Tag Archives: The Price of Passage

11.04.25
by

Profluence

Being the fifth part of a seven-part series based on Your New Favorite Writer’s recent WWA workshop “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Word One.”

I can’t tell you how to write a great beginning. But here are FIVE BIG IDEAS—three Dos and two Donts—that ought to help quite a bit:

  1. Engage the reader immediately.
  2. Do not drown the reader in information. 
  3. Introduce important characters and plots early. 
  4. Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 
  5. Shape early action toward later plot points.

This week, let’s look at the fourth Big Idea: Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 

The Bane of Information

Today’s topic may seem to repeat what we said two weeks ago: “Do not drown the reader in information.” 

Why do I keep harping on the negative value of information? And how is this week’s diatribe different from that of two weeks ago? 

Information is a blessing because readers need to know what’s happening in the story to appreciate and make sense of it. Information is a curse because it can get in the way and prevent readers from appreciating and making sense of the story. 

Profluence in nature. Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash.

To absorb this paradox, we must consider two concepts. The first is profluence. 

Profluence

Profluence, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a copious or smooth flowing.” In geology, it is the inexorable tendency of water to flow downhill—over, under, and around obstacles in its way. Eventually, water will find its way to the sea; but it can be detained for quite a while by something like Hoover Dam.

Profluence in literature means the smooth flow of a story. John Gardner, the late American novelist and professor of writing (not John Gardner the late British novelist) wrote:

John Gardner. Public Domain.

“By definition—and of aesthetic necessity—a story contains profluence, a requirement best satisfied by a sequence of causally related events . . . .” 

“We cannot read a whole novel in an instant,” Gardner said, “so to be coherent, to work as a unified experience . . . narrative must show some profluence of development. . . . Page 1, even if it is a page of description, raises questions, suspicions, and expectations; the mind casts forward to later pages, wondering what will come about and how. It is this casting forward that draws us from paragraph to paragraph and chapter to chapter. At least in conventional fiction, the moment we stop caring where the story will go next, the writer has failed, and we stop reading.” (My italics.) 

Profluence is the forward movement of the story, despite obstacles placed—by the author, who else?—in the characters’ way.

Now hold profluence in mind, Dear Reader, while we look at the duality of information.

Duality of Information

Information can be harmful to a story while also being necessary to it, because there are two kinds of information.

External data provides substance, coherence, and setting—a sense of time and place—to the story. Names, dates, physical descriptions, historical events, and all the various acts and milieux that describe and color the plot of the story are external data. Some are essential parts of the story, others have no part in the story and should be omitted. The author must figure out which is which.

Internal facts are the needs, desires, motives, impulses, and emotions of the characters. These things are essential to the story, but the author must know where they fit, how they relate, and how they make the story move forward, and must find a way to make that clear to the reader. 

You need both external data and internal facts to tell the story, but it’s easy to include non-essentials that just bottle up the profluence while omitting necessary items.

That’s why I say, “Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative.”

Confused yet? 

No? Then let me further clarify: Information, in the form of external data, is what is usually meant by “exposition.” 

Exposition is looked upon as a necessary evil. Exposition is thought good when slipped in all unbeknownst to the readerbut bad when inserted in a clumsy, fat-fingered way.

Who is to say what is finesse and what is clumsiness? Your New Favorite Writer, that’s who—always ready to rush in where angels fear to tread.

But Gentle Reader, since I don’t really know better than anybody else what is clumsy and fat-fingered, versus what is brilliantly subtle, let me divert you by suggesting three possible ways to HIDE EXPOSITION IN PLAIN SIGHT.

1. Include It in Dialog

Yes, you heard me. Put it in dialog. Only, the dialog must have at least a fig leaf of action.

You can’t just have Character A say to Character B, “That man was fire chief in Little Grove when it burned down 16 years ago.”

You must have a scene. The characters must be doing something reasonable for them to be doing. It’s ideal if it can be a scene that moves the plot forward in clear and obvious ways. But failing that, you can create a brief scene where at least the characters are doing something coherent, and timely in the plot, and in a situation where it’s natural for them to talk about Little Grove’s former fire chief. 

The one thing you ought to avoid doing is having characters tell other characters things they already know and that they know they know. “Gee, Cindy Lou, do you remember the time 16 years ago when we went over to Little Grove to watch it burn down, and you remember, that man was the fire chief?” That’s the sort of thing that gives writers a bad name.

And including exposition in dialog is not your only choice.

2. Free Indirect Discourse

Free indirect discourse happens when the reader absorbs the thoughts and knowledge of the viewpoint character. It’s like saying:

“Yada-yada-yada,” Sally thought.

Only you omit the quotation marks and the attribution, “Sally thought.” You need to give the reader some clue whose mind you are in, but once you do, you just write the yada-yada-yada in the character’s mind as if it were facts being narrated. 

Here is the opening of my historical novel, The Price of Passage, previously referred to in the third installment of this series: 

Norway

February 1853

Anders Gunstensen jumped up from his straw pallet, struck a match, and re-lit the oil lamp. What was the time now? How soon could he start for North America?

He teased open the gold case of the watch Grandfather had given him. 

At that moment Uncle Torgus burst into the barn with a great bang of the door. “Anders, you oaf—wasting my lamp oil in the middle of the night!” The old man swayed left and right. He smelled of hard spirits.

The cattle, accustomed to Torgus’s rages, neither lowed nor bellowed.

In the first paragraph, sentence one establishes that Anders Gunstensen is the character whose viewpoint we are experiencing. The second and third sentences, wondering about the time and when to start for North America, are free indirect discourse. They are written as if an omniscient third person narrator is asking these questions; but the reader perceives them as questions in Anders’s mind. Even though it doesn’t say “he thought,” or “he wondered.”

That’s the beauty of free indirect discourse. It looks like standard third-person narration, but it feels like being inside the character’s head. And while you’re in there, you can include anything you want the reader to know, as long as it’s something that character (a) would be aware of and (b) might have on his  mind at the moment. 

