What Diana Wynne Jones Meant to Me

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If you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. You may have even wanted to write because of the books you read and enjoyed; this happened to me after reading Harriet the Spy, but I digress.

I deeply regret that I did not discover Diana Wynne Jones until middle school, when I found a copy of Seeing is Believing in the library and picked it up for its title. When you have stories where a girl with mumps creates a story with a bloodthirsty heroine that comes to life, a writer who finds success after getting a computer (and the customary typos), and the story of a cat who helps a stupid magician's servant, you have no choice but to find the rest of the authors' books. I discovered A Charmed Life, Dogsbody, The Homeward Bounders, and proceeded to read every book by her in both the school and public library.

Diana Wynne Jones taught me that anything can be magical, whether it's the green flakes in a chemistry kit or a Friendly Cow. She also taught me Murphy's Law for fantasy novels: anything that can go wrong with magic will, and the disasters will make you laugh. Wizards do not always appreciate people cleaning their houses for that, and they are not necessarily elderly, well-behaved gentlemen; sometimes they are angry fathers pretending to be evil magicians. Heroes won't always know who's in trouble, or how to correct their spells; sometimes you might break your neck twice and still live. Use every implement that you introduce, since golden bricks may be useful to drop on the villain's toes.

Villains can be hidden in plain sight; your parents may not be the villains, but they are certainly no help when push comes to shove. Kids have to rely on their own magical objects and abilities, even if they didn't know that they have abilities. Don't underestimate a pit of orange juice or a cocoon of bookcases if your college roommate is targeted by assassins. Also don't underestimate the insults that brothers can exchange after one decides to attend university.

Most of all, there are no formulas to follow. Jones admired Tolkien's work, but she came to mock the sword and sorcery fantasy that succeeded Lord of the Rings; that fact made me admire her the most. For the record, I tried reading Lord of the Rings twice, and I learned that there is such a thing as too much description. Not all villains are pure evil, and you shouldn't have to travel alone. There is more than one way to solve a problem, especially if you are creative; there is no need to slay dragons with swords when a hot chili pepper will do.

Rest in peace, Diana, and thank you for your writing.

Reverence for Fairy Tales

To get psyched for revising the last three chapters of this fantasy novel that is a tribute to fairy tales and Daphne du Maurier, I read Grimm’s Fairy Tales from cover to cover. The edition also came with a helpful list of footnotes denoting the different version of each tale, as well as possible sources, but my real point when reading was something that every adult realizes when reading fifty to sixty short stories meant for children’s bedtime:

Most are completely ridiculous!

As mentioned in my last entry, Sarah Beth Durst has written several blog posts going through certain stories line by line and commenting on how good, bad, or horrific they were. Ms. Durst read these stories for her novel Into the Wild, in which real people have to act out fairy tales for centuries if they get caught in the titular plant growth. When the Wild gets loose, Rapunzel’s daughter Julie has to work fast to tame it before it takes over her hometown. When it gets loose again in Out of the Wild, Julie has to worry about the same problem while traveling across the US on a broomstick.

Popular culture has also caught onto the trend of mocking the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christen Andersen; Dreamworks gave us the Shrek movies, while Disney attempted a self-parody with Enchanted. Even Gail Carson Levine, whose novel Ella Enchanted was critically acclaimed and heart rendering, wrote several short novellas that parodied “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “The Princess and the Pea.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Ms. Durst wrote Ice, a gorgeous retelling of “The Sun, the Moon, and the North Wind” set in the Arctic Circle with polar bears, shamans, and creepy deities. Juliet Marillier gave us Wildwood Dancing, which makes “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” look sugary sweet in comparison; I would not have read it if my friend Margaret had not recommended Ms. Marillier. (Thanks, Margaret!) Walt Disney Corporation managed to infuse some of the most ridiculous tales like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” with lovable characters, monstrous villains, humor, and princess protagonists that did not annoy the viewer in the least.

