Busted!—Tatiana de Rosnay Caught Doing Something Right

I've been known to irreverently refer to the early work of untrained writers as “an amazing number of black marks on a white page.” I'm not without compassion; we all must start somewhere, and I applaud anyone who sits still long enough to try to bring a literary vision to fruition. As a developmental editor, I enjoy helping shape such work.

But it's immediately apparent, in many manuscripts I see, that the writer has concentrated too hard on the black marks without giving the white page its due. In overwriting, the author has created a wall of words and feelings and facts and actions and descriptions and stage directions that virtually shut out the reader. That conscientious effort to tell every aspect of a story ends up being a misstep.

The reader wants to bring her life experience and intellect and observation skills to what she reads. Add things up. Make educated guesses. Feel smart. Fill in the blanks. To that end, you need some blanks. What you don’t say can be of vital importance.

Of course without applying black marks to a white page we wouldn't even have a manuscript. But that's first and second draft thinking. While editing later drafts, your writing will benefit from thinking of your manuscript as white pages defined by black marks.

In visual art, you might think of this as a canvas on which sketched lines or dabs of paint start to suggest a human form. Music would simply be noise without the small silences that organize and define it. Watching the way a dancer manipulates space, energizing it and pushing against it and slicing through it, can be more thrilling than the movements themselves. A soliloquy without dramatic pause would fall flat.

This brings me to the author I’m busting today: Tatiana de Rosnay, who in titling her 2007 novel points to the literary device she so beautifully employed: Sarah’s Key.

In 1942 occupied Paris, as French police tear entire Jewish families from their homes and escort them to unknown fates, ten-year-old Sarah bravely “saves” her brother by locking him inside their secret bedroom cupboard, promising to come back for him as soon as she and her parents are released.

Sarah keeps the key in her pocket throughout her unconscionable ordeal. It is around this symbol that de Rosnay builds her entire novel—Sarah’s 1942 story line entwines with that of a reporter who, sixty years later, tries to unlock secrets about this buried aspect of history, as shameful to her own family as it is to France.

One story event at a time, as we learn of the impact Sarah’s act ultimately had on so many, the key grows in symbolic power—to the point that its re-appearance, near the end of the book, packs a powerful emotional wallop. If de Rosnay laid out for the reader its many figurative meanings, she would have insulted her.

Bonus bust: Because de Rosnay told her tale in short, punchy chapters, plenty of white space contributes to her book—as if her story is visually wrapped around untold secrets and unexplored spaces.

Not every story lends itself to a powerful, unifying symbol. But other comparisons, such as simile and metaphor, also do a fine job of inviting the reader to apply her life experience to her understanding of your story.

This is what literary art is all about: a white page defined by black marks.

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Kathryn Craft specializes in developmental editing at Writing-Partner.com, an independent manuscript evaluation and editing service. What she believes: 1. Editing forever changed the way she reads. 2. Well-crafted moments of brilliance help her forgive many other problems in a manuscript. 3. All writers have strengths and weaknesses—but why settle for weaknesses? 4. We can learn as much from what other authors do right as we can from what we do wrong. This is her series, "Busted!—An author caught doing something right."