Free indirect discourse is so slick it feels like cheating. And, in a way, it is. But you can get away with it. The catch is, you become addicted to using it, and pretty soon your whole story is written inside a character’s mind, with no actual scenes of action and dialog. 

Use it with caution—but it’s just too good not to use at all.

Yet, there is another, better way to hide exposition in plain sight. In my opinion it’s

The Best Way

Include it in real action. Make it part of the plot. Here’s a simple example: In writing my first novel, The Price of Passage, I needed to get the protagonist, Anders, from Norway to America. Yet he was a lad without large means. How could I provide him with enough money to make the trip? 

As a novice, I was unduly concerned about the credibility of his ocean voyage. I imagined finicky raders skewering me for sending a poor young man on an ocean voyage (despite the historical fact that thousands of similarly poor people found ways to make that voyage!). I invented all sorts of elaborate mechanisms involving loans from Uncle Torgus, wheeling and dealing and trade-offs, which I would naturally have to explain in mind-boggling detail before I would let Anders set foot on board the ship.

All those detailed explanations of how he financed his ocean trip would have been needless exposition shoved into the first chapter. It would have drowned the reader in information, and would have bogged down the profluence of the narrative before it even started flowing. 

What else could I do? 

Remember the gold watch Anders had received from his grandfather? It’s right there, in the second paragraph of the passage given above, where it helps get the plot rolling. Anders’s great desire to emigrate prompts him to jump up to check the time. To do that he must light the lamp so he can read his gold watch, the one he got from Grandfather. The light burning in the barn at night prompts the oppressive Uncle Torgus to come in and chew Anders out, which is the first bit of conflict in the book (on page one!). My point being that the watch is a plot device, pure and simple. 

You might think the gold watch has fulfilled its function, but rest assured, Dear Reader: That valuable old watch will re-appear before long and be sold to pay for a transatlantic ticket! That, too, will be the watch functioning as a plot device. But we thereby avoid the need for any exposition about how a poor boy could afford to travel!  So plot has done the job of exposition. The problem—which was only a problem in the mind of one particularly dense aspiring author—is thereby solved. 

It’s always best to have something happen, to have a character do something—and in that  action, the character will reveal everything the reader really needs to know, and the story will keep on flowing.

Next week: Shape early action toward later plot points.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

10.21.25
by

Information Overload

Being the third part of a seven-part series based on Your New Favorite Writer’s recent WWA workshop “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Word One.”

I can’t tell you how to write a great beginning. But here are FIVE BIG IDEAS—three Dos and two Donts—that ought to help quite a bit:

  1. Engage the reader immediately.
  2. Do not drown the reader in information. 
  3. Introduce important characters and plots early. 
  4. Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 
  5. Shape early action toward later plot points.

This week, let’s look at the second Big Idea: Do not drown the reader in information.

The Urge to Explain

We are goaded by the urge to explain. It shows plainly in the writings of neophytes. Seasoned writers control the urge. At least, they’d better. 

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: The reader must have information in order to understand the story. But we, the writer, have a devil of a time figuring out just which information is really needed. To include anything else hinders the narrative art.

We don’t trust ourselves. We so fear not being understood that we pour all our energies into pre-writing. We write down everything we think the reader might wish to know before we unleash the actual story. 

Dear Reader, this is just backwards from how things should be. The reader does not need to know much—at least, not before you’ve given him or her cause to care what happens.

You must provide information, but if you give too much, too soon, or the wrong kind of information, you stop the story in its tracks. You create a snag. 

Confusion

Let’s start with confusion, the easiest kind of snag to create. We don’t even have to try to do this; it happens automatically. This is not the result of giving too much information but of giving the wrong kind of information, or phrasing it in the wrong way.

Back when Your New Favorite Author wrote a lot of press releases, his boss used to say: “It’s not enough to write it so they can understand it. We must write it in such a way that nobody could possibly misunderstand it.”

That’s the requirement. But it’s easier said than done. The confusion we create by misguided diction and inappropriate syntax is invisible to us, the writer. We know what we meant. How can anyone take it any other way? 

We lack the imagination to spot the ambiguity in our own words.

There seems only one cure: Get someone else’s eyes on it, preferably more than one set of eyes. It’s a good idea to join a mutual critique group that meets regularly. Members read one another’s work and comment on it. Part of the value is artistic advice. Part of it is simply the fact that one’s colleagues may be completely baffled by what one thought one said. Only when your peers display their confusion do the scales fall from your eyes.

If you want to write well but do not yet belong to such a group, seek out one you can join. The Wisconsin Writers Association posts a handy list of about 58 such groups, all over the state. If none of those work for you, start a group yourself.

Over the Top

The other problem is that we provide too much information, too soon. We strive to put the reader fully in the picture before the story ever begins.

Consider your mental state when reading an encyclopedia article versus your mental state in the midst of a harrowing ordeal.

Reading a purely informative article, you seek a comprehensive bird’s-eye view of the subject. You’re in academic mode. You want to know the width and breadth of the matter—all the ifs, ands, and buts. You want to master it from above, from afar. You seek a scholar’s distanced appreciation of the thing.

In a life-threatening situation that requires split-second decisions and swift, unreserved commitment to a course of action, you are not given all the information. You focus on what you must do to survive.

The reader entering the world of a story needs to identify with a lead character and feel the action of the story as if from inside. Give the reader just enough information to get from page one to page two.

You can fill in a few details later, but never at the expense of immersion in the story.

Especially at the beginning, do not burden the reader with an information dump. There’s no point knowing that John is devilishly handsome or that all his money was inherited from a scoundrel grandfather until you have seen John in action and decided he’s worth following.

The narrator’s art consists as much in withholding information as in giving it. 

An Example

Consider this opening, from my novel The Price of Passage: From Norway to America,  From Slavery to Freedom: 

Norway

February 1853

Anders Gunstensen jumped up from his straw pallet, struck a match, and re-lit the oil lamp. What was the time now? How soon could he start for North America?

He teased open the gold case of the watch Grandfather had given him. 

