Surrender to Imagery

Imagery is descriptive language that not only engages the readers’ senses, but also evokes an emotional response. One of the most famous examples of imagery in poetry is probably the first line of Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” – The fog comes / on little cat feet.

I was pulled into a novel written by Sonya Hartnett this weekend and found myself alternately bobbing and sinking in an ocean of imagery. Some of the language literally caught my breath like the topmost hill of a roller coaster. Some of Ms. Hartnett’s images made me struggle to breathe. The story, Surrender, written in 2005 and awarded the Michael L. Prinz honor, has creeped into my head and seems to want to stay there, curled around the bulges and beating veins of my brain. Lurking like a snake. It is hiding among my own bits of story and snippets of words as if waiting for the right moment to make itself known in a new way.

The story is demanding and horrifying, inescapable and worthy of being shoved into a back corner of a high shelf when you are finished, just in case you feel the story calling to you another day. You will remember it. You will want to revisit the language, the story, and the images so brilliantly used by this writer. Most of all, it is human, this story. Full of contradictions, mysteries, and the honesty of lies told to oneself to keep the peace.

Here are some of the phrases, sentences and images that are echoing in my ears and keeping rhythm with the beating of my heart –

Page 15 – If my visitor walked away now he would seem like a daydream, like touching a tiger’s face in the dark.

Page 40 – His yellow smile – all of him is yellow – patrols the room like a lighthouse beam, falling on my sandy-beach aunt, on jagged-rocky-outcrop me, on the foaming blankets of the sea…

Page 159 – In this room, night is not black but gray. The door is gray, the walls are gray, the air itself is gray. Yet light skates goldenly round the door handle as it spins.

Page 165 – The sky above our heads dashed white with cockatoos.

Page 180 – The morning heat bulged and swore, trapped in the confines of the forest, a bully pinned furious to the ground.

Sort of exhausting, this story. Deep and treacherous and so beautiful. I was going to send it to a friend, but I think I’ll slide it onto the top shelf of my bookcase instead. I’ll keep it until another day when the images call to me again.

First Lines and Popsicles

Why the heck are beginnings so hard? I’ve looked at the first page of my YA novel in progress so many times, I’m sick of reading it. When my writing partner and I worked on our first novel together, we struggled time and again with our first chapter. We re-wrote it multiple times. I lost track, actually, of how many different versions we had. We’d think it was fixed, then one of us would drag it out again and decide it still needed work. So we’d tear it apart and rebuild, tuck it away and hope it was just right. And then the pattern would start all over again.

Sigh.

Then there is the classic question: To Prologue or Not To Prologue? Also just painful. I mean… Sayantani and I had this fantastic scene of a hunt taking place in the jungle, and it tied back into the resolution of the story so well! And I have a dream prologue that my main character just has to have to set the stage for RLR. But you hear that some agents and editors hate prologues…and it is the first thing they’ll see of your manuscript if they ask for the first five/ten/chapter/whatever. So the last thing you want to do is turn them off by having a prologue, right?

So…in honor of the beginning of Summer, I’m going to take a look at first lines for some of the books I have sitting in either my “to be read” piles or my kid’s summer reading piles. Just had a big trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday with my son, so we’ve got some good stuff racked up for summer reading. Maybe this will inspire me.  Here goes:

Middle Grade

Fred & Anthony Meet the Heinie Goblins from the Black Lagoon by Esile Arevamirp and Elise Primavera – “Fred and Anthony hung out a lot together, goofing off and watching horror movies.”

My Rotten Life, Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie by David Lubar – “It’s no fun having your heart ripped from your body, slammed to the floor, and stomped into a puddle of quivering red mush.”

Dragonbreath: Curse of the Were-Weiner by Ursula Vernon – “What’s your problem?” asked Danny’s best friend, Wendell, shaking him awake.”

Young Adult

Surrender by Sonya Hartnett (note: This one was a Prinz honor book) – “I am dying: it’s a beautiful word. Like the long, slow sigh of a cello: dying.”

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher – “Sir?” she repeats. “How soon do you want it to get there?”

Blood Red Road by Moira Young – “The day’s hot. So hot and so dry that all I can taste in my mouth is dust.”

So I should go write now. I’ll probably ignore my beginning today and work on something smack dab in the middle. (Middles are easier. Not easy…but easier. At least for me.) It is summer, after all, and too hot to get frustrated on a beginning. But maybe tomorrow…

You, too. Go write something. And eat a popsicle.