There's an interesting review of Adam Rapp's new play in the current (May 31) "The New Yorker." But I'm only writing about some information about AR in the piece, and not about the play. AR taught at Vermont (He'd written "The Buffalo Tree" and was a well-reviewed YA author) for one semester a decade or so ago. He was and is a smart guy, young and talented.

"The New Yorker" piece talks about his going to a town in Pennsylvania where "The Buffalo Tree" had been locked away in the principal's office; he thought he'd maybe change some minds during a censorship debate but came away wondering "whether his novel was in fact appropriate" for young readers.

I'm sympathetic with that. "Stoner & Spaz" is often on a banned books list and I've talked to parents -- some reasonable, some so hysterical they expect to hear my cloven hooves on the library floor as the smell of brimstone permeates the room.

Sometimes waving a P.E.N. award around and showing them glowing reviews calms people down, but other times I do that and talk calmly about Colleen's astonishing influence on Ben and they listen and nod and say, "Okay but does she have to use the F-word so much? I hate for my kid to read that. And why do they have to have sex. They're kids!"

Then we have a conversation like this: would one F-word be okay but are eight of them too much? How about four? And, I say, their sexual encounters are for Ben more about self-esteem than lust. They say, "Okay but do you have to write about how they take off their clothes? Can't they just get it over with?"

Then, like poets everywhere, a weariness comes over me and I long to lie down by a brook and dream.

First Person

Last week we had a pretty good chat here at the Inkpot about third person (3P) narratives and "telling." So, I guess it's time to talk about first person (1P). The thing about 1P narratives, of course, is that they are all telling; the form is pretty much a monologue. Even when dialogue is included, it's there under the umbrella of "This is what we said, according to me."

I'm revising a novel now and am switching it from 1P to 3P. Who knows where it will end up. For many reasons I think it's wicked hard to write in 1P, the primary one being it's so easy to mess up point of view as you try to tell the whole story. That's not the reason I'm backing off from it now. Why am I switching to 3P? I guess because I think 1P works best when the story calls for tunnel vision. Perhaps this is why it's such a popular match with YA fiction and the me-me-me of adolescence. I've used a 1P narrator in 3.5 of my books. Discount the .5--I used it that time to vary things in a dual-narrator book. But the other books starred girls who were obsessed, blinded to the larger picture because of one thing or another.
My current protagonist is not so focused; to the contrary, she's very much an observer of things. And the scope of a 3P narration feels better. For now.

Some readers hate 1P narratives. Some writers never work in anything else. Thoughts?

MQ

Shoes--follow up

Last week I blogged about a shoe dilemma—buy them for an event not? Thanks for those of you that wrote in and told me to go for it. Several have asked since then if I bought the shoes after all. Well, for those curious, I did NOT (I compromised by painting my toenails purple). The stressful event passed and was a success, and do you know why? Because I wrote myself through it. I thought about my novel most of the time—through awkward dinner conversations right down to the hotel we stayed in with its cheesy bright blue carpet and cockroach shaped cracks in the bathtub (you better believe that’s going into my book). I brought my notebook with me everywhere and at one point left the dinner to jot down a new chapter. I put on my social pleasantries in public, but in my brain my characters never left me. I had an epiphany of how the ending and have decided to cut one of the characters, which changes everything in a good way.
I never needed the shoes after all. They were cute, but really how often will I wear tropical colored four-inch high platform espadrilles? Certainly not around the Hamline campus as I dart from GLS to the lecture hall. I know some of you may be disappointed that I didn’t make the splurge, (I would have told any of you to buy them, too) but I feel fantastic. I saved money and I got good work done, plus I got through a stressful situation with ease. What more is there to life than that?

The lesson here? Writing is the answer to everything. For a writer, writing saves us more than shoes ever will, and it is far more satisfying...really. I love shoes, but trust me on that.

Now if I sell this book, I will most definitely buy something fantastic to go meet with my editor.

Ask the Inkpot!!

