Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 58. Show, don't Tell Page Review: Memoir with Marcel Charpentier

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58. Show, don't Tell Page Review: Memoir with Marcel Charpentier · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:07
  Welcome to Show, don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step.
• 0:18
  We're gonna explore writing techniques.
• 0:21
  I'm gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers' careers that you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
• 0:27
  And I'm also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling.
• 0:33
  Whether you're just starting out, you're drafting your first book, you're editing, or you're currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show's gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn't even know you needed, but you definitely do.
• 0:48
  I'm so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, and you're gonna also have some fun doing it.
• 1:02
  Let's dive in.
• 1:04
  Today we continue with our one page reviews that I know that all our listeners love and going through in detail with writers from all over the world on show Don't Tell.
• 1:13
  I've got Marcel Charpentier coming on the show, and Marcel is really a unique situation because he's writing a memoir, co-writing it with somebody else.
• 1:22
  So it's somebody else's story that he's bringing to life with her participation, which is super exciting.
• 1:28
  I'm gonna read you his bio.
• 1:29
  My writing throughout my career has been mostly professional as a social worker, writing reports, psychosocial summaries, et cetera.
• 1:36
  I did win first prize in a statewide essay contest when I was in high school, and they submitted an article to Sea Kayaker magazine just for fun.
• 1:43
  Sea kayaker responded with a nice handwritten note saying that they enjoyed my writing style, but couldn't publish my article because they didn't want to encourage people to go searching for whales in kayaks.
• 1:54
  And that's all I have to say about my writing career so far.
• 1:57
  My relatives are enjoying my manuscript.
• 1:59
  Anyway, this is his very first book and he found he'll share with you in the episode that he found it was a lot more difficult than he expected, which I know a lot of listeners share that same experience.
• 2:10
  I do wanna give you a trigger warning here.
• 2:13
  This one page is fairly graphic.
• 2:15
  It involves a killing in Cambodia.
• 2:18
  And so I just wanted to give you that trigger warning.
• 2:20
  If you're sensitive to that, you may not want to listen to this one, but it's a really great example of how riveting and how deep and how graphic and how horrifying the events were that are going to be depicted in this memoir.
• 2:34
  And it's a beautiful, beautiful page.
• 2:36
  Here's the page.
• 2:38
  A woman scream pierces the still morning air stabbing me with a chill that runs up my spine and prickles my skin.
• 2:45
  I jump to my feet and look toward the road.
• 2:48
  Stop their play and follow my gaze.
• 2:50
  Man is running hard.
• 2:52
  He is streaked with sweat and gasping for breath.
• 2:54
  A dark-skinned man wearing only dark shorts and a band of red cloth hiding around his head is chasing him and gaining fast.
• 3:01
  He catches up to his prey in front of our house in front of us.
• 3:05
  He lifts a hatchet above his head and strikes with a blow that buries the heavy steel between the fleeing man's shoulder blades.
• 3:12
  His head snaps back and his arms splay out as the hatchet cuts downward separating ribs from spine.
• 3:18
  He staggers as blood spurts onto the dusty road.
• 3:21
  The killer pounces on his back and pries his rib cage open.
• 3:25
  He reaches into the man's body and rips out his beating heart.
• 3:29
  He plunges his hand inside the man's body again.
• 3:32
  He cuts sinew with a knife and rises to his feet.
• 3:35
  With his victim's liver and his bloody hand.
• 3:38
  The stranger walks away leaving the heart next to the body.
• 3:42
  In an expanding pool of dark red blood strangers come and slash and stab at the dead man.
• 3:48
  I run into the house to my mac as fast as I can with POV and m close behind.
• 3:53
  Why did he kill that man?
• 3:55
  Why did he kill him?
• 3:56
  I shriek the shock on Mac's face, makes my heart race at lightning speed.
• 4:01
  My legs wanna run, run fast, run anywhere, but there's no anywhere to run to.
• 4:07
  I'm cornered.
• 4:08
  I'm trapped, like one of P'S mounted animals.
• 4:11
  The room spins and my mind goes blank.
• 4:14
  Max screams for the rest of her children and five servants all come rushing into the living room.
• 4:19
  As she runs to bolt the door, the strangers pound on the heavy wooden door, each blow sending a shockwave through my body.
• 4:26
  You must leave now near lost lady who says in a steady voice looking straight into her eyes, you must come with me.
• 4:33
  Now the children will stay here with Maine, own Maine and Bong.
• 4:37
  I'll be back later to spend the night with the children.
• 4:39
  P'S voice slows time down, the room stops spinning, and I'm able to breathe again.
• 4:44
  Poo leads my mac out the back door, down among the posts that hold the houses like a man leading a blind woman whom opens the door as the rest of us huddled in the living room.
• 4:58
  Thank you so much, Marcel, for submitting this page and sharing it with us today.
• 5:03
  Thanks for coming on the show.
• 5:05
  Well, hi Suzy.
• 5:06
  Thank you very much for having me.
• 5:08
  Yeah, I was really excited to see your page come through and for all of you listeners out there, definitely submit a page and hopefully you can come on the show as well.
• 5:17
  So Marcel and I have worked together a little bit on this book.
• 5:20
  He took a course for me about a year ago now.
• 5:23
  So we're taking a look at this inciting incident.
• 5:26
  Marcel, can you just give us a little bit.
• 5:28
  Background, I did your intro and your bio week.
• 5:30
  Can you explain what this project is and how it came about?
• 5:33
  'cause it's really, it's a cool story.
