Category Archives: #am writing (and all things writing related)
Y is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
Y is for You
(Post 25 on my WIP)
To be ‘successful’ writers need readers and I’m hoping that means you.
As readers I believe we are jointly responsible for creating the story, we filter it through our own personal lens and analyse the work through our own experience. A book will be read in a different way by everyone who reads it and in a different way again on repeat readings.
I think I have learnt an important lesson for me and I think that is that I would prefer to share my work when it is more complete – where I have at least a complete outline and a fuller understanding of my characters if not a full first draft. I find I can get easily confused if too many filters are used and find it hard to back track to the original view. That is not to say the views of others aren’t or won’t be important – I think I would just be able to be clearer about what can be re-filtered and what I want/need to stay raw.
What I’d like to know today though is all about you and your reading habits – feel free to tell me anything but I’m particularly interested in the following questions (feel free to answer as many or as few as you like):
Where do you like a story to start?
What traits do you look for in a main character?
What do you look for in an ending?
If a series is planned do you like cliffhangers or prefer each book to be rounded off?
Where do you read?
E or paper or both?
Binger or snacker? (i.e. Do you prefer to read books as quickly as possible, sometimes in one go or one chapter at a time, making the ‘flavour last’)
Do you read books more than once? Why? What happens in a repeat reading?
To you what makes a good book?
I look forward to reading all about you and eventually I’d really love to be able to give you my interpretation of Training Time for you to filter in your way.
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X is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
X is for X-Rated
(Post 24 on my WIP)
Just read what could be considered a raunchy scene in Insurgent (full review on 1st May, when I’ve finished it and when we are allowed to release our reviews in celebration of the publication day of Veronica Roth’s follow up to Divergent).
Also one of my beta readers commented on how I’d introduced Jane, representing her as promiscuous, and whether that was appropriate in Young Adult fiction.
This got me thinking about audience and what is appropriate – about the ‘moral responsibility of authors’.
There has been debate about the violence in The Hunger Games and Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden which centres on a brother/sister incestuous relationship has massively divided opinion.
When I think about what I read when I was younger I think it helped me explore issues that I needed to understand in a non threatening way.
But as Serendipity Viv so eloquently writes – there are times when our threshold of acceptance change – as we age, as we become parents or experience other life events.
My response to her post was (and when I say children I really mean teens):
Wow, what a brave post. I really don’t think anybody really wants to see incest, violence and other unsavoury things in YA or other fiction – I’m guessing (hoping) they were just demanding its right to be there and sadly it exists in the ‘real world’. I think you are perfectly within your rights not to read a book if you don’t want to.
I won a set of Tabitha Suzuma’s books and read Forbidden first (the only one I have read so far). Why did I pick that one? Because the reviews were outstanding, as is the book. It makes you understand how these things could happen and it broke my heart just a little.
I am speaking as a person who is not a mother but I recognise that the protective feelings that come with that are not made up, I have seen some quite unsappy friends change quite dramatically. I think you are right that parents need to be more aware of what their children are reading (and watching) and not police it or stop it but to be prepared to discuss the difficult issues that arise. I think literature is an amazing way to learn and I think we do children a disservice if we protect them too much leaving them naive and a bit vulnerable possibly. Neither do I believe we should shove it in their faces before they are ready. My copy of Forbidden does say ‘Not for younger readers’ on the back.
I think the reasons I have drawn to paranormal/fantasy are similar – it’s not real – it’s escapism. I don’t think I could read a Forbiddenesque book everyday and stay happy but sometimes we need to understand the dark side too – it’s just way too scary otherwise.
If you do decide to read it I look forward to your review.
Thanks for this very thought provoking post.
As I already mentioned in my Q is for Questions Answered post – Nicola Morgan says (in the comments on this post here) ‘NOTHING is too dark for YA! (Though it does have to be handled properly.)’
Do you agree that there is nothing too dark for YA?
For those who are parents – do you think you’d stop your younger self reading the books you did when a teenager?
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W is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
W is for Weapons
(Post 23 on my WIP)
With Friday came ‘Weapons Training and History of Weapons’. Professor Rachel Harris, a leggy woman with waist length blonde hair and Sergeant Derek Adams, just the right amount of buff with short cropped hair, looked like a couple from the pages of a celebrity gossip magazine, Jane thought.
Here’s my vision of Derek and Rachel.
Now guns and weapons in general are not my sort of thing at all but I can see this needing to be an area that I need to research a lot more. I even wonder if, because I write a scene about gun training, whether it would be beneficial to try this myself – I have no idea even how I would go about arranging something like this, and being very anti-violence I’m not sure how it would make me feel.
‘I have fired an AK42, Gunman 12 and an Utiger’s.
Now here is where I wish I made better notes to myself as I write because some of the guns mentioned above, by one of my characters, are made up. I can do this if I’m setting my book in the future ;o). When Googling I found AK42 was real (I’d remembered that too), pretty sure I made up Gunman 12 and I can’t find Utiger’s so I guess I made that up too but I’ve no idea how. Randomly when I Google ‘Utiger’s gun’ it takes me to an Amazon review by Utiger of a spray gun!! If anybody actually knows Gunman 12 or Utiger’s are real please let me know because my brain has clearly forgotten.
How good at you at keeping track of how/where your ideas originate? (I will be using the notes feature in Scrivener to sort this out in future – if I remember that is).
Writers make up things all the time – do you think it’s enough to have seen lots of TV programmes/films or read other books that discuss a topic or should you talk to someone who has had an experience or even (obviously within legal, ethical, moral limits etc) experience something yourself? Clearly I can’t see myself eating a raw steak or taking drugs or doing anything illegal or violent so how do we write about these things? Personally I try and use writing at times to make sense of the world around me, particularly with things I don’t understand. But, when you publish a book how forgiving are readers? If I describe a gun scene where something happens that would never happen in real life is that going to be accepted within my story or could it make a reader put the book down? Clearly we can’t always stick to what we know but where does the responsibility to make something as accurate as possible end?
And on that note what is the strangest/most extreme thing you have done in the name of writing research?
kirstyes 