At that moment Uncle Torgus burst into the barn with a great bang of the door. “Anders, you oaf—wasting my lamp oil in the middle of the night!” The old man swayed left and right. He smelled of hard spirits.

The cattle, accustomed to Torgus’s rages, neither lowed nor bellowed.

You may or may not like this opening. You may or may not want to read what happens after Uncle Torgus enters the barn and challenges Anders. 

But now consider this alternative opening, Dear Reader, from an earlier draft:

Norway—February 1853

Second sons were always out of luck.  

Anders, though born in the caul, was still only a second son. So when the Crown increased Øiestad’s school from one to two teachers, the new teaching job went, as if by Divine Right, to the firstborn son of the schoolmaster. Thus Gunder, not Anders, had become Father’s assistant teacher—simply by virtue of having arrived earlier. 

Father, too, had been second son in his family. That was why the farm had gone to Uncle Torgus, the firstborn, and not to him. Father was happier as a teacher than he would have been as a farmer, but poorer. “I had to find my own way in the world,” he said to Anders, “and you had better make up your mind to do so as well.”

Anders had gone, hat in hand, to Uncle Torgus and begged tuition money for the agricultural college at Holm. In exchange, he bound himself to a seven-year indenture. It was a brilliant arrangement: Anders would get an education and Uncle Torgus would get seven years’ skilled service from a college-trained agriculturist.

This kind of opening gives the reader a lot more information, information about Anders and his place in the world. But it does not give us Anders. 

The virtue of the other opening, the one we actually kept, is that it shows Anders wanting and hoping something, starting some kind of action related to that desire, and meeting a potential obstacle. The very next thing that you’re going to read is what Anders does to overcome that obstacle. Don’t you want to turn the page and find that out?

There is no point knowing who Uncle Torgus is, and how he came to be an obstacle to Anders, until Anders is acting out his story

All of those details about Anders’s birth and family and background eventually find their way into the narrative, but only in places where they do not interrupt the unfolding of the action. 

In a novel, there are plenty of words available to deliver needed information. So postpone each datum’s delivery until you reach the place where it is needed for understanding, or where it will have the greatest dramatic impact. When in doubt, put it off.

Front-loading exposition, even necessary exposition, creates an academic feel, a stance of distant observation. 

By plunging into action and dialog, you get the reader up close and personal with the characters. People—represented in fiction by characters—are much more interesting than dry facts, and the reader’s interest in the characters, interest generated by their actions and speeches, will prepare the reader for additional information when you at last see fit to provide it.

Next week: Introduce important characters and plots early.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

07.29.25
by

Recovery Daze

ATTENTION: Owing to some kind of error in the huge, unresponsive bureaucracy of Kindle Direct Publishing, part of Amazon, many of my outstanding small-press publisher’s books are no longer listed on Amazon.com. This includes my Amazon Best-seller immigrant saga The Price of Passage and also the heartwarming coming-of-age story, Izzy Strikes Gold! 

FORTUNATELY, we do not rely on Amazon to get our books in people’s hands. You can purchase either or both of these books direct from the publisher by clicking these links: Izzy and Passage.Thank you for your unwavering support of fine literature from small, independent presses.

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Surgeons operating. Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.
Not my lower back, but someone’s. Image by Jmarchn, licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

I am an aged writer now recovering from a major surgical project on my lumbar spine. They re-aligned and fused the L3 and L4 vertebrae through a seven-inch incision, in a six-hour operation. 

Ouch.

Recovery is not so quick and easy.

I used to make my own breakfast, because I like it a certain way, and my wife does not get hungry as early as I do. Now, she cooks the oatmeal, and I just sit at the table and spoon on the berries.

After breakfast, it used to be: shower, shave, dress, and go about my day. Now, I totter from the table to the recliner and stretch out for my first rest period. Breakfast is tiring, you know. 

In the recliner, blissful relaxation takes over. My whole body feels happy except for some minor discomfort in the back—you know, where they did the construction project. To relieve the boredom, I check the email on my cell phone, and maybe look at the day’s news headlines. But, you know, holding up the phone above my head wears me out, so I have to take it in stages.

Eventually, I make my way to the bathroom for the shower-shave-and-dress routine. It takes longer than it used to. By the time I present myself, fully dressed and smelling good, it’s time for lunch.

And lunch—well, you know—lunch can be exhausting. I need a time of rest after lunch.

On a good day, there may be an hour, or half an hour—between post-lunch rest and mid-afternoon nap—to sit at the laptop, focus, and achieve something. It may be only re-arranging medical appointments. Or puzzling out the meaning of a significant email. Or tending to something that needs advance planning, like marketing events several months in the future. 

Maybe I can write a page or two on one of several works in progress. But not much progess. It goes by inches, not yards.

Then it’s time to rest again. You get the idea. 

The thing is, Dear Reader, I have, at this moment, three or four good books in me—fun books, interesting books, useful books—but it’s hard work to get them out of my head and onto paper. It takes time. Your New Favorite Writer’s time at this point, like J. Alfred Prufrock’s, is being measured out with coffee spoons. 

But one must endure.

I discovered I am not young anymore. Some wag long ago minted the lines:

“How do I know that my youth is all spent?
Well, my get up and go has got up and went.”

And it’s true, Neighbor. It’s true.

Shakespeare portrait by John Taylor (1585-1651). Public Domain.

It’s the sixth of Shakespeare’s seven ages:

the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Old man walking. Photo by Zhuo Cheng you on Unsplash.

Some old men move as if they were made of Waterford crystal. I fear I’m starting to walk that way.

At eighty, when you are blindsided by something your body has been saving up for decades, you can be forgiven for wondering what else might be in store. You can’t help turning a kind of mental corner. 

Life will be different now, maybe wildly different. At the very least, adjustments must be made.

But it’s early in recovery yet. I’ll be back, Dear Reader. 

I pray the good Lord will give me the time I need to get what’s in my head out onto paper. 

I expect to be in my booth at book fairs early in the fall. Come buy The Price of Passage or Izzy Strikes Gold!

