Maybe a Different Strategy, Hollywood?

The other day, my sister-in-law emailed an article to me on young adult movie adaptations, and asked for my opinion. If you’re curious, you can read the article here. In case you don’t feel like doing that, the article discusses the fact that Ascendant, the fourth film in the Divergent series, will debut on TV, rather than in theaters. Why? Because . . .

The humbling of “Ascendant” mirrors the fate of the YA genre as a whole, which has been experiencing diminishing returns in recent years.

In other words, the films have not made as much money in the U.S. as filmmakers would have liked, though they grossed over $700 million worldwide (which is nothing to sneeze at).

So what do I think about this? Well first, I take issue with the phrase YA genre, since YA—young adult—is a market, rather than a genre. There are several genres aimed at that market: science fiction, fantasy, contemporary realism, historical, romance—you name it.

But the article brought up an issue that should have been obvious from the get-go: milking two movie adaptations out of one book. Since the Harry Potter franchise did this to great success, other filmmakers wanted to cash in on that strategy. Note the words cash in. But Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a 784-page book with more than enough material to cover two films. The filmmakers were very faithful to the source material, which was beloved by fans. Note the word beloved.

The article brought up the less than stellar success of Part 2 of Mockingjay (a partial adaptation of the third book of the Hunger Games trilogy) and The Divergent Series: Allegiant (a partial adaptation of the third book of the Divergent trilogy). Mockingjay is a 391-page book by Suzanne Collins. Allegiant, written by Veronica Roth, has around 592 pages. Note: All of the page counts are based on the hardback versions, which I read. The fans were divided on Mockingjay. And many disappointed fans took to the internet to rant about Allegiant. So I don’t know why anyone is surprised that fans would be lukewarm about seeing two films adapted from a book they disliked.

       

But, you say, movies are made to attract new fans. Each movie should be its own animal. Good point. But the article brought up still another issue: the sameness of the movies. If you hear about movie after movie adapted from a dystopian series involving plucky teens fighting back against an oppressive government while falling in love with each other, wouldn’t you think they all sounded the same if you knew nothing about the book series from which they sprang?

I’d hate for movies based on YA books to stop being adapted simply because some have tanked. Perhaps if filmmakers moved beyond choosing only one or two sub-genres to adapt or avoided stretching the plot of one book over two or three movies, they might discover gold.

This has nothing to do with the above, but is it my imagination, or does the trunk of this tree look like the sideview of a woman wearing dress with an empire waist (ala the Regency period) and holding her arms up?

Photo by L. Marie

Book covers from Goodreads. Divergent movie poster from artseavideos.wordpress.com.

Three Is a Magic Number?

Hope you had a joyous Easter!

Before the snow I wrote about in a previous post came and went like a drive-by shooter, a friend’s mom gave me these from her garden:

Pretty, huh? But would you say this arrangement is more satisfying than it would have been had there been only two daffodils?

According to the Rule of Three, the answer is yes.

The rule of Three is a writing principle that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. (Wikipedia)

Want some more on that? Here you go:

The Latin phrase, “omne trium perfectum” (everything that comes in threes is perfect, or, every set of three is complete) conveys the same idea as the rule of three. (Wikipedia again)

You’ve seen this rule played out in literature: for example, stories have a beginning, middle, and an end; the three-act structure of a work (setup, confrontation, and resolution); three tasks someone has to perform in fairy tales; stories from the Brothers Grimm like “One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes,” “The Water of Life,” and others involving three characters in specific situations (usually a quest); “God in three persons” (from the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy”); and trilogies like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games, Veronica Roth’s Divergent, Juliet Marillier’s Shadowfell and many others.

Yet in regard to book writing, the magic number for me is two, rather than three. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against trilogies. I’ve read dozens of them. But I’m writing a duology.

How many duologies have you read? Probably not many, right? I can only think of a few duologies off the top of my head: one by Sherwood Smith, another by Robin McKinley (I’m still waiting on the second book of McKinley’s duology to debut), and a third by Juliet Marillier. (See, the rule of three still comes into play, even in a discussion of authors of duologies.)

