Being contrary, I decided to try reading Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books backwards. I just finished I Shall Wear Midnight, never mind that there are three books before it. And let me tell you, it was like returning to a world I had once loved and lived in. Discworld, to be exact. I was a huge Discworld fan when I was younger, still am, but for some reason I haven’t read Pratchett’s books in awhile. Don’t ask, it makes zero sense to me, too, why I wouldn’t have read his YA books sooner since I write YA myself.
Now that I can probably definitely call myself an author, rereading Pratchett’s books has inspired me in a flabbergasted, “I wish that one day I might have a writing talent approaching that in Pratchett’s left pinkie” sort of way. To be more analytical, I realize that a huge reason why I love Pratchett’s books so much is because all of his characters have lives of their own. Or at least he does a good job of making it look that way. So many books focus mostly on the protagonist, the antagonist, and maybe the love interest, but let the other characters totter around the plot like paper dolls. A really fantastic book, often part of a series, lets each of the characters have their own motives, often unexpected, that interweave the plot threads into a rich tapestry. I hadn’t read about Pratchett’s character Death in years, for instance, but as soon as he stepped on the page, I remembered everything he had done before, and how this shaped his personality today. He felt real, like an old friend.
Come to think of it, J. K. Rowling accomplishes the same feat in her Harry Potter books. Although we follow Harry around through all seven books, we can easily imagine Snape, Dumbledore, Hermione, Hagrid, etc. being a protagonist as well. They’re protagonist material. I’d bet you money that each character imagines themselves to be the hero of their own story. (Even if Harry doesn’t see it, because he’s too wrapped up in his own life.) I myself am fascinated by Snape’s story, which is made all the more mysterious by the fact that we’re limited to Harry’s point of view. The world of Harry Potter, like Discworld, wouldn’t exist without the lives of the characters within them. As a writer, I have a ways to go before I can tackle something that grand, but it’s my dream to make a world of my own.
Bloodborn comes out three months from now. (!) For those who haven’t snagged an ARC of Bloodborn, you may be wondering what this book is about. In the interests of being contrary, I’d like to tell you what the book isn’t about. Bloodborn isn’t…
…a direct sequel to Other. Many have asked this question, so I’ll answer it first. Bloodborn follows after Other chronologically, but Gwen is not the point-of-view character. Instead, a minor character from Other, Brock, switches his role from antagonist to protagonist. Obviously, Gwen didn’t think too highly of Brock, since he went around hating werewolves and getting into trouble with his brother and friends. But this is Brock’s story now, and his life is much more complicated than it seems. If you like slipping into the head of the “bad guy,” or at least a guy who thinks he’s become one, that’s Bloodborn.
…a book you should miss. Even if Other wasn’t your cup of tea, you should give Bloodborn a try. It’s different. It’s leaner, faster, stronger. I readily admit I’ve sharpened my writing skills between the two books. And if Other was your cup of tea, but you’re worried Bloodborn is just too different, you may be pleasantly surprised. I think of Other, Bloodborn, and the third book, Foxfire, as chocolates in the same box. Different flavors, same overall deliciousness.
…a paranormal romance. Yes, romance exists in this book, as evidenced by the cover with Brock and Cyn. (Nope, they aren’t siblings.) Unlike many YA novels, Brock and Cyn don’t meet each other in Bloodborn and fall in love/lust at first sight. That already happened, and they broke up. Now, forced to work together again, they have to untangle the secrets and emotions they were ignoring. But Bloodborn isn’t, at heart, about romance. It’s about something happening to you that shatters your old identity, that makes you hate what you’ve become, until you’re forced to face the reality you live in now. It’s about anger, regret, hope, and learning to forgive yourself. It’s about werewolves, running from the law, car chases, and little backwater towns across western America hiding Others strange enough that they prefer the boonies.