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

06.04.25
by

Why do I blog?

Dear Reader: A writer friend recently asked, “What are the benefits of having a blog?” One could turn the question around and answer, “One of the benefits of having a writer friend who asks about blogs is that it may prompt the production of a blog post.” Read on.

“In my dotage, I am reduced to bloggery.”—King Lear, Act VII, line 4,926. Painting: King Lear and Cordelia, by Benjamin West (1793) / Folger Shakespeare Library, Wikimedia Commons.

When I was young, I did not know what “blog” meant. It didn’t mean anything, yet. Nobody knew what a blog was, because the word hadn’t been invented. The thing hadn’t been invented.

Aw, shucks—computers were giant machines in huge buildings, fed and monitored by teams of scientists in white lab coats. They were used only for Big Problems, like calculating the complete value of π as it will be revealed on the Day of Judgment. 

I did know I wanted to be a writer, but that’s as far as it went: wanting to. It may strike you as crazy, Dear Reader, but I had not the slightest idea how to be a writer. 

As far as I knew, you would shut yourself up in a room with a typewriter and a ream of paper, and SHAZAM!, something would strike you, and you would write it down, mail it off to Bennett Cerf, and get a million dollars. 

Well, it worked for Melville and Hemingway and Louisa May Alcott—why not for me?  Never mind that Melville could barely support his family, Hemingway killed himself, and Alcott wrote girly stories: the point was, you had to do your writing all alone, and it was a divine gift, not something that could be learned.

I now believe that writers do NOT produce great works in isolation. Homer’s epics were no doubt recited over and over, to many different audiences, giving him an idea what worked and what didn’t. Shakespeare’s plays, like all plays, were molded line by line as actors spoke those lines and played the parts. The great American pantheon of writers—Emerson, Thoreau, Longellow, Holmes, and the rest—all knew one another, read one another’s work, and functioned as a little New England-based Algonquin Roundtable.

I’ll bet even J.D. Salinger learned something from somebody. He was just too much of a jerk to admit it.

When I finally began aspiring to be a writer seriously, after retirement from other gigs, I knew that I needed to seek out those who could teach me. They included actual writing teachers like Christine DeSmet and Laurie Scheer, but they also included a great many fellow writers. Comrades in arms; sufferers from the writing disease. People who, like me, spent their time down in the trenches of storytelling—looking for ways to make our efforts stand out and attract readers. 

I learned that writers like to form little clubs—groups for mutual critique and support. In one of the writers’ groups I joined, Tuesdays With Story, blogs came up in conversation. By this time, blogs had become a thing. 

“Blog” is a shortened form of “web log.” But that derivation hardly suggests what they really are. A blog is what happens when somebody gets an address on the internet and starts posting short or extended statements of his or her point of view. 

Blogs may be very specific, devoted to one craft, hobby, or special interest. But on the whole, they tend to range a bit wider. A blog can be a window into a writer’s soul.

It was rumored in our group that if one was writing novels and wanted to get them published and read, it was essential to have a “platform”—a basis for public recognition of one’s work. And a blog was a great way to build a platform.

But, Fair Reader, please be advised Your New Favorite Writer did not just fall off a turnip truck. Oh, no. It was immediately apparent that a blog, if it was to be any good, would be just as much work as any other form of writing. If I wanted to have a blog and have that blog represent my work fairly to the world, I would have to put as much time and effort into it as into my novels and short stories. And what would be the point of that?

“Well,” said my friend Jerry Peterson, then the convener of the Tuesday night group, “you might think of a blog as not just a way to promote your work. It might be your work—or at least a significant part of it. After all, you can write whatever you want, and as owner of the web address, you are in a position to present it to the world, without an intervening gatekeeper.” 

Oh. 

That.

Jerry was suggesting that a blog is essentially a form of self-publishing. In those days, only a few short years ago, self-publishing was not as respected as it is today. Still, it was a way to get my work in front of people. People who might like what I’m doing and hunger for more. Books, for example. 

I could see where this was going. I resolved to plunge in, give it a try. That was over six years ago. What you are reading now is the 317th installment of this blog, titled “Reflections.”

BUT WHY THIS BLOG?

Why this, particular, blog? 

When I started writing it, I did not know what I was doing. But people whose views I respected said, “Your blog should have a theme, a brand. It should be identifiable as something. You should have some idea what you’re trying to do with it.” 

Well, it was to be a means of presenting my writing to the public. Well, that was all to the good. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had something to present to the public. I wasn’t qite sure what, but I was on the trail. 

Did I mention, Gentle Reader, that there was a gap of sixty years or so between when I first knew I wanted to be a writer and when I actually started learning how?

I now recognize that long hiatus as being merely the most obvious symptom of the fact that, when I started out, I didn’t have anything to say. But as we age, we acquire experience and even, we hope, wisdom. 

Now, I do have something to say. It’s just hard to figure out what it is, and how to say it. But not impossible. And the figuring out is best done by actually writing. Somebody said you have to write a million or so words of bad writing before it starts coming out good. So I’m working on that. 

I’ve got something to say. I can say it in writing. It’s just hard. 

By the time I launched this blog, I had already figured out that everything I have to say comes out of my deep attachment to the past—my commitment to re-experience the past, to plumb its depths, and to refashion historical knowledge into historical fiction: writing that says, “within an understandable historical context, here is what life may be, at its best or at its worst, but definitely life as best apprehended in the living of it.” 

If this is what my writing is about, it’s what my blog should address. I knew that, with a weekly deadline, I would wind up rambling a bit and imprinting my own personal take on what it means to dig into the past and relate it to the present. So I decided to call this blog “Reflections”—a very general kind of label—but to further qualify that with the catch-phrase “seeking fresh meanings in our common past.” 

That’s what Your New Favorite Writer has been trying to do every week since then. 

What has surprised me is how ccreativity is like a well. In a good water well, you may have to prime the pump, but once you do, it brings up fresh stuff. The well never runs dry. Almost every Tuesday for the last six years I’ve found something to write about, to the tune of a thousand words or so.

