Ready, Set, Read!

2011 is almost upon us, and that means it's time for me to start my 50 in '11 challenge. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions; I've tried to take as many as possible, and of course my reading list for 2012 and beyond continues to grow thanks to your awesomeness. I'll keep you all updated on my readerly adventures in 2011, and I want to hear about yours as well!

Here's the final list for 2011:

feminism, gender studies and queer theory
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
The Feminist Promise by Christine Stansell
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman

graphic novels
Blankets by Craig Thompson
From Hell by Alan Moore
The Sandman, Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Maus by Art Spiegelman

classics I haven't read yet
The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

books I would normally scoff at
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund (I know, I hear it's exactly my cup of tea, but killer unicorns, really?)
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (I don't know why I scoff. Maybe I just hate movie-poster book covers.)
A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell Hamilton

contemporary literary fiction
A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

books I bought but haven't read yet
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls (okay, I admit, this is a bit of a guilty pleasure, and it's not even out yet... but I worked on it as an intern, so I already know I'll buy it, and I won't be able to wait to read it!)
The Naming by Alison Croggon
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

books with people of color on their covers
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Huntress by Malinda Lo
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

literary journals and collections of poetry or short stories
War Dances by Sherman Alexie
What is this Thing Called Love by Kim Addonizio
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
First Lines

genre literature (sci-fi/fantasy)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacugalupi
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee

trade nonfiction
The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson
The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy by Jason Eberl
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar

The question now is: which book do I read first? And what book are you reading to kick off the new year? Let me know in comments!

The WHY WRITE? Series Will Be Back Next Week!

Dear Authorlings,

I'm sorry to say that there shall be no post this week because:

1) If you're like any sensible publishing nerd, you're not at your desk this week anyway. You're off frolicking in the snow or celebrating your any-denominational holidays with your family-and-friend-type relations. Or with your favorite fictional characters--it's okay, I know how that works.

2) I am not always a sensible publishing nerd, exactly, but I'll be away from my desk this week one way or another because I've managed to crash my hard drive. You should be sensible right now and back your hard drive up, especially if you're an awesome writerly type and you have The Results of Your Hard Labor on your hard drive.

3) Let's face it: it's probably good for me to take two whole weeks to figure out how to say something more about the awesomeness of speculative fiction after The Rejectionist melted our faces with her Feminist Science Fiction Week in August. You're welcome.

Be back next week with more of the WHY WRITE?^TM series, plus exciting updates on the 50 in '11 challenge! If you are really, truly stuck at your desk this week without something awesome to read, try this fabulous interview with St. Martin's Press Editor Vicki Lame over at YA Highway. There's something for writers, readers and industry hopefuls!

WHY WRITE?: Young Adult Fiction

Thanks to everyone who voted on genres for the Why Write?^TM series last week! Voting is still open, so if you haven’t chimed in yet, head on over now to put in your two cents.

As for how the voting played out last week: literary fiction took the lead, followed by a tie between Young Adult fiction, sci-fi and fantasy (or speculative fiction), and historical fiction (who knew I had such history buffs among my readers?!). Romance followed that with just a few votes, and westerns and mysteries received a single vote each. I’m excited to dive in on those top four, and if you guys really like the Why Write?^TM series, let me know and I’ll tackle the extra challenge of dissecting romances as well.

I’m going to jump in at the middle here because today’s post flows pretty naturally from my recent post on why character transformation works so well in YA fiction. So—why write YA?

Because you want a welcoming audience. Teenagers who read do so voraciously. They read in school and out of it. They flock to blogs and message boards, they review the books they read on Amazon and in their own blogs, and they spend hours discussing their favorite books with their friends. From the droves of teens who dress up as characters from The Hunger Games or the Harry Potter series for Halloween, to those who flock to communities of writers and readers like John and Hank Green’s massive posse of Nerdfighters, to those who, hungry for more of their favorite characters, take to reading and writing fan fiction, I don’t know of any audience that more actively interacts with their books. Writers of YA, by and large, love to interact with their audiences—and how could they not, in the face of such devoted readers?

Because your readers need you. Middle school and high school can be nasty, and teens both yearn for connection and desperately fear putting themselves out there. I think that’s a big part of why so many teens become ardent readers. Like everyone, they want to open a book and see someone they recognize come to life on the pages. But even more than the adults who read, they need that character who’s just like them—to know they’re not alone, to know they’re not as strange as they feel, to know that if it’s bad, it can still get better. Affirmation and hope can be hard to find in the bitter wilderness of childhood, but a great YA author can give that to a teen.

