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We all lie. We may not admit it, we may not even know it, but we do. And those of us who are loudest to proclaim our honesty are often those who lie the worst. All we have to do is look at the current political campaign with a clear eye to see human nature in all its brutal glory. There are candidates so convinced of their superiority that they can't see or (at least admit) the complexity of any issue or implementation. Other candidates are so eager to achieve a goal that they will bend the truth in any way necessary. Still others have studied what to say to sway voters to the point where they can hardly find their own voices, and others are so mired in proclaiming that the system is broken that they cannot offer viable solutions. And for every message, there is a willing ear who is able to tune out the doubts and filters that automatically alert us to the lies.
Why is that?
The reasons are as unique as fingerprints. Each of us measures truth according to our own individual barometers. Our definitions of truth bend and flex in ways that shield us from the lies we cannot bear to face. That's what makes us interesting as human beings, and that, also, is what makes for fascinating characters in fiction.
Fascinating Characters Are Wounded Characters
Whether we are writing commercial fiction, or literary fiction, or something in between, we have to understand the importance that wounds and self-protection mechanisms play for both our characters and our readers.
Wounds make our characters:
Read more »
If you've ever read one of our own Martina Boone's books, you know that she rocks emotion. So, who better to listen to if you're seeking to add more emotional depth to your writing. We're revisiting one of Martina's old craft posts today that will help you do just that. Read how Martina will take you from bland writing to something deeper...even with zombies!
Writing Deeper: A Craft of Writing Post by Martina Boone
"Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation." ~ Geoff Dyer
Books are about what happens and why. But what keeps us turning pages is our desire, our need, to know how the protagonist feels about it and how those emotions will make her respond.
Think back to when you were a kid. What books kept you up with a flashlight under the covers? What books lately have kept your heart racing long after hubby was snoring happily beside you? Chances are, it wasn’t just high-action and shoot-em-ups. For me, at least, that compulsion to find out what comes next isn't the result of chases or explosions, it comes more from emotional resonance, from an MC whose response is honest and prompts her to make decisions that lead to new complications and new decisions. That’s when I fall in love. THAT'S when I connect.
Read more »
I was asked the plotter versus pantser question while I was on an author panel at the Young Adult Keller Book Festival this past weekend (YAKFEST) (which was wonderful!), and as usual I felt a little deer-in-the-lightsish. And my answer, as usual, is that I'm a plantser.
Plotter + Pantser = Only Mildly Prone To Face Plants
I often do a
very brief synopsis just to get to know the premise, plot, and characters, and then I go ahead and write what I used to call and outline following the
basic idea of three-act structure or the hero's journey, except that it's really a discovery draft where I work out what happens in the story and follow the characters to see where and how
they want the story to go. I don't restrict this to follow the synopsis, but knowing my basic structure helps me keep from getting stuck or stranding.
During the audience Q&A at YAKFEST, we were also asked about finding our way into character, and how that played into story. My answer there also fell squarely into a combination of planning and organic development while writing.
Rough Character Sketch >> Partial Draft of Book >> Deeper Worksheet >> Rest of Book
In other words, I know a little bit about my characters going in, then discover more as I write about a third of the book, then I go ahead and crystallize what I know via a
character worksheet, before going on to write the rest.
Part of the reason that my process seems to have settled in this weird gray area between planning and pantsing is that my stories are commercial with a literary flavor, driven by both plot and character rather than one or the other. But then there's also the one truth that all writers need to know:
Read more »
One of the books I’m working on now is a full on fantasy. Beyond the first, wild sweet rush of the initial chapters where I didn’t know anything but the broadest strokes of where the heck I was going, I had to figure out the inner workings and clock pieces of the world. Honestly, that’s true of anything you write.
It may not seem like it, but whether the worlds are contemporary and non-magical or something entirely fantastic and unfamiliar, the process of creating where your characters live and how they became who they are is essentially the same.
It can be daunting to think of everything at once, and if you're like me, doing the step-by-step can feel like it's going to hold up the creative process. When it comes down to it, there are four groupings of information that can act like keys to open up your story.
The Differences in Time, Place, Weather, and Atmosphere: Of course you want to know the basics, but instead of asking yourself an endless list of questions about how your every aspect of your world looks, smells, sounds, and feels in real life, you want to know how the people who live there make it different and made it their own. Know the big picture things, sure, but then then focus on the details that make it personal and make it unique, as well as on the way in which the characters see these details. Think about how the details change during the seasons and how that impacts them the rest of the year. Consider the small questions you wouldn't normally think of, and that will help the big things snap in place.
The Discriminators in Economy, Technology, Religion, and Social Structure: The place in which the characters move involves how they are positioned in society and everything that entails. But it’s not just a matter of thinking how and where they get their food, shelter, and clothing, or even what they believe, but also how they pay for it. What are the jobs and hobbies or extra activities that take away or add resources? It’s important not only to think about what is available to purchase or barter, but what isn’t. What can’t your characters afford or have? Why and how do they make do? What would happen if something changed? How do those who have feel about those who don’t have, and vice versa? How do different characters or factions within society believe in different things and how does this make them feel about each other? What are the biggest discriminators in your story? What creates allies and enemies?
The Recent or Upcoming Change: Obviously something has changed, or you have no story. Something is brewing. But why? What caused the situation? What could have avoided it? What would or will make it worse? And how would solving it make something else go so awry that it would be a nearly impossible decision between the two?
The Past Change and Differentiation: In fiction as it life, there is planning, but there is also luck—both good and bad. Nothing is wholly uniform and nothing goes entirely according to plan. For each of your society as well as your characters, things have gone awry or unexpectedly at some point in the past. Something that set them on some path that wasn’t the one they would have logically chosen. What was it? For what reason? By whose design? How do they feel about it? What does it change for the future and how do different factions from within the story benefit or lose from this?
There are no hard and fast rules, no insert tab A into slot B instructions, for how to create a world, contemporary or otherwise. But a fantasy world must be as complete as the real world in which we live, and the contemporary world of your characters must reflect all the aspects of the world that they’d encounter.
What Do You Think
For me, the best way into a world is through the characters. Once I know what’s important to them and how they live their lives, I can begin to push the boundaries of their immediate world out, and then start to squeeze them walls of the world back in around them.
The push and pull, the squeezing of worlds and characters, that’s what shapes them both. The harder we squeeze, the more we temper them and develop something truly unique and strong.
Building a fantasy world? Here are some resources you might find useful.https://onestopforwriters.com First and foremost, for all things setting and character, not to mention a lot of other things, try the collaboration between the authors of the Emotion Thesaurus and the Character Thesaurus and the creator of Scrivener for Windows. It’s fully searchable by keyword and concept and gives you an enormous wealth of tools and libraries.
http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/ Want a map generator, fantasy name generator, or medieval demographics generator—or a few other things? Here you go.
About the Author
Martina Boone is the author of
Compulsion and
Persuasion, out now in the romantic Southern Gothic Heirs of Watson Island trilogy from Simon & Schuster, Simon Pulse.
Illusion, the final book, will be out in October of 2016. Martina is also the founder of
AdventuresInYAPublishing.com, a three-time Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers Site, and
YASeriesInsiders.com, a site dedicated to encouraging literacy and reader engagement through a celebration of series literature. She's on the Board of the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia and runs the
CompulsionForReading.com program to distribute books to underfunded schools and libraries.
I remember a few years ago, the quest for voice was like the search for the Holy Grail. You'd think that would get easier after you'd sold and written a trilogy, wouldn't you?
Nope.
Spending a lot of time in one character's head makes it just as hard to switch up as it does to start from scratch as a beginning writer. Possibly it's even harder because you've got the weight of expectation, the gremlin sitting on your shoulder looking at the screen and shaking his furry head derisively at every awkward sentence. After you've sold a book, you should know how to do it, right? It should be easy. Right? RIGHT?
Nope.
So I've been thinking about voice and its relationship to story. And honestly, I think that often, voice is the story. But not the bald, bare bones story that anyone can give you.
Voice is the secret side of the story, the insight. The narrator who invites you in and cuts himself open to lay bare the things we really want to know.
Voice can lift a small or mediocre tale into something that has you wanting to prop your eyes open with toothpicks so you can finish the last few chapters, or it can make a brilliant story blah. And I'm not talking about the writing.
Repeat after me. Writing and voice and story are different.
Here's why.
The cover for Illusion is being revealed on Hypable.com TOMORROW, along with an amazing giveaway themed with some of the things in the book. In the meantime, here's the very first glimpse ANYWHERE of the cover copy.
Are you ready? : )
Ta da . . .
Illusion (Heirs of Watson Island, Book 3)
by Martina Boone
Simon & Schuster, Simon Pulse
October 25, 2016
Caged by secrets all around her and haunted by mistakes that have estranged her from Eight Beaufort, Barrie Watson is desperate to break the curse that puts her family in danger—without breaking the beautiful magic that protects Watson’s Landing. To do that, she must heal the rifts that have split the families of the island apart for three hundred years, unravel the mystery of the Fire Carrier and the spirits he guards, and take control of forces so deadly and awe-inspiring they threaten to overwhelm her.
