Courtesy, Part Three: Your Readers

Out of all the courtesies you owe as a write, courtesy to readers remain the most subjective. I've mentioned before that you technically don't owe the readers anything, but you were once a reader too, and you know what it's like to be cheated of your time and maybe ten to twenty dollars.

The uncertainty occurs when a reader (or an audience) reads a story and dislikes it. When readers dislike a story, they can dislike it IMMENSELY. Remember, people, that fictional authors have gotten arrested or threatened (like Salman Rushdie) for WRITING something, not for having committed murder or thievery. Not because the story is bad necessarily, as we all know from Banned Books Week and the charges of witchcraft against Harry Potter, but because the story offended the reader. It may be a case of bad timing, like a cartoon with severed heads after some terrorists have performed a public beheading (which happened twice to Stephen Pastis, the cartoonist for Pearls Before Swine), or it may be a case of the literature being written in a time when marital rape was not a crime, like in Gone With the Wind.

You cannot control this. You cannot help if other people find your book offensive; take their criticisms with a grain of salt and think about them. I scrapped a whole comic storyline (about four strips) because four people said the joke was offensive; while I'm glad I never did it for different reasons, it killed me that I had offended a group that I respect. I know how that feels, being accidentally offensive, but if your story is clear enough, at least one or two readers will get the point.

You owe the readers a good story. Period. Characters they can follow, a plausible plot-line or storyline, and a fantastic ending. Readers will feel cheated if you resurrect the dead without a plausible explanation. They will dislike villains that pose no threat, or a one-sided perspective of a romantic relationship. They will feel cheated if you give a happy ending that the protagonist does not deserve; the same goes for the tragic ending that results from ultimate failure. And if they don't get the joke, or the riddle that you didn't mean to insert, then you are going to have frustrated readers.

So don't despair if a hater calls you a fascist, or threatens you; and don't despair if they catch errors in your story. In class, people liked my story, but they wanted to know who the mysterious creature was that helped the protagonist. I'm still stinging, but I can fix it. You can fix you story, so don't get in a funk.

So remember: courtesy to yourself, your characters, and your readers. But also: You. Can. Fix. Period.

Courtesy, Part Two: Your Inner Reader

In my last blog entry, I talked about treating your characters with courtesy. This time, I focus to a group more grounded in reality: the readers.

When I say courtesy, you tell a reader the best possible story you can. You never at your critics, or even your fans, if they disagree with you or say that your story sucks. And when you are writing, you ALWAYS try to write a good story.

You are your story's first reader. Are you writing this story to please yourself- to explore an idea, take yourself on a trip into another person's head, or to attack a frontier no author has attempted? Are you uncomfortable with your preference for tied-up detectives- and tackle it in fiction?

If you are a writer, an idea won't always be fun to explore. You may write yourself into a dark alley with a serial killer and the heroine has nothing but her hairspray and a big mouth. You may end up in a boring part when the antihero blasts through a prison. But corners do not necessarily mean that you haven't pleased your inner reader. It merely means that your inner writer has gotten in over his or her head, which can happen.

Here is a big no-no, however, no matter what you write: NO SLACKING OFF WHEN CLASSMATES ARE READING!!! If you are taking a creative writing class, your classmates want to assess your strengths and weaknesses while you write and maybe spend a few minutes enjoying a story. When you put no effort into your work, they cannot help you become better writers, and they will know when you haven't gotten into the story. Your inner reader will know, and not care. At least until the criticism hits.

Your inner reader's judgment will fragment. You will stop writing for a few days, or at least throw out a few pages of work. And your inner reader will only come back together when someone says that they like your story and shows you how to make it better. Or if you pick up a new book and cheer up for the next round.

ALWAYS try, at least for the sake of your inner reader. You may not be able to fix the errors in your story sufficiently, but at least you will have tried. And you will be able to trust yourself when you revise.

Courtesy, Part One: Your Characters

I know I haven't written in ages, thanks to a bunch of classes and time constraints. But I thought I'd write about something that I've never seen before: showing courtesy to your characters.

I believe in courtesy, even if I forget it sometimes. I also believe that writers have obligations to three life forms:

1) Ourselves- first and foremost, we write the stories that we will enjoy writing, that we will slave over because we enjoy writing that line of action or inserting a line of humor. This is a courtesy to yourself because most writers need day jobs, so if they're investing time and possibly money into a hobby, they better enjoy it.

