Zoë Marriott's Blog, page 6

WRITERS ALOUD - THE NORTH STAR

Hello, Dear Readers! Happy Thursday to you all - I hope the week is going well for you so far.


This week I have a podcast for you from the Royal Literary Fund's Writers Aloud series! I absolutely loved writing and voicing this (and especially working with lovely Amanda, who recorded it) and I think it turned out really well. We actually recorded it a quite a while ago and I've been waiting for ages for it to be ready, so please do check it out.

The first part is by a writer called Marcy Kahan and talks about how she fell into playwriting manuals (which might be of interest to any Dear Readers who are into screen or plawriting). The second half is mine, and I talk about how characters are central to creating a fully realised fantasy world - like a Northern Star by which I navigate.

My section of the podcast starts at roughly 15.15, if you want to go there directly, but do try Marcy's part as well if the topic's appealing to you.

I hope you enjoy the podcast - and that you can find a Northern Star by which to navigate the journey to Friday, muffins

CAMP NANOWRIMO 2020 - THE NANO CURSE STRIKES AGAIN!

I was honestly doing so well, Dear Readers. And then... the Nano Curse. For once it didn't attack me ( a refreshing change). No, it killed my computer for a whole day. A whole day. For just... no reason.

I still did longhand writing, but I couldn't input it, AND I couldn't get any other work done, so on Monday I was totally snowed under, and all I could do was type up my longhand notes and then (in fairness) divide the word total between Sunday and Monday.

This is how I was doing before:


And this is what it looks like now:


Eugh, that drop. Speaks for itself, really. *Sigh*

EDITED TO ADD: And, now, having spent the morning revising the first half of the sections that I typed up yesterday, I go to what should be the start of a new chapter and find... no new chapter. All the work I did after about 1pm yesterday is gone. Even though I KNOW I saved it. So. I don't even know. Nano Curse, you are a cunning and evil gremlin indeed.

I should have known. But I'm going to keep ploughing on anyway, because a) I've made hella progress overall and b) I love Camp NaNo's progress interface and you can only use it during July (or April) so why not? Let's hope the Curse doesn't take my fingers out next time.

How are you doing? Sound off in the comments, muffins!

CAMP NaNoWriMo 2020!

Hello, hello, hello Dear Readers! Happy Tuesday to all. I hope your weeks are looking positive so far and you're all safe and well.

So here's a question. Are you doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month? 'Cos I'm going Camp NaNoWriMo this month.


I know, I know, the NaNo Curse. It's true, as long-time Dear Readers know, that I've never managed to complete the OG NaNoWriMo successfully because every. Single. Time - every time, going all the way back to 2011! - either before I can start or within days of starting... something really awful happens to me. Sometimes it's horrendous illness or hideous injury. Sometimes it's even worse. After the last time I just gave up, honestly.

BUT. This is Camp NaNoWriMo, which is technically something different, right? It's July, not November. You can set your own word count and even work on edits if you want, without 'cheating'. It's got a different logo and everything!

And, just between you and me, I need the help. I've got a really special WIP right now that is truly and utterly different to anything I've ever worked on before, and I LOVE it. I desperately want to get it finished by the end of this year. But between researching and writing the dissertation for my MA, designing modules for and preparing to teach two writing courses on Creative Writing Ink from this week, and launching The Book of Snow & Silence (in addition to the world, you know, being AN ACTUAL TRASH FIRE) I've been choked on it for months. I haven't made any real progress since January. I just kept opening the file up, fiddling with a few lines, and then getting vapour-locked.

So: Camp NaNo. I decided to give myself a really small and manageable goal, not only to ease myself past my writing roadblock on this one, but because I know that the teaching is going to take up a big chunk of time going forward. I can't see myself writing anything good if I'm panicking over finding time for that AND hitting 3000 words a day.

I started July the 1st, and I'm pleased to say that not only did I not get a horrendous injury/hideous illness, or suffer a personal tragedy, but I actually managed to write some new stuff for the first time in months:


And that I've managed to keep it up and make steadily increasing progress:


It's good enough for me. I know that when the teaching starts, my daily word count might sag down again, but that's OK - so long as I can manage to get to my overall target by the end, I'll count this a massive success. Hurray!

