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

The Trouble With Twilight: The Writing Part

Whenever me and my friend E.Lynn talk about Twilight, the one thing that always gets us more than any other thing is the lost potential. Our dislike of the books is mostly because every once in a while, we glimpsed a little bit of gold, a tiny bit of what might’ve been before the story collapsed under the weight of itself.

On paper it sounds like a great idea; a young, unsuspecting girl unwitting stumbling upon the knowledge that vampires existing? Finding her true love despite said true loves desire to devour her? Vampires and werewolves and secret organizations, love triangles, family tension–all these things could’ve and should have ended up something so much better. So where did everything go wrong?

We already talked about Edward and Bella, but they’re only small parts of bigger overall problems with Twilight. Most of what’s wrong with Twilight has less to do with the numerous, somewhat big flaws of the two MC’s, and more to do with the overall badness of the writing itself.

One of the main reasons I’m so put off of most adult contemporary fiction is because it’s overly wordy and too pretentious. In an vain effort to appear more adult worthy and more intelligent, it seems like a lot of authors pull up the Thesaurus app on their iPhones and start looking for fancy words. They’re more concerned about the words than they are on crafting the actual story.

This is ultimately how Stephanie Meyer writes Bella–Bella speaks like no teenager that I’ve ever heard. No teenager uses the word iridescent. No teenager describes anyone as having liquid topaz eyes, nor do I think anyone would want to kiss anyone’s lips who felt like marble. Half of the problems in Twilight could’ve been fixed if Bella had been written like she was sixteen, and not a 35-year-old woman projecting her thoughts on said sixteen year old girl.

Good stories can always be ruined by bad dialogue, and by bad prose. The Twilight Saga is a prime example of taking a good thing and bogging it down in unnecessary bits of fluff. Why does Edward need “liquid topaz” eyes? Why not just say “his light brown eyes”? The greatest thing about YA and those who write it is that they realize the immediacy of adolescence. There isn’t a lot of YA where the MC’s fuck about or go into near soliloquies–there’s no time for that. Teenagers in real life and in YA talk the way the do not because they’re dumb or because they have a lack of language skills, they talk the way they do because saying “Oh-em=gee, I love my boyfriend,” is way quicker and much less ridiculous than “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Also, irrevocably is totally a thesaurus word. Just saying.

And what’s more frustrating is that Bella is surrounded by people who actually do speak like they’re supposed to, and in dialogue Bella speaks as a teenager should. But her narration is very clearly written from the viewpoint of someone much older than Bella. No teenager talks the way Bella does, and the only time I spoke the way Edward does is when I wrote my girlfriends in high school really bad poetry that they were supposed to swoon over.

And not only does no one talk that way, but having Bella narrate the way she does makes the story dry and dull and otherwise uninteresting. It’s possibly the most boring, sanatized romance novel ever in the history of ever. Nothing happens. In Breaking Dawn, the big battle that’s supposed to end the entire series doesn’t even happen–Bella Mary-Sue’s herself a giant brain bubble that she projects to protect everyone. So now Bella is supposed to be Jean Grey? When does the Dark Phoenix storyline start?

No, I have no idea how I managed to work that reference in.

Plotting in Twilight is pretty much absent, because the story itself doesn’t move anywhere unless Bella and Edward are together. All four books have the same problem–there’s lots of Bella kvetching about not being with Edward, or being with Edward and Edward not paying her any mind either way. Bella continues to complain and moan and groan about Edward. Jacob shows up, but Bella rather be with Edward. Then there’s more complaining/worrying/loving Edward…and then there’s so more of that.

Then near the end of the book, someone realizes something has to happen for the story to technically be a story. The bad guys show up, then Edward defeats them in an anticlimatic battle, and it’s all about how Bella loves Edward again. This is the plot to every book in the series, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. It’s all the same book, kind of, only the last two have a love triangle. None of this is done in a dynamic, new, interesting way–it’s like watching Degrassi, if Degrassi were half as interesting and the actors are worse, and the two leasts interesting people on the show get all the screen time.

It’s deriative plotting at it’s worse. We’re told there’s forces that more or less don’t want Bella to exist, but each time those forces are beaten back with little effort. The whole gang gets almost entire army thrown at them, but Bella “Brain Bubble” Swan is able to thwart them. The rest of the time is spent meandering around, with Bella saying and doing the same ol’ things, waiting around for Edward to come to his senses and love her the same way.

