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Are you reading my story? Did you want to read it? Did you finish it, but feel like going back and reading it again?
If any of the above apply to you, I recommend that you save the story to your own files now, as I'm planning on putting it in storage. The reason being that--yes--I plan on shopping it around to agents in the near future. Thus, I need to take it offline.
So if you want it, save it now. I'll also be working on a much-improved edited version that cuts out some of the plot cul-de-sacs and streamlines a few things. If you want a copy of that, I can send it to you as well.
If any of the above apply to you, I recommend that you save the story to your own files now, as I'm planning on putting it in storage. The reason being that--yes--I plan on shopping it around to agents in the near future. Thus, I need to take it offline.
So if you want it, save it now. I'll also be working on a much-improved edited version that cuts out some of the plot cul-de-sacs and streamlines a few things. If you want a copy of that, I can send it to you as well.
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Adurr.
1 min read
Just in case there was any doubt about me being one of the most absentminded people on the face of the planet:
I misplaced my glasses today. Had to go to work without them. Got a lot of confused looks from my coworkers. Spent a lot of time wondering where on earth they ended up.
I found them in the refrigerator.
I misplaced my glasses today. Had to go to work without them. Got a lot of confused looks from my coworkers. Spent a lot of time wondering where on earth they ended up.
I found them in the refrigerator.
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Not gonna question it
1 min read
Not gonna question why I barely work at all Black Friday
Or Thanksgiving night
Not even closing
Not gonna question it
Just gonna roll with it
And thank every star and god I know of by name
Both those world religions and astronomy classes in college really paid off
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Extra-extra short one tonight! Mostly because the thing this focuses on doesn't need much buildup!
Few people beat the drum of "depiction does not equal endorsement" as hard as I do. I have always firmly believed that just because an author shows a character acting in a certain way or holding a certain opinion, does not mean that those actions or opinions reflect the author's or that the author even condones them. For example, an author can create a character with sympathetic elements who possesses a glaring flaw, such as greed or sexism, without asking the audience to sympathize with or accept their flaw. Likewise, an author who is atheist can create a character who is a devout Christian (or Muslim, or Hindu, or other faith) without holding the same beliefs, and still portray their faith with respect. Backing up this notion would take a whole article into itself, but the general gist of my adherence to it can be summed up by the idea that characters need a wide variety of traits to be three-dimensional, and in order to keep the cast diverse and to more closely match reality, some of these traits will necessarily drift away from the author's own. However. The way the story and narration frames and "reacts" to these traits can change the way the audience will perceive them, and can appear to either endorse or denounce these traits. For example, if an ordinarily third-person narration stops to editorialize a character's behavior and points out how heroic or admirable that behavior is, the story will certainly appear to support that behavior. Similarly, if a lot of characters complain about or reprimand a character for taking a certain action, then the story will appear to denounce it. This can be done purposefully, of course, in order to give a story a moral or lesson it's meant to impart on a reader. But done accidentally, it can also give the impression of a moral where none was intended, possibly even one that runs contrary to the author's actual beliefs. Without the author stepping up and given their word on something, there's often no way to be sure--and since, for the majority of readers and viewers, the work itself will be the only connection they have to the author's intent, authors need to be careful and certain that the message their work is sending is the one they mean to send.
