Literary or fun? How about both?

I suppose I should apologize for not putting something up yesterday, but it’s the end of the semester for me. Hopefully, everyone understands that.

In other news, I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. It was amazing. It was one of those books that at the end, you set it aside for a few minutes and just think. You maybe re-read some of the ending scenes, but mostly, you just think. Wow. If only every book hit you that hard. It was fun to read, and the pages kept turning, but it still made you think.

I was reading some silly online memes earlier today, and I noticed that quite a few of them were dissing fantasy and fiction (especially genre fiction). Some criticized adults who like children’s literature (I happen to be one) and said some rather insulting things about them, which I don’t think are true. They may be for some, I suppose, but not for me.

Anyway! Back to my point. Sometimes people criticize fantasy and sci-fi for not being literary enough. They don’t make fun of people who read it and don’t like people to write it. This bugs me. I know that they aren’t the same as To Kill a Mockingbird, but I still think that some of it, at least, has literary worth. This meme even criticized readers of Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, which is generally held to be a classic.

This doesn’t seem right to me. I have genres I don’t like, but I don’t call people stupid for liking them. In many cases, I think we should be glad that they are reading anything at all.

In any class I’ve had where they try to distinguish literary from genre fiction, plot driven from character driven stories, I always think about the many, many instances that blur the line. Can you really be interested in only the characters without being interested in the plot? I don’t think so. No. Without something happening to them, all you would be seeing is the characters talking to each other. You wouldn’t have any reason to be interested in them.

Can you be interested in the plot without being interested in the characters? Some would say yes, but I think that there needs to be at least one character that you are interested in. Why else would you be interested in the plot? Sure, not every character is well-rounded and 3D, but you have to care about someone. Someone has to change.

The line isn’t as clear-cut as some would think, and it isn’t just plot-driven genre fiction that crosses into literary fiction. I personally think that without the story of Boo Radley, and the Ewells, what would endear us to Scout Finch? Don't get me wrong; I love her, but remember my point. Something has to happen in a story. Characters and plot are hand-in-hand. I recognize that there are different categories. I just wish some people wouldn’t be so stiff about it.

In Andrew Clements’ The School Story (a children’s book—I really don’t understand why adults aren’t supposed to like them), he tells us, “Like all writers, first [Natalie] was a reader.” So today, I am a Writer, but I am also a Reader. And I like reading all kinds of things, both classics AND fantasy. And sometimes, the line can be crossed.

Imagery of Envy

The darkness enveloped her, creating a cocoon that blended with her dark skin. A slight wind tugged at her heavy, black woolen sweater, inviting her to go along with it, to become part of it. But she couldn’t.

Not tonight.

She crept almost silently along in the shadows, draped in blackness from her high-heeled boots and tight black jeans to her “Find the Ninjas” T-shirt and wool sweater. The faintest click from her heels echoed down the alley. Glaring light from streetlamps on the street behind her melted into the orange glow of an alley cat’s eyes, then faded into nothing at all. Her dark brown eyes widened to take in the complete darkness. A glint of moonlight reflected in them for but a moment as the clouds allowed it a peek, revealing the now vertical pupils that rested within.

This is the beginning of a scene I wrote quite a while ago just to practice my descriptions. I was thinking about it because early this week, my best friend asked me to edit a story for her. As I did, I noticed the wonderful way she used simile in her descriptions. She managed to choose just the right one to say exactly what she meant every single time. They weren’t difficult to understand—they weren’t cloistered towards a select group of people, neither did they need to be picked apart in order to make sense. Other descriptors she used—hair that “curled with arrogance,” for instance—were equally clear and understandable. And reading this, the thought came to me.

Why can’t I write like that?

Don’t get me wrong; I believe strongly in my ability to write. However, I feel that my descriptions, on occasion, become boring. Or at least typical, not reaching out to grab you the way that hers do. Every word in her story brought with it the sense of urgency that the story demanded.

(Yes, I’m jealous. I’ll admit it.)

Description is an interesting thing. It has to be subtle enough that readers absorb it without realizing and interesting enough that they won’t be so bored that they skip it. A typical, mundane sort of description is easily forgotten and could slow the pace of the story. But too many similes or metaphors can do the same. How do you get that balance? How can you tell what’s too much? Or too little, as I think is more common in my own writing.