…a dark, angsty, bloody book. Well, let me clarify that. Brock has his moments of angst, and spends a good amount of time running around in the dark, and since there are werewolves, there’s blood. But you can also expect Brock’s own brand of humor, some badass werewolf women, travels through the wilderness, and werepuppies. Got to have werepuppies. Oh, and badass descriptions. Not really flowery ones, since Brock isn’t a flowery sort of guy, but badass ones that capture the scent, the taste of the scene. At least, I like to think they’re badass:
The sun slides down the curve of the sky, an egg yolk leaking runny gold. My breath already fogs the air, but my skin feels warm. I trot along the lengthening shadows and leave the dairy behind for the shelter of maples and firs. The whooshing of the highway dies away, replaced by the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker. I breathe deep, filling my lungs with the smell of rain, earth, and softly dying leaves.
This post is for all those authors who, like myself, get emotionally invested in their books. Too emotionally invested. Yes, we talk about the writing process and path to publication with words like “passion,” “love,” and “pour your heart out on the page.” You spend months to years on each draft of your novel, and even more time crafting a synopsis, a query, a pitch. You feel the raw heat of your imagination still radiating from the story when you read it again–or maybe it grows cold, but in time you warm to the book again. Your characters are dear friends you love to revisit, maybe even dream of. You long for the day when others can meet them, too, and step into the world you created.
It’s true, I think, that all this emotional intensity and vulnerability is necessary to write a good book.
But it does not make these things true:
(1) If someone reads your book and absolutely loves it, that means they love your mind and creativity.
Or, if they hate it, they think you must be a driveling imbecile who can’t even wipe the drool from your book before it goes to print. Seriously, though, a reader can’t even begin to pretend to know you by reading your book. There’s a good chance you write stories that have little to do with your personality or life. Yes, readers can admire your book, but that’s all. A book isn’t even the tip of the iceberg in terms of your total brainpower or imagination. Besides, you have other books in you, and readers might love or hate each of them uniquely. And if these readers met you, who knows what they would think.
(2) If your book gets recognized by starred reviews, awards, and gushing reviews, that means that you should feel proud of yourself and validated.
Or, if your book gets skipped by all the buzz and recognition, you should feel ignored, like you must be a social leper, and start a frenzy of marketing efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and that blog you don’t really like anyway. Yes, you can feel proud of your book, and happy that people are interpreting it in a positive way, or on the other hand, sad that your book is being ignored, because something must have gone wrong along the way. But it’s not you. It never was. Unless you’ve been completely nasty to everybody involved, they haven’t blacklisted your book.
(3) If you’re absolutely convinced that you’re not in fact a social leper, and your blog is the greatest thing to grace the internet, this must be why people have fallen head over heels for your brilliant writing.
Or, if you are part of the leper colony, you gaze enviously at super-popular authors with massive followings and presumably equally massive book sales. If only people liked you better, then they would like your book. Okay, let’s be honest: why do you read blogs? Because you like the blogger, and learning more about their life. Or if it’s a more craft-oriented blog, they have useful knowledge to share. And if your favorite blogger writes a book, you’re more likely to read it, hoping their skill at blogging and their scintillating personality might have rubbed off. But there’s no guarantee that it will. And who cares if you loved a book and–gasp–the author doesn’t blog. Blogging, and by extension personality, does not equal a good book. Period.
(4) If you’re having a fantastic time drafting a book, maybe under contract, or revising your book to suit a mountain of editorial notes, that means you’re extra efficient and, I daresay, a writing genius. I mean, everything is going so easily!
Or, if you have to wring words from your brain like water from a damp towel in the Sahara, that means you suck. And if reading your editorial notes wants to make you cry, that also means you suck. If only you possessed a more pure, innocent desire to write. But alas, it’s been tainted by deadlines and external pressure, and you have Failed. Seriously? It’s a job. You want to get it done, and get it done right, so you can admit if you’re tired or stressed or elated, but the book is going to be the book. Readers won’t know how you wrote it. Well, unless you’re one of those bloggers who spills their guts…
(5) If you’re a lead title at your publisher, and your editor, agent, publicist, and entire marketing team raves about your book, that means they all adore you. Well, of course you’re raking in the dough for them, but they love you.
