A common piece of advice for novel writers is to create character backgrounds for all of the main figures in the work, most often prior to beginning the writing. Those backgrounds could be considerable: you might detail not only the character’s general physical appearance and temperament, but things like what cereal he regularly eats (and if he slurps the bowl), her favorite kind of weekend dance music, which of their grandparents had thick hair, which the boldest gestures.

The concept behind this is that although—and even because—few of these minor details will ever be employed in the plot, you will have so saturated yourself in your characters’ consciousness that their actions as the story unfolds are direct reflections of the fullness (and often eccentricity) of their personalities.

The Sound of Memory
I was thinking of those things this Father’s Day, because I was trying to clearly remember my father’s laugh. That shouldn’t be too hard: my father lived 93 years, and he laughed easily, and enjoyed the laughter of others. Most of the photographs of my father show him with a broad smile, even after his Alzheimer’s robbed him of the clarity of his concerns. But I had some trouble this morning remembering the exact tone of my father’s laugh, its timbre, how it might build or fade.

That alarmed me, because my father has only been dead a few months, since New Year’s day. But my efforts were rewarded, because I was able to finally pull from memory the quality of his chuckle, how his face shaped his mirth and vice versa, and how the general atmosphere was lifted by the lilt of his laugh.

My struggles illustrate a useful writer’s lesson: pay attention to the details in your day-to-day—all of them. Fix them in your memory. It’s that airy wave of your first lover you don’t want to forget, because one of your characters might need that wave to fully become flesh in your reader’s imagination.

Regardless, you don’t ever want to forget your father’s laugh.

PS
If you were wondering, yes, my hair in that photo is made entirely of polystyrene, yet is completely edible.

I belong to a fun writer’s site, The Write-Brained Network. There are all kinds of writers, all kinds of writing issues discussed, and occasional informal contests on the site. A recent one was to write an “object” poem, using this assignment: “Discuss how objects have lives and that they are often markers in our lives that help us recognize where we’ve been. They contain a special luminescence, connecting our past to our present.”

Though I enjoy reading some poetry (Rilke, astonishing; Billy Collins, charming), I know very little of its formal structures, and know less about writing it. That said, it’s a fun exercise to try writing out of your genre, so I thought I’d write an object poem about the humble sandwich. But instead, this came out, almost immediately after I started writing:

Sad Sandwich

Sad sandwich on the bedside tray
moved in haste, forgotten in the empty house
bedding thrown back in caught anxiety
the last sandwich

Thousands of sandwiches before
handled with his child hands
then later, workingman eager, lunchpail eager
laughing with full mouth, laughing with work friends
then later, cold sandwiches in the bomber,
cold over Berlin, cold over Korea

Then, long past being able to make his own sandwich
my father's hands, delicate, veiny, persistent
still enjoying his sandwiches
but now all slowed, a slow sandwich, eaten contemplative

Thousands of sandwiches, thousands now forgotten
the one appearing on the daybed tray forgotten in a minute, two
but still the slow pleasure of the chewing, the body's nod
yet, this last sandwich, a sad sandwich,
abandoned in the slant of afternoon light
my father, gone forever, this past New Year's Day
the plate now empty, the hunger unending

Writing That Surprises the Writer
This was one of those odd experiences as a writer, much as fiction writers say that their characters do things that surprise them as they’re written. Here, I’d intended to write a light poem, and instead, it morphed under my fingers to be a tribute to my father, who died a few months ago. Without my even intending it, the poem became “.. a special luminescence, connecting our past to our present.”

So, an object poem, written with surprise tears. It always amazes me, the weight of words.

Related articles

• “The Trouble With Poetry, by Billy Collins” and related posts (bfgb.wordpress.com)

Writing specialties, where the writer addresses a narrow niche or fixed focus, are interesting in several ways. Some copywriters do a single thing: write white papers for the oil industry, or technical documentation for telephony applications, or sales letters for Fortune 500 clients. Early in my writing career, I was employed by Kennan Ward, a photographer for whom I wrote the backs of his nature-oriented postcards and notecards.

At first writing within the card’s restrictions seemed like a clumsy, scattered means of expressing information, but in time I developed a structure and flow for the short pieces that still afforded creativity, while delivering the mandated facts about the depicted scenes and animals. But the reason I’m writing about writing cubbyholes is because I wrote an obituary (with my sister Colleen’s help) yesterday for my father—and obituary writing is peculiar unto itself.

It’s very necessary to deliver dates and numbers in an obituary: marriages, births, number of children, date of death, and a passel of facts as well: interests, significant jobs, milestones, avocations. But mixed in the orderly stone columns of a life’s spreadsheet, you must attest to the blooming flowers in a tangled field, a comical toy under a towel, a mysterious box that makes you wonder what’s inside, a whisper of pain, pleasure—something of that indefinable stuff that separates us from the insects.

