New Rules for My YA

When I was in kindergarten, I dissolved in total melt down over a snowman project.

"No scissors today," the teacher said. "We're ripping a snowman out of paper."

I was already quite handy with the play scissors, or so I thought. No way was I going to tear when I could cut!  A snowman needs smooth circles, not raggedy edges!

Image found here

I burst into tears and the project came to a screeching halt. The teacher had to explain to my mother later why the day didn't go so well.

39 years later, I find myself tearing a snowman out of a big blank piece of paper, white and blank with emptiness save for the big old question mark of HOW WILL YOU REWRITE THIS NOVEL?

So in this blizzard, this wilderness of white cold powder, when and if you learn something, it's like the hut you come across in the storm, where you can build a fire for a night. Cling to these epiphanies.

Here's what I know thus far about writing YA:

• If your character has a strong, clear voice, one that won't stop speaking to you, love that voice with all your heart. Trust the sound of the character's words in your head. Ever since Wendy started speaking to me, I listen. Voice is attitude, angle, words said and words thought; it's rhythm and inflection and pacing and tone. I tell myself not to ever lose that sound and keep revising till she says it right, just like only Wendy would. 
• Anything an adult says is suspect. Every time you write a scene where the adult gets too much airtime, face time, anytime, question it. The hero's journey of YA is to prevail sans adults, against adults, in spite of adults. Young adults want to redefine adulthood. One of YA's main themes is, This is how we do it. Not like you did. You people screwed it up.
• Avoid, "I wake up and then I did this and then I did that..." No matter how interesting the dream, no matter how interesting the next moment after waking, find a way to start in medias res. Begin in the middle of things in as many times as you can during your story. Hook readers at the beginning of every chapter.
• And leave them hanging at the end of every chapter.
• Outlines are made of silly putty, not bone. Write the outline, then write the scenes. Step back, and write a new outline based on the scenes you have. You'll be surprised to see how you've deviated from your intended outline, if you write the way I do. See if this new outline is working. If it works, return to the scenes and remove whatever clutters. 

In the midst of all the rips and ragged edges, a shape is forming. I'm building that snowman. Somedays it's a shadow in the blizzard, but most days, there's something, something, up ahead!

Writing Prompts:

• Scissors or rips? Which kind of writer are you?
• What snowman is giving you trouble lately?
• What rips and ragged edges are hardest for you to accept?
• Do you need a clear path out of the blizzard, or when you write do you take it step by step without headlights or GPS?
• How do you define revision? What epiphanies have you had about it lately?
• Write about snow and cold and ice; write about confusion and seeing a light in a hut ahead in the blizzard.

Big Girls Don't Pride

Big girls don't cry, they don't whine, and they sure don't pride. I need a new verb to reform those of us with active egos (and who happen to be overhauling novels).

Image retrieved at Pride & Prejudice Blogspot


Active Ego says, "Your novel is fine as is! It's character driven, it's full of good scenes, it's got that slow, realistic climb to the crisis." Ego thinks I can argue this because I was raised by Harper Lee, who according to author of Mockingbird, Charles J. Shields, handed her editor a massive mess of anecdotes, not a story. When I say, "raised by Harper Lee," I mean it: not only did this book become my instant favorite at age 14 but I read and re-read it many, many times to teach it to students over the years. So it's a bit of a Bible to me. You can tell looking at the finished novel that Lee loves character and a thoughtful unraveling of plot. She loves every tiny moment that every secondary or tertiary member of Maycomb offers. How about Walter Cunningham; how about Calpurnia? Mrs. Dubose? Aunt Alexandra? How about townsfolk who serve up local flavor full of incisive themes, such as Mr. Dolphus Raymond: a man "guilty" of miscegenation and pretending drunkenness because "it helps folks if they can latch on to a reason" why a white man would marry a black woman.

I adore those languourous passages of character development, slowly unfolding like a humid summer day. She has many a side trail to show us Scout and Jem's little world, rich with love and hate and courage and racism. Active ego says, "Lee's your literary hero; it's okay to follow her lead!"

But I'm not writing an adult novel with a child protagonist. I'm writing YA. So what do the people want? Big girls must ask.

What the YA reader wants is story, glorious story, moving quickly, and not one you have to hunt or wait for. Quests and missions must move at a good pace--not necessarily breakneck--then head somewhere satisfying. Even if my protagonist plows along in some general direction with lots of interesting side trails, most of us aren't going to stick around to see the end of that journey. What with our limited time and attention spans, the average reader is more likely to prefer speed, high drama, and compelling action. Plus, I haven't heard rumors of a Slow Read Movement just yet.

