Creating the Perfect Parfait

The word “parfait” means “perfect” in French, and truly, the parfait is one of those desserts that, in my opinion, isn’t given its due. On the surface, a parfait appears a rather simple concoction. There is no blending of ingredients, no baking, no need for dough to rise or for alcohol to burn off. There’s no risk of milk curdling or over-beating of eggs.

Yet many times, in my opinion, the parfait is done wrong. To me, the perfect parfait consists of alternating layers of smooth and creamy, fresh and fruity, hard and crunchy. Without a substantive layer of granola or cake, a parfait is nothing but a dish of pudding. You need something into which you can sink your teeth.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kankan/39427698/ (Photo by Kanko)

So it goes with writing. Whether contemporary, historical, or romantic suspense, a book that is too much fluff and not enough substance just melts away like so much whipped cream on the tongue.

I want to tell you about one of my “a-ha” moments as a writer:  the moment I learned about layering.

I was in the sixth grade. I had always been an excellent student. Through the fifth grade, my teachers praised my writing. The front page of any story I wrote was a virtual constellation of shiny star stickers. Then came Mrs. Lenz, my sixth grade Language Arts teacher.

Mrs. Lenz clearly wasn’t impressed with my efforts. In a grading system where you earned a check-plus, a check, or a check-minus, I landed solidly on middle ground. My check-plus world came crashing down, and I became acutely aware that I wasn’t this teacher’s darling. My 11-year-old self was devastated. What’s a girl to do?

Being me, I was determined to get that check-plus if it killed me. I remember sitting on my bed, crafting a short story for LA. It started off something like this:

                 Cassie sat on the floor watching television.

                “Why don’t you find something better to do?” Dad asked.

                “Okay,” Cassie said. She got up and left the room.

 

Even I could tell the story was going to be boring. So I thought about the books I loved, Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, and the like. What made me love them? How did the writer make the stories interesting? I tried again.

                  Cassie sat on the floor in front of the television, staring blankly at the screen. She sighed, a long, bored sigh.

                “Nothing on, pumpkin?” Dad asked, peering over his Sunday paper.

                “No. I hate this show,” Cassie replied.

                “I saw the Doran sisters playing in their backyard,” Dad said. “Why don’t you see if you can play with them?”

                “Okay,” Cassie said. She pushed the button to turn off the t.v. “Thanks, Dad.” Cassie kissed the top of her father’s bald head and went outside.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t sell any books with that set-up, but clearly the second effort was better than the first. Mrs. Lenz thought so, too. That story earned a check-plus-plus-plus! Why? The layering.

In the first attempt, the reader learns nothing about the characters, or their situation. They might as well be paper dolls, flat and lifeless. Who wants to read that?

The second attempt is better. By layering in some action and dialogue, the reader learns several things. Cassie is bored watching a show she despises. There are girls in the neighborhood she can play with, and the neighborhood is probably in the suburbs. She has a good relationship with her father.  You get a little bit of an idea of what her father looks like.

Little did I know at the time that this process was the same process I would use now as a writer. Here is a paragraph from my current work-in-progress:

Instead of lace, the curtains in the house she had shared with Marcus were made of silk. The bed in their contemporary hilltop home was a black laminate California King, so large you had to cross a chasm to snuggle, which was fine with Marcus because he liked his space when he slept. Like the bed (and like Marcus, if she was honest with herself), everything in the Hollywood house was slick and smooth, from the modern, white laminate kitchen with quartz countertops, to the Lucite tables and leather sofas of the living room. From the polished marble floors to the stainless steel appliances, the glass sculptures in the foyer to the grand piano that nobody played, nothing in the house she had occupied for the past four years was meant to be touched. In fact, if she did, Marcus would rant at her about the fingerprints she had left behind. In the end, she had been afraid to move, for fear it would set Marcus off on one of his tirades.

By describing the scene, the reader learns an awful lot about the characters in this backstory-laced paragraph. You especially learn about the heroine’s ex-boyfriend, Marcus. You would hope (and you would be right) that the heroine had left this man behind for someone much warmer and genuine.

So, how do you layer a scene? Using my sixth grade story as an example, follow these steps.

Step 1: Write a rough draft of the scene. This is like putting the primary ingredient in your parfait…the fruit on the bottom.

Step 2:  Add a layer of whipped cream, something to sweeten the deal, in the form of setting, like the television and Dad’s recliner. Now you’ve put your characters in a location, and defined the scene.

Step 3:  Another layer of fruit is added…action. A static scene is a boring scene. Just like fruit to a parfait, action is integral to rounding out the flavor of a scene. If Cassie had stomped from the room, the flavor of the scene would be different than it is when she kisses her father’s head on the way out.

And so it goes. If I were to write that scene now, I would add more emotion to the opening paragraphs. To me, a good book is judged by how it makes you feel, how it changes the way you think. Emotions, especially in romance novels, are the granola of the parfait, the crunch, what causes the characters to act as they do and propels the action forward.

Add layers of sensory perception and backstory. Top them off with some serious chemistry. The more layers in the parfait, the tastier it is. Add a few surprises, a syrup or some almond slivers to keep the reader guessing , and you have created a parfait of storytelling that will have your readers coming back for seconds.

Jaye

Posted by Jaye Marie Rome on May 22, 2013

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