You can start Camp NaNo anytime during the month, and (as I said above) set your own overall word goal - so if you've been struggling to get something started or wade out of the middle muddle, now might be the time to give it a shot. Or maybe you're already up and writing. In either case, feel free to add me as a buddy if you want.

Oh, and here's a new writing playlist I made, although it's super project specific and very heavy on the Enya, so if you're not into that, maybe give it a miss.

Happy writing, muffins!

THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE BOOK BIRTHDAY!

Hello, Dear Readers! Happy THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE Release Day!


Wooohoooo!

From today, if you order the ebook of The Book of Snow & Silence it will arrive instantly on your Kindle, laptop, tablet or other device, AND you can order the absolutely GORGEOUS paperback version of the book too. Look at this, guys, just look:




I've had some really amazing covers - as well as some duds, I'll be honest - over the years, but I think this one is my favourite since the original cover of my very first book, The Swan Kingdom, back in 2007. It's just so damn pretty. These sorts of deep, jewel-toned bluey-greens are actually my favourite colours in the world, and I could honestly sit and stare at them, and all the lovely details in this artwork, for hours at a time. So pretty, my precccciousssss... *Strokes cover gently*

If feeling this way about cover art is wrong, baby, I don't wanna be right.

Ahem. Where were we? Oh, right. To celebrate the release of my TENTH NOVEL FOR YOUNG ADULTS (omg omg, breathe, Zolah) I've got some lovely treats in store for readers.

First, to encourage everyone who possibly can to review the book - because reviews are life, Dear Readers - I'll be doing a special giveaway when The Book of Snow & Silence reaches ten reviews on Amazon. The reviews don't have to be long, or extensive, and they should be completely honest, don't worry! Once we get to ten, I'll pick one lucky winner from the entrants to recieve:

One proof paperback copy of The Book of Snow & Silence, signed and personalisedOne paperback copy of my last book The Hand, the Eye & the Heart, signed and personalised Two signed and personalised bookplatesThe Book of Snow & Silence full-colour postcardThe Hand, the Eye & the Heart full-colour postcardOther assorted swag
If you would like to be entered into this giveaway, you don't have to do anything fancy - literally just tell me in the comments below. THAT'S IT. Just leave me a comment. When we reach ten reviews, I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner. Of course, sharing this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter or other social media will speed things up - because hopefully that will encourage people to read and review the book - as would posting a review of your own on Amazon, but all you *have* to do is leave a comment below this post. 

Secondly... I made another book for you?


I made this one all myself! Do you like the cover? It's pretty good, right? I honestly impressed myself with this - I wasn't sure I could figure out how to get it all done, but I really wanted to offer readers something special for release day. This is ebook only - it's novella length - BUT it will be FREE for you to download for the next five days. Unfortunately Amazon won't let me make it permanently free. After that it will only be 99p, though.

SEA FOAM has an exclusive prequel story for The Book of Snow & Silence . It also has poetry, deleted scenes, and fragments from my writer's notebooks, some of it related to published works, some from things that never saw the light of day at all. There's an epilogue to Shadows on the Moon , scenes that I wished I had included in The Name of the Blade Trilogy, and the start of a Twilight spoof that I was never able to take further. Hopefully you'll enjoy it and find it interesting, so if you want it FREE, then get over there and download it ASAP.

To sum up: if you want to enter the giveaway, comment below (and cross your fingers that we get to ten reviews fast). If you want a free novella-length book which includes a Snow & Silence prequel short story, get over to Amazon now.

Have a lovely Book Birthday, muffins!

A DEADLY EDUCATION BY NAOMI NOVIK - My review

Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers! I hope you're all safe and well (and if you're not, feel free to let me know in the comments, I promise to offer you comfort and virtual hugs).

Remember that THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE ebook is currently available for pre-order on a special Kindle deal for under £2 just now, so get in there if you want it. And if you do buy it, please consider reviewing once you've read it, since reviews are life. Speaking of which... today's blog is a review and I am *excited*. 

Naomi Novik is one of my favourite writers working today.

