5 Things I Learned Writing To Sicily with Love

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

I’m a huge fan of Chuck Wendig, as both a reader and fellow writer. He hosted this blog for me at his amazing site, Terrible Minds, which I’ve linked to below. I’ve posted here for my Substack followers and fellow writers.

1. Trust your voice and process

I’ve written over fifty books yet each time I start a new one, it’s like learning to walk all over again. There aren’t many jobs out there where you can continuously doubt yourself even with a string of successes behind you and proof you can actually do the damn thing. The creative process is truly janky, and mysterious, and kind of magical, so I’ve learned one thing that’s like a rope line in a blinding snowstorm.

Trust.

When I started writing To Sicily with Love I felt completely overwhelmed. Out of my depth. I realized the book I pitched and sold featured a giant Sicilian family steeped in tradition and I had to not only construct a bunch of characters that leapt off the page, but make them all different, set in a culture I simply didn’t know much about.

I also promised my editor the story would be light-hearted, even with the death of Aurora’s mother, but damned if I didn’t find myself in the muck of grief and darkness as my heroine found herself simply incapable of being her usual fabulous, goal-oriented self.

After a brief panic that I was delivering the exact book my editor didn’t want, I relied on the only thing left. My trust to chase the story, no matter what emerged. So, I shut down the monkey mind whispering I could never do this right, and let my voice guide me through. I went to the dark places of regret, grief, and loneliness. When I got stuck in the details, instead of committing to my usual process of writing linear, I jumped around and wrote certain scenes that called to me. I blew up the secure, traditional way of creating a story and trusted with this book, I needed to do something different.

It worked.

Sometimes, you need to go in blind with a story and trust you will get there on your terms.

2. Setting is a character.

When I first began writing, I hated setting. I wanted to get straight to the good stuff, like dialogue and sex and action. But I realized as I wrote bigger and deeper novels, I needed to up my game. Setting is not just a background where your story takes place. If done well, it becomes another character, and can add an important element readers love.

I learned to slow down and pay attention. I learned to savor not only what I can see and describe, but the taste, feel, and scent of the world surrounding my characters. Readers want escape, and whether it’s a spooky, dilapidated lodge in the mountains during a snowstorm, or the lush earthy hills of Tuscany, our job is to make our readers feel like they are there.

Setting shouldn’t be a distraction from the story. It should be part of it. Whether you write about a cupcake festival in a quirky upstate farm or a six course meal served at a crowded pine table with loud Italian relatives talking over one another, put me there. And please allow me to taste all the food.

Receiving endless letters from readers who tell me they got hungry reading my book, or planned a trip to Italy because of my story is the biggest payoff and worth all the work.

3. Research your shit.

It’s so hard not to get lazy with research, unless you are a writer who loves it. For me, I don’t mind a little, but with To Sicily with Love, I found myself in the deep end of the pool. I hadn’t gone to Sicily. It took me forever to finally find the perfect town in Sicily for my setting, and I’d get frustrated after hours spent online with no new words.

But it’s a critical part of process. In order to write the story well, I needed to know not only the surroundings of the town, but where people ate, how people made a living, how they thought and spoke within the small community. I refused to allow people who’d visited Sicily to read my book and find a bunch of errors or mis-information.

I put a call out to my readers asking who went to Sicily and if they had relatives there. I spoke with many on the phone, took endless notes, and pored over their pictures. I used maps, blog posts, videos, and watched everything I could find.

I learned the process of olive oil making. I learned about the fish market. I learned how jewelers make precious coral.

And all of this research led to rich, detailed scenes in the book that leapt from the page.

Research is a delicate balance. Use it to enhance the storyline, but be careful not to get so excited about what you learned, you throw in too much detail and drown the reader.

4. Emotion is key.

When my writing goes off course, as sometimes it does, I bring myself back to the most important element that drives every single book I write.

Emotion.

I can have the most gripping plot and fascinating characters, but if readers don’t care, the story will be flat.

This means digging deep into a character’s mind and dragging out all their secrets. What they want. What they fear. What they dream. And what they believe is getting in the way.

Goal, motivation and conflict needs to be wrapped up in emotion. A character behaving in an interesting way will remain flat on the page unless we dig deep underneath the skin and make them human.

With Aurora, after losing both her parents in tragic circumstances, her perfect life she was so proud of is blown up, leaving her doubting everything she thought she believed in. I needed to allow myself to revisit and process my own grief, depression, and roller coaster of emotion I experienced when I lost my dad. A writer needs to be brave to unearth their own monsters to give life to the characters.

It can be the difference between a good book, and a great book.

5. Use theme to create a better story

Theme is like the smoke that drifts from the pages of a story but is hard to grasp. I like to compare theme to a luscious gourmet meal, moving from appetizer to dessert. Theme makes a reader feel full and complete at the end of a book.

Themes can include elements such as family, friendship, second chances, home, betrayal, chaos, forgiveness—any big type of subjects we deal or struggle with in our lives. It can be broad or narrow.

I’ve used themes while planning my book and deciding what I wanted to explore. I’ve also written my entire book before realizing what my themes were. Then I go back and layer the scenes with that specific theme in mind. Books can begin with one planned destination, then lead to the wild unpaved paths one never intended. The surprises are a reason I love my work so much

When I began writing To Sicily with Love, I knew my themes in the book would be grief and forgiveness.

My heroine, Aurora, travels to Sicily and meets her grandfather, who had cut ties with Aurora’s mother after she ran away to get married. Aurora resents him for abandoning her mom. He’s gruff and curt, giving off the impression of non-caring. As the summer unfolds, they form a tentative bond, which deepens over time, mirroring the relationship between the grandfather and mother.

Both relationships from the past and present rely on forgiveness. Aurora must forgive her grandfather and mother. Her grandfather must forgive her mother. They must both forgive themselves for actions that led to regrets. It is a full circle of forgiveness, given to the reader within the relationships. It’s played out with subtlety, threaded into each building scene and pulling the overarching pieces of the story together.

Digging into the theme you’d like to explore in your story is a vehicle to create a richer, more dynamic story.

That’s it! Thanks for reading! See link to go and check out Chuck Wendig’s direct site.

Terribleminds