On Movie Adaptions and Writing Fantasy

Honestly, I am a bit tired of the current trend of adapting any big YA fantasy novel (actually, series) into movies. I mean, first of all it's unoriginal and a safe bet to get money. Lord of the Rings was really popular, so they adapted Harry Potter, and then because of that you have Twilight and The Hunger Games and others to a lesser extent. They've got built-in fanbases who will pay money. But I sort of wonder what it does to the authors of the works, especially of the less-than-successful (not just commercially, but storytelling-wise) adaptions like The Golden Compass, City of Bones, Eragon, and Percy Jackson (which somehow managed to have its sequel made which I haven't seen, but it looks like they attempted to fix problems from the first one). Everyone just says the movie was bad and goes back to reading the books, and critics frown at Hollywood. As they rightly should. It's not that these books aren't worth adapting, although they may not be suited to the big screen, but they are just misread for more focus on special effects, etc. And often it depends on how much the studio cares about the story--LOTR, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games were more well cared for than some others.

An interlude here, as I wish to complain about journalism surrounding these things. I'm a huge children's/YA fan, but it's not just the sometimes condescending tone towards these fanbases that bothers me. (Then again, the tendency for some fanbases to get so focused on romance in terms of the physical attractiveness of actors does rather annoy me. As does those who expect movies to be just like books, because that's understandable but silly.) It's the comparisons. Twilight was the next Harry Potter and The Hunger Games was the next Twilight and now Divergent is the next Hunger Games. This is extraordinarily tiring because not only does it inspire people to think of the industry as churning out retreads, but it just dumbs it all down. The comparisons happened because of just one aspect of the titles in question (popularity, teenagers/love triangle, dystopia) and doesn't take into account the whole thing. I mean, I personally like Divergent more than The Hunger Games because I connected to it more (though I did think there was a bit too much romance, but at least it wasn't a love triangle). I like the concept better, and the fact that not everyone has to die allowed me to connect more to the characters. At any rate, the success of great leading female characters does make me cheer, though I do occasionally worry that the publicizing of romance degrades their actual characters a bit. At least The Hunger Game survived the shipping to become well-loved by members of both genders, and hopefully not just because of the violence.

So back to me and my own writing, which does happen to be fantasy. Most of my stories involve some sort of fantastical or science fiction concept. This does often happen because I think "Wouldn't it be cool..." but over time I have become a bit more sophisticated. I've realized that I use these concepts to explore things between characters that I imagined being hard to discover on Earth, and also I would be terrible at writing a traditional high school story, not having gone to a traditional high school myself. I admit to being a rather sheltered individual, so imagining going places and exploring them with people I want to know better form the basis of many of my stories--and the ones that haven't, I have taken my characters and really explored them based in some of my own experiences growing up. That is first and foremost what my books are about. The concepts and plots center around putting characters in certain positions.

But to the generalizing eye, that's not what I'm doing. I'm writing another children's/YA (seriously, it really is on the borderline between the two) fantasy trilogy. There would be a lot of cool stuff I would absolutely adore to see made into film. But I just am worried that those things will dominate, in both book descriptions and possible movie deals.

Local authors and publishing options

Yesterday I went to my local downtown library (the library system in the town I live in is fantastic by the way) to see a panel discussion by eleven local authors (although two were coauthors on the same book). Most of them were nonfiction, self-published, and/or for adults, which doesn't exactly fit what I'm doing. I mean, I might as well say that I've never really considered self-publishing. I want to be an author as a full-time profession eventually, even if that means waiting, and I would like some professional guidance. But it is tempting. (And then I remember that I'm in the process of major rewriting and I can't just send it off soon anyway.)

I'm rather shy about the whole "I wrote a book when I was young and have spent years editing and working on a sequel" thing, even though there was another very young (self-published, not-trilogy work) author there. But eventually I talked to one traditonally-published author who writes historical fiction books about kids and teaches creative writing at a local university (also her son apparently goes to the same school I do, and is a year ahead of me). She suggested that I submit something to Scholastic's yearly young author competition to get used to deadlines, although that seems to be either for elementary and middle schools or about picture books from a quick Google search and I am...not an artist. (Although I have a friend who wants to be an illustrator...) I also got her card and was invited to email her, although I don't exactly know how I would go about that. I suppose I could just email the first couple of chapters I have (mostly) edited...sometime...I'm always so nervous though. I've heard that getting a mentor is a great idea though. Even though I'm not planning on publishing for years...

