and revising with new writing skills I’d learned. When I pulled it out again (I actually had to retype much of the hard copy into WORD because it had been written on an old WordStar program on 5" floppies) I realized two things. 1) I had my work cut out for me, and 2) The process might not be as daunting as I had feared. I was ready to tackle another revision, but I still didn’t know if there was a market for the story.

In the years since I'd finished SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN, I had learned enough about the craft to understand what was missing. Maybe because I had continued to study and grow as a writer, and was even teaching writing at the university level. Or maybe the explanation was simpler: enough time had elapsed to give me pure objectivity.

Whatever the reason, I finally had the confidence to jump back into the story. Because SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN had long been close to my heart, I wanted more than anything to make it into publishable.

Interestingly enough, I spotted the shortcomings right away. I had initially introduced story and plot elements with dramatic potential but had failed to dig deep enough to make that drama accessible to the reader. Donald Maass writes about that issue in his wonderful book WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. As it turned out, I didn't have nearly as much restructuring to do as I feared. All simply had to do follow an existing thread to a more complex conclusion, if that makes sense.  

DC: Fascinating. Do you mean you created more twists and upped the stakes? Did you hide more information, so you could create more revelations and possible outcomes?

DW: Not exactly. I found I had introduced elements, but then had stopped short of fully exploring them. I flinched. I hadn’t dug deeply enough. Not so much with the plot elements. More with emotional threads and characterizations. For example, I really worked on the relationship between the protagonist and her mother in the rewriting, because I hadn’t developed the conflict enough. Rewriting made the book more emotional by exposing more of the characters’ relationships. By looking the darker issues in the eye without flinching, I think I made my characters more believable and sympathetic.

DC: How did your experience writing short romances help you grow as a writer?

DW: I cut my writing teeth on 55K word traditional romances. An experience that has paid off in many ways. I’ve learned to write tight, to avoid meandering into areas that while interesting to me, might not best serve the story, to really understand the differences between character-driven stories and those driven by plot.

In short, writing category romances taught me to focus, focus, focus and make every word count. Another big plus of writing traditional romances was that I learned how to create the tension necessary to keep readers turning pages when they already know the story’s outcome. Mainstream offers more creative freedom than genre fiction, but the skills I learned while writing category romance have paid off many times over.

DC: How did you keep yourself focused when you wrote category-length? Any tips for us?

DW: Hmmmm.....as far as category goes, here are a few things that I’ve learned by writing 26 romances:

• Develop a thoroughline as you would in a screenplay and let it guide you to the climax. That helps.
• Write the climax scene early so you know where to go and can write to that end.
• Keep secondary characters and subplots to a minimum.
• Don’t overwrite. Polish the prose until it contains the maximum meaning in the fewest words.
• Always be aware of major turning points in the story and don’t skate over important issues.
• Create situations and write scenes that force the hero and heroine into close proximity. It's easier to develop a relationship quickly under isolated circumstances than under normal ones.
• Let one of your characters (either hero or heroine) be fairly well-evolved at the beginning. It's really hard to develop believable GMCs for two characters and have them both resolve all their problems believably in 50K words.
• Let either the hero or heroine "know" fairly early on that the other is "the one" so that person can spend the rest of the book convincing the other. It's the pursuer/pursuee dichotomy. (It is possible to write a short romance in which neither the hero or the heroine is interested in getting involved with the other at first meeting, but making word count is much harder. I’ve only done it once and that was in a story with paranormal elements. Divine intervention was required to get my hero and heroine together within the allotted number of pages.)
• Tie any external plot directly into the emotional/romance plot or be sure that it grows out of the characters' problems.

There's probably more. Thanks for the question, you really made me think there for a moment. Might have to take a Tylenol and lie down for a bit to recoup my strength. <g>

DC: How did you choose your agent? I love hearing about that sort of thing.

DW: I'm a total right-brained thinker, not really organized at all. I believe in destiny and fate and God's plan for us. It was important to me to find the RIGHT agent. When I finished the women’s fiction proposal, I started researching. I asked around and made a list of possibilities, based on agent reputation, recommendations, and types of material handled.

I contacted writers I knew who were represented by agents on the short list, and eliminated a few more, due to certain policies. I also contacted writers who had left agents, and what they told me narrowed down the list even more.

I ended up with 6 agents (nowhere near all of the ones working in the field) on my first round list. I figured I’d start at the top.

I received requests from 5 out of the 6. And one of those was from my dream agent. She passed my proposal to another agent in the firm, who called me after reading it. We talked for an hour.

The advice to talk to an agent before you sign is good. I think you can tell, even in a phone conversation, if you connect with the prospective agent.

She asked if I had anything complete, and I mentioned SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN. I knew it wasn't ready and told her I'd like a little more time to work on it. I was busy with my fall semester teaching load and couldn't buckle down to work until I turned in my final grades.

The rewriting process was amazing. I couldn't believe how much I'd learned since I first finished the manuscript. I was able to zero in on the weak points and fix them. I hoped!