With the spirits that cursed Watson Island centuries ago awake and more dangerous than ever, she finds an unlikely ally in the haunting and enigmatic Obadiah, whose motivations and power she still can’t read—or trust. His help comes at a price, however, plunging Barrie into a deadly maze of magic and wonder, mystery and intrigue that leads through history to places she never imagined she could go.
I've also got a few teasers for the cover and the giveaway for you. I think it's the best of all three of the covers, and I'm beyond excited to share it with you. You can see glimpses of it in the background behind the giveaway photos. : ) Here you go . . .
 |
| All 18 Items in the Giveaway |
 |
Magical Mason Jar Garden Light, Silicone Teacup Baking Set,
and a Secrets Box |
 |
Indigo Stone Photo Frame, Magic Garden Coloring Book,
Waterfront Beach Sachet, Trinket Bookmarks |
 |
Magical Mason Jar Garden Light, Sketch Pad, Floral Charms,
Shoe Notepad, Summer Romance Satchel |
 |
Signed Hardcovers, Compulsion Charm Bracelet,
Oak Tree Necklace, Dreamcatcher Earrings |
Also, it's a new month, so there's a new CompulsionForReading.com donation up. If you know a classroom, school, library, homeless shelter, hospital or any other place that needs and deserves donations of YA books, please complete
the nomination form. And if you'd like to donate books, please complete
the donation form and we'll match you with a nomination. Let's help build a brand new crop of readers!
So that's me . . .
And now for the fun stuff. We have some kudos to hand out for our amazing 1st 5 Pages Writing Workshop Mentors!
Seriously, everyone should read Brenda Drake's fantastic THIEF OF LIES, which just came out last week.
Thief of Liesby Brenda DrakeHardcoverEntangled: TeenReleased 1/5/2016Gia Kearns would rather fight with boys than kiss them. That is, until Arik, a leather clad hottie in the Boston Athenaeum, suddenly disappears. While examining the book of world libraries he abandoned, Gia unwittingly speaks the key that sucks her and her friends into a photograph and transports them into a Paris library, where Arik and his Sentinels-magical knights charged with protecting humans from the creatures traveling across the gateway books-rescue them from a demonic hound.
Jumping into some of the world's most beautiful libraries would be a dream come true for Gia, if she weren't busy resisting her heart or dodging an exiled wizard seeking revenge on both the Mystik and human worlds. Add a French flirt obsessed with Arik and a fling with a young wizard, and Gia must choose between her heart and her head, between Arik's world and her own, before both are destroyed.
Purchase Thief of Lies at AmazonPurchase Thief of Lies at IndieBoundView Thief of Lies on Goodreads* * *
You will also love former mentor Susan Dennard's newest book!
Truthwitchby Susan DennardHardcoverTor TeenReleased 1/5/2016On a continent ruled by three empires, some are born with a “witchery”, a magical skill that sets them apart from others.
In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble—as two desperate young women know all too well.
Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It’s a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially amongst the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires.
Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her—but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi’s hotheaded impulsiveness.
Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship’s captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.
Purchase Truthwitch at AmazonPurchase Truthwitch at IndieBoundView Truthwitch on Goodreads* * *
Finally, huge congrats to mentor Ron Smith for winning the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe New Talent Award for HOODOO. That's such an enormous honor, and so well deserved.
In case you haven't seen this one yet (it's middle grade, not YA) here's the info:
Hoodoo
by Ronald L. Smith
Hardcover
Clarion Books
Released 9/1/2015
Twelve-year-old Hoodoo Hatcher was born into a family with a rich tradition of practicing folk magic: hoodoo, as most people call it. But even though his name is Hoodoo, he can't seem to cast a simple spell. Then a mysterious man called the Stranger comes to town, and Hoodoo starts dreaming of the dead rising from their graves. Even worse, he soon learns the Stranger is looking for a boy. Not just any boy. A boy named Hoodoo. The entire town is at risk from the Stranger’s black magic, and only Hoodoo can defeat him. He’ll just need to learn how to conjure first. Set amid the swamps, red soil, and sweltering heat of small town Alabama in the 1930s, Hoodoo is infused with a big dose of creepiness leavened with gentle humor.
In many ways, there's nothing more humbling than becoming a traditionally published author. Not only do you have critique partners giving you feedback about what's wrong with your books, you also have to work with your agent and editor, and sprinkling gold stars all over your projects is not their job. They're supposed to pick what you turn in apart and help you make it better. And then, of course, there are readers. They bring things to your work that you never imagined or envisioned, and that's the way it's supposed to be. Once a book is out in the world, it belongs to them. Hearing from them can be the greatest joy you'll have as an author.
Today, though, I'd like to talk about a different kind of joy. The joy of collaboration with another author you respect. I'm having the opportunity to work with Erin Cashman on a new project, and I can honestly say it's the most fun I've had writing in a couple of years.
If you've ever thought of trying a collaboration, you may wonder if it's right for you. After all, we've all heard the disaster stories from other writers. So how do you know if it's going to work?
Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself. You'll need to answer them honestly!
- Are you a control freak who has to have everything your way? If you are, make sure your writing partner isn't.
- Are you convinced that every word you put down on paper is perfect? If you are, you probably aren't ready for publication yet, much less ready to work with a partner.
- How will you divide the work? Does one write all the draft chapters while the other fleshes the out or edits, or do you each write alternating chapters? Are there multiple POVs that make it easier to divide and conquer?
- Are you and your partner working under a similar sense of urgency and able to provide the same type of time commitment and level of experience? If not, you'll want to have a frank conversation about expectations and the split for potential income with respect to contribution. You might be able to work things out, but you need to know for certain whether someone has a warped perspective before you start.
- What will you do as you individual projects interfere? Getting edits back on a solo project, family emergencies, and a lot of other things can end up derailing forward momentum. How are you going to handle that? Will the other keep working? Or wait until you're both ready to go? And how do you accommodate this financially or make up the time?
- Are you both willing to keep working until you're certain you're both happy? If one of you thinks a project is done many drafts before the other is content with it, you're going to run into trouble.
- Are you both coming to the table with a sense of the market, what's current, and what it takes to succeed in the current publishing environment? It's great for an established writer to help another writer along, but it's easier if you are both at least familiar with what's being published and what current editors (and readers) are buying.
- Who will handle the sale for you? It's easier to pick one agent to handle the project rather than having both agents tangled up in it. Not every agent is going to be okay with that, though. It's always best to know up front.
- Can you envision working together for years and years? Because honestly, especially with a trilogy, a collaboration can be a multi-year commitment. You want to make sure that you're confident your friendship will not only survive, but also thrive. After all, projects are one thing. Friends are infinitely more important.
About the Author
Martina Boone is the author of Compulsion and Persuasion, out now in the romantic Southern Gothic Heirs of Watson Island trilogy from Simon & Schuster, Simon Pulse. Illusion, the final book, will be out in October of 2016. Martina is also the founder of AdventuresInYAPublishing.com, a three-time Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers Site, and YASeriesInsiders.com, a site dedicated to encouraging literacy and reader engagement through a celebration of series literature. She's also on the Board of the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia and runs the CompulsionForReading.com program to distribute books to underfunded schools and libraries.
Happy book birthday to PERSUASION! I can't believe it's HERE. In some ways, it's been a long time coming, and in other ways, it feels like COMPULSION just came out.
There are so many people who made this book possible, so today is dedicated to them. My amazing critique partners and readers, especially Erin Cashman, Susan Sipal, and Lisa Gail Green, and the incredible and generous beta readers from my street team. To my editors at Pulse, Annette Pollert, Sara Sargent, and Jennifer Ung, to my incredible agent, Jessica Regel. And to EVERYONE at Simon & Schuster and Simon Pulse, for their support, faith, patience, and generosity. To the marvelous team at JKS Communications, and to my blog partners here for being supportive and patient and not throwing things at me when I get too overwhelmed to do what I need to do.
Thanks also to all of you for coming along with me on this journey!
PICK UP YOUR COPY TODAY!
If you're thinking of getting Persuasion, today's a great time to do it. It can make a big difference to the book, AND there are pre-order incentives still in place through the end of the week.
IndieBound |
Barnes & Noble |
Amazon |
Book Depository | (free worldwide shipping)
PRE-ORDER INCENTIVES
Get Compulsion AND Persuasion trinket bookmarks while supplies last, plus random winners get a Tiffany-style necklace, oak tree necklace, one of five silver bookmarks or one of five Compulsion for Reading T-shirts.
LAUNCH PARTY
Launch party and fundraiser for the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia!
Instead of the traditional launch for Persuasion, I'm helping to raise funds for the Literacy Council, a ground-breaking and award-winning organization dedicated to adult literacy.
Join me on October 30 from 5-9 PM at Barnes & Noble in the Tyson's Corner Mall. There will be fun for all ages, including two age-divided costume contests, face painting, cupcake decorating, bookmark-making, Q&As, two impromptu story writing session where I'll create a story with the audience on the fly, and more. Lots of fun and prizes, so come out and bring your friends!