            

               

Many series I’ve read involve an uneven number of books, namely three, five, or seven books. Some dare to be even-numbered series, like Stephenie Meyer’s four-book Twilight series. But three is the popular choice.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked why I’ve chosen to write a duology, rather than a trilogy. I know. I’m violating the rule. Though I haven’t yet written the second book, the story arc as planned seems complete not with three books or five, but two.

Sorry, trilogy lovers. I can’t stretch the story over three books just to satisfy a rule. If I might borrow the words of Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring (though he referred to himself), the story would

Feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. (Tolkien 54)

See what I mean? Bilbo understands.

My hat is off to the many, many writers who can pull off three good books. I’m not one of those writers. That’s why I’m glad to know that good things also come in twos. Think about it: two arms, two legs, two eyes. Do you feel incomplete because you lack a third eye or a third hand? My guess is, you don’t.

Are you a firm believer in the Rule of Three? Would you prefer to write a trilogy or a duology? What is your favorite trilogy? Duology? Sandwich? (I threw in the latter to see if you were paying attention.)

To show that there are no hard feelings between me and the number three, check out this Schoolhouse Rock video, “Three Is a Magic Number.”

Another good post on the Rule of Three: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfThree

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring. New York: Ballantine Books, 1955. Print.

Numbers 2 and 3 images from iconarchive.com. Book covers from Goodreads. Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins photo from middle-earthencyclopedia.

A Writer’s Process (12b)

I’m back, talking with awesome and multitalented Nora Carpenter about young adult fiction. And you’re here too. That’s awesome as well. If you haven’t checked out the first part of the interview, you can click here and do so. Nora’s young adult novel is A Beautiful Kind of Crazy. Are we ready? Then, let’s go!

El Space: In an article at WriteOnCon, Kelly Jensen mentioned three elements to a good realistic young adult novel: world building, authentic characters, and dialogue. In fact she stated:

World-building is not solely about where a book is set, though. It also means developing a dynamic and fluid world within your story.

Would you agree about the necessity of the three elements? How did you go about “developing a dynamic and fluid world” in your book?
Nora: I 100% agree that a character’s “world” encompasses not just his outer environment, but also his inner world—in other words, the people with whom he comes into contact, his relationships with those people, how those people’s worldviews are a result of their environment, and how they impact the protagonist, etc.

Once we get past setting—okay, we’re in a boarding school . . . or at a homeless shelter . . . or in a large city—those places have to feel real. Ultimately, it’s the characters that populate those places that make the worlds come alive. They have to talk, think, and act like people who would be in those settings in real life. And out-of-place characters have to be explained.

I’m from a small, rural town. Like, really small and really rural. I graduated with 60 kids, and we drove an hour across windy roads to get to the mall. Kids from other schools in West Virginia made fun of us for being hillbillies! Anyway, I’ve always been interested in how people act and why, and I have very clear memories of high school. My parents still live where I grew up. So, in some ways I relied a lot on experience and memory in building Cay’s inner world. Her town is peppered with people of different mindsets—a lot of them conservative, but not all, because a small town where everyone is über conservative is not realistic, either. But they all have explanations for why they think/act they way they do. And those are the people who are influencing Cay, which helps explain what’s going on in her head.

I love Jensen’s point about real people not being consistent. It’s so true. Of course, you don’t want a character being wildly inconsistent, but small inconsistencies reflect real life and make characters come alive. In A Beautiful Kind of Crazy for example, Cay’s dad cares a lot about his kids, and Cay respects him a lot. But he doesn’t have the best relationship with Cay’s sister, Skye, because their personalities are so different. Like a real person, he’s not intrinsically bad, but he sometimes behaves in ways that bother Cay and so cause tension.

Pretty much every character in the book is flawed in some way. I love flawed characters, because everyone—EVERYONE—in real life has flaws. And I am really interested in the idea of trying to be a “decent person,” while at the same time discovering that “decency” is often subjective and even fluid. And what happens when you think you’re a pretty good person, but then you do something shameful, or something you think might be shameful, and does it matter if no one knows it was you? And what if it’s something that an apology won’t fix? I think most people struggle with these questions at some point, and they are ideas that A Beautiful Kind of Crazy explores.

