Bell, Book, and Scandal

know. It makes it a history text, not a novel. My own rule of thumb is when I find some fact that makes me slap my head and say ‘I never knew that,’ it’s what should go into the book. If I didn’t know it before, probably many readers don’t know it either and will be pleased to learn it.“
    Jane wrote this down in her notebook and underlined it. She remembered making a house plan and leaving out bathrooms. She had had to do a lot of research to find out what sort of “facilities“ her imaginary house would have had in the time period and may have gone a bit overboard describing them in her manuscript.
    The introductory remarks having been made, the speakers then called for questions from the audience. Jane was surprised to learn that many of the aspiring writers in attendance were quite ignorant about the world of publishing. Some of them asked downright silly questions, like would submitting their work on pretty colored paper make them noticed.
    The panel overwhelmingly agreed this wasn’t to be done.
    Another asked if she should copyright the work herself before submitting so nobody could steal her work. This struck Jane as absurdly arrogant.
    This also met with a negative reply from all three of the speakers. “If the work is good enough, it will be purchased, not stolen. And the publisher will see to having it copyrighted,“ the grown-up editor said.
    Most of the rest of the questions were either trivial or about technical things, like whether to use single or multiple viewpoint.
    Jane came out of the session revived and cheerful. For one thing, she’d realized she still had a lot to learn. More important, she already knew more than most of the other aspiring writers.
    Shelley’s session had ended slightly earlier than Jane’s, and she was waiting outside the door of the meeting room with a big batch of notes to hand on. “It’s a good thing I’m a fast note taker.“
    Jane glanced at the notes and said, “You sure are. But some of this you’re going to have to translate for me. What does ‘D and A’ mean?“
    “Delivery and Acceptance of the finished manuscript, of course. Was your session good? You look like yourself again instead of half dead.“
    “It was wonderful. I can’t wait to tell you about it.“ Jane pulled out the brochure to double-check. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to the viewpoint meeting. I think I still have a lot to learn about that. You can still go to the one about ‘The Grammar Demon,’ whatever that means.“
    Shelley gave Jane a quick hug. “I’m so glad you came and let me come along. This is so good for you, and even I’m enjoying it a lot. See you at the luncheon.“
     

Nine
     
    Jane discovered that the seminar called “Everything about Viewpoint“ was more interesting than she’d expected and was glad she’d picked it out to attend.
    There were only two speakers, both successful writers.
    The first speaker was a very pleasant woman in her mid-forties, who, like one of the speakers in the previous seminar, had started in romance before turning to mystery. Orla Witherspoon said, “I was used to third person, single viewpoint. If you’re not familiar with this term, it means the whole story is told from one person’s point of view. But in the third person, as in ‘Susan looked around in awe at the scenery and found it beautiful.’ “
    People in the group either nodded or scribbled in their notebooks.
    Jane smiled. The reactions told a lot about who were the “girls“ and who were the “women.“ Ms. Witherspoon went on, “When I started the first book of my first mystery series, I continued this just because I was in the habit of doing so. But it became onerous. I was ending up with all sorts of convoluted statements like ‘Susan looked at Joe and suspected that he wasn’t telling the truth.’ “
    “Or,“ she went on, “ ‘Andrianna was apparently a very shy woman.’ Having a whole book full of `suspecteds’ and ‘apparentlys’ and ‘possiblys’ and ‘almost-certainlys’ and ‘it-seemed-asifs’ is tedious and boring to both the writer and the reader. And it puts too much emphasis, in my opinion, on one character. The richness of fiction, to my mind, is learning how characters feel in their own minds.
    “I was fortunate to discover this,“ she continued, “before I turned in the manuscript. It’s always best to start as you mean to go on. I decided I, and the reader, would both like the book better if I did