Can't come? Order your holiday gifts online! If you enter the event ID number (#11709870), a percentage of all purchases made that day – online or in store – will benefit LCNV.
MORE PERSUASION FUN
Three ways to win prizes including a $50 gift card, one of three Tiffany-style necklaces, and LOTS, lots more. Plus there are free downloadable bookmarks, door hangers, wallpapers and more.
In the Heirs of Watson Island books, Barrie Watson has a gift for finding lost things. And since Eight Beaufort’s gift is knowing what Barrie wants, when Barrie needs to develop her gift and test its limits in Persuasion, Eight gives her a book of word search puzzles.
To test your own finding gift, you can play along to win prizes and/or download free wallpapers, stickers, origami bookmarks, door hangers, and more!
Click here to play!
OCTOBER COMPULSION FOR READING BOOK-DRIVE CAMPAIGN
Know an underfunded classroom, school, or library?
I'm so happy to be able to say that the Compulsion For Reading campaign is expanding. This month, we have seven authors and/or bloggers participating, so we're sending out seven packages of books to the teachers and librarians who not only can use them, but areusing books to reach teens and get them excited about reading.
I need to send out a huge shoutout to Vivi Barnes, Tara Dairman, Sara Jude, Jen Malone, Mary Elizabeth Summer, and Anna Weimer for offering up packages for the campaign this month. Check out the amazing packages they are offering!
Please nominate here:
http://www.CompulsionForReading.comWant to donate?
Go hereBLOG TOURS
There are two incredible blog tours going on for PERSUASION, complete with amazing prizes and tons of information you've never heard or seen anywhere about PERSUASION and the series as a whole.
ROCKSTAR BOOK TOURSWeek One
Week Two
IRISH BANANA TOURS
Week 1
Week 2
PERSUASION EARLY REVIEWS
I have read many generational family sagas, many Southern Gothic tales, many books full of magic and magical realism, and many romances, but Martina Boone's "Persuasion" takes each of these genres and mixes up a perfectly delectable cocktail!! I could not get enough. This book kept me up late into the night. I was absolutely captivated with her brilliant use of folklore, Cherokee legends, voodoo and various other magical systems. ~ Laura, Malaprop's Bookstore
Martina Boone's follow up to last year's brilliant tale of love and Southern folklore does not disappoint! The Heirs of Watson island are back, and this time with even more magic and hair-raising adventure. Boone keeps the story moving nicely; just when you think you know where it's going, something unexpected happens. The only bad thing I can say is that I still wanted more! ~ Maureen, Fountain Bookstore
So much love for this series! Book 2 is very different from 'Compulsion,' but still completely engrossing. Martina Boone does an amazing job of exploring more of the characters introduced in the first book--especially Cassie and Seven. We also learn more about the curse and its conditions, as well as the history of Watson Island. It has more of an eerie feel than the first book, and the stakes are definitely even higher in the sequel. And of course, there's plenty of the stalwart and sassy Eight Beaufort. *swoon* I can't wait for book 3! ~ Lelia, One More Page Books
REVIEWS FROM BLOGGERS AND READERS
Here are a few more notes from readers!
"Beautiful, lyrical, haunting, mysterious, romantic, rich, thoughtful, dangerous, atmospheric and complex. I love this book." ~ Andye, Reading Teen
"Just as magical as Compulsion! Martina sure knows how to write a beautiful story with compelling characters, mystery, magic, romance, and southern recipes that make me hungry! I can't wait for the third book in this series! And I hope we get to see more of Berg! I have a new crush!" ~ Jaime, Two Chicks on Books
"Hold on to the edge of your seat, because PERSUASION takes you on a ride that will leave you breathless. Martina Boone does an extraordinary job weaving together history, magic, mystery, and modern times." ~ Liza, Who R U Blog
"Amazing, as fantastic, if not better, than Compulsion!" ~ Kristi, The Book Faery
"Dark voodoo magic, southern charm, family secrets, complicated love, southern folklore, buried treasure, and ancient curses. This combination makes for an amazing second book to a wonderful series." ~ Alicia, Book Lovin' Alicia
"Guys, I am so excited for you to read this next installment. Boone really knocks it out of the park. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be scared, but overall you'll enjoy." ~ Amanda, The Golden Mantle Blog
Barrie and Eight are back along with all of the beautiful creepiness readers adore from Watson Island. Is the binding cost of young love worth it? Must you want what your family wants? PERSUASION is high on fantasy yet grounded in the real life issues teens face every day. ~ Jennifer, The YA Gal
"Loved this book! I was definitely not expecting it to end so quickly. I kept flipping until I got to the very back of the book and realized that was in fact the end. I need more now!" ~ Halson, The Pages Yet Traveled
Something AMAZING is about to happen, and if you are a writer, it's going to make your life much easier.
One of the VERY first posts that I wrote for Adventures in YA Publishing way back in 2010 when this blog was new was about an incredible website that I had found with an incredible tool for writers to help create richer, more realistic stories: The Emotion Thesaurus. It was this brilliant resource that let you choose an emotion and find the right body language, visceral response, or internal reaction to help express what a character was feeling or doing in response to a particular situation. Then the site owners, Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, added to the site to make it better and better. They added a Setting Thesaurus, a Character Thesaurus, a Weather Thesaurus, and a whole collection of helpful tools.
Fast forward a couple more years. Angela and Becca published the Emotion Thesaurus in book form. Then they added two volumes of the Character Thesaurus. They racked up awards and sales so fast you'd have said it wasn't believable if you hadn't seen it. And now, working with one of the developers behind SCRIVENER, tomorrow they will unleash
One Stop For Writers™, a brand new website. It will not only have The Emotion Thesaurus fully realized and searchable online, but all the other thesaurus as well. All in one place. Here's what you get:
Read more »
I’m starting a new WIP, which is really exciting for me. I finally have the story nailed down, and now I’m writing actual pages. That’s both exhilarating and terrifying. I’ve been writing Barrie’s voice for so long that I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to slip into a new character’s head and speak in her words.
I’ve had a number of people ask me about “finding their voice,” so maybe it’s time to visit that question again.
The first thing that I have to say is that there is a difference between author voice and character voice. The author voice is something that expresses itself unconsciously across multiple works. It’s what enables someone to recognize an author’s work regardless of what they’re writing about. That’s not a bad thing. It’s similar to the way that we can identify the voice of a friend on the telephone. Author voice is unique and largely unconscious. It comes from your life, education, and point of view, and it includes:
Read more »
Writing a novel isn't magic. I'd like to say that anyone can write a book--and truly, almost anyone can. The trick is sticking with it, making it good, and getting it published.
Ah, there's the rub. Frequently when someone asks me "How do you write a book?" what they're really asking is "How do I get a book published?"
There are a thousand ways to answer that, but the most honest on is once a book is that no one can guarantee publication. Once a book is at a certain level of competency, no matter how good it is, or how many books you've written or previously published, sometimes what separates a book that gets a book deal from one that doesn't comes down to luck.
You can't control luck, but there are a number of things that will make it easier if you want to write a book that has a chance of traditional publication, or of successful indie publication.
Read more »
Persuasion will be out in less than two months. And since the paperback of Compulsion just released, we're combining both those things along with a thank you to lovely readers and doing a pre-order giveaway. But mostly, we're playing a GAME. Because two months out from release and coming up on the revision deadline for book three, I need some fun.
Ready? Here's the fun part. You know by now that Barrie Watson has a gift for finding lost things. And since Eight Beaufort’s gift is knowing what Barrie wants, when Barrie needs to develop her gift and test its limits in Persuasion, Eight symbolically gives her a book of word search puzzles. That makes it fitting that the pre-order incentive for Persuasion is a word search, doesn’t it? : )
There are thirteen code words that relate to Persuasion and the Heirs of Watson Island series.
- From 8/31 to 9/11, the Compulsion blog tour will reveal the code word or words that will unlock a special page here on the website that day.
- The blog tour schedule will be updated daily with direct links to the posts so that you can visit every stop. You can find it here: http://martinaboone.com/index.php/books/downloadables/tour/
- There are three big giveaways that are part of the tour as well–those are separate and on top of the basic pre-order incentive giveaways.
- As a code word unlocks a page, you can go to that page to download free items. There will be stickers, a DYI origami bookmark, beautiful wallpapers, and more.
- To unlock a page, replace the word CODEWORD in the following URL with the actual code and type or copy the whole thing into the address bar of your web browser: http://martinaboone.com/index.php/books/downloadables/CODEWORD
- ALL pages will be unlocked by 9/11.
- All downloads are free, and most are available whether or not you pre-order.
- A few downloads will only be available with a pre-order receipt or order number.
- Wherever you need a pre-order receipt, there’s also a special Rafflecopter with additional AMAZING giveaways.
- With pre-order, a limited number of people will also receive a signed bookplate and beautiful signed Compulsion and Persuasion charm bookmarks with ribbons.
And here are the blog tour prizes!
Prize One–The person who best answers the question(s) on the blog tour will receive:
Prize Two–A random winner from among those who find all the code words in the scavenger hunt will receive:
Prize Three–A random winner will receive:
More Prizes
Remember, there are more prizes scattered throughout the pre-order fun, so find those code words and play along!
