Middle Grade Fiction- Fun or Functional?

As I've been writing the "Currently Untitled but Previously Referred to Story- Edge", I've been researching middle grade fiction and reading a good deal of it too. As a parent, I feel it's important to have my characters evolve for the better, to learn lessons and do what good children should. But, will that appeal to my readers?

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Middle Grade fiction is characterized by younger protagonists (they are geared toward 7-12 year olds, thus the heroes need to be someone they can relate to), and typically, the themes revolve around the how the character fits into their world. Often, the stories are somewhat shorter in length, in the 45-50,000 word range  but I find that this is not a hard and fast rule. I've read many stories that are just as long as a typical novel and some of the books in the MG section are pretty darn thick! But, does there need to be a moral to the story built into the theme? Can there be a good MG story that doesn't teach the reader something?

Of course, there are cartoons that seem completely void of life lessons. Though it cracks me up, Spongebob Squarepants is one that comes to mind. The oddities of daily life are entertaining but not built to teach the observer anything. Basically, they're like junk food for the brain.

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Then there's the cartoons like Thundercats (I'm old) and even some of the newer versions of My Little Ponies, or the Carebears, that though they entertain, there's an element of good over evil or right v. wrong involved and the characters learn lessons though the hardships they face. In the Ben 10 cartoons, Ben fights aliens and saves the earth but also learns about relationships, loves and idolizes his Grandfather, and constantly struggles with his arrogance. Both types are popular with kids, but with the parents, are they equal? Not in my house. Some "junk food" shows are banned because the themes are more destructive than entertaining and teach my kids to call each other rude (though perceived as hilarious) names, and laugh uproariously at disgusting things like boogers, farts, and poop. (not that I can't appreciate the humor, but you know, sometimes we have to go into public.)

The "MOM" in me knows that it's better to have my characters face challenges, make choices, and survive the consequences so that over time they become better, more confident, considerate, empathetic people. Can I do that without getting on a pulpit? Can I accomplish an entertaining story that feels good to kids and parents alike? There's a fine line between lassoing the human condition, our need to be accepted, loved, and trusted, and preaching these ideals like I do in real life, when I feel my kids are veering off course. After all, I don't always want to be the person wagging my finger and looking over the rim of my glasses.

There is a way to do this. If we focus on the story and the story is something universally true, then we add a hero we can relate to- imperfect but who answers the call for adventure, and we make their journey a difficult one but one that ultimately causes them to learn something about themselves and the world, we can entertain our readers and sneak in a life lesson to boot. It's not impossible, but it's not easy either. But whoever said that being a writer was?

The next thing I'm wondering about....does it have to be a "Hollywood Ending?"

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Cherry On Top Tales- No More Room

A little story for you...Happy Halloweeen!

NO MORE ROOM

Just an empty room, but you’re not allowed inside. Why’s that, you ask? You came all the way here, paid your entrance fee and managed to make it down the narrow, stone stairs without scraping your head on the low ceiling. The air is thick and muggy, which surprises you because you expect it to be cool. It is underground, after all.

We know your type. You don’t believe in God. You don’t believe in ghosts, yet every step you take makes you feel more uncomfortable, burdened. There must be an electronic field, you think, something that makes my hair stand on end and makes my stomach turn. It offers little comfort but it'll do. Something nags at you…you push it away.

There are many doorways, spaces in this underground maze. We see you explore. The blood in your veins hardens. Laboriously, your heart continues to pump though every beat racks your rib cage. You duck and squeeze through the labyrinth where so many have died with relative ease. The tour guide points this way. “For those with a sixth sense…” she taunts. A smirk plays across her lips. You roll your eyes, but underneath, her words weaken your composure.

In a straight hall, you peek inside this room. Off limits, though no sign is used or required. For some reason, you hold your breath. This is ridiculous, you tell yourself. Whispers float in the still air. We despise you. A man. Or was it a woman? The hissing of phrases in a foreign tongue caress your ear like the heat from a flame. Gooseflesh spreads over your skin as you glance around, realizing there's no one there.

The ropes are only plush sausages hung between two hooks. You could enter this space, but you don’t. You don’t even want to. Why? Because I follow the rules, you think. You’re fooling yourself. You know the real answer.