2) Readers- You owe your fans and your personal readers a good story. Period. Not because of some weird obligation, but because you were once

a fan of something, and you know what it's like when you hit a twist ending or your author essentially says "I just want your money haha" when they write a horrible sequel or prequel. Do unto readers as other writers unto you.

3) Characters- They may only exist in your notebooks, but they're the ones that your readers fall in love with. Every story needs a character, specifically a protagonist and a conflict. Your protagonists matter the most in how they're shown as they grow through a story.

The novel functions as a democratic medium because it shows most of a character's three-dimensional layers. If you write many novels, you have to add more to that person's character IF you are writing a serious story. With more fun novels, like the Pippi Longstocking books, you can get away with simply having the same character in different circumstances. The bandits from the first Pippi Longstocking book differ greatly from Jim and Buck in the third book, while similar old ladies have different reaction to this peculiar carrot-top.

Another good facet that some series writers do is add a layer of character to their mean, unsympathetic characters. This sometimes fails if we have hated this antagonist for a rough decade and suddenly we see their perspective, like Severus Snape, at the tail end, but it's an effective tactic to open up a fictional world when done right. Edmund from the Narnia books is such an example; he's horrid in book one, but he matures to the point that he and his sister Lucy can enter Narnia without their older siblings.

An absolute no-no, however: no matter what you do, you CANNOT make sympathetic characters into monstrous or even unlikable villains, ESPECIALLY if their actions are out of character. While C.S. Lewis did well with Edmund and redeemed him, he lost all sympathy for Susan of little faith. In the second book, Aslan forgives her for being sensible and

thinking that he no longer exists, but The Last Battle shunts her out of the picture. Her siblings say she has gotten interested in "nylons" and doesn't believe in Narnia anymore; we never hear her side of the story.

C.S. Lewis by then had nurtured a fanbase, and they all called out his mistake, but he stayed by his decision despite his reputation as a kind, religious man. Whether it be prejudice (Edmund and Eustace were both horrible in the Narnia books when they first appeared but soon became heroes) , a comment on flapper girls and rampant materialism, or a reenacted fall from grace, Lewis betrayed Susan and the democracy of his books by turning her "villainous," or at the very least unsympathetic. Even worse, he didn't show us the story from Susan's perspective, or at least tell us what happened. This came back to haunt American and British literature, leading to gory works like "The Problem of Susan" by Neil Gaiman and modern complications for the directors doing the films.

Remember Susan Pevensie, folks. Remember her well.

Wearing a Banana Skin While you Write

Meg Cabot on her wonderful blog wrote a few posts about writing for non-white characters if you are white, and her own experiences with racism, given that her adopted brother is black and she dated an Arab American while working at a dorm. Meg also said that one should not be lazy if you're writing out of your comfort zone: if you are white and you want to write about non-whites, you can't just dress an average American in a brown identity and call it black, or it will taste like buttered edamame (stirfried soybean pods) at The Cheesecake Factory.

If you are going to write about bananas, for example, read books about bananas, talk to people who've been in Bananaland, even buy tickets if you can afford it, zip on a huge banana skin before you write a fantasy novel with Arnold the Banana flaying the forces of Hungry Darkness, or at least before you revise it. Because if you take a white character and dress them in banana skin, then someone named Denise the Banana will call you out for it.

Which is all right if you're a white author trying to overcome your prejudice, but how about if you're non-white? Because I'm Indian, but I know little to nothing about Indian culture. As a kid I created an alter-ego Jenny Andrews who was Indian, but completely Americanized and a secret agent to boot. The most I know is Hindu mythology because we have a lot of books, and I do plan to write a book combining Hindu mythology and superheroes, but I know nothing about transportation or politics there.

And if you're Americanized, you're most likely going to write about white people because you mainly see them in the media and in school, and in your circle of friends. Even if you join the Banana Students Association, you may not feel comfortable writing about bananas because you know little beyond their sweet taste, especially when fried in butter. You might write about being an Americanized Indian, but you might also want to tackle with righteous fury the bananas who have been trampled on when everyone preferred apples.

The best way to do research on unfamiliar cultures is to read literature on that culture. The textbooks provide guidelines, but go with fiction, with essays, maybe even with artwork. One book I read for my manuscript was about Chinese restaurants, filled with surprising information I could integrate into the book. Use your libraries, both school and public, and read read READ. And it you want to tackle modern racism, go with this book:

This book provides a snapshot of 1960s racism from a white man who tinted his skin, shaved his head, and dyed his hair to appear black. Then he traveled in the Deep South to find the truth of racism. A disturbing fascinating, and heartbreaking study that will definitely put you into someone else's shoes. Along with a whopping dose of common sense.