Big girls must face this fact and follow good advice. I've called upon the talents of several excellent, critical readers--friends, family, writing group members--many of whom are quite well-read in a variety of genres. I had my economics and history and nonfiction reading crew; those who prefer thrillers and sci fi; those who like more amorphous, character-driven narrative. Literary readers. Whatever they're calling chick lit now readers. I heard from a few that the throughline needed clarity; that the story didn't really take off till a certain point, while hearing from others that the quirky band of characters and its ringleader, Wendy, kept them occupied. Then a new reader took up my manuscript with fresh eyes and said two key words: external conflict. And I went back to my story and saw that there were various clashes that surged like sparklers and soon burnt out.

If you commit to an E.C., there must be a significant clash. It must motivate the character and direct the narrative. stream through the narrative, keeping readers there to find out what happens next.
YA demands a clear narrative that clings to the big E.C. and doesn't let go.

Now I'm mapping internal and external conflicts of the protagonist in every scene using index cards I can revise and shuffle. I pose the conflicts as questions Wendy must answer with her actions. I color code the E.C. and the I.C. inside my manuscript as Wendy faces both throughout the narrative. I've moved key scenes from the middle or last third to the front. I've written new scenes. And through it all, Wendy's making a commitment to her goals with more intensity and follow through so that readers will want to follow her.

Some authors would have outlined from the start, but that's not how my mind works. I tend to write and think in concrete, random ways: specific scenes and reams of dialogue inundate me, and they all connect to one another in one beauteous, tangled web. So if I start all webby, I must end sequential. And Ego may say, "That's just not my style to outline," but guess what? I'm using the concrete, fluid method of index cards, which feels more tangible and full of possibilities, which is how I like to write my scenes. Now there is method in my concrete random madness. Now there's an outline, slowly growing on my terms.

Ripping a manuscript limb from limb is, to say the least, humbling. Ain't no room for ego in that mess. First I cut the 40,000 words, and for that, I patted myself on the back. But that wasn't enough. What I'm doing now is what big girls must do if they want to finish strong.


Writing Prompts:

-- Who is your literary hero, and how has s/he influenced your writing? Find a passage that still rings in your head when you're talking or writing. The quotable passage may well be speaking to your writing. How?
-- How do the characters of your favorite novel both express personality and "local flavor" while also pursuing a compelling goal? Find a moment in the story when characters are expressing these three elements of story (characterization, setting, plot) simultaneously.
-- Flip through To Kill a Mockingbird or another favorite classic novel and land on a scene. List the external conflict, the internal conflict, and the two answers that the scene gives.
-- Do you outline or do you free write? Do you web, draw, color code, or use cards? How do you structure a large piece of writing? Why do you think this method works for you?
-- What is Scout's internal and external conflict throughout the novel? Atticus' and Jem's?

Make it Fascinating, Part 2

“Creative writing classes require scrupulous attention to a range of textual clues: stray connotations, sound, textures, and all other extra-denotative factors. Students learn to approach the craft of writing as if it were sculpture, where language becomes concretized.”

-- Chad Davidson and Gregory Fraser, “Out of the Margins: The Expanding Role of Creative Writing in Today’s College Curriculum.” The Writer’s Chronicle, Volume 42 Number 3

Word Count for the Novel: 118,031 (1049 words added)
Page Count for the Novel: 443

What can I say? I had to add a new scene. Sometimes ghosts show up and you must write them in.

In my last post, I explored how Graham Greene harnessed scene and Lisa See, summary. With the guiding principle “make it fascinating,” a writer can also alternate between scene and summary in a hybrid paragraph, such as this character description of Albert in Eudora Welty’s story, “The Key.”

“He looked home-made, as though his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night. He had a shock of very fine sunburned yellow hair. He was too shy for this world, you could see. His hands were like cardboard, he held his hat so still; and yet how softly his eyes fell upon its crown, moving dreamily and yet with dread over its brown surface! He was smaller than his wife. His suit was brown, too, and he wore it neatly and carefully, as though he were murmuring, “Don’t look—no need to look—I am effaced.” But you have seen that expression too in silent children, who will tell you what they dreamed the night before in sudden, almost hilarious, bursts of confidence.”

The first detail is metaphor: the man is equal to knitting, a wifely project of rough, homespun stuff. Who is the narrative voice giving us this equation? We don’t know, but we’re being told the man is “home-made.” He is pinned by this summative adjective and then the evidence follows immediately with an original metaphor. Then Welty snaps a direct shot of Albert, drawing us into the more objective camerawork with “a shock of very fine sunburned yellow hair.” Summary becomes scene, and then summary: we’re right back with the narrator who says, “He was too shy for this world, you could see.” By calling out to the reader, the narrator softens the blow of the generalization. We realize someone is in charge here but we aren’t repulsed by something as clunky as “He was a very shy man.” The narrator retreats behind a simile—the hands like cardboard—and resurges with “how softly his eyes fell…,” ending in an exclamation point. The narrator is carried away with emotion for her character, and this raises a reader’s interest. Back to the facts—Albert’s size relative to his wife, the color of his suit—but blending into summary again with two adjectives and then a speculation about his supposed speech. The narrator gives her mute character voice: “I am effaced,” as if he might generalize about himself. Then the analogy of the “silent children” appears, a comparison anyone can understand, and now we are standing back alongside the speaker contemplating the man through the pitying, analytical lens.