El Space: Some writers have talked about the lack of contemporary realistic YA fiction. In an article at Entertainment Weekly.com about the movie adaptation of Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume, writer Hillary Busis stated

I realized something else about her [the main character of Tiger Eyes] essential ordinariness: In a modern YA landscape glutted with fantastical dystopias, supernatural romances, brand-name-soaked glamoramas, and hyperbolic tragedy, what makes this heroine remarkable is the fact that she’s not very remarkable at all.

Busis goes on to state:

Trends, of course, are cyclical. I have no doubt that someday soon, the tides could change, ushering in a new wave of regular kid lit that replaces the Katnisses and Trises with characters who are less flashy but no less fascinating.

A Publishing Perspectives article by Dennis Abrams quoted from the Busis article. Yet many commenters took issue with the pronouncement of a lack of “regular kid lit.” How would you respond?
Nora: There is definitely great realistic fiction out there, but usually it’s the life-or-death fantasy stories like The Hunger Games that are in the public consciousness because of big movie deals. And let’s face it: stories like that are exciting. They are fast-paced, provide a great escape from a stressful world, and, because of the pace, can be emotionally exhilarating. I love a good fantasy novel with complex, interesting characters to go along with the exciting plot. I can tear through those things! I think young readers especially like stories like that because they imagine themselves as the protagonists. Middle and high school can be tough, so who doesn’t want to fantasize about what it would be like to save the world?

I’m not going to say that one genre is more important than the other, because I think we need all types of books because there are all types of readers. But realistic fiction is extremely important, not only to provide relatable characters in situations similar to readers’, but also to provide relatable characters in very different situations. Entering into a world of poverty or wealth or depression or anything different from their own circumstance can be enlightening and encouraging for young readers. Similarly, recognizing that characters have problems similar to theirs—and reading about how characters deal with them, or don’t—can be so healing for kids.

At the end of the day, no matter what the genre, I think a middle grade or young adult book is successful if it connects with a reader, if it makes her think without offering answers or preaching, and if it provides even a glimmer of hope.

Thanks, Nora, for hanging out on the blog yesterday and today!

Got questions for Nora? You know what to do. . . . While you ponder what questions to ask, I’ll leave you with this question from LOL Cats:

Book covers from Goodreads. Lego people photos from fanpop.com and a-jenterprises.com.

Must Every Heroine Kick Butt?

Before I get into the subject of today’s post, first, a little housekeeping. The winner of the $15 Amazon gift card to purchase Mary Quattlebaum’s newest book, Jo MacDonald Hiked in the Woods, is

Is . . .

Is . . .

Is . . .

Is . . .

Akoss!

Congratulations, Akoss!!!! Please send your email address to lmarie7b(at)gmail(dot)com or comment below with it so that I can get that ecard to you!

Once again, thank you to all who commented. Now, on with the show. . . .

Does a heroine have to be battle savvy in order to be considered a strong heroine? (I’m thinking of heroines in science fiction and fantasy stories, rather than in realistic fiction by the way.)

Don’t get me wrong! I greatly appreciate a heroine who can kick butt. I wept tears of joy watching Sigourney Weaver (above) as Ellen Ripley in the Alien movies. I championed Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins’s young adult dystopian (and series) The Hunger Games (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the movie, below). I loved Katara and Toph in the Avatar series. I even said, “Woo hoo,” at Lara Croft’s antics in the first Tomb Raider movie. And I wanted to be Buffy, Storm, and the Black Widow.

There are many, many YA heroines besides Katniss who are battle ready (like Katsa in Kristin Cashore’s Graceling) or, in many paranormal romance books, trained by hot instructors to battle the enemy with an arsenal of weapons. And then they later get to date the hot instructors. Good times.

