I've been spending a lot of time these past two weeks researching markets, which means that I'm reading a lot short stories and essays at journals, trying to judge if these publications would be good places to submit some of my own work. That's how I came to read The Map by Don Schwartz. Seriously, I'm not just spending mass quantities of time reading.
The Map deals with some modern Germans' discovery of a map of the Warsaw Ghetto. The story has an element of magical realism, I think. But the reason I'm mentioning this adult piece of fiction here, at a blog relating to children's writing, is the author's way of dealing with historical material. I found it particularly interesting since we were just talking about historical fiction here a couple of days ago, and in the comments of that post, Tanita Davis wrote about how when she was working on a historical novel, her editor wanted a hook in the present day. The Map takes place in the present day, and the magical map is the hook that connects the present to the past.
Schwartz is writing in the twenty-first century, and he can't be sure how much his readers will know about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So what does he do in this two character story? "What do you know about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising?" the secondary character asks. The first-person narrator responds, "Is this another history question? Because you know I know nothing about history."
This gives the secondary character, who knows lots about history, an opportunity to tell what he knows about the uprising. It also, by the way, gives him the opportunity to say, "How convenient for a German," a bit of commentary.
The "What do you know about..." question to give a character an opportunity to spill info isn't anything new. But it's used very well here.
Author Gail Gauthier's Reflections On Books, Writing, Humor, And Other Sometimes Random Things
Friday, February 17, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Some Talk About Historical Fiction And Balance
I will be behind in my blog reading for the rest of my life. But that's a good thing. I can bring readers' attention to things they might have missed, or, maybe, refresh a discussion.
For instance, earlier this month (not that long ago, by my standards) Tanita Davis made a case for historical fiction over at Finding Wonderland. Evidently historical fiction isn't wildly popular with a lot of young readers. Tanita says, "In part, the sticky label of "historical fiction" is a marketing key for parents and librarians to identify the book: Here is something semi-educational to slap into the unsuspecting hands of innocent youth. Go to it!"
This argument both works and doesn't. It doesn't work because historical fiction isn't written just for the young. There are adult works of historical fiction. Any western novel is a sub-category of historical fiction. Lonesome Dove, for instance. Those Napoleonic seafaring books by Patrick O'Brian are historical fiction. Georgette Heyer's historical romances are historical fiction. None of these books were written for children or even young adults.
Tanita's argument does work, though, because adult readers don't read historical fiction to learn anything. They read it because they enjoy the setting. Time is a setting, just as place is. But, as Tanita pointed out, too often historical fiction for the young is expected to be educational. Only child readers are expected to learn something from reading it.
Forgive me if I've told this story before (and I think I have): As a teenager, I was a big reader of historical fiction. A lot of it was adult historical romance, and a lot of it was related to adventure stories of some sort. None of it was assigned reading. I found it on my own. I don't recall ever reading a novel as part of a social studies class.
Time passes. It's the late 1990's, and I'm a children's writer considering writing a historical novel because, hey, I liked them back in the day. So I decide I should take a look at a few middle grade historical novels. I tried maybe three before giving up. I couldn't finish any of them. The historical fact aspects of the book were in my face and annoying. My professional reading from that period reinforced my impression--the most important factor in historical fiction for kids was historical accuracy.
As I said before, though, time is part of setting. Setting is only one of the elements of fiction. A good novel has to balance all its elements. So while it's important that historical information be accurate, the historical setting shouldn't become so weighty and important that it overwhelms character, point of view, plot, and theme. When it does, you get a book that needs to be assigned reading because who's going to want to read it otherwise?
Some well-balanced historical fiction: A Drowned Maiden's Hair, How the Hangman Lost His Heart, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation, and What I Saw and How I Lied.
For instance, earlier this month (not that long ago, by my standards) Tanita Davis made a case for historical fiction over at Finding Wonderland. Evidently historical fiction isn't wildly popular with a lot of young readers. Tanita says, "In part, the sticky label of "historical fiction" is a marketing key for parents and librarians to identify the book: Here is something semi-educational to slap into the unsuspecting hands of innocent youth. Go to it!"