• 5:35
  Yeah.
• 5:36
  I was working for a state agency, human services agency back in the nineties.
• 5:40
  I've retired 2012, but back in the nineties I wrote a request for proposal to do an outreach into the Cambodian refugee community.
• 5:48
  'cause I felt that they were an underserved population.
• 5:51
  So my agency awarded the contract to a community health center and they hired support.
• 5:57
  Who is moral in the book?
• 5:59
  That was her nickname back then.
• 6:01
  Now her nickname is Sephora, so, so is her name.
• 6:05
  I would meet with her periodically to go over her work in the community and as we got to know each other, she would tell me a nightmare that she had the night before.
• 6:15
  'cause it's PTSD is endemic to the pop, that population.
• 6:19
  And then that would lead into a discussion about an incident that had actually occurred.
• 6:26
  This was happening and I was kind of accumulating all these little ign nets that were not really connected.
• 6:31
  And uh, one day she said she wanted to write her story, but she was not capable of doing it and she needed somebody else to write.
• 6:39
  And I was very, very naive at the time and I said, oh, sure, I can write a complete sentence.
• 6:44
  No problem.
• 6:45
  Let's meet on Saturday.
• 6:47
  We'll do it.
• 6:47
  You tell me your story and I'll go home and I'll just write it up.
• 6:50
  We'll be done like that.
• 6:52
  I met with her a couple of times and I realized, wow, what a story.
• 6:55
  I mean, it's just a really blow your socks off the plot twist, uh, just really, and it's all true, right?
• 7:03
  You can't make the stuff up.
• 7:05
  You can't make the stuff up.
• 7:06
  So I told, you know, so I said, you know, are you ready to tell me, uh, stick with this for a long time, and are you able to tell me everything?
• 7:15
  And she says, yeah.
• 7:16
  So then we started anything.
• 7:17
  But after the first 65 pages.
• 7:20
  I couldn't go.
• 7:20
  I, I burned out because it was never good enough.
• 7:23
  Never good enough.
• 7:25
  I was obsessing over it all the time.
• 7:27
  I'm driving, I'm thinking about it.
• 7:29
  I don't what with this, how don't work that.
• 7:31
  The advice I should have gotten back then, which I didn't get, was don't worry about it.
• 7:35
  Just move ahead and then you can always come back and edit later on.
• 7:39
  Yeah, but I didn't know that at the time, and that's kinda how, how it is.
• 7:44
  I, I reconnected with her just recently, 2023.
• 7:49
  I, I looked her up.
• 7:50
  We had lost contact after I retired.
• 7:53
  I mean, it's a long story how I ended up back with you, but I said, let's get started again.
• 7:57
  I says, I'm a different person now.
• 7:58
  I'm ready to go.
• 7:59
  Let's, let's do it.
• 8:00
  So that's, that's kind of where we are.
• 8:02
  So I have about 60,000 pages.
• 8:04
  We're about three quarters of the way through.
• 8:07
  60,000 words, not 60,000 pages.
• 8:09
  Oh, I'm sorry.
• 8:10
  60,000 words.
• 8:12
  Yeah, that'd be, that'd be super impressive.
• 8:13
  I, I think that'd be like a Guinness Book of World record, 60,000 pages.
• 8:16
  Yeah.
• 8:16
  No, I, I think it's awesome.
• 8:18
  And you know, we've been working so diligently.
• 8:21
  I just love this story.
• 8:22
  You're writing somebody else's memoir, but you're so connected to this story and you're so determined.
• 8:28
  To do it justice.
• 8:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:31
  And to make sure that her voice gets heard.
• 8:33
  And it's absolutely beautiful that you're excited to do it, that you're willing to do it, but your story isn't, it sounds unique and her story is unique, but you coming at it and thinking, oh, well, I'll just sit down and write it for her because I speak English and because I, you know, can write a fleet sentence.
• 8:49
  I think you said that's so common.
• 8:52
  And I think if we knew what it would take when we started, a lot of us wouldn't.
• 8:57
  Embark on these journeys.
• 8:59
  Okay.
• 9:00
  But yes, uh, you would agree with that and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:03
  I would.
• 9:03
  Now knowing what it takes, you're so into it and you're feeling called to do it, that you just do it and mm-hmm.
• 9:10
  And so that's a really common story.
• 9:11
  I'm sure that a lot of listeners are going to really resonate with that.
• 9:15
  So this page that you shared, you shared with me that it's the inciting incident.
• 9:19
  So can you tell us a little bit about why this incident or why this page is so important to the story?
• 9:26
  Well this, this is the second chapter, about three paragraphs down.
• 9:30
  The first chapter is the backstory, which I struggle with a lot, but I think I've brought it down now, and that just introduced you to the characters and the village and all of that.
• 9:41
  And I have a second chapter.
• 9:43
  I set up the scene for those three paragraphs, and then I start right here.
• 9:47
  Now from this point on with this incident, everything changes your world turns upside down.
• 9:53
  From that, that point on your life is completely upturns different.
• 9:56
  Absolutely.
• 9:56
  So, totally different.
• 9:57
  Yes.
• 9:58
  From what I remember of this story, and please correct me 'cause I haven't worked on it with you in a year, but she grew up in a, in a home of privilege with servants and, you know, fairly high stature within her community.
• 10:11
  Then the war is at their doorstep and they are scattered.
• 10:15
  Right.
• 10:15
  And this is moment, that's correct.
• 10:16
  Yeah.