Wrestling with a Word Count
In writing my father’s obituary, I tried to put in the columns and the toys, because a person’s life is so much more than a numbered row of facts. But then my sister, long a reporter, reminded me that placing eulogies in various papers is damn pricey—Tom’s tendency to bound across word-fields needed a leash. The person who places the obits told my sister “Too bad you and your brother aren’t mathematicians instead of writers, because then you’d see how much it costs!”

Today I’m taking a shot at writing a eulogy as well, for the rosary service. That writing should be easier, in that no mathematicians will tamper with the word count; my father was an eccentric character, and when telling stories, you don’t want to clamp down hard on the words. I want to write the eulogy, and want to do it well for my father, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want this death-based writing to become my specialty—it takes a bite out of you.

Here’s what my sis and I came up with, after several rounds of hacking:

Robert K. Bentley, 1917-2011
Robert K. Bentley, beloved husband and cherished father, left this world for the next on New Year’s Day. Despite suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the past 10 years, “Sarge” Bentley remained a cheerful, steady presence in his family home, up to the end showing the warmth and humor that characterized his life. His “glad you got to see me” always drew quizzical looks and then laughs from people who met him for the first time.

Sarge was born on May 14, 1917, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Despite living more than 60 years in Southern California, he maintained that Colorado had it over any spot in the world. He brought back a large glass jar from one of our annual summer trips, full of clean Colorado air, and every so often he would take it off the fireplace mantel and grab a whiff of it, careful to leave enough to savor another day. Quarterback of his high-school football team, he never admitted that he managed to break his knee on purpose during a big game to win the affections of concerned cheerleaders.

Sarge was a waist gunner on B-17s in WWII, flying 35 missions primarily over Germany. He listed every mission in a small, 3x6 inch leather-bound notebook. After WWII, he was drafted out of the Army reserves and served in the Korean War, spending much time in Japan. He earned the stripes and the nickname that stayed with him until the end of his days from those years in the service of his country.

Sarge met his bride-to-be, Eileen O’Brien, while stationed in Long Beach, CA in 1945. She worked at the old Manning’s Restaurant on Pine Avenue, and when he came in to eat one day, she elbowed aside the other waitresses so she could carry the tray of that handsome man. They married on May 30, 1947.

Sarge worked at the Ford Motor plants in Long Beach and Pico Rivera City for 39 years—and in those years, the number of days he missed work could be counted on one hand. That kind of steady, old-fashioned perseverance was a mark of his character, a character defined by consistent warmth and fellowship. After his retirement, he became a congenial nuisance around the house, golfing occasionally, and traveling to Alaska, Ireland and Las Vegas, where he was a good friend of the casino craps tables, occasionally winning but sometimes not, so the drive back to Long Beach could seem awfully long. He was known in the neighborhood for his warm welcomes and his zany front-yard signs, boosting his Colorado sports teams, especially the Denver Broncos, and commenting on the times.

He is survived by his wife Eileen, his four children, Colleen Bentley, Kathleen Bentley, Rick Bentley and Tom Bentley, his grandson Zach King and several nieces and nephews and grandnieces and nephews. Despite him living a full, rich 93 years, they wish he could have lived forever.

Touching the Essence
I wanted it to say more. Not more words, but more essence—but that’s the challenge, always the crucible of trying to write. This obit is what we have, and this will do. Dad, I hope you like it.

Writing is connection, whether with words that precede, or words that follow; writing can be framed with themes and directions only hinted at, only suggested with faint trails. Sentences are families of words, sometimes taut ropes of enduring bond, other times rambling things, of loose alliance, dim fellowship or tangled expression.

I just returned from a holiday week with my family. An interesting time: my father, who has been deep in Alzheimer’s grip for many years, and essentially bed-bound for the last couple, was notably alert. Always a warm man, he was visibly pleased to be in the company of all his kids. He delighted in eating, still feeding himself from a bedside tray, shaky and slow with the spoon, but still managing. One time I brought him his food, and he looked up and said, “What do I owe you?” He was a man quick with a joke all his life, but it was still a surprise when he would surface from the glazed, almost frozen state that marked the bulk of his day and venture out with some words, a connection, before returning to the quietude of his condition.

But in that condition, there was still a man in there, still pushing time. He remembered my name a couple of times during this visit, and amazed me when he had been sitting in his wheelchair (helped in and out by caretakers, for short periods a few days a week) and had been staring silently into his stillness for a while, but turned to me reading on the couch and said, “Hey, what book are you reading?” I was taken aback—and delighted—by his abrupt spark, and related the book’s title and contents, and then he smiled and returned to his cloistered musings.

Yesterday, he fell ill, and was taken to the emergency room. His big heart, repeatedly remarked upon by his doctors for its steady strength in his advanced age, was fluttering and weak. He fought through the night, but left this plane for the next, a bit after 6am this morning. Sarge Bentley, a good man, my father, gone this New Year’s Day at 93. A life—how can you sum it up, count and consider its gestures, its feelings, its words, its connections?

I loved him, and will miss him, as will all my family. I’m grateful for this Christmas, and for the long years we had him. I’m grateful for being able to tell him I loved him when I said goodbye to return home a few days ago, and grateful for the integrity of his life.