Ewww - Kissing!

 So with where I appear in the Prosers publication cycle, when we decide on a new theme to use, I get to debut it. Isn’t that fabulous? OR, it could be the other ladies decide to use me as a guinea pig and if my post flops/makes no sense they go in completely different directions? Hmm….<contemplates my fellow prosers posting habits carefully.>

AT ANY RATE – this cycle, we got chatting about romance in novels, and particularly KISSING. Although some Prosers may take this theme and talk about romance and conflict in romantic plots more generally, I plan to talk about kissing. Who doesn’t like to talk about kissing, right?

Well, I’ll be honest. This mother of a thirteen year old does not always like to talk about kissing. The older my kids get and more likely to experience the kinds of things I write into my books, the more my heart lurches as the idea of them having these kinds of experiences! Putting aside the existential-angst-by-proxy of imagining my babies EVER entangled romantically with other folks, though, I will focus more on how and what I do about romance (and KISSING) in my YA and MG stories.

First, here’s my philosophy as a mother, woman, writer, and massive reader of YA and MG stories. I think middle grade books sometimes over-emphasize romantic subplots. I think it’s realistic to include crushes and boys/girls thinking about (obsessing about?) each other, but to go beyond hand-holding or chaste kisses is wrong, IMHO. That’s not the kind of thing I want my own tweens thinking is normal for kids their age, and kids base a lot of what they think is normal/acceptable behavior off what they read in these kinds of books. Plus it's not all that reflective of the real inner lives of 11 and 12 year olds. 

These two share one of the bigger big-screen kisses of recent memory.

In YA books, which are meant for teens, I think some amount of heart-racing is appropriate. But I really don’t want my kids having sex. This is where I diverge from many popular YA titles in, as there’s quite a bit of sex in YA. In many popular series’, the sex is done in a “fade to black” way. That’s a better way of handling it than crossing over into erotica, but since most kids “read up” (as they age kids always want to read about kids that little bit older than themselves) it’s a source of frustration. I am not sure I want my 12 year old reading about 16 year olds having sex. Then again, for many writers it seems to be the only way they can figure out how to culminate romantic plots. It’s the “will they or won’t they” question. The last Divergent book stands out to me as an example.

I feel that this sort of thing is an easy way out. It’s like the idea of killing off the parents (also a technique Divergent used) as a way to up the stakes for the characters in a YA or MG book. It frustrates me. I’d rather see the difficult work of portraying a changing relationship between tween/teen and his/her parents than the author just arbitrarily offing the parents to remove them from the scene, to up the stakes for the MC, and to make it so the MC has to take all the actions in the book (not get “saved” by adults in the story.) Fair points, but again feels a bit like a cheat to me.

I think I need some examples to help illustrate.

First, from my own novel, CONVERGENCE, here’s the bit at the end where the two main characters kiss. It’s a YA novel and this is the only kissing, though there’s some heart-flutters earlier.

Her arm felt like it was on fire. From this close angle, Anya could look directly into his eyes. Her voice was hoarse. "You have to feel that, too." 

Bruce didn't say anything, but nodded, still looking at her, still holding onto her arm.
"I'd like to, you know, like, try out something a little more than friends." Anya said, clearing her throat. 

Bruce's eyebrows shot up. "Really? I thought, I just thought, you know, well when you didn't say anything." 

Anya silenced him by putting her lips on his. They were as soft as they looked, and she relaxed into him, feeling the warmth as he put his other arm around her and they kissed for several long seconds. She felt her new Identity clank into Bruce's. Anya tried to memorize everything about the moment, her first kiss. She felt a little dizzy, and lighter than the low-gravity of the school hall.

And here’s a bit from one of my all-time favorite books, The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley:

“Yes-of-course-I’ll-marry-you,” said Aerin, and when he caught her up in his arms to kiss her she didn’t even notice the shrill pain of burst blisters.

Less than I thought, actually. I’ll have to dig around and see if there’s one more kiss elsewhere in the book, but… well that’s one example from a Newberry winner published in 1984.

A book I read recently had a different (more along the lines of modern sensibilities, frustratingly) take. I joke that it seems like it oculdn’t figure out if it was a fun steampunk adventure tale, or YA bodice-ripper. For example:

“Her laughter brought a smile to his lips that made Charlotte’s breath quicken. 

“Shall I take you upstairs?” Jack asked. Something about the question sent warmth pooling into Charlotte’s belly. 

“Please,” she whispered. 

Jack kept her hand in his as he escorted her up the grand staircase. They stopped at her bedroom door, shrouded in darkness. 

“Charlotte,” Jack murmured. 

She could barely make out his face, but she felt his hand against her cheek. Without thinking, Charlotte leaned her cheek into his palm, turning her face so her lips brushed the heel of his hand. She heard Jack stifle a groan. 

Charlotte quickly straightened, shocked by her own behavior. What had she done? Was she so wanton as this? She’d practically swooned into Coe’s arms earlier that night, and now she was playing the seductress with Jack. 

“I should say good night.” Charlotte’s voice cracked. 

But the weight of Jack’s hands rested on her waist, then moved to her lower back, drawing her forward. The silk of her gown rustled when her body pressed against his.

(and then our young lovers get interrupted, THANK HEAVENS since I was feeling a little over-warm just re-reading that passage.)

This is a book with 16 year-old protagonists, set in an alternative history America of the nineteenth century (with all the steampunk trappings.) In the fourth chapter Charlotte more-or-less does a striptease with Jack, pushing the sexual tension far beyond my comfort level for a book that is advertised as an alt history adventure/thriller. (The book is The Inventor’s Secret by Andrea Cremer. There really isn’t anything wrong with it other than my complaints about this overly mature content in a book marketed in a young-tilting way, but your mileage may vary.)

