Thomas White is a member of the Open Book Community, where authors come together to talk about their books, share ideas, ask questions, and find new ways to connect with readers. We asked him to take us behind the scenes of writing his latest novel, and what it meant to learn to see the story through his protagonist’s eyes.
This piece was written by Tom White, exclusively for Open Book.
As a writer, the question I get most often is the most obvious one: ‘How do you come up with this stuff?’ I’m sure you all have had that question asked. For me, it’s usually a small, insignificant incident or occurrence that gets me started.
My first novel, Justice Rules, is about a victim’s experience. I was inspired, back in the day, by the OJ Simpson trial. Once the verdict had been read, Ron Goldman’s father, Fred, stood at a podium on the city hall steps and wept. You may remember his big handlebar mustache (maybe a childhood memory?). I thought about how he must be feeling, knowing who killed his son, and having no recourse other than walking up to him and taking justice into his own hands. At which point, he would have to answer to the very system that had just failed him. How far can you go before justice becomes revenge?
My second and third novels began the same way, with a small spark that grew into a story. One came from pondering a school of fish while sitting on a dock; the other came from reading an article entitled “Whatever Happened To The Electric Car?”
To date, I have written a murder mystery, a horror story, and a time-travel piece. Even though I’ve written for a bunch of different genres, my next novel stands as a significant departure from anything I’ve ever written.
I was at a party, and there were 10-12 people chatting. At the same moment, all of us took a breath, except one woman, who kept talking. The sentence this woman said reverberated throughout the silence. Her comment: Kangaroo is my safe word.
I immediately started laughing and thought that I should join whatever conversation she was having. Then another thought hit me: ‘What a great title for a book. What would that book be about?’ And I was off. My mind began racing, and after a few weeks, a story began to unfold.
I am a very lucky guy in that I have many, many close friends, more than half of whom are women. An alarming number of them have experienced some sort of mid-life crisis: a divorce, an issue with a child, something with their job, or even death. All of them found themselves hovering around forty, and starting their lives over. Each story is unique and moving, and I decided to create a character who was a compilation of these women. But that choice brought a significant challenge for me: my main protagonist would be female. While I have had female lead characters in the past, I always approached them from an action standpoint, no real internal struggles.
My background is in the theatre; I began my career as an actor and then switched to directing. I have led a moderately successful life in that field, having directed several national and international tours. I then opened my own corporate event production company and served as Creative Director.
I bring this up because I have understood character and storytelling, and how to create a character, for most of my life. I saw no reason that I couldn’t create a real-life woman in my story. But first, I had to be totally honest with myself and understand that I had to learn to see things through her eyes.
To counteract the male gaze and speak truth to my protagonist, I reached out to several of those female friends I mentioned earlier, who have suffered through a climactic event. I asked if I could send them a questionnaire to get inside their thought process and learn how to speak from my protagonist’s soul. They all complied eagerly. And I didn’t ask general questions. I went right to the heart of the matter.
I asked about these women’s sex lives, their sexual desires, and their favorite experiences. I asked about their fears and their failures. I asked what the most daunting thing in their life was at the moment. I wanted to understand the thought process and how it differed from the male perspective. The responses were enlightening. I’ll share an example:
One friend had been married for 34 years and lived the last 27 without sex. She finally left when she was 64. I asked her specifically why she stayed. She answered honestly about the decision and spoke of the many vibrators she went through over the years.
Once I had these women in my head, I began to write the book. In a nutshell,
Kangaroo Is My Safe Word is about a 39-year-old woman living in Houston, Texas, working a dead-end job, with a deadbeat husband, who can never seem to catch a break or get ahead. Life has beaten her down. Years earlier, she suggested to her husband that she go back to school. He laughed at her; told her she was too old and probably not smart enough anyway. She was devastated. Consequently, it took her a full year to gather the courage to secretly start online classes, working toward her degree in accounting. The novel begins as she heads to work to get the email that will tell her whether she passed. Not only does she pass, but she lands in the top 5% of her class, making her a cum laude graduate.