This is why a particular YA book I read recently left me feeling fairly perturbed. Although it wasn't the overall upshot of the story, there was a particular moment near the end of the book that seemed to send a rather troubling--and if intentional, downright irresponsible--message. This instance was a moment of character development. It was a scene wherein the main character realizes that some of their behavior over the course of the book had been wrong, and resolves to change this fact about them. Changes of heart, especially climactic ones, are usually portrayed positively, especially with protagonists. And the framing of the book certainly seemed to indicate that the protagonist's decision was the "right" one. The problem lied with the choice they chose to make, and the wider implications of that choice. But first, the context:
The book in question was 13 Treasures, by Michelle Harrison. The plot of the novel concerns a girl who has the ability to see fairies. The problem is, these fairies are not nice. They tease her, torment her, cause trouble and frame her for it, and generally make her life far more difficult than it needs to be. The book opens with her being abused by a trio of fairies, who have recently discovered that she tried to write about them in her journal. Although she hadn't truly told anyone about them, they decide that it's close enough to speaking out to warrant punishment, and start flinging her about the room with magic, causing a great mess that eventually kicks the plot in motion. As it goes on, the protagonist eventually discovers that there are other people such as herself in the world, and that when they are born, they are typically granted a "guardian fairy" who is supposed to look after them and protect them. One of the three fairies who was tormenting her was supposed to be her guardian. One was her also-magically-empowered grandmother's. And one was an evil fairy who snuck along for the ride, in the hopes of discovering a rare fairy treasure passed down by her family. Upon learning of their guardian nature near the end of the story, the protagonist makes her decision:
The fairies just wanted to be left alone and live in secrecy all along. Nevermore will she attempt to speak of or write about them, in order to give them their privacy. She probably rightly earned their ire before by attempting to write about them.
...This disturbs me.
While it's true that one of the fairies bothering her was an evil interloper who didn't care if he harmed her or not, the fact remains that, for many years, these particular fairies regularly abused and bullied her. Sometimes physically, as in the start of the story, where they pushed her around the room with magic. But sometimes psychologically as well, by doing things like moving her possessions around. The beginning of the book makes it clear that what happens there is not an isolated incident. This is an ongoing pattern. Is the one later revealed to be evil the main perpetrator of most of it? Certainly. But the other fairies--the ones who are allegedly supposed to protect her family--do nothing to stop him. Sitting by while you know someone is being bullied or abused is a form of abuse in and of itself; it facilitates and enables the primary abuser. And given that the two guardian fairies professed ignorance as to his evil nature, it makes them look even worse. It suggests that they, in some fashion, found his harsh treatment of the main character justified. The fact that he is evil, and causing crimes because of that, is mitigated by the other fairies' utter indifference to his actions.
To make matters worse, the protagonist accepts this. She decides that she invited the abuse, and that the proper response to it is silence. She shouldn't tell anyone about what's been happening to her--she shouldn't even attempt to get out her feelings in the medium of writing. She in fact seems excited by the fact that one of the fairies who's been giving her trouble is her guardian and that they're supposed to be with each other. It sends all kinds of horrifying messages with regards to anyone who's been the victim of some sort of abuse, be it schoolyard bullying, abusive family members, or toxic relationships. Given that the book's target audience is children and young teenagers, it seems like a pretty irresponsible message to send. And it isn't something dressed up in implications; something you have to read between the lines to find. The main character thinks to herself, with no uncertainty, that it's all her fault for attempting to draw attention to the fairies, and that their treatment will assuredly stop if she stops trying to tell anyone--even herself, via diary entries--about them. Given how often threats of violence are used by actual abusers, especially abusers of children, in order to make their victims to keep quiet, it feels especially uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that I'm left wondering if this really was the author's intention, or if poor writing choices lead to this outcome.
I can see a non-terrifying moral that could have been placed here. It's possible the intended message was something along the lines of, "Some secrets aren't yours to tell," which would have been fine. But when contrasted with the main character's treatment by the fairies, it goes to much uglier places. Is this really what the author intended? Are we even supposed to empathize with the main character's decision? But her choice is placed front and center in the book, and given a good deal of attention. Her attitude towards the "good" fairies improves vastly afterwards, even if they did very little to help her. And there's a scene earlier in the book where the main character witnesses two goblins--quite tiny, according to the book--beating up on a third, and despite being much larger than any of them and feeling especially sorrow for the victim, does nothing to assist him. Why this cavalier attitude? It doesn't paint a pretty picture. Whether or not it's what the author intended, with only her text to go by, it's all I have to come to my conclusions. This is why framing is so important. After all, the main character's choice to stay silent doesn't have to be a "happy" one. It could be a bittersweet, or even dark, ending. But without proper framing in the story, it sure looks like we're supposed to agree with her.
On the whole, the book did feel somewhat as though it hadn't been though through all the way. Perhaps carelessness was at play here more than ugliness. It's always disappointing for an author when a reader takes something away from a book they didn't intend. If ever there was any argument for thoroughness, and possibly multiple test audiences, this would be it.
