Molly D. Campbell murders her darlings... and slays us with her humor

HALLIE EPHRON: One of my favorite humorists Molly D. Campbell posted a hilarious take-down of writing rules on her blog, View from the Empty Nest. With her permission, today we're sharing it with our world.

CAUTION: Do not read while drinking a cup of tea.

 

MOLLY D. CAMPBELL: I am a published author, so that makes me an authority on writing things, doesn’t it? There are rules to follow. I try to follow them. One rule that has me flummoxed is the current ban on adverbs. You read that correctly. Correctly is an adverb. So how should I have said that just then? You read that with accuracy? Bah.

But since I plan to write more than one novel, and I am actually (another adverb) a third of the way through my next one, I thought I would share with you some of the no-nos in the author game. You know, so you will be a better critic in the future. But be kind in those Amazon reviews—some of them have been so harsh as to cause writers to contemplate becoming auto mechanics and cocktail waitresses instead. But I digress. You aren’t supposed to do that as a writer, either.

A cardinal rule of the writing business is “Show, don’t tell.” It took me about three years to understand what this really means. I am terrible at it. But the following are examples:

TELL: Audrey felt just sick about having to inform Robert that she couldn’t possibly marry him. After all, she still got cold shivers when she thought about Pierre. Pierre was the love of her life, and Audrey believed with all of her heart that he would return from that trip down the Amazon River to discover the cure for arthritis.

SHOW: Audrey woke, her pillow damp with her tears. She put her hand on her forehead, which throbbed from the dream that was so vivid. Pierre was rowing towards her, his eyes full of terror. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant boa constrictor reared out of the water, slithered onto Pierre’s tiny boat, and enveloped him in a twisting death grip.

“Audrey, Audrey!” Pierre managed to cry, as the evil snake crushed the life out of him. Audrey picked up her cell phone and punched the “Robert” icon. “Hi, darling,” she said. “Oh yes, I will marry you!”

See? So much more literary.

Another writers’ tip is to use dialogue, not description. Readers tire of long passages full of poetic language, no matter how many hours the author spent painting the scene for them and being vivid. Nope. We would rather just move along. Let the characters move the plot, and really, we don’t actually care what color the leaves were on the trees that afternoon. For example:

DESCRIPTION: The sky darkened. The parched, mahogany leaves rattled in the sudden breeze. Flora felt the goosebumps rise on her arms, drawing the thin muslin wrap around her. Thunder rent the air with dissonant anger.

Grant began to pack the picnic things into the basket, but not before the huge, cold drops began to fall. The sky took on a greenish hue as the lightning pierced the clouds. Grant seized the picnic basket in one hand and extended his other out to the frightened and shivering girl. As they hurtled toward the distant farm cottage, a thunderclap nearly knocked them down.

DIALOGUE:
“Shit, Flora, I think it’s going to rain! Hurry up and finish your sandwich. We need to get out of here!”

“Don’t be silly. It is just heat lightning. It happens all the time around here. Want a pickle?”

“For God’s sake, are you nuts? My cousin got struck by lightning three years ago at the golf course, and he has been a sniveling idiot ever since—you can stay as long as you want, but I am getting out of here.”

“You are overreacting, as usual. Wait! Damn! My Sierra Mist just blew over! You may be right. Look at the sky—it’s puke green…”

Which book would you rather read? I thought so.

So you see, we authors don’t just jot down whatever comes into our heads. It’s a craft. Nay, an art form! We spend hours just sifting through our heads for the right word. We agonize over those adjectives, and we brutally eliminate those adverbs (oh, right—brutally is an adverb). We struggle with realistic dialogue.

Yup. So right now I have to get back to Flora, Pierre and Robert. Poor Pierre. That anaconda—or was it a boa constrictor—just sealed his fate, and tonight, Robert is going to get lucky…

HALLIE: Did I warn you or what?
 
What do you think about "writing rules" and which ones do you violate with impunity?

ABOUT MOLLY D. CAMPBELL
Molly writes from her pantry, often in pajamas. She exercises regularly, despite the fact that she has sustained numerous injuries involving barbells and exercise balls. She successfully raised two gorgeous daughters, who both pay their own bills. Molly can also be found at: http://momswhoneedwine.com.


Molly is a two-time Erma Bombeck award winning writer. She hosts her own intelligent and funny blog, www.mollydcampbell.com, as well as writing for the popular international web site "Moms Who Need Wine."