Because you want to write something deep… Teens are smart and hungry to critique the world around them, including the books they read. Teens often get a bum rap for being addicted to video games, TV and Facebook, but the majority of teens I know are more tuned into the world than a lot of adults. Unlike so many tired nine-to-fivers, they can spend all day thinking at school and still not be ready to shut their brains off and veg when they get home. They’re not daunted by complex plot structures or layers of meaning, and they’re intelligent enough to understand and expand upon complex themes. If you have something serious to say, you might actually be more likely to be heard by a teenager than by an adult.

…But you also want to have fun with it. At the same time, teens are brutally honest and quick to call bullshit. They love to be blown away by a book’s deeper meaning, but they’re not as likely to put up with unnecessary frills. Books for teens are often more fun to read than adult books, without sacrificing the complex themes you find in literary fiction. Compare The Hunger Games or Feed to A Brave New World or 1984 and you’ve got similar themes being expressed in a more fast-paced, fun format. No one ever said that, just because you have something to say, you can’t have fun saying it.

Because you want to change the world. Teens are passionate, political and idealistic. Just as they’re eager to think critically about the world around them, they’re hungry for a cause to believe in—and, as Robyn pointed out a few weeks ago, they're quick to act on their ideals. If you’ve got a message, you might be better off imparting it on the young than on the old. Adults can be jaded or may have already decided exactly where they stand on an issue, but teenagers are still learning all they can, deciding what they think, and committing themselves to ideals. What’s more, teens are just a few years away from inheriting power. Given the right ideals, the next generation might be able to live better than we ever have.

Because you want to change a person. The books we read as teens are often the ones we remember best and love most fiercely, and for good reason. They determine the people we become, the ideals we adhere to, and the way we view the world. There’s a reason that the fight for people of color on book covers and for diversity of gender, sexuality and race in literature has been fought so much more loudly in the kid-lit community than in the world of adult fiction—we recognize that readers of YA are still forming their worldviews, and that books play a powerful role in that growth. The worlds teens experience when they read will help them, whether they are conscious of it or not, to decide what’s right or wrong and what’s normal or abnormal in the world around them. In some ways, picking up a pen to write for teens is (as one of the programmers in my office would say) your Spiderman moment: with great power comes great responsibility. When you write a book that hits home for a teenager, you help to form the belief system he or she will take into adulthood. You can literally have a hand in making that teen the person he or she is becoming.

Do you agree? Disagree? Maybe there are other genres that do some of these things better. Maybe I missed a few good reasons. Let me know in comments!

Introducing the 'Why Write?' Series!

So, a number of things in my life right now—from last week’s blog post (Why YA?) to a trip I made to the Science Fiction Museum (a.k.a. nerd paradise) in Seattle last month—have got me thinking a lot about why specific areas of fiction work, and when they work best. So I’m introducing a new feature on this blog for the next couple of weeks: the Why Write?^TM series!

In the series, I’ll explore a wide range of genres and try to dissect them to get at their inherent strengths. Of course I’ll talk about Young Adult fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy (how could I stop myself?), but I’m also interested in taking a look at some of the genres I’m not as quick to pick up. I hope this can be a chance for us to have a conversation about why you like the books you like, as well as an opportunity to learn about why writers choose their genres—because genre is a choice as much as it is story driven, and because the framework in which we set our plots does as much to determine their meaning as does any other element of writing.

In the interest of having the best conversations possible, I want to know what genres you most want to hear about. What genres do you love? Which ones are you curious about, or which ones have you thought of trying? Which ones puzzle you—which ones make you ask yourself who thought that up? If you want to vote for something you don’t see up here, hit me up with it in comments.

I don’t really feel like having rules tonight, so I’m just going to be honest and say I’ll pick the top however-many-I-feel-like to discuss. So get voting!

Why YA? Are Teens Just Better at Saving the World?

In response to my post about character transformations, Julie commented that, more often than not, the characters she sees featured in epic fantasy novels are teens. She also asked several good questions:

Obviously writing about teenagers has a lot of merit as far as all the physical/emotional/maturity changes people face at that stage in life, but can character transformations be just as effective when the character is older? And is it the same for someone in their 20s-30s as it might be for someone who is 40-50 or 60-70? Is there something else that makes adolescence such a special (and popular) time to showcase in a novel of epic proportions? Is this a recent trend?

