The Book Review Club - Twisted

Twisted
Laurie Halse Anderson
young adult

It's not brand-spanking new like Wintergirls, but Twisted is definitely worth a read. First, it is not a girl book. I'm very into boy books these days since I'm working on one. Go figure! And it's a real gem to find a boy book that deals with boy emotions from a boy perspective BUT is written by a woman.

A woman's approach to a male character and the result is all way in the forefront of my conscious writing after listening to Mike Sullivan speak at a conference I was speaking at last weekend. He drove home the point that we "girls" like connection and peaceful resolutions to problems. We're internally driven. Boys need to make connection. They need to experience tactile-y how something feels, works, and affects them. That's why they drive their bikes off of cliffs and that kind of extreme sports stuff. Sure, there are girls who do it too, and Sullivan says that both boy and girl readers who are reluctant readers share this hands-on approach to life. They need to experience.

Having said that, as a woman, I felt like Anderson did a great job with bringing her boy character home. Granted in this story of the dweeb turned bad boy, there is the Anderson element of darkness. Tyler does ultimately consider suicide. He also considers blowing up his school. Hurting his peers. Shooting his father. Yet, in the end, he decides to make a turn. To man up and face up to his dad. To win respect with guts rather than guns.

In all that, I can't help wondering if that's a woman's take or a man' reality. Trouble male teens don't all blow up schools or shoot themselves or hurt others. But, is the journey to manning up grittier and more experiential than even Anderson gives us? Compare her work to Walter Dean Myers' Monster. Myer's novel is rawer. It made me feel physically ill with worry as the character told his story. The emotion I came away with from Myers' work was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Unfemale.

Can we women portray Myers' type of gritty male? Absolutely. If we're willing to understand it. Which may or may not take actually experiencing it like a man might choose to.

What do you think? I'd really love some input on this. I'm trying to understand the male mojo. Not an easy feat. But doable, right?

For more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's site. You're sure to Spring into something fun!

The Book Review Club - Moon over Manifest

Moon over Manifest
Clare Venderpool
middle grade

When a book wins an award as prestigious as the Newbery, I am burning with curiosity to read it. Can I learn something new? Any tricks of the trade hidden amongst the pages? Character development done in a new way? And what didn't work? Because we writers are all human and we make mistakes, but how does an award-winner make mistakes and make the piece still work?

With great anticipation, I downloaded Moon over Manifest to my new iPad. Yes, the virgin iPad read was a Newbery.

Basic plot summary - Abilene Tucker is sent to the town of Manifest by her father to live indefinitely while he works the railroad during the Great Depression. There, she learns the town's past, as well as her father's, which redeems Abilene and her father's relationship, heals old wounds, and rejuvenates a tired town.

There is a lot to like and to learn from in this book. Vanderpool does an amazing job of weaving multiple different storytelling patterns together to create her story. There is Abilene's narrative, the Hungarian woman's, and letters from Ned to Jinx, and the newspaper clippings. If a writer has to skip back and forth in time, this method of using multiple perspectives to fill in backstory is pretty creative and works well because it keeps the process of storytelling fresh.

There were a few things I wasn't so sure about. First, this is the first book I've read that I found myself editing as I went along. Now, this may be a side effect of an intensive MFA program, but I found this piece, while well-crafted, nevertheless hastily edited. There were extra words, poorly worded phrases, whole sentences that needed to be honed. I wondered if this is a sign of the increasingly crunched time of editors, or my better-trained internal ear, or both. Either way, the result was that these spots pulled me out of story and made me stumble in my reading.

Second, the character of Jinx gave me some trouble. He is in the 1918 story the Hungarian woman tells Abilene about the town of Manifest. We learn early on that Abilene hopes it is her father. As the reader, we are pretty certain it is her father. By taking away this element of surprise, the flashback story deflates. It is still interesting to read but then it just becomes a way for Abilene to learn more about her dad.

Finally, Abilene's internal growth seems fairly limited. True, she has to do physical labor for the Hungarian woman to learn the story of her father, but her processing of what she learns seems pretty minimal. I wanted her to have to struggle more, to grow internally. For me, she feels like much the same kid at the end of the story as she was at the beginning, just with more information about her dad. She didn't feel too damaged when she arrived, and she integrated herself well into the town while she was there. She didn't make any enemies. She made friends. She helped various characters. She realized what was her father's shortcoming and how to fix it, but that isn't the same as internal growth that the character herself needs.

All questions aside, if you are looking for a Katherine Paterson-like read, pick up Moon over Manifest. You won't cry (this is not something I consider a bad thing. I get weary of books that make me cry). You will enjoy the historical flashback and multi-layered storytelling technique that weave together a story about healing a father-daughter relationship.