Good afternoon, Inkpotters. Below is a question from the "Ask the Inkpot" inbox for you to wrestle with this week. Readers, if you have a question for the bloggers, please send it to asktheinkpot@gmail.com

Thanks!! Administrator

QUESTION FROM READER:
Hey there...

I'm drowning in false starts for a novel that is begging to be released from my brain, but somehow, I cannot bring it together. I've been told that all I need to do is keep writing, that serendipity will pull it together for me, like magic. I'm still waiting after three years, with about six false but compelling starts that I believe somehow all fit together but I don't know how or why.

Do I try to weave together the common threads of the false starts into a new piece? Do I trash it all and start from scratch, trying so hard to stop trying so hard? Does this mean that it's not ready to be written, that I should start a different project until I have a rough idea of who is in my book and who isn't? Thanks so much for taking a stab at this. It's been on my mind for a while, and I don't know what to do next.

Not so anonymously,
Jen

PS- Love the blog. The discussions are like mini-lessons that have me thinking for days.

The Writer as Basket Case II - World of Publication

While Anne is dealing with her long editorial letter, this bright news for the rest of you.

A couple of my writer friends really keep up on the latest publishing news. I read or skip their emails, depending on my writing mood. Try this one.

"I read in Publishers' Weekly last week that 70% of books don't earn out their advance. Then read this today:

And, in traditional publishing—i.e. the “success” stories of those who got contracts with publishing houses—7% of the books publish generate 87% of book sales. This means, she noted, that 93% of all published books sold less than 1,000 copies."

Hey, if your book sells only 1000 copies you're in the in crowd, the pressure off. But oh the sales figures are so important for new contracts. Some of those 93% category books are terrific ones that never got the spin and support they needed to reach readers.

Get out the martini shaker indeed.

The Writer as Basket Case

My esteemed fellows in Inkpottery are writing beautiful posts that thoughtfully plumb the depths of lovely writing metaphors--this is the sort of thing they do, after all. Meanwhile I have spent the last week cleaning up after an extremely sick little boy. There are all sorts of metaphors I could plumb here, and all sorts of in depth descriptions I could give you about the things I have spent my mornings and evenings cleaning up--for I am a writer, after all, and this is the sort of thing I do--but I do so want to keep my job. So I'll just leave it to your ample, writerly imaginations.

I'm in the process of moving and trying to get a house on the market in the moments when I'm not cleaning up various disgusting substances, and I'm sure there are metaphors to be found in the layers of stuff in the basement, in the pieces of toys from homeowners past found behind radiators, in the storage containers full of things that each must be taken out and looked it and remembered and examined: You were something I acquired once, something I kept once, something that has sat here in these giant plastic containers because at one point in my life I could not let go of you. And now, now that I have had a little more time away from you, now that so much has passed, what am I going to do with you now?

On second thought, there's no metaphor there.

I have sitting in my in box an editorial letter for my latest book. Writers do so enjoy bragging about the length of their editorial letters--Oh yeah, well, mine was fourteen pages! And of course they are always single-spaced. This is the important detail. This is the one that really puts into focus the absurdity of the length. Well, I have now won this conversation for all of eternity. Mine is twenty-one pages. Single-spaced. Take that, Koertge. So after the hurly-burly has been cleaned up from my floor, I will be taking out bits of my book, looking at them, remembering, and examining. And, as miserable as the process can be, it beats preschool effluvium.

The Writer as Gardener

Wow. What a stimulating post and discussion about the structure of a novel. While you all contemplated writer as architect and looked upward, I was down in the dirt. If you build a house, you eventually have to deal with the dirt around it before the weeds take over. And this weekend we did just that. Drought tolerant, native plants and all that. When it comes to a green thumb, mine is colorless. But a writer friend of mine is a genius. Passionate about plants and semi-retired from her landscaping business, I begged her to work her magic on our place. Like watching a great movie or reading a riveting book, I was carried away by her production. Saturday we worked on mounds and pathways. Yesterday the fun part came as she picked only the best and economical plants at the nursery and then came back to our house, arranging and rearranging their locations until it was just right.