It's possible that this seems like a recent trend because (1) Young Adult (or YA) fiction is a relatively new thing in and of itself, with publishers having only started to market specifically to teenagers in the last 40 or so years, and the genre has been growing ever since, leading us to (2), the fact that the Young Adult market is booming right now, while a lot of other markets for fiction remain somewhat stagnant due to the recession, changes in the industry and other miscellaneous Doom and Gloom. But I don't think the trend Julie noticed is a fluke—there are some very real advantages to featuring teenage characters in your novel, and/or to marketing it to teens.

I do think that character transformations can and often are handled extremely well in novels intended for and about adults. The Kite Runner is a great example. Though a good portion of the novel is narrated in retrospect and some of its most important moments feature Amir and Hassan as children, Amir’s transformation does not occur in childhood. In fact, he very deliberately avoids it until well into his adulthood. Having lived with and loathed his cowardice and selfishness for years, it is the adult Amir who finally transforms into a man willing to accept the personal cost of standing up for others. Despite that, I think that the emotional journey of that novel is every bit as effective as that of a well-written YA novel.

But I do think that YA as a genre has its inherent benefits when it comes to staging an important character transformation or an epic journey. I often see novels for adults, like Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill, taking advantage of those benefits by allowing a childhood story of transformation to be narrated by an older character who looks back on his or her youth. In both books, the narratives allow their readers to feel the immediacy of the characters’ growth the adulthood, but the ever-present knowledge that the tales are being related by characters who have had the opportunity to reflect on these experiences keeps them solidly in the realm of adult fiction.

So what are YA’s inherent advantages when it comes to building change?

Julie nailed one of the major ones, which is that, quite simply, teenagers are already changing drastically. On top of changing physically and emotionally with puberty, teens find themselves outside of the supervision of adults for the first time ever and begin discovering their own power to act independently. This is one of the defining characteristics of YA literature in comparison with books for younger readers. Often Middle Grade novels focus on conflicts which are confined, like the characters themselves, to a family unit—or, in the case of Middle Grade novels in which the characters do go on an epic quest, like Gregor the Overlander or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the adventure cannot begin until the adults are out of the picture. Teens, however, are typically given more freedom and are quick to begin pushing boundaries.

Secondly, it’s a fascinating time to write about, because when faced with a problem teens don’t have the benefit of experience to draw upon. As a character in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas says, “Bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time.” Teens experience failure after failure and, for the first time in their lives, they aren’t protected from it. And whereas adults often have the experience to recognize plans that are doomed to fail, and enough cynicism not to pin all their hopes to their next plan of attack, teens are passionate, often impulsive, and extraordinarily resilient—so with each new approach to an obstacle, they throw themselves into the fight, certain that this new approach will change everything. All those idealistic forward motions and devastating failures are incredible devices for building tension, and teenagers’ transformations are usually all the more intense for the fervor with which they approach every challenge.

With all that boundary-pushing and newfound independence, teens are also discovering the consequences—both good and bad—of their actions. They keenly feel the importance of everything they do, from how they dress to where they sit in the cafeteria. Plunged into a social hierarchy which is quick to remind them of any trespasses, most teens become hyper-aware of their every action as a choice made within and critiqued by that hierarchy. And every action and emotion within that environment is heightened, dramatic. Maybe the teenage years seem like such an ideal setting for an epic adventure because they are a time at which every challenge we face really does seem epic, every love feels like true love, and every obstacle seems like it could be the last.

And I think the realization of a social hierarchy, coupled with that newfound independence, does something else powerful—it awakens in teens a constant awareness of a world that is larger than them. Up until their teenage years, almost all of their choices and actions are filtered through the adults around them before reaching the outside world. With their newfound freedoms, teens are just discovering that their choices can create change in the world around them, and they take to that like wildfire. Every teen seems to be an activist.

So teens aren’t just changing themselves—they’re changing the worlds around themselves, they’re actively looking for change (and they fervently believe in it), and they’re molded by each of their endeavors. These are juicy, defining years, ripe for transformation. How we deal with the conflicts, challenges and heartbreaks we face as teens determines the adults we become—and who doesn’t want to take part in recreating that experience?

Questions? Have your own theories as to why this trend exists? Let me know in the comments!

Step Right Up and Get Your New Year's Resolution Here! That, Or Tell Me What to Read.

