How Food Can Convey a Character's Mood and Setting

If you're a writer and you've never thought too hard about what your characters eat, perhaps it's time for you to pull up a chair at your protagonist's dinner table. A character's food tells a wealth of information about who she is: the region of the world in which she lives, her time period, her financial status, her personal tastes, her health, her cultural background.

Moreover, how she eats can convey her mood and situation. Imagine a starving little boy in a war-torn world eating one of the tomatoes pictured in the photo above. How would his actions and attitude toward the food differ from those of a confident villain taking a bite in the comfort of his lair? What if a woman in a white wedding dress were approaching the drippy scarlet food? Or an explorer from the ancient frozen tundra who's never seen a tomato before in his life?

In reality, the tomatoes in the photograph were sitting in a bowl on my kitchen table, and my math teacher husband will more than likely be the one chomping into them. If you're writing a scene about a man hurriedly devouring his lunch in a teacher's lounge, the tomatoes will turn into something entirely different than the meal of a starving little boy or a confident villain.

This week at The Lucky 13s, our theme is "Dinner with our characters: What's on the menu in our books?" I'm offering a sneak peek at my protagonist's 1918 life by asking you to have a seat with her in her kitchen. As you'll learn from what's NOT on the menu, life wasn't easy in the fall of that particular year, and what you cooked back then could have saved your very life.

Here's my Lucky 13s post:

http://thelucky13s.blogspot.com/2012/02/whats-on-my-main-characters-menu-and.html

Speaking of food and writing, at the end of this week, I'm running a workshop for fifth to eighth graders at a career fair. If you're one of my students signed up for my sessions, keep this post in mind. We'll be using food to learn about sensory writing, and we'll explore different characters' approaches to a piece of seemingly ordinary piece of fruit. Don't come hungry. You may find your stomach growling.

My Seven-Year-Old's Cover Design for My Novel

My kids have been speculating what the cover of In the Shadow of Blackbirds will look like, and I've told them it will still be a while before we get to that stage, plus a professional designer will be involved. Not quite satisfied with that response, my seven-year-old son decided to design a cover of his own. I told him I'd share it on this site.

No, he hasn't read the novel (it's YA! He's seven!). He only knows some of the basic plot details. The half circle above the title is the moon, by the way.

My twelve-year-old daughter has an intriguing promotional idea for the book, so this won't be the last of my kids' involvement with the novel. I'm sure it's not always easy having a writer for a parent, especially when Mom's brain drifts away from the real world and wanders into the realm of plotting. Therefore, I'm thrilled to bits that my wonderfully patient offspring are enjoying my publishing adventures with me.

How Much Should Authors Share about Their Books in Advance?

Some writers choose to post long synopses for their novels on their websites before the official cover copy is even written. Some post synopses of their unsold novels. Others are more coy and don't even set up websites or Twitter accounts until a few months before a book's publication.

Where do I stand on the subject of sharing info about a pre-published book?

I'm leaning more on the secretive side. Anything I've revealed about the plot of In the Shadow of Blackbirds primarily comes from the short synopsis in the Publishers Marketplace announcement, and that single-sentence blurb mainly discusses the 1918 setting. On Valentine's Day I revealed there's a love story in the novel, but even then, I tried my best to give elusive, tiny details about what that love story might entail. Unless you've actually read the book, you still don't know my main characters' names, and you won't likely find them out until I release an official synopsis.

Why am I staying so mum? Why have I already turned down two opportunities to interview my main characters on other blogs?

For one thing, I haven't yet received my editorial letter. I don't want to share any information that might not even be true of my characters in the final version of the book. I also haven't yet spoken to my Amulet Books team about the novel's marketing plan.

Another reason is that I personally enjoy it when other authors keep me in suspense and offer breadcrumbs of information that lead up to a book's publication date. When I visit a writer's website and find only a short, intriguing, taunting Publishers Marketplace blurb, I typically follow the author on Twitter right away or sign up for his or her newsletter. I look forward to the gradual revelation of information: the posting of their official synopsis, their cover reveal, other eventual goodies like book trailers.

That being said, it's not easy to keep quiet about a book when you're dying to share it with the world. I can't wait to offer you so much more than a one-sentence blurb and enigmatic hints.

I'm also struggling to keep quiet about my novel-in-progress, tentatively titled The M— (the M part is actually a complete word, but I'm even going to be mysterious about what that initial stands for). I will tell you the following three tidbits about the book:

• The M— is another historical YA.
• The book involves paranormal elements.
• There's a Black Swan-style, things-aren't-always-what-they-seem vibe.

On February 28 I'll be blogging at The Lucky 13s, and the subject will be what you'd find on the menu if you ate dinner with my In the Shadow of Blackbirds protagonist (without mentioning her name!). After that, I'm going to refrain from giving any more hints about either book until Amulet Books says an In the Shadow of Blackbirds synopsis is ready to be revealed.

My lips are now sealing shut.

The images on this post are from WWI posters that warned about keeping silent,
although they're referring to war-related issues, not book plots.