One of my favorite criticisms is when people say to writers, “Your dialogue is not realistic.”
The reason this cracks me up is because have you ever really listened to most people’s realistic dialogue? It’s pretty funny and makes a pretty bizarre book.
I took this verbatim from a Halloween sleep over at my house in pre-COVID-19 times.
Here’s the scene:
There are six 14-year-olds. They are making cheesy ghosts with olive faces. This is the dialogue. It is verbatim.
And this, my friends, is why us writers don’t have perfectly accurate dialogue in our stories. Are you ready?
The Words They Said:
Didn’t H– make show choir?
She didn’t make it. She tried it again in the spring and she emailed Mrs. Wright and asked her what to work on but she used all these big words so then H– didn’t try out because she was mad.
Oh no… Big words
She told her she needed to work on her voice and stuff.
No offense but she does
(Abby keeps singing.)
Guys do not be mean.
I don’t want to be mean.
Did you hear her solo?
It was good but she got mad after awhile.
She got sick of it after awhile because Ben told her to do something on her solo.
Is Ben the guy who runs the band thing with the saxophones.
No he does the drama.
I’m so mad.
Can we do it?
Guys we would be amazing.
I would do the choreography. I’m so tough.
The three of us. No the four of us.
What about me. You guys hate me!
No… You don’t do musical stuff.
No! All of us can do it.
Oh! I’m so foolish…
I don’t know how to shape the ghost.
You have a hard butt.
Look! It has a belly button.
I got bored so I put more olives on it.
All of my cheese fell-off.Abby keeps singing.
Abby will you shut up!
(Mallory joins Abby in singing.)
Oh my God, you guys. Emily’s ghost looks like a Pac-Man.
It is a Pac-Man.
Oh.
I decided to announce my geekiness to the world.
This is the dialogue, I swear.
As a former reporter, I know how messy it is listening to people talk.
Realistic dialogue isn’t always the point. The point is that you want the dialogue to make sense, to advance your plot, to show character, to make your story sing. People will always ding writers on dialogue because they’ll expect the dialogue to reflect the people in their own world.
But the thing is that we all don’t talk the same. Donald Trump doesn’t sound like Barack Obama who doesn’t sound like Joe Biden who doesn’t sound like Mike Pence who doesn’t sound like Kamala Harris.
That’s okay. Just try to hear your own characters’ voices, but more than that, listen to the voices that don’t sound like you and don’t think that they don’t sound ‘realistic,’ instead rejoice in that difference. It’s pretty beautiful.
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NEW BOOK ALERT!
My little novella (It’s spare. It’s sad) is coming out October 1 and if you pre-order it now, you can get the Ebook for .99 before the price goes up to $2,99. It is a book of my heart and I am so worried about it, honestly.
Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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In my earlier posts these past couple of weeks, both Steve Wedel and Mark Del Franco had some interesting things to say about point-of-view and tension.
So, in this final blog, I’m going to talk about that a tiny bit more and then give some quick hints about creating suspenseful stories.
Because like Jeff Deaver said it’s our responsibilities as writers to: Give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.
Although, to be fair I agree with Fawn Brodie’s sentence: Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity, and my flesh begins crawling with suspense.
Character is really intertwined with point-of-view.
There are two main point of views I’m talking about here, first person and third person.
Every day you live in your own point-of-view. Every day you are the main character of your story living out the suspense of your life. That’s the first person.
If you expand beyond yourself, use empathy and imagination to jump back into other people’s lives as well, creating a web that connects both, that’s more third person.
Or, you might end up in this book turned movie, I’m not sure:
Anyway, there are special problems with both point of views.
Issues with I Stories:
1. You know the narrator is probably not going to die, so there isn’t that mortal danger worry.
2. In first-person past tense it’s hard to keep it fresh, because the I of the story already knows what’s going to happen.
Good Things About I Stories:
1. You can use the ‘peril detector.’
2. The narrator’s fear moves the scene forward, increasing tension.
Issues with Third-Person Stories:
1. Sometimes it’s harder to get you to care about the character. There. Sorry. I said it. Haters get at it.
2. Sometimes, if you don’t do it well, switching around can actually ruin the tension and frustrate the reader.
Good Things about Third-Person Stories:
1. You can set up what’s going to happen, the crisis, the conflict, the scary by switching back and forth between the good guy and bad guy.