• 10:17
  They, uh, step, I wrote in, in two parts, probably three in, in the end.
• 10:23
  And the first pod is from 1970 to 1975.
• 10:26
  That's before the Kahma Rouge take over, but they're, they're mobs are overrunning villages and that kind of thing.
• 10:34
  That's what's going on.
• 10:35
  And that's what happened in your village?
• 10:37
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  And how old was your point of view?
• 10:39
  How old was, was she at the moment that this happened?
• 10:42
  At the very beginning?
• 10:42
  She's nine years old, right?
• 10:45
  So this, this is, you know, the moment that changed her life and, and changed her complete trajectory.
• 10:51
  Um, so really sometimes we think in memoir we don't necessarily have to follow the beats of a novel, and yet it's here, right?
• 11:00
  This is this, that moment.
• 11:02
  Okay.
• 11:03
  Overall, I think there's some amazing showing details in here.
• 11:06
  I was really excited to read it.
• 11:09
  It's such an important moment in your story.
• 11:11
  I was surprised that you could send me one page and have most of it happen.
• 11:15
  I know that there's a lot more.
• 11:17
  There's actually room to slow it down.
• 11:19
  So everything in here will add that I'm gonna make suggestions for, but I think that it happens really fast and it is the inciting moment that I know that lots of other things happen, but this is the moment that changes.
• 11:31
  This is the moment that crystallized.
• 11:33
  In her mind, this is the moment that you guys keep coming back to you.
• 11:36
  It's important to get it right.
• 11:38
  You have some room to slow it down.
• 11:40
  Okay.
• 11:41
  60,000 words.
• 11:42
  Do you know how, how long you think the, like the memoir will be when you're complete?
• 11:47
  My guess is probably another, maybe another.
• 11:50
  20,000 words I thinking.
• 11:53
  Yeah, that's, and that's right in the range, kind of, yeah.
• 11:55
  On the high end of the range.
• 11:56
  So you can afford to make this a couple of pages and I would actually suggest that you do, because it's a really important moment.
• 12:02
  It's so graphic, it's so disturbing, and I think it's, it's sort of a pivotal moment that you've heard recounted many times, is my guess.
• 12:10
  Okay.
• 12:11
  So overall, when you're adding to it, there's a lot of room to give us an interpretation in for voice.
• 12:19
  Okay?
• 12:20
  So what I mean by that is what does it mean to her?
• 12:24
  And she doesn't really know she's nine.
• 12:26
  She doesn't really know what's happening.
• 12:28
  Let guess even if she's wrong, and you might have to.
• 12:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:31
  All those are difficult conversations that you guys have when you're preparing for this writing.
• 12:35
  But what does she think is happening here, even if she's wrong?
• 12:39
  Because I am not sure when I'm reading this, I don't know who to root for.
• 12:44
  I don't know who to cheer for.
• 12:45
  There's a man running and there's somebody chasing him.
• 12:48
  I don't know if I'm hoping he gets away or if I'm hoping he gets caught.
• 12:52
  Like there's some, some pieces missing here, even if she gets it wrong at first.
• 12:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:58
  And she thinks, oh, you know, I hope they catch him.
• 13:00
  You must have done something bad.
• 13:01
  And then she realizes, wait a minute.
• 13:03
  That's not right.
• 13:04
  You know, like even if any of that happens, there's a moment here where I am.
• 13:09
  The whole idea of sharing a memoir is to be in that person's skin in that moment, and to actually experience as closely as we can, of course, to experience or to empathize with what that may have been like.
• 13:24
  And so the more you can share.
• 13:26
  It's something that we do in high action scenes.
• 13:28
  I see it a lot where you've kind of pulled back a little bit and I've seen other pieces and other pages where you're right in her point of view, but here there's a bunch of time where she's standing around watching.
• 13:41
  She's not involved, which is fine.
• 13:43
  You can't change the story.
• 13:45
  But I'm sure if she's standing around watching, why is she doing that?
• 13:48
  Or what is she thinking?
• 13:50
  Is she frozen to the spot rooted?
• 13:52
  Like I think one of the suggestions was rooted like, and then say, you know, a tree in the Cambodian landscape that she would be familiar with.
• 13:59
  She lived in there.
• 14:00
  Like in there.
• 14:01
  I think it's agel.
• 14:01
  Is it a jungle?
• 14:02
  Is that right?
• 14:03
  That's interesting.
• 14:04
  I did have that before they edited that out.
• 14:06
  I part where she, she couldn't move.
• 14:09
  She was frozen in place because it was fear.
• 14:11
  You know, why aren't she able, do you think?
• 14:13
  Do it for a moment.
• 14:14
  Yeah, you can do it for a moment.
• 14:16
  But she's still standing here.
• 14:18
  She's nine years old and she's not, you know, politically astute yet and probably doesn't know what's happening.
• 14:24
  But what frame of reference does she have to interpret this at such a young age?
• 14:28
  Her father is an important figure in that community from whatever call.
• 14:33
  So what would she have been exposed to?
• 14:35
  So is the killing that she witnesses here, is it like the hunting that she's witnessed?
• 14:40
  Around there.
• 14:41
  I'm, I'm not sure if she would go on hunting trips as a, as a young girl.
• 14:44
  Yeah, I know.
• 14:45
  Um, but she does reference her dad's mountings, which is great.
• 14:48
  More of this, right?
• 14:50
  Like just more of that would be great.
• 14:52
  Okay.
• 14:52
  You're right.