Last example is from Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, also a Newberry Honor book.

Peder shook his head as if giving up on words, reached out and took her hand. Miri bit her lip to keep herself from pulling away. She was certain he could feel her heartbeat in her fingers and would know that inside she was trembling and sighing. Then after a time she stopped worrying. She could feel his heartbeat, too, and it was as fast as a fleeing hare.
 When they entered the village, Peder still kept hold of her hand. Frid stared as they passed, Esa blushed for them, Gerti and her three younger sisters giggled and chased after, chanting about a kiss for every miri petal. Twice Miri relaxed her hand in case he wanted to leave her, but he held on even tighter.

No kissing at all, as it turns out, but the scene shows a great example of saying much without saying much at all. By this point in the story we know the characters quite well and the reactions of Frid, Esa, and Gerti are as important as the main character, Miri’s, thoughts about holding hands with Peder.

So there are three really different examples from books all aimed at a 12 and up audience. What are your thoughts on kissing or public displays of affection in YA and MG fiction?

Making a dead-tree book

I recently had a new baby. Thankfully this one's labor pains were more psychological in nature, less physical. ;) I created the paperback version of my novel, CONVERGENCE. This is a task I've meant to do for a LONG time, so the fact that I did it is worth celebrating, hooray!

But for you, dear reader, I thought I'd go through a few of the details of producing a dead-tree book in case you haven't done it yet. This was my first, although I've created ebook versions of many of my books and stories.

By way of reference, since I use Scrivener for my primary writing tool (you should too - I can do a post about this in the future but I really love composing in Scrivener) I find the ebook creation process takes no more than 2-3 hrs per title, sometimes less. The dead-tree version was a bit more involved, and I had to configure my Create Space account, tasks that are one-off and now that they are completed I won't need to do again. But even with these, I'd estimate it took about 8-10 hours total to produce the paper book, which is not a bad investment.

So what does the process look like from a high level?

1. First you need your wraparound cover. If you're a graphic designer, awesome (and more power to you!) If not, find yourself a good cover designer. I personally use The Cover Counts, helmed by my good friend Renee, but you can find cover designers in many places online. Renee participates in a group called The Cover Art Collective, which is a group of cover designers. You can also find a few links via JA Konrath's blog and others. NOTE: Until you know exactly how many pages your manuscript is once it's formatted for print, your cover designer won't be able to finalize your wraparound because one key variable is the page length (which dictates spine width.) However, since a cover can't be produced overnight, it's best to get the cover in-process before you get too far down the path, hence I list it first. You will need to write whatever blurb or tagline for the front cover that you want, plus the back cover blurb and any about the author or other info you want to offer. Give that all to your cover designer at once, simpler for you and for them.
2. Go to Create Space and create an account. Spend a little time filling out all the background info (including bank info, since presumably you're hoping to get paid for your books somehow!) It'll save you time later in the process. 
3. Decide what kind of "trim size" you want. There are many options. I stuck with 6x9, which is a pretty standard size for paperbacks these days, indie published or not. 
4. Decide what color you want the interior paper. I went with ivory, because I've read that fiction is more commonly done in ivory. Bright white tends to be more common in non-fiction, and I had no desire for my science fiction novel about a girl on a space station to get confused for a non-fiction title! ;) Plus I thought it would look lovely. I am very happy with this choice. 
5. Download one of the templates that matches the size you chose for trim. These are MS Word templates, so I used a final .rtf export of my Scrivener file as my base for my MS Word document. The advantage of using an .rtf of the document is that it had very light formatting, which meant I had to do less tinkering. 
6. Tinker. ;) Formatting is formatting. I followed the guidelines from Create Space as much as possible and used their pre-defined styles as best I could. If you don't know how to use styles, it would be a good idea to read up on this first. It's much easier to manage a complicated book formatting project if you're prepared. 
7. Upload your file to Create Space and use their previewer to see how you did. I found I didn't like the way the pages fell (which one was on the left/right) at the beginning of the book, so first I tinkered until I had them the way I wanted. I ended up creating an interior cover page so that I have a place to sign, when and if I get so famous that people want me to sign their books. I also ended up adding in a graphic to break up the end of the book so that my two "About the Author" pages faced each other. 
8. Figure out your current page count and let your book designer know ASAP. 
9. Get and upload your final wraparound cover. 
10. Preview again. This is one of those "measure twice, cut once" kinds of pieces of advice. Just take another detailed look. Page through. Look at what you have on the header/footer on a dozen or two pages, makes sure the page numbers are working properly, that the left/right pages are set the way you want (from my perspective it was difficult to tweak this without screwing other things up, so try to limit your tweaking to one single additional page, which should push everything one page over.) 
11. Cross your fingers and submit! Create Space will take 24-48 hrs (or whatever their website says at the time you submit, this may change over time) to review your title. Then PREVIEW AGAIN! Just to be sure. 
12. Lastly - order your personal copies! Create Space will recognize you as the author of the book and offer you preferred pricing, which should just be a few dollars per copy. If you've set up distribution using Create Space channels, you may be surprised to find your paperback book available on sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble almost immediately! And, this cracks me up, you may find your book available even on extra sites like you can find on the "New from xyz$" panel on a product's information page. Makes me feel just that wee bit more famous! FYI, your cut is a little higher when you can direct people to purchase directly from Create Space, so offer that on your personal sites and when you market your book, if at all possible. 

