Hope For Endings and Beginnings

Lindsey P. Brackett

Every year about this time, I get nostalgic. Not for evergreen boughs and red bows, sugar cookies and candy canes. Instead, I’m remembering the year my parents slipped a book with a yellow cover under the Christmas tree. A paperback with pencil illustrations and simple words about a little family in a little house in the Big Woods.  When asked how I knew I wanted to be a writer, I show them those now tattered paperbacks. I knew because I sincerely believed that if Laura Ingalls could write stories about her family, then so could I.

Not to mention, the world of Laura’s prairies and long winters made me feel safe and secure. Though I realize now, as an adult, how little security her life really held. But under the influence of her stories, I found myself always gravitating toward novels that give me that same sense of contentment.

Southern Bookseller

By Lindsey P. Brackett

There’s nothing quite like a small southern bookseller.

Often these cozy shops are tucked away in unexpected places. Like any good bookstore, you’ll find teetering stacks of trade-in paperbacks and the bookstore cat lounging atop the most recent display of bestsellers.

I’m convinced these creatures are waiting for the crawdads to sing so they can pounce.

As an author with a small publisher, I’ve learned the best way to get my book onto a shelf in a real bookstore is to simply ask, in person if possible. Homemade treats make the request even sweeter. These owners usually aren’t in the business for the money (are any of us?) and when an author comes to visit, they’re happy to hear all about your story.

Less the one you’ve written and more the one you’re living I’ve also found.

The local shop owner at Edisto Beach wants to know why I write about this barrier island where there are no high-rise hotels or putt-putt courses. These reasons and my family history are precisely why I write about Edisto. She tells her regular customers, the ones she knows never miss a Sunday in their pew, they’ll probably like my books because I go to church, too.  

She didn’t learn that from reading my books but from the conversation we had one late Friday afternoon as a book signing wound down and customers dwindled.

In my current hometown, our local bookstore is perfectly categorized by the sign out front. “Inside, books. Outside, bears (maybe). Why risk it?”

I’ve lived here for three years but haven’t yet made it over to this store. For some reason, I had more fear about walking into the Mt. Yonah Book Exchange then I did Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC. When I finally popped in the other week—after giving up that I would ever find the right time in which I would be dressed in something other than workout clothes—the owner laughed when I introduced myself. She knew how I was, told me people ask about my books all time. She’d have ordered them long ago if she knew where she could get them.

And I was left to wonder how many sales I’ve now lost because I didn’t place enough value on the might of this small bookseller.

My books are on her shelf now, and I’m inclined to believe they’ll be seen by more customers trickling through her bookstore than the ones clicking by on the Internet.

After all, in the bookstore, the only distraction is more books—and the cat who wants to know what you’ll be reading next.

Tips for working with booksellers:

·         Bring swag: bookmarks, postcards, sell sheets with information on your book including ISBN and where to order.

·         Make a purchase.

·         Offer an ARC or influencer copy.

·         Don’t forget the treats!

·         Use your southern charm. We all know you sell more books with honey.

Find my newest novel on the shelf at these southern booksellers: Mt. Yonah Book Exchange (Cleveland, GA), Books with A’Peal (Cornelia, GA), Fiction Addiction (Greenville, SC), and the Edisto Island Bookstore (Edisto Island, SC).

I’m always up for a bookstore visit! Email me: lindsbrac@gmail.com.

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Lindsey P. Brackett writes southern fiction infused with her rural Georgia upbringing and Lowcountry roots. Her debut novel, Still Waters, inspired by family summers at Edisto Beach, released in 2017. Called “a brilliant debut” with “exquisite writing,” Still Waters was named an INSPY finalist and the 2018 Selah Book of the Year. Her second novel, The Bridge Between, released July 31, 2019. Download Magnolia Mistletoe with newsletter signup at lindseypbrackett.com or on Instagram and Facebook: @lindseypbrackett.

Elements of Flash Fiction

By Lindsey P. Brackett

Flash fiction is not like writing a novel. Good thing, since you only have 1000 words in which to tell the story.

With flash fiction, the tactics of subplots, POV shifts, and world building usually cannot happen effectively. When I teach flash fiction classes, I encourage writers to commit to one point of view, one internal and/or external conflict, and minimal secondary characters. Instead of the whole photo album, drop your readers into a moment—a snapshot.

But unlike still photos, flash fiction is not stagnant. The story must move and something must happen. Your protagonist must have an obstacle to overcome and a sense of resolution at the end.

This moment can be as high stakes as diffusing a bomb to save the love interest—or as simple as an older couple rediscovering each other during a routine outing. When writing flash fiction—or truly any story for that matter—start with your character and their conflict. What does this person want or need? What is standing in their way?

