The Remains of a Book You Loved
I read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin while traveling over the winter holidays. My twenty-something daughter, who was traveling with me, was reading it, too, and each morning we would breathlessly share what we had read the night before – well, I would share what I had read, because she was ahead of me.
We both loved it—both the experience of being immersed in the story, and the experience of discussing all the plot twists, cultural references, existential questions, and unresolved tensions in the story. Both experiences were intense and satisfying.
It has now been about 9 weeks since I finished the book, and I have not opened it up again. I am writing this without seeing what I highlighted (I read on a Kindle), without re-reading key scenes, and without researching what other folks have said about the book. I want to try to capture what remains after reading a book I loved, because it feels almost tangible.
And whatever it is, it’s the thing the writer wants to give their reader. It’s the impact we seek to make. It’s the thing all writers are after.
Here is my attempt to capture what it is:
A Feeling
When I think about this story, a feeling washes over me. It’s a mixture of melancholy (this story does not have a “happily ever after” ending), excitement (the story was fast-paced and filled with tension, and some of that feeling I experience while reading the book returns). More than the plot or the characters or any particular sense or the world of the story, what I can most easily call up is the feeling this book gave me.
It reminds me of that Maya Angelou quote: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” The same is true of books.
A Sense of Awe
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a beautifully written book. There is a sense of deep mastery about it, on both a whole-book level, the level of individual passages, and the level of the sentence. It’s written with incredible authority. I was in awe of the writing while I was reading, and that awe remains now when I think about the book. I carry with me a judgment — a belief that this book was a good book.
This is the feeling that often propels me to share a book with friends and family and colleagues and clients.
Things to Teach
A byproduct of that awe is that I know I will teach from this book. There are so many powerful examples of strong character development, excellent scene writing, realistic dialogue, believable dream sequences, how much to give away when, and how to hold tension over the course of a story. This book will go into the card catalog in my brain, so that when I am asked for a book that does X well, or that I loved for Y, or that is a good example of Z, I can easily call it up.
In a nonfiction book, this same thing can be true but it’s often the content I am responding to—the excellent way the author spoke about X idea or concept. I know I will recommend that book to anyone wanting to learn or understand whatever the author is writing about.
A Sense of Ownership
When I read a book I love, I feel like it belongs to me. Through the experience of reading it, I come to claim it for myself. When I see someone else reading it, or talk to someone else who has read it, I am quick to say, “Wasn’t it amazing??” so that we can establish our mutual admiration. It’s as if we belong to the book or it belongs to us. I am entering into solidarity with everyone else who loved it. It’s as if we are sorting ourselves into groups — those who love it and those who don’t.
A Familiarity
I often mistake the characters in a novel for people I know. I will be speaking with someone and will say something like, “That happened to this friend of mine…” or “I heard a story about someone who…” and then I will catch myself and realize that I am thinking about characters and scenes in a novel and not real people. When I love a book, it becomes that real to me—and I love that.
In nonfiction, this feeling surrounds the author. I feel as if I know them. I will remember their name and speak of them as if we are acquainted.
A Sense of Expansiveness
There is something about this book that widens the world for me. It made me think about relationships and creativity in different ways. The story touches on concepts like the nature of story, the nature of collaboration, the reality of unreal worlds, who owns an idea, what an idea even is, and what love looks like between creators, between friends, and between lovers.
This feeling is among the strongest of all the things on this list. As I sit here writing this, I feel the big-ness of the book and its impact on me. That leads me to the last item, which is the strongest of all:
A Sense of Gratitude
This story, which is about people who make games and worlds and experiences for other people made me grateful to be a person who creates things, who collaborates with others, and who strives for excellence within a certain creative realm. It also made me grateful for the friendships I have and grateful to simply be alive.
I said above that these are the things every writer wants their reader to feel — or something like these things. We want to make a lasting impact. We want to matter. We want to be remembered.
As book coaches, our job is to help our writers think this big about their work. It’s not enough just to outline the story or the content the book will cover. It’s not enough to plot things out on a grid. We need to talk about impact. We need to help the writer imagine their future reader and what they will feel and know and believe.