And for more great reads, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. It's chalked full with winter wonders!

You might be a writer if...

Have you ever asked the question, "Yes, but...what do they really mean?"

Everybody has asked that at least once, right?

But, do you find yourself asking it a lot? Wondering what the true meaning is behind any conversation? Certain there must be a hidden meaning, if only you could find it?

You might be a writer if...you think everyone speaks in code.

At first, I thought this side effect of writing stemmed from the hazardous amount of rejection we writers expose ourselves to. Example: promising rejection letters that include a phrase or two about how the writer could make the manuscript better. They are so heartening. They mean, we are sooooooo close. But then, how close? And how could I really make it better? And why, suddenly, do the well-meaning editor's words seem like a code?

And then I'm off on a tangent dissecting, resectioning, imbueing, inferring, laboring without pause to get to what the editor really meant. Because it's hidden in there somewhere. It can't possibly be on the surface for all to see.

Because what my characters say never is. How could it be. Readers would never stand for it. They don't want idle chitchat. Fillers. Uh's and um's. Beating around the bush. They want code. They want puzzles. They want to get lost in a story and have to do some deciphering. They want a little fun! So we authors stylize, hide, weigh, infer, encode. We encode! Because everyone is doing it.

I think.

Maybe. 

Oh, what do they really mean?

The Book Review Club - The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
Craft

I never thought I'd see the day I would review a craft book over a work of fiction or nonfiction. But here it is! Never say never. It's not that I don't read craft pieces. Or that they cause me undo pain (okay, maybe some). It's just that until now that I hadn't been moved so profoundly by one that I felt the urge to share. 

The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed all of that. Reading Campbell's book was more than an experience. It made me rethink the way I view literature, storytelling, the role of storytelling within humanity, religion, society, thinking. At one point, Campbell had exposed so much of what storytelling does so profoundly, I said to my husband, "All I've got left is Cogito ergo sum. That's it!" (And yes, even Aquinas appears in Campbell's work).  

Campbell's look at how storytelling affects us mortals alters one's perceptions on so many levels. In investigating the greatest stories of all times, predominantly those focused on creation, god, gods, the universe - those deeply moving issues we all struggle to comprehend and understand - Campbell shows so evocatively how important storytelling is, what role it plays, and ultimately, creates guideposts for today's writers. Why does a hero have to refuse the call to adventure? Why does he have to walk through fire? What is, ultimately, so important about experiencing the hero suffer?

I will readily admit, I don't always get things the first time around. And all of this stuff may be old hat for a lot of writers, but having it laid out, discussed, chewed, dissected, analyzed, evidenced and described really helped me to see how critically important each stage of the hero's journey is not so much to the hero, or to me, but to the reader, to her emotional experience of the story I am trying to tell.

In case you're like me and need a picture to understand it all better, Campbell gives one, laying out story in its circular nature, each part labeled meticulously so that the reader can also go to the section of the book that then describes that stage.

Reading this book made me rethink not only my writing style but the way I perceive the role of story within our existence. True, talking about religious stories can do that since religions try to answer the big, huge questions, but seeing that they all try in very similar ways and how all of their stories evoke emotions in similar ways by going through similar stages was nothing short of revelatory for me as a writer.

I know. I know. Revelatory? I'm getting carried away. But here is some fact to balance out my swooning. George Lucas used Campbell's work to craft Star Wars. Star Wars! Can anyone say amazingly successful story?

I'll stop there. I promise. But if you're up for rethinking your whole concept of story, writing, the importance of storytelling to our existence, grab this book! Go for it. It is so incredibly worth it.

For more great reads to put some skip in your 2011, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. You won't be disappointed!

You might be a writer if...

The end of year nears, and all publishers, fingers crossed, are watching what consumers will do. How will the last quarter of 2010 round itself out? Will sales be up? Down? Even us writers get a little involved. It is, after all, an indication as to how we will all start out 2011 - with a prayer at selling another book, or austerity measures that will drive even the most creative toward writing what sells. Awful state to be in for everybody, but there we have it. Nevertheless, while biting my nails and praying to the gods of book sales, I can't help but wonder, you might be a writer if...

You think the publishing industry needs an OPEC moment.