Or, if you’re solidly in the midlist, or maybe the underbelly of the midlist, you watch your book get trampled as people stampede toward the bigger, shinier titles. You feel like crap. You feel like your editor is ignoring you, and your agent surely thinks you’re neurotic. Maybe you are neurotic. You circle over your book’s sales numbers like a vulture, worrying that they spell Impending Doom. To be perfectly honest, you probably will get a lot less attention if you’re an author with a small-fry book–but that doesn’t mean you’re a small-fry author. You can always write another, bigger book. And even if this bigger book isn’t big enough, that says nothing about people’s feelings toward you. It’s business.
In conclusion, you are not your book. Try to remember that. I will, too.
Can’t see the video? Try this link.
I’m thrilled to be able to at long last reveal my work in progress. I’ve been working on it in secret for a long, long time. At last, it sees the light of day!
Periplaneta
In a dystopian world ravaged by nuclear war, only true love can’t be stomped out…
In the year 2305, humans are ancient history. Only the strongest survive in a world where radiation can kill at any moment, food is scarce, and falling in love may be the last thing you ever do. But love is exactly what KL-86 finds. She is a RoaBot, an insectoid cyborg, her titanium exoskeleton matched only by her determination to live. While exploring the ruins of Seattle, a prime location to scavenge, KL-86 discovers a RoaBot from a rival clan: AJ-88, an outcast among his kind. AJ-88 made the mistake of hoarding food, an offense punishable by death. KL-86 should feel no mercy in terminating him, but when they brush antennae for the first time, she feels something she has never felt before… the stirrings of passion. Can KL-86 balance duty with true love–and survive in a world where hatred is more toxic than radioactive fallout?
(For more information, Googling “Periplaneta” should suffice. April Fool’s!)
In response to several comments on my post about Feminism in YA, I’d like to clarify what I meant by “girls who are gorgeous.” As I said in my previous post, “Whether they look conventionally physically attractive or not, these girls should act gorgeous and sexy.” Gorgeous because they don’t need someone to tell them that; gorgeous because they are confident about their bodies and what they can do, be it archery, running, basketball, modeling, or even happily being a couch potato.
In a lot of YA fiction (or any fiction, actually) I’ve noticed this us vs. them rivalry between the girl protagonist and the “pretty girls.” There’s this sense that if you’re pretty, you must be somehow shallow/nasty/or at the very least, an object of envy. Since we’re supposed to empathize with the not-pretty protagonist, it’s implied that we’re also not-pretty. Like it’s the default mode of thinking for a girl or woman to think she’s ugly.
Why can’t we redefine who the “pretty girls” are?
Yes, I know that “Feminism in YA” is a really sweeping title. There are a few zillion feminist beliefs out there, and they are often contradictory. But to me, feminism means championing the rights of women, which encompasses all the schools of thought. And in the context of this post, feminist YA will refer to young adult books that promote the rights of women, one way or another.
First, a little about my own beliefs. I believe that girls and women should be free to choose their work, clothes, food, hobbies, beliefs, etc. without fear, shame, or additional difficulty thanks to being defined by their gender. In fact, I don’t think people should be defined primarily by their gender, and the idea of a gender binary is bunk. But that’s a whole other blog post. Back to books.
Lately, there’s been much discussion in the blogging community about anti-feminist books. Particularly those in the paranormal romance genre. Obviously different readers can argue endlessly about whether a book is feminist or not, but I don’t think it’s useful to think of books as being anti-feminist. Feminism isn’t the opposite of anti-feminism. It isn’t the negative image of all the hurtful portrayals of female characters. It’s about advancing beyond these damaging viewpoints, and rethinking our culture’s portrayals of girls and women in a helpful, healthy way.