Her latest novel is "Keep the Ends Loose," a wry and witty coming of age novel. Miranda Heath is a quirky fifteen year-old with cinematic dreams and a safe, predictable family. That is, until she decides to pull at the loose end that is the estranged husband that her aunt never divorced. Warm, funny, and uniquely perceptive, Her short story collection began as a Twitter stream of character names that she invented in her spare time, followed by a brief description: "Loretta Squirrels beats her husband and makes moonshine." Molly then decided to write a book about her characters. She teamed up with a fantastic artist to bring them to life. The book soon became an Amazon Pop Culture best seller.

Molly lives in Dayton, Ohio, the home of Erma Bombeck. Molly makes regular pilgrimages to Erma's grave--for inspiration and spiritual renewal. Molly also spends time petting her five cats and plugging her ears. Her husband plays the accordion.

Molly Campbell Keeps the Ends Loose... before she ties them down

HALLIE EPHRON:  I always say my writing process is pure chaos, and I've surrendered to the mess. Reading Molly Campbell blog today about writing her new book Keep the Ends Loose, I realize she and I are writers cut from the same (chaotic) cloth. Like her I get my best ideas in places like spinning class, where I can't possibly write them down.

Sorry, Molly. But boy do I sympathize. Here's Molly talking about her writing "process," and you'll see why I put the words in quotes.

MOLLY CAMPBELL: I wrote a novel. Titled Keep the Ends Loose, it was released  Tuesday, February 24. Dry facts. Hardly interesting. But I am going to let you in on the backstory:

Sit down at computer. Come up with a few characters. Write about them. No. This is awful. Wait a few weeks. 

Sit down again. Come up with some other characters. One is a fifteen-year-old girl. She starts talking about her family. Hey, this sounds promising! Type about two thousand words. Wow. Stuck. All books need plots, right? Wait a few weeks.

Think about Mandy Heath, this fifteen-year-old narrator, all the time: while you are at the grocery store, and as you fill your prescriptions at the drugstore. WAIT—her dad should be a pharmacist! Yes! And her mother should be kind of a busybody! YES!

Rush home and write a few thousand more words. Whoops. Stuck. Go back. This kid needs an annoying brother and some kind of problem to solve. Erase two thousand words. Write a hundred. Wait a week.
As you are in spinning class, it hits you: Mandy Heath’s family needs to almost fall apart. You think about soap operas and melodramas. Sex. Violence. Chaos. Well, maybe not the violence. You take a shower, go home, and type in another few thousand words.

This thing is taking shape! It should be a breeze to finish! Yup. Wait—show don’t tell. Damn. Erase a few thousand words. Wait another few weeks.

Cogitate, cogitate. In the middle of the night, Mandy wakes you up. Of course! You go downstairs, and Mandy dictates another few thousand words. Yawning, you go back to bed at four a.m. Wait another week or so.

The plot is falling into place. You realize that there are probably some gaping holes in this thing. So you hire an editor and send her the manuscript. Wait about two months for her to go through it with a fine-toothed comb.

Good God. The editor sends back five pages of queries. You erase, cut and paste, rethink, and even poor Mandy is getting confused. Sleepless nights. You are obsessed. This damn thing will never be finished!
Cut to a year and a half later. The book is done. The loose ends get tied up. But should they have?

WAIT. This is the title: Keep the Ends Loose!

So you submit it. Wait weeks, maybe months. Get nervous. Then despair.

But the day arrives. The Story Plant will publish your book! Hooray!!!

Wait. Editorial queries. Copyeditor. Proofreader. More rewrites. Cuts. Additions.

Gosh. This isn’t like falling off a log AT ALL. It seems like years! Wait. It was.

But February 24, a book is born!

So you start another one. This should be a breeze—you know how to do this now. Sit down. Type a few hundred words. Wait. Erase. Sigh…

HALLIE: Me: CHEERING! Congratulations! Toast yourself, Molly -- YOU DID IT!

How many of you out there can relate to Molly's creative process?
KEEP THE ENDS LOOSE: Miranda Heath is a quirky fifteen-year-old with cinematic dreams and a safe, predictable family. That is until she decides to pull at the loose end that is the estranged husband her aunt never divorced. What seemed like the best way to allow her aunt to get on with her life sets off a series of events that threaten to turn Mandy’s world upside down. Suddenly, she’s embarking on adventurous road trips, becoming the center of an increasingly unstable household, meeting surprising strangers, and seeing everyone she knows in new ways. Sometimes loose ends just want to stay loose. But what happens if they want to unravel completely?