This argument both works and doesn't. It doesn't work because historical fiction isn't written just for the young. There are adult works of historical fiction. Any western novel is a sub-category of historical fiction. Lonesome Dove, for instance. Those Napoleonic seafaring books by Patrick O'Brian are historical fiction. Georgette Heyer's historical romances are historical fiction. None of these books were written for children or even young adults.
Tanita's argument does work, though, because adult readers don't read historical fiction to learn anything. They read it because they enjoy the setting. Time is a setting, just as place is. But, as Tanita pointed out, too often historical fiction for the young is expected to be educational. Only child readers are expected to learn something from reading it.
Forgive me if I've told this story before (and I think I have): As a teenager, I was a big reader of historical fiction. A lot of it was adult historical romance, and a lot of it was related to adventure stories of some sort. None of it was assigned reading. I found it on my own. I don't recall ever reading a novel as part of a social studies class.
Time passes. It's the late 1990's, and I'm a children's writer considering writing a historical novel because, hey, I liked them back in the day. So I decide I should take a look at a few middle grade historical novels. I tried maybe three before giving up. I couldn't finish any of them. The historical fact aspects of the book were in my face and annoying. My professional reading from that period reinforced my impression--the most important factor in historical fiction for kids was historical accuracy.
As I said before, though, time is part of setting. Setting is only one of the elements of fiction. A good novel has to balance all its elements. So while it's important that historical information be accurate, the historical setting shouldn't become so weighty and important that it overwhelms character, point of view, plot, and theme. When it does, you get a book that needs to be assigned reading because who's going to want to read it otherwise?
Some well-balanced historical fiction: A Drowned Maiden's Hair, How the Hangman Lost His Heart, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation, and What I Saw and How I Lied.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Time Management Tuesday: Writing Every Day
Today is our last initial discussion of Ellen Sussman's article, A Writer's Daily Habit: Four Steps to Higher Productivity, which was published in the Nov./Dec. 2011 issue of Poets & Writers.
The fourth step toward productivity for Sussman is daily writing. Breaks in writing, she says, make it difficult to "reenter a writing project." It also sounds as if she's an organic writer. "I don't outline my novels ahead of time. I let myself discover story and character as I write. And so I have to stay very focused to contain that fictional world." Her work goes easier if she is able to stay in the story and that means writing regularly, in her case, five or six days a week.
I totally agree with everything she says on the subject of writing daily. Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to the problems related to writing breaks because I'm an organic writer, too. It is difficult to maintain flow, for instance, or stay in any kind of writing state, if you're always having to stop. Recently I was working three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and found that day on/day off schedule difficult because every day on came after a break of one or (on Mondays) two days. A chunk of my work mornings was spent fiddling around on-line, putting off attacking work. On the other hand, I can recall what a difference it made for Monday morning to be able to work for even a half hour or so over a weekend on a project I was deeply into. My computer guy has talked about writing code and how much easier it is to do if you've been doing it for a while. That, presumably, is why we used to hear stories about computer people staying up all night working, hopped up on caffeine. They didn't want to leave what they were doing and have to go through getting started again.
What's the connection with daily writing to time management, however? I think it's connected in two ways.
1. In terms of actually managing your writing time, if you can write nearly every day, you can get more done and not just because you're writing every day. You can get more done because the more you write, the easier it is to do. Plus, as Sussman says, "If I'm writing every day, four pages a day, then the novel stays in my mind during all the hours I'm not writing." So long as you can stay with the project, your mind keeps working even during those times you're not technically "writing." It's easier to experience breakouts. So writing every day has a connection to time management in that it helps you use your writing time more effectively.
