Interview with Caitlin Hensley

I’m sure it’s obvious I’ve had to put the blog on hiatus for now, but I had to temporarily lift that so I could point you guys to an amazing new book I love.  Paranormal Legacy just released, and its wizard author, Caitlin Hensley, was kind enough to let me interview her as a sort of celebratory thing.  I was excited for that, because I really loved her book—and that’s saying something, since I normally hate paranormal stuff.  Anyways, here’s the blurb for her book from Goodreads:

“After moving to a rural Pennsylvania town, cynical teen Haily Long soon discovers that the next-door neighbors are paranormal creatures of darkness. Despite this little quirk, the Knight family seems friendly enough, especially handsome Nathan. Nathan is well-mannered and polite, your typical boy next door . . . except for the fact that he turns into something else once a month. In a matter of days, Haily is drawn deep into a shadowed world of danger and deceit, and learns startling truths about her own past. When sinister strangers come sniffing around town for Nathan, and Haily gets pulled into the resulting chaos, she must discover how to unlock her true heritage if she wants to survive.”

Sounds stellar, right?  And then there’s the part where I got to interview Caitlin:

Who are some of your writing influences?

I think a lot of writers have influenced me, actually.  Two of the main ones are probably Richelle Mead and Cassandra Clare, since their books are some of the very first books with paranormal elements that I ever read.  Another book that really influenced me was called “How Not to Write a Novel.”  There were some great tips in there that taught me a lot about writing.

Do you have a schedule you stick to with writing—whether that’s concerning plotting or just the time and place you write—or are you move of a “let’s wing it and see what happens” person?

I try to write every single day, and get it done before I log on Facebook or my email account.  And usually, I write without an outline.  I used to plot extensively before beginning a book, but then it started to bore me, like I was writing the same book twice in a row—the notes and the actual book.  So now I write out a few paragraphs about where I want the story to go, write brief character bios, and then drive right in.

What’s your main character like?  How are you like her, and how are you two different?

Haily Long is the main character in PL.  I’m not sure how much we’re really alike, except that we both have brown hair and like to read.  I tried to make her as different from me as possible; for example, she’s obsessed with coffee, but I can’t stand the stuff.  And while I use sarcasm occasionally, it seems like almost every word out of Haily’s mouth is some kind of snark.

Who’s your favourite character in your book—and why?

Jake West is definitely my favorite character.  He’s a slightly sarcastic hawk shifter.  As for the reasons why I like him, I like how layered his personality is; it takes Haily a while to slowly unwrap the different layers and find out what kind of person he is.  Also, I have a thing for the bad boy-type characters.

And the wrap-up question: What’s the most potentially incriminating thing you’ve ever Googled?

I always Google a bunch of crazy stuff.  Recently, my search history lists things like “humans who eat human livers,” “bus station interior,” “witchcraft,” and “all about the embalming process.”  And then of course there’s the much less suspicious “how do you make that thumbs-up sign on Facebook.”  (For those who are curious, it turns out you just have to type “(y).”)

For the record, Jake’s my absolute favourite, too.  I love that he can’t take anything too seriously for too long.  It seems like it’s a coping mechanism, which makes it that much more endearing, and he literally made me laugh out loud on several occasions.  By this point I’ve decided to quit being objective and fair, and I’ll tell you: Jake trumps Nate any day.

  So.  If you’re interested in more Paranormal Legacy—the sequel is supposed to be released later this year, which I’m already excited for—you can find it at the aforementioned Goodreads and Amazon.  Also, there’s Caitlin’s blog; if Paranormal Legacy catches your interest, you could stop by to let her know.  It’d be cool to make a debut author’s day, right?

Loki, Back When He was More...Low-Key

Sorry about the title.  Couldn't resist. 

One thing you need to know is, I’m a superhero freak.  I write superhero fiction, chose a superhero theme for my room when we moved this summer (which weirded my mom out, since I’m a seventeen-year-old girl), and carry around an X-Men encyclopedia with me on a regular basis (I also have a DC version, but Marvel dominates).  So within five days of The Avengers coming out on DVD, I’d watched the film and its commentary several times.

Possibly I have a problem, but it does come in handy sometimes.  After analyzing the heck out of this movie, I’m still only finding the same flaw that bugged me throughout my first viewing.

Whedon turned Loki into a complete [insert preferred synonym for “jerk” here].

Granted, he wasn’t exactly Little Miss Sunshine in Thor.  He did all sorts of unpleasant things to Thor in his first movie, like getting his brother banished, telling him he was responsible for their dad’s death, and coming about this close to killing him—but despite all that, I still found the trickster god a little bit likeable.

