by Guest Laurel
Peterson
cj Sez: Today,
Lyrical Pens welcomes poet/novelist Laurel Peterson. Laurel is not a relative
of mine, but I believe she’d be a wonderful addition to the family. Take it away, Laurel.
Thanks, cj, for offering me a spot on your blog today. I’m
delighted to be here.
I had a wonderful professor in graduate school who said
poets couldn’t write novels, and I’ve read some novels by poets that bear out
his point. But I’m a poet with two published poetry chapbooks and a full-length
collection coming out next year from Futurecycle Press, and I’ve written a
mystery novel titled Shadow Notes, released May 17th by Barking Rain
Press. And there are others out there that have done both successfully—perhaps
some of you reading this!—so I’m going to challenge his thesis. I would say
that poetic focus can be an advantage in writing novels.
That professor, the poet Dan Masterson, had four “rules”
for poetry, which are equally as useful for novelists. First, he said, write
lines good enough to go on a t-shirt. While I think novelists don’t agonize
over each individual sentence in the same way poets do (we’d never finish our
novels!), we do care about our language. It must capture attitude or mood, as
well as conveying information. It can’t be the easiest word that comes to mind.
Instead it has to be the right one, and often has to convey multiple layers of
meaning. (cj Sez: That is so true,
Laurel. To quote Mark Twain: “The difference between the right word and the
almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”)
The second rule is to use concrete imagery: not he
walked by some pretty flowers (what kind of flowers? what kind of walk? how
pretty?) but he sauntered past a mass of delicate lemon-colored roses
spilling over a grey split-rail fence.
The third, an engaging story line. Well, that’s
self-explanatory, no?
The fourth, some center of emotional pain or truth. This is
the core of what we need to do as writers—communicate real human experience to
our readers. In Shadow Notes, my protagonist Clara Montague is afraid of
losing another parent, frustrated at her inability to talk to the one she still
has, lonely because she has returned to a town where she has few friends. Those
common human emotions draw readers to our stories and keep them there, rooting for
our characters to win.
Poetry teaches a writer to pay attention to details—the
right word, the right image, the most important moment to portray. All of us
who love words care about those things. So what do you think? Is being a poet
an advantage or a disadvantage when writing a novel? Thanks for reading, and
I’d love to hear from you!
Laurel S. Peterson is an English professor at Norwalk Community
College in Connecticut. Her poetry has been published in many literary journals
and she has two poetry chapbooks. Her first mystery, Shadow Notes, has
just been released by Barking Rain Press. Find her on Twitter
(@laurelwriter49), Facebook, LinkedIn, or at her website: www.laurelpeterson.com.
Clara
Montague’s mother Constance never liked—or listened—to her but now they have to
get along or they will both end up dead. Clara suspects she and her mother
share intuitive powers, but Constance always denied it. When Clara was twenty,
she dreamed her father would have a heart attack. Constance claimed she was
hysterical. Then he died.
Furious,
Clara leaves for fifteen years, but when she dreams Constance is in danger, she
returns home. Then, Constance’s therapist is murdered and Constance is
arrested.
Starting
to explore her mother’s past, Clara discovers books on trauma, and then there’s
a second murder. Can Clara find the connection between the murders and her
mother’s past that will save her mother and finally heal their relationship?
cj Sez: Thank you so very much, Laurel, for sharing this great
information with Lyrical Pens readers. I am not a formal student of
linguistics, but syntax and semantics are important to my writing, so, yes, I believe
being a poet is an asset. And with your attention to emotional detail, I expect
Shadow Notes to be the first of your
best sellers
