by Gayle Bartos-Pool

When I first moved to Sunny Southern California in the early Seventies, I decided I should take acting lessons. Not that I thought of taking Hollywood by storm, after all, I was no glamour girl or even thought I had any latent acting ability.

My only claim to fame by that time was playing Girl Number Two in a high school production of Sabrina Fair. I had maybe two lines, but I did get a few laughs when my character had to feign a headache to make another character think that was why me and the Boyfriend, another minor character, were out on the patio getting some fresh air. I guess I did the funny bit of business well enough to get a chuckle from the audience. As for the girl who played Sabrina, Trish Stewart went on to an acting career in Hollywood. She was in the short-lived TV show with Andy Griffith called Salvage 1 and a recurring role on The Young and the Restless.

But a television career wasn’t why I wanted to take acting lessons. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to know what writers needed to learn about writing dialogue and thought acting lessons would give me an insight into all those words actors should be saying on stage and on the screen.

I got an agent, a job… and a life lesson. I saw an ad in the newspaper about an exclusive acting class being taught by a couple of people from Hollywood. I use the term “exclusive” because the class cost money. It was several hundred dollars, so I thought it was going to be really good. Well, one of the guys who was to run this class ran off with the money. Many people were screwed. The other partner who was as surprised, if not as screwed, as the rest of us, took pity on little ol’ me and asked if I would like to be the nanny cum housekeeper for him, his wife, and his four kids. I needed a job, so I said yes.

This guy was a talent agent. A real one. One of his clients had been Agnes Moorehead. Another client was James MacArthur. I actually met James when he flew into Hollywood from his gig in Hawaii doing Hawaii 5-0. James kept his little sports car in my boss’s barn on their property in Encino. His battery was dead, so he asked if he could borrow my little VW and go get one. I tossed him the keys and went back to my nanny/housekeeper duties. Their house was always a mess, so the three days a week I worked over there I tidied up and played with the young kids, all of whom were pre-school or in elementary school.

During the nine months I worked for him, he got me into an acting class. The first class was taught by Bruce Glover. Old Bruce has been in a bunch of movies like Diamonds Are Forever and Chinatown and just about every TV series during his forty-year plus career. Something you might notice when he is in a movie is the fact that he makes sure he is either somewhere in the background of any scene even if he isn’t the guy doing the talking or while doing his scene he makes the most of it. In that I mean he is always doing some bit of business to capture the attention of the viewer. Sometimes the director will yell “Cut” and stop the attention grabbing, but many times that little extra shtick is the cherry on top of a scene.

And what does this have to do with writing, you may ask? It’s just this: Sometimes the writer needs to make a minor character more interesting by giving him or her a quirk, a trait, a personality. They don’t have to stay on the page or the screen all that long, but isn’t it fun to read or see a character who isn’t cardboard?

I still use that little trick I learned from Bruce about instilling a few minor characters with some unique trait just to make them more interesting and memorable. In fact, there are several characters that started out in a minor role who ended up with a much bigger part. Bruce would get a kick out of that fact, because he often said that “extra bit of business” might lead to an expanded role.

In the opening of my novel Caverns, the policeman who discovers the first body mauled by large rats in underground Chicago was to be a minor character if not just a “walk-on,” but I liked him so much he became one of the leads. In Hedge Bet I had originally picked one character to be the guilty party, but then I thought her character had only limited depth. This other character had far more opportunity for mayhem because he kept turning up in all the right places, so his part was expanded and he even had the original suspect bumped off.

In my Johnny Casino Series, I introduced an aging actress in one of the first short stories in the first book. I liked her so much, she kept coming back along with her butler who had a past to die for, so he turned into a charming regular, too. See, there are no small parts. Those little traits we write into our characters end up with a life of their own.

That brings me to the second acting class I took. The talent agent I was working for thought I might like to try another class taught by a couple of guys he admired. The guys were Rudy Solari and Guy Stockwell. Rudy starred in Garrison’s Gorillas. As for Guy Stockwell, he guested in just about every TV series there was for decades.