The way I see it, there are three main, semi-connected reasons for that:

1.      He was sympathetic.  He may be a royal Norse god, but at the end of the day, he’s also quite insecure.  He’s the younger brother, physically quite a bit weaker than both Thor and all the other warriors running around his world.  Asgard is obviously a warlike place, so that’d make being scrawny even worse.  He finds out he’s a Frost Giant by birth—Frost Giants being the Asgardian’s biggest enemies—and originally just adopted by his dad, Odin, in case that could help bring about peace.  That doesn’t help his outlook much.  He feels used and betrayed, ashamed of himself for what he really is, and like everyone thinks he’s worthless.  And the audience—at least, everyone with a soul—can feel sorry for him about that.

2.     He was relatable.  This one ties in with the sympathy thing, but it’s a little deeper.  On a baser level.  Because even if we’ve never tried to get our brother out of the picture so we can take his throne, most of us can relate to being in someone else’s shadow—and wanting out of it.  Absolute power may not be your thing, but most of us have really, really wanted something—a position or role or even some sort of object—only to be turned down.  A lot of people can relate to his insecurity, because that’s part of being human.  Not only can we sympathize with him, we can empathize with him.  And because of that…

3.     We understood the reasoning behind his motives.  Even if we can’t agree with or condone what Loki does to reach his goals, even if it wasn’t always good for him, it all made sense from his viewpoint.  For his situation.  All he really wanted was the throne, to prove himself to his dad—quite possibly because of the aforementioned Frost Giant insecurity.  Probably the most obvious example of this is when Odin discovers everything Loki’s done, discovers his son hanging from the bifrost bridge, plans ruined, and Loki calls up, “I could have done it, Father!  For you.”  And for me, at least, that’s when it hit home—when I realized exactly why I liked the Elizabethan-talking punk.  All these reasons combined.

So.  Anything I missed?  And how do you feel about Loki?  In Thor, he was actually one of my favorites, but my mom disliked him even from the beginning.  Who are some other characters you like, even if you feel like maybe you shouldn’t?

Separating Your Foils (Not a cooking lesson, I swear)

Sometimes I feel like I blog more about Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron than about anything else.  And if I do, it’s definitely for good reason.  But while I obviously love the book, I love its sequel, Sapphique, even more.  I figure that’s partly because my favorite character gets more screen time (page time?), but also because most of the supporting characters are fleshed out quite a bit.

Throughout most of Incarceron, Finn was the viewpoint character.  And that’s great—I love Finn—but in a way, his supporting cast just serve as foils for him.  In the second book, Finn gets separated from Keiro and Attia, and I feel like it allows all three of them to grow as characters.  Keiro is deeper, more complex and conflicted, than he seems at first—his indifferent cool guy mask slips a little, and he shows some redeeming qualities, even if reluctantly.  Attia also becomes less one-dimensional: instead of being some slightly pathetic, awestruck girl dedicated to protecting Finn, she turns out to be clever and resourceful.  And now that Finn isn’t always around and Attia’s more exposed to Keiro’s harshness, we get to see that she has more than enough fire to hold her own against him.

Happily, the character development is a come-one, come-all sort of thing.  Away from his posse, Finn’s more confident, less self-conscious—even while Keiro’s leaving Finn’s shadow, Finn is able to leave Keiro’s.  One of those cheery, “everybody wins” situations, yes?

All in all, I figure that’s the best thing about this lesson in foils.  It’s an example we can apply to our own stuff.  If you have a secondary character who’s coming off a bit flat, try to find some way to separate him from your MC.  Even if it ultimately doesn’t work out plot-wise, it’ll probably teach you something about both that character and your main one, and you can incorporate that later.  Rah, character development.

So, what do you think?  Have you ever tried an exercise like this before—how’d it work out?  If not, do you have any other examples of an author separating her foils for the better?

Deep POV, as Opposed to -- What? -- Shallow POV?

This weekend, I read a book I wasn’t too impressed with.  Maybe that’s not so unusual, but I was surprised—the premise was great, it put an original spin on a classic story, and it had this amazing line on the cover: “Fantasy just declared war on reality.”  (I won’t tell you the author’s name, but his initials are Frank Beddor.) 

                  

So why didn’t it live up to my expectations?  Maybe a little of it had to do with style, but for the most part, it was because he had issues with head-hopping.  I know I must’ve read books with the same problem before, and maybe even to a larger extent, but this is the first time it’s actually distracted me—I guess I’m getting used to reading books that don’t head-hop.

That got me thinking, I guess, because I went through my notes on blogging points and found this stuff on deep POV:

1.      Go through and eliminate any instances of showing-vs.-telling. Look for “was”s and “felt”s, and figure out if they’re of the offending type, and if so, kill them.  No mercy.