Sometimes I miss Tuesday and post a day late (like this week!). Once in a while I have not had time to do a new post and so have re-run an old one. But not very often. It’s just a matter of tweaking my brain a bit, and out it comes.

Some posts are more consequential than others. Some more literary, some more wry, some more snarky. But all have to do, in one way or another, with the passage of time and what that means in the living of life. 

They are not full novels, like The Price of Passage or Izzy Strikes Gold!, but they’re well-meant installments in a writer’s quotidian encounter with the stuff inside and the stuff outside. I hope you find some merit in the reading.

Until next time,

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

04.22.25
by

Credo

I’m looking forward to an inspiring weekend, a time of meeting new friends and learning new things, at the Faith Forward Writers Retreat near Sparta, Wisconsin. I’ll be a panelist in the open-to-the-public “Meet the Authors” event Thursday night. 

It’s billed as a retreat for “Christian-faith based writers.” It makes me wonder, this Easter week: What qualifies me  to speak at a Christian writers’ conference? Am I a Christian writer?

I am Christian; I am a writer. Therefore, I’m a Christian writer. But the term calls up an image of one who writes “Christian books”—Bible explorations, for example. Or inspiring essays. Or Christian romance, meaning romance novels in which the heroine’s Christian faith plays a pivotal role in the development and outcome of the plot. Some of my good writer friends, like Barbara M. Britton and Deb Wenzler Farris, write with excellence in some of these genres.

My books feature fictional characters—Anders, Maria, Daniel, Izzy—who live in a Christian world and whose faith is conventional, largely unexamined. Faith plays a role in forming their personalities, and it influences their actions, but it’s seldom at the front of their minds.

The Christianity in my books is like an iceberg, or like an old tree trunk that has floated in a lake or river long enough to become waterlogged. Only a bit may appear above the surface, but mariners: ignore it at your peril.

Since I’ll be billed in a public event as a Christian writer, this is a good time to inform you about the particular Christian faith that undergirds my doings, writing included. Though Your New Favorite Writer’s books are neither Bible commentaries nor theological treatises, Dear Reader, you may wish to learn the spiritual identity of their author. 

Who knows? It might be catching, and you deserve fair warning.

So here it is.

Credo

I believe there is a God, and I know it’s not me.

I think we are all creatures of a Great Intelligence far beyond our imaginations, exempt from our own limits of history and finitude.

I believe in Science; I believe God is its Author. The greatest scientists—the Keplers and Newtons and Einsteins and Hawkings—are its imperfect annotators.

Whether or not I know God is not as momentous as the fact that God knows me.

It is wondrous that, despite my imperfections, despite my dual nature as saint and sinner, God loves me wholly, forgives my transgressions, and showers blessings on me daily. God seems to ignore my just desserts. That is why God is called Love. 

Photo of a painting of Jesus healing the paralytic from the wall of the baptistery in the Dura-Europa church circa 232 A.D. It is one of the earliest visual depictions of Jesus. It was excavated by the Yale-French Excavations between 1928-37 in present day Syria and now resides in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT. Public Domain.

Jesus Christ is the avatar of that Love.

As a Christian, I ought to be wholly on Christ’s team. But in our complex world, it’s often unclear to me whether I am batting for Jesus or the Other Guy. 

I have come to rely on God’s forgiveness, because I so often need it.

A Few Corollaries

The Bible says God commanded us to “go and make disciples of all nations.” I am choosing to use the method of drawing them to Christ through the attractiveness of my example. I know this seems a forlorn hope, but it’s what I’ve got.

How can I convert you? I have a hard enough job converting myself. 

Maybe that’s only my recessive personality speaking. For example, I also don’t wish to baptize you into my political views or my sports team. In fact, I’ve never hankered to run your life. You need to figure things out for yourself.

Yet, if I have the salvation power of Jesus Christ, and if that is the Greatest Gift in the World, should I not want to share it with everyone I meet? 

Well, of course I should. But I’m a writer, not a miracle worker. 

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Paul the Apostle.

I’m still working on the love part. Once I master that, we can talk about the rest.

Amen.

P.S.—You may still be able to attend the Faith Forward Writers Retreat. The sign-up is here.

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Evangelist

03.18.25
by

When is a Bookstore Not a Bookstore?

Answer: When it’s Open House Imports, 308 East Main Street, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.

Open House Imports, an elvishly decorated Queen Anne-style house on the right as you enter Mount Horeb from Madison, is really a gift shop devoted to all things Norwegian (or even Swedish or Danish). But it’s one of my favorite bookstores!

Here’s why: The owner, Janice Christiansen Sievers, embodies the Norsk concepts of velvaere (well-being) and koselig (coziness). It’s natural for Janice to help out a struggling author by buying and displaying his works, in case any of her customers are interested.

Your New Favorite Writer with Janice Sievers.

That kind of hospitality and openness is a theme we’ll explore repeatedly, Dear Reader. This is the first in a series of posts on bookstores Your New Favorite Writer knows and loves. What they all have in common is owners who care—who relate to authors, and to readers, whole-heartedly and with the joy of the human touch. 

Fine examples of Norwegian rosemaling (flower painting).

How did Open House Imports get to be one of my favorite bookstores? Well, my first book, The Price of Passage, is about Norwegian immigrants navigating the social, political, and military challenges of the Civil War era. For years, my wife and I have shopped at Open House Imports, mostly during the Christmas season, when all its lovely wares seem especially relevant to our needs. So I knew that—right along with the rosemaling, Norwegian sweaters, and cooking utensils—the store has a robust display of Scandinavian-themed books.

Guess whose books you can buy there?

So I took the book out to show Janice. I told her the story of how The Price of Passage came to be, and what it means to me. I admit I choked up at one or two places, because the book’s themes are personal with me. I got a grand, koselig hug from Janice to help me through my spiel. She purchased several copies right on the spot, displayed the book in a prominent place, and even ordered more copies through my distributor.