There is so much potential–SO MUCH POTENTIAL–for Twilight to be good. I think that’s why writers who don’t like the books react the way they do; there’s so much lying there, right on the surface, so much that could’ve been explored and it wasn’t, so many exciting things that could’ve happened but didn’t. Me and E.Lynn talk about that being the biggest disappointment at all.

It’s like going into a 3D movie and wearing the goofy glasses the whole time, but the only part of the movie that’s in 3D is the end, and all that happens is that a hand sort of awkwardly reaches out of he screen. You leave the theater disappointed, not because everything about the movie was bad (though there were probably some bad parts), but because you’re left unsatisfied. You were promised an epic, grand adventure–you ended up with something that ended up being kind of boring, and maybe even a parody of itself.

KC

Where’s The Line?

Every day I write YA, I struggle to straddle that fine line, between writing what is acceptable for YA, and what would be acceptable for a Kevin Smith film. After all, Kevin Smith is a big part of the reason I write today; I started working on more raunchy, Smith-esque, dialogue heavy screenplays before I turned back to writing novels. One of the best things I think I’ve written is a screenplay in that vein–all in all I wrote two complete screenplays, both of which I’m proud of, and both of which are currently rotting on my old busted hard drive and I need to recover.

When I started to write YA again, it was hard getting out of that mindset–toning down the raunch, paring down the dialogue and trying to get to the heart of the story. The thing about writing screenplays as opposed to novels is that there’s a little bit more  room for ambiguoity–you can leave a lot of stuff out, and there’s a LOT more room for pouring on the raunch and hoping it works.

In YA? Not so much.

My main character Fiona is something of a tomboy, and she certainly has a potty mouth. This is part of her character, and in general I feel like language in YA isn’t a that big a deal. Not to mention that her best friend is constantly scolding her for her bad language. But once again, I find myself struggling to find the line between “this is how teenagers talk and act” and “this belongs in a Judd Apatow movie”. It’s so akward for me to be writing a teenage, female, sexually active person and not feel as though I’m being slightly creepy while doing so, or feeling like people will think that.

In general, YA treats sex fairly well. There’s books like Twilight, which are nothing but huge, long allegories about not fucking and starting to pump out babies the second you get married. (Not that I’m biased or anything.) There’s books like Kendra by Coe Booth, or Lost It by Kristin Tracy or The Virginity Club, which handle it extremely well, leaving just enough there to get the idea, but not crossing the line on top of it. Even the much maligned Gossip Girl isn’t super descriptive about sex.

It’s the constant question of where the line is, between mature and appropriate for teenagers, and dipping over into adult content. For example, after being involved in some backseat shennigans with a boy, my MC Fiona shouted out “Ewww, you came all over my stomach!”

And suddenly, in my flurry of writing instead of working, I had to stop. Suddenly I asked “okay, is this over the line?”.  It’s not like I haven’t heard teenage girls use that terminology before. The argument that girls are pretty little angels who only giggle and talk innocently about sex is GREATLY exaggerated. As someone who sat with four VERY sexually active teenage girls in high school, I could tell you some stories that would make your brains ooze from you ear.

But I would never write those things down in a book. They’re way too much. I try to be aware of what will and won’t sell, and while this is probably a Bad Thing for upcoming author, I’m not sure I could put what those girls said in this novel, even in the context of it being somewhat centered around sex.

I try my best to find the line, and maybe walk a little left of center of it, but I never think I cross it. Until I got to that sentence. And that word, “came”, used in that context…for some reason, it stopped me cold. It was totally within the realm of something Fiona would say; she’s nothing if not blunt to a fault. But still, it felt a bit…whoa.

I had to step away from it and think, not would “adults be offended by this” (because let’s face it, adults are predisposed to be offended by EVERYTHING), but would potential readers be offended by it. The answer came back most of them wouldn’t but some would. Still, it worked, but something about the phrasing bugged me.

It’s that damned line. That line that I’ve been treading, ever since the idea “Girl who once had STI returns to school and tries to start sex-education club in her fundementally Christian town”. The line that I think most people that write what might be considered “edgy YA” walk and try desperately not to cross.

Or, maybe I just stress about it. As Coe Booth herself once told me, it’s probably me procrastinating–I just need to finish.

*sigh* I hate it when published authors are right.