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Mini WotW 2: On Kids as Target Audience
15 min read
Oh boy, we're doing this again? Yep, we sure are. Once again, I find myself in the position of having a lot to say about some aspect of storytelling--but instead of a more general idea, as I would do for my "official" Writing on the Wall segments, these thoughts were mostly inspired by and thus revolve around one work in particular. So instead of a proper article, this is really more of a semi-review of one particular work with a fixation on one aspect of it that really rustled my jimmies. So let's kick this off, and this time, we'll be putting a book called The Familiars, written by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson. on the chopping block. Like before, spoilers abound!
Most people who know me know that I have a deep and abiding love of fantasy novels, and, in particular, those aimed at a child or YA audience. There are any number of reasons I can cite for this: Their sense of adventure and fun, the young age of most of their characters lending well to personal growth arcs, their typically short length meaning I can read more of them in less time--the list goes on. However, the thing I usually cite as my prime reason behind liking them so much is that they tend to be much more whimsical and creative than adult fantasy (and other genres, natch), and seem much more willing to experiment with the typical conventions associated with the genre, especially the Tolkeinesque mold so common among adult fantasies. That was the prime reason I got interested in The Familiars, a children's fantasy by a pair of authors named Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson--it looked like it had a really clever concept that was going to explore some less-traveled avenues of fantasy. Rather than focus on a group of plucky young wizards as they endeavored to save the world as only untrained, magically-powered children can, it instead promised to follow instead their familiars, the animal companions who accompany and assist those children. Everyone's seen a picture of a witch riding astride her broom with her black cat in tow, but no one ever thinks to asks the cat how he feels about flying around all the time. Intrigued by this prospect, I picked the book up, and sat about to reading it.
The story concerns a young alley cat who lives in a city of magic far, far away, who one day, in order to free an animal catcher (sorry, "bounty hunter"), ducks inside of a mysterious pet shop that happens to be for--you guessed it--young wizards looking to pick out their magical familiars. At the precise moment he's hiding there, a young wizard and his mentor happen to come into the store, and he quickly sets his sights on our feline protagonist. Despite being a common alley cat with no magical powers to speak of, the apprentice (Jack) takes the cat (Aldwyne) as his familiar, and the cat is forced to bluff his way through introductions and magic lessons as he meets his master's fellow apprentices, and their own familiars as well. Naturally, Bad Things eventually go down, and our hero is forced to set out on a journey with his fellow familiars in order to rescue their masters, having to make do with nothing but his street smarts and more than a heaping helping of coincidence.
The book didn't start too inauspiciously--the prose wasn't precisely sparkling, but I've read some excellent books with middling writing that made up for the flaw in other ways. It also tried perhaps a bit too hard to push the visual aspects of its opening action scene in a nonvisual medium, but I could forgive that, too--action scenes are a difficult breed to get exactly right in text format. But my suspension of disbelief soon decayed into frustrated nitpicking and constant critique. What I'd begun to read as a fun romp, I finished with the infuriated red pen of an English teacher who really needs to finish grading these papers so she can get off to sleep.
I had expected my problems with the first chapter to be endemic to it; a consequence of the way the authors chose to introduce the story. What I quickly discovered as the book wore on, however, was that there was no escaping these flaws--because every chapter was written in the exact same way. There would be some form of setup, such as characters chatting or planning to take action, that would lead to conflict, there would be a big action scene, and the characters would then make their escape to plan their next move. Every chapter. Without fail. Opening the book with the action sequence of our main character being chased was fine. It helped explain why he, a nonmagical cat, ended up in a pet shop for magical animals, and why he would be mistaken for one: He needed to blend in to avoid being caught by the animal catcher, and his disguise ended up fooling more than just the trapper. But in some chapters, the action shoehorns itself in as if it's afraid its audience will fall asleep if it doesn't keep blaring in their ear. Crossing an icy bridge high in the mountains? Fight scene, because the bridge is cursed to make you hate your friends! Taking rest in a cave, which also happens to be full of cave paintings about the history of our magical world? Fight scene, because it's inhabited by a troll! Sleeping at an inn? Fight scene, because the evil queen is putting up wanted posters of animals (of course she is) and a whole bunch of bounty hunters at the inn want to claim the prize! It's hurtful to the book in more ways than one. For one thing, the constant barrage of action leaves the book without a strong sense of climax; the book's already been flooded with battles of high magic and great peril, so what makes the big ending confrontation so special? The fact that the authors kept relying so heavily on visual imagery also hurt the prose; with the weak verb choice and convoluted actions, it felt less like a book's description of a scene and more like a script detailing something to be filmed later. Worst of all, it also leaves the book without a lot of quiet moments for important things like character development, or even establishment.