This is something I think about pretty often. It’s all a matter of practice; I know that. Sometimes, though, I wish that I could just do it perfectly. But I can’t. I just have to work at it like everyone else. I am not perfect, and I have to realize that. It is a part of becoming better. I will write and learn as I do. I am a Writer.

Storybook Weaver

First off, I’m sure everybody knows right already about the earthquake in Japan. I am praying for them, and I hope you are too. With the 8.9 earthquake, followed by tsunami and threats of nuclear plants spewing radiation all over the place, they need all the prayers they can get.

I am happy to say that the snag I hit didn’t last very long. It was mostly a matter of skipping the intro and going straight to the important part of the scene. In late, out early, as they say.

I once had a program on the computer called Storybook Weaver. I used it when I was probably seven or eight to write little silly stories about rabbits and crabs and other things like that. I never really thought about why it had the name it did, why it was called Storybook Weaver, but I think I can finally say I understand.

You see, I’m currently at a point in my novel where everything is almost coming together. Not long ago, I had an epiphany which resulted with me finally admitting that a character I had been struggling with was simply unnecessary. He did nothing to advance the plot—not even provide humor (which I’m not very good at, honestly). He was also very bland and two dimensional.

As soon as I decided I would scratch him from the plot, the floodgates of inspiration opened, and many other things became clear. Plotlines met in the middle, other character’s personalities suddenly made themselves clear, and many things that I had written in the beginning were obsolete or needed editing to get them up-to-date.

I knew from experience that if I went back right then and re-wrote those beginning scenes, I would likely never get to the end of the story, so I decided to just pretend that all those things had happened, and keep writing forward.

So, I broke out my Plotting Notebook, pens and sticky notes, and began to see where I was going. The strange thing about this arrangement is that now, everything is in a very volatile state; it doesn’t matter whether I wrote the scene yesterday or a year ago, it is all at once written in sand and set in stone. It has happened, yet maybe it hasn’t, depending on what the plotline calls for.

The end is in sight, but I’m far from it. I feel like I’m taking the pieces of plot and spinning a spider’s web from them. It’s patchwork, piecemeal. I have to make the beginning match with the end, and the end with the beginning. All the guns left on mantelpieces must go off. I must give enough information to keep them interested, yet withhold enough to do the same. So now, I can see that it’s no wonder they call story-telling weaving. I am a Weaver. I am a Writer.

Creative Switch set to..."Off"

Being pretty new to blogging, I know relatively little about it. However, I do know that one thing a blogger ought to be is consistent. For my attempt at this, I will try to post once a week. For the time being, I'll post on Fridays (though this one may already be late).

The main writing issue on my mind at the moment is the feeling of having your creative switch turned off by some unknown force. I hate to talk about writer's block so early in the blog, but everything I have written in the past few days has not been what I want, whether relating to my story or this. There are a few things I do when I get stuck, and the first goes against all conventional wisdom and counsel.

I stop writing.

When I know what I write will just be rewritten--and rewritten 1000 times better I might add--I don't see a reason to force myself to write the horrible refuse that spills forth. The words feel stretched out, like they've been wrung from a dry cloth. They aren't worth writing. I keep the writing that enables me to recognize that I've reached that point, but once I do, I don't keep writing until I know why I'm stuck.

Once I've stopped, I take a step back and look at the problem from several different angles. Is the scene necessary? If it is, is it being told from the best point of view? Is it happening at the right time? Are the right people there? If I can't figure out the answers, or if the answers still don't help me move on, I take a different route.

I draw pictures.

Most of the time my doodles have very little, if anything, to do with what I'm writing. But the problem is there in the back of my mind and I work on it unconsciously. (This is something my Calculus teacher once told me about. If you can't work it out, put it away for a while, and your brain will figure it out. It never really worked for math, but it's good for writing.)

Sometimes, all creative faculties have abandoned me, and I just have to walk away and do something else for a while. Sometimes, that while is a few hours. Sometimes it's days. And a few times, I must admit, it has lasted months. But I always come back, and I continue working on that same thing that originally gave me the problem. Some answer this problem by just coming up with something new, but I want to be an author, and I never would be if I did that. Doing what I do is often looked down on--the "you can't wait for a specific mood" kind of thing--but in my position, I am writing for me. When I have others to please, maybe I'll find a way to get rid of the creative mood swings, but for now, I only have to write for me. I am a Writer. And I have time to wait.

Hey, it's still Friday! (for a few more minutes)