2.     Remember, you can’t see anything your viewpoint character can’t see.  So she might hear the footsteps or feel like she’s being watched, but she knows something or has eyes in the back of her head, she’s not aware of the attacker behind her.  Same thing with the other senses and all kinds of information.  I think it’s easier to stick with this one with first-person POV, but that’s probably because that’s what I write with.

3.     Another thing I don’t like—adverbs on speaker tags.  (Besides them being outlawed anyway.)  Like when a character, who isn’t the MC, “says uncertainly.”  I know adverbs are evil anyway, but besides that, how does the viewpoint character know what the other character’s feeling anyway?  She doesn’t.  So the most you can do is pull a “he sounded worried.”

End of rant.

Anybody ever read any The Looking Glass Wars books?  I think I’m going to read on at some point, because of the aforementioned interesting premise and the fact that I find Dodge’s character growth development interesting.  Any deep POV tips to share? Anybody not hate Mondays?

On Staying Intense and Gazelle-ish

Last year in school, my whole grade had to take a semester of Financial Literacy—we used the Dave Ramsey course.  I know that probably doesn’t seem very relevant (um, at all), but one expression he used stuck with me and reminds me of writing.

 He always said that when a person is in debt, s/he needs to use “gazelle-like intensity” to get out of that debt.  Now I use the phrase for my writing, when I’m struggling with free time or motivation or deadlines or whatever. 

Sure, we all need breaks.  We all need time for the other part of life, and the people and things who fill it.  But whenever I’m having trouble—especially when the goal is so close, and I can see the end—I have to remember that and push toward the end.

It’s ridiculous, the analogies my brain likes to keep around.

Anyways, here are a few tips for staying intense and gazelle-like:

1)       Think of why you started writing this in the first place.  Even if it’s just as a personal hobby, there’s still a goal involved, isn’t there?

2)      Read what motivates and inspires you.  Maybe it’s an interview of an author who went through a lot on her/his way to publication, struggled with the book itself, or just signed with an agent.  Maybe it’s an amazing book you love to read over and over again to remind yourself what you can someday attain.  Maybe it’s the not-so-amazing book you know you can do better than—and it got published, didn’t it?

3)      Deprive yourself of food, drink, and sunlight until you’re finished.  That way—

Well, scratch the last one.  But still.

What are some of your tips for maintaining the gazelle-like intensity and meeting deadlines, goals, etc.?

You Put the Comma In, You Take the Comma Out...

Bonus points to anyone who read the title of this post to the tune of “The Hokey Pokey.”

Anyway, the inspiration for this post comes from the brilliant Oscar Wilde, whose The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my all-time favorite books:

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

I guess Oscar just must’ve been having one of those days.  Don’t we all?

I tend to have these moments more along the way than in final editing—I get all OCD with the minor wording, and my backspace button probably hates me for being a slave driver.  (When I go old-school and write by hand, I usually end up with at least 25% of the lines marked out.  If my laptop’s backspace button probably hates me, trees definitely do.)

The OCD approach saves me a little time in the long run—less editing to do later on—but also kills some of my effort when revisions set in and scenes get slashed.  I’d consider trying to reign in the internal editor for a bit, since that seems like the wise thing to do, but I’ve never been wise and I’d rather just stick with my writing flow, idiosyncrasies and all.  Which begs the question.

Have you ever had one of those days, full of scribbled lines or extra bonding time with your backspace button?  Which describes you—“obsessive-compulsive” corrector or “I locked my internal editor in the closet (gagged and bound)” kidnapper?

Apparently, Enough is Enough

For the most part, we all know the more routine clichés—but you should also be on the lookout for some of the newer offenders.

Every year since 1975, Lake Superior State University in Michigan has released a list of overused words/phrases for each year.  And while you may have already seen this, I couldn’t help but pass on this list for 2011.

Realistically, I know this list doesn’t mean much—if you’re going to use the term “baby bump,” there aren’t exactly a ton of alternatives, and I think “ginormous” is a pretty rad word.  But it’s still amusing to see what words the public tends to get sick of.

You can read about the history behind the banished words lists here, by the way.

So, what about you?  Any words or expressions you’d like to kill off?  Any words you have a tendency to overuse?  Because I'll admit, I'm guilty of using "pretty much" and "not exactly" too much.

Come On -- We Know You Have Them

Resolutions, that is.  Now that the new year’s rolled around and everyone’s swapping 2011 calendars out for shiny new ones, most people are also working toward personal goals.

That’s right.  The New Year’s Resolutions are upon us.  A whole nother year of opportunities. One of mine is to blog consistently and on schedule this year: Thursdays and Sundays.  That means no more long, unannounced blogging vacations—sorry about that, but I needed to focus on rewrites.  I’ll be visiting your blogs more regularly, too.  Scout’s honor.

