WARNING: Mature Content

As a YA writer, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly “the line” is. That is, where does a story’s sexual content or alcohol/drug content cease to be “just a story” and start to be offensive and harmful?

As an avid reader of the YA genre, I’ve yet to find a book that I have had to put down and go “wow, this goes too far”. I’ve read bad books, I’ve read good books, I’ve read horror and contemporary and stories about drug abuse and sexual abuse and light hearted comedic romps and everything in between, and I’d be hard pressed to find a single story that horribly, terribly offends me. Some of its shocked me, some have moved me to near tears (BIG BOYS DON’T CRY!), and some has left me a bit disturbed. But none of it has offended me; that is to say, none of that has bothered and angered me because of it’s supposed “morality” or what it might do to children who read it.

I remember reading “The Bermudez Triangle” when I first began to really read YA fiction, after what seemed likes years of falling out of the genre and not writing for a variety of reasons. That book was part of the reason I begun to write YA; here was a real story with real characters that dealt with a plausible situation. And not only that, I thought it handled the subject of a teenage girls dealing with the sexuality extremely well. In a world where it’s very easy to stereotype people, even unintentionally,  Maureen Johnson writes with heart and makes everything seem real in palpable.

It’s why I get angry when I see that parents, in this case two mothers from the Leesburg, Florida area, while thumbing through a book looking for offensive content, entirely miss the point of that book. I very much doubt that the two women in this article, noble as their intentions may be, have ever seriously, honestly read that book. Like sat down, and read it from cover to cover. Because if they had they would realize that claims they make–namely that “The Bermudez Triangle” and even the book from the “Gossip Girl” series are not vulgar, are particularly offensive. They are stories, like the kind human beings have been telling for centuries.

“The Bermudez Triangle” is a book about friendship, not a book about sex. It’s a book about what happens when, in a group of friends, those two friends begin to date, and someone is the odd person out, while also dealing with the issue of young girls discovering their sexuality. And while yes, I know that parents hate the fact that teenagers have sex drives, and they are uncomfortable with the fact that sometimes those kids may turn out of be gay, there is nothing vulgar and offensive about self discover and friendship. Two girls kissing is not, in fact, a reason for a book to put a label on something.

It is easy to find the vulgarity in anything if you look harder, but sometimes it’s easier to find the vulgarity in something when you’re not looking hard at all. Paging through your daughter’s books to find the naughty bits is a poor substitute to actually sitting down and reading it, or sitting down and discussing things. After all, teenagers aren’t the easily influenced, sex crazed, reeady made alcoholics and/or druggies parents think they are. While those things make for good headlines in newspaper and on TV, they don’t make for good, you know…REALITY. To err is to be human, and it is far better to err when you’re a teenager and can learn from your mistakes than when you’re in your thirties and are too stubborn to change yourself. And it is far better for your teenage daughter or son to read something in a book and say “I would never do that” and then have them not do that than to try mainlining Jack Daniels and realizing that it was a bad idea when they have to jump start your heart. (Sorry, been listening to a lot of Motley Crue lately…)

But the sillier idea I find about the newest thing proposed by the two mothers–who, again, I’m sure have the best of intentions, or at least a strong desire to get featured on Fox News again–is that these books should be labeled. Which, honestly, I’m in favor of. Because in all my years in retail, the one thing I’ve learned is that kids love things with mature content labels. R-rated horror movie? Bag it up, sir! CD with a Parental Advisory Sticker? I’m listening to it the second I get in the car!  M-rated game? I can’t wait to get home and play this! If the publishing industry in in trouble, labels could be a huge economic boon. Mature Content labels are essentially little flashing stickers that shout “BUY ME, I’M NAUGHTY!” at kids everywhere.

In all seriousness though, the simple fact of the matter that no adult seems to want–and maybe this just because I’m 23 and I don’t have kids and I’m still naive–is that teenagers are going to find these things. And when you make them something bad or naughty, you only make the more desirable. But at least if you’re going to make something bad and naughty, have the decency to read it and be ready to explain fully what exactly makes something bad, or harmful, or detrimental to children. Because unfortunately, we do not live in a world where reporters do research and actually read before they write these things. And the one thing I fail to see in this article is a defense. There is no one saying “this book isn’t vulgar and sexual”, only these two women and their attorney and other adults talking about what they think is right for teens.

