Enough Head Space, by Matthew MacNish

I wrote this post a while back on my personal blog. I called it Storytelling, but really it should have been called How do You Know When You're Ready to Start Telling Your Story? I'm not sure why it was so popular, but it probably had something to do with Nathan Bransford sharing it on his blog.

It wasn't really a very good post. It was short, and no research went into it or anything, but I think it asked a question that really resonated with writers.

I've been thinking about that question again lately, because I'm kind of in-between projects. I'm not the kind of writer who writes every day.

Well, let me rephrase that. I'm not the kind of writer who puts words into a draft of a new manuscript every day. But I am the kind of writer who thinks about stories every day.

Lately, I've been wondering how I find the head space. Recently, I've been working on two deep critiques for some critique partners I have (they are both award winning published authors, so I'm not really sure why they trust or even need my feedback, but that's neither here nor there). I have also been putting words down on a project of my own I'm working on, but it's not a draft. It's brainstorming.

I can't say much about the project, but it's a secondary world fantasy, and I've never written one of those before, so I want to make sure to do the necessary work up front, to build the world, so that I have a sturdy foundation going in once I really am ready to draft.

So what's my point?

I'm not really sure, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm okay with "not writing every day." I don't have the head space to juggle four stories at once. I mean as long as I'm working on storytelling--which, let's face it, if you're a storyteller by your nature, there's really no getting away from it--I'm okay with that.

I learn more from reading and analyzing other people's work than I do from pounding out my own first drafts anyway.

What about you all? How many projects can you work on at once?

What Writers Can Learn from Traditional Storytellers

I’ve learned so much from fellow writers over the years here at Project Mayhem, both writing techniques and in overcoming obstacles in the publishing world, or at least coping with them. I’ve very, very thankful for that. And while this is my last regular post on Project Mayhem, I didn’t just want to use it to say goodbye. I wanted to share some of what I’ve been working on to improve my writing. I’ve gotten very interested in the techniques of traditional oral storytellers. I’ve been lucky enough to hear some fabulous storytellers over the years, and I’ve come to realize I actually grew up with one even though I didn’t know it. My mother had the ability to take ordinary events and in retelling them, make them extraordinary. As a child, I didn’t appreciate it. In fact, I found it down right annoying, because I knew she was "embellishing" the truth. I’d been present at these ordinary events and they never happened exactly the way she recounted them. She could hold an audience though, making people see the events she was describing, and make them wish they’d been lucky enough to be there.

Storyteller Mary Hamilton, in her book KENTUCKY FOLKTALES, Revealing Stories, Truths, and Outright Lies, says something similar about her father, “He is the kind of storyteller that when he starts telling about an event you sit there, you listen, and you can’t help but almost wish you hadn’t been there yourself. That way your memory of it wouldn’t be quite so at odds with what he’s telling.” That’s the key to telling a good story, putting just enough of a twist and a spin on describing an ordinary event to make it more than just an event, to make it a story.

Writers can’t mimic all of great storytellers’ techniques, because we don’t have the ability to use interesting voices and gestures for our audience to see, but there are some things middle grade writers in particular can take away from the storytelling process. I think most great storytellers’ main goals are to entertain. They choose their stories very carefully, and if there is a message in them, it’s subtly woven in so that the audience may not even be aware they are being given a message. Those are the kind of stories I want to write. I don’t care if the middle graders who read my stories can’t see a message in them. I just want them to love the stories.

We all strive to connect with our audiences too, by making them able to visualize whatever scene we are describing, whether through the written word or the spoken word. And with a middle grade audience, you have to bring yourself away from the adult world to see what they would see, before you can describe it. It’s all in the details, and the best storytellers I’ve seen retain an ability to pick just the right details, but not too many, to create their scenes.  I’m going to continue to listen to storytellers, to learn what I can. Maybe someday, I’ll take it up myself! There’s always a new challenge ahead. If you get a chance to listen, I love this video of storyteller Diane Ferlatte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEoEGr955tw

Thanks to all the Project Mayhemers, past and present. I’ll keep in touch! ~Dee Garretson

'Tis the Season...to Give Them Monsters!

‘Tis the holiday season, and with that in mind, I’ll refrain from seizing upon this opportunity (it’s Friday the 13^th! ) to share quirky, bizarre stuff and an otherwise creepy, twisted, middle-grade related, spooky post….

Ok, no I won’t. Sorry, I tried.

What I will give you is permission to put darkness in your middle-grade fiction. Give ‘em monsters, and lots of ‘em. It’s the gift that keeps on giving…because while your young readers may insist on sleeping with a Nerf katana, or ask you to sweep the bedroom perimeter one more time, they are (in general) utterly fascinated with the creepy crawly, shadow slinking, mystery of the monster. They might not admit that they’re scared (they're too old for that, maybe), and they may not even understand that they enjoy that fear. That it’s exciting and necessary.

Necessary? Yep.