So there you have it, my tale of dead-tree publication. Any questions or corrections? If you've put out your own books in paperback, have you found any tweaks to this process that help streamline things for you? 

Go forth and publish! Thanks for letting me share my book baby with you!

Treat yourself to an audiobook this summer - please.

I am a huge crazy fan of audiobooks. I evangelize for them at every opportunity. Please let me take you down my audiobook rabbit hole so you can love them, too.

First, background. I may have occasionally listened to an audiobook as a child, it's probable. We were big library-goers. But I don't specifically remember doing so. Instead, at some point when my son was 6 and my daughter was 4 and I was more-or-less living in my minivan (in the "suburban mom" sense, not in the Chris Farley "I live in a VAN, down by the RIVER!" sense) I realized I needed to do something to keep me from going insane as the mom of two busy and mentally active/taxing children. I had recently come *back* to reading, having not had time to read for pleasure for most of my 20s and early 30s. And I was trying to find a way to get more time for reading. It occurred to me I could listen to books in the car while shuttling children from point A to point B and C and D and E and F and…

Enter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on audiobook, read by Jim Dale. Ahh. I loved every minute of it, and listened while taking the kids to school and driving home empty-minivan'd. UNTIL. One day I took my daughter (4 at the time) in to her gymnastics class, then went back to the car and stayed in the parking lot with my son (6 at the time) and listened to another hour of HP. When my daughter got back in the car at the end of the class she was AGHAST that we had listened without her. I, for one, was astonished that she was really paying attention. She was FOUR FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. But alas, I learned then a lesson I keep having to learn over and over with this amazing child: do not underestimate her. Also, do not assume she's not paying attention. She sees/hears all. Little antenna, I call her. Tunes in to what is going on and pays attention.

At any rate, we began our family listening right then and there, and I no longer will listen to "our" book when both children aren't in the car. It's led to some funny business, where one or the other will ride with to take their sibling somewhere *just so we can listen some more* to whatever book we're on. And we are always on a book. In a book? Listening to a book. Always.

We've talked about audiobooks on The Prosers before, and we will probably keep talking about them as I'm far from the only fan (Melanie is totally a fan, which is why she vented her frustrations about some audiobook experiences!)

One GREAT way to get into audiobooks this summer is through the SYNC YA Audiobook summer giveaway. For the whole summer (starting a few weeks ago, even!) you can download for FREE one recent audiobook and one classic. FREE. Like for nothing. You can read a bit more about the SYNC program here, but know that they pair the classic and current titles in thematic pairs, and include quite a number of required reading titles from US schools. Great way for your teen to catch up on reading while doing the yard work you surely require of them, right? And in particular, I must insist that you get CODE NAME VERITY via the SYNC program, when it comes available the week of June 12. It is hands-down the best book I've ever read (yes, listening counts) and absolutely destroyed me in the best possible way. The narrators were spectacular. I bought the book in paper immediately after listening to it because I *had to feel the words under my fingers.*

As for some other titles to consider? As Melanie points out her her blog post from January, Middle Grade books seem to translate a bit better to audiobook, at least some of the time. There are also quite a lot of grown-up books that are good in audio, as my family is currently on the last disc of the last book of Brandon Sanderson's epic fantasy series Mistborn. But I'll keep my suggestions to the YA/MG-friendly side just for ease of use as a reading list for families. Not all families would be ready for the heavy themes of class divisions, institutional prostitution and murder, tyranny, abuse, etc. that run somewhat through the Mistborn series (but my 10 and 12 year olds have handled the content well and it's given us many conversation starters as we've worked through the series over the last 6 months.)

• The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander- one of our favorites. Start with The Book of Three. A great book for audio because many of the names are based on Welsh, and can be difficult to parse in text. Plus the narrator makes the various voices so funny.
• ANYTHING AT ALL by Tamora Pierce. In particular, though, start with Wild Magic. Allow some leeway for the so-so narrator (over-enuciator.) We loved this book and it hooked us on all of Tortall. We've listened to almost every book set in this world, my 12 year old son in particular has steamed his way through even the auxiliary series' set in this world like the Beka Cooper books. 
• The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
• Magyk by Angie Sage (the Septimus Heap series)
• Enchanted, by Alethea Kontis - my favorite book of 2013!
• The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen
• Charlie Bone books - by Jenny Nimmo
• Rick Riordan books like Lightening Thief, though I find the more recent titles of his get a little exhausting (maybe I'm just burnt out on the author?) as they are long and very action-packed with little downtime. 
• The Goose Girl (and really anything by Shannon Hale)
• The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman (read by a full cast, one of our favorite ways to listen to books. Many of Shannon Hale's books are done by a full cast, too.) 
• My goodness, this is quite a list already but I know it's very incomplete! I'll work on adding more books to the comments, please add yours too!

Note: I didn't include Code Name Verity in my list above because it's a much more mature book, less kid-friendly, but I can't let it go without a mention. Code Name Verity was the best book I've ever read. Here is my Goodreads review of it.

The Problem with Girly Covers

I recently read this article on The Guardian about how girly book covers are harming YA readers.   I know covers are all about marketing, and a lot of YA novels do appeal more to teenage girls than boys, so targeting them specifically isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  But the girl in the pretty dress cover really repels most boys.

The article has a brilliant quote by brilliant author Libba Bray (loved her Great and Terrible Beauty series).

Not exactly a gender neutral cover,
but I like it.

“But, as American YA author Libba Bray points out, books have no gender – titles for young adults, she argues, should have gender neutral covers. ‘We have to move the needle,’ she says. ‘If you categorize books as for boys or for girls, the message is that boys don’t need to be concerned about the female experience. And vice versa.’”