*slinks off the keep writing*

Why I Write YA

Recently I’ve been doing something that’s been working pretty well; I’ve been bringing a notebook with me to work and writing there. Since the majority of my ideas tend to come during the day, this has worked very well. I only started this WIP about three weeks ago, and at the rate I’m going, I’ll be finished by the end of the week. That’s right; THIS week. I haven’t written at this pace since NaNoWriMo last year, when I finished my first ever novel (Or first real novel, anyway). And even though I’ve skipped around a few parts, the story itself will be more fleshed out when I go back to transcibe it and add it to the things I’ve already written.

Of course, since lately I’ve been doing more writing than working lately (don’t chastise me, if you worked where I did you’d find whatever you could to avoid working too), my co-workers have started asking me what I’m writing. I should’ve expected it, but it’s always awkward talking about it. I hardly ever show my writing with people who aren’t other writers or friends of mine who are writers. So I’ve found it strange that probably for the first time ever, I’ve had to actually explain outloud what my novel is about.

Co-Worker #1: So what’s your novel about?

Me: Ummmmm…well…it’s kind of about what happens when a “normal” guy (yes, I did the stupid quote fingers) goes on a cross country road trip with a sort of “Heidi Montag” type of girl.

Co-Worker #1: …So it’s a horror novel then?

That was a joke, of course. Still it was weird saying it outloud. I could go on for pages when I’m riting about what my novel is about, but saying it OUT LOUD? To other people? For a long time I didn’t tell people I wrote at all; writing is such an intensly personal thing that I didn’t want someone to ridicule me for having a bad idea. I can take written critism, but people telling me to my face that something I wrote sucks, or that an idea I have is bad? FOR SHAME! THE HORROR, THE HORROR!

Luckily, the few people I’ve told the idea to outloud have told me that they actually like the idea. And my description of it has gotten better as well.

The other question I get asked is what kind of writing I do, which still makes me a bit uneasy. I love writing YA, but I always feel like there’s this unfair stigma attached to it. Authors like Justine Larabalstier have talked about it before; she writes YA and will always write YA. But despite the fact that she’s successful, people still ask her when she’ll write “real” novels for adults.

Allow me to explain why I write YA, and while I’ll always write YA.

Because adults are fucking boring.

Now, hear me out. I’ve tried reading a lot of adult books. As an aspiring author, it wouldn’t hurt for me to read things outside of my pre-defined genre. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have much patience for a story that dilly-dallies a lot before getting to the good stuff.

Contemporary literature tends to dilly-dally a lot. They can be overly wordy, dreadfully boring affairs, where a lot of stuff doesn’t happen. Recently I tried reading a book called “I Just Want My Pants Back” (which in itself is full of win for the title alone), but the first chapter is just some kind sitting around his apartment, getting ready to go out.

Why not start me off when he’s already out? We came from the lack of pantsness, thank you very much! I don’t need to read about the takeout he ordered or the pot he smoked or the time he wasted sitting around doing nothing. While I understand the need to immerse oneself in the world of a book, I feel like in a lot of cases there’s too much telling people about the world, and not enough showing.

Since a lot of YA revolves around teens, there’s a greater sense of urgency, a greater since of NOW OR NEVER. And since most people who read YA are impatient bratlings like me who are probably juggling numerous tasks, a lot of YA comes right out of the gate. When you’re a teenager, every little thing can become something BIG. Their characters who are dealing with big first–first loves, first times, first encounters with vampires or the undeead. Everything is heightened; the drama is more tense, the feeling are deeper. Writing and reading YA is just more fun than reading literature, at least to me.

When my characters hit a point where they are only talking and are doing anything worthwhile, I start to get bored. And if I start to get bored, I can’t imagine someone else wouldn’t get bored as well. There’s so much to explore and such more to say in YA. I could write an ‘adult’ book, I suppose, but I’m not sure how I’d make it exciting or tense without avoiding it become some sort of Lifetime movie. There aren’t many lessons you can teach in comtemporary literature, to your readers or yourself.

YA allows a lot more exploration of how the world works, how people can change, and a lot more lessons about ourselves. I mean, every book doesn’t have a moral so to speak, but whenever I’m done reading a YA book, I feel a little better off for doing so. I think that’s ultimately the affect I want to have on my reader’s–I never want them to end a story going “well, that’s several hours of my life I’ll never get back in which boring people did boring things and nothing ever changed or really happened.”

On that note, if you have any suggestions for “adult” books I should read (ROMANCE NEED NOT APPLY, thank you), leave them in the comments and I’ll check them out.

Until next time

KC