The Imagination of the writer
When my daughter was six, she asked me if I would play with her. As she instructed me the proper way to play with her Little Ponies, she asked me why I didn’t have my own toys to play pretend with.
I can’t even begin to tell you the delight I felt when I leaned close, eyes wide and whispered, “Can I tell you a secret? Every day I play with my imaginary friends.”
She gave me the incredulous look only a child can and said, “I never see you playing.”
I pointed to my head, “That’s what I’m doing when I’m writing.”
“Ohhhh.” And she actually seemed impressed.
It’s a hell of a thing when you can impress a six-year-old AND your daughter all at the same time.
So now it’s time to lean in close to you my friend and whisper some secrets about the worlds I see when I’m creating.
You’ll find a strange dichotomy in my books.
On one hand, I love realism. I love using real street names, real restaurants found in the cities I’m writing about. I’ve had in depth conversations about how Italians eat with the seasons. It’s the reason readers always say they can easily imagine the world the main character finds themselves.
Now, on the other hand, I love the escape. (Even more so lately.) In my fictional world the rest of human kind is … reasonable. And because of my love for travel, is it any wonder my books are destination and adventure heavy? And in my pretend adventures, tourists are far and few in between in Italy during the summer months. Lines aren’t that long in the morning at coffee shops. Politics aren’t eating away at nations. There are reasonable, mature and ethical women and men who stand for something. Sure, I have forces of good and evil and bad things happen, but in my world, justice prevails over money.
And sex is condom free. (This is a whole blog post for another day. Although I don’t suggest it in the real world with someone you just met, I am writing FICTION and I assume whoever is reading my books wants an escape, not a moral compass on how to facilitate their sex life.)
The world I play pretend must be a place and story I want to escape into. I walk a fine line of pushing the story so it moves and moves and moves; and enough time to take a breath and soak up the sunset view of the Tuscan countryside. I work to make sure I’m not bored; because if I’m bored, my readers will be bored.
I also love playing with phrasing and syntax, style and wording.
When I wrote Tears of the Moon, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could write from different characters’ points of view without ever needing a chapter title that tells the reader whose point of view it is. (Though the job of a writer is to paint such a scene with pictures that your reader always knows where they are, who is talking and what is happening.)
When I wrote Shadows of the Moon, I needed movement, face paced words that matched the confusion and go go go feeling of the book.
In The Italian Holiday, I wanted the whole thing to be a pastel lit, dreamy sigh of a book. So I twirled the words, elongated scenes, touched on the small minutia of elements so the world and people were a dreamy (yet plausible) mirage.
So many of my books have CIA and law enforcement and other international intelligence agents; that I do just enough research that the storylines are plausible. My editor and I call it ‘Rom-Com Plausible’.
Though, my books do have elements of rom-com about them – it’s in the laughter; the romance is often on the back burner. I lean toward themes of female friendships, family relationships, and strong women working on continuing to strengthen their sense of self. All in the midst of some amazing, possibly ridiculous, destination adventure!
How do I do that? I make sure the details are just enough to be ‘rom-com plausible.’
I read an interesting article from Psychology Today that said “Writing fiction actively reshapes the brain by continuously building new neural pathways in regions responsible for language, social cognition, and memory. It strengthens your capacity for empathy and complex problem-solving.”
And on the flip side, according to an article in National Geographic about the brain; reading “is a complex cognitive process that acts as a full-brain workout, strengthening neural pathways, expanding your cognitive reserve, and boosting memory. It stimulates multiple regions simultaneously, forcing your mind to translate abstract shapes on a page into vivid concepts, narratives, and ideas.”
Is it any wonder why fiction is important? Not only to me, but to our health? It’s a literal practice between the two of us, me the writer and you the reader to exercise the heart of what it means to be human. We’re both stepping into the perspective of another human and building empathy, connection and boosting our cognitive health.
Or at the very least, we’re together in Florence, Italy. No long lines. Perfect weather. Walking our sightseeing weary feet over cobblestones that have been worn by the steps of Renaissance artists, philosophers, scientists, sculptors, and writers. We have all the time in the world to ask for outdoor seating at the world famous Gili Café where we order a cappuccino and a sfoglia. The handsome waiter also brings us sparkling water and another pastry we didn’t order, because he wanted to make sure we didn’t leave Florence without trying it. The Tuscan breeze brushes our cheeks as we fall deeper in love with the way the morning light emboldens the terracotta rooftops and peach facades within our line of vision.
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