Banana skins indeed. What will they think of next?

A lot of Yackum

You learn a lot from rereading first drafts. And second drafts and third drafts too, for that matter. Rereading "Murder in Panel Five," a satire on the typical Agatha Christie mystery, I've discovered a lot of what we call yackum.

"Yackum," aka "rambling," aka "unnecessary nonsense," becomes the vice of all writers when slogging through draft 1 of an unpublished short story. Novelists can get away with yackum, especially if they are literary elephants like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but short story writers do not have that luxury. Unlike novelists, who experiment with their medium to the point of exasperating us readers, the short story writer has to tell a story. Period.

Types of yackum to look out for:

1) Dialogue- Usually worse in novels, but unnecessary or flat dialogue must go. If it sounds false? Cut it. If it has one word off and the word can't be removed? Cut it. Characters put the "yak" in "yackum".

2) Inner Dialogue- Even worse than outer dialogue because it occurs in the character's head. Aka Rambling for God Knows How Long, especially in a mystery. Show your character's reaction, don't have them say it. Yak in yackum, folks!

3) Description- Hairier than dialogue, but rely on your ear for this one. If you read at an open mic, you'll trim on the fly to avoid being cut off in the middle. You want concise and lyrical sentences. And if you have even one paragraph (four sentences) waxing on, the editor will probably slap your manuscript. Here you can break the dialogue rule and have other characters judge your protagonist, or each other, as long as you keep it concise and clear.

Have fun!

Great Literary MacGuffins: Titles to Examine

Since in an earlier blog post I talked about Literary MacGuffins that should be the title of your story, why don't we take a look at some classic Literary MacGuffins:

We read this novel in gifted 4th grade, listening to audio tape, as mentioned before; I finished it ahead of everyone else and mispronounced "sadist" for several days until our teacher put it on our vocabulary list. In a nutshell: Meg, the protagonist, goes on a journey with her precocious brother Charles Wallace and  schoolmate Calvin to rescue her father from another planet with the help of Ms. Whatsit, Ms. Who and Ms. Which, three strange ethereal beings.  

First, the title "A Wrinkle in Time" refers to a new term called a tesseract, which is indeed such a wrinkle. The tesseract links the book together because the three "witches" in the story use the tesseract to travel through time and space, and a mishap with a tesseract starts the book by taking away Meg's father. Makes sense, no?

And since we're talking about Madeline L'Engle, may I say rest in peace, since she died in 2007, and thank you for writing such a wonderful book.

The Importance of Reading Your Work Aloud

We hear this tip all the time if we write. It may be the most crucial tip . . .

And I didn't listen for about five years. I read other people's work aloud, especially poems that rhymed, and I read out my own stuff when I got the chance, but in terms of performing I tend to get in over my head. Reading out loud to others? Definitely. Reading out loud to myself? NEVER.

Why this negativity? It stemmed from when I entered a gifted program where we followed books on audiotape. With respect to my Language Arts teacher, since in his class I learned to love reading and developed my love for horror, audio works didn't work for me. For one thing, I could read faster than I could listen to the stuff; I finished A Wrinkle in Time five days ahead of schedule. For another, I believed in characters having different voices; now I know that the speaker's quality is much more important. If you have two voices doing about ten characters, you were dead to me as a fourth and fifth grader.

But now, having received about a hundred rejections total for all the work I have, and writing poetry for class, a habit I haven't kept unfortunately, I've realized how important word flow needs to sound. We may see the letters on paper, but we also have to hear them. And if your readers even in the classroom don't laugh when you want them to, then something is wrong with the words, not with their hearing.

Even better, reading aloud will give each of our characters a voice. Neil Gaiman at Mouse Circus gives the Man Jack a terrifying growl, while the Sleer truly comes off as a smoky creature. When I read aloud a piece with a supervillain, I gave the villain a maudlin British accent, which helped him appear even goofier.

In the case of a novel, individual voices are necessary for a novel where every character gets a say. Not just the villains and the heroes, but the anti-heroes, the helpers, the thugs, and minor people who steal the show. Democracy has a price, but it gives our novel strength.