Because if a book doesn't have great prose, it generally needs to make up for itself either with its plotting or characters, and the characters in this book were too shallow to even float a leaf. Each of them at least had one obvious character trait. I can at least say that for them. But that's only because they constantly hammer that one trait flat in every single line of dialogue they have. They're not so much characters as they are jokes with bodies: The main character, Aldwyne, is streetwise, hiding something, and also our viewpoint character, so his dialogue consists entirely of snide plans, stuttering excuses, and questions so that other characters can provide exposition. Skylar is stuck-up and intelligent, so her dialogue is all snootiness and the requested exposition. Gilbert bumbles, so every line out of his mouth is meant to be punctuated with a "wop-wop-waaaah." On and on, ad nauseum, through the entire cast. Not only that, but the book populates their backstories and the world around them almost entirely with cliches. Aldwyne is an orphan, because protagonists are always orphans! He also falls madly in crush with the first female cat he meets, because she wouldn't be in the story if she wasn't a love interest! No one discovers his lack of powers because an incredible string of coincidences keeps saving his hinders! He has a chance to rid himself of one of his worst nemeses, but doesn't, because "he's not a killer!" The queen of their land is evil, because of course queens are always evil! Gilbert has difficulty proving himself, but never more so than before his disapproving father! It reads like a laundry list of the things audiences are most sick of seeing in Hollywood movies. Of the two twists at the end of the story, one of them was telegraphed from chapter two: The main character had magic aaall along, it just took an incredible crisis to bring it out! And it could've only happened during the final battle, because his powers appearing in any of the other high-stakes fights would've just been convenient and would've kept the book from artificially protracting its character conflict! Not that the scene where his deception is revealed is any less textbook than the rest of them, with his formerly-close friends dumping him in the middle of the wilderness due to a mistaken identity (which was not his fault) only to quickly take him back after circumstances conspire to let him "prove himself" useful. Because you're only valuable to your friends if you can do things for them, kids! Of the redeeming factors the book had left, only a few creative ideas remained standing. And I found myself far more interested in the snippets of the world's history the book kept tossing out than the journey of of three one-note protagonists.
I liked the book to a script before, and that was how it felt: Like the script or novelization of a cheesy animated kid's movie, more than an actual book. Not something meant to be enjoyed by kids who are old enough to read 300+ page chapter books of their own free will; something bright and colorful to distract a four-year-old with. I just got done reading an absolutely excellent series targeted at the same age group (The Beyonders by Brandon Mull), full of complex characters, intricate plots, serious peril, and well-written, snappy humor, and I was taken aback by just how great the contrast between them was and how emblematic it was of this book's problems. Because I feel that all the flaws with The Familiars can be boiled down to one simple notion: It treats "writing for children" as "writing for the dumbest possible audience." All of its characters are mush-flavored jokes because it thinks kids are too stupid to understand anything more complex. It bases all of its plot threads on cliches because it will be familiar, and kids will be afraid of anything else. It constantly assaults the reader with textual noise in the form of constant action because kids will grow bored and go play video games if there isn't something exciting happening all the time. It's true that kids have less knowledge and less life experience than adults, and not every child will be able to handle every book. More simplistic books are important for children of different reading and reading comprehension levels. But "more simplistic" does not have to mean "shallow and empty." One of the more popular children's fantasy series right now is the Septimus Heap septet, which is a straightforward tale of good-versus-evil magical adventures of an apprentice wizard, his sister (who is an adopted princess), and all of their magical friends and relations. But even its characters have depth and unique backstories, some even with deep-seated personal conflicts and hints of moral ambiguity, and its world is full of unique and expansive ideas and the prose is littered clever wordplay and it's intensely captivating. It's full of surprises and it keeps the reader's attention because it makes them want to know where it'll go next. It entertains them with unique flights of fancy and by building a world that's all its own. Yet they're still straightforward books, easy to understand and suitable for bedtime stories beneath it all. A four-year-old listening to their parent read to them is about the only audience I can truly imagine getting much out of The Familiars, but even then, I imagine it would drive the parent nuts.