Janice continues to promote my literary career. The last time I stopped in, I mentioned my second book, Izzy Strikes Gold!, a nostalgic trip back to 1957 from the viewpoint of a 12-year-old. Apologetically, I said, “Well, there’s not really a Scandinavian theme or connection in this one. ” Because her store is all Nordic, all the time, and Izzy is just an American kid with no particular national background. Didn’t matter. She wanted Izzy. So now he has a place on her shelves beside The Price of Passsage.

Scandinavian yummies.

Fair Reader: If you don’t yet have your copy of Izzy Strikes Gold! or The Price of Passage, Open House Imports is a great place to get it. While you’re there, you might also pick up one of many other books, fiction and nonfiction, with a Scandinavian flavor. Not to mention Scandinavian cookbooks—or receipe books, as Janice calls them. 

By the way, if you’re going to do any cooking out of those cookbooks, you might need utensils, or place settings—or ingredients! Don’t worry, Janice has you covered. Open House Imports has a full range of the things you need for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and snacks that will really ramp up your velvaere in a big way.

Norwegian sweaters.

Did I mention the Norwegian sweaters? And clogs. And tee-shirts. And all manner of essential housewares, from fine crystal to authentic wooden serving dishes decorated with sumptuous rosemaling. 

And cards, calendars, knicknacks, figurines of trolls and elves (nisser), postcards, maps, et plenty of cetera. Chances are you can find a great gift for almost anyone you are buying for.

I could go on and on, Gentle Reader, but remember: Best of all, it’s a great bookstore!

Even if you aren’t in need of anything mentioned above, drop in the next time you’re near 308 E. Main Street, Mount Horeb, and introduce yourself to Janice. Have a nice chat. You’ll be delighted. Tell her Larry sent you.

P.S.—But if you’re too far away, don’t worry. You can buy online at https://openhouseimports.com/shop/.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

03.11.25
by

Past, Present, Future

“Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it.” 

But rest assured, Dear Reader: It is no part of our purpose here to paralyze you with platitudes. 

Edward Gibbon. Public domain.

The fine example shown above has been attributed to Winston Churchill, George Santayana, Edward Gibbon, and Mickey Mouse. 

Just kidding. Nobody ever attributed it to Edward Gibbon. The best candidate is Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, who in 1905 wrote:

Robespierre, with head. Public domain.

. . . when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Santayana could not have meant that literally—at least, not in detail. For example, there will never be another Robespierre. Yet over the years, any number of Robespierre avatars have goaded their nations downward, in circumstances reminiscent of the French Revolution. 

Maybe that’s what Mark Twain—or was it Theodore Reik?—meant when he said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.” 

#

Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot, Study for a Fresco in the Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. Perino Del Vaga (Italian, 1500-1547). Public domain.

Ah, Fair Reader, what Gordian knots of human concern attend the passage of Time!

Consider Time’s chapters: past, present, and future. 

One night long ago, Your New Favorite Writer happened on a passage in Huai-nan Tzu, a Taoist text, that made him think of a rug being unrolled. The part already unrolled, lying flat and thus fit for examination, is the past; the part still wound in a tight coil, impenetrable, is the future. Exactly which part is the present I cannot say.

Caveat: If you search through Huai-nan Tzu for this rolled-rug metaphor, you won’t find it. It’s only an image in one reader’s mind, which was triggered by some obscure Chinese phrase describing the way events flow through their course.

I was about thirty years old at the time, and impressionable. Since then, I’ve seen the past as actualized, whereas all the contents of the future are merely potential. The past is real, whereas the future is theoretical. 

Gracious Reader, if you grew up in the same Modern Western Civilization where I did, you may envision past, present, and future as a giant map over which we are creeping, making our way toward what is already there but we haven’t encountered it yet. This is the basis of all time travel stories: There is a future somewhere that already exists, a place you might get to through a newly-developed mechanism or a wrinkle in the fabric of the Time-Space Continuum. 

#

Well, it turns out that Huai-nan Tzu didn’t know the half of it. The latest version of physics calls into question whether Time itself is real. Isn’t it, rather, just something that happens as a result of unprecedented events, like the Big Bang? No Time, no Space—but everything explodes, and by some interaction of matter, gravity, and the Quantum Field—Time and Space are bent into being. And they’ve been hurtling outward ever since. 

Milky Way and night sky. National Park Service image by Jacob W. Frank. Public domain.

One might imagine the starry cosmos to be a visible record of the past, constantly receding into an inconceivable void where the future might be said to reside—if, for example, the future had to list its place of residence on a form to get its Real ID-compliant driver’s license.

Your New Favorite Writer is hardly one of those who believe a thing is true because somebody called a scientist said it. But Time fabricated by the unfolding of real events has a certain attractiveness to it. 

In that kind of Time, the past is not just a dusty page upon which a moving finger has writ. Rather, the past is woven through everything I or my ancestors, human and otherwise, have ever done or experienced.

I can’t know what will happen next year, or tomorrow, or five minutes from now. But I am free to search out and ponder all the curlicues and lateral arabesques of any and all events that have happened. 

Maybe that’s why I write historical fiction. I don’t know what my ancestors, or other people’s ancestors, went through that caused mid-19th-century America to fight with itself, and conquer itself, over the question of slavery. But I had a kind of notion, based on a real acquaintance with historical facts, and I wrote that notion in an imaginary way until it became The Price of Passage, a novel about Norwegian immigrant farmers and fugitive African American slaves. It’s not factual, but it’s plausible. The tiny details are factual, the great movements are made up. In a strange way, time has been re-bent to serve my narrative purpose. Try it, you might like it.

Likewise, I took things that I really, personally knew, from my very own childhood experiences, and invented a story called Izzy Strikes Gold! It’s about a 12-year-old boy struggling to find his way through the problematic year 1957. All the details are real, but the lives of the characters do not exactly match the actual lives of anyone I ever knew. 

But that’s okay. God has made billions of people, each with an individual story. If I add a few more to the pot, I don’t suppose it will hurt anything. There will just be a few more stories. Time and space will have been bent to new and interesting purposes in the realm of the imagination. 

Rod Serling would approve.

