A guide to writing a novel or planning a wedding: whichever you choose

There’s not a lot in this world that I excel at. In fact, there are so many things that I’m terrible at (filling out forms, parallel parking, eating without spilling food, you get the idea.) that I keep a short list on my phone of things I am actually good at. Two items on this list are: writing and hosting parties.

 The past few months as I’ve been consumed with planning my daughter’s wedding and not writing as much as I’d like, I’ve been thinking a lot about the similarities between writing a novel and throwing a party. They have more in common than you’d think. The fundamentals of hosting are basically the same as those for novel writing. So, I’ve compiled a few thoughts on how to plan a party or write a novel, whichever strikes your fancy. 

Books and parties have so much in common. They both require a lot of hard work and planning; yet, to be successful must appear effortless. Books have themes; parties have themes. People judge books by their cover. People judge parties by their invite.* Consider the main elements of a novel: character, setting and plot. These match up nicely with the elements of a wedding: Bride and Groom (character), venue (setting) and schedule (plot). But before we get to any of these, we need to talk about the most important, but often the most overlooked, factor of both books and parties—your audience.

There is no party without guests. There is no book without a reader. This is so obvious that it is sometimes forgotten. Hosts generally understand this concept better than authors. Some writers actually boast that they write just for themselves. But party planners also can make the same mistake, such as the host who gives a boring speech or forces everyone to watch an interminable slideshow. This sort of self-centered approach yields the same result: boredom.  A bored guest leaves the party. A bored reader closes the book. Thus, the first rule of hosting and writing is: don’t be boring!!! After all, both authors and party planners are in the business of entertainment.

Always begin with something interesting, whether it is a stellar first line, or an unexpected appetizer and then continue to feed guests and readers big and little surprises. Delightful surprises are the lifeblood of both parties and books. Now, don’t mistake surprise with confusion. (Admittedly, I have been guilty of that myself, both as a writer and a party planner.) 

Although they adore surprises, both readers and guests want structure. Which leads me to rule #2: Guests and readers like to know the general plan for the evening/story and then be surprised within these boundaries. At the small party at our home after the ceremony, family and close friends were told when the bride and groom would arrive. Guests were guided out front and given little containers of rose petals to throw. But there were still many unknowns. They didn’t know the bride and groom would arrive in a white Rolls Royce. Few knew what the wedding dress looked like and how big and over the top the bouquet would be. It’s the same with writing. Give readers enough details to be grounded in a fictional world and then slip in a steady supply of delightful surprises. 

In the last example the guests were asked to do something— go to the driveway and throw rose petals. This is a good example of rule #3: in both parties and books guests and readers should feel like participants not spectators. When planning a party a host should take inventory of all five senses. Is there a sight to behold? Something delicious to eat? A party playlist? Or for a different type of party, a crackling fire? Does the room need a scented candle or does it already smell wonderful because of the baking pie? In addition to making sure the flowers were gorgeous (They also smelled wonderful-one reason I love flowers they check off two senses.) and the food delicious at my daughter’s wedding, we also paid attention to touch and sound. Instead of using the cheap polyester napkins our rental company offered, we made a special trip** to acquire soft linen napkins. And during the mocktail hour a jazz pianist played soft music. Writers can benefit by checking off the same list with each scene. Have you immersed the reader in the story by describing what the characters see, touch, hear, smell, feel and taste? 

 A sure way to make guests feel invested in a party is a group activity in which they can successfully*** participate. At my daughter’s reception in Salt Lake. The groom’s father wrote a lovely song to the couple. Before he sang it, he taught the hundred plus guests the chorus. He sang the verses accompanied by another son on the violin. At the chorus, the room swelled with singing:

Here’s to the young ones who find their true love

Born in the mountains then blessed from above

The whole world stands still when he looks in her eyes

And we all dance together.

All those voices blending—parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, childhood friends, old neighbors, new friends—surrounding the bride and groom, singing their best wishes with imperfect voices. For a moment everyone felt part of something bigger than themselves, something rich and deep and beautiful.

 Likewise, in a book, readers feel included when they are allowed to participate in the story. As a reader myself, I love it when the writer gives me a chance to connect the dots. It’s fun to have that “aha!” moment slightly ahead of the main character. It makes me feel clever. I also enjoy the smug feeling of knowing important facts still unknown to the main character.  Like in Pride and Prejudice when we find out Mr. Darcy is thinking about Elizabeth’s eyes when she still thinks he finds her only “tolerably handsome.”

 Finally, rule #4, in addition to entertaining, guiding and including your guests, you must always consider their comfort. All good hosts know that if you are holding a party during meal time, you had better provide food. And if it’s a large event, you should make sure the bathroom is well-labeled and easy to find. (A mistake I made at the wedding.) Writers must also be considerate of their audience.  When you bring up a character in chapter 19 that the reader hasn’t seen since chapter 3, it’s helpful to give a quick of recap of this person’s significance. When I am editing a book, I often remind myself, “When in doubt, help the reader out.” A writer can also assist readers by: avoiding unusual or creative punctuation (I read a book recently without quotation marks and it was just annoying.), making it clear who said what, using appropriate language for the age group/genre, and avoiding offensive words, descriptions and scenes. Yes, of course you will have a character with a foul mouth who says and thinks offensive things. No one expects writers to sanitize the whole world. But an author must be thoughtful about which offensive words or scenes are worth keeping in a book. And sometimes by trying to limit offense we find creative and better solutions. Once in a story, instead of having the character say a swear word. I wrote, “He cursed out loud.” In that particular case, “curse” turned out to be a more powerful choice because of its connotations with dark magic.

It is the same with party planning, sometimes by trying to work around hard realities to keep guests comfortable you come up with serendipitous solutions. Planning for the wedding, I worried about guests being chilly in the evening.  Our dinner would be in our backyard and according to the forecast it was going to be 65-70 degrees. Warm enough for men in suit jackets but not for women in flimsy dresses. After much discussion, we decided to buy a couple dozen pashmina shawls on Amazon in a variety of colors. As the sun set my friend’s daughters went to each table offering guests a wrap. Everyone was so delighted with these $10 shawls, much more than if we had spent the money on renting heat lamps. And it was so fun to see guests in color-coordinated wraps. That was a bonus we hadn’t considered. I find a lot of these happy side-effects happen when you plan a party with the guests in mind. In both writing and parties, some of the magic is the unexpected things that fall into place after all of your planning.

Rather than post lots and lots of pictures, I’m going to post the wedding video created by Sophia Deighton in which you’ll see lots of the examples I mentioned here. In my next installment on writing books and planning parties, I’ll talk about the other elements of a party: character, setting and plot. Trust me it works.

* I’ve tested this out many times. A real-life-in-the-mail invitation will always get a higher turnout, than an Evite. It should be noted that just as some authors will draw loyal readers no matter how lame the cover, some hosts have such a solid reputation for entertaining that they can get away with an evite.

**Actually, my good friend Lara drove an hour or so into the boonies. It’s easy to go the extra mile when you have others do it for you. :)

*** I say successfully because once my daughters were invited to a party where the plan was to do a flash mob dance in a public place. For my daughters who can’t dance this plan was terrifying.