Whoever thought you'd see publishing and OPEC in the same sentence. One of the most successful industries coupled with one struggling enormously. Bear with me, though. I promise, it will all make sense. Imagine what gasoline prices would be like if there were no OPEC. The countries an producers of oil aren't exactly buddy buddy. They could seriously undercut each other until they would be selling oil at a price well below what it costs to produce, just to get that sale. Sound familiar, publishing execs? The margin of profit on book sales is dangerously close to what it costs just to produce them. Hop back to oil and what do you see? For all the turmoil that abounds amongst Middle Eastern states and oil producers, they are able to agree on one thing, the price of oil. Their allegiance in this one area keeps the consumers locked into a fixed price of gas has made the oil industry very very successful.

So why is it the publishing industry hasn't gotten on that bandwagon? Returns are killing the industry. That is what common opinion has determined. It affects all aspects of publishing, especially writers. How can publishers take a risk on something new unless they are absolutely certain a book will sell? It's an awful predicament to be in. A few low sellers, and an editor's career is in serious jeopardy.

Why?

Because publishers carry all of the risk when it comes to selling books. Returns were started during the 1920s Depression to get wary booksellers to stock shelves when they were fearful they would be unable to sell the stock they purchased and thus go out of business. Publishers offered sellers a novel return policy: if you don't sell it, we'll take it back. It was the opening of Pandora's box. An offer they were unable to ever renig. Today, booksellers carry no risk. All books, regardless of the state they are in, are returnable. Publishers carry the risk. In that sense, there is no difference between big box bookstores and indies. They are consignment shops.

If, however, publishers were to band together, like OPEC, on this one point and abolish the returns policy, making their goods as sold as, say, textile or toy producers products, they would create a little more breathing room for creativity for both their editors and their writers. Maybe. Even I have to admit books, although as important to me as oil, as not as necessary as oil to our everyday lives. Consumers need not buy books.

Still, I can't help thinking that maybe leveling the playing field, sharing the risk amongst booksellers and publishers, might aid the industry overall. If nothing else, it would be an experiment that would get a sluggish industry thinking in novel directions.

Another Semester Completed!

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have finished my third semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts. This one was more challenging than the first two because it was the critical thesis semester. I really got into my topic - the illustrious objective correlative. So much so, I applied higher math to literature. Yes, this is what weeks of researching a topic will do to you, collide the left and right halves of your brain until you're combing math and words. Craziness...it's all part of the graduate school experience.

After I honed an cut, crafted and styled my thesis, I spent the rest of the semester sculpting the beginnings of a new piece. It was all about layering this time around. Coming up with the basic foundation, i.e. character and problem. Layering scene on top of that. Then external plot. Emotional plot. It was like creating a painting very painstakingly from the canvas up, hyperaware of each layer and the role it plays in the final perception of color and composition. 

So, all in all, a successful semester. And only one left!

What this graduate experience has thus far taught me is that even if Socrates was a little glib when he said, "I know that I know nothing"...I know that I know nothing. There is so much to learn about any field--any craft--and writing is no exception. I will spend the rest of my life learning about it, glorying and despairing in the nuances of the written word and my ability to use it (hopefully glorying a little more than despairing!).

The critical work has imparted the same lesson it did during my PhD, structure, analysis, description and interpretation. It helps me to be able to organize the parts to story and know how they work together, what tools are available, which one I want to tinker with, and how other writers have done so in the past. I need that kind of direction in my writing.

Next semester it is all creative, all the time. I am curious to see, what I learn then?

The Book Review Club - This Book is not Good for You

This Book is not Good for You
by Pseudonymous Bosch
middle grade

I wanted to like this book. Who wouldn't? It's about chocolate. Delicious, tempting chocolate. Any writer whose been stuck in writer's block h*** has likely turned to the sweet temptress for relief now and again, right?

Which made it so hard to find that the bitter aftertaste of the main protagonist, Cass, made it hard to swallow all of this book.

So why review it?

Because it was a hit with my 9 year old. Granted, the age range for this middle grade may be pretty slim because my 11 year old was not so thrilled. She too thought the main protagonist, Cass, was, in her words "sassy" and "thought she was better than everyone." And here's my favorite part. She thought the writer - who had periodic monologues - talked way too much.

I thought the basic plot idea - kid has to save her mom from an evil society that is trying to make a chocolate that lets you live forever - was very clever. But the Cass' sarcasm and the interruptive monologues really made it hard to finish this piece.

So what is a writer to do with criticism like that? Does it matter?

My theory is that we sometimes learn more from what people don't like than what they do. For me, when it's my work, it tells me that something isn't working. It might not be precisely what the reader doesn't like that needs fixing, but I realize that there are holes big enough that they need to be filled.

So, if you're looking to learn something from holes, check out This Book is not Good for You, and see if you can find what you don't like. AND...what you might fix.

For other stimulating reads, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's, blog!

Happy reading!