2. It’s very freeing.
I asked Editor Andrew Karre (currently executive editor at Dutton about first vs. third person.
Andrew said, “I think suspense is often important, but adding it to a manuscript tends to involve removing stuff and rearranging stuff. I think a clear, sequential, third-person story is rarely maximally suspenseful, so if suspense is in order, I think a meandering, unreliable first person is the way to go.”
Okay. Here are some take-away tips about adding suspense to your story.
They are summarized from an article by Vivian Gilbert Zabel, which is sourced below.
1. Make the main character someone you like but someone who can screw up. The reader has to care. If the reader doesn’t care about the character, the reader closes the book. If the character is perfect and can’t screw up? Then there’s no tension.
2. Make the plot a question and then “Make a list of all the possible reasons why the answer could be “no.” Those “no” answers become the focus of problems and obstacles – suspense,” Zabel says.
3. Make the hero have a really good reason for what she wants. Make her need.
4. Do that for the bad guy, too. Stories like Harry Potter wouldn’t be nearly so fun if there wasn’t the possibility that the evil wizard Voldemort might kick everyone’s butts.
5. Make things harder and harder for the hero. Make it get worse.
6. Pick the right POV for you and your story.
7. Try to make the story urgent. Imagine a bomb ticking down before the explosion. Make the story a race against that.
And there you go! I hope all these blog posts on tension help you out a bit instead of making you more tense.
SOURCES:
Luce, Carol. “Writing Suspense That’ll “Kill” Your Readers.” The Complete Book of Novel Writing. Ed 2002. Med Leder and Jack Heffrom. Cincinatti: Writers’ Digest Books, 2002.
Reynolds, William. “Keeping Them In Suspense.” The Complete Book of Novel Writing. Ed 2002. Med Leder and Jack Heffrom. Cincinatti: Writers’ Digest Books, 2002.
Personal Interviews with Mark Del Franco, Andrew Karre, and Steven Wedel, Sept. 2008.
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NEW BOOK ALERT!
My little novella (It’s spare. It’s sad) is coming out October 1 and if you pre-order it now, you can get the Ebook for .99 before the price goes up to $2,99. It is a book of my heart and I am so worried about it, honestly.
My Patreon site I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT. I also share some writing tips that are also going to be on Teachable as the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME and send people art.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
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I talked to Mark Del Franco about how he builds tension and suspense. According to his website, “Mark Del Franco spent several years in the publishing field in editorial and administrative roles and in the institutional finance field as a proposal writer. He currently is pursuing a freelance career in both these fields.”
SONY DSC
“Mark Del Franco lives with his partner, Jack, in Boston, Massachusetts, where the orchids tremble in fear since he killed Jack’s palm plants.”
What his website bio doesn’t say is that Mark is an amazing guy and masterful at first-person suspense.
So, Mark, what do you do to build tension in a scene?
I find tension one of the harder aspects of writing because I know what’s going to happen. Sometimes the execution surprises me—the scene I envision does not always result in the scene that gets written—but the bottom-line is that it’s not tense for me in the same way it is for a reader. So what do I do? I try and be a reader as I write. The crucial point of tension is something has to be at stake that the reader cares about or at least believes the characters care about. For me, that means setting a scene first–the visuals and why it’s important. Then I layer in the idea of the success or failure being equally important—it’s not tension if the result is not in doubt. Last, the pay-off has to work credibly–if something resolves successfully, the reader must feel that I haven’t cheated to get there (for example, “Poof! she waved her magic scepter”) and if something resolves tragically, the reader must not feel I stacked the odds to an impossible height to make a plot point (for example, “everyone died, but now he had a reason for revenge”). These three things overlap, but they do happen for me in roughly this order.
Is it a “big bang shock” sort of technique for you or you more fond of the “take the reader down the dark and sinister hallway” approach?