There is a reason, however, why we feel drawn to fairy tales, whether or not we parody them or depict them in a somber light; I feel drawn to them because fairy tales were my security blanket. Azar Nafisi admitted the same thing in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran: fairy tales may have happy endings, but they also have pretty monstrous obstacles. Such a structure is reflected in the best stories, whether they are complex novels or simple cartoon shorts; readers like conflict, and they like giant monsters that can be defeated.

“Cinderella,” for example, has a stepmother and two stepsisters who will do anything to keep their ash girl from being normal; the Disney version takes that dynamic to the extreme. The two girls blame Cinderella for things that go wrong, load her with work so she can’t get ready for the king’s ball, and finally rip up her handmade ball gown. The stepmother then proceeds to sabotage Cinderella’s chance of trying on the glass slipper by locking her in her room and making the slipper shatter just as she’s about to try it on. It doesn’t help that she has the scariest voice in history, and she’s pretty much what every teenage girl would not want to have: an unloving authority figure who will never give you power. On top of that, Cinderella’s father died when she was just a little girl; that is traumatic for any child, especially when the surviving parent is not sympathetic.

Most fairy tales thus, in addition to providing such an obstacle like a deal with the Devil or a toady innkeeper who keeps stealing his customers’ magical tools, add a happy ending and helpful friends to deal with the monstrous quality. Sometimes this can play for dark humor; about three or four Grimm’s fairy tales involve the hero causing an apocalypse that leaves him the sole ruler of a kingdom (seriously). Others involve the Devil getting cheated, but the hero is not allowed to enter heaven either, so they wander between heaven and hell as a restless ghost. Please note that this happens when the hero is a guy, not a girl; the girl usually marries a prince who rescues her from burning at the stake or an unhappy life with her stepsisters. The king in these stories tends to execute the stepmother and stepsisters in violent manners, so the blood and gore is still presented.

The other reverence for fairy tales that we find is that they can be easily retold, as I’ve shown with the above examples, while keeping the monstrous obstacles and happy ending. We can take out the parts we don’t like, such as Cinderella’s fairy godmother (please stop making fairy godmothers evil), and modify it to suit our needs, as Disney has done. That Grimm’s Fairytales still exists is living proof that even if we don’t like princes who kill everyone to become happy, we do like it when characters receive happy endings after traumatic experiences. We simply change the rules as we go along.

Why Your Dearest Reader is Important

Fiction workshop classes are very interesting if you read more than one story by a particular classmate. I tend to have high standards for fiction, but I've also learned to be nice to other writers in class. For starters, negative comments can induce writer's block, tears, and that paralyzing fear to put words to the page. Teachers also do not appreciate cutting remarks; my first creative writing teacher gave me a blunt lecture about two negative critiques I had written, and it was the best advice I had ever been given after making me cry for the rest of class. (I still love this teacher to death, and I highly recommend her if you ever take Creative Writing.)

If you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. Good readers will have a perspective when reading others' comments on their writing as well as seeing what works and doesn't work with fiction. Few ideas are original; so are few techniques. You'd be surprised with how far long sentences can go when reading aloud.

Tam Lin provides the best visual example of your relationship to a fellow writer as a reader: Sarah Beth Durst has a wonderful response to the ballad, but only peruse if you need context.

In a nutshell, Janet the pregnant heroine has to hold onto Tam Lin as he changes from monster to monster; it's the only way to free him from the clutches of a murderous faerie queen.

In real life, you have to be Janet when you read someone else's story for critique. Do you have to be harsh? Sometimes, but remember that at some point your story will be the monster and may be slain quite brutally by that other person. Therefore, you also have to find some redeeming value in the story so as not to crush the writer's spirit. Someone else may crush your spirit, creating an Evil Golden Rule that you want to avoid.

One point to note: always ask to read the next draft. Your friend will appreciate it, probably read your work as it progresses from draft to draft, and improve their story for your pleasure. I have read improved second drafts because I asked for them, and I've learned what writers can do when they're given a chance to improve themselves. You can do the same if someone else gives you the chance.