Right now I’m working on a World War II novel, in which two brothers from a small Midwestern town wind up in the Southwest Pacific, the continent of Africa, and other places to fight the Axis Powers and their own demons, which arise from their troubled relationship. You won’t want to miss it, but it’s only halfway done, so you won’t be able to read it for a while. In the meantime, Dear Reader, knock yourself out on the Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold!

Until next time,

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

02.18.25
by

Huzzah!

I may have mentioned before now, Dear Reader, that the writer’s life is a lonely one.

Oh, sure, we are celebrated among our friends . . . if we have friends who are kind enough to celebrate us.

Gerrit Dou, Scholar Sharpening a Quill Pen. Public Domain.

We also confer among ourselves at writers’ conferences. We sit at the feet of masters and learn, if we can, a kind of self-mastery. We even may tip a tumbler or two, on such occasions. 

We have the usual allotment of spouses and children and dogs. 

So writers, as a group, are not existentially lonely. Most of us are not, at any rate.

But when it comes to writing—when we need to plot and craft and draft and re-plot and re-craft and re-draft a novel or any large work of fiction—that we do all by ourselves, in mental if not physical isolation. We may share a work in progress with colleagues: give glimpses, get feedback, gain perspective. But the actual doing of the thing is a solo gig. It’s just you and your keyboard in a room somewhere.

Thus, any victory merits a celebration. 

So it is with pride and joy I announce: Your New Favorite Writer has reached Mid-point on his current WIP (work in progress). Sorry to burden you with technical jargon, but nonetheless—HUZZAH! Please feel free to huzzah along with me.

What’s the Big Deal?

Thanks, I thought you’d never ask.

Aristotle. Public Domain.

Mid-point in a work of fiction is not merely halfway. It does not mean fifty percent of the work has been done. Perhaps the second half of the book will be much easier to write, or much harder, than the first half. 

Syd Field. Photo by thedemonhog, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rather, the Mid-point, which always falls very near halfway through the pages, is where Something Momentous Happens. There is a major plot turn, visible or invisible, that makes the whole thing deeper and more important. The story shifts, the way a batch of fudge changes color in the pan just before it sets up into a new, delicious thing. 

This is not my imagination, Gentle Reader. You could look it up. Any number of gurus have told us about it, from Aristotle onwards. Pick up a copy of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field (1935-2013). Mr. Field was one of the first to put the how-to of screenwriting into a book, so that anybody could do it. 

Charles Dickens. Public Domain.

Well, not just anybody. You have to also be a certifiable lunatic.

Actor-director Roberto Benigni, creator of Life Is Beautiful. Photo by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

But I digress. The point is, there is a fundamental dramatic structure that almost all good stories have. A beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes we call them Acts I, II, and III. There are vivid plot points that kick off the action (Inciting Incident), shift it into gear (Break into Act II), change the whole picture (Mid-point), set up the final confrontation (Break into Act III), and resolve the story (Climax). There are numerous lesser turns as well.

The all-important Mid-point signals a shift in tone, emphasis, and import of the story. That shift can be quite stark, as in the Italian film Life is Beautiful (1997), or more subtle, as in Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). But it has to be there, or the story resembles an uncooked fish, several days old.

Therefore I celebrate the conquest of the Mid-point.

So What?

Your New Favorite Writer has written two novels that are currently in print, The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! Both were very hard to write. I have been at work for some time on my third—a twentieth century historical novel that goes by the working title Brother’s Blood. It’s about two brothers who find themselves at odds but have no opportunity to fully reconcile before the Second World War sends them off in different directions. 

This one is hard to write, too. But writing the first two, as well as several unproduced screenplays, taught me a few things. Especially how important the first act is. Famed writer-director Billy Wilder said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your problem is in the first act.” What he meant is that you need to set the stage fully and exquisitely in the first one-quarter of the work (Act I), so that all kinds of situations and relationships established at the start can then pay off in satisfying ways as the rest of the story (Acts II and III) unfolds. 

Writers often talk about a character coming to life and taking the story off in an unexpected direction. It is delightful when this happens. But in a way, it’s even more satisfying when the underlying logic of the story—the line of development that flows from all the details you have packed into Act I—forces an unavoidable realignment of meaning at the Mid-point, and the rest of the story snowballs to an irresistible end from that point. 

I’ve been laboring mightily over Act I: Writing, re-writing, changing, re-adjusting to get a number of rather ordinary yet secretly powerful ingredients into the story. And I’ve launched into the wilds of Act II, grinding away at just marshaling the facts of the characters’ lives, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, SHAZAM! A major plot event, one which I did not see coming, elbows its way into the story. Right at the halfway point. It’s an event I’m not at all happy with—and you Dear Reader, may not like it either—but it shoves the invisible river of narrative into a swifter and deeper channel. There is no help for it. We must go there. 

I can’t wait to write the rest of the book.

Note: It would be very helpful at this point, no doubt, to give you a more specific idea of what happens in the book. I can’t do that. Major SPOILERS would be involved. All I can say is: look for it in a year or two, possibly by a different title, wherever fine books are sold. 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

02.04.25
by

What We’ve All Been Waiting For . . .

Here it is:

My first novel . . . all over again! With a wonderful new cover by artist Rony Dhar.

Dear Reader: If you already purchased and read Price of Passage in its original edition (DX Varos Publishing, 2022), you are exempt from purchasing* this new one. It’s the same book.

Those of you who have not read it are now commanded to go forth and buy a copy of The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom (Three Towers Press, 2025). You’ll be glad you did.

It’s the gripping story of Anders and Maria, who come to America from Norway in the 1850s, and of Daniel, a young slave they encounter in the midst of his bid for freedom. As historical novels go, it’s first-rate. 

There are new dilemmas and conflicts on almost every page. The narrative sheds light on under-reported aspects of America’s experience in the middle of the 19th century. For example, the existence in every southern state of Maroons, free-living communities of escaped slaves; the major role played by immigrants in the armies of the Civil War; the politics of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates; and the prevalence of integrated white/black crews of sailors on U.S. Navy ships before and during the Civil War. 