• 14:53
  So I could see why you edited out if you just had her frozen and plate watching,'cause she's still watching, but keep that inner monologue running, right.
• 15:01
  Keep that inner monologue running.
• 15:02
  What is she thinking?
• 15:03
  What is she?
• 15:04
  You know, is she debating whether she goes here or there?
• 15:07
  The one thing that's difficult, especially in memoir, because you can't change the facts, right?
• 15:12
  So if her character kind of blacks out or blanks out or freezes, it's very difficult because then you lose your point of view character, right?
• 15:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:21
  If that's what happened, then that's what happened, then that's what you have to convey.
• 15:25
  You can't change it.
• 15:26
  But at the same time, I'm hoping that when you speak to her, there's something else that was running through her mind that you could add.
• 15:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:33
  So this opening line here, a woman scream, pierces the still early morning air stabbing me with a chill that runs up my spine and prickles my skin.
• 15:42
  That is beautiful.
• 15:43
  You have so many words in there that are so intentional and so many powerful images, right?
• 15:49
  You've got stabbing, chill, prickles.
• 15:52
  They're all very, they're, they're very much in the same line.
• 15:55
  They're very alert.
• 15:57
  They're very alert reactions, and they, it really sets the scene well.
• 16:01
  So then we see she jumps to her feet and looks toward the road.
• 16:06
  Then this man comes running down the road, right streaked with sweat and gasping for breath.
• 16:12
  Beautiful.
• 16:12
  Great.
• 16:12
  Showing details.
• 16:14
  He's wearing only dark shorts and a band of red cloth tied around his head.
• 16:18
  So thank you for showing this man to me.
• 16:21
  You've done a great job.
• 16:22
  We should.
• 16:23
  You're a good student.
• 16:23
  Marcel.
• 16:24
  I'm not showing, showing him to us, right?
• 16:27
  Because I think in earlier drafts that I saw, we just had a man running down the street.
• 16:30
  But I wanna see him, what's un, what's unusual about him?
• 16:34
  Right.
• 16:35
  Why did she take notice of?
• 16:36
  Why does she know that this isn't some guy just out for a run or running, you know, to get home for dinner or something?
• 16:42
  Right?
• 16:42
  Like something's happening.
• 16:44
  There's room for her.
• 16:45
  Okay, so here's a place where she could start to react, right?
• 16:49
  She's standing and watching.
• 16:50
  So what does she do?
• 16:51
  I don't know what she does.
• 16:52
  Check with her and see if any of these resonate.
• 16:54
  But I could.
• 16:55
  Here's some examples.
• 16:56
  I crouched to make myself small, hoping they won't see me.
• 16:59
  That could show that frozen in fear.
• 17:01
  I'm frozen to the ground rooted like name something that's in her environment we talked about.
• 17:06
  Good.
• 17:06
  Yeah.
• 17:07
  I think something like that would, yeah.
• 17:09
  Yeah.
• 17:09
  And here's the place where I was like, okay, am I hoping for the man to get away or am I hoping for him to get caught?
• 17:15
  I don't know the answer.
• 17:17
  As a reader, I don't know the answer.
• 17:19
  And the answer is what does she think, even if she gets it.
• 17:22
  So your point of view character in this instance is our interpreter.
• 17:28
  She's gonna let your reader know how to feel in this situation.
• 17:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:32
  Okay.
• 17:33
  So she's the one who's gonna give us a clue and what we should hope for or root for in this situation.
• 17:39
  Does that make sense?
• 17:40
  Yeah.
• 17:41
  Do you know the answer or what you need to ask her?
• 17:44
  Do you know what she wants?
• 17:45
  The situation?
• 17:46
  No.
• 17:46
  I think she's just a kid and I, I don't think she, she knows, I don't think she, she's gonna see a guy brutally murdered.
• 17:52
  I, she doesn't want that, right?
• 17:54
  No.
• 17:54
  Obviously.
• 17:55
  Does she wanna get away?
• 17:57
  Right?
• 17:57
  Like, does she wanna get away?
• 17:59
  Is she looking for somewhere to run?
• 18:00
  Is she just, is she frozen because she wants to disappear?
• 18:05
  Is she frozen?
• 18:06
  Because I, I don't know.
• 18:07
  Right?
• 18:08
  Yeah.
• 18:08
  I, I think she's frozen because she can't take her eyes away from what's happening.
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:12
  The horror.
• 18:13
  Yeah.
• 18:14
  And this is, and this, and I'll give a trigger warning here'cause it's a bit graphic right.
• 18:19
  Um, we've got a really graphic murder that I read at the beginning of this episode, and he plunges his hand inside the man's body again.
• 18:27
  He cuts in with a knife and rises to his feet with the victim's liver in his bloody hand.
• 18:32
  So here's my question to you is because we are from a nine year old's point of view, which she know the name of a liver well see.
• 18:40
  Is she a hunter?
• 18:42
  No, and this is the thing that I struggled with.
• 18:45
  Okay.
• 18:45
  Yeah.
• 18:46
  Because the first time I was trying to write the scene, I said, how do I write this?
• 18:50
  And I put, took something out of his body and all of this stuff.
• 18:54
  But I'm thinking, I, I can't, the story's not gonna be interesting if I stick with what a 9-year-old girl would, would see.
• 19:02
  Yeah.
• 19:02
  And I'm thinking that the reader will know that it's an adult thinking back and re remembering.
• 19:08
  What, what she was experiencing when she was nine years old, but can fill in from an adult's point of view.
• 19:16
  Okay.