An excellent writing exercise is to try a character sketch following exactly her alternating pattern. As we get to know our own characters, we’re given to frequent generalization, a normal part of the drafting process. Might as well weave it in—you can always remove it later if it clunks—but weave it in with the goal of making it sing as loudly as sensory, action-packed scene detail.

Readers demand a lot. In between texting and twittering and general delusions of multitasking efficiency, we squirm at being told what to do and what to believe. If the writer chooses a telling voice, he must make it compelling. She has to bring the hard evidence, Law & Order style, somewhere on pages preceding or following. Authoritative tone and rich diction usually aren’t enough; I love it in Dickens and Austen, but if someone calls a story modern, I assume it will have the clout of forensic files and the whiff of TMZ—too much of train wreck to turn my eyes away.

Time to summarize about summary. Here’s a writer’s checklist from these last two posts of strategies that keep our summary significant:

• Is the subject intriguing?
• Is the summary chockfull of evidence (specificity)?
• Is the summary figurative?
• Does the summary address the readers’ need to be told something?
• Is the summary well-timed?
• Does the summary explore a universal truth?
• Is sensory description close at hand?

If you can’t meet most of this checklist, write the scene in the moment and see what trouble your characters get into.

In my next post, I’ll give a sample of how I revise to keep summary from being dull generalization that muddies the story.


Works Cited

Welty, Eudora. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. Harcourt, Inc. Orlando, Florida. 1994. p.30.

Writing Goal: 150,000 – 170,000 words for the novel and a complete fourth draft ready by the AWP Award Series deadline. I’m also reviewing copy edits for the next NCTE book in my differentiated instruction series, Teaching Julius Caesar: A Differentiated Approach, forthcoming in 2010.

Writing Prompts: Please note that writing prompts should always be pursued in emotionally-safe environments with the supervision of someone who interested in encouraging good writing, self-awareness, and reflection. A wonderful resource is Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and With Others.

© Lyn Hawks. Writing prompts for one-time classroom use only and not for publication in any form elsewhere without permission of this author.


Elementary Prompts

• Pretend you are making a movie. Your words are like the camera, and they must capture everything you see. You are watching two people argue over something or a scene where a woman’s purse is snatched on a busy street. Describe what happens: what the people do and what they people say. Describe the setting and what the camera sees. The only thing you can’t describe is what is going on inside the characters’ heads.
• Now rewrite the scene from the point of view of one of the people who is telling us what really happened.
• Then write the scene from the point of view of the other person who is also telling us what really happened.
• Which version do you like better? Why?

Secondary and Adult Prompts

• Write a scene where two people are fighting. Write the scene three different ways: from third person objective (fly on the wall, film camera perspective), then from third-person limited (through the lens of one character), then from omniscient (through the lens of both characters and with any other editorial commentary that the godlike narrator chooses to comment). Which scene works the best? In other words, whose story is this, and why?
• Examine a piece of writing you’ve done. Highlight in yellow all the places where you show what happened: sensory description, dialogue, details, facts, and examples. Then highlight in blue all the places where you tell what happened: adjectives, adverbs, abstract nouns, generalizations, and opinion. Does your writing tend to be more showing or telling?

The Shape of Things

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

-- Dr. Martin Luther King


Today’s Word Count for the Novel: 261,829. 2500 words gone!

Page Count for the Novel: 935


Prognosticators about the economy are saying things will be bad for quite some time. Timetables for exodus from Iraq are spoken of in years. When it comes to solving the problems of a global economy and international diplomacy, one has to think in decades.

I’m beginning to think in a similar timeframe about this novel.

While it doesn’t exist on the level of economic depressions and wars, I have to view this work in progress the same way I view my retirement accounts: in decades. (I didn’t ever think I’d be so thankful to be “only 40”!)

Neither is my work in progress about justice per se, but there’s a whiff of justice around trying and trying and trying again and finally getting someone to care about what you’re writing.

Considering I conceived of this novel in 1994, wrote 100 pages then and the first draft between 2003-2004, and now four years later still tackle it weekly in its third draft, the arc of the creation is indeed long.