I emailed the agent the full manuscript the first week of January. She kept in contact, updating me on where she was, what she was doing etc. That was reassuring. Agents are busy, and not all take time to allay a writer's anxieties.

Remember what I said about fate? Well, while I was waiting for her final decision, I received what I thought was cosmic proof I was on the right path. This may sound a little bizarre, but here goes.

Signing with an agent is a big deal. I worried about making the right choice. One day I was driving around town, thinking what I really needed was some kind of clear-cut sign. Just gimme a sign, I begged. Please!

As I crossed an overpass and started down the other side, a big 18-wheeler pulled out of a supermarket parking lot—smack dab in front of me. Emblazoned on the side in 10-foot tall, bright red letters, was the name of the agency I’d put at the top of my list. Of course, the words Transport Company followed, but hey, I’ll take a sign anyway I can get one.

Believe it or not, the agent phoned me a few days later to offer representation and I didn’t hesitate. I KNEW she was the right choice. She sold the manuscript within a few months.

I’ve learned to trust my intuition and the signs I’m given.

DC: What’s your take on blending humor with serious women’s fiction?

DW: No one’s life is all fun or all tears, right? Even the most serious events can be dealt with in a wry/ironic/humorous way. I once worked as a medical speech language pathologist in adult neurological rehab. Just about every patient I saw was having one of the worst days of his life. I soon discovered the therapeutic value of humor.

Just because a patient loses the ability to communicate, doesn’t mean he’s lost the ability to laugh. Laughter restores the will to survive, and humor became one of my most valuable therapy tools.

I’ve tried to carry that knowledge over into my writing. Books can be serious and funny at the same time. An excellent example is Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. The movie was grim and bleak and depressing. But the novel was so much more uplifting and optimistic because the author’s natural humor sparkled in a way that could not be conveyed on film.

According to my editor, even though the themes in SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN are serious, the execution has a lot of humor. Even when the subject is serious, my characters seem to have a skewed, wry outlook. Otherwise, I'd get very impatient with them and not like them very much. My litmus test for a protagonist is this: If I wouldn’t enjoy driving cross-country in a compact car with the character, I won’t enjoy spending 300+ pages with him or her. That goes for the characters I write and for characters in books I read.

Like you, I gotta laugh, or it's no fun for me. If I get sucked into reading a book with no levity or comic relief, I feel drained by the time I've finished it. I don’t mean in-your-face slapstick. Those almost never work for me because broad comedy is really hard to do well. I like to read, and write about, characters who don't do funny things, but instead look at things in a funny way. Does that make sense? Needless to say, I like Jerry Seinfeld better than Carrot-Top.

DC: Tell us about your writing process. Do you use software or charts to develop your stories? I'd love to hear about any techniques that keep you on track.

DW: I hesitate to admit this, since I teach other writers how to organize, but I'm mostly a "leap and the net will appear" writer. I write a synopsis for my publisher which I refer to while writing, but I'm right-brained and tend to keep most of my story in my head. For me extensive outlining, formal charts, scene cards and character profiles defuse my interest in the story. The more pre-writing I do, the less I want to write.

For me, the fun comes from discovering what will happen next. I think it was E. L. Doctorow who said writing is like driving at night with your headlights on. You don't have to see the whole road to reach your destination. You just have to see the part that's directly ahead. Sometimes, the totally unplanned and unexpected is the best part of a story.

I usually don't know how characters will develop until I spend time with them. Stories are organic. I may start by figuring out characters’ archetypes or enneagrams in order to make them psychologically "accurate". Before I start, I like to know who my characters are, where they will end up, and what kind of hoops I have to make them jump through to insure their growth, but that's about all.

Because I don't do extensive plotting, I write linearly. I write Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, etc. I revise and rewrite each chapter as I go, so unless I miss the boat completely, or come up with something totally unexpected, I don't have extensive rewriting at the end.

Bet that's more than you wanted to know, right? I've tried all kinds of systems, but haven't found one that works for me. Part of the thrill of writing is climbing in the vehicle, relinquishing the wheel to my characters and seeing where they take me.

Since I can't recommend that method to students, I'm well versed in various and assorted systems. In classes I offer a variety of techniques, in the hope that students will find the one that works with their individual creative process. Most beginners don’t know where to start and like having some kind of left-brained guide for what is really a very right-brained activity.

DC: As you write, do you generally know where you want your scene to pop? Or is it more like, let's see where this goes?

DW: In an ideal situation, I enjoy winging it. Of course, if I’m writing under contract, I must produce an acceptable synopsis and chapters. When a publisher forks over money for work that doesn’t exist, you have to provide more than “trust me.”

I constantly struggle to find the happy medium between knowing so much about the story that I lose my momentum, and knowing enough to convince my editor that I really do have a story.

DC: Well, you’re obviously doing something right. I think you’re an artist AND an entertainer. Seriously, I'm a bit in awe of you.  

DW: Wow, you just made my day! Never had anyone in awe of me before.

DC: Thanks again for taking time to be interviewed, Debrah.

DW: You’re more than welcome.

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