2. To write every day, you have to make time to do it every day. This gets back to the issue of work and personal time. How can we possibly write every day and deal with personal time or day jobs? Sussman talks about habit. "Over time daily writing does get easier; it becomes a habit." You cannot exaggerate the power of habit. But it takes time to create one. How do we find the time to get started and do that?
I'm experimenting with squeezing in writing time on weekends and will write about how that's going next week. (And probably other weeks, too.) In the meantime, how many of you are able to write nearly every day? If so, how did you get started? If not, do you think it's worthwhile, and how might you try doing it?
ADDITION: Speaking of writing every day, in the essay Norman and Me, Amy Rowland says that Norman Mailer wrote every day. His biographer gave a tour of a house he lived in in Provincetown and told them "...Mailer believed writing had to be done every day, otherwise 'it was like leaving soldiers out in the rain.' He said you couldn’t tell yourself you were going to do it and then not do it, that it was a 'disservice to the subconscious.'" She also says he wrote in an attic room. "Toward the end of his life, Mailer would drag himself up the narrow stairs with a cane in each hand."
I was never able to get through the one book by Mailer that I tried to read and think the "disservice to the subconscious" bit is a little over the top. Still, I admire his dedication. Or perhaps perseverance.
The fourth step toward productivity for Sussman is daily writing. Breaks in writing, she says, make it difficult to "reenter a writing project." It also sounds as if she's an organic writer. "I don't outline my novels ahead of time. I let myself discover story and character as I write. And so I have to stay very focused to contain that fictional world." Her work goes easier if she is able to stay in the story and that means writing regularly, in her case, five or six days a week.
I totally agree with everything she says on the subject of writing daily. Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to the problems related to writing breaks because I'm an organic writer, too. It is difficult to maintain flow, for instance, or stay in any kind of writing state, if you're always having to stop. Recently I was working three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and found that day on/day off schedule difficult because every day on came after a break of one or (on Mondays) two days. A chunk of my work mornings was spent fiddling around on-line, putting off attacking work. On the other hand, I can recall what a difference it made for Monday morning to be able to work for even a half hour or so over a weekend on a project I was deeply into. My computer guy has talked about writing code and how much easier it is to do if you've been doing it for a while. That, presumably, is why we used to hear stories about computer people staying up all night working, hopped up on caffeine. They didn't want to leave what they were doing and have to go through getting started again.
What's the connection with daily writing to time management, however? I think it's connected in two ways.
1. In terms of actually managing your writing time, if you can write nearly every day, you can get more done and not just because you're writing every day. You can get more done because the more you write, the easier it is to do. Plus, as Sussman says, "If I'm writing every day, four pages a day, then the novel stays in my mind during all the hours I'm not writing." So long as you can stay with the project, your mind keeps working even during those times you're not technically "writing." It's easier to experience breakouts. So writing every day has a connection to time management in that it helps you use your writing time more effectively.
2. To write every day, you have to make time to do it every day. This gets back to the issue of work and personal time. How can we possibly write every day and deal with personal time or day jobs? Sussman talks about habit. "Over time daily writing does get easier; it becomes a habit." You cannot exaggerate the power of habit. But it takes time to create one. How do we find the time to get started and do that?
I'm experimenting with squeezing in writing time on weekends and will write about how that's going next week. (And probably other weeks, too.) In the meantime, how many of you are able to write nearly every day? If so, how did you get started? If not, do you think it's worthwhile, and how might you try doing it?
ADDITION: Speaking of writing every day, in the essay Norman and Me, Amy Rowland says that Norman Mailer wrote every day. His biographer gave a tour of a house he lived in in Provincetown and told them "...Mailer believed writing had to be done every day, otherwise 'it was like leaving soldiers out in the rain.' He said you couldn’t tell yourself you were going to do it and then not do it, that it was a 'disservice to the subconscious.'" She also says he wrote in an attic room. "Toward the end of his life, Mailer would drag himself up the narrow stairs with a cane in each hand."