As The Rejectionist reminded me, tis the season to get those New Year's resolutions ready! My resolutions are as follows:

1. Rock the knee-high argyle socks off my job, and rock 'em good.

2. Complete my version of the 10-10-10 reading challenge, to which I linked at the end of Amanda's awesome guest post from last week. The challenge is to read ten books from each of ten different, self-selected categories by October 10th.

100 books in ten months is an ambitious goal, but what I like even more about the challenge is its focus on diverse reading. The challenge pushes readers to tackle writing styles which challenge them, explore new categories of books with an open mind, and discover new reading interests.

I'm not sure I'll make it to ten books in each category, so I'm striving for a modest five instead. And that's where you come in! My categories are below, but I need suggestions.

feminism, gender studies and queer theory
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

---> I could use more suggestions, particularly of a well-researched history of feminism in the U.S., definitive texts in these fields or good overviews of contemporary thinking in these areas.

graphic novels
In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe by Jonathan Scott Fuqua
From Hell by Alan Moore
The Sandman, Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Maus by Art Spiegelman

classics I haven't read yet
The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

---> What else should I have read by now?

books I would normally scoff at
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

---> Okay, this is the category for anyone who wants to torture me, or force me to change my mind about a book. What do you think -- should I read the autobiography of Justin Bieber? Some crazy conspiracy theory? Lay it on me!

contemporary literary fiction
A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

---> Did I make the right choices? What books have changed you or made you think recently?

books I bought but haven't read yet
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls (okay, I admit, this is a bit of a guilty pleasure, and it's not even out yet... but I worked on it as an intern, so I already know I'll buy it, and I won't be able to wait to read it!)
The Naming by Alison Croggon
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

books with people of color on their covers
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Huntress by Malinda Lo

---> What are your favorites? I'm looking for fiction here, but that can be adult, children's, genre -- whatever!

literary journals and collections of poetry or short stories
War Dances by Sherman Alexie
Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

---> I really need to add some poetry or a literary journal to this list. What are your favorites?

genre literature (sci-fi/fantasy)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Scar by China Mieville

---> Okay, genre mavens -- what are your favorites? Bonus points for subversive themes like gender-bending and addressing issues of discrimination.

trade nonfiction
The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson
The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood by Maria Tatar

Hit me up in comments with your suggestions!

Better yet, I hope some of you will join me for this challenge. Feel free to post your categories in comments. I'll be happy to send some suggestions right back at you -- and hopefully so will my other readers!

In Defense of NaNoWriMo (Guest Post!)

This week we have a super-special guest post from my friend and coworker, Amanda. By day she wrangles late reviewers and herds books towards publication as an Editorial Assistant; by night she blogs about classic films at A Pocketful of Nickels; and for the entire month of November, she puts her nose to the NaNoWriMo grindstone and churns out 50,000 words with the best of them.

She took some time out from her NaNo novel (which is at 30,000 words, at last count—I'll give you a second for applause) to write this response to an article I tweeted at the beginning of the month. In the article, "Better Yet, DON'T Write that Novel," Salon's Laura Miller argues that a month spent writing novels in an already flooded fiction market could be put to better use by joining the dwindling numbers of avid readers who keep the publishing industry alive. The article spurred a lot of discussion at my office, where NaNo is popular, and I invited Amanda to share her response with us. So with no further adieu...

November is a time of leaves turning and pumpkin pie consumption, but for many people around the world it is also the time to dabble in to the art of writing. The article Rachel mentioned has stirred a lot of talk amongst those embarking on the adventure of spending a whole month writing a book. In fact, I’ve heard so much about that article and counter arguments to it, that what I really want to do in response is talk about writing.

I started National Novel Writing Month (or NaNo for short) last year and immediately fell in love. I had gotten away from my writing due to some difficult emotional times and then I just fell out of the habit and life; well, life just got too busy. At least that’s what I thought. But here this contest, involving this teeming mass of aspiring writers all pledging to write 50,000 words in the span of just 30 days, had a way of drawing me in. Suddenly I wanted to do it just to see if I could shake loose those writer’s hands and let the mothballs out of my creativity closet. And you know what happened? I wrote again.

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. It was part of a culture in my family, this telling and sharing of stories, and it was then as a little girl listening to my grandfather that I learned how storytelling is an ancient art. It connects us within our culture and allows us to share with one another our history and our dreams. It also requires both the teller and the listener; or in writing terms, the writer and the reader. Both are involved and both keep this culture of storytelling alive. We cannot have one without the other.