As a girl, I’ve read countless books about the “boy” experience, and actually found it fairly similar to my own girl experiences.  And I’m not alone.  Girls are far more willing to read “boy” books than boys are willing to read “girl” books (tried to find some statistical data on this, but everyone seems to agree with this idea even if there is no hard data).   This is not surprising since society has always marginalized anything that is traditionally “feminine”  because clearly the human race could’ve survived just fine without anyone raising those babies as long as men kept doing their important manly things, or at least that is how history shows it. 

I do think that boys should be reading books about the female experience, so that they may discover as I did, that we are really not that different.  There are important books like Speak, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice that really give insights into female issues past and present.  But I’m not really sure that all YA novels should have gender neutral cover. 

The most important thing a cover should do is signify what kind of story is being told, so that those who want to read the story will be attracted to it.  My sister is a high school librarian and has a unique insight into what books attract YA readers.  Of course I’ve picked her brain on the subject, and she says that girls do check out more books than boys, and they seem to be more drawn to the covers with pretty girls in prom dresses.  So these covers do work (or at least it seems from this very small sampling).  These girls want to read certain types of stories (usually paranormal romance), and these gendered covers are promising those stories.

I think the problem comes when these gendered covers are given to books just because they were written by female authors and had a female protagonist whether or not the cover actually fits the story being told.  Not every story written by a woman promises the story that these “girly” covers promise.

For example : 

Here is an interesting link about this cover.

Even though I haven’t read The Bell Jar, I’m pretty sure Sylvia Plath didn’t write chick lit.

And another:

Way too much pink for my tastes.

This one I have read, and I almost didn’t because it does look like chick lit in fantasy land.  Really it is a great second world fantasy story (with a more urban fantasy feel) that just happens to have a pretty awesome and very capable heroine.   A more gender neutral cover would better represent the story and not turn off potential male readers.

I know these examples aren’t YA because I really couldn’t think of any YA examples although I’m sure there are plenty.  But this problem of gendering covers just because the author is female goes well beyond YA.  There are many more examples out there, but I think this awesome link says it all.

Well those are my thoughts.  What do you think?  Are girly covers hurting YA readers?  Are gendered covers just another way to marginalize female writers and make it okay for men to ignore us?  Or are they just an effective way to find their intended audiences?

~MaryAnn

Books books books

I have a short attention span. I’m not ADD or anything (I’ve checked). But I am one of those people who is happiest when I’m doing 8 different things at once. And things like meetings, long university lectures, and waiting in traffic are close to my worst nightmares.*

It also means that I can have a slight lack of patience with reading. So if a book isn’t engaging me 100 percent, I can have a hard time getting into it. And thus there are a lot of great, potentially slow-starting books that I might miss out on… if I didn’t read more than one book at a time.

That’s right. I’m one of Those People. Apparently I’m not alone though – Karen, friend of the blog, admitted on facebook lately to reading multiple books at once. In the comments, a couple people mentioned they much preferred one book to the two books – maybe three – at a time.

I do six.

Yes, that’s right, six books. That’s how short my attention span is. Most of these are lighter books. I’m not trying to read Doestoyevsky, James Joyce, and Salman*** Rushdie all at once. I’ve been reading a lot of YA lately. You’ll note my list bares a shocking resemblance to Melanie’s lists (particularly this one). Here are some of the books I've read and enjoyed recently, somewhat in order of how good they were.

Really, this should have made it on my awesome list. I adore this book. I want to buy dozens of copies and give it to unsuspecting acquaintances. This is definitely one where my system of multiple books helped me out; I found the first third to be very slow, and almost stopped reading. Thank god I pushed on, because this is the best book I’ve read in a long, long time.

  

Really? You haven’t read this yet? How many of us is it going to take jumping up and down with this book proclaiming our undying love? Yes, there are kids with cancer in this book. But it’s not a cancer book, not in the Lurlene McDaniel way. It’s a book about living, not about dying. Oh god, I’m about to cry again. But in a good way.

Love, love, love this series. It’s completely addicting – and I’m always pulling these out of my larger pile to read frenetically because I absolutely have to know what happens next. I've got the third one in my stack of books to read. I'm convinced that a certain female love interest is secretly out to get Cassel.

Adult fantasy set in an Egypt-based society (no pyramids, but rivers and desert and loincloths). The main characters are Gatherers, a group of assassin-priests who are sent to kill those judged corrupt by society. The Gatherers are masters of dreams. This was recently nominated for a Nebula award.

I was warned it wasn’t as good as Divergent, which I really liked. But still worthwhile. And I still can’t wait for the third book. In other news, have you heard that they cast the same actress as both Tris AND Hazel from The Fault in our Stars? I think she looks more like Tris, personally.

 I think by the time I got to this book, I’d read far too many dystopian YA novels in a short time span. It was still good, and the sequel is waiting for me to pick it up from the library. Apparently they're making a movie from this too.

I’m only halfway through this. Another slow-starting book, mostly because the first half seems to be entirely about the horrible things happening to all the characters and multiple innocent civilians in the course of war. It’s lacking some of the wonder of the first one. But I’ll still keep reading, because darn it, I want to figure out how Karou and a certain someone are ever going to manage to reconcile. And yes, there will be a movie for this one too, which I think that of the group of upcoming movies has the potential to be completely amazing or completely horrible.

And, of course, there are lots of other books on my to-read lis.

