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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

When I teach writing, I realize that I make everything sound like it’s a straightforward process. Well, it’s not. Listen to Anne Lamott:

Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t–and in face, you’re not supposed to–know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing. Anne Lamott, novelist and essayist.

When we discuss writing, we separate out the voice, the character, the plot, the language used, etc. so we can actually find useful things to talk about. And there are many useful and helpful things to discuss. However, the actual writing is a combination of all these, a gestalt. The whole is greater than its parts.

It’s helpful to embrace uncertainty in the writing process, to just write and see what happens. Those of you who are outliners–who plot endlessly and have cards for every scene–you still have to just write. You’ve managed to remove one level of uncertainty, but there are still enough layers left to keep you on your toes. You still must make decisions on what details to include, what words will express the thoughts, and so much more.

For every sentence, there are numerous decisions to be made: the basic thought expressed, nuances of that thought, connecting the thought to what came before and what follow, the vocabulary, the sentence structure, and punctuation and spelling. Outliners only manage to eliminate the first choice and maybe ease the nuances and connections of the thought to other thoughts.

Every time you face the blank page, you face uncertainty. It’s a normal part of the writing process.

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

We have 99 Days to go before Election Day. How different things look today compared to Obama’s first 100 days. In the last year and a half, the national mood has turned from hope to uncertainty.  The sluggish job market is the economic representation of this psychological state. Business are not expanding or hiring because they do not know what the future holds for them.

The White House, in acknowledging that it expects unemployment to remain at or around 9 percent, has conceded that voters will have to deal with this state of uncertainty even as they will be invited this Fall to make up their minds about whether their members of Congress deserve another term or if it is time for another reset. A certain act given an uncertain future. That’s the crux of the political game this year.

Come November, voters will be asking: do we stay the course and give the incumbents a little more time to bring back the test results, or do we throw the bums out and issue a new test? Republicans are chanting behind one ear saying, “no results means bad results”  and Democrats are chanting in the other, saying, “wait for it, the good times are coming.” With no good news or an objective litmus test in sight, the election outcomes will turn largely on the perception of despair versus hope.

The emerging Republican narrative for Election 2010 is that all this uncertainty in the market was generated by big brother. A massive health-care bill which has made it difficult for business to predict their labor costs for the years to come; a financial deregulation bill has given new powers to government but no indication as to how such powers will be deployed; and now, talk of legislation that would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010 is only going to spook business out even more. The Republican headline is: despair; and it is time to move on.

Unless they can point to some specific pork they have brought back to their constituents, Democrats will have to deal with this national mood of uncertainty that can easily be turned into despair. The question of whether or not Democrats will lose one or both (because zero is nearly out of the question) houses of Congress will turn on how successfully, once again, they would be able to massage the reality of uncertainty away from the fairly contiguous sentiment of despair into the more unrelated sentiment of hope.

Now that was a lot easier done in 2008. When patience had run dry with Iraq and George Bush, even Independents found it easy to be optimistic about an alternative path. Anything but the status quo was cause for hope in 2008. Not so in 2010, where there is neither clear light at the end of the economic tunnel nor a wreck in sight. It would take a much bigger leap of faith this year for the same people who voted Obama into office to continue to hope that his friends in Congress will deliver on his promises. Indeed, at this point, Republicans and most Independents are probably done with hoping. They’ve heard the boy cry “wolf” too many times.

The only people who will see hope when there is only uncertainty are the Democratic party faithful. If Democrats want to avert an electoral catastrophe, their best bet is to turn out the party faithful who will

Unless you've researched what the common factor is for books on the best seller list, chances are you may not be familiar with the term "high concept fiction."

In general, high concept fiction appeals to a large number of readers and also interests the movie guys from HBO, Disney, Warner Brothers, and other powerhouse film companies.

From wikipedia. Most of it applies to novels.

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The plot of a high concept movie is easily understood by audiences, and can often be described in a sentence or two.

The story line is extremely efficient in that every scene and character is used to drive the plot forward. Often in high concept, characters and scenes that at first seem unnecessary are later used to reveal or explain a plot twist.

High concept movies feature relatively simple characters and a heavy reliance on conventions of cinematic genre.

Stylistically, high concept movies tend to be high-tech, crisp, and polished. Such movies also rely on pre-sold properties such as movie stars to build audience anticipation, and use heavy advertising, market research, and test screenings to ensure maximum popularity.

This brings me to the point of tonight's post.
When I began Book #1, I did my best to write a story that I knew I could pour my heart and soul into. In other words, I wrote for myself and no one else.

But being the first time author that I am, I worried if my young adult novel would connect with a mass market audience (my target readers are teens, tweens, librarians, and teachers).

It has taken months of researching and even a few beta reader's constructive criticism to finally convince myself that Book #1 has the potential of being a high concept story.

Whether or not my project finds representation, I guess we will just have to wait and see if an agent believes there is a market for such a story.

In the meantime, please cross your fingers and say lots of prayers!