Awhile ago, I wrote a guest post for Hardcovers and Heroines where I whined about an old Lois Lane comic book, because my niece questioned the fact that Lois, the star of her own series, had to be rescued. That was back in “the day.” We’re in a new era of empowered female heroes with agency galore. Like Helen Parr in The Incredibles, we can have it all!

Yet when I sat down to write the novel I recently completed, I evaluated what I wanted from my heroine. Having earlier begun a novel with a magic-wielding heroine (one to which I’ve since returned), I didn’t want to go the same route. So, I asked myself, and now I’m asking you, does every heroine have to have an edge—that sense of knowing that she’s armed and deadly? Granted, the idea has merit. I’ve mentioned in other posts that I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Even someone nerdy like me needed to look fierce, even if I wasn’t exactly Ripley. But most days, I looked about as fierce as a poodle.

Attack, Fifi! . . . Oh forget it!

But I didn’t want my heroine to have the veneer of power. I didn’t want her to be a pushover, you understand. But combat trained? Nope. I wanted her to get by on her ingenuity, her MacGyver-like sense of scraping herself out of danger with whatever she can quickly grab (a rock for example). (Wondering who MacGyver is? Look here.) I also wanted her to fail most of the time, but still try.

Charles Yallowitz has a great post on female characters. In his Legends of Windemere series, his heroines are tough and plucky. But Charles is well versed in weaponry. Me? I wouldn’t know how to swing a sword properly if someone held a . . . well . . . a sword to my head. Yes, I know there’s a thing called research. Trust me. You don’t want me researching a sword thrust. I’ve cut my fingers on my own steak knives. Anyway, sword wielding didn’t seem right for my character. Making hard choices is her strength.

So, once again, I pose the question: Must a heroine kick butt to be viewed as a strong heroine? Please tell me what you think. Inquiring minds wanna know. . . .

Poodle image from scenicreflections.com. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley from alienfilmspedia.wikia.com. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss from rhsapinoso.wordpress.com. Graceling cover from Goodreads. Helen Parr from disneywikia.

A Writer’s Process 8(b)

The marvelous Melanie Fishbane and I are back. And so are you! Great! Let’s get this party started! But first: If you’re brand-new to the blog, you may wish to know that this is part 2 of the interview. You can jump over to part 1 here and get acquainted with Melanie’s work in progress. (Or, if you’re like Kay Thompson’s irrepressible character, Eloise, you can skibble over to part 1.)

El Space: Aside from your work in progress, you’re working on some academic papers. Please tell us about those and how you came to write them.
Melanie: I love breaking things down and analyzing them, because it is a way for me to have a conversation with myself about what I’m thinking. Essays (and answering questions for a blog post) are a great way to do that!

I returned to essay writing in 2008, when I was inspired by the way teens were responding to Edward Cullen (Twilight), Darcy (Pride and Prejudice), and Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables) online. I considered how there was a similarity in the way that these characters were constructed that made teens fall in love with them and then wondered about my own literary loves—Gilbert Blythe and Almanzo Wilder in case you were interested.

Almanzo Wilder

Gilbert Blythe

El Space: I am! Mainly because I’m nosy.
Melanie: Well, in that case, you should check out this blog post where I talk about it.

El Space: Read it! Great post.
Melanie: I’ve been working on the Perfect Man Archetype for about four years now (it was my critical thesis) and hope to put my literary findings into a book one day.

El Space: I’d love to read that! And I could say something about finding the Perfect Man in general, but let’s move on!
Melanie: YA is having such an interesting growth and I think by tapping into this archetype, I’ve been able to connect to our literary heritage.

The other essay I’m working on is how L. M. Montgomery used writing to help her deal with loss, specifically what I see as her grief narratives: Rilla of Ingleside and The Blythes Are Quoted. I came to this, because I wanted to explore how Montgomery wrote about grieving and the process of grieving.

El Space: How do both worlds—your academic subjects and your novel—meet?
Melanie: Well, for the Perfect Man Archetype I’ve been able to look at how I construct the love interests in my novels and how I might subvert them. I want to create characters that I hope my readers will fall in love with, but will also, hopefully, surprise them.

