BE CAREFUL WITH THE LITTLE DETAILS
by Melissa Ford
The first thing you need to know is that I don’t know a lot about television. I watch whatever my husband puts on at night, and if he doesn’t turn on the television, then it wouldn’t occur to me to choose something myself. One time my husband went to Berlin for ten days. When he returned and clicked on the television, it was still set to ESPN which he was watching before he left. He looked at me and said, “you either missed me so much that you watched sports… or you didn’t turn on the television for a week and a half.” Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.
The second thing you need to know is that when we were making Bermuda shorts in our Home Ec class in eighth grade, I didn’t align the front and the back properly so the fabric pattern went in two different directions. I had hand-stitched my shorts together because I couldn’t get a hang of the sewing machine, and the fabric puckered strangely between the holes in the seam.
I know nothing about television and nothing about sewing. So why did I make one character in Apart at the Seams a writer for a comedy news show, and the other a finisher for a clothing designer?
It was sort of by accident. Noah and Arianna were supposed to be minor characters, meant to help hold up the plotline, but they were thrust into the spotlight when we decided to tell the same story over two books from two very different points of view. If these two characters were a television writer and a finisher in Measure of Love, then they needed to have the same jobs when the story flipped over and was told from their point of view in Apart at the Seams.
The moral of this story is to be careful with even the little, throwaway details.
I was lucky in that a bunch of kind people in New York jumped in to teach me their craft so I could create a believable television writer and finisher. Jill Katz at the Daily Show brought me to the set and taught me what goes into crafting a half hour comedy show from script to performance. She didn’t even roll her eyes when I meekly asked her what the man working the camera was called.
And Brenda Mikel, the Atelier Director at Narciso Rodriguez, spent hours walking me through the process of designing clothing. It’s thanks to her that Arianna attaches sequins before the pattern is cut rather than after as she did in the first draft of the book. There was no question too basic that Brenda didn’t take time out of her busy schedule to answer thoughtfully.
I’m grateful for all the people who stepped in to help bring veracity to the characters and storyline. Though next time, I’m going to stick with what I know and make my character a women’s fiction writer, working out of her house. Then again… it was pretty cool to see the Daily Show in action…
Make sure you grab Melissa Ford’s new release
– APART AT THE SEAMS-
out on June 14!!
Just click the link above!
And don’t forget to grab the first two books in this series – LIFE FROM SCRATCH and MEASURE OF LOVE!
Just click the links below!