I was never able to get through the one book by Mailer that I tried to read and think the "disservice to the subconscious" bit is a little over the top. Still, I admire his dedication. Or perhaps perseverance.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Good Press For YA
“The Fault in Our Stars” and “There Is No Dog”: Not kids’ stuff at Salon.
The author, Laura Miller, talks a bit about the mysteries of YA vs. adult book publishing. I have a question about this bit:
"It makes no sense that the maudlin goo that is “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” should be classified as a work for adults, when “The Fault in Our Stars,” a far more mature rumination on the same themes, is regarded as a children’s book. Likewise, why should grown-ups be subjected to the cutesy “The Life of Pi” while teenagers get to revel in an astringent fable like “There Is No Dog”?"
Is she saying that it would make more sense for the "maudlin goo that is “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”" and "cutesy “The Life of Pi”" to be published as children's books? Because, maybe, children's/YA is gooey and cutsie?
Sometimes when I read raves for particular YA titles from nonYA people, I get the sense that they are surprised, that the YA book they're loving rises above its peers. Take the title of this piece--"'The Fault in Our Stars' and 'There Is No Dog': Not kids’ stuff." In the context of the review, I'm reading "not kids' stuff" as a really good thing. Why is it good that children's books not be children's books?
I may, however, be reading a lot into this.
The author, Laura Miller, talks a bit about the mysteries of YA vs. adult book publishing. I have a question about this bit:
"It makes no sense that the maudlin goo that is “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” should be classified as a work for adults, when “The Fault in Our Stars,” a far more mature rumination on the same themes, is regarded as a children’s book. Likewise, why should grown-ups be subjected to the cutesy “The Life of Pi” while teenagers get to revel in an astringent fable like “There Is No Dog”?"
Is she saying that it would make more sense for the "maudlin goo that is “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”" and "cutesy “The Life of Pi”" to be published as children's books? Because, maybe, children's/YA is gooey and cutsie?
Sometimes when I read raves for particular YA titles from nonYA people, I get the sense that they are surprised, that the YA book they're loving rises above its peers. Take the title of this piece--"'The Fault in Our Stars' and 'There Is No Dog': Not kids’ stuff." In the context of the review, I'm reading "not kids' stuff" as a really good thing. Why is it good that children's books not be children's books?
I may, however, be reading a lot into this.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Lots Of Reading For Thief Fans
I was a big fan of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, though not so much the other books in the series. (There may be a fourth book I never even read.)
However, these books have a faithful following. Said faithful followers may be (and probably will be) delighted to hear that Chachic's Book Nook did a Queen's Thief Week at the end of January. There is a great deal of reading there.
While the series lost steam for me, I do think I'll be buying a copy of The Thief for my niece. Thanks to Liz. B. for the link.
However, these books have a faithful following. Said faithful followers may be (and probably will be) delighted to hear that Chachic's Book Nook did a Queen's Thief Week at the end of January. There is a great deal of reading there.
While the series lost steam for me, I do think I'll be buying a copy of The Thief for my niece. Thanks to Liz. B. for the link.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
More On John Christopher
John Christopher's Guardian Obit is notable because it claims he "repudiated, rightly, the tag of "cosy catastrophe", a phrase coined by Brian Aldiss." Another obit used that term to describe his work.
The discreet charms of 'cosy catastrophe' fiction.
The discreet charms of 'cosy catastrophe' fiction.
Friday, February 10, 2012
A Wonkier NESCBWI Blog
When I read about writing, I prefer to read what published writers have to say about the subject over the thoughts of unpublished writers. This is not a matter of caring about status. It's a matter of caring about experience. I'm not a big believer in untrained literary genius. Or untrained anything, for that matter.
I was going to tell you an amusing story that illustrates my point about me, but it would have meant taking too much time away from the actual subject of this post, Livia Blackburne's A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing. Livia Blackburne is what we call nowadays a pre-published writer, though she's a pre-published writer with an agent, suggesting she's perfected her work enough to be considered publishable by at least one publishing professional. She writes fantasy, but she's also a neuroscience graduate student, and she brings a wonderfully analytical approach to her writing about writing.
