#IReadYA Week: "Literary Merit"--Who Decides?

It’s #IReadYA week this week, and I’ve read a lot of tweets and posts about the general awesomeness of the YA genre, and that’s not surprising. Actually, what is surprising: given the brilliance of so many YA works, how is it that any of us still need to defend or explain YA—to anyone?

I write YA, but I’m also an English teacher; my students and I talk a lot about what constitutes a “serious” work of literature. On the AP Lit exam, there’s an “open” question—the third free response essay, which gives a fairly broad prompt, then suggests a list of works. Test-takers are directed to select one of these books OR “a work of similar literary merit.” We teachers learn in our training that more recent writers, and mostYA writers, are not considered by College Board to be of literary merit. This means, for example, that J.K. Rowling is not on the list. I always tell my students that she will be—if nothing else, age grants a work that status (consider a writer like Alexandre Dumas, whose work was not regarded as Serious Literature in its own time, but today, it is). 

How different, really, are The Catcher in the Rye and Looking for Alaska in terms of story and emotional resonance—and quality of writing? Yet my students can write about one on the AP exam, but not the other.

Who decides what’s “serious” literature anyway?--is one question my students always ask, and it’s a good one. Time is definitely part of the equation, but if we just look at books released in the past fifteen years, there’s definitely another layer of prejudice at work. Genre, for one: books set in the real world are often automatically viewed as more serious or literary. And the target audience is definitely another factor. Many adults dismiss books written for kids. Of course, many more do not. I have an annual pass to Universal Studios and I never get through the day without running into adults in full Harry Potter regalia. Maybe most YA is just too darn much fun for some folks?

There will always be people out there deciding what’s highbrow, what’s fancy, and what’s Serious Literature. And to me that’s part of what #IReadYA week is all about. It’s a time for those of us who get it—that it really doesn’t matter where a book is shelved—to share our love of not just YA but reading in general. I hope that someday we won't really need the hashtags anymore: #WeNeedDiverseBooks will be redundant, because we’ll already have loads of them. And like all good book nerds, I dream of a world when every day is simply #IRead day.

How to Write a Synopsis

Step 0: Make coffee.

Step 1: Figure out what the heck actually happens in the story you haven’t written yet, even though you’re the type of writer who figures out the plot as you write.

ààAfter Step 1 is unsuccessful, find something else useful to do, like clean your room or the kitchen. Sit down to rest, feeling that at least you accomplished something.

ààààThen, it’s Monday and time to go back to work. Work hard all week, then try again with Step 1 the next Saturday—after taking Friday night off to watch Netflix, of course.

Step 1, Take 2: Start writing. When everything sounds cheesy and wrong, send it as an e-mail attachment to your friends, who later confirm that there are numerous problems with the plausibility of the story, just not the same problems you saw.

ààAdd coffee. Start over.

ààààWhen the result is terrible, print it out, because hitting the delete button on a computer just doesn’t provide that satisfying paper-crunching sensation, and you are, after all, a traditionalist.  Crumpling wads of paper also reminds you of movie montages in which five minutes of failing and then trying again leads to ultimate success, which is reassuring.

Step 1A: Make cookies. Eat them.

Step 1B: Make a project playlist. Get lost on iTunes...

           

ààAccidental online shopping detour.

Step 1, Take 3: Start writing again. Fight urge to go all Office Space on work laptop.

           

ààBaby name website detour. This is okay. You are searching for a new

character name. This counts as work.

ààààAdd coffee. Are there any cookies in the house?

Step 1, Take 4: Write another draft. This one’s got to be it. You can feel it.

            ààWrite blog post instead.

Step 1, Take 5: Write another draft. This has to end sometime. Might as well be today.

Send out as an email attachment. There will be more revisions, but for now, you are allowed to watch Netflix without feeling like a failure.

(ààMake more cookies.)

The Brand Experience

An item in my morning Twitter feed caught my attention today: a book offered through Writer’s Digest that helps authors find their one “thing” that they are known for, that sets them apart from the pack. Because I’m doing a huge media unit with my AP class now I immediately realized that this book was really about creating a brand.