I like both! Both techniques have their uses and achieve different goals. I think the big bang is an after-effect technique. The Bad Thing happens, and the tension derives from how characters have to deal with it. The dark hallway is more front-loaded—we know something is coming, so the goal is to face it and the tension derives from whether the characters can prevent the Bad Thing. Both techniques, I think, are a test of character (in both senses of the word) that should make a reader care about what happens.
Do you think that it\’s easier to build tension in first or third person? And either way, as a reader (not as a writer) which do you prefer?
As a writer, I’ve been focusing on first person to date so I’m more comfortable with first (though a new novel I’m working on is in third). With first person, I have an easier time slipping behind my protagonists eyes and trying to imagine what would make things tense for me, then translating that to the page. I think this gives the reader a certain immediacy to the tension, too. Third person is a broader kind of tension in that I’m trying to make things tense for the reader and the character in slightly different ways while telling one narrative. Right now, as I learn my way through third person writing (and every novel is a new learning experience), I’m feeling that third person makes a higher demand for ensuring the setting tension is strong because the viewpoint is broader. As a reader, I respond more to first person tension. With third person tension, for some reason I tend to notice more the way scenes are crafted to create tension, but that may be due to the fact that third person has not been my main writing point of view so far.
If you think of suspense coming in different sizes (small, medium, super-ultra large) do you think it\’s best to alternate these or are you into the steady diet of massive (or tiny) suspenses in your book.
In a way, this is a broader issue of pacing and making decisions as a writer as to the type of book you want to write. My Connor Grey series tends to medium hits of tension that grow larger over the course of the novel until I hit the big one. That’s the pay off for myself and the reader—laying out a series of events that become more and more perilous until Connor must make the big decision on how to act. With my new novel set in the Convergent World, I’m looking to create a faster pace–I want my main character, Laura, to be put through her paces and prove she’s as good as everyone thinks she is. So, I end up throwing a lot at her. That increases the pacing and the way to do that is those steady hits of tension.
When you write do you think the nature of your suspense comes from your characters or from the plot?
As an urban fantasy writer that has focused on mystery, I hope the tension is in the plot! At the same time, I think (and hope) that there’s a level of character tension too since my main character learned he has feet of clay and is struggling to overcome that. How he becomes a better person–making mistakes along the way.
NEW BOOK ALERT!
My little novella (It’s spare. It’s sad) is coming out October 1 and if you pre-order it now, you can get the Ebook for .99 before the price goes up to $2,99. It is a book of my heart and I am so worried about it, honestly.
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And thank you SO MUCH to all of you have been so lovely and supportive about this little story. It’s really not like most of my writing, but it’s helped me win a couple of awards and things and it’s a story of my heart. Those are always so hard to release into the world.
Order Carrie Jones’s new book. It’s not BE BRAVE FRIDAY anymore, but I like this image. 🙂
The soul-wrenching story starts here….
Becca’s young life is about to change when she meets a boy in the playground, a boy who seems too magical to be real. Barely surviving at home, Becca’s new friend quickly teaches her what it means to have hope and faith.
A compelling novella that’s sure to resonate from the international and NYT bestselling author.
IMPORTANT BIT
It’s a really emotional small story so if you have any childhood abuse or trauma you may not want to read it.
Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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My first three books are hardly suspenseful in that Marvel movie way. There are no car chases. There are no end-of-the-world scenarios. They’re stories about identity and love with a little angst thrown in the side. They aren’t even in the typical story’s narrative arc.
So, you’re probably wondering why I’m blogging about suspense.
Because I like it.
I’m one of those writers who likes to try new things… ALL THE TIME. I am very easily bored, so back in 2008, I thought about what one of the hardest things for me to do would be. The answer was easy: WRITE SOMETHING SUSPENSEFUL.
And because of that? It’s why my NEED series was created.
It was hard. It was SO hard. But worth it. My first attempt (while not up at the suspense level of Stephen King or that guy who writes those books that become Tom Cruise movies) came out with Bloomsbury. It’s called NEED.
So when I was trying to figure out to do, I found a great article by Carol Davis Luce called WRITING SUSPENSE THAT’LL KILL YOUR READERS. For a couple of weeks, I’m going to talk about Carol’s points and hopefully expand on them.
And I’m inserting some old photos of my daughter, Em, and our old dog Tala to make it fun.