So I just realized it's NaNoWriMo

That's National Novel Writer's Month, by the way. I'm not participating of course - it's 10 days in already, I don't have the time, and I need to focus on editing my existing work (which is coming along nicely, if I might say so myself).

For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a novel in a month, and it happens every November. There's an online site here, and the Young Writer's Program part of the site is here. I've heard of it before - someone who attended the same house we did for Thanksgiving in the town I used to live in would participate eery year - but I've never even thought about participating, and I'm not sure I ever will. Aside from the fact I've got school, I don't think I could ever just write, as fast as I can, without regard for editing or planning. And yet there's something rather irresistible in just being able to write. Heck, I haven't just written something long in years, because I've been editing. Sometimes I just want to look at a blank piece of paper or screen and write.

And so far all those participating, I salute you, and envy you.

Some Words on Book Censorship

This post has been gaining a lot of views lately, so I've copyedited it because jeez my writing has improved.

I'm so behind. I've had a few posts going for a while but haven't been able to finish them. On the plus side, I have been editing more!

I've always been intrigued by banned books. Everyone is, after all: we want to read it for ourselves to see if it is really that bad. Like all controversies, banning a book just gives it more attention. As Hermione wisely remarks in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fact that something (in the book's case, the indie paper Harry gave an issue questioning the school's defense program) is banned means that more people will read it. (I like to believe that this was a line J.K. Rowling deliberately inserted as a nod to how her books did extremely well despite being banned for having "witchcraft".) Similarly, just about every popular book gets banned because someone thinks, "Now I've got to check this out before my kid gets into it." (I'm still scratching my head as to why The Hunger Games is sexually explicit.)

Not to mention, you know, that the majority of banned books are the ones taught most often in classes: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, and so on. This isn't surprising, since books are often banned in schools after the books have come to the parents' attentions through class reading assignments. Sometimes I wonder how many of these parents read the same books when they were in school. And while shielding their children is the instinct of all parents, many reactions are knee-jerk and with either a lack of appreciation for the minds of children or failure to realize they know things about the horrors in life and won't be scarred.

And then most books are banned at the mere mention or implication of sensitive material. Looking at the commonly banned books list, there are books specifically designed for kids to teach them about puberty and such. It's rather baffling. Are we going to ban school health books now?

My favorite example has to be The Giver. It's been a little while since I've read it, but a few months after I did, in eighth grade, one of my best friends did not want that to be the book she had to read in class (there were several different groups; she ended up reading Lord of the Flies), because she looked it up and apparently the content was iffy and refused to read it. Naturally, I got a bit angry. It's not inappropriate. It's not pornographic and doesn't even have anything happen - not even a kiss! All it is are dreams, called Stirrings, in which the main character, if I remember correctly, happens to be shirtless in a bath room with a female character, and he remarks that he wanted her to touch his chest. The interesting part is that the government gives these kids pills so they no longer experience these dreams, like it's a bad thing (that should be censored, hmmm?). It's just feelings; nothing bad actually happens.

Dreams are funny. We don't control them; they act upon our inner thoughts and emotions, some things we don't allow ourselves to think about. When I read The Giver when I was 13 or 14, I recognized the sort of dreams and feelings - just some small, innocent and curious thoughts - and they'd been going for at least two years at that point. So what does censoring The Giver for this reason tell us? Innocent, fairy-tale romance is okay, but human impulses aren't? Kids are taught to feel awkward about this, an alien and adult world hidden to them that it's scary when they start becoming a part of it. It's something that is normal, and it shouldn't be covered up by the government. The book is clever about this. It will go over the heads of younger readers and those who are old enough to have experienced this these note the eerie similarity, and are invited to think about whether the government is right or not, or if they are overstepping their bounds. And parents who want to censor this material from their children are further alienating and are not any better than the government in this book. You can't give children back their innocence, and it's not a negative thing when they lose it. You just have to educate them about how not to act stupidly with their new feelings.

Granted, there are other, more violent things that happen in The Giver, but I don't believe my friend was as concerned about those. Furthermore, the horrible stuff is supposed to be horrible and disturb you. As with everything, it depends on the maturity of the child, and every child is different.

On this issue I happened across a quote from Jay Asher on his novel Thirteen Reasons Why, which was the third most challenged book last year and which I should really get around to reading sometime. He hits it on the nose:

"I was writing a book about issues that make most people uncomfortable, including me. That alone, I knew, could make it controversial. But these are issues people do experience. To emotionally reach people, I had to write my story honestly. But I also wanted the book to be available to as many people as possible, so I did write a slightly less-graphic alternate version of one scene. I let my publisher decide which to publish, and they correctly chose the more intense scene because readers needed to feel uncomfortable there to understand what the character was going through."