The monster represents everything they don’t understand. Everything they fear and worry about. Christopher Vogler, a veteran Hollywood story consultant and writing teacher, calls these monsters, this darkness, the Shadow. In his book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Vogler says that the Shadow “represents the energy of the dark side, the unexpressed, unrealized, or rejected aspects of something.” Middle-grade readers struggle with A LOT. Depending on the scale of the middle-grade spectrum, we could be dealing with puberty, adolescence, moving, divorce, abuse, relationships, emotions, identity, friendship, and the list goes on and on.

Stories need conflict and often that conflict comes in the form of the monster. Monsters offer wonderful personifications of the Shadow. The Shadow, as a monster, allows the writer to create a story in which he or she addresses those relative conflicts in the confines of the narrative. The monster allows for more traditional storytelling, offering an obvious vehicle for conflict, while providing an entertaining book. Percy Jackson is not battling kittens! He is fighting Medusa and Harpies and all sorts of monstrous creatures.

Middle-grade readers want to be entertained. They want a story they can relate to and enjoy and that offers excitement. What’s more exciting than a good monster to battle? Roald Dahl gave us The Witches, not The Unicorns. In his book, BFG, Dahl gives us flesh-eating giants. Flesh. Human flesh. The giants eat people. They crunch on people’s bones. Dahl certainly didn’t flinch at putting these horrors in the hands of definitely middle-grade readers, and I think these giants personify every seemingly impossible obstacle middle-grade readers face and the gatekeepers they fear stand before them. R.L. Stine didn’t build a reading empire on the back of his Feather Tickle series. No! Goosebumps. And it’s a slight understatement to say they did rather well.

But, to be fair, not every monster has to be big, or scary, or ugly, or have fangs and tentacles. Look at our own beloved Charlottes’s Web. You don’t think that when Charlotte says “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” she sees her father as a monster, at least in that scene? And what does she do? She runs out there to confront him. To face the monster. To do battle. And she wins. She saves Wilbur’s life. She beats the monster.

So, whether you have thought about it or not, whether you realize it or not, monsters, the Shadow, are an integral part of our middle-grade fiction. They give our readers a symbolic representation of their own fear and uncertainty in an exciting and entertaining medium: The Monster.

If you still doubt that there is any room to discuss monsters and holidays, consider The Nightmare Before Christmas in which monsters meet Santa….and kidnap him. Or look to the Germanic lore of the Krampus. American kids get coal if they’re bad. Germanic children get stuffed in a sack and get taken back to the Krampus’ lair to be eaten. I’ll take the coal.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to give the gift of darkness to your readers. Give them the Shadow. And I want to give you, as writers, permission to box up your unicorns and rainbows, pack away your puppies, and shush the critics who say “today’s fiction is too dark,” and let the mayhem loose.

Give them monsters this year. 

Recurring events: when to tell and when to show, by Yahong Chi

As a reviewer, I often get offered choices of books to review by my review editor, and often these are themed books which my editor knows I have a bit of expertise in. As a result, I identify certain trends in these novels since they follow similar structures. One such area is horseback riding: I've been a rider for seven years, and so my editor offers me first go at the equestrian-themed books for review. Inevitably in these novels, our protagonist will either attend a horse show, participate in a lesson or go hacking (a trail ride). Sometimes, these events happen multiple times.

Now, if the author described every single one of these occurrences, the repetition would just about kill any momentum the story had been building up to that point. Unless the events all have massive emotional potential to develop throughout, reading about the same actions would become tiresome and flavourless.

Therefore, it's an important author decision to choose which events deserve to be fully shown and which should be summarized in context. A good rule of thumb is to open with an important, well-developed event to ground the reader in the rituals and routines that go into the specific event. For example, in an equestrian novel, the story could open with a show jumping sequence that takes the reader along with the protagonist as she goes from warm-up with her horse to walking the course to entering the ring to the actual jumping to her finish and emotional reflection on her performance. Later on, future jumping shows need not be shown in their entirety because the reader is aware of how the expected routine should go.

This holds true for most, if not all, types of recurring events: soccer games, book club meetings, coding competitions. Even school can become too repetitive—if you're constantly using math class to show your protagonist's struggles in school, go to extra lengths to make sure these classes aren't too similar in structure and have enough variation in terms of character motivation, conflict and emotion so as to avoid being repetitive.

Does that mean later events aren't as important? Not at all. What you're doing then is establishing the consequences of the event. Even though you didn't show the event in real-time, it still happened, and thus you'll be dealing with the physical (e.g. exhausted, wobbly-legged) and emotional (e.g. euphoric, dejected) outcomes. It's only the actual happenings that are summarized; you'll still be taking your character through the physical and emotional ramifications, like dominoes. (Susan Dennard over at Publishing Crawl has a great post on the domino effect!)