So, how do we write something suspenseful?
The first part is tension.
Tension is what keeps us reading.
Tension is what keeps us reading at 3 a.m. when we have to get up at 6 a.m. and go to school or work.
Tension is what makes us read a book while walking between classes. It makes us ignore the hottie across the cafeteria or even in our own bedroom. It makes us ignore the cute doggy next to us, the one who really wants to get walked.
Tala the Big, White Dog says, “I am the cute dog she’s talking about.”
Poor Tala.
Tension.
Without it, a book gets put back on the shelf, abandoned on the kitchen counter, forgotten in a locker, or possibly flushed down the toilet. Without it, dogs get walked.
According to Luce, “Tension is the act of building or prolonging a crisis. It’s the bump in the night, the ticking bomb; it’s making readers aware of peril.”
Or it’s what William J Reynolds calls, “I gotta know!”
Why Do Readers Keep Reading?
Your readers keep reading because the need to know what happens next is there. The tension is there. He calls a story without suspense “like coffee without caffeine – no kick and not very addicting.”
So, that’s what we’re going to be talking about for a couple of blog posts: Tension. Suspense. How to turn nice, normal readers into addicts who will open that door in your book (I mean turn the page) no matter what horrors might be there or what dogs might resent it.
The next few entries will be about techniques to put the tension back into your love life… Oops, I mean your stories. Your written down stories! Geesh. I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything to read last night and I had to read some book about love and relationships by the guy who started Eharmony. I have no idea how it got in my house, but it’s obviously impacted me.
Anyway, stay with me, and we’ll interview horror novelist Steven Wedel and some others. It should be a fun, tension-filled couple of posts.
Carrie: So tell me Tala, what do you think about suspense? Tala: Woof.
Carrie: You think that a dog’s life is hard enough and that the suspense of when we are going to actually take a walk… that suspense… that suspense is killing you and therefore I should stop blogging about how to put suspense in stories? Tala: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..
*One of the biggest tensions may be whether or not I get all these posts up and posted.
NEW BOOK ALERT!
My little novella (It’s spare. It’s sad) is coming out October 1 and if you pre-order it now, you can get the Ebook for .99 before the price goes up to $2,99. It is a book of my heart and I am so worried about it, honestly.
Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I posted this back in 2006 when maybe fifteen people were reading my blog and I knew them all in person, I think. But I thought it might be good for this week, too.
The official Banned Books Week is Coming Up! Are you ready?
Sparty Dog Approves These Tips
TIPS ON SURVIVING BANNED BOOKS WEEK
1. Remember, it’s okay to get ridiculously mad that people ban George by Alex Gino or Captain Underpants or Judy Blume’s Forever or Brent Hartinger’s Geography Club or The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas or anything by Carrie Jones (Okay. I added this last one in.)
2. Remember, it’s okay to think that it’s stupid for people to think kids (and adults) are so weak of mind that reading about a boy being a wizard will make them become Satan worshipers or that ready about potty mouths will make them about potty mouth and etc…
3. Wonder if you’ve ever met a satan worshiper. You know you’ve met a potty mouth.
4. Decide to google (YOUR STATE) Satan worshipers. Then decide not to, because it’s too freaky.
5. Go back to being angry about Banned Books.
6. Why do this? So you can be intelligent while you’re angry read: Kathi Appelt’s exceptional essay about the interplay of fear and banned books. If you can’t find it (Okay. I can’t right now), read someone else’s.
7. Tell your friends about the essays you’ve read.
8. Argue with someone who thinks it’s okay to ban books. Try not to swear at them and to not go all potty mouthed. It may be hard. Try not to lose your temper. That may be harder.
9. Think about how my favorite line from Kathi Appelt’s essay is “Fear, of course, has a twin: hatred.” Then go all fan girl over Kathi Appelt.
10. Go check out the always the important and insightful American Library Association’s banned and challenged book news and information.
11. Read a banned book. Do better than that. Read three. Buy one. That’ll show them. Who is them? The book banners. That’s who.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Very soon a little ghost story that I wrote will be performed and available via the magic of the InterHell (I mean internet) via the Penobscot Theater and I’ll post about that as soon as it happens because I’m super excited about it!