• 19:16
  You know, now that, and that makes sense.
• 19:18
  I think we've talked about that too before, because especially in memoir, when it starts really young.
• 19:23
  It can give the wrong impression.
• 19:24
  If you try to do everything from a five-year-old or a nine-year-old, or a three-year-old's perspective, you're reading a book and you're like, oh, this is gonna be a tough read if it's all for a three-year-old's point of view.
• 19:34
  So you're right.
• 19:35
  Okay, so you've got a narrator that's standing in time, so that's fine.
• 19:40
  Yeah.
• 19:40
  The the other thing too that I took out, I probably should have put in because I thought it was a little much, but he takes the liver across the street to a restaurant to cook and eat it.
• 19:52
  Oh, interesting.
• 19:54
  That's, that would really happen.
• 19:56
  That actually, that actually happened.
• 19:58
  Now, I don't think she knew it at nine years old, but she knows it looking back because that's what they did with the victims.
• 20:03
  She saw 'em walk across the street to the restaurant, but she, that's pretty typical.
• 20:09
  Yeah.
• 20:10
  And maybe, and maybe that is something that you can insert later in the book where she thinks back and flashes back to this moment, right.
• 20:18
  When she learns that.
• 20:20
  That.
• 20:21
  And she says, yeah, I did see him walk across the street.
• 20:25
  Wow.
• 20:25
  Yeah.
• 20:26
  Really terrifying.
• 20:27
  Uh, and horrific, right?
• 20:29
  I'm so sorry this happened to her.
• 20:31
  Okay.
• 20:31
  Here the stranger walks away leaving his victim's heart next to the body and expanding pool of dark red blood.
• 20:37
  Okay.
• 20:37
  So I was looking for, I don't know how much of this we would've seen in previous scenes, but.
• 20:44
  Is the road made of dirt.
• 20:45
  I mean, I don't know anything about a Cambodian village.
• 20:48
  Right.
• 20:48
  So the darn pool of red blood is mixing, you know it with the dirt or, well, on the first chapter, it, it does explain the dusty road.
• 20:57
  Yes, yes.
• 20:57
  It's room's unpaved.
• 20:59
  Yeah, it's unpaved.
• 21:00
  So, so the reason knows that about that somewhere, I don't have a lot of context.
• 21:05
  No, the Rita knows that because of the previous chapter.
• 21:08
  Okay, great.
• 21:09
  Yeah.
• 21:09
  Um, so here we've got more strangers and I would say strangers, there's an opportunity here.
• 21:14
  We haven't really described the strangers.
• 21:16
  I mean, stranger danger in my mind.
• 21:18
  And you remember being really young and learning about strangers, and I always pictured, and I hope he's listening to this podcast, but what's pictured my uncle Brian, because when I first met him and he was dating my aunt, um, they're not that much older than me.
• 21:31
  When he was dating my aunt and people said, oh, he is a stranger.
• 21:35
  And so he was wearing this like, he almost looked like Gilligan in my brain, like with this red shirt and the white bucket hat after.
• 21:42
  So whenever I, people would say there was a stranger, I'd picture this, this image.
• 21:46
  But everybody has a different view of what a stranger is.
• 21:49
  So what, what makes it strange to her?
• 21:51
  There's definitely an opportunity to give us a detail or two.
• 21:54
  Why are these strangers, are they dressed differently?
• 21:57
  Do they hold themselves differently than, than what she's used to?
• 22:01
  How does she know that they're quote unquote strangers, other than she just doesn't recognize them?
• 22:06
  Like what?
• 22:06
  Well, in the first, the first paragraphs before I into this, I set, set the scene and there are strangers, people unknown to the village.
• 22:15
  Who are marching up and down the street chanting.
• 22:18
  Okay.
• 22:18
  And you described them there.
• 22:19
  What are they wearing?
• 22:20
  Yeah, the, these guys are just wearing, are they shorts?
• 22:22
  Like soldiers?
• 22:23
  They're just wearing, they're, they're not even shorts.
• 22:25
  They're like diapers.
• 22:26
  I don't know.
• 22:26
  They're some kind of a wrapping.
• 22:28
  Okay.
• 22:28
  Dark wrapping.
• 22:29
  I just put shorts because it's easier to describe, but Yeah.
• 22:33
  But they don't have, that's all, they're, that and the red band around their foreheads, they have red eyes.
• 22:39
  They, they, they look mean.
• 22:41
  I, I describe it more later on.
• 22:42
  Yeah, because they acting come in the house later on.
• 22:45
  Okay.
• 22:46
  So, okay, so I accept that you've described some of it earlier.
• 22:50
  If you're describing it later, I'd move it up here.
• 22:52
  The place to describe anybody, the place that you can slow down and sort of add that detail is on first meeting of a character.
• 23:00
  'cause the problem with it is, I'm gonna picture something different.
• 23:03
  And then five pages from now you described as, you know, dark wrapping that they're wearing that are like shorts.
• 23:10
  And I've pictured them in white linen.
• 23:12
  It's really jarring and readers won't necessarily notice it, but it'll, it'll kind of be annoying, you know?
• 23:18
  So the place to put it is, if you've got it before, that probably works.
• 23:23
  If it's later, I'd see it belongs here because as soon as we have people coming and slashing and stabbing at a dead man, I wanna see what they look like.
• 23:30
  I need to see that.
• 23:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:32
  Um, and rather than a group of strangers, and this is one of the.
• 23:36
  Sort of principles that they teach at, show tell rather than showing a group or many strangers zoom in on one or two in what they do, right?
