Category Archives: craft

Podcasts: the everyman’s MFA

Many of my writing friends have graduated from MFA programs. A handful of them now teach in MFA programs around the country. I confess I have long envied their wealth of resources and regular connection to high quality lectures on all the topics that fascinate me. Alas, there are several other people in my family who need undergraduate degrees before I could consider continuing my own education. So how to grow as an artist? How to keep fresh in my reading and challenge my assumptions about craft? I have gone to many a writers’ conference over the years and found them invaluable. But at this point in my career, three books in print, one being printed currently, and more than a dozen completed manuscripts, I’m looking for maximum substance and minimal disturbance to my writing routine.

Enter the pod cast. UnknownI’ve discovered to my delight a number of podcasts that offer regular discussion of all things writerly. I like to listen to them when I’ve got a long solo road trip or when I’m cooking dinner. I’m going to list three of my favorites in the hopes that you will help me find more.

Unknown-1The first podcast I became aware of is The Narrative Breakdown by Cheryl Klein and James Monohan. It is a blog focused on the craft of story making through the lens of fiction editor Cheryl Klein and script and screewriter James Monohan. They really go in depth on topics from scene construction to character development to the power of irony. You can find their website here or subscribe to them through iTunes.

I have more recently found the New Yorker: Fiction which is a simple concept that is packed with good insights for the serious writer. Unknown-2I should say at the outset that my godparents got me a book of O. Henry’s short stories for my 10th birthday and I’ve been a fan of short stories ever since. This podcast is hosted by the editor of the New Yorker. She invites a different New Yorker story writer to choose a story from the archive and read it aloud. Then they discuss what makes the story special. Though none of the stories in the New Yorker are for children, I’ve learned a lot and broadened my scope considerably.

Unknown-3The third podcast I listen to regularly is more of a fan thing. I’ve been a reader of Sherman Alexie’s work for decades before he wrote for children. He’s a very engaging speaker and I’ve heard him in person a dozen times at least so when I heard he has a podcast, I subscribed immediately. The podcast is called A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment and it’s an ongoing conversation with fellow writer and small town Washington boy Jess Walters. The conversations they have range widely but are fascinating and revolve around all the various aspects of the writers life with the occasional foray into basketball and middle aged angst.

I would love to hear about your favorite podcasts in the comments.

 

 

To #%*& or not to *&^%$#: Swearing in Middle Grade Fiction

 

The expectations for the use profanity in children’s fiction are pretty clear. It’s commonplace in YA novels and completely absent in picture books and easy readers. But middle grade fiction takes the middle ground. Is swearing okay in a middle grade book? Well, it’s complicated. The issue is balancing authenticity with respect for your audience. Everybody encounters profanity; it is a language intensifier and can be useful in conveying the weight and reality of your characters situation. And yet it is the nature of profanity to offend, so any use will have consequences in how the book as a whole is received. UnknownAs a practical matter MG books with profanity tend to be shelved with YA no matter how young the character is. This is not necessarily a problem, To Kill a Mockingbird and it’s 9 year old protagonist Scout have been doing just fine in the YA section of the library for the last five decades. Even so any use of profanity should be carefully considered. When I’m confronted with an opportunity to use a swear word in my novels, here are five choices I consider.

  1. Omitimages

Every time I use profanity I rewrite the scene with out it, let it sit for a day or two and read the result out loud. I have been surprised by how often the scene was stronger without the swear word. Sometimes profanity is just a habit of the author and not integral to the character’s worldview or the movement of the plot.

  1. Reduce

Unknown-1My editor once told me that swearing is loud on the page in a way that it is not in real life. I think of it as the equivalent of yelling or texting in all caps. As the mom of many I can tell you yelling is most effective when used sparingly—usually when lives are at stake. I think the last time I actually yelled at home was when someone’s sleeve caught on fire while roasting a marshmallow. Because swearing functions as an intensifier, it’s power is diluted by overuse. If I am working with a character who would naturally swear a lot, I’ll run a word search and see if I can limit the swearing to places where it will have the most impact.

