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A few weeks ago, I read Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. Because I am Gail, I didn't get with the entire program. But there were any number of bits and pieces that grabbed me.

For instance, Bell talks about plots beginning with a disturbance to the world of the book, or the world of the character, however you want to think of it. There was something about that that I thought sounded far more useful than all this stuff about give your character something to want and then throwing stumbling blocks in her way so she has to struggle to get it. For one thing, that seems like a formula to me, not a plot generating method. For another, being an organic writer, as I am, I always wonder, What character? What does she want? What stumbling blocks? Where am I supposed to get all that stuff? None of this stuff just comes to me. A disturbance to the world of the book, on the other hand, seemed far more useful. It could be a real jumping off point for coming up with a plot, I thought.

I'd been thinking about disturbances off and on ever since I finished Bell's book, particularly how they relate to my books. I'd been thinking that my books have all started with disturbances. The disturbance at the beginning of my very first book, My Life Among the Aliens, is the arrival of aliens. At the beginning of A Year with Butch and Spike it's the main character finding himself sitting between the bad boys of his class on the first day of school. With Club Earth another alien arrives with news. In The Hero of Ticonderoga, the main character is given the Ethan Allen research project. With  Happy Kid! the main character is given a book that influences his life. Even the Hannah and Brandon Stories, which are collections of connected short stories, have a disturbance at the beginning of each book--a neighbor with a dog moves in with the first book and the wild kids next door start moving in on Hannah and Brandon's lives in the second. The two books I've written and haven't sold yet start off with disturbances. I can see it in some of my short stories.

I was aware of all that, but it wasn't until this morning while I was out working in my yard that I realized something. (Breakout experience!) When I was writing all those books, I didn't realize any of this disturbance at the beginning of the book thing. If I had known what I was doing, couldn't that have made my plot creation process dramatically easier? If I had realized that my characters' worlds were experiencing a disturbance, wouldn't that have helped me with plot points because I would have known that I was dealing with the impact of the disturbance, its consequences, how characters respond to it? It would have generated a lot of material for me, and for organic writers, generating material that we can work with is a big part of our work battle.

Over the last couple of years I've been doing what I call the Plot Project here at Original Content: When I do a reader response to something I've read, I speculate about whether the author developed the plot through the give-a-character-something-to-want formula or if it could have come about in some other way. Going forth, the Plot Project is going to be about looking for disturbances.

Elisha Kilabuk, illustrated by Joy Ang,
The Qalupalik
Inhabit Media, 2011.

Ages: 8-12

The Qalupalik is a picture book about a mythical Inuit creature (pronounced ka-loo-pa-lick) who lives under the arctic ice and preys on unsuspecting children.  Illustrated by Joy Ang, the book contains rather comical and slightly hideous pictures of the qualupalik, whose skin is said to be “wet and slimy like fish scales” and who also wears the Inuit cloak known as amauti made of eider duck skins.  This figure was probably used by storytellers to warn children from going too close to the edge of the ice.

After an introduction is given to the reader about the creature, a story about one is told, called “Qalupalik and the Orphan.” In this tale, an orphan child defeats the creature by outwitting it.  The child is poor and wears tattered kamik from out of which his toes appear.  When the curious qalupalik sees the toes and asks them what they are, the orphan comes up with a quick-witted and imaginative answer that saves him from the qalupalik’s clutches.

Presenting stories of monsters to young children can be troubling for some parents, but this story clearly makes fun of the qalupalik in a way that is both instructive and entertaining for young readers.  And it’s just plain fun for kids to hear about new kinds of monsters!  Sometimes an imaginative way of telling children how to avoid danger or overcome their fear can be the best instruction of all.  Joy Ang’s lush illustrations are nicely done presenting a comically grotesque qalupalik alongside laughing round-faced Inuit children.

This book is in pioneer terrain insofar as it is creating text out of the work of storytellers; in this case, the story comes from Inuit storyteller Elisha Kilabuk and serves an important purpose in preserving the tales of indigenous people of the far north.  The Qalupalik is the first of a proposed series by Inhabit Media called the Unikkakaluit Series.  This debut title makes for an auspicious start and I look forward to reading more tales in the future.

Sally Ito
March 2012

Rambharos Jha,
Waterlife
Tara Books, 2011.