I have mentioned in other articles how Rudy had us actors write a biography of the character we were playing so we had an idea who our character was before we stepped onto the stage. You would have to make this stuff up, but the script gave you a lot of information and the genre of the piece would give you more parameters. To this day I write a biography of my main character and sketches of other people in a story. This will help you remember who everybody is, how they look, their age, and important details that you might need later. You don’t want “John” twenty-five years old on page 34 with blue eyes to turn into “John” forty-five years old on page 76 with brown eyes. It keeps you on track and if you bring the character back in a sequel you don’t have to read your first book to acquaint yourself with those facts.

But something else was gleaned from Rudy’s class. Improv. There is nothing like your acting teacher asking you to get up on that stage and do a scene with another actor with only a few words describing the scene. The one scene I remember doing was when another actor and I were to be an abusive husband and the long-suffering wife having a conversation. “She could kill him” was my prompt.

I started out playing the meek wife taking his abuse, but I kept countering his jibes with subtle remarks. When the scene was over and Rudy said “Stop,” he walked over to me and asked what I had in my hand. I had taken a piece of paper with me to the stage. It was probably what I wrote notes on, but it was in my hand, but as Rudy noted it had been folded and folded until it looked a bit like a knife. I hadn’t realized exactly doing it, but my character sure did. Scary? Maybe. But characters do have a life of their own. Give them free reign and see what they come up with.

The other interesting time in acting class was when my good friend and fellow actor, Karen Markham, and I were doing a scene from The Odd Couple. Let me digress for just a second and tell you a story or two. It’s relevant.

Rudy thought it might be interesting to have women play the lead in that play and later movie and even later a fabulous TV series written originally by Neil Simon. Rudy asked Karen and I to do a scene from the play. We christened Karen’s role as Esther (Oscar) and I played Felicia (Felix). We did one of the earlier scenes in the play. We rehearsed quite a bit and thought we had the roles down, but you know actors. Digging deeper into a role is always better.

We decided we should take the act “on the road.” That meant that we would go someplace “in character” and see how we did. There was a bar fairly close to where the acting class was, so we went there after class one night. It was a hangout for actors and stuntmen called The Drawing Board. We went in, Karen as the men-loving gal who always had a smart remark and me as the meek, penny-pinching woman who found dirt everywhere.

I ordered a Harvey Wallbanger. (You aren’t the only one who liked them, Paul D. Marks.) Before the bartender set it down, I cleaned the spot in front of me. I complained openly about Esther making a spectacle of herself and Karen gave it back to me in spades. When the bartender told me how much my drink was, I gasped at the high price and said that I wasn’t buying drinks for the entire bar. Karen told me I was a penny-pinching old maid. The bartender laughed and then said, “Talk about the odd couple.”

Well, I broke character and laughed. Several of the guys around us took notice and I confessed that we were actors rehearsing our characters for Rudy Solari’s acting class. They got a kick out of it. Oh, and I didn’t have to pay for the drink. Don Stroud, the actor who starred in The New Mike Hammer and a million other TV shows, picked up the tab for Karen, and stuntman Paul Nuckles bought mine. We never had to pay for a drink in the place after that. Nice guys.

So back to my original point. Karen and I knew our roles. We knew the characters. We did the scene for Guy Stockwell one evening at the acting studio and he liked it, then he asked how well we knew the scene and did we know each other’s part? Yes. Next he said, “Switch roles.” We did. Karen played the fastidious Felicia and I played the ballsy Esther.

We did it without a hitch and to tell you the truth, it was exhilarating. We were totally free. No constraints. Exactly what your characters in your stories should be when you give them free reign to be themselves. You know who they are. You wrote a biography for most of those main characters. Now let them take you where they want to go. That’s the point I am trying to make in this article.

You will be surprised when you free a character to speak his own mind or let her go where she really wants to go. Trust them. And maybe take an acting class to let you see what dialogue and character on the hoof is like. You’re out there on a stage and the words are alive. Make your characters come alive as well. They will love you for it. And so will your readers.

Guest Post by Bonnie Schroeder*

“A decade ago, I sent a short story to “The Bark,” which is a super-cool, glossy magazine for “dog people.” They rejected it, but the editor wrote a note on the form letter: “We encourage you to keep writing, as you have an interesting voice.”