  1. EvadeUnknown-3

Sometimes you can duck the issue when the swearing is done by a non-viewpoint character. When I was working on Second Fiddle I knew that the moment that the girls discovered that they were all alone in Paris with no money, no passports and no return train tickets, any normal eighth grader would swear. But my main character wasn’t really the swearing type. Instead, I had her report that her friend said every swear she knew in English and then moved on to exhaust her supply of swear words in French and German. This preserved the authenticity of the scene without getting into a specific swear word.

 

  1. Substitute

Here is one of the more entertaining devices of MG fiction. Most kids get in trouble for swearing, and yet they have the same need for the occasional language intensifier as everyone else. So kids are great at making up substitutes. It’s the “drat, darn, and golly” solution, and it has great comic potential. Unknown-2The advantage to a curse word substitution is that it can also serve to convey information about the character and setting and lighten the mood of an otherwise tense situation. We had a fascinating conversation at a bookstore event recently with some women who wrote adult mysteries. There is an expectation in adult cozy mysteries that swearing is omitted so this author had her spice shop owner detective say things like, “Well that just frosts my chili peppers!” I had no idea such rules extended to the world of adult books.

 

  1. Commit

There are circumstances in which the first four choices are wrong for the voice of the character or the gravity of the situation. And in those cases swearing maybe appropriate. Freedom of Speech means nothing if we never use it, and if you have used profane speech appropriately in your book you will find both people who passionately attack any use of profanity and those who just as passionately defend your right to tell the story as you must, free of censure. I opted to use swearing to a very limited extent in Heart of a Shepherd, having considered and discarded the above considerations, and it has done no harm whatsoever to the book. It was warmly received, sold well, and was carried by Scholastic Book Clubs. A few libraries don’t shelve it in k-4 schools. I really have no argument with that. Most teachers who read it aloud chose to skip or modify the swear word in the classroom. No argument there either. On the other hand, many teachers and parents have told me that because they weren’t expecting profanity in a middle grade book, it gave them a good opportunity to discuss where profanity is socially acceptable and not, and what it was about that particular scene that made a character swear when he ordinarily wouldn’t. In my opinion that’s a conversation worth having.

I’d love to hear what other people consider when making decisions about profanity, both in terms of writing and in terms of sharing books with middle grade kids as a parent or teacher or librarian.

Writing Outside your Culture: thoughts on The Madman of Piney Woods

MadmanPineyWoodsI read The Madman of Piney Woods, the latest book by Christopher Paul Curtis, this fall because I am working on a novel with two protagonists and I wanted to study how a real master of the craft handled the inherent difficulties in dual narration. But I become distracted from my initial goal by the story of Alvin “Red” Stockard. If you are looking for a more traditional review, this book got starred reviews at both the Hornbook and Kirkus. I’m going to take a look at the story from the perspective of cultural authenticity.

I’m a person of Irish descent who’s read a lot of Irish history. I read Irish writers regularly, play Irish music, and have a long involvement with the Irish music and dance community in the Pacific Northwest. I’m making an assumption that Mr. Curtis is not Irish, although many black people in North America do have some Irish heritage. Mr. Curtis didn’t mention his ethnic heritage in his bio or author’s note so I’m going to assume that he’s chosen to write outside of his personal cultural experience for the character Red.

The first thing I noticed in reading Red’s section of the book was that his voice sounded unlike any Irish person I know. Accent and turn of phrase is tricky, even when you know it well. Most readers would not be taken aback by Red’s word choices or turn of phrase, but I found them outside of my experience of the Irish. I also found a couple of idioms that sounded off to me. The phrase to twirl the cat, is unfamiliar but a similar phrase not room enough to swing a cat is one I’ve heard in several places and has a completely different connotation than the one Mr. Curtis refers to in the book. It would be easy to conclude that he’s guilty of lazy writing; HOWEVER, an idiom is a slippery thing, prone to multiple and regional meanings and inclined to change over time. In a story set a hundred years ago, it’s quite likely that the idiom I’m familiar with did not exist in its present form or had several meanings right from the start. Likewise the accent Mr. Curtis is portraying may well be one with which I’m unfamiliar. I speak regularly with people from Donegal, Clare, and Cork. I’ve recently been to Dublin. Accents differ in all four places and I’m sure there are accents I’m unfamiliar with. Even my extensive reading of Irish authors does not make me an expert of every Irish dialect. Other aspects of the book are well researched so I’m going to assume this accent was also based on appropriate readings and recordings.