It's snuck up on us. Four million. That's a heck of a number, right? It seems like just yesterday when Marissa Graff and I heard an agent say that writers
had to blog and said to each other, "What do we blog about?"
It's been a long journey since then. This blog has gained some incredible new team members, and we've lost a few who've gone on to attend to other things in their lives. We've seen followers and contest participants become New York Times bestsellers, get six-figure book deals, get quietly satisfying or vindicating book deals, or go on to publish indy with great success. At Adventures, we feel like we get to participate a little bit in each of those victories--because they ARE victories.
This business is both wonderful and daunting. Heartwarming and heartbreaking. I don't know anything that's like it. We pour our souls into a book for months or years, and then, more often than not, we throw all those emotions, characters, and entire worlds in a dark drawer of our hearts and computer hard drives. Actors don't pour years into a play or even a film without getting paid. Musicians very rarely work on the same song for years.
But actors and musicians don't work in isolation. They get guidance, coaching, mentoring, feedback, and support. And that's what we try to do here at Adventures. That's the vision. To bring in all the different aspects of building a long-term successful career writing YA fiction, including:
- Giveaways, covers, and descriptions of all the books that teens are loving as they release -- i.e., market research. : )
- Interviews with the authors of those books about what they love in those books.
- Advice from those authors about their journey to publication and the most valuable advice that they've received in their careers.
- Actionable tips from those authors about specific aspects of what made the difference in moving them from aspiring author to publication.
- Detailed and meaty craft-related writing advice.
- Ask the Pub Pro features where you can get real, detailed information to your specific questions.
- Information and wish-lists from agents and editors about what they're looking for.
- Contests to help tune your ear (and prose) to what's working and exciting to readers and publishing professionals
- The 1st 5 Pages Writing Workshop to hone your opening and/or critiquing skills over three drafts with three professional mentors and an agent, including a brand-new pitch feature.
Whew. That's a lot.
And it doesn't happen all by itself.
So would y'all please, PLEASE, give a big hand to the people who work the magic behind the curtain?!
You all (hopefully) already know Lisa Gail Green, Susan Sipal, Erin Cashman, Jocelyn Rish, and Shelly Zevlever, who have expanded the team in the past couple of years. Recently, we've added new members Kristin Sandoval, Sam Taylor, Lindsey Hodder, Sandra Held, and Anisaa Denise. Several of these amazing people do double duty with our sister site,
YASeriesInsiders.com, which is a group site run by a combination of authors, bloggers, and readers who celebrate the love of reading through young adult series books and an intersection of different fandoms.
Please stop by our
About Us page to learn more about all these amazing people. It's also been sad to say farewell to the people who haven't been able to maintain the time commitment for AYAP with everything else they've got going on.
Running a blog like this is a professional endeavor. It truly is. It's a way to affirm not just our love of young adult books and beautiful writing, but also our respect for the time of the professionals involved and our commitment to the business of publishing. We learn a lot by doing this, and we make great friends and contacts along the way. It's a support system, a joy, and a responsibility.
That said, we have opening for more contributors. If you're interested, please reach out to us at ayaplit (at) gmail dot com.
Your Turn
Please tell us what features you love best at Adventures and how long you've been coming to this blog! Leave a comment below!
Giveaway Time
Happy reading and writing, everyone! Thank YOU for supporting AYAP all these years!
Hugs and more hugs,
Martina
Nine months ago, I was still wide-eyed, expecting the release of COMPULSION in October, and waiting anxiously for THE BIG DAY. I've learned a lot in that year, a lot about gratitude, expectations, friendship, writing, readers, publicity, marketing, promotion, editing, deadlines, psyching yourself out . . . I wish I'd known a lot of it when I started writing, so here's a half-way humorous look back! Enjoy!
1. Wait forrrrrreverrrrrrrr for your first book to be published. You’re done. You’ve arrived. You’ve achieved your dream. You’re a real, actual writer, right?
2. Walk around in a fugue-state (mostly induced by lack of sleep due to revisions and working on the second book on contract)
3. Wake up with cold sweats at least once a week, increasingly more convinced that your agent will call and shout April Fools! Why would you ever have been silly enough to think that someone would publish
your book?
4. Explain to your friends and family about a thousand times a week that young adult novels are real books.
5. Decide whether to laugh or cry when your mother discovers The CW and calls to tell you that apparently YA is a THING.
6. Find out your book will be in Walmart and Target and make your arms black and blue from pinching yourself. Wake up having dreamed your book hits the best-seller lists. Feel guilty for even having had that thought. Bad writer. Baaaaad writer. Knock on every wooden surface in the house, because clearly you’ve jinxed yourself. Why would you ever have been silly enough to think that someone might buy your book?
7. Mark off the days on your calendar until publication day. Hold your book. Go to bookstores and pet it and sign it. You can’t even. But that’s it., now you’re done, right? You’ve achieved your dream. You’re arrived. You’re a really truly for-real writer. Right? Right? RIGHT?
by Martina Boone
When you're stuck and you can't figure out where your plot is going, it can be debilitating. It can make you doubt everything. Your idea, your skills, why you wanted to be a writer in the first place . . . In my experience--and that's all I can really speak to!--writer's block is usually nothing magical. It's my subconscious telling me I've taken a wrong turn somewhere, and all I really need to get myself going is an old-fashioned dose of creative brainstorming.
I start by reassessing what I already know in three different ways. Invariably, long before I've reached the end of this exercise, something has sparked my interest or alerted me to the problem.
You can work through these techniques one at a time, working up to a hundred statements in one category before moving on to the next, or you can jump from category to category at whatever point you like. There are no rules, except that you keep going and keep your butt in your chair until you're itching to right or until you've had an epiphany.
Ready? Let's get started.
Technique Number One: Declarative Sentences
Write one hundred declarative sentences about whatever story element you're trying to fix. Suppose you have a character, Daisy Dull as Dirt, who you don't know well enough. Make a list of what you do know, and then keep going as inspiration strikes.
- Daisy is fifteen years old.
- Daisy hates when the different foods on her plate touch each other.
- Daisy talks too much and has no filter--she'll blurt out whatever comes to mind.
- Daisy's inability to keep her thoughts to herself get her into trouble.
- But her need to talk to people gets her back out of trouble.
- Daisy learns that she has developed the ability to talk to anyone by drawing them out of their shells.
Revelation: Daisy's babbling isn't really babbling. She is actively listening and cataloging what she learns about the people she's talking to.
That's a revelation that you can use in many different ways, and it's a skill that helps not only your plot, but also your character development from the beginning of the book. She's had to be developing those skills all along. Where can you show that in your manuscript? Sometimes, just that small change can get you out of your block. If not, keep going. You'll find more revelations as you go.
Technique Number Two: Loves and Passions
Write one hundred (you won't get there, trust me) things that your characters love or have loved in their lives, or things/causes they're passionate about or have been passionate about in the past, and state why.
- Daisy loves banana bread. She used to make it with her mother every Sunday morning, and just the smell of it reminds her of the warm kitchen and the soft Southern drawl of her mother's voice. (Wait. What happened to her mother? Why don't they do this anymore.)
See? It only needed that one statement to get to a revelation.
Technique Number Three: Hates and Conflicts
Write one hundred--although, again, you won't get there--things that one of your characters hates and another loves, or vise versa. Explain why they both feel the way they feel and how that puts them at odds with each other.
- Daisy loathes runny eggs. They make her sick to her stomach because they remind her of the time her cat climbed up to a bird's nest and Daisy tried to save the eggs. Ralph, Daisy's love interest, loves runny eggs. They are a comfort food for him, because his father used to make him poached eggs on toast whenever he was sick. Ralph and Daisy have been in a plane crash and have to live off the land. Ralph gets up early after a rough night in the open and goes in search of food. He finds an old can, a stream, and a bird's nest with several eggs. He makes a fire and decides to poach the eggs and serve them on the stale crackers Daisy had stuffed in her purse. What happens when Daisy wakes up?
For the record. I knew nothing about Daisy, Ralph, or the plot of this story when I started writing this post. In just these short snippets working through the techniques, I've learned a LOT.
Whether you're trying to find a story, or trying to discover where your existing WIP took a turn it shouldn't have taken, these techniques are certain to get you writing again.
Enjoy,
Martina
In the language of a recent
Suits episode, I'm a "grinder" rather than a "rainmaker." Writing doesn't come easily for me, and I spend countless hours staring at sentences and rewriting them fourteen times, only to discover that the first version was probably the best. I add layers, and subplots, and symbolism, and connect the dots through sheer hard grunt work.
Sometimes I
hate writing.
But then there are the rare flashes of brilliance that I swear don't come from me. The moments of magic when there's a muse on my shoulder. Or a miracle. Or all of the above. That's the part of writing that makes the rest worthwhile.
We all want more of those creative insights, but how do we get them?