And for an ending with good punch, a fully-developed scene featuring an event similar to the beginning's works wonderfully. Not only is this excellent story-telling symmetry, it also provides you with the opportunity to bring your characters' growth and development arcs to a wholesome close, starting with the simple contrast between your beginning and your ending. With a well-crafted ending that resonates with your story's beginning, you'll be that much closer to creating that fulfilling sense of closure that marks a truly good book.

What do you think? What guidelines do you follow when it comes to recurring events?

-Yahong

Whose Story Is It Anyway? Keeping The Kids In The Spotlight

           

            Middle-grade readers, whether they realize it or not, approach their books, their stories, like a 1920’s speakeasy.

           

            Knock, knock.

            A small panel slides open at the four-foot level.

            “What’s the password?”

            “Wedgie underwear fart soda skateboard.”

            The door swings open and the middle-grade reader is ushered inside.

            “Were you followed?”

            “No. No, I don’t think so.”

            “No adults?”

            “I didn’t see any…”

             

            Children read fiction to escape both from the perceived doldrums of their everyday lives and from the shackles of parent and teacher restraint. The last thing they want interfering in their fictional escape is the intrusion of another gatekeeper, at least not in the sense of anyone in anyway driving the story.

            Gasp, why I never…

            It’s true. My 10-year-old is already negotiating ages for certain video game and movie privileges. We’re currently scheduling tentative talks for five years from now. He can’t wait to be an adult so that he can make his own decisions.

            Children don’t like to be told what to do in real life and certainly not in their fiction. Children want to read about other children in the role of the protagonist, as the hero. In this sense they can both relate, and inject themselves into the story.

            Roald Dahl said that children were “engaged in a battle with a world of adults who were constantly telling them what to do.”

            In other words, the middle-grade writer is best served by removing adults from the story as much as possible or, at the very least, removing them from any possible beneficial role. But that’s not realistic…what business does a bunch of fourth or fifth graders have running around town fighting mutant zombie robot clowns without parental supervision? It’s fiction. It’s a story. Mutant zombie robot clowns.

            And while yes, we need adults in the story, particularly in the role of antagonist, foil, or secondary, supporting character (and Dahl did some fabulously hysterical satires of adults, a post I intend to pursue later), we have an obligation to make sure they do not try and steer the ship. This is not their story. This is the middle-grade protagonist’s story.

           

So, who is the biggest culprit? The biggest threat to taking over the story? Parents. Parents get in the way and muddle everything up. Parents want to be all, “Oh, look at me, I’m rational and logical and I know how to stop these mutant zombie robot clowns.”

            Dude, no you don’t. First of all, you don’t even believe the kids. Second of all, you refuse to let them smear themselves in butter (something mutant zombie robot clowns are allergic to) because it will drip on the carpet and smear on the walls. And third of all, your answer is not to sneak into their secret lair and destroy the gummy brain, but to call the police. Problem solved, right? NO! The police chief is their leader. Thanks, Dad. Your logical, responsible approach just doomed us all to robot zombie servitude. Let the kids handle this…

            So, what do we do with the parents? Remove them from the picture, either through deadly or creative means.

            This is nothing new. Perhaps the trick now is not in their actual removal, but how creatively and/or quickly you can do it. Clear the stage for the middle-grade protagonist(s).

            In The Witches, Roald Dahl wastes no time in removing the parents. He strikes them from the story in the first chapter (page 13 to be exact).

            “…while my father and mother and I were driving in icy weather just north of Oslo, that our car skidded off the road and went tumbling down into a rocky ravine. My parents were killed.”

            In James and the Giant Peach, Dahl tells us that James is orphaned after an errant, and angry, rhinoceros gobbles his parents up. Ok, that’s creative…

            In Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaire children are orphaned on page eight:

            “Your parents … have perished in a terrible fire.”

             And as if that were not clear enough, Mr. Poe continues:

            “They perished,” Mr. Poe said, “in a fire that destroyed the entire house. I’m very, very sorry to tell you this, my dears.”

            To make it painfully clear, and to remove any doubt that the Baudelaire children are indeed on their own, Snicket writes:

            “Perished,” Mr. Poe said, “means killed.”

            Not only does this put the orphans on the road to being the heroes of their own adventure, but it also creates the wonderfully awful antagonist, Count Olaf.

            And if car accidents and fires were not enough, Neil Gaiman, in The Graveyard Book, sets hand to purpose with the first line:

            “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”

            On page five, we read, “The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.”

            Bod’s parents are gone and he finds himself the focus of the story. If a Newbery Award-winning author says it’s ok to kill off the parents, it certainly is worth considering this practice as allowable, acceptable even.

            Ultimately, whether you choose to subject your fictional parents to auto accident, errant rhino, fire, knife, or other method of removal from the immediate picture, one things is certain: adults must not stand in the way of the child protagonist, nor be allowed to solve their problems.

            Now go write those middle-grade stories. Give your protagonists the stage without being stepped on by adults.

            Otherwise we’re just mutant zombie robot clown bait.