• 23:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:44
  This is part of, here is a moment we're not, I'm not always gonna say this of course, but here is a moment where you can actually slow it down.
• 23:53
  This is a really important moment and it's horrific, and you need to give your point of view character a moment to observe it, but you also have to give the reader a chance, right?
• 24:01
  Like this is like.
• 24:02
  We come in and see this brutal murder and then we're off in one page.
• 24:05
  It's, it's so fast.
• 24:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:07
  So give your reader a moment.
• 24:09
  We do this as you look at the book as a whole, when a moment is a court okay.
• 24:14
  To slow it down.
• 24:14
  We talk so much about pacing and making it faster, but we also, when there's really big moments like an inciting incident that's gonna change the her entire future, it's okay to take a couple of pages, right.
• 24:28
  Okay, and I'm gonna send you, I see that the listeners can't see this, but I can see that Marcel's taking notes.
• 24:32
  I'm gonna send you this, so don't worry.
• 24:34
  Okay.
• 24:36
  I run into the house to my Mac as fast as I can with POV and m close behind.
• 24:41
  Okay, so good.
• 24:43
  And now she's engaged in the moment again, right?
• 24:45
  Why did he kill that man?
• 24:46
  Why did he kill him?
• 24:48
  She's engaged in the moment again.
• 24:49
  So there was a moment where she kind of froze.
• 24:51
  And then pull back.
• 24:52
  I'd love to have something there because she wasn't short of it.
• 24:56
  She's just watching.
• 24:57
  But here we just have I, I've also given you some different paragraphs, spacing.
• 25:02
  I just wanna talk about this one for a minute because it's one that I see a lot in writing and so it might be helpful to the listeners.
• 25:08
  I haven't seen it before in your writing, so you probably don't do it that often.
• 25:11
  We do it when there's something really important and then we're rushing, right?
• 25:15
  So with paragraph spacing.
• 25:17
  There's a bunch of different rules, and there are some that you have to follow grammatically.
• 25:22
  I mean, we can always break them for effect if we want to, but then there's some that are suggestions.
• 25:27
  This one, when we have, why did he kill that man?
• 25:29
  Why did he kill him?
• 25:30
  I shriek, right?
• 25:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:33
  Then you had action, the shock on Mac's face, so then we're switching, so then I would think, or sorry, generally we start a new paragraph to separate out.
• 25:44
  The dialogue from one character and the actions from Okay, good.
• 25:49
  So that's why I, that's why I did that there.
• 25:52
  Yeah.
• 25:52
  Great.
• 25:52
  And I know that, I know that you're gonna get it, but the listeners, I like to explain that one 'cause it's one that nobody explains to you.
• 25:58
  So I wanna run fast, run anywhere.
• 26:01
  And I was wondering, again, I'm still trying to figure out what she wants here.
• 26:05
  Does she wanna get away from the killer or from, does she wanna get away from the house?
• 26:08
  Does she feel unsafe?
• 26:10
  I think so.
• 26:11
  Um, but you could make this really clear.
• 26:14
  Well, you know, what I was trying to do is put in words the auto autonomic fight flight response.
• 26:20
  You know, when someone's feeling like I'm, I'm in immediate danger, your brain shuts down.
• 26:26
  It happens to all of us.
• 26:27
  You know, your cerebral cortex shuts down and your brain goes into survival mode.
• 26:32
  So either you run or you fight.
• 26:34
  If you have no other choice, and I think the order, freeze, freeze, freeze, and Juan are also options.
• 26:39
  So there's fight, flight, freeze.
• 26:42
  Lemme freeze.
• 26:42
  Yeah, you do not want me there.
• 26:45
  I will freeze.
• 26:46
  If somebody else needs me, I probably will take action.
• 26:50
  Um, I'm actually pretty good in a crisis, but yeah.
• 26:52
  So she froze earlier and now she's going into like flight mode.
• 26:58
  Okay, yeah.
• 26:58
  How do I get on?
• 26:59
  Where do I go?
• 27:00
  How do I get out of this?
• 27:01
  Yeah.
• 27:01
  Yeah.
• 27:01
  So she's, she's sort of panicking.
• 27:03
  She's panicking, and here's where she likens it to being trapped, like one of P'S mounted animals, which is great.
• 27:09
  So anytime that you could bring in something.
• 27:12
  World building without having tell us three paragraphs.
• 27:16
  I'm assuming that we've learned about these Mount of Edibles before so that she can bring about cleaning Yeah.
• 27:21
  Doesn't he collects, which is an frustration for his wife.
• 27:25
  'cause he keeps bringing this junk in the house.
• 27:28
  But that's in the first chapter.
• 27:29
  Yes.
• 27:30
  Okay.
• 27:30
  Okay.
• 27:31
  So if we've met these and they're like wall decorations, like a pad or something.
• 27:36
  Yeah, it's, it is like a stuffed animal.
• 27:39
  They're stuffed animals, like sometimes dirty head with the body and Yeah, put 'em in a one.
• 27:45
  Yeah, exactly.
• 27:46
  Okay, great.
• 27:47
  And then we've got the strangers pounding on the heavy wooden door.
• 27:51
  Again, I, I just am grasping for details to here.
• 27:54
  Are they all men?
• 27:56
  What are they wearing?
• 27:57
  Do they look like people who live there?
• 27:58
  We've kind of talked about this, but I'm asking it and asking it, and if you describe it three pages from now, it's not helpful here.