Read more »
I'm about to spill one of my worst kept writing secrets, by which I mean that I'm going to talk about why I include a lot of the kinds of scenes that legendary agent and author Donald Maass, whose many books about writing I usually agree with in their entirety, says to leave out of a novel. What kind of scenes are those? The ones that take place in kitchens, living rooms, and cars driving back and forth. Let's call them the everyday scenes.
Now it's true that these scenes are the ones that usually are left out of successful novels--especially young adult novels. Why? Because they tend to be low-tension scenes. Scenes where people are sitting around talking and not much is happening.
But low action doesn't have to mean low tension. Novels aren't necessarily about action; they're about conflict. And conflict can occur anywhere. That's what a lot of writers overlook, and it can result in low-tension (aka boring) action scenes as well as scenes that end up being just two characters talking.
There are many valid reasons to have those everyday scenes, though. Which means it's a good thing there are easy ways to beef them up so they engage instead of disengage your reader.
Read more »
I was reading an interview with NYT Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen over on Novel Rocket, yesterday, and she mentioned that her favorite piece of writing advice is to focus on the character's predicament. I love, love, love that, because it actually addresses four different aspects of your WIP.
In one fell swoop, you can nail the core of your character, the movement of your story, the place you start it, and how you tell it.
Here's how.
- Start by putting yourself in your character's head. What's her problem? What no-win predicament does she find herself in? Journal this, just as a rough paragraph or two or three, writing as if she is screaming at someone for putting her in that situation. Let it all loose. Imagine the confrontation, all the emotion, the frustration, the desire to move forward and fix something.
- Examine that thing that she has to fix and establish the consequences if she fails. Brainstorm why she wants to fix it and jot it down your on one page in a notebook, note software program, or on a Scrivener entry. Why does she need to fix the problem? Why does she have no choice to act to change that situation?
- What is your character willing or forced to give up to fix her predicament? Add a second page to your notes. Write down what is most important to your character. Explore what defines her view of herself, and how this predicament effects that. What wound from her past or weakness of character is going to make it harder for her to repair the problem? What unexpected strengths can she find along the way that will help her?
- Now build your plot like dominos. Once you have a pretty good grasp on the predicament itself, it's relatively easy to make a timeline of how the problem, the person who created that problem (or personifies it) and your character intersect. You can build your plot as if it's inevitable: this happened, your character reacted, because your character reacted, this other thing happened, and so on. One thing leads directly to another.
- Next, taking into consideration who your character is, find the place in the timeline, or right before what you've jotted down, where the problem first rears its head. This could be something that your character did that set the problem in motion, or something coming in from outside to shake things up, but there has to be a change. This is where you're going to begin your story, on the day that is different, with the first domino. Write down what that incident is.
- Finally, put everything together to set up the story. Your opening has to show the inciting incident, suggest the story problem, and jump start the action, but you also want to foreshadow your character's strength and the weakness that is going to hold her back. You want to give us a hint of the personal lesson she will have to learn in order to get out of the predicament she's facing.
That's it. When you look at it from the standpoint of the character's predicament, every aspect of the story comes together. Whether you're a plotter or a pantser, and regardless of whether you're writing a fantasy or sci fi novel, a romance, a contemporary, or virtually anything else, these six simple steps will help you get enough information to structure it in a way that will let it feel like it's writing itself.
Happy writing!
This Week's Giveaway
An Ember in the Ashesby Sabaa TahirHardcoverRazorbillReleased 4/28/2015I WILL TELL YOU THE SAME THING I TELL EVERY SLAVE.
THE RESISTANCE HAS TRIED TO PENETRATE THIS SCHOOL COUNTLESS TIMES. I HAVE DISCOVERED IT EVERY TIME.
IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH THE RESISTANCE, IF YOU CONTACT THEM, IF YOU THINK OF CONTACTING THEM, I WILL KNOW
AND I WILL DESTROY YOU.
LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.
ELIAS is the academy’s finest soldier— and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias is considering deserting the military, but before he can, he’s ordered to participate in a ruthless contest to choose the next Martial emperor.
When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.
Purchase An Ember in the Ashes at AmazonPurchase An Ember in the Ashes at IndieBoundView An Ember in the Ashes on GoodreadsMore Giveaways
I have exciting news! Want to know the title for the final book in the Heirs of Watson Island trilogy? Head on over to Elizziebooks.com. Liz has my first ever video about Compulsion and the title, plus a great new giveaway. There are two additional places to win a necklace and T-Shirt, and you might even find a Persuasion teaser along the way. : )
There's also a grand prize, and you'll be automatically entered to win it when you enter any of the three T-shirt giveaways. But if you'd like even more chances to win, keep an eye out here, and on my Facebook page. I'll be posting a separate Rafflecopter in a little while!
And finally, don't forget. There's a new Compulsion for Reading bag of books this month!
What About You?
Have you wrestled with this kind of an approach to writing your story? Are you a plotter or a pantser, and is this too much or too little planning for you?
As a reader, do you like stories where the plot feels inevitable? Can you think of an example of a book that read like the characters never had any choice but to do what they did?
The lovely Angela Ackerman wrote
a brilliant post last week about characters with secrets, and she was kind enough to mention
Compulsion in it. The got me thinking about why both readers and writers love secrets, and it led me to an epiphany that's going to change how I approach character development.
I'm starting a new book outside of the trilogy. A brand new book with brand new characters. Isn't that bizarre? This week, I turned in the final book of the trilogy. I'm trying to spend my days not hyperventilating while I wait for my agent and editor to chime in. It's such a bittersweet moment. I'm done, but I'm also
done. I'm going to miss this world and these characters. I know
them so well. I know their secrets, their hopes, their fears, their
vulnerabilities.
That's the key. Secrets make us vulnerable. The people who know our secrets are the ones who hold our sense of self-worth, our relationships, our very futures, in their hands. But the people who know our vulnerabilities and handle them with care, the people who see the ugliness in us and like us anyway, those are the people who come to care about us. Those are our friends.
A reader can forgive a character almost anything as long as they understand
why that character did what she did. They want to see the character be vulnerable.
Vulnerability is what creates connection. So how do you use that to create a riveting character?
Read more »
Last Thursday, I was honored to give a keynote for the
Literacy Council of Northern Virginia at their annual recognition event. The Literacy Council is an amazing group of volunteers who provide basic reading, writing, speaking and English comprehension to empower people to participate more fully in their neighborhoods and larger communities. In addition to the speech I was privileged to give, I got to hear some of the award-winning essays written by the program's participants, and read more in the event program. And it was truly humbling and uplifting.
The event meant a lot to me, because I came to this country unable to speak English. My parents learned English at night while working and trying to raise families, and they did it for the same reason that moved me in the essays the students shared at LCNV--because they wanted freedom, opportunity, and the hope for a better life for their children.
Working Harder
When you hear that someone who was a nurse, or a teacher for 22 years, and they give that up to start all over again, you realize the value of what we have here. It makes me count the many blessings I have, and want to dig in even harder with my writing. And it makes me want to pay it forward, because I've been so very, very lucky.
I never imagined getting to work on the Heirs of Watson Island series with Simon Pulse, and I never imagined how big this blog would get.
Paying it Forward
For five years now, Adventures blog has been a place where I've been able to share not only my thoughts about writing and insight about what I'm learning, but also insight and advice from many other authors. Because I believe you can't be a writer without being a reader, we've shared new book releases each week, author interviews, and giveaways. We've launched the First Five Pages Workshop, and spun off a new writing contest site to help writers get agented and get their work polished for submission, and I've also been fortunate to work on a separate venture called YASeriesInsiders.com with a cast of amazing authors. As Adventures has grown, I've been lucky to find some amazing new contributors to bring in, and we now have an INCREDIBLE team.
Welcome New Arrivals
When we went hunting for one intern a few weeks ago, we received so many submissions that we ended up creating positions for a lot of people. As a result, AYAP has a brand new set of social media channels!
They're all still brand-new works-in-progress, but stay tuned! There are wonderful things coming. Want to see who's responsible for what? We're thrilled to welcome our recent arrivals: Jen Fisher, Kristin Sandoval, Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan, Sandra Held, Lindsey Hodder, Sam Taylor, and Anisaa Denise.
Check out their bios and job descriptions on our About Us page!
More Intern and Contributor Opportunities
In addition to adding new people here at Adventures, we've also added contributors for Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at
http://www.YASeriesInsiders.com, as well as a new Contributor and Interview Coordinator. And we're still interested in adding people. We're going to be tying in the content a bit more with Adventures, so that means even more great interviews and giveaways, but also lots of fun ways to express our love of books from the
reader side of the equation.
If you'd like to be considered, please send your resume to yaseriesinsiders (at) gmail dot com. This Week's Giveaway
The Wrath and the Dawnby Renée AhdiehHardcoverG.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young ReadersReleased 5/12/2015A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights
Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.
She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.
Purchase The Wrath and the Dawn at AmazonPurchase The Wrath and the Dawn at IndieBoundView The Wrath and the Dawn on Goodreadsa Rafflecopter giveaway
This is my second post about Martina Boone's book. In April of 2015, I learned about Martina Boone's Compulsion: Heirs of Watson Island. Published by Simon Pulse (which is part of Simon and Schuster) in 2014, the protagonist is a teenage girl named Barrie who moves to a plantation in South Carolina to live with her aunt Pru. The story is set in the present day, but the past is very much a part of Compulsion.