There are signposts of hope along the way. In 2007 I entered the first 50 pages of my manuscript in the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. This was after trying to enter the year previous and being rejected due to a postmark set one day beyond the required one. A funny thing happened on the way to the packaging place in 2006: since the person behind the counter stamped my envelope on the day of the postmark, I thought I was legit; but because it was after 3:00 p.m., the stamp was set for 3/02/06…My negligence, my procrastination, my fault running myself right up to the deadline like that – never mind the fact that when my manuscript made it to round two where you submit the next 50 pages, I wasn’t even sure if I was sending the competition the right ones that would match up with the original submission (I’d made enough revisions by then to be confused on that point).

But it doesn’t matter. I believe now, after making it to the fourth round of the 2007 competition, that submission in 2006, or winning in 2007, wasn’t meant to be. I realize now that I’ve actually been too early. Making it further along in a competition was all that’s been needed to send me a strong message to keep writing.

Then there’s the stopgap writing – the short story urge that grabs me every once in a while to shake a tale out of my system. The stopgap story (a term coined by Doris Betts) also bends towards hopeful outcomes. I am a finalist in the Writers’ Group of the Triad contest for a story that’s taken three drafts and seen at least three rejections. This contest was judged by Shannon Ravenel, founder of Algonquin Books. I can’t tell you what a green flag this is to keep trying. Rejection sends me back to revision, which gets results, it seems.

Am I a Pollyanna? Well, then, so was MLK. The idea of him thinking justice is the outcome! That the promised land awaits us! The very idea!

A writing colleague and co-author Delia DeCourcy sent me some good advice after my last post that coincides with my advice to myself to be patient:

“I don't pay attention to word count but shape. I…look at the arc of each part and that is helping me shape each chapter in terms of plot and character. Obviously, there's no scientific method to writing a book, but maybe if you think more in terms of architecture rather than pages as you revise it will help? As I recall, your novel has numerous narrative strands. You've probably already asked the question which ones are necessary? Sometimes that's hard to discern. Which ones are necessary to show us Daria's emotional journey, her shift? Are there characters or strands who are showing the same things to us about Daria? Can you cut some of those? The same question goes for scenes. If a scene isn't revealing something new about the protagonist, it should go. Don't know how helpful that is. These are some of the things I ask myself as I'm writing. Also, my thesis advisor told our workshop that he wrote a 700 page version of his novel, cut it down to 200, them brought it back up to 400. What if you did an exercise where you forced yourself to piece together a 300 page version of the novel, keeping only the utter essentials? What would you include? What would the shape of that book be?”

Shape. Arc. These are words synonymous with the long-term, global, thematic urges that form a story – that direct a life. I will be thinking forest rather than trees whenever I get discouraged about the years logged in this process. If I’m not doing this for the love of the experience itself, for those transcendent moments you have while writing, then I'm hurrying after a hollow shell of a goal, built on joyless sweat and competitive drive. Who wants to live like that?

Uh, those who have been mangling our stock market lately.

Count me out and in for something bigger.


Today's Writing Goal: As I move into the second half of the novel, think shape, think scope, think global. I see three acts in this novel and I approach the crisis in the next phase. Make it a good one!

Writing Prompts: Please note that writing prompts should always be pursued in emotionally-safe environments with the supervision of someone who interested in encouraging good writing, self-awareness, and reflection. A wonderful resource is Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and With Others.

© Lyn Hawks. Writing prompts for one-time classroom use only and not for publication in any form elsewhere without permission of this author.

Elementary:

Option 1: Making the World a Better Place.

What do you do to make the world a better place? Think of the littlest things you do. Is it saying please and thank you? Is it helping someone who needs it? Is it speaking up when someone is doing something wrong? Is it apologizing for something you have done?

Make a list of things you do to improve the lives of others around you and to make your life kinder, friendlier, and fairer.

Then tell a story about one of these times when you made a good choice. What did you do? What did others do? What did people say? What was the outcome?

Option 2: Naming Justice

What does the word “justice” mean to you? How do you know when something is “just”?

Write about something you have heard about in the news that is just or something that is unjust. How do you know when something is just – or not?


Secondary and Adult

Option 1: Thinking Globally and Acting Locally

Do you tend to see the big picture or look at the details of things? Whether you see one or the other or both, the chances are one of your acts of kindness had a broader impact and meaning than you think.

Think about a specific time when you did something kind, fair, or just. Tell that story with as many details as you can, reliving the experience. What was done, said, thought? What was the outcome? What was the purpose behind your action? Why did your action matter? Frame your actions in light of larger reasons, purposes, or movements occurring around you.

Option 2: The Moral Universe

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

What do you think he meant? Explain his thinking in this quotation.

Then respond to it. Explore your opinion about

-- whether the world is getting better or worse,
-- whether morality is increasing or decreasing, or
-- whether you have hope for the future about the goodness of society and its ability to improve.