ABOUT MOLLY CAMPBELL: Molly D. Campbell is the winner of two Erma Bombeck writing awards. A long-time blogger and lover of quirky characters, she wrote her first book, Characters in Search of a Novel, with illustrator Randy Palmer. Molly lives in Dayton, Ohio, with her accordionist husband and five cats.

The joke's on us with Molly D. Campbell

HALLIE EPHRON: A lot of us here at Jungle Red are late blooming writers. I didn't start writing until I was in my 50s. Hank and Roberta and Ro got late starts, too. 

Today we welcome Molly D. Campbell, who didn't get started until she was 55. And she's been on overdrive ever since, writing humor and scoring two Erma Bombeck awards (so far). Her blog is Life with the Campbells:  View from the Empty Nest.

Molly, How did you get started?

MOLLY D. CAMPBELL:  Whenever I get asked this, my mind goes to Grandma Moses. But of course, she was much older and more talented than I, but there is a parallel. I always was pretty good at stringing words together. I got “A’s” on all my term papers, and during the course of my adulthood, I prided myself on writing darn good letters to the editor on occasion. 

But I had a “regular” life to lead as a mother, a teacher, then a corporate training entrepreneur. It was during that stint that I learned how to write proposals—and a good proposal is sort of like a good query letter: you have to grab ‘em in the first sentence, and then cut to the chase. (Apparently, using metaphors is not one of my skills.) 

I guess all of that was preparation for becoming a writer, although I didn’t know it.

HALLIE: But what was the catalyst for your writing career?

MOLLY: It came about, believe it or not, because of a nasty skin cancer on my nose, which looked innocent for ten years. By the time the dermatologist began to suspect something more sinister going on. I had four surgeries and nasal reconstruction. I looked like Frankenstein, and spent the better part of three months inside, fearing that the sight of my face might cause fainting in the grocery store. 

I journaled the whole experience and sent it out on a regular basis to a group of friends: “The Frankenstein Outreach Group.” One of the recipients said I should start a blog. The rest is history.

HALLIE: Did your book Characters in Search of Novel come from your blog?

MOLLY: That came about because I have always loved names. All my life I have been fascinated with funny ones. My husband and I used to spend evenings looking through the phone book for unusual names. Then we would speculate on what that person must be like. 

I know. We live life on the edge. But my fascination with names stuck with me, and I started a twitter account to indulge my name fetish. I called it “In Search of a Novel,” and I posted a funny name with a brief description once a day for over a year. Here is one: “Today’s character in search of a novel: He wears his jock strap to the office: Brad Bullfarver." 

Most of them I forgot all about. But one day I got a tweet from Robin Black, the wonderful author of “If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This,” who told me to stop throwing these characters away every day. She encouraged me to copyright them, get an illustrator, and write their stories. I take advice from famous people. So I did.

HALLIE: That's such a great story! So just like that, you wrote a book?

MOLLY: It all began as a web site, where I posted two stories a month. This site currently has an infection, so I don’t urge anybody to visit. After I had built a few hundred followers for my stories, I took them off the site and wrote about twenty more stories, finally putting them all in a book. 

I decided to publish it myself, in order to begin what I hope is the first step in my career as an author.

HALLIE: The book is a hoot! Next steps??

MOLLY: I'm in a quandary: I could easily put out a book of my humor columns. But I am working on a collection of short stories—so I am not sure what to do next. I continue my blog and my humor column for www.momswhoneedwine.com which is a wonderful website for harried mothers.

HALLIE: So what fuels your work?

 

MOLLY: I get a lot of ammunition from my family life: an accordion playing husband, two daughters who threaten to disown me if I wear “Mom Pants,” and a menagerie of pets.  

I have met so many wonderful writers, like you, Hallie, by tweeting them, or reviewing their books on Amazon. I have never been afraid to tell a writer I admire that I am a fan. The results have been that I have a terrific group of writers that I can talk to, study, and commiserate with. I have learned a great deal from that. I also read hundreds of books a year, and I pick them apart. Every book I read, good or bad, has something of benefit for me as a writer.

HALLIE: They say: Leave 'em laughing. So, come on, tell a joke!

MOLLY: So I have one joke. It is the worst joke in the world. A short guy walks into a diner and asks the waiter, “Do you serve shrimp?” The waiter replies, “Sure, sit down.”

HALLIE: Groan...

I know exactly one joke, too: Where does the king keep his army? Answer: Up his sleevey. 

Who can resist the open invitation to our readers to go check out your book, Characters in Search of an Author, and, come on, I dare you all: Share a bad joke.