The Far West, Patricia Wrede  (I’ve loved all the books in this series so far; fabulous worldbuilding)

Crewel, Jennifer Albin

Tuesdays at the Castle, Jessica Day George

A Confusion of Princes, Garth Nix

Some of the other nebula nominees:

-Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (liked the first in the series; I highly recommend that series to Jane Austen fans)

-Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
-Ironskin, Tina Connolly
-The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan

  

You’ll note there aren’t many YA books in that to-be-read. What do you all think I should add to it? I’m particularly looking for more good YA. I’m also always on the lookout for adult non-Tolkien-esque fantasy (no elves, and also no politics please. Unless it’s an extra awesome book).

A-Z challenge!

 Almost time! I’m going to start writing my posts this weekend. I bow down to those of you brave enough to do ALL of them on your own. Even four is kind of intimidating.

*Actual worst nightmares (the sleeping kind) tend to include things like zombies, tornadoes, tyrannosauruses**, and being late to work.

** No, really, I’ve had like three dreams about being chased by t-rexes. Thanks a lot, Jurassic Park.

***You know you’re a biologist when you spell it Salmon Rushdie the first time.

Simple vs. Simplistic: In a Glass Grimmly and Me

Stretching out far, far into the distance was a line of towering white cliffs, undulating in and out before an endless expanse of the purest, deepest blue she could ever have imagined. The white cliffs, a thousand feet high if they were an inch, were topped with green tufts of high grass. Below the cliffs, between them and the pure blue sky, ran a long, smooth cloud beach, against which the blue of the sky gently broke like waves. (In a Glass Grimmly, by Adam Gidwitz, p. 83)

sorta, kinda like this...

Once upon a time, I too went to a writer's conference. For an extra $10 (give or take) I entered the first chapter of one of my novels into a contest. There were several categories I could enter, including fantasy, science fiction, mystery, women's lit, historical...and children's. Now I'm not going to go into a long irritated rant about how YA and Children managed to get lumped into one category. Ridiculous, IMO. Ridiculous enough that I didn't think to enter my solidly YA entry into the children's category, but into the fantasy category. Now, the lovely thing about that extra $10 was that my first chapter would be critiqued by three people, one of whom was guaranteed to be an actual agent or editor who worked in the genre.

Well, it would have been lovely, except that the first critique, while not unkind, managed to cut me to the quick. I can't tell you why it hurt so bad. I'm sure there were extenuating circumstances, like jet lag and having been rejected by my dream editor that self-same day. I didn't keep it, so I can't quote it word for word, but it said something like this:  "This writing is too simplistic for this category--it seems like this would have been a better fit for the YA contest."

In one fell swoop, he had insulted not only my writing style but my intelligence AND my reading choices. I, who had always prided myself on my scintillating vocabulary, and who had worked so hard at improving my sentence structure, had been judged simplistic. Did that also mean that the books I chose to read somehow required less intelligence than "grown-up" books? (Well, frankly, yes. Sometimes. But not usually!)

In the days since that writing conference, another genre has gained in popularity: middle grade. In A Glass Grimmly, which I quoted at the start, is a middle grade book. It is filled with words like: precipitously, cerulean, primordial, reverberated, gelatinous, darkling and viscera (don't ask). Some of the sentences are simple, and some are complex and wonderful.

 To state it simplistically, YA and middle grade are not defined by the complexity of the writing. Rather, they are defined by the ages of the characters. Therefore, complex books like The Book Thief and The Fault In Our Stars are considered YA, right alongside Twilight, because they have teenage characters. Trisha wrote a great post about the evolving dynamics of YA here.  Middle grade books generally have younger characters, and there are some policies about romance (specifically the lack thereof.) The topics covered in both categories are often deep and complex. For example, In a Glass Grimmly tackles topics like: Are strength and courage the same thing? Are parents always good? If people do not accept you, are you a worthwhile person? And the one I personally struggle with: My children love this book, but should they really be reading it if it contains sentences like: 

The last one convulsed on the floor, screaming in pain, as blood bubbled up out of his body like a hot spring and flowed all over the floor in crimson waves, eventually lapping up against the throne's legs like water against rocks on a beach. (p. 191) FYI--I skipped this particular sentence when we read it out loud.

So, if I disagree with my anonymous critiquer's assertion that YA writing is by definition less complicated than adult writing, then what is left is his allegation that my writing is simplistic. It probably is. I dislike writing that thinks too much about itself. I enjoy straightforward writing, suffused with occasional gorgeous, complex descriptions that propel the story forward. I write the same way, except that I might not have mastered the "gorgeous, complex descriptions that propel the story forward" bit. I can keep working on that, but now, at the end of this blog post, I realize that it seems silly to try and make my writing more complicated just for complication's sake. But let's rename it. I absolutely prefer the word simple over the word simplistic. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I write YA.

So, my writing style aside, what do you think? 

Why Some Things Should Just Stay In Your Head.

 We live in a society of over-sharers. If you are mentioning your child's poop online, you've over shared. If you are telling feelings on Facebook that really you should be sharing to a couples councilor, then you've over shared. 


Dear Taylor Swift...you've over shared.

:)

The line of propriety is clear. If you don't have anything nice to say....don't say anything at all.

As writers, we have the responsibility to be honest. To, as Hemingway stated, sit at a typewriter and bleed. There is nothing you can say about yourself that is over-sharing. There is not too much sharing about your own feelings, your own perceptions, or your own experiences.

However...

If what you are saying involves someone else, or is sharing someone else's secrets, you are not being a writer when you tell it, you are being mean. If what you are saying is embarrassing to the other party, then you are shaming them in front of all your friends without giving them an opportunity to respond.