• 28:05
  Right.
• 28:05
  It's hard for me to.
• 28:07
  So then we've got this, you must leave now near Boss Lady.
• 28:10
  Is that because you don't know the, you haven't named the boss lady yet?
• 28:14
  I just wasn't sure.
• 28:15
  Wellner is, is, uh, is Cambodian for boss lady.
• 28:19
  That's what it means.
• 28:20
  Oh, okay, okay, okay.
• 28:22
  Yeah, that should be in italics I think.
• 28:24
  Yeah, that's what I was.
• 28:26
  So I think we've talked about this before.
• 28:27
  So when you're spe when you're using something in English, but you're inserting other languages, you can do exactly what you did.
• 28:33
  You don't eat the brackets.
• 28:35
  Okay.
• 28:35
  So the Cambodian word would be in italics.
• 28:39
  Right.
• 28:39
  And then you'd comma and then put it in English.
• 28:42
  And that's just kinda how we, that's the easiest way for for us to read it.
• 28:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:46
  So you must leave now.
• 28:48
  Metallics, New York.
• 28:50
  Comma boss lady, as if he was saying both.
• 28:52
  Right.
• 28:52
  And they do that on TV a lot too.
• 28:54
  And we, uh, of course they wouldn't, they wouldn't be speaking English at all.
• 28:57
  That's the way that we could do it.
• 28:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:59
  We need the brackets.
• 29:00
  Okay, perfect.
• 29:01
  Then we've got who's voice slows time down the room stops.
• 29:06
  Thinning and I'm able to breathe again.
• 29:08
  P leads my Mac out the back door among the posts that hold the houses, like a man leading a blind woman, um, opens the door as the rest of us huddle in the living room.
• 29:16
  Okay?
• 29:17
  And he says, actually, I'm not sure is if Poo is a, a male or a female, but they are coming back, female male.
• 29:22
  He's coming back later to spend the night with the children.
• 29:25
  So again, I don't know what happens after this page that you submitted, but I really wanted to know.
• 29:30
  What does she think of Poo coming back later?
• 29:33
  Does she feel like it's safe here for now, or does she feel like he should stay?
• 29:37
  Or does she feel like it's not gonna be enough?
• 29:39
  Or does she feel like she, I mean, is she still wanting to run?
• 29:41
  So we wanna know what the interpretation is there as well.
• 29:44
  She's, she's huddling with the other servants.
• 29:47
  She's scared.
• 29:48
  She's very.
• 29:49
  She hears the servants of the, uh, strangers marching up and down shouting.
• 29:55
  She's wondering, are they mad at me?
• 29:57
  Are they mad at my father?
• 29:58
  Why do they wanna kill him?
• 30:00
  All of these things are going through her mind.
• 30:01
  Yeah.
• 30:02
  She's wondering if the man who was killed outside was your father.
• 30:06
  'cause she didn't get a good look at him.
• 30:08
  So all of this is conflict, internal conflict that's going on with her.
• 30:12
  Marty.
• 30:13
  Well, she's there.
• 30:13
  Where is that?
• 30:14
  I. That's further on.
• 30:16
  Okay.
• 30:17
  Well, some of that could be on the page here.
• 30:19
  Not all of it.
• 30:20
  You don't wanna slow it down too much.
• 30:21
  But yeah, some of it could be here, at least one or two of those questions because from what I remember about this inciting incident, she doesn't know what she just witnessed yet, but she can guess, right?
• 30:32
  Which is exactly what you're doing here.
• 30:35
  So some of that could belong here.
• 30:37
  So take a look at what you've written later.
• 30:39
  It might be as simple as bringing it forward and making this.
• 30:42
  Slowing this down and then not having a moment where she's just sitting around thinking like kind of interspersing it.
• 30:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:49
  We talk about the, the five elements of writing and being able to intersperse it.
• 30:53
  Right.
• 30:53
  So inner thoughts, setting dialogue, actions of reactions, and if you're able, if you've got like sort of a scene later where she's sitting around thinking you could actually pull some of that forward to make round out this scene a little bit better.
• 31:07
  So just take a look at the organization.
• 31:09
  I bet you've got it all, and you might just want to put it a little bit more here and weave it with the action so that we can stay in this moment a little bit longer and make more meaning of it, if that makes sense.
• 31:21
  I mean, it's, it's a very tense moment.
• 31:23
  Everybody's afraid and there's a lot of noise going on outside, and the strangers actually knocked on the door three times.
• 31:31
  So this is the first time they knock.
• 31:34
  Then they knock again.
• 31:35
  A few more people, but.
• 31:38
  They, they turn away and then that's when pool arranges puts 'em in, disguises the kids, tells 'em what they need to do, how they're gonna escape.
• 31:47
  He prepares them for the escape and that's when the strangers come in.
• 31:52
  'cause he has to let 'em in.
• 31:53
  'cause then they're breaking the door down, pool opens the door, and they come in.
• 31:57
  And that's when I described, because this is the first time she really sees them all.
• 32:01
  I mean, she saw the, what the guy killed.
• 32:03
  Person in the front, but they all come in and they have red eyes.
• 32:06
  They smell, smell body or alcohol.
• 32:09
  They look mean and angry, and she's trying to hide behind the disturbance of legs.
• 32:15
  She's on the floor, she's ance on her chair, and all the kids are kind of squeezed in tight, shaking, and scared.
• 32:23
  So that's kind of kind of what happens right after.
• 32:26
  Yeah.
• 32:27
  This page.
