I may have missed the window here by being out of town for Father's Day weekend

[Stewart_ONan]

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Bonnie824 wrote:

I tried skimming some of the questions/responses before posting, so I got the idea you based this novel somewhat on two or more different cases and I already knew you had researched missing/murdered people crimes well.

So, my actual question is about how you write. Do you generally base novels on news type ideas you expand on and change to fit fiction formats? Did you make up any of your books strictly from imagination with no real story/stories behind them? and Do you think you might right a true crime non fiction book one day?

TIA

Bonnie

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Most of my writing comes from the imagination--characters, scenes, etc--but in most cases I do use real-world settings which I research.  Occasionally I'll run across a story in the newspaper (say, about a Red Lobster closing) and I'll find it interesting and let it soak until I can figure out how to approach it, but most of the time I'm making things up and combining them with the contraints of the real world.

I haven't ever thought of writing a true crime nonfiction book, but if I see a story that really calls for that approach, I'd try to go that way. 

[bentley]

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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vivico1 wrote:

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BookSavage wrote:

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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BookSavage wrote:

Thanks so much for joining us in this discussion. I will admit off the top that I did not enjoy this book at all. I hope that does not keep you from answering my question though. I have many questions about the way you wrote this book, but I will confine it to one for right now. Why did you choose to not include more about JP? I really liked his character and wanted to become connected, but felt like he never developed and participated enough in the story to allow me to do so. Thanks again for joining us in this discussion.

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Thanks for reading the book. Sorry you didn't like it better.

J.P.'s relationship with Kim is the least intense, in that he's already kind of lost her before she disappears. Their understanding is that they'll split after the summer, and he's been wounded by this, and so he's been holding himself apart from her. Her disappearance changes this, perversely, to a closer (idealized, guilty) relationship, but eventually he drifts away from her (and from himself, it seems) after learning about Wooze and surrendering to his helpless crush on Nina. So in a way his development is negative, falling away from her and away from the center of the book, though Kim's place in his life will be indelible. So naturally, toward the end, he gets fewer pages, proportionally, than Lindsay or Fran or Ed or even Nina, whose feeling grow deeper and stronger with time.

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Wow! I did not see JP that way at all. I really felt as though his relationship was the most intense. Amazing how differently I read it to the way you wrote it.

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I agree with you. That shocked me because I never would have thought of his part as being the least intense! See, now if we could have gotten inside someone in the story more, maybe we would have got this but from what I read, I even thought he might be a first person narrator because of what I presumed were his feelings, especially being hated so by Fran, which was never explained and I still don't get. Ok, this book really has left me now with the feeling I did in fact read a news story about a girl going missing and I have no more insight into the players then I do when I hear it on tv or from others and get what little I did feel wrong. What a book could do about this kind of situation, this one just didnt do. I think I just read a bad Lifetime Special. Oh well. I give.

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Please see my comments to booksavage about J.P.

Fran dislikes J.P. because she sees him as a bad influence on Kim, and has from the start of their brief relationship.  He's a long-haired, bad-grade-getting dude from across the tracks, not exactly a great catch in Fran's eyes.  Fran is unhappy about Kim's partying, and since she's out partying with J.P. all the time, and presumably sleeping with him, she sees J.P. as someone who could ruin her life (since Fran's plans for Kim include her going to college, getting a good white-collar job, getting married, having children, etc., whereas J.P. seems to have no direction and is from a lower economic class--i.e., he lives with his mother in a neighborhood the Larsens have long ago abandoned).  That's just to begin with.  As the action progresses, Fran comes to hate J.P. because she believes that he introduced her to Wooze and to drugs and sold drugs with her (which he did), and then lied about that to the police, thereby interfering with the investigation into Kim's disappearance and making it that much harder to find out what happened to her.

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This was a stunning explanation concerning JP and the above was very helpful.

Thank you, Bentley

[Stewart_ONan]

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DSaff wrote:

Hi, Stewart! Thank you so much for sharing your book and time with us. I have to admit that I hadn't read any of your books before this one, but read "Last Night at the Lobster" in preparation. I also have "The Good Wife" waiting for me, and have enjoyed your style. I hope I am not repeating  questions that have been asked but, have you always wanted to write or did you fall in love with it after actually starting the process? Do you love/hate (have favorites) any of your characters and why?

