In this powerful, many-layered novel, Bennett explores the role of identity in six connected lives, considering race and gender as her characters wrestle with truth. Some are looking for the truth about…
What I'm Reading
Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft
Writers' Toolbox
Elements of craft discussed in this blog.
- Writing about a sibling relationship (2)
- Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
- Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
- Defining character through dialogue (2)
- Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
- Witholding information to create a magnetic character (1)
- Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
- Staging a surprise ending (1)
- Using backstory to enhance the reader's empathy for a character (1)
- Avoiding sensationalism in a novel about the abuse of boundaries (1)
- Giving the reader more information than the protagonist has (1)
- Maintaining two narrative timelines (1)
- Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
- Sustaining a core mystery (1)
- Rising action leading to a climactic scene (1)
- Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (1)
- Using a flat character to add momentum to a narrative (1)
- How extended dialogue can prepare for a moment of decision (1)
- Preparing for an unexpected turn (1)
- Reinventing a well-known character (1)
- Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
- Connecting different characters through the unifying element of shared disorder (1)
- Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
- Using a small space to build tension between two characters (1)
- Creating a guide character (1)
- The long approach: Opening a novel with a sweeping introductory vision (1)
- Creating a shadowed life: the slow trickle of an unsettled past (1)
- Using an object to reveal and distinguish a character (1)
- Setting up a reversal (1)
- Using a first person voice to drive the narrative (1)
- Withholding the novel's intention (1)
- Hiding the narrative design (1)
- Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (1)
- Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (1)
- Using mystery to define the limits of a character's experience (1)
- Using an image to show what the character is feeling (1)
- The Ticking Clock: Using the calendar to escalate tension (1)
- Building a novel around a single theme (1)
- Achieving transparency in scene and dialogue to reveal emotional turmoil (1)
- Balancing a novel's emotional terrain through character (1)
- Using plot to create false assumptions about what will happen. (1)
- A story within a story (1)