Characterization and cliche are another area of concern in the book. Though it is not in vogue to remember, racism has often be directed at white people. Try searching on the term “Irish” in an image directory and see what you get. Here are four things that turned up amid a sea of shamrocks on Google Image. Unknown images images-1 images-2

As you can see we get the unflattering sports mascot, the depiction of drunkenness, the quaint and pastoral people wearing green, and a display of domestic violence. These were among the top twenty-five images containing people. I decided to leave out the lewd Halloween costumes, the magical druids, the leprechauns, and the beer. For comparison take a look at what a google image search gives you for French or British or even African American. It’s a pretty striking difference. I don’t want to get into a debate about who has it worse in terms of mainstream depiction of their ethnicity. There are no winners in that game. Just making an observation.

The Madman of Piney Woods contains some cliches and overly broad characterizations of the Irish. None so egregious as the images above, but cliches none the less. The most obvious ones are Alvin’s red hair, domestic violence, the grandmother’s anger and bitterness, and the father’s too-good-to-be-true sagacity. So what to make of all that.

Red hair is rare, occurring in only about 4% of North Americans. Even in Ireland, only 10% of the population have red hair. It’s an easy way to telegraph Irish-ness without giving a more thoughtful and nuanced description–red hair is the feathered headdress of the Irish. On the other hand, further description would get into skin tone and comparative coloring to the black characters in the story and that’s a linguistic minefield. I’d probably make the same choice myself.

Domestic violence is a crime long associated with the Irish and I was sad to see that characterization repeated in this story. On the other hand, in 1901 the beating of children was more common among all races and classes of people, and not on anyone’s radar in the way it is today. And Mr. Curtis did not equate the violence with Irish-ness but clearly laid the blame on the ravanges of alcoholism or PTSD from a traumatic migration experience. It’s not “nice” but it’s fair and authentic to the period.

The dynamic between the saintly dad and evil grandmother was a bit over the top for my taste. Red’s father was very Atticus Finch-like in his goodness, and he was even in the legal profession. The grandmother’s bitterness also seemed a bit one-note to me. I’d have like to see a more developed version of this character. For example a woman in her position would have attended Mass as assiduously as she avoided the racist grocer. I found it odd to find so little mention of church. Most Irish of the era whether Catholic or Protestant had a lot of cultural identity and social support wrapped up in church-going. A view into that part of the Stockard family’s life might have made them all seem more rounded and realistic. That said, in many families with an abusive member, the other adult in the situation compensates for it with heroic kindness and a hard won wisdom about human nature.

And here are some things I found completely realistic and true to the Irish-American experience.

The connection between Irish and African music is longstanding, and in my opinion, a great benefit to the cannon of North American music. When I hear Reggae, I hear a slow and soulful version of the traditional hornpipe. In Gospel music I find much in common with Irish ballads. Contemporary Irish music is full of influences that echo it’s development alongside African-American music That connection was beautifully portrayed in the climactic scene where Red sings to the Madman of Piney Woods. I found it the most moving portion of the book.

The racism towards Black Canadians by Grandmother O’Toole was also true to what I’ve heard and read about the Irish immigrant experience. Black freedmen and Irish immigrants were often scrambling for purchase on the lowest rung of the economic ladder which tended to put them in conflict. I wish the history were otherwise but it isn’t. I think the discomfort that the prejudice is likely to generate is ultimately helpful in terms of the conversations it might inspire about how fear and hatred arise.