I think we also have a responsibility in our writing to be kind.

Soap box over.

***

Speaking of soap boxes, I watched a news story on Sunday about Soap Box Derby. Here's a link  to help getting started in Soap Box Racing. I love this idea. Kids, ages 7 - 17 can participate. They build the cars (from kits) using tools,  spending time outside with their parents. There's mini races, and national competition, where teens, male and female, meet together, have fun, and race downhill in cars they built themselves.

I love that setting for a story idea. It feels very 1950s, but it's still happening, right now.

We've talked about the line in the sand that comes from writing for teenagers. How much sex, drugs, profanity, etc. is too much inside YA fiction. I'm not trying to talk about that.

What I do think, is that there are so many things out there for grownups and teenagers to explore that aren't cutting edge, or borderline inappropriate. There are so many stories out there that don't need question marks.

There are enough story ideas out there that are...kind.

~Sheena

* Not posting a picture because of legal issues.

Lost Parents

I love the movie The Lost Boys.  It may be a little campy and a tad predictable, but it’s still a great movie.  It has a great style, amazing soundtrack, vampires who are real vampires although they look like 80’s rock stars, humor to play off the horror aspects (which are really rather mild), and did I mention the awesome 80’s hair?  But what I like the most about this movie is the focus on the family.

Yeah, a horror movie about teenage vampires has themes of familial love and actual grown up characters that play a role in the story.  The teenage MC has a brother and mother and even a grandpa who all play a role in the storyline, and somehow the movie still works.   Seems to me that YA paranormal romances and urban fantasy with the disturbing lack of parents could learn a thing or two from the movie Lost Boys.

The Missing Parent Syndrome in YA

I’ve read a lot of YA mostly urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and dystopia, and there are so few decent parents in any of the books.  In Hush, Hush, Nora’s mother leaves her alone in an old farm house for weeks at a time while she’s on business trips.  In Hunger Games, Katniss’ mother had a nervous breakdown after the father died and was pretty much useless.  In City of Bones, Clary’s mother gets kidnapped.  In Everneath, Nikki’s dad is running for mayor and doesn’t seem to have any time for his daughter who disappeared for six months other than making sure she takes drug tests and works at a soup kitchen for PR reasons.  And while Charlie in Twilight was at least a fully formed character, he’s not going to win father of the year with all the times he ditches Bella to go fishing on his days off.  I have seriously tried to think of one story that had good parents, and the only one I could think of was Matched by Ally Condie.

 As a parent, I find this disturbing.  As a writer, I see this as a missed opportunity.  Why not include concerned, meddling parents?  They can bring more tension or complicate the plot.  If the MC told their parents about their new discovery of vampires, werewolves, or fairies, the parent is most likely going to think the MC is crazy or on drugs, so it is believable that the MC wouldn’t tell them, and even if they did, the parents could not believe them or even make things worse.  Why not have the parents ground the MC on the night their supposed to save the world because of all the sneaking around they’ve been doing lately?  I think a caring, involved parent could play an interesting role in the story.  At least it is worth considering.

Have you seen me?
Lost, a caring, loving parent in YA literature

Excuses for not including Parents in YA

There are a lot of reasons not to include parents in YA.  But to me it all boils down to wanting the characters to have more autonomy, which is funny to me because this could easily be solved by moving the characters to college age, but for some reason no one wants to read about college-aged protagonists, so instead there are these high school protagonists living and behaving like college students.  I think if you have a protagonist in high school their lives should reflect someone in high school, and that includes those pesky parents. 

Here are some common excuses to keep the parents out of the story.

Teenager MC needs to be the one to solve the problem.  Sure the MC needs to solve the problem.  I guess the idea is that if there are diligent, caring parents around that they will solve all their kids’ problems for them.  I wish that was true.  My oldest is only seven, and I can already see that there are some problems I can’t fix for her.  I’m sure that I will become more and more powerless as she gets older.  I think that is how we grow up.  And I know the more serious life-threatening things would warrant parental involvement, but that would only happen if the MC actually told the parent.

When I was a teenager I hardly ever told my parents about what was going on in my life, and I think  most teenagers are like that.  I’m sure there are exceptions and some teenagers who tell their parents everything.  I hope my kids are like that, but it seems very realistic to me that teenaged character would keep things from their parents.  If the situation involves a supernatural element, the teen would be even more unlikely to confide in their parents for fear their parents wouldn’t believe them.

And if the MC is in a life and death situation there are a lot of adults they could go to:  teachers, police, friend’s parents, aunts and uncles, etc.  So making the parents unavailable does not force the MC to solve the problem on their own.  There has to be another logical reason for the teenaged characters to not go to any adults.

My point is that there are a lot of ways to force the teenage characters to solve the problem even if they have good, attentive parents.  And it might be more interesting and complicate the plot to have the characters have to sneak around their parents to save the world or hook up with their dangerous, supernatural boyfriend.

Parents aren’t important to the story.  Sometimes the parents aren’t important to the story, and while it is true that you shouldn’t include or spend much time on characters that aren’t directly related to the plot, having well-developed and believable parents adds depth and realism to the story.  If you have a character in high school, who is still living with their parents (or parent), it is unrealistic not to have the character interact or at least think about their.   Parents also play a pretty significant role in who a person becomes, and I always appreciate the added depth when an author takes the time to develop the parent, and shows me hints of the MC’s childhood and where the character came from.  So I think even if the parents doesn’t play a direct role in the plot, they still impact the story.  And showing the parent-child relationship is important.