The Sound of Your Story

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I learned several important lessons from hearing Neil Gaiman read The Graveyard Book online before the book came out. First off, an author's voice should reflect the tone of the story, and facial expressions help. (Neil Gaiman can look scary as the Man Jack.)

Neil Gaiman didn't teach me one important lesson, though: if readers like how your story sounds, if it's poetic or entertaining, they will keep reading even if they have no idea what's going on. His stories are fortunately clear, affable, and intriguing. No, I'm talking about an Ayn Rand novel about the individual and creative endurance.

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I started reading The Fountainhead on a Parisian train before my brother asked for it (he had brought it, not me, for the record). I started again in my junior year of high school, and though I didn't get the parts that I liked most in the book, I kept reading them. Case in point: Dominique Francon. I didn't get why she kept trying to destroy the protagonist Howard Roark if she was in love with him. I didn't get it for two years, but I liked Dominique's voice and reread her conversations with Howard. And then I got it.

Not all of us will write clear books; clarity is my current problem. However, if a reader likes what we wrote, they will treat it like a beautiful abstraction

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and then put the pieces together.

The key word is beauty. If you write a gory psychothriller, infuse it with beauty. If you write a comedic approach to war, make the images enthralling. Even if you write a nonfiction horror story, you need beauty. Know what impact your words have on the listener; study the sounds of a connotation. Make your reader laugh and cry, but also make sure they keep the book open for those moments.

Margaret Mitchell and Her Impact on America

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Gone With the Wind has an interesting legacy, as does Margaret Mitchell. On one hand, we have a universally-known love story that people adore; the Berenstein Bears parodied the film while the book received a mention in the Newberry-winning Number the Stars while the protagonists were playing dolls. We all love Rhett Butler, but his flaws invigorate the story with smirks and sadness. Mitchell kept writing the book and kept it a secret, which I always admire in any writer; telling someone you write is like telling a bully where you hide your chocolates. We get a flawed protagonist who someone wins us over because we look into her head and see how she's thinking, feeling sympathy and compassion.

On the other hand, we have stereotypes enforcing the Southern status quo, where Scarlett O'Hara can justify slavery and keep girls like Prissy in their place. Every black person in the book is either stupid or evil, the Northerners walk all over everyone, and we applaud Rhett Butler when he evades execution for murdering . . . a black man for insulting a woman.

The appearance in Number the Stars is quite troubling; Lois Lowry wrote a World War II novel where the main character helps her best friend and family escape the Nazis in Denmark, a story arguing for compassion and courage. Is Gone With the Wind more interesting than pink-frosted cupcake fairy tales? Yes. If Lowry meant for the novel to reflect the time period, she reflected an uglier aspect than intended for a gentle introduction to the Holocaust. (For the record, I love Lois Lowry's books, especially The Giver; it's just this particular scene that bothers me.)

Readers still love Gone With the Wind, however, because Margaret Mitchell wrote a complex, tragic story. The movie made it more so, with fantastic actors (though to be fair, Clark Gable steals the show as Rhett) and a well-designed setting. We still love moral ambiguity and rascals with hearts of . . . well, silver. And we love a romance where the characters don't have predictable chemistry.

Rudyard Kipling in Retrospect:

Schools should study Rudyard Kipling more, especially when covering British literature. Neil Gaiman mentions that the original Jungle Book influenced The Graveyard Book strongly, and even Robin McKinley has her title character from Beauty reading Kim in a library with books that haven't been written yet. No mention that Rudyard Kipling wrote about India with affection from the perspective of an English imperialist, yet he was a great writer of his time. Raised in what he considered the mother country, he nevertheless soon came to live in both England and the United States for short periods of time.

What I admire

His courage- Kipling knew he wanted to be a writer when he graduated from school. His family encouraged him, and he took on as many journalist opportunities as possible to support himself while working on his book. He was quite willing to live on a few pennies a day and risk bankruptcy. Even after he was published, Kipling wrote what he wanted despite the criticism he received; he believed in himself, whether writing a propaganda piece for an unpopular war or a series of schoolboy adventures.