The island where the plantation is located is haunted and the house is falling apart. Having read it, I do not recommend Compulsion.
Notes as I read:
On page 61, Barrie is at the river. She sees a ball of fire hovering over the water. It gets dimmer and the river itself seems to be burning. The flames travel to a "shadowed figure of a man." Cupped in his hands is an ember (that is all that remains of that fire ball):
A cloak of black feathers covered his back and shoulders, and a matching feathered headdress melded into his long, dark hair.
He turned suddenly and looked at Barrie--straight into her--with eyes that were only lighter spots in a face painted with a war mask of black and red.
She blinks and he's gone, but "her heart was a drumbeat in her throat, war drums pounding, pounding a retreat" (p. 62).
Page 145: Barrie is with her cousin, Cassie, who tells her the history of the island. When the Carolina colony was being settled, the governor was gambling with Thomas Watson, a pirate. There are two other pirates gambling that night: John Colesworth and Robert Beaufort. Descendants of all three figure in
Compulsion. Watson accused the governor of cheating. Later when it came time to give out land grants, the governor took revenge on Watson by giving him land on a haunted island. Barrie asks, "Haunted?" and Cassie replies:
"Yes, haunted. Thomas Watson's island was inhabited by the Fire Carrier, the ghost of a Cherokee witch who had cleared his tribal lands of malicious spirits, yunwi, and pushed them down the Santisto until they'd come to the last bit of land surrounded by water on every side. The Fire Carrier bound the yunwi there, and kept them from escaping, with fire and magic and running water."
Early on, Watson had tried many times to build a mansion on that land but overnight, whatever he'd built during the day disappeared. Another pirate, Colesworth, offered (p. 145):
"to get one of his slaves to trap the Fire Carrier and force it to make the yunwi behave."
The slave was a voodoo priest, Cassie tells Barrie (145-146):
"He trapped the Fire Carrier at midnight when the spirit came to the river to perform his magic, and he held the Fire Carrier until the witch agreed to control the yunwi and make them leave Thomas Watson alone."
Then, they made the
yunwi give Watson back everything they'd taken from him. And then they trapped the Fire Carrier again and demanded that he help Beaufort win a woman's heart. That woman was already in love with Colesworth, but thanks to the Fire Carrier, Beaufort seemed to know whatever the woman wanted. Eventually, he won her over and they were to be married, but Colesworth had the voodoo priest capture the Fire Carrier one more time, hoping to get the woman back. But the Fire Carrier was tired of being used. He overwhelmed the voodoo priest and put a curse and gifts on the three men. Future Colesworth generations would be poorer and unhappier than the Watsons. That's the curse. The gifts? The Watson's would always find what they'd lost, and the Beauforts would always know how to give others what they wanted.
Barrie is a Watson. Cassie is a Colesworth. Because of the curse, she's poor and wants Barrie to use her gift of finding things to help her find the Colesworth valuables, buried by an ancestor before the Yankees burned Colesworth Place down. Barrie isn't sure she wants to help her.
That night, Barrie heads out at midnight and sees the Fire Carrier again. She sees him better this time (p. 159):
The glistening war paint on his naked chest, the feathers in his clock and headdress stirring in the breeze...
He wears that red and black mask again. He stares at her again and then walks away. This time, she sees shadows, too, and realizes they are the
yunwi. And, she smells sage burning. She thinks he wants something from her.
Later when she is talking with Pru, Barrie learns that her aunt feeds the
yunwi at night and that they take care of the garden. When they're outside, Barrie feels a tug from the woods. Pru tells her not to go there.
On page 273 she goes outside again at midnight. This time she's in socks. As she runs about, she gets cuts from gravel and shells on the path. She slips and cuts her palm, too. She washes the blood of her her palms in a water fountain. It seems her blood runs in ribbons through the water, and that she can see human figures in the shadows. She sees the Fire Carrier again. He points to something behind her. She looks at the top of the fountain and sees a spirit. It is a woman whose torso and legs are a column of water. Barrie asks her what she wants, and she says "You have given blood." and then "We accept the binding." As she walks back to the house she realizes the
yunwi are swarming around her bloody footprints. She pulls off her socks and throws them to the
yunwi, telling them to "eat up." It occurs to her that she can use those bloody socks to barter. She grabs them back up and tells the
yunwi that they'll have to give back things they took from her. Turning back to the house she finds her missing things and missing screws, too, that they'd taken when making mischief in the house. She throws the socks back down to the
yunwi and tells them not to break anything else, or take anything else, either, from her or anyone else. Through her blood, Barrie has power over the
yunwi.
From there, the
yunwi are around her a lot but don't figure much in the story. They more or less accompany her around.
Fast forward to page 375 when Barrie's gift draws her out to the woods. With Eight, the two walk towards a particular tree that is pulling at her:
"I've heard of this tree." Eight followed her toward it. "The natives around here used to call it the Scalping Tree and hang the scalps of their enemies on it."
The tatters of Spanish moss did look eerily like scalps. Barrie shivered despite the still-warm air. "Why?"
"I don't know. I don't even know which tribe it could have been. None of them, probably. The Fire Carrier was Cherokee, but since he brought the yunwi here from somewhere else, he clearly wasn't local."
Barrie finds the spot that is pulling at her, digs, and they find a metal box that has keys that gives them access to a room, and a staircase to a tunnel. There's a pull from there, too. Barrie and Eight (and the
yunwi) go down the stairs, unlock another door and find that lost treasure Cassie wanted her to find. That's not the source of the pull, though, so they go a bit further. The
yunwi find the source first: two skeletons. Barrie and Eight hear something behind them and see that Cassie has followed them. She grabs the bag of treasure and takes off, locking them in that tunnel. Barrie asks the
yunwi to get them out but they don't go near the door. Why? Because the door is made of iron, and iron hurts them.
Barrie and Eight decide to head on through the tunnel. The
yunwi go with them. Eight says it may have been an escape route "during the Yamassee uprising" or "other Indian raids before that." When they come to a fork, they choose one and follow it. Barrie realizes the
yunwi have stopped at the fork. They watch, forlornly. "[S]he was leaving them locked up here alone in the dark" (p. 398). She tells them she'll come back and let them out. That tunnel is to an iron door they can't get through. They try the other one and eventually find one that doesn't have the magical protection (things don't rot) that the others do. She gets out but runs into Ernesto (he's got tattoos all over, speaks Spanish) and Wyatt (Cassie's dad) who, it turns out are drug runners.
While tussling with them, the hour turns to midnight. She smells sage, and the Fire Carrier sees her struggling. He sends fire that causes Ernesto and Wyatt's boat of drugs to explode. She gets away, climbs out of the water and sees the Fire Carrier, up close (p. 422):
In the rushes before her, the Fire Carrier stood close enough that the war paint on his face and chest shone slick with grease. Veins stood out on his arms, and every lean muscle of his chest and stomach seemed defined and ready to spring into action. But apart from the feathers on his clock and headdress stirring in the night air, he was motionless. He watched her.
She sees that he's about her age. His eyes are sad. She wonders why he's been doing this midnight ritual of lighting the river on fire year after year. She understands he wants something from her. He heads off to the bank and she realizes she can almost see through him. Hearing splashing she's afraid it is Ernesto or Wyatt, but it is Eight. In the next (final) chapter, Wyatt is dead. Cassie and Ernesto are missing. The bodies from the tunnel are brought out (they're Luke and Twila. Luke was Barrie's great uncle and Twila was Eight's great aunt. They're part of a rather layered mystery element of the
Compulsion.)
Barrie thinks about how the Fire Carrier saved her life. No mention of the
yunwi.
The end. Of this book, that is.
Compulsion is the first of a trilogy.
My thoughts on the Native content of Compulsion
When we first meet the "Fire Carrier" of this story, Boone gives us things commonly (and stereotypically) associated with Indians: feathers, painted face, drums. This land was haunted before Barrie's ancestor was given this land. I may have missed it, but I don't recall reading why that land was haunted.
We know the Fire Carrier is there now, and that he's ghost-like (remember Barrie can see through him), so he's definitely haunting that land now. He, we read, is a Cherokee witch. If you look up the yunwi, you'll likely find references to Cherokee Little People. If you go to the Cherokee Nation's website, you'll find
information about them. Some of what Boone tells us about the yunwi aligns with information at the website, but Boone's yunwi are cannibals. Remember? They swarmed over her bloody footprints. That doesn't fit with what I read on the Cherokee Nation site, but it does fit with some false but common ideas of Native peoples as being cannibals. It is odd, too, that Boone's yunwi can't go near iron. I don't see that on the Cherokee site, either. From what I understand, the Little People are independent, acting on their own, significant to Cherokee ways of being in, and understanding, the world. But Boone's yunwi can be controlled by... a white girl. Echoes of
Indian in the Cupboard, right?!
