Unfortunately, Many Writers Don't Think About This

Marianna Baer posts at Crowe's Nest on using distinct voices for similar characters. This is particularly important in YA books, where you often find teen posses, and children's books, where you often find lots of friends.

I find it helpful, myself, to cut down on the number of secondary characters as much as possible. Then, at least, you need fewer voices.

Training Report: I'd hoped to look at some work this weekend. That doesn't seem like asking much, does it? Well, it seems it was. I did, however, mow the backyard this morning. I had one stellar idea while doing so, which I hope I remember.

A Lovely Little Find

I was in the library earlier this week, looking at all the special powers books on the new books' shelf in the children's area. By which I mean books about kids learning they have special powers or having special powers and going to special schools to develop them or kids in some kind of fantasy world full of special powers. I understand that children enjoy reading the same kinds of things over and over, and I respect their desire to do that. But, man, it's hard for an adult working in kidlit not to keel over from the sameness of it all.

So imagine my delight when I saw a book about something so mundane as writing thank you notes. Really, we have gotten to a point in children's literature where the mundane is unusual.

Some people might think that Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes by Peggy Gifford is a little gimmicky. The chapters are short with titles that sort of bleed into them. Take Chapter 25, for instance:

Chapter 25

In Which Mark Says No

"No."

Plus, young Moxy falls asleep at odd times. And the book uses a third-person narrator who sometimes intrudes into the story.

Other people might point out a couple of stereotypes, like the odd little sister and the divorced dad who makes plan to see his kids but never carries through with them.

However, Moxy Maxwell isn't trying to be Anna Karenina (which, to be perfectly honest, I've never been able to get through). Moxy Maxwell is trying to be a light, clever, amusing story about a girl who is close to over-the-top but in a funny way that doesn't have time to get annoying because the book is so short. And it does that very well.

There's a real storyline here about poor Moxy, who must finish writing her Christmas thank you notes before heading to California with her brother to finally visit their father, a former soap opera actor who is out in Hollywood hunting for a Big Deal. We're not talking random jokes or actions, which is what you sometimes find in books for this age group. But what's most admirable about this book is that it's a funny story for younger kids that treats its readers with respect. The author doesn't assume that child readers only laugh at toilet humor and funny sounds. This is lightish entertainment that a kid doesn't have to feel embarrassed about having read.

And a word about the illustrations, which are photographs by Valerie Fisher--the pictures are supposed to be taken by Moxy's brother as the story is taking place. What we have is a little mixed media going here, and it works better than some more sophisticated attempts that I've seen.

I read a paperback edition, which would be perfect for tucking into a camp trunk this summer, or bringing along for a family vacation.

But It Lasts More Than Three Hours

Becky Levine's post on How to Pick a Writing Conference reminded me that I was going to check out the Wesleyan Writers Conference's One Day Event, because God knows I can't tolerate a whole week of conferencing. (This morning I was talking with some classmates after taekwondo about how I like circuit training--as well as taekwondo--because I can't stand to do one physical activity for a whole hour.) Anyway, the Wesleyan people have a Novel and Short Story component so I should think about doing this, since I just had another short story rejected by a journal today. I need to learn something.

But, geez, all day? And an hour and a half for lunch? I don't know about anyone else, but I can consume an entire week's worth of nourishment in an hour and a half.

Regarding today's rejection: Included in the rejection letter was a special offer to subscribe to the journal for $2.00 less than the standard rate. The discounted rate is offered only to authors whose work has been rejected. I'm cool with rejection, but I'm not at all sure what to make of the sales pitch.

This Is Hardly Good News

Those of us who didn't care for him as a teenager are probably not going to like Holden Caulfield any better as a 76 year old. Evidently J.D. Salinger wasn't delighted to hear about this, either.

I like reworkings of classics, myself. But I prefer that they be classics I liked in the first place or find interesting for some reason. And I guess I also prefer that they be classics that are so old that the original authors are dead. If the authors are still alive, the revisionist work is treading on their turf. If they're dead, the reworking brings their work to the attention of new readers.

Just think of the new readers who are going to be exposed to Pride and Prejudice as a result of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I have a friend who reread the original just to get ready for the zombie book.

I might like Catcher in the Rye better if it included some zombies.

Training Report: Oh, woe is me. I lost four days of work what with the holiday weekend and errands and family stuff yesterday. I have a very hard time getting into flow again after something like that. I did manage to revise two segments for the 365 Story Project today and copy one over nicely onto my hard drive. And I did a few paragraphs on my new essay.

In 48 hours we'll be having another weekend!

What I Did Instead Of Working

I read Thirteen Tips for Actually Getting Some Writing Done. I still haven't started working.

Here I go. Right now.

Has This Been Covered In YA?

I recently finished reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. In it, a fourteen-year-old girl learns that she is, in fact, a boy. The book is a very wide-ranging story told by the adult Cal in which he talks a great deal about his very interesting ancestors but also of his childhood and early adolescence when he was Calliope. (A Greek family.)

As I was reading those sections of the book, I wondered if any YA novels deal with the same situation.