For the Montgomery essay on grieving, I came to this because my novel is also a grief narrative, as my protagonist is recovering from the sudden death of her father and I hoped to gain insight into how to write this with authenticity.

 El Space: If you were to write an academic paper on a current heroine, not including your own, who would you choose? Why?
Melanie: Good question! You know, I don’t know. The first character that came to mind was Katniss from The Hunger Games, mostly because she has inspired a stream of strong willed, hurt, emotionally detached characters in YA. I wonder if maybe it is because I remember being so emotional as a teen but don’t think that I even understood what was going on or why I felt the way that I did. In a way, that is being disconnected, going into the head, not the heart. Come to think of it, my novel deals with this a bit, too.

El Space: What advice would you give to a teen about writing?
Melanie: Write things that inspire you and don’t worry about being bad. You will be, but that is okay. I would also suggest keeping a journal, because it will allow you to safely work with your own story and emotions. Then if you see a writing workshop at your local library, take it. And don’t take the feedback too personally; you aren’t a bad person or a bad writer if the sentence is bad; it is just that the sentence is bad and that can be fixed. I wish someone had told me that as a teenager. I might not have waited ten years to go back to writing fiction and poetry.

Wow! Thanks, Melanie, for being such a great guest. (She also picks up after herself and doesn’t leave coffee mug rings on the table. Nice.)

And thank you for stopping by. If you have questions for Melanie, you know what to do! Please comment below!

Eloise illustration by Hilary Knight found at truetostyle.com. Gilbert Blythe photo from sjaejones.com. Almanzo Wilder photo from Wikipedia. Rilla of Ingleside cover from lmmresearchgroup.org. Other book covers from Goodreads.com. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss photo found at graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Yes, the title is an overt reference to the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the 1987 movie starring John Candy and Steve Martin. But this post isn’t about that movie.

My parents once told me that our family took a long train trip when I was a baby. Funny. I don’t recall that excursion. But since they never mentioned a second train trip, perhaps taking my older brother and me on the train filled them with such horror, they couldn’t bear to take us again.

Recalling some of our antics during long car trips to visit relatives, I can see why they would wish to avoid being on a train with us for days on end. They were forced to live in the same house with us, but were wise about not inflicting us on the public very often.

Now that I’m an adult, I can take myself on a train trip across the country. Alas, I’m too type A for a leisurely train trip. I like to get where I’m going as fast as possible, you see, which is why the airplane is my favorite mode of transportation next to my car. Unfortunately, some airport security lines are about as slow as taking a leisurely train trip these days.

Now that I’ve mentioned all of the means of transportation in the title, I can finally get to point of this post: pacing. I’m cutting paragraphs and scenes out of my work in progress for this reason.

As I pondered the problem of pacing, I asked Nancy, another friend from VCFA, for her definition of a well-paced novel. She had this to say:

A well-paced novel never loses your interest, but is not a constant roller coaster either. But even in the quiet moments, the story and characters are building and growing.

That makes sense to me. How about you? What would you add to that definition?

While you consider that question, I’ll mention a novel that YA author and Nerdfighter John Green described as “brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced” in a review written for The New York Times. It is

You can read Green’s review here. If you read the book, perhaps you agree or disagree. I’m on the side of agreement. As I followed the journey of heroine Katniss Everdeen, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, even in the slower moments. The action and the quieter moments worked like a waltz—the rhythm perfectly measured.

Another book I consider well paced is Sabriel, a young adult fantasy novel by Garth Nix, book 1 of his Abhorsen trilogy. You can find out more about this book here.

From the first page of the prologue (and Nix makes a good case for its inclusion) to the last page of the epilogue, the pacing never flags. Yet it’s not so frenetic that you feel exhausted at the end of the book (like I felt at the end of watching Bourne Ultimatum). Nix, like Collins, includes quieter moments as heroine Sabriel catches her breath or basically tries to survive during the harrowing search for her missing father.