This room is already full.

80% of Us Want To Write a Book- So Why Aren't You?

Did you know that statistics show that 80-something% of people would like to write a book? That figure initially astounded me- why don't I know more authors? But truly, I can believe it. I am a part of that percentage myself, and as I have said before in a previous post, if the rest of humanity is into something, I probably will be too.

Maybe we've started writing but quit when the urge passed, when we got too busy, or when we realized we didn't know what in the world we were really doing trying to write a book. What was I thinking? I'm not a writer. But you are- if you write, then you're a writer. Taking it to the next level just takes a lot of perseverance and little education in the craft of storytelling.

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Usually, we just start with a seed. A tiny little thing that resembles nothing worth looking at. Don't throw it away, that tidbit can be the start of something wonderful. Collect them all you want, save them for a rainy day. That's when you start to find the story inside of you. Fiction, non-fiction, it makes no difference. These odd little threads of thought have burrowed out of our subconscious and made an appearance, fweeping like featherless baby birds we find in the middle of the grass. Where did you come from, Little Guy?

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sometimes, one of these strange fellows will appear out of no where and try as we might to ignore it, push it away, discredit it, the more it refuses to go leave. Suddenly, it sprouts feathers, and starts hopping around- What? Now you're trying to fly? We can always choose what story to write, but sometimes, the story actually chooses us. Those are the easiest to tell and are a great place to start if we've always been wanting to write, and if we have one of these twerps fluttering around in our mind, we should take the hint!

If you have a seed germinating in your mind for a story, write that puppy down! Take all the ideas you have, make a list. Ponder it, see which one nags at you. That idea that is like a toddler relentlessly tugging at your shirt tail is the one you should develop first. But don't just throw it to the wolves!  Ask questions about plot, about conflict, about characters. Get wild and crazy with it, and most importantly, stick to it! Bad writing can be made better, but you can't improve what you never write.

Need help with that- did I just make it sound easy? It's not. Trust me, I know this. But here are links to Kristin Lamb's Blog that will help with plot development and structure:

Structure Part 1- Anatomy of a Best Selling Novel...
Structure Part 2- Plot Problems...
Structure Part 3- Introducing the Opposition
Structure Part 4- Testing Your Idea- Is It Strong Enough...
Structure Part 5- Keeping Focused...

If you have advice for the 80% of the population that years for writing creativity, please share it. We need all the help we can get!

Apocalypse! They say it's coming, what will you do?

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Who doesn’t love a good disaster movie? We eat it up from any source- books, movies, art, you name it. Sure, it’s morbid and a little twisted, but we love to think about how the world is going to come to a sudden, screeching halt. Why are we so sick?

First of all, let’s not be too hard on ourselves. I mean, it's not our fault that the "end of days" keeps coming up- we have a lot of experience dealing with the threat of an apocalypse. It's been shoved down our throats since...forever. Since the 80s alone, there have been more than two dozen predictions that our world would end (check out this massive list!) and yet, here we are still scratching our heads and searching for clues.

In case you didn’t know, we are coming up fast on another, December 21, 2012: The End of the Mayan Calendar —the day after my husband’s birthday. Better make this one count, Sweetie. The good news is it's unlikely to cause even a moment of inconvenience (at least that's what I hope.) But we're not out of the woods yet; there are many more predictions for the world to end in the future as well.

We are at our best and our worst when our lives are at stake. On any normal day, would we take in a stranger? Kill someone over a hill of beans? Pick up a hitchhiker? Probably not. But, throw a disaster in the mix, perhaps an epidemic, and we become so desperate for survival, companionship and power in numbers that something deep inside changes.

Whether we are faced with an asteroid (Deep Impact, Armageddon), global warming (TheDay After Tomorrow), solar flares (The Scorch Trials), disease (28 Days Later, The Stand), war (The Hunger Games), or zombies (Zombieland), we enjoy seeing how quickly humanity falls apart when the proverbial poo hits the fan.  But after the dust clears and the masses are dead, the few remaining band together, build alliances and unlikely friendships blossom. It’s really heartwarming stuff. Or so we hope...

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While we sit in our theater seats or relax in the comfort of our own home, we ask...am I the guy that gives up early just to avoid the stress? Perhaps I'm the undercover heroine that fights for life? Seeing it on screen is one thing. What if it happened for real? What would we do?