• 32:28
  So can I tell you, Marcel, that I work with a lot of writers, as you know, and sometimes when I speak with, I mean, especially when I speak with memoir writers.
• 32:36
  And I ask them about the details.
• 32:37
  They can do what you just did, which is speak all about everything else that's happening.
• 32:43
  Sometimes it doesn't make it to the page.
• 32:44
  That's fine.
• 32:45
  And then we can add it to the page because they've got it.
• 32:48
  And then when I speak with fiction writers, sometimes they've been living with that story for so long that they can do the same thing.
• 32:54
  And sometimes they say, oh, I never thought about that.
• 32:56
  And it was just kind of something I was gonna fill in later.
• 32:58
  And then we know that we've got a little bit of digging 'cause they're making it up as they go along.
• 33:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:02
  But you're in a different situation.
• 33:04
  Actually writing on behalf of someone else.
• 33:07
  But you just answered that as if it were your own experience, which is amazing.
• 33:11
  And I don't mean that you're appropriating her experience, that's not what I meant.
• 33:14
  So please don't misinterpret it.
• 33:16
  But yeah, I just mean that you have spent so much time and taken so much care and really internalize these stories that you're in a really good position to be able to represent it.
• 33:26
  So take what you know.
• 33:27
  You know what they smelled like Marcel, right?
• 33:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:31
  You have gotten that detail from her, and you are able to convey that and put it on this page.
• 33:36
  So bring some of that into this moment.
• 33:39
  So when you're looking at it and you're like, oh, I edited that out, or I cut it down.
• 33:44
  The thing that you need to look at in the 60,000 words that you have and the 80,000 that you have planned.
• 33:50
  Is, what are these moments that matter?
• 33:52
  That's when you can slow it down.
• 33:54
  And what are the moments that don't matter, right?
• 33:56
  If she's thinking about it later, it's much less powerful than thinking about it in the moment.
• 34:01
  Bring us here.
• 34:02
  So if you've got her in later scenes, I mean, if she hasn't processed it yet, that's different, right?
• 34:08
  She's just remembering back more detail.
• 34:10
  Just bring the detail here.
• 34:11
  Let us sit here for a moment and experience that horror.
• 34:15
  This is like something that came back.
• 34:17
  You talked about this is how you started your friendship, right?
• 34:20
  Was was she would relay to you a nightmare and she's reliving this moment over and over again.
• 34:28
  So let's bring some of those details to that moment.
• 34:32
  Does that make sense?
• 34:33
  She didn't know what was going on.
• 34:35
  I mean, she.
• 34:36
  Nobody was telling her.
• 34:37
  And, uh, you know, the, and it was a complete reversal before she was the boss.
• 34:42
  Now the servants of the boss, uh, and it, it just throws everything on as she goes through it goes through her path.
• 34:48
  Yeah.
• 34:49
  And I just are very upset.
• 34:51
  Who do they think they are and all of this stuff.
• 34:53
  But, uh, she has a real mix.
• 34:55
  All of these emotions are all mixed in and she just doesn't know what's going on.
• 35:00
  She doesn't know politics.
• 35:02
  She doesn't know why.
• 35:03
  They're so angry and, uh, you know, at, at her father, her, she doesn't understand any of this stuff.
• 35:09
  She's just terrified because she saw somebody killed and who tells her, you know, if, if you don't do what I tell you, they're gonna cut you.
• 35:17
  Just like that, being in front of the house.
• 35:19
  Yeah.
• 35:19
  So it was, it was serious business, you know.
• 35:22
  Well, you've discovered a very, very important story.
• 35:25
  I know that you have.
• 35:27
  People within her community and people that you've shared with us with are waiting for the story to come out.
• 35:32
  And you are arming yourself.
• 35:34
  You've done something very smart.
• 35:35
  You're arming yourself when you were like, okay.
• 35:37
  I thought I could do it.
• 35:38
  And then I realized that there's a gap in skills and there is, like, writing a, writing a book is difficult and there are skills to learn.
• 35:45
  You're arming yourself with those skills.
• 35:47
  Thank you for being, uh, vulnerable, for keep putting yourself out there.
• 35:51
  We're gonna make this the best page it can possibly be.
• 35:54
  When are you anticipating finishing this book?
• 35:57
  What's your plan right now?
• 35:59
  Oh boy.
• 35:59
  You know, I'm hoping to get the first draft done in November, December.
• 36:03
  I would say maybe December.
• 36:07
  I'm moving right along.
• 36:09
  Yeah, and every now and then I go back and do a little editing and there's always something, there's always a word that they go, there's, I mean, but, but again, don't focus on the words.
• 36:18
  Take a look at the book as a whole when you finish that draft and then go back to those really pivotal scenes and make them sparkle and the rest.
• 36:26
  It's okay.
• 36:26
  You don't have to make everything.
• 36:28
  Show don't tell is such a cool skill, but you can't do it through the entire book.
• 36:32
  You gotta pick and choose where you're doing it.
• 36:34
  So definitely come back on the podcast when the book is ready and let us know how it's going and where we can find it.
• 36:40
  And we are cheering you on on this journey.
• 36:42
  Marcel, thanks for coming on today.
• 36:44
  Great, well thank you very much.
• 36:45
  Appreciate it.
• 36:54
  Thanks for tuning in to show.
• 36:55
  No.
• 36:55
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• 37:02
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• 37:09
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• 37:24
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• 37:28
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• 37:32
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• 37:34
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• 37:46
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• 37:49
  See you again next week.