We live on a the edge of a park, so neighbors kept walking by with their dogs and oogling. Come to my place, they begged. We're overrun by weeds. Margy smiled and later told me she only works with people she likes. At age seventy, she's earned that right. At one point during the day, I thought about how I wanted an editor like Margy. One who could work magic with my manuscript. And then I stopped myself. No, Margy the gardener is writer and editor all wrapped up in one. The writer brings the magic, the editor helps with the pruning. Every time I look at our pathways and plants, I will try to remind myself of how much Margy loves her work.

Who in your life loves their work? Get out your slide ruler today, but don't forget the gardening gloves.

The Writer as Architect

I love movies and see dozens of them a year, lots of them in an actual theatre vs. DVD. But I was watching "Walking and Talking" the other day on IFC (I'd seen it before and admired it then) and started to ask myself how it worked. Why did this scene fit here? Why is this shot outdoors? With dialogue this spare, how does the writer wring so much out of it?

Movies are good things to practice on. They are very pared down compared to a novel with its scene setting and descriptions. I've had more than one student write only the dialogue of a story until it sang. At that point the rest of the prose pretty much took care of itself.

Indies are more fun to work with than big budget pictures. They're often lean by nature. Something like the new "Robin Hood" is watchable but it's also a mess with so many sub-plots, not to mention the phlegmatic Russell Crowe.

For people who don't need the practice and want to go right to fiction, here are some basic questions: Why is this scene where it is? Why is it as long as it is? What's new? How does it move the plot along? How does it add a facet to a familiar character? Is the dialogue more than utilitarian?

Like houses, novels are constructed. Make sure yours doesn't collapse in the first critical tornado.

The Writer's Dilemma and Shoes

Okay, forget writing and let’s get down to what’s really important for a moment. I have to go to an event this weekend – a potentially stressful event where I may need an extra boost of confidence. Usually whenever I sign a new book contract I treat myself to a pair of shoes. Currently I have no book contract, however I am still excited about my work-in-progress, and my editor is encouraging (sad to say no more contracts with a partial novel anymore). My dilemma: do I buy these new platform shoes that would match my black dress perfectly and also give me some extra height for a particular event even though I cannot afford them and I have no book contract to sign? Would buying them jinx my contract or would it be a good luck omen?

These are the worries of the freelance writer. Treat or no treat? When to celebrate? Bad luck or good luck? Frivolity or practicality? I can spend all my energy either talking myself into it or out of it, when really if I just get back to my novel all these anxieties about shoes and stressful events will fade away! Writing is almost always the answer to everything.

Crossing Stones - Double Duty Novel

The past winter, long ago it seems like now, I read Printz Honor book author Helen Frost’s historical novel Crossing Stones. Most often it is the character or story that stays with me. Both are true for this mesmerizing story. But her beautiful poetic forms also entranced me and helped carry the theme of the story. Lisa recently blogged about using experimental forms in art and writing. The poetic novel is no longer considered groundbreaking, but as Jason wrote in one of his critical essays, some poetic novels are light verse and nothing more. But Frost’s story set April 1917 – January 1918 uses a formal structure to give the sense of stepping from stone to stone across a flowing creek. The character Muriel’s poems are free form like the creek. Ollie’s and Emma’s represent the stones in cupped-hand sonnets, 14-line poems in which the first line rhymes with the last line and the second line rhymes with the second-to-last, Ollie’s rhymes at the beginning of each line and Emma’s at the end.

Not only is this a great story featuring the tension of World War I approaching and the strengthening movement for women’s suffrage, it deepened my understanding and appreciation for poetry. Wow – double duty. What story recently has been a terrific read and deepened your understanding of craft?

For a blog that does a terrific job of analyzing the craft behind recent books, check out Hamline grad student Heather Hedin Singh’s blog Story Sleuths - http://storysleuths.blogspot.com. This month Heather and two fellow Seattle writers Meg Lippert and Allyson Valentine Schrier discuss the Newbery honor novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.