Those words sustained me through many dark times when I questioned my goal of getting published. This year, after my short story “Vigilantes” took First Place in the Idaho Writers Guild’s Short Story contest, I decided what the heck, let’s try again.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I got an email from “The Bark,” offering to publish my story–and they even paid me for the rights!  It is a short story about a lonely widow and a dog locked inside a car on a sunny day.

This has been the highlight of a busy year so far. In addition to the Idaho Writers Guild contest, I had a flash fiction piece published in Rose City Sisters

Furthermore, I have finished a solid draft of Turn Back the Clocks, my new novel, for which I’m seeking a new publisher. Alas, Champlain Avenue Books, the fine company that published my first two novels, has ceased operation, so I’m back on the hunt. Never fear, I’m determined that this book WILL be published, one way or another. I think it’s an important story and one that has real relevance for our time. So stay tuned!

That’s what’s going on in my world. Hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.

Cheers, and I’ll let you know WHEN Turn Back the Clocks is in print.”

*Bonnie Schroeder is a former member of The Writers In Residence and has posted here many times in the past. (Use the search box in the upper right to find her posts.)  Since her move to the great North West, she has opted out, but follows the blog and says she misses our monthly lunches.  We have promised her a special spot when her next novel is published, with a “tell all” about the extraordinary research that went into it.

November has been a busy month for Bonnie. She has committed to extra duties in her new Toastmasters Club as well as participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge,  a joint venture with a friend where each does a quarter of the 50,000 words.

Bonnie’s website: Bonnie Schroeder Books

This article was posted for Bonnie Schroeder by Jackie Houchin

by Rosemary Lord

Paddy’s House was finally open for visitors. It’d been long enough. For 3 or 4 years, during our summer and winter visits, my siblings and I had peered through endless tall shrubs and overgrowth at the seemingly abandoned house, wondering what was going to happen to this magical home in the middle of nowhere. It was at the water’s edge of the remote little town called Kardamyli in Greece’s southern region of the Peloponnese.

The house had belonged to British-born writer Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor – known as Paddy to friends and followers. A great traveler and adventurer, at age 18 in 1933, he walked across Europe, from Holland to Constantinople. He was travelling through Germany just as Hitler came into power and carried on to Greece at the outbreak of World War II, when he joined the Irish Guards. Having learned several languages along the way, Leigh Fermor joined the S.O.E and fought to help free occupied Crete.

Many years later the film Ill Met By Moonlight retold this wartime episode, with Dirk Bogard playing Sir Patrick.

Patrick Leigh Fermor’s first non-fiction book was The Travellers Tree, followed by his only novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques which was published in 1953. His later books about his travels include Mani, Roumelli and A Time of Gifts. These he wrote first in longhand at his Kardamyli retreat.

Paddy began building this charmingly beautiful, rambling Kardamyli House in 1965. He paid the local youths a penny a rock to gather small and large boulders from around the craggy area and help him create a rustic hideaway. He wove rock and pebble designs throughout the floors inside and outside in the meandering seating areas. Stone benches abound, each with a different inspiring view of the sea or the towering Taygetos mountains behind the property. A series of individual guest rooms surround the main house. In the centre of the house is the large living-room with long built-in, comfy seating at either end, under the windows that cover the length of the room and overlook the craggy rocks leading down to the turquoise waters of the Messinian Gulf.

In the ensuing years Paddy and his wife Joan played host to writers Lawrence Durrell, John Betjeman, Henry Miller and painters Picasso, John Craxton, Ghiko and other literati of the day, inspired by the surroundings. This was how ‘Paddy’s House’ got its reputation.

Now Paddy’s house has been lovingly restored. It is light, airy, simple and very welcoming. Just the place to hide away and write a book. It was finally opened to the public this October and exhibits his vast book and art collection and is once again a writer’s retreat. Writer guests are chosen by a panel from UCLA, Princeton and the Banaki Museum, sponsors of this refurbishment.   Elpitha, Paddy’s house-keeper for his final eleven years after his wife Joan died, gives private tours and shares glimpses into Leigh Fermor’s life. She would clean for him, cook his favorite moussaka dish, drive him places and told us that he would clamber down to the sea and swim each morning until not long before his death in 2011 at the age of 94. He spoke mostly Greek to her.