The Next Big Thing!

Welcome to THE NEXT BIG THING!

This is part of an author’s blog tour. Each author who is tagged has the privilege of answering 10 questions about their current work-in-progress. I am honored to have been tagged by Melissa Lummis. You can see the link to Melissa’s blog at the end of this post. I've tagged two authors, who will post their blogs on October 10, 2012. (Their blog links are also at the end of this post.) After reading about my “Next Big Thing” be sure to check out the other authors to see what their NEXT BIG THING is!

 

What is the working title of your book?

The Paragon Trilogy is the name of the series. Book one is aptly named, The Paragon.

 

Where did the idea for the book come from?

A little over a year ago, when I was living in Okinawa, Japan, a friend of mine told me about a landfill in the middle of the ocean called “The Garbage Patch”. It’s a huge expanse of open water that houses masses of debris and pollution that floated into the gyre by currents and remains stuck. She told me it was larger than the state of Texas and I was flabbergasted! After researching it, I found out it’s REAL! The helplessness of what it would take to fix it was overwhelming…how do you stop plastic from entering the ocean?! Stopping it’s production is the only thing that I could come up with…impossible. Then it occurred to me, what if the world ended, and land was unlivable, and people fled to the ocean and made a home of this mess? From that spark of “what if…” West and her quest for life and freedom were born. The rest of the plot elements just fell into place.

 

What genre does your book fall under?

Dystopian fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic era. It’s also part of the Young Adult Fiction category.

 

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I think I’d want “no names” to act in the lead roles. If this story became such a sensation that it warranted a movie deal. I’d want fresh faces. After all, I’m a “no name”, it seems only fair. (Though, if we could work Johnny Depp in there, I’d be OK with it.)

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

In a world of hardships and unmentionable horrors, West Lambert’s search for purpose and freedom may save the human race…or be the key to its undoing.

 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m not fully decided but I’m leaning toward self publishing based upon my research of the industry and the advice of some trusted friends. I’d like to be traditionally published at some point, it’s kind of a “bucket list” thing…but I know it will help to prove myself in the Indie market first.

 

How long did it take you to write the first-draft of your manuscript?

I’m still working on it, actually. I’m about 2.5 months into book one, so I’m predicting about 5-6 months, hopefully less.

 

What other books would you compare to this story to within the genre?

I've been told from some that it has a “Hunger Games” feel to it, something that I’m not sure I live up to yet. I did get a lot of inspiration from the Hunger Games books though, as well as from Veronica Roth, the author of Divergent.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Writing is something that I’ve always done, and completing a book has a top place on my “things to do before…” list. It was probably my mom, though, that has pestered me all my life about writing that made me truly believe I could do it. Since then, my ambition has gone from just sending out my one contribution into the wild world to a realization that this maybe the niche I’ve been looking for all my life. Thanks for nagging me, Mom!

 

What else about your book might pique your readers’interest?

This book is geared toward young-adults, but I hope that people of all ages can appreciate the story. West’s perseverance through each obstacle is something that everyone can relate to. Her feelings of love, betrayal, friendship, and hope encompass the human condition. The philosophical dilemmas presented to her are heavy, and make you wonder, ‘What would I do?’ Not only is it a story of survival and determination, but it exposes a very real situation, the ever declining condition of Our Earth.

 

I was tagged by Melissa Baer Lummis www.melissalummis.blogspot.com

Tag! You're next, Allison Silver www.sssahm.blogspot.com

Tag! You're next, LeeAnn Rhodes www.storiesbylee.blogspot.com

Excuses are like...

It's 4:10 AM, time to wake up. That's what my husband's alarm said this morning via the sound of shrill bells. Silly me, last night I thought it sounded like a good idea to get up and work on the book before the rest of the world joined me, and Ryan is good at making me follow through on my goals...too good.

Though I didn't get a lot of time to myself before a bad dream wrenched my 7 year old out of bed for the day (at 5:20 a.m!), I am choosing to be grateful that I made any progress at all. Look at the bright side, I could have just sat on Facebook or Twitter for my entire writing period, or even worse (or better?) I could have slept until 6 a.m. like usual.