But it made me think of all the random ghost stories that have happened in my life that I tend to be pretty chill about. I’ve mentioned some here, but not a ton because I don’t want to be known as CARRIE JONES, THE AUTHOR WHO HAS TOO MANY GHOST STORIES.
Anyway, the quick one I want to talk about was when Em and I were in the living room gathering up her stuff for school and the TV just switched on all by itself. Seriously. Both the remotes were in full view. Nobody was anywhere near the TV or the remotes. No cats. No dog. No humans.
And it flipped onto this video of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley all in black and white singing a duet . I’ve embedded it here. But to make it even freakier these were the lyrics they were on:
FOR MY DARLING, I LOVE YOU AND I ALWAYS WILL.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
So, I am terrible at promoting myself because apparently I am an introvert. I know! I know! I don’t present that way at all, but I am a person who cringes when the phone rings.
But I am going to be brave and try because I love this story so much. Why? Because it’s about hope and faith even when things are impossible.
I HAVE A NEW NOVELLA!
But I have a book coming out October 1. It’s just an ebook because it’s small. It’s incredibly different from all the other books and stories that I’ve published, but I hope you’ll take a chance on it anyways because I love it terribly much.
It will be .99 on pre-order and 2.99 once it’s live.
And did I say I love it very much?
HOW YOU CAN HELP ME.
You can spend .99 cents and make Amazon think, “Wow! People are buying Carrie’s book.”
That will basically give me .35 cents. I can buy a stamp with that! So, that means when I send everyone holiday cards, you’re helping! Oh! You’re helping me and the post office.
You can write a review on Amazon after you read it. This actually really helps authors a lot. So much. Insert begging voice, “Please buy my book and review it.”
THE BOOK
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The soul-wrenching story starts here….
Becca’s young life is about to change when she meets a boy in the playground, a boy who seems too magical to be real. Barely, surviving at home, Becca’s new friend quickly teaches her what it means to have hope and faith.
A compelling novella that’s sure to resonate and leave a lasting impression.
Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
HOW I AM BEING BRAVE
This story won a few awards a long time ago, but it’s too short for traditional publishing really and it’s so different than what my readers expect from me that it feels…? Scary. It feels scary.
It’s hard to write something radically different sometimes.
And it’s also the story that helps me through my own grief, which is a deeply personal thing. So, maybe the reason I’m so scared is because it just feels so incredibly personal? Who know.
But I hope you’ll take a chance on it, check it out, and like it. And if you don’t like it? I hope you’ll still like me after you read it anyways.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
How are you doing this Friday? Are you being brave? Scared? Is there something you’d like me to cheer you on about? Just let me know!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
So about nine years ago, DEAR BULLY, the anthology of authors telling their stories of being bullied, or standing by, or being bullies was released. Carrie was the co-editor for this anthology.
And I am so proud of all the authors in there.
HEY YOU! AUTHORS! I AM PROUD OF YOU!
For a lot of them, it was a big act of bravery to tell their stories. For a lot of them, it was a big act of bravery just to survive.
I was thinking about that right now because our country (The U.S.) is having some major difficulties and bullying is the norm despite all the efforts and advocacy that happened back in 2009.
And there are truths in every single story of that anthology that resonate. Those truths are that pain is real, that actions and words can shatter us, that it’s hard to remember how awesome you are when people are telling you that you aren’t.
And there are differences in the experiences too. Some authors hurt more than others. Some used the experience to try to become stronger. For every one of us, the story is our own, and it is different. But one of the biggest, and greatest truths in those stories is that each and every one of us survived. We all lived to tell our stories. And if you are reading this right now or listening on the podcast that means that you have lived through too.
And here’s the thing. You must keep on living and fighting and trying to remember that you are awesome even when people are hating on you.
People hating you doesn’t change that you have worth.
People being violent towards you, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve respect, and tolerance and love.
People ignoring you on purpose, doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve to exist.
And the opposite is true. You don’t get to hate, to decide other people’s worth, to be violent and disrespectful either. We have to be the shiny light that we want in our lives.