Realistically, I know a ton of people have a ton of resolutions that never pan out.  And that I’m usually one of those people.  But that doesn’t keep me from setting them, because A) it’s always nice to have something to work toward and B) I’m always up for a good laugh.

And like countless other writers, I’ve got some writing-oriented goals in mind.  I figure you probably do, too, so here’s a quote from the Walt Disney to keep us motivated and inspired:

“Get a good idea and stay with it.  Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.”

So even if you quit your diet, don’t succeed with your plans for world domination, or fail on the whole “be a better person” concept, remember—stick with your writing resolutions as best you can.  Go all Walt Disney on those things.

Any writing resolutions you’d like to share?  Looking back at 2011, how’d similar resolutions work out for you last year?

There's Always Something to Learn from Rowling, Right?

Everyone's heard the story of Harry Potter's birth -- the train ride, the cafe, all that jazz.  Right?  By now, it's morphed into something of a legend.  And sometimes you have to be careful with legends, becayse it's easy to lose the moral of the story in them.

    I mean, I'm not a huge fan of morals in stories -- not obvious ones, anyway.  All too often, they ruin the story, and we can't have that.  Still, J.K.'s lesson has a pretty important point in it:

    Always have something with you to write on, and always write your ideas down, no matter how stupid or inconsequential those ideas might seem.
  
    It doesn't matter if you're writing on paper, a McDonald's sack, your hand (or arm, for those massive, detailed ideas), or typing it out on a cell phone.  (For the record, if you don't have a pen or notepad app, I learned a couple of years ago that you can text yourself.  This also means explaining to others why you have yourself saved in your contacts, but whatever.)  Anywho.  Most writers always have portable means to write with; I don't really need to say much about that part.

    Back to that "no matter how stupid or inconsequential" bit I mentioned earlier.  You know those tiny thoughts that sometimes flit through your subconscious -- the ones that don't make much sense, or seem incredibly random, or not even slightly important?  Like "Taj Mahal" or "death by elevator shaft" or "what if..."?  Probably a good idea to write those down, too.  You never know when one of those thoughts could connect with something else, some bigger, and turn into your next Big Idea. 

    There's nothing worse than having some almost-memory tickle the edges of your brain, only to realize you've forgotten what that oh-so-wizard idea was.

    So what about you?  What's the oddest string of words you've ever written down as an idea trigger?  Have you ever had one of those random thoughts merge with a bigger-scale idea? 

Why Happily Ever Afters Don't Make Me So Happy...

Okay, so this post may make me sound like a total pessimist.  Glass half-empty and all that.  Acknowledged, but I have a point to make here.

    First thing's first:  the perfect ending doesn't exist -- for me, anyway.  Because if it really is a perfect ending, in the conventional "everything's wrapped up and happy" sense, it's automatically imperfect for me.  I don't want a happy ending -- I just want it to be tolerable. 

    By "tolerable," I'm not saying I think endings should stop at acceptable, that they should just be ho-hum.  Definitely not; I like explosions and betrayal and fight scenes as much as the next reader.  But I want endings to be bittersweet and slightly painful -- I want the "we missed Happily Ever After by about ten miles" version. 

    Everything can't just work out.  That, unfortunately, is what Disney movies are for. 

    Maybe that's why I don't like the happy endings so much.  Maybe I watched too many Disney movies when I was younger, where Sleeping Beauty and Snow White woke up and Prince Charming found the shoe and Beast turned back into a human, and everything worked out.  (Extra points go to Pocahontas, since John Smith got hurt and shipped back where he came from.  Negative points go to Pocahontas 2, because that movie was moronic and nobody likes John Ralfe or whatever that punk was named.  I guess you can tell I'm more of a John Smith fan.) 

    Anyway, some more examples of endings that had some element of bittersweet in them?  I think yes.  Technically, I guess I can't talk about the endings if you haven't read them already, because that would just ruin life, but it's understood that I highly recommend the books listed below. 

• A Separate Peace by John Knowles.  Love this book.  I'm normally not into this genre or time period, but this is tied for first in my All-Time Favorites list.  (Team Phineas all the way.)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Lots of people probably read this in school, so the ending's not as big of a secret, but I thought it was so refreshing that it didn't end very well.  How many other stories out there had an ending to a similar effect?  Plus, it had characters like Jordan and Gatsby.  Nick wasn't bad, either.
• The Cay by Timothy Taylor.  My mom read it to me when I was sick in the fifth grade.  I hadn't thought about it in a while, but when I was thinking of bittersweet endings, it popped into my brain.  Must reread this....
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell.  This was one of my favorite books.  I need to read this one again, too. 

    Okay, that's probably enough, because I think you get the point.  At this point, I'll also slip in a quick apology for my blogging failures in this past month.  Bad me. 