Her blog has a "Popular Posts" section (by the number of comments she gets, other readers are not at all put off by the fact that she hasn't published yet), and among them is one called Author Blogging: You're Doing It Wrong, in which she discusses why blogging probably isn't a great marketing tool for fiction writers. (Though there are other reasons beyond marketing for blogging.) It's hard for fiction writers to create a platform. On top of that, she says, "Sometimes in online platform discussions, someone will mention the elephant in the room, that we’re only blogging for other writers. Usually, that comment is met with thoughtful nods. Comments of “Yeah, we should think about that”. More awkward silence, and then we go back to our blogging....I‘ve never heard anyone come up with a thoughtful, generalizable, plan for reaching targeted fiction audiences through blogging."
I would go a step further, myself, and say that most bloggers are only blogging for other bloggers. It's a closed system. And, yeah, a lot of bloggers don't want to discuss it.
Livia, however, does. In Author Blogging: You're Doing it Wrong, but John Locke's Figured it Out she describes another author's strategy for determining his target audience. The idea being that once you've worked out your target audience for your fiction, you can try to write posts that will appeal to that group.
A children's author's target audience, for instance, is probably librarians, teachers, and booksellers, since most kids don't have large amounts of disposable income or a means to get to bookstores or order on-line.
A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing is a blog I'd like to spend a lot more time exploring. Ah, but, there's the time thing.
I was going to tell you an amusing story that illustrates my point about me, but it would have meant taking too much time away from the actual subject of this post, Livia Blackburne's A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing. Livia Blackburne is what we call nowadays a pre-published writer, though she's a pre-published writer with an agent, suggesting she's perfected her work enough to be considered publishable by at least one publishing professional. She writes fantasy, but she's also a neuroscience graduate student, and she brings a wonderfully analytical approach to her writing about writing.
Her blog has a "Popular Posts" section (by the number of comments she gets, other readers are not at all put off by the fact that she hasn't published yet), and among them is one called Author Blogging: You're Doing It Wrong, in which she discusses why blogging probably isn't a great marketing tool for fiction writers. (Though there are other reasons beyond marketing for blogging.) It's hard for fiction writers to create a platform. On top of that, she says, "Sometimes in online platform discussions, someone will mention the elephant in the room, that we’re only blogging for other writers. Usually, that comment is met with thoughtful nods. Comments of “Yeah, we should think about that”. More awkward silence, and then we go back to our blogging....I‘ve never heard anyone come up with a thoughtful, generalizable, plan for reaching targeted fiction audiences through blogging."
I would go a step further, myself, and say that most bloggers are only blogging for other bloggers. It's a closed system. And, yeah, a lot of bloggers don't want to discuss it.
Livia, however, does. In Author Blogging: You're Doing it Wrong, but John Locke's Figured it Out she describes another author's strategy for determining his target audience. The idea being that once you've worked out your target audience for your fiction, you can try to write posts that will appeal to that group.
A children's author's target audience, for instance, is probably librarians, teachers, and booksellers, since most kids don't have large amounts of disposable income or a means to get to bookstores or order on-line.
A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing is a blog I'd like to spend a lot more time exploring. Ah, but, there's the time thing.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
How Are Introverts Portrayed In Children's Literature?
The February 6 issue of Time had a cover story The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated). (The actual cover says "The Power of (shyness)," which is not what the article is about at all.) This will be of interest to writers because conventional wisdom says that introverted types are drawn to writing.
I think it ought to be of interest to children's writers, too, because the article claims that extroverts tend to be more valued in our culture, yet introverts have qualities that often help them to become high achievers. At the same time, schools focus on and reward extroverts. (Group projects...team players...the belief that everyone needs to be well-rounded--whatever that is.)
What does children's literature reflect? The reality (according to Time, anyway) that introverts are achievers or the stereotype of introverts as outsider outcasts?