Some parents are not good parents.  Yes, some parents aren’t very involved in their kids’ life.  They could have demanding jobs or be a little self-centered or even neglectful.  All of these happen in the real world.  And honestly, I don’t have a problem with having inattentive parents.  This can be done very well.  In Holly Black’s White Cat, the main character Cassel comes from a family of con artists and mobsters.  His mother is in prison for running a scam.  She is absent and also a bad parent.  This is integrated perfectly into Cassel’s character (explains why he is the way he is) and feeds into the plot.  It is believable, and actually pretty brilliant.  And Katniss would not have the survival skills she needed if her mother hadn’t broken down out after her father died and forced Katniss to provide for the family, Katniss would never have had the survival skills to win the hunger games.  So having a bad parent can definitely work for the story.

But a lot of times I see evidence of a neglectful parent, like in Hush, Hush, but I don’t see how the mother’s lack of parenting impacts the character.  If the only reason for bad parenting is to get rid of the parent, that is lazy writing.  If you want to have a neglectful parent, make sure you show the repercussions of it.

Parenting in The Lost Boys

I know this is an older movie, and I’m not sure if everyone has seen this movie, so I’ll try not to spoil it.  If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do even if you’re not a fan of horror.  Honestly, I don’t think it is that scary although it is a bit gory at times.  It is actually pretty funny.

It also is very similar to YA.  It’s about a mother who moves her two sons (both teenagers) across the country to live with her father after her divorce.  The whole story is centered around the oldest brother, Michael, trying to fit in with a new dangerous gang and impress the hot chick that hangs out with them.  Of course they all turn out to be vampires and are trying to turn Michael into a vampire as well.    These vampires are really living the teenage fantasy.  No parents, no rules, dress like rock stars and drive expensive motorcycles. They “sleep all day, party all night, never grow old. Never die” (tag line from the movie).  I liked these vampires in that they definitely had bite, no angst just party animals that kill without any remorse. 

What keeps Michael from being seduced into the vampire way of life is his strong bonds with his family.  He has his brother Sam who he has as close of a relationship with as you’d expect two teenage boys to have.  Sam kind of tags along and takes cheap shots at Michael, but it is clear that they look after each other.   

Micheal’s mother is kind of an ex-hippie type, very sweet, very loving, but not great with discipline.  She is genuinely concerned about the change in Michael’s behavior and actively tries to connect with him.  She's a real character, not a cardboard excuse for the boys to be left alone.  They’re teenagers; it’s normal for them be on their own at times.  But the Mother isn’t absent.  She is there, and she is trying.  We see that in the movie.

There is also a grandpa who is less involved.  He is a great character, a taxidermist who is used to living alone, a bit of a recluse.  The boys steal his car and try to get rid of him when the vampires are coming after them.  For the most part he is a realistic obstacle for them to get around rather than someone to go to when they need help.

I don’t want to give away the ending, so I’ll stop here.   But while the plot revolves around the brothers, the mother and grandpa both play a significant part in the story, and I think the movie is stronger because of this.  

If absent parents play a significant part in your plot line, then, by all means, get rid of them, but make sure their absence is felt.  However, if it doesn’t, consider keeping the parents around.  Try work them into the story or have them complicate the MC’s life a little.  I think it might be worth a little effort to find those lost parents.

~MaryAnn

Mmm - Popcorn and Book Deals

Amazing Discovery of the Week:

You can make microwave popcorn using a brown lunch bag! For some reason I never knew this. I thought I had to buy the microwave popcorn complete with nasty chemicals, or else haul out the air popper. But Nooo!

• Simply combine up to 1/2 C popcorn with a dollop of oil (1 tsp or less depending on how much popcorn you use). 
• Put it in a brown lunch sack, sprinkle with a little salt, fold the top over twice and pop it in the microwave - this is important - standing upright (not on the side like you do with store-bought microwave popcorm). 
• 2-3 minutes later (listen for the popping to slow down) - voila - popcorn! How cool is that!

Sometimes it's the little things that make my day.


So, on to writerly things. I thought I would bring to your attention the amazing Kate Hart. Yearly, she puts together a round up of YA book deals - what's hot now, what's trending, what's fading - in fabulous full color graphs. Please check out all one, two, three of her wonderful posts on the subject.

I love Numbers + I love Graphs + I love Writing = I love Kate Hart's Posts

Beyond just the general coolness of the graphics, there's all sorts of interesting stuff to dig into. I know we all need to write what we love, but don't you ever get the littlest bit curious how your preferred genre stacks up? 

Probably since I love my Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Dystopian, I was surprised by the size of the Contemporary Market. Sci-fi has been trending recently as the 'new Dystopian' from all I've read. And while people talk of Paranormal fading and the Thriller rising, I'm not seeing it so far from this graph. Interesting. What would you like to see more of? Less of?

Next up, should you be planning that seven book series? Apparently only if you're writing Paranormal.

 

And lastly, I know, I know, none of us are in this for the money - are we? But don't you just wonder what you might expect if you got the magic phone call from an agent, and then the even more magic phone call from a publisher?

The data is a little more rough here since nearly three quarters didn't report monetary figures at all. 17% had six figure deals (but consider, most of those are established authors since under 20% of book deals this year went to debut authors). I have heard the advance for debut authors is more likely in the $5k range (do any of you have any data on this?), although a fellow Hatracker, J.N. Koury, recently inked a deal for her debut, Origin, which looks amazing! Congrats!

Please take a minute and look through Kate Hart's blog. I have been so impressed by the quality and effort that has gone into this round-up. This overview barely scratches the surface of all the good stuff she has posted there. 