She's famous for the Temeraire series: alternate history Regency-era fantasies where intelligent dragons essentially act as airborn artillery in the British armed forces as they battle against Napolean. I really liked the Temeraire books and have read all of them - but not until after that series was complete and Ms Novik published UPROOTED, which can be taken as a very loose Beauty & the Beast retelling, did I become a superfan. And I do mean a superfan. UPROOTED pressed every button that my fairytale and folklore obsessed heart possessed, and I loved it so much that I recommended it to literally every bookish person I met for the next year.

I had her next book, SPINNING SILVER, on pre-order the moment it was available on the Waterstone's website, and when it turned up and my sad, RSI-weakened hands could not actually hold it long enough to read it (it's a hardback and it's chunky, OK, and I need to be able to bring books up close to my face because my eyes are rubbish) I turned around and got the ebook, but kept the hardback anyway because it was signed. Me. This perpetually skint, compulsively thrifty person. Who even am I? This what the prospect of a new Naomi Novik book does to me.

So the female-focused folklore inspired fantasy was a pretty big departure for the author of a very, very successful and long-running series with a male protagonist. And A DEADLY EDUCATION is yet another daring swerve for the author. It's what I would call contemporary urban fantasy, or maybe contemporary alternate history (the 'everything's the same except there's a secret magical world' variety) and hovering right on the edge of the crossover market. When I saw this pop up in Netgalley I nearly dislocated my finger, I hit the 'Request' button with such fervour. Only afterwards did I notice that this wasn't another fairytale inspired novel, but something entirely different. I prepared myself to maybe not love it quite so much.

Ha. Yeah. Nope. I would still sell my immortal soul for this woman.

First, I need to get this out there: this is an absolutely bonkers book. I can't emphasize enough how barmy it is. Story. Characters. Tone. It's like nothing you've read before. But! At the same time, it IS. Because it is straight-up parodying not only Harry Potter but the parade of other 'magic highschool' novels which followed in HP's stratospheric wake.

This is a book that has set out to answer the question so many of us have asked regarding Hogwarts as we looked back at the series as adults: who in the heck would ever send their kid there, and WHY would they allow them STAY there when the kids are writing letters home saying: "Thanks for the new socks. Got an A in Transfiguration but only a B in Herbology. Oh, and there's a giant savage three headed dog chained up in one of the corridors that would kill any of us instantly - and we learned lock-picking spells in charms today! Love to Dad."

As a kid, you just imagine how damn cool it would be to get to go to Hogwarts and have adventures, but as the aunt of several nieces who just barely managed to survive to adulthood despite excellent quality helicopter parenting and notable lack of magic wands, I do wonder... why would an adult who is responsible for the welfare of hundreds of vulnerable children hide the Philosopher's Stone in their school, practically guaranteeing that Voldemort's agents would turn up there? Who approved sending eleven year olds into the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night for *detention* without even ensuring they would have adequate adult supervision when a unicorn killing monster is known to be in there? Not to mention the giant spiders? What about the Whomping Willow? Allowing school to stay in session after all the adults are damn well aware that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened again and a deadly unidentified creature is on the lose within the walls? VOLUNTARILY ENTERING KIDS INTO THE GOBLET OF FIRE???

I mean, what is WITH this place? For heaven's sake, if you didn't know any better you might almost say it's like they're trying to, I don't know, kill the kids off on purpose somehow, cull out the weak, sift the wheat... from... the... ?

Yep. That's totally what the Wizarding world was doing, isn't it? Sorry, readers, but it's true. You're lucky your Hogwarts letter never came, because chances are that you wouldn't have made it out alive (me either, for the record).

Really, only Harry Potter's bulletproof rose-tinted glasses - conveniently provided by a total lack of the proper socialisation and vital attention required by a developing child, not to mention the routine starvation, neglect, and physical and emotional abuse of his family - allowed us, the readers, to believe anything different. The cupboard under the stairs made even a life in which he was continually thrown into near-death situations by his adult caretakers and expected to save everyone seem great by comparison as long as people fed him and noticed his existence. But for anyone else... well. I think Hogwarts would seem pretty much like Naomi Novik's invention in A DEADLY EDUCATION: the Scholomance.

