Faculty Voices with Sherri Smith: Writing in the Age of “I Wonder What Comes Next”

Were you like me, and so many other writers, mid-draft in something and feeling pretty good about it (or terrible, but willing to continue because it still felt promising), and then… the election.

I wonder if you’ve felt the sea change?  

Now, maybe you were blindsided.  Maybe you thought, “this is a done deal.”  Maybe you thought your side would win.  Or maybe you knew without a doubt that your side would not win, but you felt the freedom to vote your conscience.  Or maybe you won, and you were hopeful, but still a little shocked.

Regardless, the thing lying on your desk now labeled “Relevant Text” is no longer quite so relevant.  It’s as if you’ve written a manifesto in Standard English and woken up in a world that only speaks Pig Latin.  Now what?  Can I rewrite this?  Should I?  Will Pig Latin last?  What if Pig Latin lasts?  H-oay o-nay!  (Is that even correct?)

You have become irrelevant over night.  

Or, if you are very lucky and prescient and timeless, you’re “this is going no where” work is suddenly the Great American Make America Great Again Novel!  Maybe it’s a clarion call for justice no one knew we needed.  Maybe it’s a treatise on how to reunite a nation half the citizens didn’t realize was divided.  Maybe you will be the next Nobel winner for nailing it, and getting it to market on time!

But, for the rest of us, what now?

Do we scramble to write more sparkly vampires because, hey I hear that was hot a few years ago, or do we stay committed to our newly not-so-relevant works and mine them for new relevance?  As chidren’s writers, how do we deal with our own sudden coming-of-age while still offering honest guidance to the next generation?

Because, as much as the world has changed and continues to change, so are we.  We are no longer looking back in order share what we’ve learned with young people.  We are learning anew, and we need time to absorb this new age of “I Wonder What Comes Next.”  The only thing that has stayed the same are your manuscript (and if you had one, your deadline).  And now your story is wondering, “What’s the attire in this brave new world?”  Brown shoes in a tuxedo country?  

It doesn’t matter because, in this case, the writer makes the clothes.  Listen to your self changing, growing over the next few months.  Tap into the truth of this new coming of age.  Who will we be as a nation?  It’s that new citizen who will be the one picking up the pen, flipping open the keyboard.  That’s the writer you will have become.  And our manuscripts will never be the same.

As Octavia Butler said in her seminal novel, Parable of the Talents:  God is Change.

Welcome to the new religion.

A WRETCHED SENSE OF WRONGNESS

I’m reading a book right now that, like the debate about the list of books for feminist readers of YA in Anne’s post, raises questions about conventions.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones covers everything from ADEPTS to ZOMBIES and includes travel guide icons both typical (Food, Lodging) and atypical (Evil, Magic) as well as Official Management Terms, defined as “words which the management has dreamed up for use every time a certain thing, fact, sensation, or person is mentioned.” In Fantasyland, for example, stew (an almost ubiquitous food) is always thick and savory; you get a sense of wrongness or a feeling of being watched when assassins are approaching; and the occupants of hovels always eke out a wretched existence.

Most kinds of writing have conventions, certainly, just as most occupations and avocations have shared vocabulary. So when does convention become cliché? When do we depend too much on convention or cliché to do the emotional work that our characters and scenes should be doing instead?

Just as an exercise, try writing, in any genre, a scene heavily laden with overused words, phrases, and actions. Now rewrite the same scene with unexpected language. The key word is rewrite: my own first drafts are filled with flat language, clichés, filter words. Rereading those drafts, seeing my writing eke out a wretched existence, I am filled with a sense of wrongness. Revision is a chance to make my writing thick and savory.

And watch for other Tough Guides as listed in the front of Wynne Jones’s book, including The Tough Guide to Time Warps (out last century), The Tough Guide to the End of the World (coming soon), and The Tough Guide to Black Holes (unaccountably missing). Did I mention that the book makes me laugh out loud?