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Thanks for trying the Lobster too, and for your kind words.  I was trained as an aerospace engineer and was working as a structural test engineer when I wrote my first stories (in my basement after work).  I've always loved reading, and I guess at some point all those writers I love inspired me to cross the line.  Two favorite characters of mine are Marjorie from The Speed Queen and Jacob from A Prayer for the Dying because they took me so far into their weirdness that I can't quite figure out if I love them, hate them, or both.  Probably both.

[Stewart_ONan]

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niknak13 wrote:

Mr. O'Nan,

I apologize if any of this is repetitive. (I find it hard to read through every post)

I really enjoyed your book.  Along with others, I found it frustrating.  But, in a real way.  It did feel like a work of nonfiction.  I commented on another board that it reminded me very much of a story that would be featured on Dateline or a similar program.  We knew what others knew or thought of Kim.  It was a mystery in the truest form.  I was very afraid that you were going to end the novel without Kim being found.  I'm very glad that you didn't do that.  But, I could have seen it going that way and I think I would have been ok with it because the rest of the novel seemed so real and unfortunately, many people go missing and are never found.  I'm from Illinois and kept thinking of the Stacy Peterson disappearance. 

My question is . . . Did you every consider writing an ending without Kim being found? 

Thank you for sharing your work and your time with us!!

Message Edited by niknak13 on 06-17-2008 01:27 PM

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Thanks for reading the book, and for your comments.  Yes, early on I wasn't sure exactly which way it would go.  I mean, I knew Kim had been murdered, but I feared, as the Larsens did, that she might never be found.

[the_mad_chatter]

Hi Mr. O'Nan,

This weekend I read a quote from Charles Darwin that basically said that it's not the strongest nor the most intelligent that survive but those who can adapt.  It made me think of your story because we are rooting throughout the book for each character to survive the horror of Kim's disappearance and there are certainly few adabtable charaters in your book. 

We've had some great discussions about the book and I hope you'll take some time to read a few threads.  I've enjoyed the heated debates and passions and would like to thank you for all the clues. 

Bravo!

[Stewart_ONan]

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COCOSPALS wrote:

Hello Mr. O'Nan,

After previewing a passage from Songs and knowing it would be weeks before it arrived, I read Last Night at the Lobster.  I truly felt like I was tucked away in a corner booth watching the action and interaction amongst the characters. I could see the storm outside, I could hear the characters talking and I wanted so badly for the manager to just walk out with a memento from the restaurant.  Then Songs arrived and I was so disappointed. I just couldn't relate to any of the characters, except JP. And maybe that is because I have two boys and can see them feeling "lost" and seeing them being taken under someones wing which is what I feel Kim's dad did.

Gayle

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Thanks for trying the Lobster, and for your kind words.  Sorry you didn't like Songs.

[Sdf1966]

Mr. O'Nan,  I just want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book.  I loved it so much that I am looking forward to reading some of your other books.  Please keep up the great work!  Denice

[Stewart_ONan]

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the_mad_chatter wrote:

Hi Mr. O'Nan,

This weekend I read a quote from Charles Darwin that basically said that it's not the strongest nor the most intelligent that survive but those who can adapt.  It made me think of your story because we are rooting throughout the book for each character to survive the horror of Kim's disappearance and there are certainly few adabtable charaters in your book. 

We've had some great discussions about the book and I hope you'll take some time to read a few threads.  I've enjoyed the heated debates and passions and would like to thank you for all the clues. 

Bravo!

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Thanks--and a great point.  Their adaptations change  and maybe even warp them, and then there's Ed, who basically can't change and just have to keep living even though most of his world is gone.

[Stewart_ONan]

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Sdf1966 wrote:

Mr. O'Nan,  I just want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book.  I loved it so much that I am looking forward to reading some of your other books.  Please keep up the great work!  Denice

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Thank you so much.  I usually suggest Snow Angels to people who haven't read the others, but that one's mighty dire too.

[Stewart_ONan]

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bentley wrote:

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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bentley wrote:

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Everyman wrote:
Thank you again, Stewart (if I may be so informal) for your incredibly generous gift of your time and information. I'm impressed that you are spending so much time here, that you are obviously not only reading but thinking about all the posts made, that you are giving complete and thoughtful answers to all the questions, and that you are open to and not defensive about comments from people who had concerns about the book.