Patrick Leigh Fermor certainly had a full, well-lived life, as his books tell. Living in such a remote part of Greece – or anywhere in the Mediterranean area – would seem like a perfect place to inspire creativity; to write and paint. Or is it? It certainly is a wonderful respite from the hustle, bustle, traffic and cacophony of Hollywood or London – for a week or two. A wonderful place for me to meet up with scattered family members. A chance to relax, recharge one’s batteries and catch up on sleeping, eating – and writing. But I realize that I find my inspiration from my surroundings. The everyday tales of those I meet. The lengthy chats about youthful adventures. The revelations of the history of our surroundings.

I really look forward to my sojourns with no thoughts of any time-keeping. Instead, timeless days spent wandering through olive groves, exploring ancient ruins and unfamiliar towns. Or walking along the deserted beaches, watching the distant tide creep in and turn to crashing waves and then, later, marveling at the fierce summer thunder and lightning storms in the night. Hours spent enjoying free-flowing conversation over a simple, leisurely meal. What’s not to like? But would I want to live there?

I have a feeling that, were the opportunity to arise, I would get little work of any sort done in those surroundings. Especially writing. At my impending return to the ‘civilization’ of Hollywood, I relish the chance for another fresh attack on my next book. I look forward to sitting at my newly re-ordered and de-cluttered desk. It awaits all of the inspiration gathered during my travels. A new blank page waiting to be filled with fresh ideas and newly remembered forgotten words.

What’s not to like? How do you re-charge your batteries?

My post today is about “depth and richness.” [i] And as usual, the road getting here is twisting and curving. This particular writing thought path started for me this last August, with a Jackie Zortman post on her blog, Jackie’s Mountain Memos. It is the most lovely post, and the link is provided below[ii]. Besides Jackie sharing her past memories and her present day touchstone to her family, there are several lovely oil lamps pictured in “This Little Light of Mine.” I’ve collected a couple lamps myself from antique stores, and I find the unknown memories and possible past family events associated with the lamps, intriguing and compelling when it comes to story-imaginings.

Then recently at a High Desert Book Festival discussion on what inspires authors to write about the desert, I talked about those courageous and tough individuals that came before us, how tough it must have been, and how lucky we are to have benefited from their pioneering efforts. (Such as in my current Rhodes series.)

Then from another direction,[iii]—there are past discussion I’d read or participated in—on whether pottery was Art versus craft. I always sided with art, and now as I move more down my writing road, once again I’m siding with art. So, how can we  make our writing-tapestry[iv], more alive, more colorful, and more textured?  More artful? Fancy flowery talk I know—but at the core, I think, a true and solid goal.

In a nutshell, the key here for me is how the past is influencing, determining, and controlling how our characters are experiencing their present. And on all levels, physically, emotionally, and proactively even–such as in determining what they do in the action part of our story. Indeed, I very much think our metaphorical writing tapestries then become more colorful, more textured–more a work of art.

In my reading, I love it when the author brings the past into a current story; which for me, not only brings an emotional touch of nostalgia to the tale, but also a richness to the current world happenings–as they are layered upon past events–and the contrasts between those two worlds. The past is no longer just background for what’s about to happen—but key to understanding current world character’s thoughts, emotions, and motivations. Why the heck they’re doing what they’re doing.

My bottom line point is, past events need to come through on a personal level through our characters eyes and heart. Not cardboard characters with simply narrative pasts, but living, breathing pasts that are part of their being, and make them full-flushed-alive as they experience their present. I know, I’m talking about characters as if they are actually alive. They are, aren’t they?

Happy writing trails.

[i] From Webster online–Tapestry: A piece of thick textile fabric with pictures or designs formed by weaving colored weft threads or by embroidering on canvas, used as a wall hanging or furniture covering. Used in reference to an intricate or complex combination of things or sequence of events.