More to the point, it tells the human tale of three hardy pioneers—Anders, Maria, and Daniel—who worked out their destinies in the most turbulent era of our national epic. 

The characters are closely drawn from historical reality. The Norwegian characters, Anders and Maria, are based on my great-great-grandparents. Daniel and other African American characters are composites taken from the actual experiences of slaves and free blacks in the 19th century.

Don’t miss it. You can buy it direct from its publisher, Three Towers Press.  Or, if you prefer, you can buy it on Amazon. The cost is the same. $18.95.

*Ha! You were wondering when the asterisk would come up, weren’t you? Gentle Reader, evn though you have already read Price of Passage in its earlier edition, I’d appreciate it if you would navigate to its page on Amazon, scroll way down until you see Review this product at the left margin, then click on the “Write a Customer Review” button** and enter your review. It need not be a major research paper, or even a grade school book report. Just a two-word headline and a sentence or two of text, saying what you liked about it, will be enough. Amazon reviews really do help authors sell their books.

**Aha! You were wondering when the double asterisk would come up, weren’t you? Fair Reader, if you already posted a review on the original edition of Price of Passage, I beg you to  post it again on the new edition’s Amazon page. Amazon will not carry reviews over from the old page to the new page. If you don’t remember what you posted before, email me, larryfsommers@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a copy. 

By the way, if you read Price of Passage in its old edition, it’s perfectly fine for you to review it on the Amazon page for the new edition, because as I mentioned above, it’s the same book.

Thank you for your kind support and understanding.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

01.21.25
by

Alas! A Convoluted Tale

Finally, it’s here. I refer not to the Trump second term, however you may feel about that. 

No, I’m talking about something of epochal importance: The re-publication of my historical novel, Price of Passage, in a new edition, re-titled The Price of Passage.

The re-emergence of this monumental work, its light hidden under a bushel by the collapse of its original publisher, has been a rocky road indeed. 

Some rocks still lie in the path ahead.

How It All Began

I had a gripping Civil War story, which had taken most of five years to write. Its title was Freedom’s Purchase. I did not really like that title, but it was the best I could come up with. 

After a lot of folderol, I found a traditional publisher, Dan Willis of DX Varos Publishing, who was willing to take a chance on it. While bringing it to publication, we hit upon a new, improved title: Price of Passage: A Tale of Immigration and Liberation. The title and subtitle echoed themes and plots in my book, which is about Norwegian immigrants and fugitive slaves. 

We released Price of Passage on August 23, 2022, with a fabulous launch party at Mystery to Me Bookstore in Madison. Then I began making the rounds of libraries, bookstores, book festivals, and craft shows to sell and sign copies, in person, with real book-buying customers.

Meanwhile, I was working on my next book, a coming-of-age story called Izzy Strikes Gold!

And Then What Happened?

Besides direct sales at public events, we were selling Price of Passage on the internet through Amazon or the publisher’s own website. These sales generated royalty payments, which the publisher owed me on a quarterly basis. But in July 2023, less than a year after the book was published, the royalties ceased. 

The publisher, Dan Willis, had died. 

This was terrible news: First, because Dan had been a straight shooter in his dealings and a valued partner to me and other authors; second, because it turned out that nobody was up to the job of taking his place, and the DX Varos publishing company soon stopped functioning as a normal publishing company. 

Not to bore you with sordid details, Gentle Reader, but Your New Favorite Writer barely managed to get his rights back. It was a close call. 

So now it was back to Square One. I was the sole owner of a great literary property but needed a publishing partner to put it back into the market. I was up a creek with no means to propel my craft. 

Kira to the Rescue

The hero of this story is Kira Henschel. Kira, who owns and operates HenschelHAUS Publishing of Milwaukee, heard about my plight from a guardian angel, Christine DeSmet. Kira met me over coffee and agreed on the spot to re-publish Price of Passage and also to publish the next book, Izzy Strikes Gold!

Because of logistics, Izzy came out first, in July 2024, from Kira’s Three Towers Press imprint, and it has been well received. Now, Price of Passage is being re-published, also by Three Towers. The release date is next Saturday, February 1. The book is already up on Amazon, where you can lodge a pre-order. 

Huzzah! Huzzah!

It’s Always Something

If it isn’t one thing, Fair Reader, it’s another.

The book has a wonderful new cover, designed by Rony Dhar. It also has a slightly new title: The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom. It’s close to the old title—which would be wonderful if we were pitching horseshoes. 

Only we’re not pitching horseshoes, we’re pitching a book. Because the title of the new edition is slightly different from the original title, Amazon won’t carry the book’s 28 positive customer reviews over to the buying page for the new edition. This is a major hindrance, since Amazon customer reviews in the listing greatly influence the buying decisions of new customers.

We need to get new reviews for The Price of Passage, even though the entire content is exactly the same book that already garnered 28 good reviews.

“How Can I Help?”

This one’s kaput.

If you’ve never read the book, Dear Reader, you don’t know what you’ve missed. And now it’s back on the market. Buy it; read it; and when you like it, post a positive review. It’s simple. Just go to The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom. Scroll way down the listing to where it says, on the left, “Write a Customer Review.” Click on that button and follow Amazon’s instructions. 

You don’t have to write a book report. Just a sentence or two about why you liked it will suffice.

Read this one instead.

If you’re one of those who have already read Price of Passage but have not yet left a review, please do so. You can honestly review it at the page shown above for the new edition, even though what you read was the old edition—because the books are the same, word for word. Only the title and cover have changed. But please do leave a review. You’ll be helping a lot.

Finally, if you already did read the book and already did leave a review, please go to the page shown above and leave a review again under the new edition. It can be a brand new review, or you can use the same words you did before. If you don’t remember what you wrote before, email me at larryfsommers@gmail.com, and I’ll send you the text of your previous review.

By the way: Reviews may be posted on or after February 1, 2025—a week from Saturday—but not before then.

The literary world embraces your willing, cooperative spirit. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you wonderful person.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer