On Learning From What You Read

Photo credit: Erik Schepers on Flickr

It's often repeated that one of the few rules without exception in the writing world is if you want to be a good writer, you must read. Reading is essential for writers for a variety of reasons: it keeps you aware of what's out there and what's selling, it shows you what's already been done and what's popular, and it gives you the opportunity to really consider what works and what doesn't for every novel you pick up.

I've gotten questions about that last point in particular, namely, how do you analyze the books you read to apply lessons to your own writing?

For me, I find that most of my analysis is passive. I'll quietly consider voice, tense, and stylistic choices as I read, really only paying close attention when it's an usual tense (second person, third person present, etc) or when the voice is very different from anything I've read before (Half Bad, The Hate U Give, and so on). When a book has a lot of POVs, I'll ask myself as I read why (and whether) each POV is necessary and whether or not I think it works. I'll sometimes find myself asking how I would improve a sentence—or if a sentence is really well-written, I'll sometimes re-read it and consider why I like it so much.

Then when I go back to my own writing, I kind of have two modes of applying what I've learned. When I specifically want to evoke a similar technique or stylistic thing, I'll sometimes open up the book I learned it from and re-read a section so it's fresh in my mind as I consider how I'll write. But most of the time, the lessons I've learned come out passively—they embed into my writing as I first draft, and more often as I revise and consider how to improve a manuscript. I'll often find that something especially reminiscent from a book will stick with me for years—even without re-reading—and as I write I'll occasionally recognize what book I learned a particular technique from.

I know some writers take notes when something sticks out to them from a book, and that's cool too—I could definitely see that paying off. But the passive application of just paying attention while I read and asking myself questions as I go along has worked well for me so far—and maybe it'll work for you too.

How do you learn from books you've read?

Twitter-sized bite:

How do you learn from books you've read? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

Book Review: THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake

Photo credit: Goodreads

So as most of you know, I'm a huge YA Fantasy fan, so when I heard the pitch for Kendare Blake's Three Dark Crowns, I was definitely curious. Combined with an awesome cover and an unusual tense choice (third person present) and I was glad I picked it up.

Before I go into how much I enjoyed this one, let's take a look at the back cover copy on Goodreads:

"Every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions. 

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown. 

If only it was that simple. Katharine is unable to tolerate the weakest poison, and Arsinoe, no matter how hard she tries, can’t make even a weed grow. The two queens have been shamefully faking their powers, taking care to keep each other, the island, and their powerful sister Mirabella none the wiser. But with alliances being formed, betrayals taking shape, and ruthless revenge haunting the queens’ every move, one thing is certain: the last queen standing might not be the strongest…but she may be the darkest."

So initially I was a little confused about why there were so many POVs—I was expecting three (one for each princess) and I think we end up with...five? Something like that. For the first portion of the book, I know the many POVs made it difficult for some people to get into it. I just rolled with it, and in the end it made sense as to why every POV was necessary. I will say I did find it a little difficult to keep track of all the names and places (the map helped with the latter, though), so sometimes I confused characters. But once I got used to the cast, that became no longer distracting. 

So that said, there were two things I really liked about this book: the magic, and the sisters themselves. There are a lot of takes on magic in YA, and many of them look like Mirabella: some sort of elemental stuff with extras thrown in. Nothing wrong with that, I love elemental magic portrayals, but I was really fascinated by the magic of the poisoners and naturalists. The poisoners especially was magic I hadn't seen before in YA, and it was super fascinating to see how that magic manifested (or how it was supposed to manifest, anyway), how it affected the way other people looked at them, and how they "showed it off" to demonstrate power—and the ruse of power. 

What I really liked about the sisters was they exceeded my expectations in multiple ways. I'd expected Mirabella to be the "evil twin" in the sense that as the most powerful (whether she knows it or not) she'd be biting at the bit to take out her other two sisters, but she was much more complicated than that. 

But what I especially loved about the three was they demonstrated a variety of ways to "be a girl" without ever implying one way is better than the other. Katherine and Mirabella are both traditionally feminine and take power in their femininity—which was awesome to see. On Fennbirn, women are the top of the power totem pole, so the girls never deal with misogyny and in many ways, their femininity was used as a display of power (yay!). Arsinoe, however, is an entirely different kind of girl. She's defiant, cuts her hair short, and never once wears a dress—even in the scenes where the girls are expected to dress formally, she stands beside her two sisters in dresses wearing a black shirt, vest, and pants. I loved this, because I've literally never seen a princess portrayed as anything short of femininely unless she was in disguise—and as a bonus, Arsinoe never gets any grief over it. She's accepted as she is, and while acknowledged as different, no one ever implies her less feminine style is a bad thing. 

So all in all, I found this book fascinating—and I was so glued I read sixty percent of it in one day. While I didn't love some of the details at the end, I really enjoyed this one overall and I'm very much looking forward to the next book, One Dark Throne. 

Diversity note: From what I could tell, not much there, unfortunately.

Twitter-sized bite: 

.@Ava_Jae gives 4 stars to THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake. Is this dark fantasy on your TBR? (Click to tweet)

Vlog: On Creating Conflict

Without conflict, there isn't a story, but sometimes coming up with conflict isn't as easy as we'd like. So today I'm talking about coming up with different sources of conflict, from central conflict to tension throughout the manuscript.

RELATED LINKS:

• How I Plot
• How to Pick Your Next Book Idea
• How to Write Realistic Relationships
• On Character Motivations & Goals

How do you figure out conflict for your manuscripts? 

Twitter-sized bite: 

Struggling to figure out the conflict for your WIP? Author @Ava_Jae vlogs some tips. (Click to tweet)

Fixing the First Page Feature #33

Photo credit: mynameisgeebs on Flickr

Somehow, March is nearly over and it's time for the next Fixing the First Page critique—woohoo!

As usual, I'll start by posting the full first 250 excerpt, after which I'll share my overall thoughts, then my redline critique. I encourage you guys to share your own thoughts and critiques in the comments (because I'm one person with one opinion!), as long as it's polite, thoughtful, and constructive. Any rude or mean comments will be unceremoniously deleted.

Let's do this!

Title: MECHANICAL

Genre/Category: YA Dystopia

First 250 words:

"I took deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart. 

You can do it. You have to do it.

One more breath, two, three… 

It was early morning, but I still glanced around to make sure the street was empty. Not that many people lived in the area either way. I was surprised when I was informed I had to wait on that spot. In any case, the roof of an abandoned two-story building was the perfect hiding place. 

The air was calm and cool, oblivious to my state of mind. I was glad no one would ever notice this moment of weakness. I wasn’t afraid of a technical failure, but of an emotional one. Failing though was something I never allowed to myself. 

A man appeared in the corner of the street, starting me out of my thoughts. I studied him carefully. Around 40, tall and thin with a receding brown hairline. The description fitted. For the last hour, I had half wished he wouldn’t appear, almost hoped he would choose another street or time. But that was not my lucky day and definitely not his. 

He looked around him once or twice, but other than that, he looked certain no one was watching him.

No one but me. I tried to swallow my fear and resisted the urge to close my eyes.

Just do it already. 

One more breath. And I pulled the trigger of my rifle. 

Less than a second later, the man was lying motionless on the pavement."

Okay, so! I'm pretty partial to in medias res openings myself, because I like jumping right into the story. But the danger with these kind of openings is if you move too quickly and don't provide enough introspection and explanation, so they can sometimes be confusing and readers may find it difficult to connect with the protagonist. Which is what I'm seeing here.

As a reader, I have a lot of questions right away: why does she have to kill that guy? Does she do this often (is she an assassin)? What was he doing that he didn't want to be seen? What was she afraid of? You don't necessarily need to immediately answer all of the questions, but you definitely need to answer the most important one of why. Why is it so important that she kill this guy? Why does she have to? Without knowing the stakes, as a reader I don't really care if she succeeds or not, because I don't yet know why it matters. And because she's killing someone, it also makes it a little more difficult for me to connect with her, because from a reader perspective right now it just seems like she killed someone in cold blood.

Okay, so, with that said, let's take a look at the line edits:

"I took deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart. 

You can do it. You have to do it.

One more breath, two, three… 

It was early morning, but I still glanced around to make sure the street was empty. Not that many people lived in the area either way. I was surprised when I was informed I had to wait on that spot. A few things about this sentence: first, this would be a good place to give us more information—when who told her to wait there? And why was she surprised? What's different about this particular case? In any case, the roof of an abandoned two-story building was the perfect hiding place. 

The air was calm and cool, oblivious to my state of mind. As a reader, right now I'm also oblivious to her state of mind. :) Which is to say, this would be a good spot to give us a glimpse! What is she feeling right now? It'd be good to show those emotions before she comments on her weakness, because otherwise we're not really seeing much of anything that could qualify as "weakness." I was glad no one would ever notice this moment of weakness. I wasn’t afraid of a technical failure, but of an emotional one. What would qualify as an "emotional failure"? And what are the consequences if she has one? We need to know the stakes to really understand why this matters to her—and why it should matter to us. Failing though was something I never allowed to myself to fail. 

A man appeared in the corner of the street, starting me out of my thoughts. I studied him carefully. Around 40 forty, tall and thin with a receding brown hairline. The description fitted. For the last hour, I'd had half wished he wouldn’t appear, almost hoped he'd would choose another street or time. Why does she wish that? If she has to do this, why would she want him not to show? But that it wasn't not my lucky day and definitely wasn't not his. 

He looked around him once or twice, probably making sure certain no one was watching him. A couple reasons for this adjustment: firstly, I'm trying to make her sound more like a teen (sure versus certain, for example). Secondly this is her perspective, so I'm clarifying that this is what she thinks he's thinking. And third, rather than telling you to try to describe what "sure no one is looking" looks like, I think it's easier (and more effective) to adjust the sentiment a bit and say he's looking around for this reason rather than he looks like he's sure no one is looking. But if you prefer the latter, feel free—just describe what that looks like, rather than stating that's how he looks. 

No one but me. I tried to swallow my fear and resisted the urge to close my eyes. Okay, so rather than stating she's scared, it'd be much more effective to describe how that fear physically affects her and show it reflected in her thoughts. I wrote a post a while back on writing emotion effectively that you might find helpful with this. 

Just do it already. 

One more breath. And I pulled the trigger of my rifle. 

Less than a second later, the man was laying motionless on the pavement."

So there we have it! I think basically what this opening needs is more filling in, from clarifying the stakes, to a bit more explanation as to why she's there, to more time to really sink into her mind and see what she's feeling on the page. Interesting start overall, with room to flourish. If I saw this in the slush though, I'd probably pass because it still seems to need some work before it's ready for submission.

I hope that helps! Thanks for sharing your first 250 with us, Eleni!

Twitter-sized bite:

.@Ava_Jae talks stakes, showing emotion, and more in the 33rd Fixing the First Page Feature. (Click to tweet)

On Writing Family and Platonic Relationships

Photo credit: FieryLaSirena on Flickr

Sometimes, when writing a book with a romantic subplot, it can be easy to forget about other relationships. From acquaintances, to friends, to family, we all have some kind of relationship network, however large or small, and primarily good or bad it may be.

But especially in YA where romance tends to nearly always be present and family is often—er—killed off, it's easy to write yourself into a situation where the protagonist and love interest are the only people of importance in each other's lives.

And while that can sometimes work in a story, let's be honest—most people's circle of relationships is way more complicated than that.

In YA, platonic relationships that stay platonic are somewhat uncommon, and family relationships tend to go one of two ways: either everyone pretty much gets along (save for the occasional sibling bickering), or there isn't much family in the story at all. (There are exceptions of course, but, you know, generally speaking.)

In my own writing, I've been trying to challenge myself to write dynamic relationships, especially with family members. In Beyond the Red that mostly comes out in sibling relationships, but in one project in particular I'm working on I've been trying to focus more on a dysfunctional family unit and the complicated relationships therein. In part because I think there's still plenty of room for that in YA, and in part because to be frank, I have very complicated family relationships myself.

To the point, platonic relationships—whether through family, friends, or acquaintances—are a pretty huge part of everyone's lives, and certainly a big part of most teens' lives. While it's easy to let a romance overshadow other relationships in a character's life, it can be good to stop and consider what other people are important in your protagonist's life—and how those characters can help develop the plot and your protagonist along the way.

What are some of your favorite platonic and family relationships in YA?

Twitter-sized bite:

Romances aren't the only important fictional relationships. @Ava_Jae talks writing platonic & family relationships. (Click to tweet)

Fake Writers Don't Exist

Photo credit: BetIwontFail on Flickr

If you've been in the online writing community for any extended period of time, chances are likely you've come across who says or implies you must do something to be a real writer, or if you aren't writing a certain way, it isn't real writing. Sometimes the implication is accidental and the writer will clarify and apologize; sometimes it wasn't and they'll double down when called out.

Over the weekend we had another incident along those lines, when a pretty well-known author tweeted that writing = pen and paper. Some disabled writers, myself included, talked about why the implication that writing on your computer or phone, etc. isn't real writing is problematic and damaging, especially to the disabled community. But the whole incident got me thinking about this false set up of Real vs Fake writers.

So let me reiterate the title of this post: fake writers don't exist. It isn't a thing. And neither is fake writing.

Writing is writing, whether you put words down with pencil and paper, a keyboard, dictate, tapped on your phone, or some other way—and if you write, you're a writer. It doesn't matter if you started this morning, or three years ago, or three decades ago; it doesn't matter if you've been published; it doesn't even matter if you want to be published. The only requirement to calling yourself a writer is to write. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Twitter-sized bites:

How do you know if you're a real writer? @Ava_Jae says the answer is simple. (Click to tweet) 

Author @Ava_Jae talks about why "fake" writing and writers don't exist. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: On Breaking Writing Rules

I share a lot of writing rules and strategies both here and on my blog, Writability. But does every writing rule need to be followed? And what if a writing strategy doesn't work for you? Today I'm talking about exceptions and breaking the rules.

RELATED LINKS:

• Why Writers Must Read (vlog)
• On Writing the Perfect Project (vlog)
• On Bending (and Breaking) Writing Rules

What do you think? Have you broken any writing rules in a way that worked? Have any of your favorite books? 

Twitter-sized bite: 

Does every writing rule need to be followed? Author @Ava_Jae vlogs about exceptions. #writetip (Click to tweet)