NaNoWriMo has helped me expand my writing life as well as my reading life. It was through the seemingly impossible competition that I met some great friends and also joined a book club. I’ve read more books since my first encounter with the contest than I had at any time previously. It’s wonderful! The more I write, the more I want to read. I found that I am continuously inspired by other writers, like my new favorite author, Richard Russo. I just read his book Empire Falls and fell in love with his ability to craft characters and such memorable depictions of life. To learn the writing craft, you need to study the masters. That’s a lesson true of everything from painting to music to really any of the other arts. Writing in a bookstore is perfect—what a wonderful way to connect with the masters who have made it to publication. While I’m there amidst the shelves of books, I pick up ones that I may not have otherwise noticed and read through them as I write. I’m engaging in both sides of the literary cycle.

Now, not everyone needs a competition like this to kick-start their writing lives, and I applaud those people who don’t (and envy them a bit). But what it all comes down to is the simple fact that writing is fun. Thousands of people sign up for NaNo every year. Do not judge their intentions, for one thing is common—they all have a crazy desire to create. That is the reason we write. Certainly we may all harbor a secret desire to one day be published, but that isn’t our driving force. Writing is a good way to channel frustrations, sadness, anxiety, whatever emotion that you might have trouble otherwise expressing. In some therapy centers, writing is even prescribed as a way to work out problems and understand emotions.

Writing allows us to be on the other side of the page, to appreciate what an author does to produce a work. I have far more admiration for writers after writing a few full length (and rather awful) novels of my own. And you know what? I have never met a NaNo writer who would willingly share his or her writing with me or anyone else. That doesn’t bode well for anyone with dreams of one day publishing their work, but does that really matter? I talk about my novel just as much as I write it; my friends and I are all familiar with each other’s plot and characters. The telling and the writing are part and parcel. No story is polished from the outset. Talking to readers and other writers will help, as will taking the time to revise and edit. As writers, we have to accept that there will be a lot of “crap” at first. Think of the first draft as a pile of cars in a junkyard and ask yourself if there is anything you can salvage. But we aren’t alone. Everyone goes through this process, even if we never see it: photographers, painters, choreographers, filmmakers, even journalists. In the ever-growing markets, it might seem bleak to think that your beloved novel may never see a bookstore shelf. People with poor writing skills have national bestsellers solely based on a brief brush with fame. Anyone who can make headlines can publish a book, but so many aspiring novelists cannot and thus will not. That is the grim truth of NaNo, and one we tend to put in a corner under a blanket to shut out of our minds. We ignore the fact that we are pouring energy into works that have little hope of surviving in this world.

So what should we do, we who want to write the stories as much as we want to read them? Do we take the philosophy that we should write for writing’s sake? Do we give up in desperation? Do we turn our backs on the cruel world of publishing and keep that blanket handy? Do we sit in a cruddy apartment in our bathrobe and stubbornly churn out two original stories a week that won't sell?* I agree that not everyone can be a great writer. Not everyone can be a great painter either, but should that stop anyone from picking up a brush to try?

I say we write. Yes, it is a selfish, lonely, narcissistic and sometimes maddening endeavor. But it can also be wildly entertaining and rewarding. For one month a year, let us give voice to our inner writers and set free all those thoughts, characters and adventures. Let us enjoy that freedom provided from being on the other side of the printed page. Most of all, let’s read and keep reading, to celebrate those who have made it to publication and to find the inspiration to tell our own stories.

*Yes, this is a reference to a movie because I’m pimping my own blog. Find out which movie here.

Thanks so much, Amanda!

Whether you're participating in NaNo or not, here are some great resources for both writers and readers:

• The NaNoWriMo webpage is a great source for NaNo resources, pep talks and community for participants. Use it to find write-ins near you, or meet fellow writers online!
• NaNoFiMo follows right on the heels of NaNoWriMo in December and challenges writers to finish long-untouched works in progress.
• Similarly, NaNoEdMo invites writers to commit 50 hours during the month of March to editing their novels—I can't say I know too many editors would would claim that time is wasted.
  
• The 10-10-10 Reading Challenge invites readers to tackle 10 books from 10 self-selected categories that they wouldn't normally explore before October 10th. Participants say it's a great way to broaden your horizons, find new favorite authors and genres, and support the industry.
• Plenty of writers and readers prefer to spend November (or August, in some cases) working on their NaNoReaMo goals and reading as much as possible.