    Do you agree, or are you more on the Happily Ever After side?  What are some books with bittersweet endings you've read, and did you think the books pulled them off?

Apprehension and Swagger

This year I was old enough to sign up for evening classes at the local vo-tech, so I went for the fiction writing class.  I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured even if it didn't cover anything new, it'd still be worthwhile.  Being around other writers, chances to learn new stuff . . . I was pretty excited.

    The first thing the teacher/instructor had us do was describe a character.  Randomly.  Then we had to pick three random character names.  And then write an opening scene.  She stopped everyone after a certain amount of time and have us read what we'd gotten down so far, so it was sort of a "write really fast with no clue where you're going and try to get stopped mid-sentence" sort of thing.

    And it's a blast. 

    What with the time restraints and all, I was just trying to get something down, but it's quickly evolved into something legitimate.  I'm pretty excited about it -- throughout revisions, there hasn't been much raw writing, and I've missed it.  This has definitely shown me that it's not a bad thing to be working on a new project while massively editing something else.  It keeps the writing fresh, you know?

    Anyway, now I bring you this quote from A. M. Rosenthal:

    "If you don't have a sensation of apprehension when you set out to find a story and a swagger when you sit down to write it, you are in the wrong business."

    Well said, Rosenthal.

    Now I'm working on balancing the revising -- priority number one -- and the plotting for the new project, but either way, I'm pretty optimistic about this new project.  The whole apprehension/swagger bit A. M. was talking about, I guess, plus it's still in that happy stage where everything seems simple.

    So what about you?  How do you feel when you start a new project -- and how long does that happy, simple stage last for you before the real work starts?

Actually, Go Ahead -- Judge Away

"Don't judge." 

    It's an expression I hear quite a bit, mostly in joke -- but let's face it.  Whether we want to or not -- whether we realize it or not -- we judge people and characters.  And a lot of the time, one of the first impressions is actually a name. 

    Names are obviously important -- they need to match the character's personality, time period, social status, and so on.  Eugene Fitzherbert isn't a great name for an adventure-loving thief, and I'm sure Flynn Rider would back you up on that one. 

    But even though names are important, they don't necessarily make or break a character -- that's all up to the characterization. 

    Example time --

    Four from Divergent by Veronica Roth.  I mean, anyone else ever read a character with a number for a name (besides the temporary title Boy 412 had in Magyk by Angie Sage)?  Yeah, not really.  And somehow it seems like Four makes a natural name, whereas, I don't know, the name Three or Five or Eight would just be ridiculous. 

    It's the same way with Dustfinger with Inkheart by Cornelia Funke.  At least Four is a nickname -- Dustfinger's kind of stuck with his name.  Still, he's an awesome character, and if you focus on him and don't consider his name too deeply, he manages to make "Dustfinger" a pretty cool name. 

    A lot of high-fantasy books are the same way.  Who would've ever thought Aragorn or Frodo or Legolas could've been names? 

    These are only a couple of examples, but I the point's pretty clear -- any more would be overkill.  Have you come across any other names that at first sounded riduculous, but ended up seeming rad once the characterization had done its job? 

Wisdom from Kathryn Stockett, Author of *The Help*

Okay, so if you haven't already, you really need to read this.  It's an article by Kathryn Stockett -- she talks about her book, The Help, and everything she went through to get it published.  More specifically, everything she went through to get an agent.

    Her book was rejected 60 times.  The 61st letter was an offer of representation.  She kept trying for three and a half years before she got an agent.  Now her book's a bestseller and has its own movie.  Nice turn of events, right?

    Anyway, if you're querying or going to be querying in the future, I hope you'll keep this in mind, maybe even print it out.  Even if you're not writing, if something else is your passion, it's a great reminder to never give up.  Plus, bonus:  The way she writes is sort of hysterical.  That never hurts. 

    A lot of people claim J.K. Rowling as an inspiration.  She is, no doubt, but in the "agent rejection" respect, her story never really encouraged me much.  I mean, sure, she got rejected by multiple publishers before her book sold, but she got representation from the first agent she queried. 

    On the other end of the spectrum, Kathryn Stockett got representation from the sixty-first agent she queried, and won over the first publisher she tried. 

    What sort of stories encourage you?

Liebster Award -- A.K.A., I'm a Cheater

First thing's first:  Thank you, K.V. Briar!  (Now is the part where you follow her if you haven't already.  You know, not to be bossy or anything.)  Also, an apology to her:  I'm sorry I took so long to get this posted.  Back to school stuff and excuses and all that.

    I've already made a Liebster post, but since the award's meant to highlight up-and-coming blogs, I figured it'd be okay if I posted again and shared five more blogs.  (Does that make me a cheater?  Not sure.  Anyway, I come from a very competitive family, where boardgames are cutthroat and the occasional display of cheating happens -- you especially have to watch my 12-year-old sister.  Let's just say there's a reason we don't play Monopoly much.)