Lately, I've found it difficult to make progress as I should. I haven't failed any goals, mostly because I haven't made any, but I have gone from writing every day to writing three times a week. I've gone from being willing to write anytime, anywhere, on anything, to demanding a computer. I've even gone so far as to require absolute silence and focus to write, something that as a mother of three, I'm rarely afforded...like never. So what happens? I didn't write for a couple of weeks. Then, when I began again, I only did so when I could take a break away from the house for a few hours- how realistic is that on a long-term basis...I'll tell you. It's NOT. This is part of a downward spiral of excuse making, and potentially something that would tear apart my ambitions. I'D BECOME A WRITING DIVA! Not in the awesome way, in the "nothing is good enough" way.

Then I was gifted a Kindle book called "Are You There Blog? It's Me Author" by my pal, Liz Shulte (who is a fantastic writer, check out her books on Amazon!), which I began reading right away since I need all the help I can get. Not 20% into the book, I got totally busted. The author gave three sample excuses for not writing and not taking ownership. Guess what? I got 2 out of 3, but unlike it was for Meatloaf, 2 out of 3 is really bad! Those two were 1) I'd write more if I had a better computer, and 2) I'd write more if I had more uninterrupted time. Oh, man. That hurt. I was totally pegged.

My computer, which has always been a bit of a lug anyway, died for the umpteenth time a couple of months ago. We've attempted to resurrect it countless times; it has more lives than our cat. But it flat lined again and I lost my will to keep trying, leaving us with only a teensy, tiny netbook left for all household computer needs. *gasp* I wanted to buy one, REALLY BAD, a nice new one, one that doesn't threaten to die on a daily basis making me backup my work every other minute, just in case. But, we're purchasing a home, so we are saving like crazy...not a good time for a major purchase. Frustrations mounting, I created excuse #1.

As you may already know from my profile, I have 3 young and very spirited children. They adorable, they're sweet, they're my pride and joy, and they're NOISY! They rampage around, playing with the dog, chasing the cat, eating everything, asking for drinks, wanting to draw, paint, make things out of clay, play guns, play video games, run outside, fight, cry, tattle, jump, hug, kiss, wrestle, talk, sing, scream...rarely do they sit still and never are they quiet. Quiet means trouble.

Though when the story hit me initially, nothing could derail my tenacity to make words appear on paper, but over time, when I had to work harder to make the story progress, get through writer's block, come up with problems, solutions, character development, etc...every giggle, every tap on my shoulder was a force strong enough to derail my train of thought, which had gone from being a Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) to a rambling toy train half chewed by the dog. Why bother writing at home at all? I didn't. I wrote when I could leave and go to my favorite writing place...a certain coffee shop called the Inner Bean, which I could do only Tuesday and Thursday, because that's when they stayed open long enough for me to get there after my husband got home from work and I could escape. Wow, two days a week...regardless of the fact that I did get a lot more done during those times, my 2 year old would be in middle school before I could get this book published at that rate. Thus I beget excuse #2.

Forget the fact that we're moving (excuse #3). Forget the fact that movers are coming tomorrow. Forget that I need a new computer. Forget that I need work space and time. Life is messy and it will never be in a place that makes you slow down enough to take a breath, stretch out and say "Ahhhhh...now I can do this." If I wait for that, I'll always be a writer that doesn't write, an author that never publishes. It's the only way I can be a failure.

So, I've made some changes.
- I'm going to make myself goals. I can't reach goals if I don't make them.
- I'm going to create deadlines.
- I'm going to get up early or stay up late, whatever it takes to find the time to write for a little bit at least 6 days per week.
- I'm going to make a plan to get a new computer, but in the meantime, I will work with whatever resources I have available. I will use the netbook, I will find a library, I will get out my pen if I have to.
- I'm going to keep a positive outlook and not allow life's curve balls to take me out.

So, for all those writers out there that fall victim to the "I would write more if..." thoughts, for anyone who thinks that the perfect moment to reach your goals will present itself naturally, WAKE UP! If you don't take accountability for your future, if you don't grab your excuses by the gullet and squeeze the breath out of them, they'll keep you down forever.

Remember, excuses are like Today. You've got one. What you do with it is up to you.

Have a great day. NO EXCUSES!