Jodi Picoult is a very popular writer, with at least 16 novels to her credit, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister's Keeper, which is now a major motion picture. Picoult, who is 43, studied creative writing at Princeton University, and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. You can read more about her at her web site: www.jodipicoult.com
Here, I'd like to look at how she introduces the main character in Plain Truth, the story of an Amish woman and a dead baby.
This woman is introduced on the first page, but she is not named, only referred to only as "she." The first page is entirely taken up with this character.
We don't meet her again until eight pages later, by which time we've been introduced to several other characters: Aaron and Sarah Fisher; Aaron's father, Elam Fisher; cousins Levi and Samuel Esch; and police officer Lizzie Munro. It is only then that we learn the name of the woman on page 1: "she" is Katie Fisher, 18-year-old daughter of Aaron and Sarah, and sister to Hannah, who drowned at age seven.
So there's some mystery. It leaves readers turning the pages because they want to find out who the "she" is and what her story is. So this is one way to introduce a character: give us a sneak-peek, but hold something back! Of course, we're not talking about a short story here; this novel is 404 pages, so perhaps there's lots of room for a slow unveiling.
By the way, Jodi Picoult will be in Vancouver and will give a reading on March 13, at 7:30 p.m. at St Andrew’s-Wesley United Church, 1022 Nelson Street (at Burrard). The reading is sponsored by the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival (VIWRF) and Picoult's publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada.
Picoult will read from her new novel, Sing You Home, accompanied by guitarist Ellen Wilber. Tickets are $21 general/$19 students & seniors, available through Vancouver Tix.
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