Interviews

Cynsations has an interesting interview with John H. Bushman, an educator who is the co-author of Using Young Adult Literature in the English Classroom. He says, "Kids come out of elementary school with a great desire to read and enjoy what they are reading, and they are then often faced with Great Expectations." Also, "I have never said that the "classics" are bad in and of themselves. I do believe that they are bad for sixth through eleventh graders. Seniors--most of them--have the intellectual ability to understand the complexity of plot and of language. They can work with the classics."

By way of BookMoot I found Kenneth Oppel: The Times Interview. Interesting quote: '“I’m really the product of years of playing Dungeons and Dragons,” he says. “A lot of parents get very concerned about kids gaming, but everything I learnt about storytelling . . . came from that discipline..”' I've read other interviews in which Oppel talks about his background with gaming.

This Kind Of Thing Is Work, Too

I spent part of Saturday with a few in-laws at an emergency room where the family patriarch was being treated. (He was home by three that afternoon and taking part in Memorial Day festivities today.) Because we had one too many people there and I wasn't actually related to anybody, I got to go out to the waiting room where there were chairs and a TV, making it far superior to where everyone else was.

Seeing my chance, I pulled out a notebook and went to work.

What I did was some freewriting on a character known as Grandpa Mike who is a hoarder, thus able to provide the kids in the 365 Story Project with all kinds of junk. At the end of last week, I'd decided to make him a bigger presence in the book. I needed to do a better job on why he has all this junk and where it is and how the kids get to it, anyway, and if I started using him more, he could provide me with a lot of material.

So I'm freewriting away trying to come up with what he did for work before he retired and how that related to the hoarding thing and what place he will have in Tanner's life. After doing that for a while, I realized that, no, I did not need another character to deal with, particularly an adult character, since this was a kids' book. Plus, a character should never be used just to fill space. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I was no further ahead in doing a better job on why Grandpa Mike has all this junk and where it is and how the kids get to it. But now I knew that I didn't want Grandpa Mike around all the time, calling on the phone, and turning up at Easter and the Labor Day picnic. That may seem like a step backward, but not really.

Okay, that happened during the day on Saturday. That evening I was reading just before I went to bed when I suddenly came up with an idea for what Grandpa Mike could have been doing for work that fits in with all the junk he's collected all his life! That, my little lads and lasses, is what is known as a breakout experience. I'd been working on the problem, collected data, had let it go and relaxed, and voila! A problem solved!

I've got my idea written down on a piece of paper from my Nancy Drew notepad, and the paper is floating around somewhere on my nightstand, just waiting for me to go back to work. Whenever that may be.

How Do I Avoid Writing Mary Sue?

Kelly Herold of Big A, little a has a new blog called Crossover where she will be blogging about "crossover books"--books that end up with two audiences, adult and YA or adult and even younger. She got the ball rolling with a discussion of America's most recent crossover, Twilight.

The blog comment that really got my mind spinning was Kelly Fineman's regarding Bella being a Mary Sue, who has moved from being a proxy for the author (Mary Sues were originally defined as characters based on authors' idealization of themselves. See the second Urban Dictionary definition) to being a proxy for readers. I think she has a good point.

The other character I've come across recently who seems like a Mary Sue to me is Mary Russell in A Monstrous Regiment of Women. I've heard that the Mary Russell series is also read by both adults and teens.

Mary Russell is a more traditional Mary Sue than Bella Swan in that she has so many superior qualities--intelligence, sophistication, a college degree, money. Anything she puts her hand to she's successful with. Plus she appears as the love interest for a character who already exists (Sherlock Holmes), which is how Mary Sues got their start in fanfiction. Bella, on the other hand, is pretty bland and inept, though she is loved by all. Her love interest is a type that has existed before (a vampire), though Edward, himself, is new to her series.

What both characters have in common is a sexual tension with a male character who is also idealized, one who watches over them while also serving as a threat. In Twilight Edward, who might go mad with lust at any point and kill Bella, controls her by treating her like a child. In A Monstrous Regiment of Women Sherlock Holmes "saves" Mary with physical violence--injecting her with drugs at one point and hitting her at another.

Now, I don't think many professional writers sit down and plan to write Mary Sue characters. (Though maybe we should, since they appear to be very popular.) However, it happens. For example, I've read that some critics believe Harriet Vane in the 1930's Lord Peter Wimsey novels is a Mary Sue for Dorothy Sayers, the books' author.

So my thought now is, if writers use their own experience in their writing (and this one sure does), how do we avoid writing Mary Sues? Do they always appear as a love interest? If I stay away from romance, will Mary Sue characters stay away from me? If I don't write about anyone over the age of thirteen will I be safe? What if I use male main characters? Will that work?

Training Report: Started a new piece of creative nonfiction today! Started one segment for the 365 Story Project. Decided to keep the grandfather around for the year, which will mean big rewrites in the first three months, but, heck, I'll do that next year. Did a little bit of planning for future segments. Hope to do some work this weekend.

Yes, I Actually Have Plans To Go Somewhere

I will be one of the featured writers this fall at the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Among the other authors attending will be Holly Black, who chaired a panel at Readercon last year, and Katie Davis, who I have actually met.

I have already begun planning what I will speak about during my presentation. At this point, I expect it will involve dead mice.