    Here's a quick glimpse of the rules:

    "The goal of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!"
    Aaaand here we go (remember, no sales pitches -- it's for your own good):

    AderuMoro's Too Many Ambitions

    Eat...Sleep...Write

    Keep on Writing, Keep on Dreaming

    Live to Write...Edit when Necessary

    Thoughts of a Shieldmaiden

    Okay then, I'm off to alert these blogs like a responsible blogger. 

    For the record, if you laughed/scoffed at me for that last sentence, no worries -- my feelings won't be crushed.

   

"Good designers can create normalcy out of chaos...." --Jeffery Veen

In the above quote, replace "designers" with "writers".  Because writers are just people who design with words, right?

    About a week ago, I finally got around to reading Divergent.  (I know, I know, it took me long enough.)  It was great in general, but one of the things it did reminded me of the Inkheart books -- both Roth and Funke use simple, everyday occurences -- even the most mundane of things -- to give the reader a sense of normalcy.

    Example time -- first, from Inkheart:

    " 'And, Meggie,' [Mo] said over his shoulder, 'you go back to sleep.'  Then, without another word, he closed his workshop door.
    Meggie stood there rubbing her cold feet together.  Go back to sleep.  Sometimes, when they'd stayed up late yet again, Mo would toss her down on her bed like a bag of walnuts.  Sometimes he chased her around the house after supper until she escaped into her room, breathless with laughter.  And sometimes he was so tired he lay down on the sofa and she made him a cup of coffee before she went to bed.  But he had never ever sent her off to her room so brusquely."

    "Dustfinger must have been waiting in the road beyond the wall.  Meggie had picked her precarious way along the top of that wall hundreds of times, up to the rusty hinges of the gate and back again, eyes tightly closed so she could get a clearer view of the tiger she'd imagined waiting in the bamboo at the foot of the wall, his eyes yellow as amber, or the foaming rapids to her right and her left."

    "Meggie was just throwing [the sparrows] the breadcrumbs she had found in her jacket pocket -- left over from a picnic on some long-forgotten day -- when the door suddenly opened."
   
    "It was a strange feeling to be spying on Mo.  She couldn't remember ever doing it before
-- except the night before, when Dustfinger had arrived.  And the time when she had tried to find out whether Mo was Santa Claus."

    Throughout these bits of story -- most of them slipped seamlessly into the main narrative of the novel -- you get a real sense of how life was before.  Before the characters' lives went crazy, before the story itself started and everything changed.  You get a glimpse into how close Meggie and Mo's father-daughter relationship is, how Mo isn't exactly the most responsible parent, but he loves Meggie and makes things fun.  You see how Meggie used to climb the fence and imagine she was on adventures -- who hasn't played in their yard as a kid? -- and that she goes on picnics and leaves crumbs in the pockets and tried once to determine whether her dad was Santa.  In these paragraphs, in relatively few words, Funke establishes the characters' lives before, to better show how they change after, and again, sets a normal background that makes it easier to believe the fantastic, sometimes unrealistic things that're going to happen. 

    Divergent did the same thing for me:

    "We walk together to the kitchen.  On these mornings when my brother makes breakfast, and my father's hand skims my hair as he reads the paper, and my mother hums as she clears the table -- it is on these mornings that I feel guiltiest for wanting to leave them."
   
    "[M]y brother made breakfast this morning, and my father made dinner last night, so it's my turn to cook."

    "We sit at the table.  We always pass food to the right, and no one eats until everyone is served.  My father extends his hands to my mother and my brother, and they extend their hands to him and me, and my father gives thanks to God for food and work and friends and family."

    And then there's the example Tris goes back to the most -- her mother trimming Tris's hair.  It's mentioned several times, so I won't pick an example.  Throughout Divergent, these pieces of background information show how her family interacts and works, which is really complex, given their dystopian world's customs and standards.  Family plays a large part in Divergent and Inkheart, and I think that shows.

    Both authors managed this well --- a light-handed sprinkling of background information, of the characters' pasts, that isn't forced or heavy.  It feels so natural that it also makes the world seem normal, real, and to me, that's important in a book. 

    Agreed, or no?  What books have you read that had the same effect as these?

Liebster Blog Award

First off, here's a huge thanks to Jenna Cooper!  If you haven't already, go follow her blog.
   

    Here's all the Liebster stuff:

"The goal of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!"

    Got that?  Good.  Let's go. 