Once, I wrote about an overwhelmed mother and her passive husband. (I promise I only half-related to this character.) Because the conflict had to be related to the assignment—ghost story, old well, horse saddle—I set them on a crumbling farm with an old dry well. When the external conflict arises, a child falls in the old well, the tension in their marriage is heightened because he’s not there to help her.

I could build a whole novel from these characters, but if I did, I would lose the great tension this story’s brevity held. The greatest conflict is this one moment—how she (and the ghost of a horse) handled the situation. This is not a story about a marriage’s demise or reconciliation. It is a story about how a mother finds her strength.

When you write flash fiction, find the one conflict that will empower, destroy, or awaken your character. Then use that one pinnacle moment and show how they overcome.

You’ll leave your reader wondering—but satisfied—and ready for more. Maybe they want more of that story, but hopefully, they definitely want more of your writing.

You can read Lindsey’s award-winning ghost story, Listen When I Call, in the 2017 edition of Southern Writers Magazine Best ShortStories.

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Lindsey P. Brackett writes southern fiction infused with her rural Georgia upbringing and Lowcountry roots. Her debut novel, Still Waters, inspired by family summers at Edisto Beach, released in 2017. Called “a brilliant debut” with “exquisite writing,” Still Waters received 4-stars from Romantic Times and was named 2018 Selah Book of the Year. Connect with Lindsey and get her free newsletter at lindseypbrackett.com or on Instagram and Facebook: @lindseypbrackett.

A Southern Setting...No Matter Where You Are

By Lindsey P. Brackett

Terry Kay told me recently, at a writers’ workshop in the Sautee Valley, that I am too young to write true southern fiction. He’s right, of course. I didn’t live through the civil rights movement, and while I remember when we got our first VCR, I don’t remember the year the lights came on.

I think what he meant was the southern fiction I raised myself on has evolved, like this region itself. This new fiction carries Southern overtones anywhere it’s set.  After all, these days are all about oxymoron. One can love skillet cornbread on a gluten-free diet.

So what is it, exactly, that makes a setting southern? What differentiates fiction set in the deep ravines of Mississippi or the foothills of Appalachia from my debut fiction set in the South Carolina Lowcountry?

And what if—heaven forbid—I put down the words bouncing around in my head about a young mother from Atlanta who’s been transplanted to New York? Will I still be writing southern fiction if she’s surrounded by people who don’t eat grits?

Of course I will. Because more and more what defines our setting, making us southern writers, is how we present a few key components.

LANGUAGE is the first cue that settles me into what I’m reading. In The Poisonwood Bible, there’s no doubt these girls are sweltering in the Congo, but with phrases like “reckon so”, “ever-when”, and “mess of fish”, there’s also no doubt they came from rural Georgia. As witnesses, we must pay homage to language of our culture and use it appropriately. For instance, I was grown before I heard the phrase “I s’wanee…” uttered in real life by a blue-haired woman in South Georgia. Up north of the gnat line we flat out swear. Readers (especially regional ones) will know where you are, and where you came from, simply by the language you use.

LORE is another way to lend a setting specificity. My wonderful editor, bless her heart, is Nebraskan, so she needed clarification for why I used “haints” when referencing the blue ceiling of a Lowcountry farmhouse. But anyone along the coast of South Carolina knows, you paint the ceiling and porch “haint blue” out of superstition. This is as necessary as butter on biscuits.

LEGENDS offer credibility to your setting. I grew up in the heart of legendary Coke country where any drink, other than sweet tea, is Coke. But my mama grew up in the Lowcountry, so she’s partial to Pepsi. In my book, I used this regional difference to cement a subtle difference between characters. From products to celebrities— i.e. I don’t know football but I know who Herschel Walker is—these legends are part of your setting’s fabric. Be sure to weave them in for authenticity.

Finally, remember setting is the background against which your story plays out. Would your story be different if set somewhere else? The answer might surprise you—and help you define what specific components your “Southern setting” is missing.

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Lindsey P. Brackett once taught middle grades literature, but now she writes award winning books in her own works in the midst of motherhood. A blogger since 2010, she has published articles and short stories in a variety of print and online publications including Thriving Family, Country Extra, HomeLife, Northeast Georgia Living, Splickety Prime, Splickety Love, and Southern Writers Magazine Best Short Fiction 2015.  Lindsey has served as Editor of Web Content for the Splickety Publishing Group, and she writes a popular column for several North Georgia newspapers. Still Waters, influenced by her family ties to the South Carolina Lowcountry, is her debut novel. A story about the power of family and forgiveness, it’s been called “a brilliant debut” with “exquisite writing.” A Georgia native, Lindsey makes her home—full of wet towels, lost library books, and strong coffee—at the foothills of Appalachia with her patient husband and their four rowdy children. Connect with her at www.lindseypbrackett.com or on Facebook: Lindsey P. Brackett, Instagram: @lindseypbrackett, or Twitter: @lindsbrac.