Stories and understories

Reaching the beginning of the end

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Last week I typed the words “The End” on the draft manuscript for my second novel. Don’t get too excited—I still have a long revision-laden road ahead, followed by figuring out a path to publication. But it did feel good to get my characters to the finish line.

I reached this milestone in the middle of a transformational week at a small writing workshop in Italy, where I got to study with one of my literary heroes, Luis Alberto Urrea. If you haven’t read Luis’ work, I urge you to add his books to your to-read list as soon as you finish reading this post. As New Orleans and other cities brace for an invasion of ICE agents coming to snatch up our neighbors, his borderland-set prose and poetry couldn’t be more timely. Plus, his wonderful novel Good Night, Irene, based on his mother’s service with the Red Cross during World War II, is a touchstone for my own work. As a teacher, his generous spirit, expert guidance, and constructive—yet kind—feedback provided critical inspiration and validation for which I will be forever grateful.

Home last week was Spannocchia, a rambling, thirteenth century stone house on a working farm that centers sustainable agriculture.

A theme that ran through the week and that’s especially meaningful to me is what Luis calls the “understory.” It’s important to write compelling characters, demonstrate conflict and stakes, and supply a plot that holds a reader’s attention—those are table stakes. But the books I like best also have a “shadow life,” a current that flows just beneath the surface of the story, moving it along and carrying whatever flows in from the tributaries. I just finished reading Karen Russell’s stunning novel The Antidote, set during the Great Depression but with an understory about reckoning with history that rings as true and relevant as today’s news. To me, that’s what the best fiction does. That’s what I aim to deliver.

With my fellow Washashore Writer Robin Rivera, on a break at the writing workshop.

Of course, there was wine and great food (it was Tuscany, after all) along with the nerdy fellowship of new writer friends, all of us striving to finish our projects and usher our stories out into the world. I’m grateful I had the means to spend a week there, a birthday present to myself as I stumble inexorably toward my Medicare birthday next month. I took home a notebook full of wisdom, thanks to post-dinner craft talks and workshop sessions with other faculty (big thanks to Stewart O’Nan, Ann Hood, Laura Lippman, Michael Ruhlman, and our fearless leader, Sam Hood Adrian). I’ll be incorporating a lot of new tips and lessons into my work, adding to the toolbox I’ve been assembling since I started working with Allison Alsup back in 2018.

Now on to the home stretch: beginning-to-end revisions to iron out glitches, ensure flow and continuity (especially important in historical fiction), ruthlessly eliminate any remaining fluff, and snuff out weak words, phrases, and sentences that detract from the story. I’m more fired up than ever to finish this book, and I can’t wait to share it with all of you. Andiamo!