    Here are the five blogs I'm passing it on to:

     The Story Queen

    Ink-Splattered

    Hello, World

    Amaranthine Forever 

    Scribbles and Ink Stains 

    Granted, I think I was technically supposed to write up a short line about each blog, and I honestly tried.  But I make a horrible salespitch, and they all sounded forced and robotic, so...I know there aren't descriptions, but don't take it out on them!  Go visit and comment and follow, agreed?

The First Sentence -- Hook, Please

First off, if you saw the title of this and thought it'd be remotely helpful . . . yeah, sorry about that.

    It won't be.

    But it's amusing, and in my book, amusing is always a plus.

    Apparently, there's a contest every year -- called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest -- to see who can write the worst opening sentence for an fake novel.  (Anyway, I hope these are fake. Eek.)

    The 2011 grand prize winner is Sue Fondrie, a professor from Wisconsin.  This is her entry:


        "Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."


    Pretty bad, eh? 

    There are different divisions within the contest -- you can read a few of them, and the original article where I learned all this brain-enriching stuff, here. 

    Really, I don't do morals of stories, but I guess the main lesson is this:

    If you're having trouble nailing the opening sentence of your novel, be sure to keep all the attempts -- the more laughable, the better.

    You could always enter next year's contest.

    So now I have to ask:  What's the worst opening sentence you've ever read?  What made it so bad -- or is it wince-inducing and self-explanatory?

The Only Constant in Life is Change, or Something Cheesy Like That

"Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely wise can resist change." -- Socrates

    If we've heard it once -- and we've all heard it once -- we've heard it one-point-three million times: 

    Characters need to face significant growth by the end of a novel.

    Well, sure.  I'm not denying that.  After all, if Scrooge had been a total cad at the end of A Christmas Carol and let Tiny Tim ("God blesh us, ev'ry one!") die, the story probably wouldn't make such a warm, fuzzy Christmas movie/play. 

    But.

    Not all characters are Scrooge, you know what I'm saying?

    Characters need to change.  Like Socrates said, only morons and brilliant people resist change -- and a lot of main characters don't fully fit into either category.  Practically everything that makes characters themselves are their personalities, actions, reactions, quirks.  And if you remove all of those traits from the equation, what's left? 

    A boring imposter-of-the-original character that, quite frankly, I don't want to read about. 

    Example time -- and that means if you haven't read the books about the bolded characters, I don't know if you'll want to read their paragraphs.  I'm not spoiling plot events, exactly, but I do go through the character growth in the books.

    Artemis Fowl changed throughout his series, making friend and becoming less cold and ruthless.  But he's still sly and calculating, and unafraid of lying or manipulation.  If he'd become a total softie throughout the books, I wouldn't like his character anymore (because really, he's really more interesting when he's being cold and ruthless). 

    Maximum Ride became softer throughout her series, too.  Sometimes against her will, she became warmer, friendlier, and more emotional.  She isn't always exactly happy about these developments, but her character has changed -- grown -- so she deals.  I don't always like Max's weaker side -- slightly annoying, if you catch my drift.  I'm the tough one, I don't know why I'm crying, I can count the times I've cried in front of these kids on one hand, blah, blah, blah.  But it's usually fine. 

    Tally Youngblood (Uglies series) -- okay, this one's kind of a doozy, and it's not even completely Tally's fault.  (This one actually has spoilers.  Close your eyes if necessary.)  In Uglies, thanks to society standards, Tally considered herself worthless and hideous, but knew she'd be amazing once she got the pretty-making operation for her sixteenth birthday.  By the end of the book, after a nice little visit with some rebels, she decides she doesn't need any operation and that real is beautiful.  However, she also volunteers to be turned pretty so she can test a cure -- and thanks to the surgery, forgets all about her whole "natural beauty/brainwashing is bad" epiphany.  She's a vapid, self-absorbed pretty now.  Once she gets the cure -- cough -- she's back to her pre-surgery, post-Smoke self again.  Then she gets turned into a Special, and she's arrogant, ruthless, and cold, determined to keep everything under the city's control.  She cures herself from being Special and finally finds her own way of thinking, free from any surgery or city-manufactured thinking.  Major growth-rollercoaster there.  Three- steps-forward-four-steps back-five-steps-forward kind of thing, yes?  Even though I halfway hate Tally for what she inadverently did to Zane (who's one of my listed Favorites), I still like her and her growth arc okay. 

    Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) used to be a happy little girl.  Then her dad got blown up and her mom turned worthless.  It was up to Katniss to ensure her and her little sister's survival, and she ended up cold and hard, a total survivor.  (Spoilers coming from here on out.)  She ended up softening a tad around Peeta, then slightly insane after her sister's death, and back to her normal, less-distant self again.  One could definitely say her growth arc is more of a wave, though not as erratic as Tally's.

