I’ve been enjoying attending the Northwest Author Series whenever I can make it for the past two years, and Sunday’s talk was no exception. The speaker was Naseem Rakha, author of The Crying Tree, and the title of her talk was Writing That Works: Learn from What You Read & Write What People Remember.

I am always interested in how authors came to the field of writing in the first place, and like Amber Keyser (January’s NW Author Series speaker), Naseem has a technical background, in geology if I remember correctly. Her path to writing this novel was somewhat circuitous. For many years she worked with farmers to prevent foreclosures on their land, and this background helped with the setting for The Crying Tree. Her turning point was hearing a piece one day on NPR where the subject was Mumbai, and realizing she wanted to become a writer so she could create stories like the one she had just listened to, with “telling details” so vivid and evocative, that they would resonate with the reader.

She began commuting to Salem from her home in Silverton to cover stories in the state capital. Eventually she was hired as a reporter for National Public Radio (NPR). In 1996, after serving only 12 months as a reporter, she was assigned to cover the execution of Death Row murderer Douglas Wright. This assignment was to have a profound effect on Naseem.  Wright was the first criminal to be executed in Oregon in over 30 years, after Oregon reenacted capital punishment in 1978. (Oregon, incidentally, is one of only 3 states that has the death penalty written into its constitution.)

The somewhat macabre process of covering the execution, and being fed official information on the condemned man’s every movement in his final hours, caused Naseem to consider the bigger picture. As the events of that day unfolded, she found herself wondering what was going through the mind of the superintendent, as he prepared to give the signal for the execution, and what he took with him at the end of the day. At that point, she knew that she needed to tell the larger story, in order to get people to think, feel, and consider the provocative moral questions and ramifications of such an act.

After that, Naseem began doing more coverage of prisons, and interviewed Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, a book that examines capital punishment. Closer to home, Naseem also interviewed fellow Silverton resident, Aba Gayle, whose daughter was murdered, and who went from a life consumed with hatred, to forgiving the murderer. Naseem knew then that she wanted to write a novel that gave voice to this story through fiction, even though she had never written in the fiction genre before.

As the NW Author Series focuses on giving writing tips to an audience of writers, Naseem then went on to share with us how she went from the germ of an idea for the novel, to the finished product. Using the themes of crime, punishment, hate, forgiveness and secrets, Naseem identified the story arc of A) A woman going through the worst possible pain, the murder of her teenaged son, and coming out the other side, and B) What people giving the command for the execution go through. Naseem was working on a novel set in India at the time, and cast it aside to work on this one, starting by taking a four day writing class. This class produced four 45 minute free writes where she produced what would become the four anchors of her first novel: the first chapter, the last chapter, the turning point, and the darkest moment.

One of the most interesting parts of the talk for me was when Naseem discussed the process of writing, and how writers are often surprised by what they write, producing things they don’t remember with their conscious minds. When we write, she said, our mind physically goes into a dream state (using theta waves). Utilizing this process, and using the four anchors she had developed, Naseem then sat down and in about a year, free wrote what would become the first draft of Resting Place, which she eventually renamed The Crying Tree.

It was only after she had a working first draft, that she took the suggestion of writing teacher Eric Witchey, and produced an (180 page!) outline.  Using this outline, she then used it to rewrite her first draft, focusing on thinking about and identifying emotions she wanted to create in the reader, creating characters that readers could connect with, streamlining the story, adding foreshadowing, and making sure every chapter ramped up the tension. She also studied Snow Falling on Cedars, a novel she admires very much, and used the “basketing” technique from it in her own story.

Writing this novel, Naseem told us, was the second hardest thing she ever did. And the first? Being a parent! She found that the process of writing a novel changes you, because it changes the way you view the world, and you find that everything becomes a possibility for writing. As for the writing process itself, Naseem discovered that even starting with the basic premise, conflict, characters and setting, beginning a novel is like looking through a keyhole. You can’t enter the novel through any other door besides just sitting down and writing it, and letting the writing take you where it wants to go, by entering the dreamlike state described earlier.

Naseem had three goals for this novel:

  1. That it not become a polemic for or against capital punishment, but to use it as an opportunity for readers to decide for themselves after discovering other people’s perspectives.
  2. She wanted her characters to be real people that readers could empathize with, and therefore be a combination of good and bad.
  3. While readers might feel a sense of sadness at the end because they are closing the book on characters they have come to know and care about, she also wanted to leave the reader with a sense of wonder and hope.

Interestingly, like last September’s speaker, Laura Whitcomb, Naseem listens to music as she wrote her novel. In particular, she listened to the end of Copeland’s Appalachian Spring as she wrote the ending of The Crying Tree, paralleling the idea of hope coming forth that she heard in the music.

What makes novels work? Naseem cited several factors:

  1. A clearly defined conflict.
  2. Powerful and engrossing characters with satisfying and congruous arcs.
  3. Escalating tension that leads to an unpredictable, yet fully believable and fully realized end.
  4. Provocative narration.
  5. Description and dialogue that support the premise, build tension, and fill in characters.

She closed with a quote by author David Guterson: “I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.”

Image credits Naseem Rakha.

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