Susan’s Comments (group member since Nov 02, 2013)

Susan’s comments from the Ask Susan Wittig Albert about A WILDER ROSE group.

Dottie wrote: "How do we find the Goodreads giveaway for this, Susan?"


Dottie, go here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh... All goodreads giveaways are on the "Explore" tab.

Kay wrote: "I keep thinking I know a fair amount about publishing, and then I come across someone who knows tons more than I do. Suspect I'm at best midway on a long, long road of learning ..."

Kay, I agree! The thing is, though, that what you learn one day is obsolete the next. The techologies are stabilizing, but people's uses of them are expanding in hugely creative ways. It's a full-time job to stay on top of that, which doesn't leave much time for writing. From that point of view, ROSE has been a massive challenge for me.

Kay wrote: "SUSAN wrote: "As long as there are lots of niche markets for different kinds of readers, I can be happy...hmm, more or less."

Kay, one of the wonderful things about the new publishing technologies is that authors now have the ability to write books that appeal to niche markets. ROSE (as narrative nonfiction) was rejected by a number of publishers because they felt the market for the book was "too niche." But I was determined to get the book out there, and print-on-demand and ebook publishing made it possible for me to do that. It was a huge job to tackle, but I'm glad I did. I learned things about the book business I couldn't have learned any other way.

Clare wrote: "I've just stopped reading serial killer books because they were getting more extreme. It seemed as though writers were trying to outdo one another in order to get noticed... more depraved, more psy..."

Authors are making a serious choice when they choose which route to take, Clare. It's actually a values choice. I know that vampires sell mysteries, & I'm as capable of writing vampire mysteries as the next one. But I won't go in that direction.

I do believe in using popular fiction to tackle difficult and dark social issues; I continue to do that in the China Bayles books. It's my way of taking a stand on the issues I care about.

You're welcome, Gail. And thank you for participating!

Oh, gosh, Clare--how can we measure that? But for clues to the range of her intellectual interests, read Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks. (She followed the adage: write what you know.) She joined (and created) local women's clubs and supported her county's libraries. She read newspapers and books (she preferred Westerns). She may not have wanted to be a teacher, but she took advantage of the learning opportunities that came her way.

Jan wrote: "I couldn't agree more, Susan. (I'm reading "The Tale of Briar Bank" right now, in fact.) I have this conversation often, and lament the amount of darkness in current fiction. As an example, you onl..."

I worry that the prevalence of the dark and sensational skews the taste of readers, so that they find it difficult to appreciate slower-paced, character-driven fiction. And since publishers seem these days to follow the dollars, that means there will be less of the kinder/gentler fiction and more of the dark/slam-bang stuff.

Angela Lynn wrote: "I have to say it was kind of a shock for me when I heard how much Rose did on the books. I knew she helped out some but now to the extent that she did. I am such a fan of Laura's and have always be..."

When we consider the situation Laura and Rose found themselves in, I think we have to admire both of them. Life was so much harder than we can imagine, as we can see from Rose's diary. Rose did what she had to do to help her mother, and Laura had to learn to accept the help. I think their achievement is a triumph--and not an easy one, either, which makes it even more admirable.

Angela Lynn wrote: "I did not mind the Norma Lee character because I felt as if Rose was not only telling her story to Norma but to me. I also liked the friendship they had which boarded on a type of mother/daughter relationship, which I think also gave you another glimpse of who she really was.
"

You're right, Angela--both Rose and Norma Lee thought of it that way. Rose was the kind of mother that Norma Lee wanted; Norma Lee was the daughter Rose never had. And interestingly, there were some of the same kinds of control issues between them that Rose and Laura experienced--but much less, because they weren't really mother/daughter. Norma Lee wouldn't let herself be pushed around, and of course had no financial obligation, as Rose did, to Laura.

Readerwoman Laura wrote: "Oh yeah, I think that could very well be the way it happened - life is like that anyway... a simple yes to something ends up being a life-long commitment! "

Don't we know it! :)

Readerwoman Laura wrote: "I am thinking it is Laura that didn't want it known (the collaboration) although Rose may have thought being connected to "children's books" was beneath her somehow. "

I wish we knew more about Laura's feelings about the concealment, don't you? And of course, Rose didn't sign on for an eight-book series. In the beginning, it was just one book, and by the time she realized there would be at least three, and then more, she might have decided that it was too late. In that sense, concealing Rose's work might not have been a deliberate long-term choice, just something they slipped into and felt they couldn't alter. And after Laura's death, Rose couldn't very well put up her hand and say, "Well, people, here's what I did with those books..."

Kathleen wrote: "I probably agree with Katherine although it did not cause me problems until the last time Norma was heard from..she sort of summed it up when I had already done that myself."


Kathleen, your comment brings up a perennial problem that writers face when they're deciding how much is too much.

I've heard from readers who say that they finally "got it" when Norma and Russell had their conversation in Chapter 12. By that point, however, you didn't need that exchange.