 (Courtesy of CNN.)

In my ninth grade English class, we read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, which I have to say comes highly recommended. It's fictional, but it's tricky. It's by Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam war vet, and dedicated to several real war buddies, and it's about Time O'Brien, a Vietnam war vet, with those who the book was dedicated to as characters. But the majority of it (I take the part about him saying he's a writer and why he wrote things to be true) is fabricated, and on purpose. For instance, he can cope with how he felt if he writes a graphic depiction of the dead body of a man he killed, even if he never actually killed anyone. It was fascinating.

To be fair, there was a mixed reception from my friends: some felt the language and violence was excessive and inappropriate, some just didn't like it, and others like me loved it for - well, in my case anyway - its exploration of writing as a medium. I personally felt the language and violence was fine because it helps illustrate the shock and chaos of war, and is probably realistic; after all, in typical school hallways kids are exposed to language that is not much tamer (if not at all). Pretending that doesn't happen is censorship to begin with. Plus, being as realistic as possible helps the book's theme and intent of expressing truth through fiction that sounds real.

The most ironic banned book scenario, of course, is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which incidentally is a favorite of mine and which I am currently rereading. The entire thing is about censorship and why it's awful. It's from the McCarthy era, after all. And the book has ironically but inevitably been banned on a couple of occasions. Some of these concern language and violence, but one of the reasons cited is because the Bible is burned in the book. So, a book against censorship was censored because it contained censorship. You are supposed to be horrified about the burning of the Bible, and the main character doesn't like it! I mean, does no one consider the meaning and intent? Have they even read the whole book? Or are they mostly knee-jerk reactions? (I also find it funny that the parents of the girl who was disturbed by the Bible burning also protested the depictions of firemen in the novel. Like they resemble real firemen and would have had kids disrespecting real firemen.)

The thing about censorship is you can't prevent people from reading things, and you can't impose what you deem respectable for your child on all the others in that age group. Heck, you can't even deem what's right for your own children most of the time, as they're often less naive than you think.

To round this all off, I've got to confess my inspiration to writing this post, which is admittedly not book related. It's television related, and it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6. If you're not familiar with this, well, it's apparently one of the most divisive seasons of the show, as it features pretty much every character except Tara acting questionably, and there are several controversial plot developments (for various reasons). It should also be noted that this was the first season to air when Buffy moved from The WB to UPN (neither network still exists; they combined to form The CW), which was a newer network that and they were allowed a bit more freedom in content. One of the major storylines involves violent and unusual sex that Buffy eventually deems as wrong for her personal emotional well-being. The villains for the majority of the season are three geeky guys: the leader is a misogynist whom viewers already dislike from a previous episode, but his two follows consist of a lovable recurring character and a new and also rather lovable character. They bicker about various science fiction shows and seem to not be much of a threat, but there is something sinister underlying: these ordinary guys are willing to murder and even rape (and then pass off their guilt onto another, but I won't go on about all the fantastic stuff in "Dead Things") at times. They are dark mirrors of us.

I read this essay from Slayage (yes, there is an online journal of essays about Joss Whedon's work) about how editing done to the original BBC broadcasts of certain episodes not only distorted some of the meaning of some episodes, but did so in a way that avoided the moral questions raised by what was intended to be depicted. In addition, I found that the Parents Television Council named season six the worst show of the year (in terms of family viewing), which left me intrigued. (By the way, the PTC also listed seasons four and five among the worst, though not as high; I don't believe five is that bad, and they are so wrong when they claim one-night-stands in season four had no consequences...she was devastated and the player wasn't portrayed unsympathetically for a reason, y'know.)  As stated before, the discretion to be taken is different for each teen. But what bothers me about this censorship (and publicization; I also read that Fox News played a clip of the initial violent sex scene as an example of corrupting America) is that the point of these scenes is not glorification (well, maybe aside from some shirtless Spike scenes). It's not saying that this is right, not at all. (Note: It's not that I think it's wrong for there to be consensual rough sex, but that this wasn't an emotionally fulfilling relationship, and so shouldn't be seen as an "OTP." It's a game.) Buffy herself is ashamed by the relationship and keeps it a secret, and there are loads of questions for viewers to think about in regards to this storyline alone. We don't have to preach to the audience. They can decide for themselves.