On a Lighter Note... Let's Talk About Character Transformations

I think that one of the reasons humans have always been driven to tell stories, and to tell them in the particular way that we do, is because they illustrate how something came to be—how something changed irreversibly, and the new state of being came to be the only one that worked. A story is a series of actions and decisions, but what a story’s about is change. There are some exceptions to this rule, but as a human race I think we’re mostly interested in internal, character-based changes. That means that characters change and are changed by their circumstances.

But how do you create that transformation, and how do you make it believable? And how do you fit that transformation into a framework of external circumstances which are, most likely, also changing?

Most stories begin with the status quo, but few hold the reader there for very long. The impetus for the actual story is usually some small change—a new cropping up, or a new rule being established. This new circumstance presents an obstacle which will grow throughout the story, and which will force the character to change.

Again, there are some exceptions to this rule, but typically plots are most interesting if a flaw of the character’s—the exact trait you will transform through the story, ideally—contributes to or even creates the obstacle. Though the reader may be aware of this flaw and how it contributes to the problem, the character will be blind to that fault at first. Nonetheless, the flaw will keep the character tied down, while the obstacle creates something against which the character is pushing.

I think of character transformations—and thus plotlines—as working like a slingshot. Even after the need for change is established, the character will try to move forward by acting in the same way she always has. However, whatever it is that she needs to change is keeping her from making headway, and any attempt to go forward will only result in her struggling against that force. This struggle will build tension as the character goes as far as she possibly can—and as with a slingshot, the struggle to keep moving in that same direction becomes more difficult the further she gets. Finally, the character will have reached as far as she can possibly reach by struggling in that one direction, and the slingshot’s elastic will either snap or release itself in a powerful reversal of the story’s direction. In either case, the character will have no choice but to change, and that change propels her right into the climax. The more powerful the tension and then the snap back, the faster and more intense the climax.

As is true in real life, your character’s transformation will come gradually, and your plot arc will be comprised of a series of forward-backward strides. Similarly, in the very best stories at least some of the secondary characters also undergo transformations. You can apply the slingshot metaphor to the story’s subplots just as well as you can to the overarching plot. Vary the amount of tension and the amount of time spent building it based on how important a particular change is to the overall plot. Through each subplot, however, you want to always be pulling the slingshot that is the overarching plot tighter. Never allow the resolution of one subplot or struggle to release more tension than it builds.

The scope of different stories can vary widely, from an epic struggle or quest (think The Hunger Games or The Lord of the Rings), in which the entire world has the potential to be transformed, to more contained stories in which the world likely to change is that of one individual or family, as in Marcelo in the Real World. But in each case, the most essential change in the story is a character transformation. The Hunger Games is less about what happens in a violent arena than about a teenage girl learning to fight for the freedom of those she loved. The Lord of the Rings is, at heart, a story about several characters' transformations into heroes. And Marcelo is, perhaps more evidently than the other two, a tale about a boy finding the strength to stand up for what’s right and face adult decisions. Whatever the situation, these stories feel compelling to us because we can relate to and learn from the characters. And what we’re specifically relating to in these characters is the way in which they change in order to deal with their circumstances.

So properly building the tension around your character’s transformation will help you beef up your story’s emotional core. I strongly suggest taking the time to map out these changes so that you can devote the right amount of your story to each change.

And that’s where your input comes in! I’m curious: do you have any tried and true methods for mapping your characters’ transformations? How do you approach tension-building as you write?

The "Go-To Trauma" Part 2: Issue or Spectacle?

So, last week we established that though rape in literature raises a lot of questions, it's important that women's voices be heard on the issue and that books about rape continue to spread awareness and offer consolation to victims. But it seems to me that there are books about rape and violence, and then there are books that just have rape and violence in them. I recently read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (now’s the time for me to announce that there will be spoilers), and while I felt that Stieg Larsson wove a strong narrative and created compelling characters, especially in Lisbeth Salander, what I found myself thinking about most once I closed the book was the rape scene. Even a few months later, I’m not done thinking about it.

It just doesn’t seem necessary to me. True, it serves to develop Lisbeth’s character. We need to see her ability to carry out a coldly calculated act of violence before we reach the book’s ending, or her attack on Martin Vanger will seem to come out of nowhere. And for that to happen, Larsson needed to set up a situation for which Lisbeth is justified in getting revenge. Perhaps he chose rape because it’s so unforgivable that we’re certain to be on Lisbeth’s side, even as she reacts maliciously. And Larsson has established that Lisbeth reacts with particular violence towards those who violate her right to choose how she’s approached for sex, so the set-up is all in place for a scene like this.

