![\"\"](\"http:\/\/fourquestions.us\/images\/Shabbat31a.jpg\")
As any good Jewish person or FOJP (friend of Jewish Person) will tell you, the title above is the first of the four questions asked at Passover. \u00a0It was four questions that recently–and thankfully–changed the way I’ve been approaching my work in progress.<\/p>\n
I’ve been working on this thing for a long time–almost two years. \u00a0Throughout, people have had problems with the narration. \u00a0I don’t want to go into it too explicitly, but basically, I was keeping the narrator’s identity a secret with a big reveal about it at the end. \u00a0Those who have read chapters have expressed confusion or even frustration about this,\u00a0but I had always thought, “I can muscle through this. \u00a0I can see their objections, and I can work past them.” \u00a0This all changed last week when a friend read through the entire draft–one of about two people in the world to have done this, I think–and approached the problem in the manner of Passover: asking questions.<\/p>\n
They were pretty simple questions, but they got to the heart of the matter: how would I sum up this story in one sentence? \u00a0Why was I keeping the narrator’s identity a secret? \u00a0What would I lose by changing that up? \u00a0In answering these questions, I realized that the whole secret narrator thing was, heartbreakingly, more of a device I was hanging on to than something that really served the story. \u00a0In fact, what I thought might be most important in the story had nothing to do with a mystery and was not at all about hidden identity.<\/p>\n
(By the way, I don’t mean to be cagey about the identity of the recent reader. \u00a0She’s one of the most amazing writers I’m privileged to know, and I’ve been in agony awaiting her first book, which comes out in the fall. \u00a0I just think she’d be a bit abashed at my naming her publicly, so I’ll call her Dane, a joke that I think she’ll enjoy.)<\/p>\n I hope to learn by example to open peoples’ work up to them. \u00a0In the meantime, I remain grateful for the four questions and also look forward to my mom’s customary Passover dessert come April. \u00a0But that, dear readers, is another story for another time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As any good Jewish person or FOJP (friend of Jewish Person) will tell you, the title above is the first of the four questions asked at Passover. \u00a0It was four questions that recently–and thankfully–changed the way I’ve been approaching my work in progress. I’ve been working on this thing for a long time–almost two years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-book-of-the-dead","category-writerly-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicaleader.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gonemovies.com\/WWW\/WanadooFilms\/Misdaad\/UsualKujanRabin.jpg\")
I stress again that none of this should have been a huge revelation. \u00a0Just like Chazz Palminteri at the end of The Usual Suspects<\/em>, I started hearing voices and seeing images of people saying the same–voices whose words I could remember with shocking clarity for conversations that happened quite a while ago. \u00a0Grad School Advisor Margaret: “I’m not saying it’s not working. \u00a0I’m saying it’s not working yet<\/em>.” \u00a0Agent Elizabeth: “I’m not saying to give up on it. \u00a0But I am sounding an early warning.” \u00a0Critique group member Jen, over her frothy chai (okay, I’m making that part up; I don’t remember her beverage of choice): “I’m still not buying it.” \u00a0So–to throw in another question–why was my recent reader able to break through when these great responders–and they really are some of my favorites–couldn’t?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/img4.cookinglight.com\/i\/2007\/04\/0704p224-seder-m.jpg?300:300\")
So anyway, why the great breakthrough with Dane? \u00a0Part of it, I think, is time; I sent her the second draft, so I’ve had time to live with this story for a while and murder many darlings already. \u00a0But more than that, I think there’s a power to asking questions rather than making statements. \u00a0Goodness knows I can be a statement-y person–so eager to convince the writer that my idea is the right one, I might just rush in and declare my insight. \u00a0However, this might not always be the right choice. \u00a0Dane didn’t assume she knew what was best for my novel, and I shouldn’t do that for other peoples’.<\/p>\n