Censorship: never the answer to the questions it avoids.

Words Have No Meaning

I've been working on some longer posts, but I really haven't posted anything for a while. So here are some snippets of bigger things I think about. I am intrigued about the relationship between words and society, as well as stories and society. Do they affect what we expect? Are some things more accurate if we don't have to put them in words, as those words are attached to meanings, and those meanings have been shaped culturally?

How much are we made up of storybook culture? There is a sort of received wisdom that comes with society, and I wonder how much of it is influenced by stories. I thought about how when people decide to tell people things publicly, what they say often becomes simplified and sanitized so it can be easily told and understood. And as someone whose complicated but insisted not-romantic relationship was translated and assumed to be the wrong thing, this bothers me. Yes, I said things, and I certainly had some feelings, but they were different and I knew they were, and I tried explaining. Sometimes I felt like he was a close friend in spirit (because we did not talk very much) whom any romantic entanglements would ruin. Sometimes I felt like he was a younger child I was watching out for. And then I increasingly felt that our personalities were so conflicting and stubborn that no wonder we argued and stopped talking. But no one - not even him - wants to hear about this. It's just got to be simplified.

"I care about this person" becomes "She likes him." "I cannot physically sing well in front of people because of bullying and an unsympathetic teacher" becomes "She doesn't like to sing in front of people." "I was bothered by the blood and the realization that I can easily injure people I love" becomes "Oh, he just accidentally cut his best friend." Emotions get scarified for an easy-to-pass-along story that others easily understand. When someone asks why a couple broke up, they're looking for something that slots into a category that makes sense based on received wisdom. If the pair make the smart decision and keep it quiet, because no one else will really understand, then other people whisper and suspect even worse things, or the wrong things, or simplified things. Everyone wants to know and when everyone does know, they don't understand. There is no way to win. I find it as fascinating as it is frustrating.

And that is part of the reason I write things. I journal to keep track of my feelings and emotions. It's hard at times but I want to understand what makes us human. I have been very privileged to know people who have been different than cliched, storybook characters. I have been very privileged to have a relationship based on accepting each other and being open and figuring out how relationships really work. These are what writers need to write about. Not stories where characters are easily slotted into a "love interest" role often based upon physical appearances. Not stories where the dating just happens to begin by a perfectly coordinated kiss. Not stories where the girls are the only ones being insecure about their behaviors and appearances.

We need stories where characters fall in love by thinking hard about their feelings. When they see each other as not beautiful or handsome, but as who they really are, and it's the personality they fall in love with and becomes one with the physical side. We need stories in which couples openly discuss everything, and ask to make sure they are both okay with every little thing before they do it. We need flaws that are admired and discussed, and guys who are not "dreamy" or "cool" or overly confident. And we also need stories about relationships that are close but not romantic, and we need to call out society for questioning those. Romance is a cop-out. Relationships are based on something real, and they come in many forms.

My boyfriend and I have made "words have no meaning" a bit of an inside motto. We're both somewhat shy about compliments, and I never feel like words quite do justice. Putting things - especially feelings or impressions - into words seems to cheapen it. It's taking something abstract and cramming it into a definite shape. It's more limited. Similarly, the meanings of certain words are obstructed by the way culture has interpreted them. And then there are other things that don't have to be expressed in words, and sometimes one does not have to go through the effort to explain his or her feelings if others know and can tell.

And yet, we are writers. We take on this challenge. I keep a diary and also a more generic writing journal, and I know that my hastily written diary is clumsy and not very precise, whereas my writing journal - when I'm writing about something real - is more thoughtful and generic. This is because my writing journal is more universal; rather than telling what happened I show it through a letter written to someone who would never read it, or a metaphor or comparison. The writing, as a result, is much more powerful and easier for others to sympathize with. It's showing, not telling. And that's what writing is about: translating the world you know and what you want to say about it into something that others can understand, and entertain them to boot.

So about that other blog...

In case anyone is wondering where my Doctor Who blog went to, it hasn't been deleted, but it's private. I'm not sure if I'll continue with it. Aside from being a hobby too many, I just wasn't comfortable with writing it at this time. Just FYI. I know I didn't have many real readers so I doubt this is much of a problem.

Disorganization and Focus

Today I was cleaning up my room and I put together everything dedicated to writing - old drafts I had printed out, lots of notes, notebooks dedicated to a project that I had abandoned, folders with lots of notes...