    Dustfinger (Inkheart) was a roaming fire-eater in his own world.  He had a wife, two daughters, and a stellar way with flames -- and then Mo read him out of his world.  To get back home, Dustfinger's willing to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, and generally throw morals out the window.  But he's only doing it to get to his family again, and he tries to fix the problems his double-crossing starts.  Basically, he's good if you're helping him, bad if you're not, a character with flexible morals and a generally good heart.  (He's a Favorite, too.)

    Characters usually change in their stories -- sometimes drastically, sometimes subtly -- but not too much.  Because if they do, they lose what makes them them.  I'm not saying your Twihard-axe-murderer protagonist should still be going around chopping people up at the end of the book(s) -- certainly that first bit needs to change.  But maybe your jewelry thief should still have a weakness for emeralds; maybe your MC still chews other characters out.  (Lame examples there, I know.  Oh well.)

    Do you agree with this, or are you for the characters being reformed by the end of the story? 

You Heard the Man

          "They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
           And, for the most, become much more the better
           For being a little bad."
                     
            -- William Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act 5 Scene 1

    Today, I think we'll take it from an expert. 

    All of my favorite characters on the All-Exclusive All-Time list are definitely flawed.  (Peeta's on that list, which almost dashes the continuity there, but I think Snow and a certain venom took care of that.)  Maybe that's just a personal preference of mine, but I think it raises a point.  We all know that no one likes perfect characters, and most normal people don't like purely awful characters either.  Society tends to frown upon that -- but then again, I frown on society, so who knows.

    All of my Favorites have some sort of quirk that makes them interesting -- and not necessarily nice -- and influences the story line.

   A great example of this is Artemis Fowl.  He's not one of my Favorites -- I mean, he's a great character and all, but he's not on The List --, but he's quite flawed, thank you very much.  He can be ruthless, manipulative, completely full of himself.  (The fact that he's the biggest supergenius out there doesn't exactly hurt matters, either.)  He ends up showing gradual growth -- peachy -- but he doesn't completely lose his flaws in the process.

    What about you?  Is there a common thread between all your favorites -- or do you even pick favorites?  (The notion is completely foreign to me, but my mom actually doesn't pick favorites . . . except for Peeta, that is.) 

    And what scale should the characters be on -- way flawed or, in the words of Shakespeare, "a little bad"?

Do Everyone a Favor -- Skip the Lecture

For me, there are several things a writer can do to ruin a book:

    1)  Mention a vampire

    2)  Mention a werewolf

    (Thank you, Twitlight.  But that's beside the point.)

    3)  Turn the book into a preaching platform

    There we go -- today's topic. 

    Really, people don't read fiction to hear the author's opinion on anything other than what pertains to the story.  It's annoying, it's something that everyone can't agree with, and it totally interrupts the plot.  I don't read to learn anyone's stand on global warming or environmental awareness (ahem, The Final Warning and MAX: A Maximum Ride Novel, both by James Patterson.  Max is still great, though), politics, the economy, etc. -- unless it directly relates to the story.

    That said, I think it's amazing when books teach us about important life issues -- when it's done right.  Some of my favorites do this, without ever outright saying "War is bad" or "Be true to yourself".  Not only are these stereotypes (not all wars are bad; being yourself is great and all, unless you happen to be an axe-murderer or cannibal or Twihard), they need to be handled with more subtlety.  Here are a few of those favorites, in no particular order:

• A Separate Peace by John Knowles.  Of course, being slightly biased, I consider all my favorite books amazing, but this one is especially so.  That's mainly because of my favorite character, Phineas, but the book also touches on deeper subjects, especially the darker side of the human nature.  (Really, we aren't so nice.)  While it takes place at a boy's school during World War II, the focus is more on internal war.  And while I would've judged the book by the cover (and synopsis and setting) and expected it to be boring, probably not even giving it a chance, it's now my favorite.  I'm primarily a fantasy reader, so that's definitely saying something.
• The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Most people have read this one, so I don't have to go into as much detail -- but the way she handles themes like war, violence, and freedom seems so effortless, so smoothly integrated, it never ceases to amaze me.  Okay, the gushing is over.
• Uglies trilogy/series (I guess it depends on your opinion, and whether or not you include Extras) by Scott Westerfeld.  It hits a whole range of themes, from self-acceptance to society's place and influence to, again, freedom.  Even with all that going on, it doesn't seem too busy, and the world-building's fabulous.
• Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  Again, this is an obvious pick, which is part of why I couldn't leave it out.  Good and evil, fighting over power (of the ruling and magic variety) -- it's all there.

    Of course, there are countless other out there, and you can find morals or symbolism to almost anything, if you try -- but what are some of your favorites?  What themes/lessons do they express?  Do you think it's okay to preach in books, or do you also feel like it's a no-no?

    This lecture on lectures was presented in blog form, so I decided to ignore the irony and go with it.