Writing Tip of the Pod
What’s this have to do with writing? Well, it was an anthology of true stories from writers that Carrie co-created, but it’s also about what makes the best stories.
Hint: It’s not just having a beginning, a middle, and an end.
It’s about having a point. It’s about believing in something. It’s about being honest and having something to say, something that might be hard to say but needs to be out there.
Dog Tip for Life
Treat everyone the way you want to be treated. It’s as simple as that.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.
HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED
Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast as we talk about random thoughts, writing advice and life tips. We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!
Thanks so much for being one of the 252,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!
Carrie Jones Books is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!
IN THE WOODS, appeared in paperback in July with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
HEAR MY BOOK BABY (AND MORE) ON PATREON
My Patreon site I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT. I also share some writing tips that are also going to be on Teachable as the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME and send people art.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
I realized that I pretty much never post about bookish things on here, which is very bad in terms of marketing and things like that.
Grover: Cawwie, people will not buy books if they forget you’re a writer, you doofus. You can’t just post dog photos ALL THE TIME.
But before I am a writing coach and editor and even a podcaster, I’m a writer. I’ve been writing my whole life. It may have been poems or magazine pieces about cancer drugs or horses or newspaper articles about sports teams or land use ordinances and columns. It may have been YA or picture books or middle grade or even adult things.
Always. Always, I’ve been a writer. And even if I’m never published again (gasp) that won’t stop.
So, I’m going to remind myself about that a bit, and hopefully remind you, too!
A Baby Novella
I have a short novella coming out on Amazon really soon. I’ll tell you more about that at the end of the week, but for today? Here’s an excerpt of something I’m working on, so we can all remember I’m a writer. 🙂
The History of Hate
Colton
December of his and Anna’s Senior Year
Anna,
I don’t know where you are, or how to reach you, but I’m still writing you these letters. If you ever actually get them, the first thing you’ll probably wonder is why I’m writing you. The thing is, I don’t think I have a choice. I think I have to explain all this to you, whether you want to know or not, whether you want to hear it or not, whether you want to touch this, touch me, have me touch you. Or not.
I just have to explain and then maybe?
Maybe? I don’t know.
Love,
Colton
THE BEGINNING
Anna
February, Junior Year
What’s it take to rock an election?
It takes a good tagline.
It takes an asshole opponent, excuse my French.
It takes a narcissist, a cult leader, a come-to-Jesus moment. It takes that damn feeling of hope or vengeance.
It takes random people like me helping you and believing in you somehow even though we’ve been hurt by so many others we’ve believed in before.
Every four years all the presidential hopefuls come to Manchester, New Hampshire, the former mill-yard city next to my suburban town and they hope for magic to happen, for the New Hampshire hills and frost to lead them down a lucky road to an election win. The journalists and volunteers follow the candidates around, creating a surge in restaurant sales, filling up hotel rooms and parking lots. News vans with their little satellite dishes take up the parking spaces on the downtown streets. Sometimes candidates and even sitting-presidents come speak at my high school. They prance through the mall, shaking hands, while entourages stroll behind them looking like clumps of suits. Our more politically-motivated parents host parties and fundraisers. Cocktails are made. Hands are shaken. Position papers are recycled.
I always volunteer for some candidate, usually someone that doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning. It’s been like this since kindergarten. I get addicted to helping, to holding signs, sending out campaign mailers, making phone calls to those people who still actually answer their phones.
Dad says I’m a do-gooder.
Mom says I have a savior complex.
I don’t know if either of them are right, really. I just want to make a difference, you know? To believe in something bigger than romance and good grades and getting into college. And it’s exciting to be part of it. This year is no different. I can’t vote yet, which is ridiculous because most of the people I call from the phone bank have no clue about anything other than celebrity gossip, Fox News, let alone read an actual position paper. I meet campaign workers, make friends that I’ll only keep up with on social media and never see again.
But this year is super different because I meet him. Colton Hardy. And I’m so afraid of losing people, more people, that I don’t know how to actually deal with gaining one, you know? It’s like I’m afraid to make friends or fall in love because it’s just one more person I could possibly lose. I’m tired of grief.
