…you are giving us a unique perspective in class by studying Blackbird. I wonder how many NYT best-selling authors would be so honest about perceived flaws in their work and in so doing give us baby writers some practical knowledge from your experience. Thanks.

~ Richard Peeples, SII

Welcome:

In this post, I tease back the outer wrappings of my first book and share where I got things right and where I missed the mark.

Yes, Blackbird did well. 500,000+ in sales. Oprah. International publication in 20+ countries and languages (I personally love the Japanese edition most).

But success doesn’t make me, or my work, immune to closer examination. In fact, I miss out on serious growth by not looking closer. As Jane Smiley writes in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel: “All books have problems.”

True. True.

There are pros and there are cons in all creative writing, but to believe that even the most successful Pulitzer Prize Winner doesn’t have issues is missing a huge growth opportunity. This is demonstrated here on Flight School again and again with closer examination of works from Anthony Doerr and Percival Everett, to name a few. Check them out, and see how I lean into the classic tools literary discernment: Value. Structure. Plot.

Go to this link for foundational teachings on all of these or simply get started with Bones. It’s a class that will change your writing life.

The video on this post is a discussion among SII writers (a long term workshop) which asks the question: Did this book go the distance or not?

Value. Structure. Plot.

In the study of a memoir or a novel, the first step is focusing on the primary character or the protagonist.

In Blackbird, it is “Jenny” age 6-11, and I’ve laid the forward moving story on the W chart I use in class. It’s not the only structure tool but it works when we are getting started:

Value

Based on the setup in the first few chapters, the core value (loyalty) can be seen in Jenny’s motivation. Double checking myself, I pull up the Principle’s of Antagonism from Bones of Storytelling.

If loyalty is the core value it will drive the story through split allegiance, betrayal, and self-betrayal. And it does: We start with loyalty to the sick and dying mother, and when the mother dies, loyalty continues through protection of objects left behind (jewelry and a photo album). When the step-mother enters, Jenny goes into split allegiance, giving her loyalty now to her father via a rationalization that he is well-intended but lost, even blind, by grief. Then comes the father’s profound betrayal of Jenny when he sends her to a summer camp and leaves her there after she tries telling him about abuse she’s experiencing. Because this betrayal cannot be born by the child, she tips into self-betrayal after the father dies by telling herself the story of his being a “good man” despite how he’s left her (and her brother) at the mercy of the step-mother after his death. The stepmother tried to break through this blind loyalty and tells Jenny “Your father was not a saint,” but again, Jenny continues her path of destructive loyalty.

Blackbird ends with Jenny “betraying” herself in the final scene when, on a Greyhound bus and shipped to an unknown future, she fantasizes her dead father rescues her—something he didn’t do when alive and with ample opportunity to do so. Why then, would he rescue her in this fantasy? This is the last, brutal tell. She cannot, will not, face the truth about her situation for doing so would likely shatter her more than events have already done.

Structure

Now I have the core value, I can study the structure of the book I wrote and in doing so, spot the core issue which is that overall, the story drags. Translation: It’s slow. Why? What went wrong? Based on the value, the answer is easy now.

The inciting incident—the mother’s death needed to happen by pg. 100, but instead I get there at pg. 173 (28 pgs. from the mid-point).

The mid-point (the father’s death) should happen at pg. 200 but is pushed down to pg. 287. It is then on pg. 321 that the stepmother ditches Jenny in the commune but it should have happened between pgs. 200-250.

Interestingly, the climax (Jenny witnessing the birth scene) comes “right on time” on pg. 370 when she lifts above her own “loyalty fog” and the stories she’s telling herself to experience the profound grace of ultimate truth which is that—despite her personal sorrows (and she has many) everyone is interconnected by this powerful love that she feels in the room at that moment new life enters the world before her.

Plot

Now we have value and structure, what is the plot of Blackbird? This becomes the litmus test of going the distance. If it hits the basic plot structure (below), I have my plot.

I feel confident Blackbird is Voyage and Return—Jenny falling down the rabbit hole when the family moves from Nevada to California and emerging “shocked,” like Peter Rabbit. Let’s double check.

Corresponding to the above chart, the story lays out in this way:

* The death of the mother is the launch, directionless, for Jenny and it is violent and shocking.

* Life with step mother is puzzling and unfamiliar and yes, identity starts to disappear when she’s abused at the summer camp, continues at the death of father.

* In Northern Ca. she faces worse and worse situations with collective abuse and rejection

* Left to fend for herself in Central L.A, she gets sick, hears voices, things getting worse and worse

Birth of babies awakens her, then rescued by aunt and uncle and sent back to family in Nevada. She’s circling back to the idea of father as rescuer and then grandfather confirms it.

In sum, Blackbird did “go the distance” in two categories. Value and plot. Where it dropped short was structure. That’s two out of three and so, I’ll give it a C+ or a B-. Where it excels, without doubt, is in the application of scene (here’s that conversation) and voice. These two elements, as the video conversation shows, helped the reader overlook the structural challenge and stay connected to Jenny and the overall story. So, in the end, not bad.

✍️Your Turn:

Are you able to name the core value and track how it manifests (in your scenes) in the contrary, contradictory and negation of negation line? If you cannot, what’s keeping you from getting there at this time? Answer in the comments below. Let’s talk.

Thank you for being with me and if you’ve made it this far, consider how these kinds of depth teachings might serve your own work. This entire project, here on Flight School, is to spark your deepest hunger for solid, smart, accessible teachings that help you take your own creative writing project the distance. I’m ever on the hunt for earnest writers. If you are one of them, let’s talk.

~ Jennifer, 🐦‍⬛

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