His view of human nature- Kipling's best works are when he shows people as people, faults and all. In his autobiography he includes a short story based on abuses he had suffered as a child, which immunized him for life from suffering. This is also prominent in The Jungle Book and in fact the reason I couldn't read the story as a child. I grew up on the Disney version where the tiger didn't get his own back until the end- and in the first chapter of the Jungle Book Shere Khan convinces the wolves to kick Mowgli out of the pack. Harsh indeed, and harsher when Mowgli learns to become a man in the local village and gets kicked out on charges of sorcery. The story nails human nature at its worst; never fear, though, because Kipling also captures human behavior at its best when talking of Mowgli's human mother and how she eventually helps him return to mankind (seen in The Second Jungle Book).

What I Dislike

Kipling's Benevolent Portrayal of Englishmen in Comparison to Indians. This happens a lot; remember how I mentioned that Kipling nailed human nature? In The Jungle Book, he applies the good and the bad to every human and animal except the off screen Englishmen. The off screen Englishmen are honorable gents who would never tolerate an angry mob when facing a feral child. I mean, seriously; consider the English witch hunts and immigration into the New World.

Using the "n" word to describe an Indian- Happens in Kim with a British soldier describing the Indians they're ruling over; at that point I stopped reading the book. Once again, seriously? If Mark Twain cannot use the "n" word as a non-offensive common way to describe black men, then neither can Kipling. That is fairness.

Authors are people and are thus complex. You cannot simply label them as good or bad because they use racist terms or come from imperialistic perspectives. You cannot thus censor their books out of context, although the idea is tempting. Was Rudyard Kipling more racist than Mark Twain? Yes, because of his attitude about native Indians and applying the worst of human nature to them. I am prejudiced because I am Indian and feel that these are personal attacks, but I can also admire an author who knew what he wanted and did all he could to get it in the world of literature.

Great Literary MacGuffins, Part Two: More Great Examples

What other titles out there capture the essence of the book with one powerful noun and a few adjectives? Let's see . . .One of the best Harry Potter books of the series, and it's not hard to see why. The Chamber of Secrets becomes the Literary MacGuffin as the Heir to Slytherin uses it to petrify Muggle-born students, a ghost and a cat. Harry, already suspected of being the Heir, investigates the real attacker's identity while fending off a house elf's attempts to "save his life." I love how the American cover illustrates the climatic scene, where Fawkes carries Harry, Ginny, Ron and Lockhart out of the Chamber, because it's vivid and colorful. Chamber of Secrets may not be warm and fuzzy, but it needed a happy cover.

Come to think of it, the best Harry Potter books have the best Literary MacGuffins in the title. Deathly Hallows didn't work for me because the search for Hallows fell back when Harry, Ron and Hermione had to search for Horcruxes, BUT Goblet of Fire remains my favorite book in the series, partly because the question "Who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire?" drives the book despite its many subplots. We learn in the end how the Goblet connects these subplots together, but I digress. Another great Literary MacGuffin for the charts...

Anyone who has not read this book or seen the movie with AnaSophia Rob and Josh Hutcherson needs to CHECK EITHER OUT IMMEDIATELY! Aside from being a beautifully written and bittersweet story, the title makes you wonder "What is Terabithia? What is the bridge there?" Terabithia, the fictional country that Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke create to deal with the real world's hassles like bullies and mean teachers. Leslie gets picked on because she doesn't have a TV, and Jesse has to hide his fantastic drawings from his frugal, practical family. Terabithia becomes prevalent throughout the book as Jesse and Leslie's fortress and becomes the climatic focus when tragedy hits home- a surprise that snaps you out of the fantasy this novel has created. But you get reeled back into the fantasy, fortunately, once Jesse figures out how to revive it. I know only one person who didn't cry when reading this, so be prepared with tissues when you start reading.