I was browsing through a little bookstore in D.C. when I ran into an interesting book. It was called China in Ten Words. The Table of Contents had me at hello. Here’s what it looked like in all of its glorious simplicity:
- People
- Leader
- Reading
- Writing
- LuXun (Must have no good translation in English)
- Revolution
- Disparity
- Grassroots
- Copycat
- Bamboozle
Some of the words, like Bamboozle, made me want to buy the book just to see what the author would write about. When I leafed through the introduction, here’s what the author told me: “My goal, then, is to compress the endless chatter of China today into ten simple words; to bring together observation, analysis, and personal anecdote in a narrative that roams freely across time and space; and finally to clear a path through the social complexities and staggering contrast of contemporary China.”
If you’re scratching your head searching for the perfect ten words to describe your book’s content, don’t worry; simple is actually harder than it looks.
But I’d like you to consider your book, or the pieces you’ve created thus far, in terms of objects. What one object would serve to summarize the story you tell?
Let me tell you what I mean.
When I was driving along the highway in Connecticut years ago, I fell behind a mini Cooper with a license plate that made me hit the brakes. It was one of those vanity plates with two words on it: Xin Loi. It’s a long story how I know this, but Xin Loi means “I’m sorry” in Vietnamese.
Even before I passed the car, I knew exactly who I would see behind the wheel: a 70-ish-year old man with close-cropped hair, a smoker, someone with a tattoo on his arm. But more than what he looked like, I knew who he was: A soldier who had done at least one tour in Vietnam, who had done something horrible there that still haunted him. Vietnam had been the chapter that defined this older man’s life.
That one object told me an entire story.
We constantly look for clues as to who we’re dealing with in our everyday lives. It’s why we snoop through medicine cabinets and examine the trinkets on someone’s desk; why we study the bookshelves before we decide to go out on a date with someone.
An object can not only represent a person, but it can also tell a bigger story. My mother is a bottle of Maalox and a chalky spoon. She swallowed the stuff like it was going out of style, along with the emotions and words that caused her ulcer. My father is a violin; it’s the instrument he played in the basement whenever he drank. My brother is Blitzkrieg, a weird little game with a thousand cardboard pieces, which he would play on his bedroom floor because he had few close friends.
When we begin our first drafts, our job is to get the situation down on the page. The story, the deeper meaning, usually comes much later. When we create a narrative, we get the setting in place, and the characters. We have them say things to each other, move their bodies in such a way as to express emotion, and do things to drive the story forward. In the beginning, we list objects, or personal details to fill the space. We take a snapshot of the room and throw some interesting things on the wall, or on a nightstand.
But there comes a time when you want to consider your choices. The right details or objects can do some very heavy lifting. They can save you pages of exposition.
What does the lazy Susan filled with vitamin bottles, the one on the kitchen table, say about the woman who lives there? What do we know about a character from his ponytail, or his crew cut? A $9,000 handbag tells you what about the owner? What story does a braided rag rug tell you that a Persian rug doesn’t?
Look around you. Notice what draws your attention and the stories you tell yourself.
And this from the author Matt Selesses: Use recurring images/objects to ground the reader. A birthmark or deformity or dyed hair or simple dimple that we can be reminded of, can bring up the entire picture of a character we had when we first met her. An object in the story can be used to remind us of various storylines, or to remind us of theme. Objects can be attached in the reader’s mind to these things, and when they come up in the story, they can point us in the right direction or keep us aware of something that might otherwise fade into the background.