Ages 5+

New Horizons Mention, BolognaRagazzi Awards 2012

A wonderful array of sea creatures adorns the pages of this visually stunning book from Tara Books. Intricate patterns in jewel-like colors provide the endlessly changing water backdrop, over which reptiles, birds, fish and crustaceans are placed alongside smaller waterlife motifs. Waterlife brings together the crafts of bookmaking and printing so that reading the book becomes a multi-sensory experience: not only is it a feast for the eyes, but it is a pleasure to feel the texture of the hand-printed pages and even to smell them! This is a book to be cherished and would make a very special gift to a child, as it offers a reading experience that will grow with them through into adulthood.

The book opens vertically with a picture filling the bottom page, such as a sharp-toothed crocodile; a lobster; male sea horses “their pouches heavy with eggs”; four white swans framed by lotus flowers. In the bottom left corner of the creamy-white page above, the book’s artist Rambharos Jha gives a short description of each picture, relating it both to his culture and his own artistic development and curiosity. His art is heavily influenced by the Mithila folk painting of his childhood, from Bihar in Eastern India: however, as an artist he has developed the motifs of the Mithila tradition to generate his own voice. So, for example, a page full of different sized fish comes with the title “Changing Tradition” and Jha explains that he knows all these fish through Mithila art but he doesn’t know their names, and moreover: “Their otherness lies not in their shape, but in the lines that pattern their bodies – these are not traditional Mithila lines”. The sense of freedom of artistic expression that this engenders in a sense also opens the door for readers of Waterlife to find their own artistic voice.

Young children will be attracted to details such as the facial expressions of the fish or the hugely long water snake; and they will enjoy counting and finding things. As well as the art, older readers will absorb Jha’s descriptions, with their inviting headings like “The Trick”, “The Octopus at Home” and “The Food Chain”. There is also excellent back matter encompassing an afterword by Jha, “How I Came to Waterlife”, and a note on Jha’s background by Tara Books’ Gita Wolf, as well as a page showing different motifs from Mithila art that appear and are embellished in the book.

Waterlife is an exquisite book on every level. Adults buying the book for children (and what a beautiful gift it would make) will probably need to acquire another copy for themselves.

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2012

I was sorting through my TBF (to be finished) files this morning and came across a little ditty that I’d like to share. I have many files like this one; bits of story ideas, entire chapters that sounded good at the time but fell by the wayside when a more exciting project came along, or things that I never finished researching for one reason or another. 

This is only the first page or so of a story’s first draft. There is much more at home that follows this. What I’ve decided to do is ask you if you think I should spend valuable time to finish it. Do you think it could spark enough interest to encourage a reader to turn pages? Can you easily envision possible scenarios for the events hinted at by the writer? Would you be curious enough to turn pages?

I’m taking this step because I have so little invested in this wee sample. I could easily finish it, or, I could ignore it and let it fade into the distance of the past. You tell me how I should treat this prospective story.

As I’ve said, I have little invested in it. I’d much rather have honest opinions than sugar-coated rhetoric that means nothing.

 SAGA OF THE FLYING YEEJ

          Ever wonder if other people’s lives were punctuated by oddities like yours? Let me tell you; you’re not alone. Take it from the Queen of Weirdness, everyone’s had their lives polka-dotted by those little quirks that have little or no explanation.

          During my life I’ve experienced so many oddities that flamed across my reality that many times I felt like I was living an episode of the Twilight Zone. I suppose that’s why I knew I just had to write this small, focused catalog of incidents. I wanted to assure others that just because they’d never seen anything like what had suddenly flipped through their lives didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

          After all, just because someone’s paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone out to get them, and that’s my motto about weirdness. The Creator put a lot of stuff out there in the heavens and on Earth. You or I could be a little slow on the uptake and missed something along the way. And occasionally that something drops by to introduce itself.

          I doubt there’s much in the way of weirdness that I have seen. Take ball lightning, for instance. I was twelve the first time I saw it. Goosebumps coursed down my spine, leaving entire meadows of their offspring on my arms. The thing that caused me the most fright was that it moved when it was observed, took a fancy to certain people in the room, and then gradually faded from sight without emitting a sound.

Now that you’ve had a chance to go through the beginning, what do you think? Please let me know. Is there enough here to create a worthy story or not. Give me your comments with opinions. Don’t be shy.

2 Comments on Whether to Finish or Not, last added: 3/26/2012