[ii] https://jtzortman.wordpress.com/2019/08/25/this-little-light-of-mine/

[iii] Trying to figure out if and how to get back into pottery.

[iv] I know the picture is not a tapestry, but a rug–but it is the closest visual I have.

by Gayle Bartos-Pool

Part Five – Finding the Right Word

Stephen King said “Any word you have to hunt for in a Thesaurus is the wrong word.”

I beg to differ, Mr. King. Here’s why. If I have used the same word ad nauseam in several close paragraphs, I just gotta find another word. Your computer writing software usually has a few suggestions when you Right Click on Synonyms. And I have a really nice Thesaurus that I will turn to if the computer doesn’t come through.

But, come on, guys. We’re writers, authors, novelists, playwrights, wordsmiths for crying out loud. Words are our life. Personally, I like adding a few new words to my vocabulary every so often. And I definitely want to use some fresh, innovative, new-fangled words when writing just to shake things up a bit.

I’ll stumble over a boring, colorless, lackluster word when doing one of the many edits I complete before sending out a book for publication. The troublesome word will be sitting there like a wilted piece of lettuce, limp and begging to be tossed into the garbage…. (And, yes, I did use the Thesaurus on a few of the words in this recent paragraph just to make the point.)

So why not use the sources available and pick another word so you don’t sound tedious, uninteresting or just plain _____________. (You fill in the blank.)

Polishing the Gem

Part Six – Picky Picky

Last, but not least, be picky about your work. Agonize over a word or sentence or paragraph until you think (or even feel) that it’s the right choice. Feeling’s okay, too. Your name is going to be on the work, so why not do your best?

Something I have mentioned before might be of help when doing that last slog through those thousands of words you have put on paper. Ask yourself three things:

Does it Advance the story?

Does it Enhance the story?

Is it Redundant?

These questions make you re-think aspects of your work. If you have a long section of dialogue that doesn’t add anything to the plot and it doesn’t get your characters any closer to their goals, cut it or rework it.

Idle chatter between characters about the weather or their latest boyfriend over tea or yet another lunch at the local tearoom can become stale especially if the weather doesn’t change, no storm is brewing, and the boyfriend’s body isn’t buried in their backyard. Make sure most of what your characters talk about actually has something to do with the story.

As for enhancing the plot or even who your characters are, take note: If a long section of great descriptive passages doesn’t set the stage, but rather clutters it up, trim it or make sure you don’t keep piling on more and more of the same thing every few pages. You might like all your great descriptions of period furniture or sweeping landscapes, but after a while it stops the action. When it’s done well, it is a joy. Too much detail starts sounding like a boring college lecture course. You know, the class you fell asleep in when the teacher droned on for an hour about one more Roman army siege of yet another small village in ZZZZZZZZZ.

Wake up!

Here’s another point: Enhancing your characters personality or description or painting a beautiful picture of the scenery in your story is great as long as you don’t keep putting too much makeup on the characters or clutter the scenery with too many trees so you can’t see the forest. You want a stunning image, not layers of paint.

As for the redundancy part, during your final read-through as you are editing your work, check to see if you have said the same thing twice. During your final read-through as you are editing your work, check to see if you have said the same thing twice. (See how redundancy gets to be a problem? That sentence was in there twice.) Whether you repeat yourself in the same paragraph or page or chapter or throughout the book, it gets old and your reader will think you are either padding your word count or not paying attention.

As you polish your gem, remember another thing: if you file off the rough edges, sharpen the angles, and buff out the dull areas, the reader will come back for more. Everybody admires a beautiful jewel. Write On!  (And Read On Below)

Let me add one more little tidbit. Several years ago I published The Anatomy of a Short Story Workbook. It was to accompany a class I taught by the same name. It is a quick reference to writers as to how to get those few chosen words on a page in a short story as well as a novel, screenplay, or even an article you might be writing. As a member of The Writers-in-Residence group, I have also written many blogs on the art of writing. Many times I just expanded on the points I made in the Anatomy book. Recently I compiled those many blogs into a new book: So You Want to be a Writer. It gives some history to my own career and some expanded thoughts on writing. You might find it helpful in your writing journey.