Then there's that scalping tree... Setting aside the outlandish idea of a "scalping tree" let's look at what Eight said about that tree. He assumes it can't be associated with the Cherokees because they weren't "local" to that area. Maybe... but maybe not. The
South Carolina website tells us Cherokees were in South Carolina at the time it was established as one of the 13 colonies.
In all honesty, I find the Native content of
Compulsion to be inaccurate and confusing. And troubling, too.
As I read, I came across some other troubling content. Cassie is in a play. The play?
Gone With the Wind. I came upon that part the day after the murders in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. It stopped me cold.
I wrote up my thoughts, then, right away. Nothing I read as I continued alleviated those concerns.
I'm also unsettled by Ernesto.
It seems to me that Boone has, unintentionally, wronged three distinct groups of people and readers in the US: American Indians, African Americans, and Latinos. What will she do in the next two books of this trilogy?
In an interview, she indicates her character will grow through the series, but I've given that idea some thought and find it wanting.
I'm closing this post with a quote from Anonymous, who submitted this comment to my previous post about
Compulsion:
I find the idea of a reader -- particularly a child -- having to wait to see herself humanized an inherently problematic one. Yes, it might accurately reflect the inner journey many white people take, but isn't the point that our dehumanizing views were always wrong? And therefore, why go back and re-live them? Such ruminations could definitely be appropriate in an all-white anti-racist group, in which the point is for white people to educate each other, but any child can pick up a book, and be hurt--or validated--by what's inside. Asking marginalized readers to "wait" to be validated is an example of white dominance as perpetuated by well-intentioned white folks.
Need I say that I do not recommend
Compulsion?
Back in April of 2015, I learned about Martina Boone's Compulsion: Heirs of Watson Island. Published in 2014 by Simon Pulse (which is part of Simon and Schuster), the protagonist is a teenage girl named Barrie who moves to a plantation in South Carolina to live with her aunt Pru. The setting is present day.
The island where the plantation is located is haunted, and the house is falling apart. Later, we'll read about malicious Cherokee spirits called "yunwi" who are doing things (loosening screws and the like) to the house at night so that the next day, things come apart when touched. Outside in the garden, however, they are helpful. If Pru leaves food out for them, they will tend the garden.
This is my first post about the book. I've not finished reading it yet. My decision to post right now, before I finish it, is deliberate.
The book is set in Charleston. I started reading it Wednesday afternoon. That night, nine African Americans were murdered in Charleston. When I woke up on Thursday, my social media feeds were about the murder of nine people who were killed in a historically black church of deep significance, by a white person who said [Y]ou've raped our women...
I read the news stories and then, returned to Compulsion. I came to a part that brought me up cold. On page 150, Cassie (one of the main characters), tells Barrie:
...my theater group and I do Gone With the Wind at night, in front of the ruins.
I read that line and paused. I imagine a lot of readers will pause, too, but that a lot more won't. Most will just keep on reading. Far too many people don't see the novel or movie as racist. (The "ruins" are what is left of Cassie's family plantation.)
After I ruminated on that for a while, I read on. I wondered if Boone (the author) would, in some way (through a character or through the narration), critique Cassie or her group for doing that play.
I didn't find anything more about it until I got to page 237. Barrie and Eight (her love interest) are at the play. The play opens with Cassie and two boys coming onto the stage. They're wearing "aristocratic costumes" and are followed by
...a girl dressed as a slave, who balanced glasses and a pitcher of lemonade on a tray.
Barrie and Eight are engrossed by the production (p. 238):
Neither of them moved again until the audience gasped when Rhett Butler came on stage, played by a light-skinned African-American boy.
"Oh, that's brilliant," Barrie whispered. Everyone around her whispered too, but then the magic of the play took hold again.
When the play is over, Eight wonders "if that was nerve or genius." Barrie replies that it is both. End of discussion. I assume they're talking about casting an African American as Rhett. And, I assume that the girl playing "the slave girl" is white.
I have a lot of questions at this point.
Why were they doing that play in the first place? Since the author includes it without comment, is she among the millions who don't see it as problematic? Or, who have nostalgic attachments to it, such that they can't set it aside?
Why "a light-skinned" boy? Why not just say "African American boy"? Was it necessary that he be light skinned? What does it mean to have an African American boy in this racist play? It reminds me of Ann Rinaldi's
My Heart Is On the Ground, in which a Native girl happily plays a Pilgrim in a Thanksgiving play.
I assume that we (readers) are supposed to think that Cassie is enlightened for casting a light skinned African American as Rhett. We're supposed to think that there is racial progress in Boone's Charleston. I don't see racial progress at all, but I wonder if Boone imagined me, or any person who casts a critical eye on
Gone With the Wind as a reader of her book? As presented, it reminds me of
The Help where good white people help black people.
In interviews of her, I've read that Boone's characters are going to change over the three books. Maybe Boone is going to have Barrie and Cassie step away from
Gone With the Wind. Maybe they're going to say "it was dumb for us to do that" or something like that. That is what characters do, right? They change over the course of a story.
I want to poke at that idea a bit.
Let's assume that by the end of the trilogy, Barrie or Cassie (or both of them) reject
Gone With the Wind. Readers will move with them to that point. It'll be a win for social justice. But who is it a win for?
Some readers will applaud when Barrie or Cassie see the light. But what about black teens who already see that light? They are asked to be patient until Barrie and Cassie see that light. They, who are the target of racist acts today, have to be patient.
I find it deeply disturbing. The instant that the play is mentioned, somebody in the book has to say WTF so that
immediately, readers will think differently.
Am I making sense? Do you get what I'm saying? Help me say it better so that writers won't do what Boone has done.
There's so much more to say.
The white man who murdered nine African Americans in Charleston said "you rape our women." Did you know that there are heated discussions within some circles about whether or not
Rhett raped Scarlett? In Boone's book, Rhett is African American. My guess? Boone and her editor had no idea that some would read Rhett-as-African-American as a negative rather than the plus they intended it to be.
Once I hit upload on this post, I'll return to
Compulsion. I have a lot of notes about the Cherokee witch and the voodoo priest. As a Native reader,
I gather I'm supposed to be patient, too, as a white writer speaks to white readers about racism, in the past, and in the present, too.
This is a repost of an early post I did for AYAP. Unfortunately, I lost my beloved Auggie yesterday, and I'm having trouble focusing today, so I'm going to revisit this instead of writing something new.
Conflict is always good.
It's good for our characters, and it's good for us as writers. Pushing ourselves through the hard scenes, the hard revisions, the tough first drafts, that's conflict. Overcoming conflict in ourselves and our writing forces us to become better at our craft the same way conflict forces our characters to become better, stronger, more interesting to our readers. And just as our characters don't always choose the right fork in the road, it often takes trial and error--and an eventual alignment of whatever planets guide our writerly feet--for us to find the right path through a story.
As writers, we learn by reacting to a set of stimuli: a book read, a scene written, feedback received, or perhaps just the right combination of all of the above. Our characters learn because we put them in conflict with an antagonist, stick their butts in moral or mortal danger, and force them to fight their way back out. Learning how to do that to our characters credibly is the greatest thing we writers can learn. Because, in the end, for us and our characters both, fiction comes down to the credibility of stimulus and response.
From the first page we write, our main character must want or need something specific. She either has a goal or a problem. The antagonist, on the other hand, wants something that will prevent the main character from getting what she wants. The battle between the two will wage, nearly equal, until it results in a climax that pits all the strength of one against all the intelligence and cunning of the other. How do we, as writers, get them to that point though? That's the trick.
Pulling the reader by the heart from the beginning of the book to that climax, scene by scene, is the key to successful writing. Ultimately, a book isn't about beautiful descriptions or sparkling prose. It's about action and reaction, which is all a response to conflict.
I like to reread craft books. I usually try to get through one a month, even if it is one that I have read before, because I get something new out of it every time. Just forcing myself to think about craft in a new way gives me time to think about whatever story I am working on from a different perspective. This weekend, I picked up Jack M. Bickham's SCENE AND STRUCTURE, which approaches conflict from the approach of both logical and emotional stimulus and response.
Although Bickham focuses largely on scene, he also starts covers the cause and effect sequences that form the smallest elements of a story, the individual steps that begin to build the climb toward the climax. From the first scene in the book where the protagonist's journey begins with a the inciting incident, a stimulus, we writers have to provide a sound motivation for every action by every character. The more deeply motivated we can make the goals or problems, the more satisfying we can make the reader's experience, and ultimately, the more the reader will care about the outcome of the dilemma.
Even less likeable characters are readable and redeemable so long as they are striving for something they desperately care about. One of the basic tenets of creating a powerful story is that the protagonist must want something external and also need something internal one or both of which need to be in opposition to the antag's goals and/or needs. By the time the book is over, a series of setbacks devised by the antag will have forced a choice between the protag's external want and that internal need to maximize the conflict. The protagonist must react credibly to each of those setbacks, and take action based on her perception and understanding of each new situation.
Bickham points out that credibility results from understanding the stages of response. Character reaction, like human reaction in general, has four individual parts. As writers, we don't necessarily have to put all four on the page at any given point in time, but what we do show we have to put in the proper order. First the stimulus, then:
- the character's visceral emotional response,
- her unconscious knee-jerk physical action,
- her decision to act, and
- her initiation of conscious action or verbal response.