But despite that—and despite the horrific crimes against women that Mikael Blomkvist discovers in his investigation, as well as the rape statistics that open every section of the book—this scene feels disconnected from the rest of the book. Larsson’s writing is subtle elsewhere, and his character development takes its time. Even the horrific murder scenes he later describes don’t have the same brutal feel that this one scene does. And it goes on for an awfully long time, in excruciating detail.

So I keep asking myself why Larsson wrote this scene in particular, when he could have written a shorter rape scene, or a different scene altogether. The scene made me painfully uncomfortable. That discomfort grew the longer the scene went on. And it stuck with me, because it made me wonder if maybe the scene didn’t end because Larsson was just a little too satisfied with it. I wonder if he found it a bit more thrilling to write than I’m happy accepting.

Missy Schwartz put it perfectly in her article questioning whether or not Stieg Larsson, professed feminist, had “an issue with women”:

The crimes are unspeakable—which you could argue is the point for an activist like Larsson: Bring it into the open, try to prevent it from happening again. Still, Larsson seems to want it both ways: to condemn such savagery while simultaneously exploiting it in graphic detail for titillating storytelling purposes.

That desire to have it both ways is what worries me.

It worries me not because of this one book or this one author, but because it’s a trend I see in a lot of writing, especially when the book is meant to be dark, and rape is used as that go-to tragedy. When I read certain rape scenes I have a hard time feeling that these scenes are about awareness, or that they’re therapeutic. Like the endless menagerie of horrific murders in your average slasher films, I feel like these rape scenes are as much if not more about a dark, voyeuristic pleasure that comes from watching something we can’t completely comprehend or experience with the character. When I read these scenes, there’s a part of me that feels like the writer is enacting a rape on a character. And I feel almost like the reader is enacting a rape on the character with each read, just to see what it feels like—and not from the victim’s point of view.

Perhaps this wouldn’t stick with me if I hadn’t had that feeling over and over again, both in my early writing workshops and as I read for classes or for pleasure. I have such conflicted feelings about this issue, but it’s also one of the closest to my heart.

So I’m asking you guys—what do you think? Is the increased visibility—any increased visibility—a good thing? Will that help teach our society to be sensitive to these issues, and to try to stop the epidemic of violence against women? Or could the epidemic actually be made worse by a culture full of books about rape that sensationalize it, or turn it into a spectacle?

The "Go-To Trauma": Is Writing about Rape Humanitarian, or Just Voyeuristic?

Brace yourselves, Writer Friends, because this week’s topic is a heavy one. I’ve been shifting these thoughts around in my head since I was in college, and when I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a few months ago they resurfaced. But even if you haven’t read the book, keep reading this post; I’m not going to talk about Larsson’s book yet. I’ll elaborate on that in next week’s follow-up post, but for now I want to talk broadly about one of the issues that this book brought to the forefront of my mind.

When I was young, I gravitated towards books about broken and wounded women, spurred by a teenage precociousness, even a certain morbidity. I think a lot of young readers today—particularly young girls—do the same; books like Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls, Sarah Littman’s Purge, and Gayle Forman’s If I Stay are today’s version of the books I read, like Patricia McCormick’s Cut and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted.

Broken women aren’t new to fiction at all, and I see a lot of beginning writers gravitate towards these subjects. I think we all have at least a side of our personalities that is fascinated by dark subjects. And I think our society considers rape to be just about the darkest subject, the worst crime, and possibly the most traumatic event one can experience. So it’s no surprise to me that I’ve yet to have a writing course in which my class didn’t workshop at least one piece about a rape. More often there are three or four in a semester.

Years of reading queries as an intern—and, of course, books as a general consumer—have taught me that the fascination doesn’t die down for writers after college. I recently had a conversation with a friend and coworker who called rape the “go-to trauma” in books and movies, and I think that’s spot-on. It’s easy to elicit a reaction to a rape—it’s clear who the victim is, it’s impossible to rationalize or justify the act, and it still carries a lot of the shock value that violence has begun to lose since we’ve been deluged with it in TV shows, movies and video games. Rape scenes are horrifying and compelling—and I think, on top of that, there’s something about them that makes both writers and readers feel like activists, at least in spreading awareness of that issue.

But are we always spreading awareness in a good way? When we write about rape, could there be something voyeuristic about it?