Scholomance is what Hogwarts was really like. No one is happy to be on this school's admission list. It's effectively a meat grinder for magical kids. You're all alone there - there are no teachers, the school itself sets your assignments and punishes you gruesomely if you fail - and if the kids kill each other off? Well, what happens in Scholomance mostly stays in Scholomance. And you're not only potentially under attack by other kids, who want to move up the rankings, oh no. You're also under constant attack by 'mals', magical monsters who slurp up the fresh and shiny life force of children as if it were Mountain Dew and which, despite the best magical protections the school has to offer, have a nasty habit of popping out of the scrambled eggs on the breakfast buffet, from out of the plugholes in the shared bathroom, and even through the keyhole of your dorm room in the middle of the night.

Now, of course you can avoid going if your parents take you off the list - but even though your odds of getting out of Scholomance alive are roughly one in four (yep, it's brutal) it's still better odds than staying out in the world, where magical children going through puberty are monster magnets and your odds are more like one-in-twenty - and that's IF your family belongs to an 'enclave', a sort of wealthy, influential and privileged Feudal compound, with powerful adults who will probably be willing to risk their lives to defend you. Once you hit eighteen or so, the monsters don't consider you particularly interesting anymore, but in the meantime, you put everyone you love, including younger siblings who aren't yet going through puberty, and older relatives who may not have strong enough magic or the right affinity to defend themselves, in danger.

And if you're not in an enclave, like the heroine of this story - Galadriel, or 'El'? Well, not going to the Scholomance is basically just hoping that when the monsters eventually DO get at you, they eat your mum (or dad, or big sister, or the neighbour lady) first and give you time to get away. This is not cool with El, whose mum is a hippy ray of sunshine, an insanely kind, positive and powerful healer who only ever uses her power to make the world a better place and refuses compensation for any of her work. She's totally alone in the world and only escaped the Scholomance herself as a teen because Galadriel's father - knowing that El's mum was three months pregnant - sacrified himself to a hideous monster to save her life. El's mum lives in a commune in Wales and is beloved by everyone who meets her. She could have the pick of any powerful 'enclave' in the world. Except. Except that El is NOT an insanely kind, positive and powerful Healer.


Oh, she's insanely powerful, all right. In fact, she can pull the lifeforce out of any other wizard she likes, no matter how strong or well-defended, at the blink of an eye, and has an affinity for enchantments of darkness, destruction and death. When free-writing poetry, she accidentally creates spells to invoke supervolcanoes. She can literally kill you with a flick of her hand, and from a small child, people who look at her are inexplicably filled with (depending on their character) fear, revulsion or awe. Her own father's family, despite having adored her deceased father and practically worshipping her mother, tried to off her when she was a kid because they, vegetarian, Pacifist Good Wizards, were convinced she would bring about the endtimes, and was better off dead.

The only reason she is not already ruling the universe 'ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!' style is that, thanks to her mum, she actually doesn't WANT to hurt anyone. Which, predictably, drives her up the wall, because the way people, even quite nice people, treat her - as if she was automatically a horrible, wicked person - means that she WANTS to want to hurt them. She just can't bring herself to really DO it.

El is Bellatrix LeStrange, if she had been brought up to have an unshakeable moral compass. Killing people and being wicked, cruel and villainous would be a piece of cake for her, and in order to be good, she has to work about ten times as hard as a normal person, because every time she uses magic it wants to twist into something dark. And she knows that if she gave into that urge, even once, she would end up respected, feared, unstoppably powerful, and SAFE - but also, on the path to becoming the monster she's determined never to be. She's bitter, caustic, antagonistic, and perhaps the most purely decent and moral character I've ever read. I LOVES HER MY PRECIOUS.

So much for our setting and protagonist: this is where people reviewing fantasy books usually talk about 'the magic system'. Personally I hate that phrase. Look, you have a drainage 'system', don't you, and how it works is that it's made out of metal pipes, and when you turn a tap it runs, and if it breaks down then you call someone with a spanner who will replace a part and it will work again. Magic, being the "non-meat by-product of existence", something fundamentally non-classifiable, illogical, elemental, spiritual (thank you, N.K. Jemisin) may have rules or ideals or spells, but if it has a 'system' - for instance, the one in Harry Potter, where you wave your wand a certain way and say certain words and unless your wand is broken or you got the gesture or words wrong, you get the same result every single time, just like flushing the toilet - pretty much bore me to tears.

