Natalia M. Sylvester

It’s funny the random things we learn from. Last night, while watching supplements for the first Harry Potter movie (I think I’m one of the few who watch supplements, thanks to my film-loving husband), one of the writers said something that got me thinking. While adapting the book to a screenplay, he was impressed by the wealth of information J.K. Rowlings had about the world she’d created. He said that the book was like a tree that only those above the ground got to see, while Rowlings knew every detail of every root.

What a great way to describe the relationship between research and writing of any capacity. After all, you’ll never get a tree without the roots. And, even though they’re essential to a tree’s growth, the majority of roots stay underground, where no one would ever suspect how far down they reach, or how much they ground the tree. My first thought was that this is how crafting a character works in fiction—authors should know details about their lives that readers might not ever learn, but they’re the details that shape them.

But then I realized everything we ever write starts with a seed (an idea) before it spreads its roots (the research) and then branches out into a tree (the writing). Read the rest of this entry »

On a trip to San Francisco over Labor Day weekend with my husband, we were having Clam Chowder and Crab Dungeness at this  little bistro on the Wharf. The tables were small and very close to one another, and pretty soon, instead of focusing on how romantic it was, I found myself eavesdropping on the conversation next to my table. I couldn’t help it — they were talking books! And, I reasoned, it’s part of my work. The best way to write great dialogue is to listen to how people talk. It was a mini-lesson in in how dialogue can reveal character.

These two women, let’s call them Jan and Tina, were talking about Jennifer Weiner’s books. Tina had read only one of her books, but Jan was a huge fan, so she used the opportunity to talk for about ten minutes about Weiner’s entire collection, and what she liked/disliked about each and every one. Tina mostly nodded and smiled politely while Jan described at length and in unnecessary detail for this level of friendship, how her boyfriend was totally the same as the boyfriend in Good in Bed. The few words Tina got in to the conversation were “That’s usually what’ll keep me reading an author, if I can really relate to the people in them.” (Proof that you can say a lot with very little words, or say very little in a lot of words).

Jan kept talking about said boyfriend, then transitioned into yogurts, how she’ll only eat X type of yogurt and is thankful that X type got her into yogurts in the first place, because she knows yogurt’s good for her but has hated every other type she’s tried since. When the check came, she suggested they split the bill evenly, even though she’d had much more to eat and drink than Tina. Tina agreed.

I was fascinated because, had this been a book, there were many conclusions we could’ve come to about these characters. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I’ve had the urge to be a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire because of all the random facts I’ve learned from writing.

The number of miles a bee needs to fly to produce a pound of honey? 25,000. The inventor of the trapeze used in aerial dance? Terry Sendgraff. The two major types of stroke? Hemorrhagic and ischemic. That ought to get me at least $64,000, right? (Courtesy of a couple of feature articles and some marketing copy I wrote for a hospital.)

The funny thing with research is that if you do it right, you’ll do a whole lot of it, but not all of it will end up in your final copy. When asked to write about something you don’t know much about, the key isn’t to collect a ton of facts and later regurgitate them in your writing. Read the rest of this entry »