And finally what I really loved about the story was its willingness to show in careful (but not overwhelming for a young reader) detail the horrors that many migrating Irish experienced. Our current experiences with Ebola provide a very striking parallel to the Irish who were quarantined on ships carrying Typhus. (What a terrific book discussion that could be!)  The Irish immigration experience is not a story that comes into the school curriculum very often or very accurately. It’s seldom the subject of a kid’s book. I was very grateful to see it portrayed so sensitively here.

Ethnic diversity in children’s books matters and I’m thrilled that someone outside of the Irish writing community was willing to take on this topic and bring it to light with compassion. I’m happy to see that the book has been well-received by critics who might have quibbled over details of authenticity or who has the “right” to tell an Irish story. Details matter but intention matters too. I want lots more books with ethnically diverse characters, not just the few that can pass the narrow gate of some critic’s opinion of their authenticity. Because here is the most uncomfortable truth of all. Even though I’m of Irish heritage, it’s no guarantee that I would write a more “authentic” story. My experience of being Irish is specific and narrow. I have biases about my own history, and any writer working from their own heritage faces risks of censure from within their own community.

Sometimes the view of an outsider who is willing to do solid research and the hard work of empathy is just as valid and maybe even a bit more objective. Thank you Mr. Curtis for a thoughtful and bravely told tale.

 

Reading Like a Writer: Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain

The thing I really hope for my work, more than a particular recognition or financial return, is longevity.   It’s one thing to craft a really great story that hits the imagination of the moment and becomes a blockbuster, but it’s an entirely different sort of success to have a book stand the test of time. This Reading Like a Writer post will be one in an occasional series which looks in depth at the text of children’s classics.

One of the things I did this summer was think about books I read to my own children when they were little, the ones they loved and wanted to hear over and over. A big favorite of theirs and mine was Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Beatriz Vidal. Jacket.aspxThough I love the pictures it’s the text that I really admire. Its been more than a decade since I’ve read that book aloud to one of my children but I can still recite it word for word. I decided to analyze for myself what made the story so effective. The obvious first thing is the rhyme scene which is perfect. Every rhyme is a true rhyme. The rhymed words are not forced by using archaic grammar They are all easy to read and well within a child’s working vocabulary.

Rain–plain

dead–overhead

feather–weather

cloud–loud

The second fairly obvious observation is that the format of the story, the cumulative or House-that-Jack-Built format, works well for this tale in which each thing is directly related to the next. There is not a heap of tension in the story. It’s dry. Cows are hungry. The herdsman shoots an arrow at a cloud. It rains. Not inherently gripping, but the cumulative structure and rhythm of the text makes the simple chain of events far more compelling than they would be otherwise. However, the cumulative structure is not launched into willy-nilly at the start of the book. It begins with a 10 line introduction to set the scene and ends with a 4 line conclusion which brings the story to rest.

The third thing I looked at was how the lines scanned. How many syllables per line and where do the stressed words fall within the line. I found that all the lines fell between 8 and 12 syllables, and that the pattern of stresses tended to be anapestic, two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one. However, there was plenty of variation in the meter.  So the verses were less structured than, say a sonnet, but still they were quite consistent in their rhythms.  I think a perfectly consistent rhythm would have veered in the direction of boring and singsongy text, so it’s good to see the “rules” judiciously broken.

The last thing I noticed was that almost the entire story relied on lines with a stressed ending.

This is the great Kapitit Plain

All fresh and green from the African rain.

Plain and rain are both stressed syllables and most of the book has these strong endings. But the story begins with a 10 line introduction and the middle 6 lines of the introduction have unstressed endings.

With acacia trees for giraffes to browse on 

And grass for the herdsman to pasture the cows on.

The stressed syllables there are browse and cows, so the introduction is set apart from the story with this very subtle variation in the meter as well as being set apart from the structure of the main story.

So why do all this work? I love poetry. I think picture books in verse, when done well, have the best staying power of all. I hope to write one some day. But I want to make sure that when I do I put at least as much effort and attention to detail into the text as the writers like Verna Aardema and Margaret Wise Brown have.