This is why I always see questions in reviews for *my* books asking why the 'magic system' wasn't better explained and why didn't we get all the consequences explored and classified and why didn't I put down exactly why and how it all works? BECAUSE IT'S BORING! It's not a supposed to be like a magic trick, where there's a logical explanation for everything and the rabbit was up his sleeve all along. It's suppposed to be actual magic. And with actual magic, just like art, sometimes you do all the right things and it turns out awful, and sometimes the power of love is enough to fix everything and sometimes the power of love is enough to ruin everything, and somethings the thing you hated and sweated through and got wrong in every way is the best thing you ever did.

A DEADLY EDUCATION has *that* kind of magic. The good kind. The kind where there are certainly rules and spells, but where, just like in Garth Nix's or Lois McMaster Bujold's work, effort and intention are what powers your magic, and your dread and fear or even joy can warp reality (just like Heisenberg said! Well, sort of). I love how this kind of magic can have all kinds of unexpected effects and the interaction of differing factors can invent something entirely new.

The writing is absolutely smooth as silk. Not fancy, or lyrical, but just utterly competent and powerful and brilliant. You barely notice you're reading, it's so smooth. It feels like when Neo gets a programme for martial arts downloaded into his brain and just KNOWS how it works. And as a result the story is totally unputdownable. Gripping is an understatement. I downloaded it and began reading it at about 4pm and finished at 11 at night, having taken the smallest and most rushed breaks possible to eat, shower etc., each one of which felt like waking up from a dream I couldn't wait to get back to. However! I can sense that some readers - ones not as enamoured of Ms Novik's writing as I am, or as into the MC's unique, spikey narratuon - might find some of the exposition a little heavy, especially to start with. Ms Novik plays that trick of dangling something incredibly juicy at you and then using the tempting tidbit to lead you through a few pages of necessary information. Personally I'm all for that; I love worldbuilding. But if you're not, I recommend that you just push through it. It is WORTH it, trust me.

Secondary characters are a real strength in this, sketched with humane deftness, humour, and compassion, from the tentative friends to the out-and-out villains. We understand them all, even if perhaps we might wish not to.

I do note, though, that Orion Lake, the unlikely best friend the heroine makes basically against her will - and the character who gets the most screen time next to El - is probably the one I felt I knew the least. I wonder if that's because he's so clearly there as the Harry Potter analogue: the heroic Chosen One who always charges in to save everyone without thinking twice about his own life, or the consequences, but really just wants to be treated as human. I felt as if we were already meant to know him. But the thing is, he WASN'T Harry. For one thing, he comes from a life of immense privilege, not one of poverty, abuse and neglect - and he completely takes that privilege for granted, ending up totally shocked and bamboozled everytime El is forced to bitterly point it out to him. And every now and again he would do something deeply NOT HARRY-ish and make me really keen to get to know him better. But I never really did? Hopefully future books take care of this. Actually, I can't wait!

Overall - as is absolutely no secret by now - I adored this, wish I could go back in time immediately and read it again for the first time, and would be willing to read another five to ten books of it - preferably right now? This is a solid gold 100% recommendation from The Zoë-Trope. A DEADLY EDUCATION is out at the end of September. Run out and pre-order or put it on hold/request at your library instantly, or a maw-mouth will get you!

(Language Geek Alert: maw-mouths are the worst monsters in this book. I laughed for five minutes straight when I saw the name, and I like to imagine Ms Novik cackled in a similarly unhinged fashion when the name occurred to her, too. You see, a maw-mouth is a creature that has a lot of mouths. Thousands. And the word 'maw' just means mouth. So their name basically means 'mouth-mouth'. But the word 'maw' is pronounced 'more'. So they're mouth-mouths and more-mouths at the same time - and that's literally what they are! GENIUS).

THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE COVER REVEAL! (And pre-orders!)

Hello, Dear Readers! Happy Tuesday, and I hope you're all having a pretty good week so far. Thank you so, so much for your RTs and shares for the announcement of THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE last week. This book is really special to me. I love it. It's probably my favourite thing that I've written since Shadows on the Moon . Your support means more to me than you can possibly know, especially after I've been on such a long break from the blog and the book community. *Smooshes all*

Your general loveliness about The Book of Snow & Silence makes me all the more gleeful that I get to bring you this utter lusciousness today without having had to make you wait for aaaaaaages as in times past. The cover is coming right up below - BUT! Before we get there - yes, you, I know you were about to begin scrolling, just wait for a second, OK? - I also have MORE VERY GOOD EXCELLENT NICE NEWS.