If we violate that order, we dissipate the tension in our sentences by creating a tiny, niggling disquiet in the mind of our readers, a sense that there is something wrong that can pull them out of the story and suspend disbelief. But as long as we follow the logical sequence, we can build from the initial opening action to the end of the first disaster. What disaster? The obligatory disaster at the end of every scene that answers the basic story question of whether or not the protag will get what she wants, the turning point of the scene that all those stimulus/response pairs lead up to as part of the two primary building blocks of story.
As Bickham defines it, every scene has to break down to the protagonist:
- striving to achieve a goal,
- encountering opposition (conflict), and
- smacking into disaster.
The disaster can fall into one of three categories that answers the basic question of whether the protag can achieve her goal or overcome her problem. Obviously, the answer can't be a simple yes, or we would stop the story in its tracks. Therefore, the answer to the question can only be:
- yes, the protag gets what she wants, but accepting it means she will have to get over an even bigger hurdle or face a moral dilemma,
- no, the protag won't get what she wants
- not only will the protag not get what she wants, but now something even worse will happen because of what she has done.
Obviously, any of these three choices will need some getting over and regrouping. A lesser character might give up. But being the resourceful, engaging heroine readers will love to read about, our protagonist won't be daunted for long. Instead, she heads right into the sequel in which she:
- experiences an emotional response to the disaster that just occurred,
- picks herself up and recovers from her setback,
- discovers she faces a choice with no clear-cut fix-all option, and
- ultimately decides on the lesser-of-the-evils next course of action.
Which of course, gives her a new goal, which leads to new conflict, and results in yet another disaster. This active, dynamic structure pulls us through the book because we never have the opportunity to forget that the character is working for something. It applies on the book level, on the scene level, and on a micro level within the scene. At any point, we can leave out one or more aspects of response or scene or sequel. We do not have to show them all on the page. But we, as writers, do need to know that they did occur and how they ended. Even if we don't show them to the reader in real time, what happened must color future responses and actions.
Bickham also suggests that readers expect the scene/sequel structure, that like the order of the responses to a stimulus, the need for a sequel is so ingrained that niggling doubts will creep into the reader's mind if we leave one out. In essence, he is suggesting that we will leave the reader more likely to question and suspend disbelief if we shortcut their unconscious expectations.
That doesn't mean he suggests structure is inflexible. Within certain limits, we can make up our own. What I think he is inferring throughout the book, or at least what I took away on this read-through, is that the more that we deviate from the norm that our readers expect, the stronger we have to be as writers. Learning how far we can stretch, how far we can push ourselves? That's one of the best, and hardest, parts of the journey.
Reading SCENE AND STRUCTURE this time through, it occurred to me that if I go back to my WIP and examine every line as part of either a stimulus or response, I will very quickly see where I have inserted tangents. Sometimes, tangents are necessary. Just as sequels slow down the pace of a story and give a reader a necessary respite in which to regroup, breathe, and take stock of what is going on, sometimes a brief description or internal thought within a scene is a welcome break that can actually help ratchet up the emotional tension. In other instances though, it can dissipate the tension and make the scene collapse. I'm always looking for better self-editing tools, and I'm wondering if I've found one with the stimulus/response test.
What do you think? Do you notice scene/sequel as you read or write? Consciously or unconsciously? Do you pay attention to stimulus/response pairs, and do you think that test would work to help spot extraneous material and an imbalance of action/dialogue to description/introspection on the page?
Maybe it's one more way to approach those pesky areas that slow down pacing.
Happy writing and revising,
Martina
I’m finding myself in one of those moods where, some days, I have to drag myself to social media. I know the answer to this—focus on the writing, and read and post about writing craft. I always find that invigorating, but it’s hard to stay away from the rest of the Internet.
Two things yesterday disturbed me. One, the backlash against Facebook’s insistence on using real names, and two Supreme Court’s decision on what constitutes a threat. To me, both these issues are related.
I’m doing a keynote for a the Literacy Council of Virginia later this month, which has given me a chance to reflect on what learning English and having the freedom to use it to express myself has really meant to me.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m from Prague which is in the Czech Republic. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was communist, dominated and controlled by Moscow. Citizens were expected to be part of the Communist Party and follow a particular ideology. Choosing not to follow the party line basically meant you didn’t get to work in any meaningful capacity. My father is a physicist, and my mother is a mathematician, and so, since they didn’t believe in Communism, they made the decision to defect.
We left the country with nothing—literally without the money to reach Denmark where we were headed. But that didn’t matter. Leaving was hopeful. It allowed for the possibility of hope, the chance to work for something better. Most of all, it was an environment where anyone could say what they thought without having to fear that would result in arrest or the destruction of a career.
Of course, the fact that we could, didn’t mean we would. There was a politeness when we first came—until a few years ago, with the advent of rap lyrics and social media—that meant no one would *really* say the most awful things that crossed their minds.
That’s changed. In social media, it seems to be okay to say whatever you think, no matter how hurtful, or awful, or thoughtlessly worded.
Conversely, where it still seems to be less “okay” to say what we think is in books. There are some tough scenes in Persuasion, and I truly agonized over including them. Not because I worried about being challenged, but because I wanted to balance the fact that this is what my characters truly thought and experienced against the emotions of the reader as they live through the book with those characters.
I cringe at the list of books that are challenged whenever I see a new edition, and I’m shocked listening to authors I know talking about their experiences after having written tough material. Some of the word-choices and personally-directed vitriol used to decry the words and ideas written by American authors and published in the United States make me scratch my head. I read every book I could get my hands on when I was a teenager. The more I read, the more I was able to put down the books I didn’t want to read, and both as a parent and as a teen, I realize that the thing that someone told me not to read was the first thing I picked up.
If you’ve ever read some of the words and descriptions used by people challenging books we ALL know and love, you’d be shocked. Or maybe not. The ability to use those words, the ability to attack those books, the ability to deny those ideas is the cornerstone of free speech, but has it gone too far?
What do you think?
I’m asking. Seriously. Where do we draw the line? Where does our freedom to say and think what we like intersect with our responsibility to be a community?
What do you think? And how do we foster a society that’s both free and civil? Or is that too much to ask?
This Week's Giveaway
Believe it or not, Persuasion isn't that far away. People are starting to download it on Edelweiss, and copies are going out to reviewers, so I'm starting my series of giveaways again because people really seemed to love them last year.
This month, there are three places to win:
Fiktshun
Two Chicks on Books
Tales of a Ravenous Reader (Coming soon)
Each of those giveaways is unique, so be sure to enter all three for a chance to win this prize:
But wait, there's more : )
Every entry into each of those three giveaways gives you an automatic entry for the Grand Prize:
Want an extra chance to win? Complete the Rafflecopter below!
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Things have been a little bit hectic here at Adventures lately. We're all on crazy deadlines, dealing with sick family members, last days of school, getting kids off to Madagascar (That would be my daughter, who's headed there for eight weeks) and, of course, book festivals, school visits, and so on.
Which brings me to my point. We could use a little help! : )
We have an opening here at AYAP for an intern who, if things work out, would become a permanent contributor.
The selected intern will help coordinate giveaways and interviews, which involves contact with authors, data entry, and html formatting. We will teach you everything you need to know, so if you have an interest in blogging about YA books, either because you love to read them or because you're an aspiring author, this is the perfect opportunity. The position is virtual and you set your own hours and pace.
Adventures in YA Publishing is a three-time Writers Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers Blog, and depending on the time of the year and what we're up to, we get between 80,000 to 200,000 visitors a month, not counting RSS feeds and email subscriptions.
If you're interested, please send your resume or summary of qualifications and interest to us at ayaplit at gmail dot com.
THIS WEEK'S GIVEAWAY
The White Rose (The Lone City #2)by Amy Ewing
ARC Giveaway
Violet is on the run. After the Duchess of the Lake catches Violet with Ash, the hired companion at the Palace of the Lake, Violet has no choice but to escape the Jewel or face certain death. So along with Ash and her best friend, Raven, Violet runs away from her unbearable life of servitude.
But no one said leaving the Jewel would be easy. As they make their way through the circles of the Lone City, Regimentals track their every move, and the trio barely manages to make it out unscathed and into the safe haven they were promised—a mysterious house in the Farm.
But there’s a rebellion brewing, and Violet has found herself in the middle of it. Alongside a n ew ally, Violet discovers her Auguries are much more powerful than she ever imagined. But is she strong enough to rise up against the Jewel and everything she has ever known?
The White Rose is a raw, captivating sequel to The Jewel that fans won’t be able to put down until the final shocking moments.
Question of the Week
I'm looking at my calendar for the summer and having mini-meltdowns already. Somehow, summer is such a time sink and I have final pass pages for Persuasion, and revisions for Book Three (which I think has a title I can't wait to share!). I also have a whole new book to write. And a TON of books I need to critique or read.
If you struggle like I do, here are my favorite quotes on finding time to write and making time to read:
“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life
“I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.” ~ Stephen King
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