So I’m not going to talk about books I hated and chucked against the wall; I’m going to talk about the books I want to see. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all feminist book, which is why we need more. I’ve got a feminist wish list for YA fiction, actually:
-I want to see more gorgeous girls. Sexy girls. Whether they look conventionally physically attractive or not, these girls should act gorgeous and sexy. This is why I love Vivian from Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. She’s supremely confident and comfortable with herself. Sure, she has long legs and tan skin and golden hair, but her body isn’t ornamental: she runs fast, fights hard, lounges in the grass, and oh yeah, turns into a wolf. She isn’t perfect. She’s got plenty of other problems. But she relishes her physicality.
-I want to see more YA books without romance in them. It bothers me that romance seems to be the default story nowadays. Especially stories where the girl’s only or overriding goal in life is to snag the guy. If the girl is even that active; usually she waits for the guy to snag her. Don’t get me wrong, I love romance, be it sweet or sexy, but I also love reading about single girls, or girls who just happen to be in a relationship but have another adventure going on.
-Oh, and while we’re talking about romance, I’d like to see some girl snags girl books. I honestly haven’t read more than one or two YA books, ever, that talk about a girl falling in love with another girl. Where are they?
-I want to read more books with nerdy girls. Like, a girl genius programmer who tinkers with dangerously smart AI, or a girl science officer on a spaceship, or a girl student of microbiology who makes a fantastic discovery about alien life. Yes, I have a craving for more sci-fi YA. I’m not biased at all. Really.
I could go on and on, since I’m rather greedy with my wish lists, but I want to know what you think. What’s your feminist wish list for YA?
This is what I, or any other respectable zombie, look(s) like while writing a novel:
WARNING: I am not an artist, nor do I claim to be, so if this burns out your eyeballs, too bad. But you have to love the everyman ability to draw stick figures in something as massively powerful as Photoshop.
While reading, writing, and revising, I’ve had a revelation: every character is a hero. At least, in their own mind. Okay, so I’d heard an inkling of this advice before. If you’re having trouble making your villain realistic rather than total “mwahaha!” evil, try writing from the villain’s point of view, because of course each villain thinks they are the hero of their own story. Of course they have justifications for their motives, no matter how slimily they might carry them out, and the reader needs to feel this, too, in order to believe their role in the story.
Now, my light-bulb moment came when I realized that every character in a story is likely to think they’re the hero. Or, if they’re not self-confident enough for that, they must surely believe themselves to be the protagonist of their own story. The world revolves around them and their own dreams and fears, no matter how super fantastic the other characters might be.
Why was this a revelation to me? Well, like so many writers, I committed the Sin of Cardboard Characters. I focused on my protagonist’s motivations and inner conflicts, but assumed that the best friend was just the best friend, the postmaster was just the postmaster, etc. 
Everybody had their roles within the story, and they stuck to them. After all, if every character in a book has some sort of inner emotional journey, the whole book would be a mess of feelings and transformations. You need some static characters to provide a solid backdrop to those who are actively undergoing metamorphosis. And if only the protagonist’s motives matter, well, they’re the protagonist, aren’t they?
Or so I thought. Because if you’re intent on railroading your characters into a predefined plot, chances are this plot is going to come across dull and predictable. If you don’t let your characters loose to mingle and fight and fall in love, I doubt your story will evolve from their desires. If your characters don’t even have desires to begin with, they’ll just shuffle around like zombies awaiting orders from their master, the Great High Author. You get the idea.
Characters want things. Every single one of them. Even if they don’t get what they want over the course of the story, even the token sister’s boyfriend’s cousin character is going to be influenced by his wants and how they interact with the wants of others. Otherwise, he’s not really a character at all, but just some sort of prop in the scenery of the protagonist’s journey. And I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather read (and write) a story where people aren’t props, but a fantastically messy tangle of desires. What do you want?