The concept of branding isn’t new, of course, but what is new is the fact that each and every individual person (at least the ones with something to sell) now needs to invent a brand. Last week I showed my class The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, in which documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock makes a movie about selling and marketing a movie. In the film, Spurlock visits a fancy company that helps people identify their brand identities. They asked him nine thousand questions, pseudo-scientifically compiled and analyzed the data, and came up the idea that Spurlock’s brand was a Mindful/Playful brand. Some brands, the expert guy said, are just one thing, but a lot of brands are combo-brands, which certainly sounds better to me—double fan base?! Although when I think about it, I feel like having watched all of his movies, I could have come up with two adjectives to describe the guy’s work, and I would only have charged like twenty bucks. I shudder to think how much the “official” analysis cost.

So I say to myself, self, what’s our brand? (apparently I turn into Gollum when the topic of brands comes up). I’d certainly like to be a combo brand, so what are my two defining traits? Wait, that’s not going to work. No one’s going to sign up be part of a brand experience of:

Hungry/Sarcastic

Or, on a bad day:

 Grumpy/Tired

(This is starting to sound like the list of Dwarves Rejected by Disney).

This mystical branding process seemed to work in the movie: the company identified several other Mindful/Playful brands, like Mini Cooper, and when Spurlock went after these companies, several of them actually signed on as sponsors of his movie. Maybe I really do need to figure out how to blurb my brand. (If I had any hope of being given a promotional Mini Cooper, I assure you, I’d be highly motivated to crack the brand code of me).

For most of my day, the brand identity I’m striving for is “favorite teacher”—while still not being the one who always lets them turn in late work or have class outside. As a writer, I think I’m still figuring it out. If I were to go for a combo brand, like Morgan got, I might say: Funny/Tragic. But, in addition to being a great example of oxymoron I can use in class, it’s also really just life.

I think I’ll stick to pretending it’s still 1995 and making playlists for every occasion, and if anyone needs a Halloween or Summer or Please Let the Holidays Be Over Already song list, I’m your gal.

Now if only I could get sponsored by iTunes...those $1.29 fees really add up. 

Refreshingly Derivative

Last week’s Entertainment Weekly featured an article about a huge showdown coming this Memorial Day. 

Fans of the impressive muscles and distinct gravelly growl of Vin Diesel—try not to faint. There WILL be a sixth Fast & Furious movie coming to a multiplex near you! And, the very same weekend, you can also see the third Hangover movie. Which one will moviegoers pick? This is so exciting. It’s on!

The plot of F&F is going to involve high-octane car chases. Some very attractive people will drive impossibly fast and at some point they will yell at each other. There will also be guns. I didn’t read an advance review or anything—I’m just that good at predicting things.

The plot of the original movie was wafer-thin: a boyishly handsome undercover cop tries to bust some street racers. Possibly I should be impressed that the minds behind this series have managed somehow to spin that premise into SIX films. Confession time: I’ve seen most of these. I skipped the one that had to do with sliding the cars sideways, I think in Japan.  I don’t think that one even had the original cast in it. I rather like Vin Diesel—there’s a reassuring continuity about his performances. And Paul Walker is very cute and an also an adorably bad actor, sort of like a blond, less confused-looking Keanu Reeves. The fifth fast/furious movie made it onto my Netflix cue, but I didn’t make it past the half hour mark. I’m not sure they were working from an actual script, containing, you know, plot elements. It all just seemed like a jumble of testosterone and motor oil.

And yet. Six movies, a bajillion dollars...something about that formula works. As for its release-date competitor, the first iteration of The Hangover was damn funny. It wasn’t War and Peace, but not everything has to be (thank God). I saw the second one, and my own humble opinion: I’m calling played-out on this series. But who knows—it’s really all about the story.

 

I'm dying at how perfect this tagline is.