I think it ought to be of interest to children's writers, too, because the article claims that extroverts tend to be more valued in our culture, yet introverts have qualities that often help them to become high achievers. At the same time, schools focus on and reward extroverts. (Group projects...team players...the belief that everyone needs to be well-rounded--whatever that is.)
What does children's literature reflect? The reality (according to Time, anyway) that introverts are achievers or the stereotype of introverts as outsider outcasts?
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Cleaning Out The Sci-Fi Idea File
I came upon a file in my cabinet marked "Sci Fi Research." Since I've been keeping ideas for a nonapocalyptic future story on my new computer journal, I decided to go through the file, see what I could find that would apply, and get rid of the rest.
So far, I've found an editorial from 1995 about welfare reform. I can see where I was going with that, but I think it's too old to do me any any good. Get this--I saved an undated article about personal home pages. A-yeah, that's futuristic. There's also a 1995 article about Biosphere 2. Old news and the kind of claustrophobic, enclosed setting that would make me nuts to have to write about.
There's close to an inch of this kind of stuff, including a page I tore out of Newsweek regarding the 1950s and a Milestones from Time in 1992 announcing the deaths of Sam Kinison, Isaac Asimov, and Sam Walton. Nowadays what would interest me workwise is the bit about Molly Picon's passing, because today she is the least well-known person who died that issue. Time was a big source of information for me back in the '90s. Was I interested in the fact that back in '92 they thought that maybe high-fat, low-fiber diets didn't cause breast cancer, that someone was working on a vaccine from patients' own cells to treat some kind of lymphoma, or that frozen water was found on Mercury? All those stories were on another page I saved.
I have a review of a book about Daniel Boone in that sci-fi file. I don't know why I kept it, but it's still in print. I also found a review of a book about Jackie Gleason with "Sci-fi" written in my handwriting next to his picture. That book does not appear to still be in print.
This is going to be a much, much bigger job than I thought it would be, and not at all worth it, since I'm nowhere near ready to get started on a book like this. So I'll just close it up and put it away for another couple of decades.
Oh and there is also a two-page outline regarding a space station story for adults in which everyone on the space station is bored out of their minds. While there is an aspect of that that still interests me, no, I am not doing any stinkin' space station stories.
This was typed on the back of some of my old resumes. I really, really don't want anyone to find those.
So far, I've found an editorial from 1995 about welfare reform. I can see where I was going with that, but I think it's too old to do me any any good. Get this--I saved an undated article about personal home pages. A-yeah, that's futuristic. There's also a 1995 article about Biosphere 2. Old news and the kind of claustrophobic, enclosed setting that would make me nuts to have to write about.
There's close to an inch of this kind of stuff, including a page I tore out of Newsweek regarding the 1950s and a Milestones from Time in 1992 announcing the deaths of Sam Kinison, Isaac Asimov, and Sam Walton. Nowadays what would interest me workwise is the bit about Molly Picon's passing, because today she is the least well-known person who died that issue. Time was a big source of information for me back in the '90s. Was I interested in the fact that back in '92 they thought that maybe high-fat, low-fiber diets didn't cause breast cancer, that someone was working on a vaccine from patients' own cells to treat some kind of lymphoma, or that frozen water was found on Mercury? All those stories were on another page I saved.
I have a review of a book about Daniel Boone in that sci-fi file. I don't know why I kept it, but it's still in print. I also found a review of a book about Jackie Gleason with "Sci-fi" written in my handwriting next to his picture. That book does not appear to still be in print.
This is going to be a much, much bigger job than I thought it would be, and not at all worth it, since I'm nowhere near ready to get started on a book like this. So I'll just close it up and put it away for another couple of decades.
Oh and there is also a two-page outline regarding a space station story for adults in which everyone on the space station is bored out of their minds. While there is an aspect of that that still interests me, no, I am not doing any stinkin' space station stories.
This was typed on the back of some of my old resumes. I really, really don't want anyone to find those.
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