Readers bring different interest levels, different skills/experience, and different information "reserves" to their reading. As a mystery author, I've learned that some readers never "get it" until the very end, when the resolution is laid out. Other, more experienced readers (or people who are reading more attentively) "get it" much earlier and may even be annoyed by what they see as an unnecessary explanation. I try to aim somewhere in between.

One of the things that interested me about the two writers who produced the Little House books was the fact that they went to such lengths to conceal their collaboration. In A WILDER ROSE, Rose gives her reasons for not wanting to claim credit for her extensive work on her mother’s books. What’s your view?

Katherine L wrote: "I read somewhere that Rose and her not-much-older aunt Grace were close as youngsters, and that Rose sent money to Grace late in life.

What happened to their relationship in between? Did they s..."

Grace was 9 years older than Rose, and the two were together, off and on, until the Wilders moved to Missouri when Rose was 7 (Grace would have been 16).

I don't know of any correspondence between them until February, 1932, when Rose mentions in her diary that Laura had received a letter from Grace, asking for financial help. The two apparently discussed it, but there's no indication in the diary that Rose sent money. Grace died in 1941. No, I don't think they were close.

You're right, Katherine: Rose doesn't seem to have much of a family resemblance. But I like to think that she inherited her itchy foot from her grandfather, Charles Ingalls. She remembers feeling an urgent wanderlust as a small child, and she was 52 when she settled in her first permanent "little house."

Katherine L wrote: "The "Norma" device pulled me out of the story. I found it very easy to fall into Rose's world and narration, and feel that she was speaking to me personally. The "Norma" sessions bounced me out of that space, and reminded me that I was reading a book."

You've put that well, Katherine. I'm glad it reminded you that you were reading a story: that is, something that Rose is shaping and telling. As you say, it's easy to "fall into Rose's world"--the world of a first-person narrator. I wanted readers to understand that "Rose's world" is just that: her world. And that there's more to the story than she is willing or able to tell.

Writers "bounce" readers out of the story in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons. When I see that happening, I always like to ask why.

Kathleen wrote: "There is a difference for me between fiction and non fiction which are a bit dark or sad. If it is non fiction or even a fictional interpretation of a real person, like Rose and Laura,then it works for me. Real is real and is fine even when not cheerful and upbeat."

Kathleen, that's a very good distinction. I like narrative history and biographical fiction that is fact-based, and in those works, I'm fine with the dark. But I stay away from fiction that goes into the dark simply for the sake of the dark. That's just not my preference.

And I do have to confess to combining biographical fact-based fiction (the life of Beatrix Potter, between 1905-1913) with fantasy (animals who talk). So I can't say I always strictly stay with the facts. I enjoyed the talking animals, especially those badgers. :)

Gail wrote: "On the other side of the coin would be, say, Patricia Cornwall's books. I haven't read any of her works recently, but what I did read became increasingly dark....the story was so compelling, though..."

And I once temporarily stopped reading Elizabeth George (one of my all-time favorite crime fiction writers) when she allowed me, as a reader, to grow close to a child--and then allowed the child to be killed. Too much even for me!

Gail wrote: "Two books I love:
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovic
Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, Mildred Armstrong Kali..."

Little Heathens is wonderful, Gail--full of humor and fun, in spite of the challenges. Here's one I like, of that same era: A Nickel's Worth of Skim Milk: a Boy's View of the Great Depression, by Robert J. Hastings.

The LH books, too, kept the dark at bay, primarily because Laura/Rose used the child-Laura as a POV character. "Pioneer Girl," which Laura wrote for adult readers (and which is the source document for the Little House books), is not so light-hearted.

Readerwoman Laura wrote: "Especially true of Rose as a role model - realizing that she was particularly innovative and forward-thinking for her times. "

Exactly, Readerwoman--she was a pioneer, like her parents & grandparents. She definitely had Pa Ingalls' blood in her: she saw herself as a wanderer, an image that stayed with her from childhood until the end of her life.

Some readers have asked me about the character of Norma Lee. Yes, she was a real person—a young woman whom Rose befriended in 1936 when she (Norma Lee) was a journalism student at the Univ. Missouri Columbia. They were friends for the rest of Rose’s life. I based her fictional character on letters she wrote to Rose’s biographer, Bill Holtz (held at the Hoover Presidential Library) and on the recollections that Holtz shared with me. He talked with her several times. She died in 2001.

I had two reasons for using Norma Lee as a character: I needed an “interlocutor” to get Rose to tell her story and an audience to hear her and react. The interlocutor is a fictional device that writers often use to create a “frame” for a first-person story. Maybe you’ve read “Heart of Darkness,” by Joseph Conrad—probably the most famous example of this device. Can you think of others?

Also—and this was important to me--I needed to find a way to show some of Rose’s controlling behavior. Rose is telling (and shaping) her own story, and it would be hard for her to admit to her own control/manipulation issues. But Norma Lee and her husband Russell see through her, and toward the end of the novel, Russell cautions Norma Lee not to fall into Rose’s trap. (She didn't.)

How did you feel about the use of this character? Do you feel that Norma Lee’s interruptions got in the way of the first-person story? Would you have liked Rose’s story better without Norma Lee?