I am very impressed both by you and your editor.

And I'm glad to see that you got your apostrophe!

---

I am "also" glad that they got your name right and you got your apostrophe (I looked again and saw that they did not and alas won't). You have a great editor and he was most gracious with his time as you are being. I have to disagree with you about the characterizations and the lack of details; but I understand the point you are making from your perspective. However, what you are stating was your intent is often the fault that is cited with modern day writing by some. Readers finish a book and they really can't tell how they felt about it. It leaves them feeling out of sorts; not a good feeling..not a bad one either. There can be strong emotional empathy with the situation or not; but at the end they still did not have any facts to go on. As a reader, I felt the same way when I completed The Sister (another advanced reading copy)as one reviewer mentioned. And I for one never thought your book was about the details but about the emotion you were creating. There were many parts of SFTM which were very quietly powerful and I applaud you for that.

I think that everyone here has spent a good deal of time "trying" to get to know your characters; but there were details that were in fact included which do not add up and others that were not included that should have been (MHO).

Your explanations tell us the reasons and your intent and I respect those of course. I wish you the best with this book and appreciated the opportunity to read and discuss it with fellow board members and with you. Thank you again.

Bentley

Message Edited by bentley on 06-17-2008 09:49 AM

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I'm not sure I'd lump this one in with "modern day writing."  The approach I'm using has been the industry standard since Flaubert, and is valued for its clarity and intimacy.  True, many writers still cling to the Victorian omniscience of Dickens (or, later, Conrad), but its archaic heaviness tends to infuse any subject matter with a kind of comic overkill ("The lieutenant's heart sank as he gazed over the smoking remains . . .).

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Stewart,

That is obviously not what I meant; but I am sitting her smiling. I do not see this very Flaubert like; nor did I feel intimate with the characters aside from the growth that I did see in Nina and Lindsey. I read a great deal and I read all kinds of books from a variety of authors both classical and modern. And I certainly did not have in mind the example you chose.

What I have shared is what many others have tried to share; I did feel that your book as I said previously was more about the emotional climate you were creating rather than about the details; because there really were very few regarding Kim and why or how her unfortunate incident occurred.

I actually like your writing style (sentence structure and the like); however, I was quite clear in previous posts to the one which is quoted above what I felt was lacking and why. And I noticed there were quite a few others who felt similarly. On the whole, it was a satisfying book for me. I enjoyed the experience and the discourse and once again thank you for your response. I wish you the best with SFTM and wish you every success in the future.

Bentley

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Thanks--yes, absolutely true, the book is about the emotional climate rather than why and how this happened to Kim.  The real and lingering consequences of these too-common events.  Thanks again.

[Stewart_ONan]

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bentley wrote:

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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vivico1 wrote:

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BookSavage wrote:

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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BookSavage wrote:

Thanks so much for joining us in this discussion. I will admit off the top that I did not enjoy this book at all. I hope that does not keep you from answering my question though. I have many questions about the way you wrote this book, but I will confine it to one for right now. Why did you choose to not include more about JP? I really liked his character and wanted to become connected, but felt like he never developed and participated enough in the story to allow me to do so. Thanks again for joining us in this discussion.

---

Thanks for reading the book. Sorry you didn't like it better.

J.P.'s relationship with Kim is the least intense, in that he's already kind of lost her before she disappears. Their understanding is that they'll split after the summer, and he's been wounded by this, and so he's been holding himself apart from her. Her disappearance changes this, perversely, to a closer (idealized, guilty) relationship, but eventually he drifts away from her (and from himself, it seems) after learning about Wooze and surrendering to his helpless crush on Nina. So in a way his development is negative, falling away from her and away from the center of the book, though Kim's place in his life will be indelible. So naturally, toward the end, he gets fewer pages, proportionally, than Lindsay or Fran or Ed or even Nina, whose feeling grow deeper and stronger with time.

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Wow! I did not see JP that way at all. I really felt as though his relationship was the most intense. Amazing how differently I read it to the way you wrote it.

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I agree with you. That shocked me because I never would have thought of his part as being the least intense! See, now if we could have gotten inside someone in the story more, maybe we would have got this but from what I read, I even thought he might be a first person narrator because of what I presumed were his feelings, especially being hated so by Fran, which was never explained and I still don't get. Ok, this book really has left me now with the feeling I did in fact read a news story about a girl going missing and I have no more insight into the players then I do when I hear it on tv or from others and get what little I did feel wrong. What a book could do about this kind of situation, this one just didnt do. I think I just read a bad Lifetime Special. Oh well. I give.

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Please see my comments to booksavage about J.P.

Fran dislikes J.P. because she sees him as a bad influence on Kim, and has from the start of their brief relationship.  He's a long-haired, bad-grade-getting dude from across the tracks, not exactly a great catch in Fran's eyes.  Fran is unhappy about Kim's partying, and since she's out partying with J.P. all the time, and presumably sleeping with him, she sees J.P. as someone who could ruin her life (since Fran's plans for Kim include her going to college, getting a good white-collar job, getting married, having children, etc., whereas J.P. seems to have no direction and is from a lower economic class--i.e., he lives with his mother in a neighborhood the Larsens have long ago abandoned).  That's just to begin with.  As the action progresses, Fran comes to hate J.P. because she believes that he introduced her to Wooze and to drugs and sold drugs with her (which he did), and then lied about that to the police, thereby interfering with the investigation into Kim's disappearance and making it that much harder to find out what happened to her.

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This was a stunning explanation concerning JP and the above was very helpful.

Thank you, Bentley

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Hope it wasn't too stunning.

[bentley]

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This was a stunning explanation concerning JP and the above was very helpful.

Thank you, Bentley

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Hope it wasn't too stunning.

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You are making me smile again..I wish you would just get winded enough from another post to breakdown and explain your thinking about Kim. Still in their pitching.

Love the details about JP. I understand your intent so much better and JP too.



Bentley

[Tarri]

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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Sdf1966 wrote:

Mr. O'Nan,  I just want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book.  I loved it so much that I am looking forward to reading some of your other books.  Please keep up the great work!  Denice

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Thank you so much.  I usually suggest Snow Angels to people who haven't read the others, but that one's mighty dire too.

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Thanks for the recommendation, I bought Wish You Were Here as soon as I finished Songs for the Missing,so I'll definitely look for  Snow Angels too. 

One of my friends lost his 18 year old daughter in much the same way as Kim disappeared, and you so caught the reactions of family, police, acquaintances, and friends, it was like you knew them. 

[Stewart_ONan]

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bentley wrote:

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This was a stunning explanation concerning JP and the above was very helpful.

Thank you, Bentley

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Hope it wasn't too stunning.

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You are making me smile again..I wish you would just get winded enough from another post to breakdown and explain your thinking about Kim. Still in their pitching.

Love the details about JP. I understand your intent so much better and JP too.



Bentley

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See, now I'm the one smiling.  My thinking about Kim is that she's the missing center of their lives, just as she's the missing center of the book around which everything revolves, eternally.  As long as there are questions as to what exactly happened to her, the people closest to her will always want to (need to) know those answers.  And THAT is what the book is about--the need and the inability to know, and how these people (how we) live with that.  Long after the book ends, Ed and Fran and Lindsay and Nina and Elise and J.P. and Wooze will still be living with that.

\

[Stewart_ONan]

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Tarri wrote:

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Stewart_ONan wrote:

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Sdf1966 wrote:

Mr. O'Nan,  I just want to tell you how much I enjoyed your book.  I loved it so much that I am looking forward to reading some of your other books.  Please keep up the great work!  Denice

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Thank you so much.  I usually suggest Snow Angels to people who haven't read the others, but that one's mighty dire too.

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Thanks for the recommendation, I bought Wish You Were Here as soon as I finished Songs for the Missing,so I'll definitely look for  Snow Angels too. 

One of my friends lost his 18 year old daughter in much the same way as Kim disappeared, and you so caught the reactions of family, police, acquaintances, and friends, it was like you knew them. 

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Wish is a quiet one (and a looooooong one).  A good book to read on vacation.  Pick it up, put it down, read it at night, come back the next day.

I'm so sorry about your friend's daughter.  It really is the worst nightmare I can imagine.

[shesha35]

I can finally join in the discussion.

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the book.It's my first and will definately be picking up another one.

I think you really captured how a family and friends go through something like this.I was just hoping that once they found Kim there would be some hope of the fractured family getting some therapy and maybe coming together a little bit more.I'm a sucker for a happy ending and i wanted Lindsey to finally feel good aboout herself and not like she was second best.But your book was very heartwrenching i wanted all the characters to finally feel some peace.In my imaginaton they do.Do you have teenagers? You write there thoughts and actions so well.I was feeling Fran's anxiousness and helplessness trying to connect with Lindsey.It's the same kind of thing with me and my teenager.This book will stay with me a long time.

[kiakar]

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bentley wrote:

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Stewart_ONan   wrote:                                                                                                As I mentioned in an earlier post, I want the reader to speculate as to what might have happened but never know for sure--just as Ed and Fran and Nina and JP do.

By participating in the First Look program, I hope to have more readers meet and spend time with Fran and Ed and Lindsay and Nina and JP.

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Thanks for all the questions and concerns.  I could tell you exactly what happened to Kim, but to me the reader's speculation as to what might have happened to Kim--along with the different Larsens', and Nina's, and J.P.'s--is a major part of the book.  You can put together the clues and come up with your version of what might have happened, just as you can put together what you know about Nina and come up with how and what you feel about her.  Another reader may have a different interpretation of that character, and that's okay.  The book, in a way, is like a Rohrshach blot.  Your reaction to it says as much about you as it does about the book.

Stewart, I really enjoyed your story line, your descriptions were out of this world good. But the characters even though you did a great job with describing them and explaining them but the real deep down emotion did not show.  You said you wanted us to feel this and also the stuff you didn't include for our knowledge. Is this a new concept in writing a novel? If there are many of these kinds of novels I hope I do not read them. Since I have been on first look book reads, they have been repeatingly these types of novels.  I am not school age, I do not want to think much anymore, I want a beautiful, interesting, ingenius story and I want the whole story. That is why I love to read. Sure, I love to learn with reading, you do that  even if you do not want to. Any level book will teach you something you have forgotten or have never known or learned. When I get into a Novel of fiction , that is just what I want it to be, I really dissolve right into that story and usually can't put it down until Iknow the details.  But if authors are not even putting all the details in, how can you read in a state of pretend if you know the author is not telling it all, its for us to make up or imagine.  Are your other books like this? Is the Red Lobster book like this? I have ordered it, but if it doesnt include all the details and facts I will let someone else read it that does like this sort of book. No hard feelings please, you are definitely a great precised writer, but I like my books all there, neatly with facts galore.

[BookWoman718]

Stewart ONan wrote:

Thanks for liking Wish You Were Here.  You'll be pleased to hear I'm working on its sequel.  In fact, this afternoon I just finished a scene with Emily and Arlene and Margaret.

Now that's good news!  I'll be watching for it.   Spending a week with the family at their soon-to-be-sold vacation home was a great introduction  (OK, a loooong introduction)  but I'll be eager to see how each of them is progressing - or regressing, as the case may be...   I'm hoping they'll be able to come up with some creative ways to come out of their various funks.   And I'd better stop right now because I already want to ask a lot of questions, like how much time has gone by since we last saw them.   Maybe I'll just ask this:  do you have a tentative publication date?    Thanks again for your time;  you're a generous guy!

[ELee]

Stewart_ONan wrote:

See, now I'm the one smiling.  My thinking about Kim is that she's the missing center of their lives, just as she's the missing center of the book around which everything revolves, eternally. 

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Ah, yes...like a doughnut.  You're right Stewart, you keep those "munchkins" (doughnut holes) to yourself!  I like what you did and the way that you did it.  I have a feeling that this book will be one that can be read and reread to one's advantage, with new details and insights occurring after the initial exposure.  I have added A Prayer for the Dying and The Circus Fire to my to-be-read shelf.  Since reading Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, my curiosity led to researching circus life online, which introduced me to the tragic Hartford fire.  I am looking forward to reading your book.  My question for you regarding Songs is: do you create the chapter headings before or after you have a reasonable version of the book that will be submitted for publication? 

[pheath]

Stewart,

Thank you for participating in the First Look program and making Songs for the Missing available to us. I have a question along a slightly different line than most of the others. Considering that Snow Angels has already been made into a movie, can you see the same happening for Songs for the Missing? How does your experience with Snow Angels and its adaptation factor into your answer?

Thanks,