Happy Writing!

and popcorn eating

~Susan

Dark Themes in Young People's Literature

The YA community rallied in response
 to the WSJ article, and Maureen Johnson 
sold t-shirts (for charity, of course!).

or: Why English Teachers are Awesome

With the mania surrounding The Hunger Games this weekend, the question of the day is once again: How dark is too dark for kids? Blog posts and op-eds are weighing in on the topic, many referencing a controversial article published in the Wall Street Journal last June, in which children's book reviewer Meghan Cox Gurdon called The Hunger Games "hyper-violent" and included it in a list of books that exemplified what she viewed as a troubling trend in books for young people.

I read and loved The Hunger Games, but I haven't read many of the other books mentioned in the article, so I'll have to stick with what I know, most of which was written before YA took up half the bookstore. 

I chaperoned my younger son's class trip to the zoo yesterday, and had the surprise pleasure of sharing my seat on the bus with a high school English teacher. Talking to her got me thinking about books I loved when I was young. I wasn’t an avid reader until college, which might be why most of my favorite books were required reading.  

Elementary school: Across Five Aprils, Bridge to Terabithia, A Separate Peace. Each year the 5th grade class had to write and put on a play of Johnny Tremain, and I still can’t resist bringing it up in spirited family arguments about religion and government. Junior High: Flowers for Algernon and Ivanhoe and Watership Down and Fahrenheit 451. High School: Romeo and Juliet, Main Street, The Great Gatsby, The Jungle, Our Town, The Scarlet Letter, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Lord of the Flies, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Crime and Punishment, Heart of Darkness, Hamlet... 

I loved almost every book that was ever assigned (with the possible exception of As I Lay Dying).

In 9th grade we read Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I was spellbound from the first page to the last. We had to write a paper comparing one of the works of fiction we’d read to a non-fiction book of our choice; I still remember writing mine on Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Bridge at Andau, about the Hungarian revolution. Examining the parallels was thrilling, like watching a huge jumbled puzzle come together into a coherent image. History has always been my worst subject, and books were the only place history ever came alive for me. 

If your goal in life is to be a subversive influence on young minds, don’t write books. Don’t teach history or government. Teach English.

I still remember exactly how and when my love affair with assigned reading began. In 4th grade, we read a story that admitted, outright and without a hint of sugar coating, that children are awful little creatures. Being surrounded by children and also still a child myself, I found this admission both terrifying and long overdue.

1959 collection containing
All Summer in a Day

The story was All Summer in a Day, by Ray Bradbury. It imagines children living on Venus, where rain falls constantly and the sun only shines for an hour every seven years. On the day the rain is supposed to stop, the children turn against Margot, the misfit girl who is the only one to remember the sun. They lock her in a closet, forgetting about her until after the sun has come and gone.

I didn’t know who Ray Bradbury was and I didn’t think about whether this story was famous or important. I only knew that it had been written for me. (I was both tender-hearted and narcissistic.) 

I hadn’t grown up enough to understand that almost everyone has some Margot inside, and the difference is only in how we express it. I didn’t know yet that adults often hide their own insecurities—their fears that the world could turn on them on a whim, that the pillars of stability might one day be confetti blown away by the winds of luck, circumstance, or the baser parts of human nature. What I understood was only this: Someone else knew what I knew.

When I was reading All Summer in a Day, grownups didn’t lecture about bullying and no one ever got in trouble for using the word “stupid,” or for saying anything that wasn’t on George Carlin’s infamous list. The current generation of parents aims to enforce kinder, gentler childhoods. The jury is out on how well that’s working. I don’t think children have changed much. They still delight in pressing each other's buttons with a sharp stick. They still vie for power, they still play King of the Hill, they still test the boundaries between cruelty and guilt and empathy and self-preservation. In other words, they are still human. 

And the playground, no matter how much we sanitize it, is still a jungle. 

As a parent, I understand the need grownups have to pretend the world is nicer than it is, and that the rules are a little more straightforward than they are. I understand why we might be intolerant of the melancholy and angst that plague some young people more than others. After all, that kind of thinking can lead an innocent astray—to becoming, at best, an outsider, and at worst, a drifter who has chosen to reject the societal delusion of money and now lives shoeless on the beach where he sports disturbingly long toenails. We want our children to be happy and productive and safe in the world they've inherited, because the alternatives are terrifying.

But children are smart, and eventually they figure out that Sesame Street doesn’t tell the whole story. Nothing is so disrespectful and alienating to a child or adolescent as to say, “You don't know enough about the world to feel what you think you feel. Now go play.” They do know. They know so much more than we want them to.

Many of the books I loved were exhilarating for their darkness, and darkness belongs to children as much as adults. Young people know how to explore heavy themes without imploding. All Summer in a Day is their story. Lord of the Flies is their story. Hunger Games is their story. Writers dive into aspects of human nature that adults often either won’t admit or can’t explain, and no one ever has to put on a brave and happy face for a book.

I wish parenting were only about sharing wonder and joy. I wish I could shield my children's innocence forever. I wish I could promise that nothing—no individual, group, government, business, church, band of zombies or act of God—could ever change their world for the worse. That they will always be autonomous. That their happiness and their survival will always be in their control. That they will always do the right thing.

But of course, I can't. I can only hope that the connection I forge with them is strong enough to carry us all through the rough spots of growing up.

Great books don't make promises and they don't gloss over the messy parts of life, and best of all, children don't need or expect them to. Great books invite young, thoughtful warriors to the literature club with open arms. “Come in, friend. Think what you think and feel what you feel. We are all and none alone here.”