But I’m standing on the corner of Elm and Maple streets, a totally prime spot because of downtown traffic and the wide safe sidewalks. I’m not holding an actual sign because I’ve put one on my dog Freya, which says Barkin’ for Larkin. She looks adorable. She’s large, white, furry and fluffy and the sign is on both sides of her. Despite her 120 pounds, she’s chill. People laugh, honk and wave. She wags at them and smiles.
“Brilliant,” says one of the guys standing with me. Art is nerdy and always wears J. Crew mixed with L.L. Bean. He normally goes to NYU but he took the semester off to campaign. “You’re made for this. I can’t believe you’re just a junior.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I dip my boot in the tiny snowbank at the edge of the sidewalk. The snow’s gone from happy and fluffy whiteness to crusty and gray.
“Thank you?” he suggests, using his free hand to pull his hat down over his ears. It’s cold out here. The other hand holds a campaign sign.
“Thank you.”
“Perfect.” He laughs.
I think he’s flirting but trying not to flirt because he’s in college and I’m still in high school and that’s a decidedly weird age dynamic, but I’m not into him anyways. I’m way more intrigued by the guy standing on the opposite street corner trying to hawk some posters that he’s obviously made himself. He’s young, too, like me—or at least he isn’t older-guy creepy and he has this weird, tall-confident vibe and a southern drawl that I can occasionally catch while he’s selling his merchandise. He’s so charismatic that people actually buy his posters and hug him afterwards.
The thing is that this guy also keeps looking at us and when there’s a lull in traffic he strides across the four lanes of Elm Street and right up to me.
“Hey.” His blue eyes are warm.
“Hi.”
“I’m Colton Hardy.” He reaches out a hand to shake. I take it. Ignoring everyone else, he bends down to pet Freya. She wags her tail. “Your dog is beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m selling posters,” he says. “Obviously.”
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t have any money.”
His mouth drops open and he stands up straight again, towering over me. “No! No. I was going to give you one for free, but … I? Well, I don’t think our political beliefs align.”
His whole body shivers for a second, poor guy. The tops of his ears are bright red. His voice is made of a silk that seems bordered with coffee and the pattern of his sounds are composed of fluid shapes, each containing this promise that seems to inspire trust, but despite all the cliched butterflies in my stomach, I am not a person who trusts because when you look closely at people you notice that they are made of pain and anger and garish wants, like bad TikTok posts that hit you over the head with their need to be seen, to be noticed, to be important.
“Our political beliefs don’t align? That doesn’t matter. That’s so nice of you. Free. Thank you.” I take the poster which is all about ways liberals and conservatives can come together, making fun of both sides. “You look cold. Do you even have a hat?”
“I’m from Alabama,” he says like that explains everything, which I guess it does and it doesn’t.
One of the women I’m with groans. This campaign has not been the best for human rights or America, honestly. One of the leading candidates says sexist, racist things constantly. The South is becoming a hotbed for liberals like me to hate on, which I get because of the confederate flag and the Jefferson Davis monuments and everything, but racists aren’t just in the South, sexists aren’t just running for president, homophobes aren’t just in one region of the country. They’re everywhere and I hate thinking that I’m going to generalize about an entire state or region the way that I don’t want others to hold bigoted notions about women or sexuality or religion or race or ability.
So, I do something stupid and when he asks me if I want to go out and get some food this weekend, I say yes.
We exchange numbers and he trots back to his corner, smiling. Freya gives him a bark goodbye and everyone I’m with starts muttering about how that was a stupid move.
“He’s harmless,” I say, trying to ignore that magic buzz of butterflies in my stomach, flapping their colorful wings into patterns of hope.
College Guy Art goes, all knowingly, “No man is harmless.”
“You’re a man,” I tell him and he crumples, laughing, because it’s like he forgot.
We all laugh with him as the first text from Colton comes in. It says, I can’t wait.
I close my eyes, try to see if the butterflies in my stomach are good or not and I almost imagine I can hear my dead niece’s voice whisper, “Oh, Anna. Not again. Seriously?”
There you go! Tell me what you think if you’ve read it! I hope you’re all doing well. There is so info behind the jump about ways you can support me. xo – Carrie