Teens, whether we like it or we don’t, are a lot smarter than we like to give them credit for. In fact, they’re actually a lot more mature than most adults. And rather than baby them and try and protect them from the made-for-TV harsh realities–or in the case of “The Bermudez Triangle”, the not harsh at all, real-life realites–we should feel free to put a book in their hands, or play a video game, or listen to a song, and not want to do everything that comes flying off the page at them.

KC

It’s getting “drafty” in here…

The one thing I should never do is read my first drafts before they’re finished, because I always think they’re crap. And by and large, they kind of are.

To think, I was actually going to query my first draft of the WIP I’m working at some point. I told myself  ”self, this is good stuff! This is stuff that could get published today! And then, after like two months, we’d get a movie deal! Oh, Demi Lovato could star! And It could totally be her first ‘quasi-adult’ role, and I could launch her into the stratusphere of superstardom, and then I’d get like JK Rowling famous…”

…As you can see, this train of thought only had one stop; Delusion.

Seriously, Demi's my homegirl. Honest. Mostly.

This WIP started life as a NaNoWriMo novel–I gave it one pass through, a quick edit (which consisted mainly of finding all the -ly and “justs” and hitting delete), then started amassing my lists of potential agents. I would get accepted, and people would bid over my work, and agents would be setting up cage matches to get a piece of action. You know why? Because I’m that awesome. That’s right, I was officially Kanye Westing it. My huge ass ego took over and I figured–

I'm sorry KC, you're writing a good blog, imma let you finish, BUT CARA DELIZIA IS THE BEST DISNEY CHANNEL STAR OF ALL TIME! ALL TIME!

Uh…okay then Kanye…so…where was I again?

Oh, right. My expectations of my novel far exceeded what was actually within the realm of possibility of it. If I had queried that “second draft” of my novel, I would’ve gotten more rejections than I could handle. It would’ve made me quit and I would’ve stopped writing, possibly forever. It would’ve been pretty well devastating for me.

Drafting, for some reason, is an oddly new concept for me. I’ve been writing since I was old enough to know how to load WordPerfect…in MS-DOS. Yes, MS-DOS. I had to know how to do MS-DOS to write when I was like, five. I don’t miss those times. But in all that time, writing new drafts of something I knew was not something that happened very often. Most of this had a lot to do with the fact that I never finished anything. But the few things I did finish, I never thought about redrafting.

Which is one of the many reasons I cringe when I read anything pre-NaNoWriMo “I need to get my shit together, I want to do this for a living” revelation. Those stories are hard to look at sometime–it’s all about the potential and the disappointment. “Wow, when I first wrote this, I thought it was awesome. But really, this is just shit!”

This isn’t quite the case I’ve found with my current WIP. But after putting it away for a little while and tinkering with other things and coming back to it, my shiny golden ticket to the big time looked more like a bronze, slightly tarnished bus token. I still loved it, but it seemed to be missing something.

At first, I thought it was just the beginning. As long as I fixed my hook and first chapter at the beginning, then the rest of the story would just work. And then I woke up again, and realized that there were bigger things to do, and a way to make the story even better than before.

So I broke down, and started rewriting the whole damn thing. This is my official second draft, and now, I’m even more in love with my little novel that could. And I’m looking forward to starting the draft after this, when everything is nice and in place and I can start polishing.

I still get that nagging feeling that my first drafts will end up unpolishable turds–I’ve been trying to not get that nagging feeling, because usually that means I don’t finish. The first drafts are always the hardest; not because they’re not easy to write, and not because  they’re not good. Mainly because they force us to look at the objectively once we’re done with them and realize that they may not be as awesome as we originally thought, which is always, like, the worse thought. We want to think that everything we’ve ever written has been sunshine and rainbows.