My problem with pacing comes with my tendency toward the sagging middle. And I don’t just mean my own sagging middle as a result of quick pacing at the dinner table. (Now there’s an image you probably didn’t want.) As you know, many stories have a three-act structure (the setup; the confrontation; and the resolution). (For a great post on plot and structure, see Ingrid’s Notes here.) The action of the story rises toward the climax. But in the second act of my WiP, I included scenes that do little to advance the plot. In fact, they stopped the forward momentum. It’s like being forced on a long, leisurely train trip when what you really need is a quicker mode of transportation to get to the end of the line.

Blake Snyder, author of Save the Cat! The Last Book On Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need, cautions, “It’s not enough for the plot to go forward, it must go forward faster, and with more complexity, to the climax” (150). As I read that, I went, “Huh?” until I realized what he meant: Make stuff happen. Keep raising the stakes.

Another friend sent me a link to a post written by another well-known YA novelist, Libba Bray. It’s hilarious, and I urge a read. But this quote from the post really struck me:

Thinking takes TIME. Thinking forces you to question everything you take for granted, to get past what feels too easy, too pat in order to get down to what feels real and right and true for your story.

I don’t have a magic formula for writing the well-paced story. But what Libba says also makes sense. Pacing takes thought and an instinct for “what feels real and right and true.” Even if a beta reader points out scenes that sag in your WiP (as my beta readers did in mine), you still have to know how to pick up the pace. For me trial and error works. For some of you, maybe you troubleshoot early on through an outline.

Regardless of how we define well paced, I think we can all agree that good pacing, like good taste, is something you sense right away, especially its absence.

What books do you consider well paced?

Train photo and book covers from Wikipedia.

Go with the Flow

When I’m stuck in a word constipation, where every word feels forced, the words on the page don’t seem to flow.

Sometimes my writing seems like a conga line—images and thoughts linked up and moving in the same direction, having a great time. But sometimes what I write seems like a sixth grade dance—everyone standing around awkwardly. At times like that, I need the “laxative” (sorry, but I have to carry through on the constipation theme) of a walk in nature or a long, relaxing drive in order to flow once more. Chocolate also helps.

Author David Jauss tackles the subject of flow in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Flow,” one of several essays in Alone with All That Could Happen. You’re probably thinking of the flow state right now, if you’ve heard of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychology professor who wrote the bestseller Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, based on his studies.

I learned about Csikszentmihalyi through a classmate’s research for her graduate lecture and through a book I had to copyedit for my job. I’ve been meaning to read Csikszentmihalyi’s book, so I won’t try to fake my way through a discussion about it here, since I’m not directly referring to the state of mind where you lose track of time because you’re so caught up in what you’re doing. But based on what I’ve read, Csikszentmihalyi avers that you have control over this state. For Jauss, you also have control—over whether or not your writing flows:

Those of us who don’t instinctively write flowing prose can practice the skills and strategies involved until they become so habitual they are, for all practical purposes, instinctive. (Jauss 60)

Jauss helps us go with the flow (heh heh) with advice on syntax. Here are a couple of tips on writing prose that flows:

• Vary your sentence lengths. I have a habit of using complex sentences, trying to cram as much as I can into a sentence until its own weight crushes it, because that’s how I roll. Not a good thing. But the flowing writer employs simple, compound, and complex sentences. Don’t believe me? Try it. I dare you to give it a shot.

• Pay attention to rhythm. Rhythm works to create a mood. In moments of high tension in stories, the sentences often are simple to show the heightened reality of a character: for example, the throat-tightening fear he or she feels during a chase or the shock of an awful discovery. Complex sentences slow the pace and cause the tension to dissipate. Check out these sentences from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: “I know what to do. I move into range and give myself three arrows to get the job done. I place my feet carefully” (Collins 243). Imagine how different the effect would be had Collins used complex sentences.

There’s more to Jauss’s essay, but you can read it for yourself. As for me, I need to find some chocolate as soon as possible.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. Print.

Jauss, David. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Flow.” Alone with All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction Writing. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2008. 59-85. Print.