Memorial Day is a big weekend, and I’m sure a lot’s at stake. So the studios are going for the known quantity. I also read in the same EW about a lot of VFX studios closing. Times are tough. And they wouldn’t make this stuff if lots of someones didn’t buy it.

Formulas that work are all the rage—and probably not going anywhere. The trick may be to put a slightly new spin on something that a lot of people already like. I heard somewhere that film studios these days all want to get there second. The next—new—big thing is also a big risk. But if you can get in with a creatively knocked-off second hit, before the trend is played out, it’s all puppies and rainbows and lots and lots of money.

For the rest of us who’ll be skipping the lines for this Memorial Day’s refreshingly derivative options, at least there’s the beach. And Netflix, if it rains. 

Blog Tour!

This week is the Blog Tour for That Time I Joined the Circus! 

Tour schedule:

Tour Dates: March 27 – April 10

3/27: Blog Tour Kick Off – Through the Looking Glass

3/28: Literary Exploration: Book Review

3/29: The Book Cellar: Author Favorites List

3/30: Nick’s Book Blog: Guest Post – Top Five YA’s and Top Five TBR

3/31: The Hollow Cupboards: Guest Post – Authors/Stories that Inspired Me the Most

4/1: Forever 17 Books: Top Ten Guilty Pleasures

4/2: Emilie’s Book World: Favorite Circus Attractions

4/3: Novel Sounds: Author Playlist

4/4: Nawanda Files: Author Interview

4/5: Hobbitsies: Advice for Teen Writers

4/6: Through the Looking Glass: Book Review

4/7: The Book Vortex: Guest Post – Seven Random Facts about JJ Howard

4/8: Stalking the Bookshelves: A Day in the Life of JJ Howard

4/9: Word Spelunking: Author Interview

4/10:The Busy Bibliophile: Top Seven Things I Would Like to Collect

4/11: Through the Looking Glass – Wrap Up Post

I hope you'll stop by these blogs to visit me this week!

I’ll Buy That

I remember the time I was sitting on my back porch, thinking about Mark, the cute boy in my geometry class, and a time portal opened up—right beside my dad’s garden shed. A handsome boy (impossibly handsome, if you want to know the truth) stepped through the shaft of blinding blue light and he said just three words: “Come with me.”

When did I lose you? On time portal, probably. Maybe a select few were with me until the boy was impossibly handsome. And yet, he almost always is. When book boys have blue eyes, they are intensely blue. When they smile, angels weep, etc. Also, in a lot of books written for teens, these outlandishly gorgeous boys are part of a plot that’s even more outlandish.

Here, in no particular order, a sample list of plots I’ve read or read about in the past couple of years:                

Alien pod people

Genie in the hallway at school!

Time travel

Automaton-ized family members

Everyone dies at either 21 or 25

Shadowhunters!

Love-removal operation (though I wish it were a love-removal machine, because that’s a great song by The Cult)

Boy turns into worm-creature

Fairies are real

...and so on. The best part about the thriving world of teen paranormal romance/fantasy/steampunk is the fact that the passionate following that many of these books and series have amassed is a testament to the fact that kids can still get lost in a story. Coleridge’s willing suspension of disbelief is alive and well.

But how far is too far? Can a premise be too outlandish, or can a writer “sell” any story if they are passionate enough about the world they create, if the characters who live in that world feel real, and if the rules of that world are consistent?

I think maybe writers can sell almost any idea, but I also think we have a lucky trick in our toolbox. A story about angels or demons or fairies or genies appeals to our collective unconscious (sometimes even the writer doesn’t plan it) and resonates on some level we may not even realize.

Maybe that’s why so many alterna-worlds are set in either the present or the sort-of-past. The future usually ends up being all about Science. And it’s hard to avoid at least a hint of cheese when dealing with anything robot-related. If you’ve ever watched Doctor Who, you know: as scary as the idea of being converted into one is, those Cybermen—just, ugh.  

The thing is, the real world is usually sort of boring. Stories are a safe way (well, as long as you keep the book budget under control) of living in a different, non-boring world.

A world in which a majority of boys are heart-stoppingly handsome=bonus.