This accomplishment, something she had never experienced in her life, changes her perspective. She realizes she isn’t a worthless slob and deserves something more. She starts to fight for a better life and refuses to take the same crap that is always thrown at her. The story builds from there.
When I finished the first draft. I hired a professor from my UCLA novel class, a woman, to read and edit it. She came back with incredible notes, especially where I was man-gazing and hadn’t even realized it. I had several other female friends read it, and they offered their disappointment and encouragement with it as well. I had no choice but to listen. I rewrote it, and things changed significantly.
For me, the secret to writing is accepting the fact that if you write something and the reader doesn’t understand, 99% of the time it’s because you didn’t write it very well. You don’t get to stand over anyone’s shoulder and explain what you meant as they are reading.
I hope to publish in the early fall, but I do have one concern: how the book will be received. We live in a world that often sees things through a narrow lens. In Hollywood, for example, it has become difficult to cast anyone but a gay man in a gay man’s role, and the same is true with transgender parts. I understand the desire to correct past injustices, but I also worry about creating another inequity by denying the best actor the role. In that same way, I worry Kangaroo may not be accepted because its author is a man, and an older man at that. I suppose the proof will be in the pudding. If I have written Celia properly, hopefully it won’t be an issue. Time will tell. My intention is that her journey successfully takes her from a dutiful, subservient existence to one that is more experienced, exciting, confident, and sexually aware.
There were a few particularly strong moments in the writing process that changed how I thought about the book. One came while writing a scene in which Celia has left her husband, quit her job, and has landed a new, better job in Austin. The night before she moves, she drops by her favorite honkytonk. As she takes in the atmosphere, the camaraderie and the fun that fills the air, she realizes that she might be horny for the first time in forever. (Even though she had been married twice, she has had very limited sexual experience, none of it very satisfying.) As I was writing this scene, I had to stop because I realized if I wrote the word ‘tingle’ one more time, I was going to shoot myself. I had no idea what it feels like for a woman to feel horny. Men, we have a little barometer that helps us out, but with a woman? So, I reached out again to my female friends and asked that question. Wow! I had no idea. The depth of honesty that came back at me was astounding. I ended up using many of these experiences for different characters in the book. It was invaluable.
Another moment came after Celia moved to Austin and settled into an apartment with a balcony off the bedroom. Because of its location, the balcony is essentially private. She discovers she enjoys sitting out there at the end of the evening, scantily dressed, with a glass of wine. She loves the warm Texas air on her skin and the sensuality of the experience. I originally described that she was wearing a torn t-shirt that was ripped at the neck and hanging off one shoulder and her panties. My editor threw the flag on that one. “Man-gaze. Most of the time we call them underwear, and why the torn shirt?” I changed it to a blouse open to her navel and underwear.
Conversely, she also told me that women do not talk about their breasts. In my experience, that is as far from the truth as you can get. In the story, women refer to or discuss their breasts on several occasions and sometimes in great detail. I decided not to change a thing.
There is a scene where Celia is at a bar with her best friend. The friend had her breasts augmented several years earlier. The bartender comes to them and virtually ignores Celia, whose breasts are quite modest, and nearly falls into her friend’s cleavage. Celia decides that if she can’t beat them, she will join them. This was based on a true-life experience that my wife and I shared with a close female friend. You can imagine the outcome and then the look on my face when I said, ‘You want to do what?’
Writing Kangaroo Is My Safe Word has been a truly edifying experience for me, and I have grown very fond of Celia. She’s a fighter and a strong, confident woman who finally finds herself, her confidence, and her sexuality. I have enjoyed telling her story and look forward to the response.
Please keep your eyes open for Kangaroo Is My Safe Word, coming out in early fall. I am excited and nervous at the same time. Fingers crossed!
About the Author
Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as the Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics’ awards for directing. He directed and co-produced the world tour of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”.The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale productions that included Harley-Davisdon, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes and dozens of others. The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules (which was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary Contest) and The Siren’s Scream, a Four Seasons Book Award Winner. Tom was voted Author of the Year by the International Impact Book Awards and The Edison Enigma won best fiction with the same organization. The Edison Enigma also won best fiction with the Outstanding Creator Awards.
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