Those first drafts are there to humble us and make us better. Also, to shatter the dreams that we will ever co-star in a movie based on our novel with Shadia Simmons and then go on to have a storybook romance with her.

Le sigh...

KC

Ideas Don’t Make Great Stories

I have a lot of ideas. Lots and lots of ideas. Some of these ideas are great ideas that would make great novels and others are great ideas that should remain ideas,because they simply can’t sustain themselves beyond the “this is a neat idea” phase. I think that’s something a lot of authors ask themselves–”Yes, this is a great idea, but would this make a great story?“. Ideas are like those nasty plotbunnies I wrote about in my first post; they pop up when you’re working on something else and then seek to force their way into your head space and whimper “WRITE ME, WRITE ME!”

I’m pretty good at ignoring these plotbunnies. After all, I’m pretty much working on two novels right now–my first novel, which I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, and another idea that I started working on about four months ago. The place I don’t want to find myself in again is the one where I’m working on seven different ideas, and none of them get finished. When you’re working on a novel for a year, somtimes it’s hard to give it all your undivided attention. After all, t’s been a year, and all those fun little plotbunnies seem so darned entertaining!

Luckily, I’ve been able to curb my enthusiasm for dumping one story and moving on to the next simply because it’s easier to start something new than it is to keep working on he thing you’re working on. I will never abandon the wo things I’m working on now because they’re great stories, not great ideas. I used to write thirty-thousand words of a story, then come a screeching halt and the dreaded brickwall. I used to think there was something wrong with me, but then I realized that while I had great beginnings, and I ould envision good endings, I had no friggin’  middle. I had no way to tell the actual TALE.

The middle of the bookdon (or play or TV show or movie) is where actual STUFF happens. The beginnings are easy–the end can write itself. The middles? The middles are those tricky little bastards that don’t write themselves. The middles make you think.

I hate thinking.

So recently I’ve begun this practice–when a plotbunny pops up, and it grabs my attention away from something I’m writing, I don’t start writing it all at once. I actually think first–I sit there and let he idea marinate. I see if there’s an actual story to be had, or if I’m setting myself up to not finish yet another story.

If I can come up with things to happen in the middle, the idea is in pretty good shape. But it also has to make  sense with he rest of the story. I have to be able to get from point A to point B to point C clearly and without a bunch of tomfoolery.

I have to be able to actually see the idea in my head, playing kind of movie. If there starts to be jarring jumps in continuity or gaps in logic, and if they keep popping p continuiously, it’s time to dump the idea. If I find myself bored, or if it’s two people talking in an endless void, that needs more time to sit.

But what if an idea meets all those criteria? What if that idea is actually good, what if that idea would actually make  good, interesting story?

Well, then you end up in the situation I’m in now–with three friggin works in progress. As if my attention span wasn’t stretched thin enough. THREE.

Three great stories and only one me to write them. Why haven’t they invented a device that reads your mine and magically puts all your thoughts neatly into Word documents ready for publishing? Everything sounds better in my head anyway! GRRR!

This danged plotbunny has morphed itself into another novel. I can not work on three novels at once. It is not possible. On the other hand, I don’t want to shelve any of this ideas.It’s the Writer’s Conundrum–one me, one brain, and I don’t have six arms to type on three different computers.

Damn, damn, damn my ability to take the things around me and warp them into stories of some kind. It just isn’t fair, man! Not fair at all!

I have been wondering if maybe someone out there would be willing to give my first novel a look over. When I first wrote it, only one person ever saw it and gave me feedback on it–hence, while their feedback was helpful and they liked it, I’m still working on rewriting it blind, with only the prospective of me, that one person, and my friend who I shared the story with the entire time I was writing it. I well into writing the second draft, but a little perspective on what made the first draft great (and I feel like I’m losing something in the second draft, though I don’t know what).

Anyone to read the first draft of a novel that I’m very proud of/paranoid about it sucking? Anyone? Bueler? Bueler? (*sigh* just reminded myself John Hughes died).

Alright, the plotbunnies call yet again. Until next time

KC