Even if you're writing for kids who aren't as skilled at reading, making something intentionally dumbed down won't make them any better at reading. In the immortal words of the computer programming field, garbage in, garbage out. If you're writing middle-reader books to help kids better their reading skills, writing predictable, simple stories isn't going to help them learn to think critically about what they're reading, or encourage them to think about the characters, or even, from a simple technical standpoint, expand their vocabulary. And if you're writing for pure entertainment, you want the kids to be engaged in your story, to connect with your characters, and to spark their imaginations. If the characters have little to no identifying traits, the kids can't identify with them because there's nothing to identify with. Kids are sensitive to pacing, too, and they'll tune out if the story gets mired in action because the plot isn't moving forward, and again--without interesting characters, there's no reason to get invested in them, and no reason to worry if they get hurt. And without interesting concepts, a unique worldscape, or a really exciting adventure, there's nothing to really encourage the kids to go out and imagine their own. To say nothing of the fact that it's disrespectful of your audience's taste and intelligence. Sure, we all had that one thing we liked as kids, only to go back to it as teenagers or adults and realize it wasn't that great. But we've also all rewatched something once we got older and realized how well it still stands up: Maybe the characters were so much deeper than we realized as kids, or maybe it was full of jokes and references that went over our heads, or maybe we appreciate the intricacies of the plotting more. But not putting any effort into something made for kids, just because they're kids, only serves to confirm the worst suspicions that kids have about adults: That they don't listen to them, respect them, or give any weight to their opinions, and completely disregard any and all thoughts and beliefs they have, because "they're just kids." When you're young, there are few more frustrating feelings that feeling like the adults around you completely ignore all of your feelings and opinions because of your age.
People think writing for children is easy, but I've always held that authors shouldn't treat writing for children any differently than they do writing for adults. The subject matter will be different, of course; some topics generally aren't considered appropriate for children, and others will probably be less interesting to them simply by virtue of being less relevant to their lives. But the same is true of writing in different genres or formats. The essential conventions of writing still hold true no matter who your audience is: Show, don't tell; have strong characters; plotting needs to be tight and not riddled with holes. Oftentimes subtlety takes a backseat when authors write for kids, out of the belief that children won't be able to pick up on certain cues unless they're obvious and spelled out for the reader. Obviously, a child's sensitivity to subtlety will depend on the individual child--and again, making everything obvious isn't going to help them learn--but the beauty of a well-crafted story is that it doesn't have to reveal everything about itself all at once. Many great stories have multiple layers to them that only show themselves on multiple enjoyings, be it clever foreshadowing that only makes itself apparent once you already know the ending, or jokes aimed at a slightly older audience that a kid might not get the first time through. Whether a story is designed to be revisited later on down the line or whether it just has lots of layers to it, there's a great satisfaction in going back to a story later on, with more knowledge, and understanding it deeper than you did before. Even on the initial viewing, kids can pick up on things like, "The situation this character is in reminds me of me" or "hey, these two characters are always associated with butterflies" without yet fully understanding why the character's situation reminds them of themselves, or the complexities of symbolism and metaphor. That's what fosters both critical thinking and learning.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find out that this book has already been optioned for a film, nor that the studio producing it, Sony Pictures Animation, has something of a generic track record when it comes to their in-house productions. If nothing else, the story's more visual element will be at home there--but that won't change the plot or characters (though the pacing might improve.) Just based on the concept alone, I really wanted to like this book and this world. As it stands, however, I can't even recommend this book to the children it was targeted it.
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