See, these scenes always get me asking questions. Do we have the same responsibilities toward fictional characters that we have toward fellow human beings? If we’re riveted by a scene about rape, is that even in some small way like being fascinated by an actual rape? What are the social implications of one reader’s—or of one writer’s—fascination with one rape scene? What are the social implications of thousands of readers’ and writers’ fascination with thousands of rape scenes?

I was once drawn to books about wounded women out of teenage morbidity, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve been drawn towards those books more out of concern for a society that I see as flawed in its treatment of women. Now, each time I read a book that features rape, I find myself wondering if it’s undermining or supporting a culture of rape and violence against women.

Some books bring female characters from rape or violence to redemption, and seem to have the power to spread awareness and spur action. Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye opened the eyes of readers to the everyday horrors of violence against women by offering us whole, complex stories that could have been (and are) those of real women. And as the many powerful responses to recent attempts to ban Speak have demonstrated, these books are needed as much by the victims of such crimes as they are by those to whom they bring awareness.

In that respect, I stand strongly behind a lot of writers who choose to write about rape. It wasn’t that long ago that rape wasn’t even talked about. Truly, the fact that women’s voices are starting to be heard about rape is an accomplishment. That the media acknowledges, in any degree, the epidemic of violence against women in our society is a triumph. So it’s immensely important that there be books about rape and violence against women, and their crippling effects on women’s happiness and mental health.

But is there a wrong way to write a rape scene? What do you think? Have you read any books that involved rape or violence? How did you feel after reading them? Why?

Next week, I’ll dig into this issue further with some thoughts on The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Until then, leave your thoughts in the comments!

I Swear, I Thought of Sparkly Vampires First!

In response to my last post, Robyn noted the near-impossibility of stumbling upon a truly original plotline, and offered voice and style as the necessary antidotes to a world already saturated with good ideas. The same day that I read Robyn’s comment, a friend and coworker asked me if she should change the plot of her work-in-progress since she’d discovered that it shared some vital plot elements with a bestseller she’d just read.

I am not a writer, myself, but after years of working with writers I’ve come to see that one of the first and most difficult challenges they face is the pressure to come up with a totally original premise. In an industry that churns out new hits at what can seem like an astonishing rate, that pressure can be debilitating. And maybe it’s too easy for me to say, “Don’t worry about it.”

But seriously, don’t. At least not right away.

First of all, there’s the time factor. The fast-paced industry keeps audience attention constantly shifting to a new hit. As long as your book isn’t about a boy going to wizarding school or kids killing kids, chances are good that by the time your work-in-progress finds its way into a publisher's hands and makes it all the way through the editorial and production processes, it won’t be compared to today’s bestseller at every turn.

More importantly, it’s not ideas that make stories; it’s voice and character. If ten skilled writers tackled the same plot, I feel confident that they’d write ten completely different stories, with ten different moods and at least ten different meanings. Their own individual styles would appeal to different readerships and convey different emotions. Perhaps even more noticeably, each of their characters would be their own, and thus each writer's ideologies and ways of looking at human nature would determine her characters’ personalities and choices. And those unique characters would make different choices in the face of the same challenge. The same basic plot could branch out into hundreds or thousands of unique stories.

There were books about Taliban murders before The Kite Runner. Before Marcelo in the Real World there was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. There were books about the holocaust before Everything is Illuminated. Before The Hunger Games, there were plenty of books about dystopia (even a few about the government forcing children to kill each other), and there sure were a lot of books about dangerous love before Twilight.

We are a species which tells itself the same stories of love, friendship, desire, tragedy, persecution, hope and redemption again and again and again. Almost any story, boiled down to its essential parts, is about the way people interact, the way they hurt and the way they heal. So it wasn’t plot alone that set these novels apart. The premise of a story is all packaging; the story's heart is its emotion. And a story’s emotional content comes from voice and character, not from plot.

True, there does come a point in the journey to publication at which it’s absolutely vital that you and your work stand out. Sometimes a house or imprint will turn a proposal down because the story is simply too much like something that the house recently published or a big competitor already on the market. And I do believe that the very best writers set themselves apart by marrying content and presentation, pairing a great idea with skillful writing.

But when you’re drafting a story, there are still so many directions it could take. Who knows how much of your original idea will even make it into the final story, or how it will read in the context of the finished work. So if you feel you have a good idea but worry about how it may be compared to what's already on the market, I'd encourage you to put that worry aside for now and see how far you can take your idea. Use your idea to explore what your strengths are as a writer, and I trust you’ll find a way to set yourself apart through them.