It looks like this:

That looks like a lot, but it's rather misleading. Many of the notebooks are only half-used at most. The two bound drafts are identical. There are quite a few things that will never be revisited.

But still, I am extremely unorganized. I started moving everything to the computer - I use OneNote and now Scrivener - but it's not very consistant and I never have everything I need in one place. There are stray notes everywhere, and they may not even be relevant anymore because I have reworked a particular concept or plot.

My main problem, of course, is focus. I never can focus when I'm on the computer, but it's misleading when writing on paper. And yet, I can really edit articles hard over on Wikipedia. I think that is because you have to save edits live (unless using a sandbox) on Wikipedia, providing a sort of deadline. I've tried setting goals for my important writing, but I never stick to them or really enforce them.

Is it too early to make a New Year's resolution?

Responsive Tweaks

I generally like being aware of common criticisms in fiction and trying to make sure I don't fall victim to the same thing. We can naturally get into schools of thought based on the media we consume on a regular basis rather than the world we live in. So, I plan to make these changes to my trilogy:

More ethnically representative - It kind of hurts that I didn't think of this earlier (or at least until I got to Book 2, which has much more depth with a black character, an Italian character, and a working class neighborhood).  As someone who is older and more experienced now, this is going to be one of the massive changes I instill on this editing round. I have the perfect platform to do it in, as my characters should all naturally be from places around the world. Some of the main characters have specific ties to America and I'm keeping those in (country of origin, after all), and I am going to try to make sure the "bad" characters are not of any ethnic origin, to eliminate stereotypes. I have already made two of the more prominent characters British (well, one is of unknown origin, but was raised by the other British person), which I believe adds to the "slightly foreign" effect they have on the main character. I can't wait to start exploring minorities as I progress, though.

More humanized "villains" -  This is mostly for the second book, where I have to make sure the nasty people they meet are still sympathetic and not just Generic Evil, especially since some of them are children. It's going to be quite a while before I get to seriously editing those scenes, but I really don't want to equate working class with nasty.

Okay, now I just have to figure out what a Mary Sue is and why it's so bad. (Can anyone help?)

The First Post

Well, hello! Welcome to my writing blog, which will be updated whenever the heck I feel like it, with topics related to writing. I think it will help me stay focused. It also may distract me, so I'm taking a bit of a risk. Ultimately, though, I think it will motivate me to work more. And I like blogs.

I actually do have a name, but I'm not going to reveal it (for various reasons) until I'm fairly certain I will be published, or I am comfortable with it (whichever comes first). The title "Pen Name Pending" was created for my Doctor Who blog, which I ended up starting earlier than I expected and so never got to come up with a cool pen name. Actually, I found that I liked the status so much that a pen name would not live up to it.

Anyway, what am I planning to do? I'm not sure. Mostly muse about writing-related things, I suppose. Writing, editing, ideas, habits...all that jazz. I have a few ideas to start with, and I'll just post when I feel like it.

What do I write? Well, my main project is something I've been working on for, oh, about 4 years now. Once I started really writing it, I finished it in a year. And it's at least 350 pages. Originally, I wanted to be a young author. I edited, but I didn't make major edits. I wrote about half of the sequel within the following year and a half (and I haven't gone back to that in a while...). It's a planned trilogy, by the way, but the second book is from another character's point of view and the third will alternate between several as they are split up, and I think since they'll all be well established that I can get away with that. Anyway, maybe a little less than two years ago I thought about submitting it to an agent, but I realized I could revise the first 10 pages or so that I had to submit. I continued on to maybe 2/3 of the book--some major prose tweaks, some minor. Then, last year, I thought about how much more I liked the sequel because the new characters were more interesting and it was darker. I had matured so much, not only in my writing but emotionally, and my first novel just seemed so amateur. I was afraid to really get to the heart of things in some places. So, I began more rigorously editing, with a focus on characters, emotions, mood, logic, and some symbolism. The thing is, I get distracted. A lot.

What kind of book is it, anyway? Well - and I'm sure I'll blog about this sometime in the future - it's on that weird divide between "children's" and "young adult". The series matures as it goes along. In fact, one of the things I'm working on is making the whole thing about the journey of growing up. Genre-wise, it's fantasy. It takes place in a whole other world with some crazy stuff, and I'm getting better at building it as I go along. (Originally, it was much too simple.) I also have lots of other ideas. This blog is going to be more about writing, rather than what I am actually writing about, though.

Well, until next time,
[Resists urge to electronically sign real name.]