As of today, pre-orders of the ebook of The Book of Snow & Silence are LIVE. Yep, you can order the ebook right here, right now!

This is great in more ways than one. The official release date for both the ebook and the paperback is the 30th of June, two weeks away - but if you pre-order the ebook before that release date, you'll get it for £1.99. I don't know about you, but I think that's a saving well worth getting your paws on.

If you don't want to pre-order for whatever reason - for instance if you don't like ebooks and are planning to wait for the paperback - don't worry! I promise there will be goodies for you as well. But I'll wait for release day to get to those

NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hello, hello, hello and happy Friday, Dear Readers! Forgive me friends, for I have sinned: I know it's been a year since my last post - but please don't hate me!

A lot has happened in that year, some of which I don't really want to go into, including serious illness in my family. I also finished my time as an RLF Fellow at York St. John University - a posting I loved so much and will always look back on as one of the happiest times in my life - and I'm now in the final term of my Master's Degree in Creative Writing, working on my dissertation. So, you know. It's been busy. I'm sure you've been busy and had amazing ups and down since I last posted too - sound off in the comments if you like. I promise to reply to each and every one, as always.

But in addition to all that, I also did something you might be a bit more interested in.

I wrote a new book.

And it's going to be out... er - well - at the end of the month? EEEEEEEIIII!

Ahem. Sorry to spring it on you like this - but I hope you don't mind too much? It basically just means you don't have to wait for ages while I accidentally tease you, right?

Today I'm going to share some of the details of my ACTUAL FACTS TENTH NOVEL (omg) and I hope that next week I'll be able to do the cover reveal, and tell you the official release date, as well as a few other juicy details.

So first up - what's the title?

DRUMROLL PLEASE!


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THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE

Ta-dah! So what's it about? Here's the back cover blurb:

Girls of Paper & Fire meets A Game of Thrones in THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE , a darkly romantic queer fantasy inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
Fierce Princess Theoai is devastated when betrayal by her own sister destroys her chance to inherit their mother’s crown. Exiled across the sea to wed a prince she has never met, she soon finds that taking possession of her new crown will be more perilous than she could ever have imagined. The snowy realm of Silinga is rotten to the core, and Theoai’s handsome Prince is spoiled and reckless, with eyes only for the beautiful mute who washed up on the shore the day after Theoai’s arrival: Shell.  But though she enchants the entire palace with her unearthly dancing, Shell is more than just a romantic rival, and against her will Theoai is drawn to her. As they both navigate the glittering, treacherous court, their relationship changes from hostility to friendship – and then to a love that will shake the very foundations of the cold kingdom that seeks to tear them apart. THE BOOK OF SNOW & SILENCE is a sweeping, Feminist novel of enchantment, ambition and, above all, love.

Here is the link to add it on Goodreads if you want.

And the link to the book's Pinterest board and the playlist on Spotify, although I probably spent a good 50% of my time listening to the Blue Planet soundtrack as well; it's so perfect.

Some aesthetics!






And finally under, the cut below - a new and completely exclusive snippet from the first chapter of the book!

ARCHIVE TREASURE: DEAR TEEN ME

(Originally posted on this blog in April 2011, now retrieved from the archive, gently dusted off and reposted for your reading pleasure)

***WARNING! ADULT LANGUAGE BELOW!***

Hey you! Yes, you – the fourteen year old with the nail scissors! Put those down and pay attention. I’ve got something to say to you, something you need to hear. Listen up.

You’re in a pretty awful place right now. You’re in a place not many people get low enough to experience in their lives, and even fewer climb out of. This is probably the worst you’ve ever felt about yourself, and you’re thinking: can I go on like this for another day? Do I even want to try? Maybe there’s only one way out...

No, don’t try and brush me off. I’m not going to be fooled by that big goofy grin or your hyperactive chatter. I know the truth. Those half-healed cuts and scratches on your arms and legs? The ‘accidental’ ones that you lie about so well that no one ever questions you?

Yeah. I still have those scars, kiddo. So let’s not play games.

Today, on the way home from school, a group of about ten boys, ranging in age from twelve to sixteen, cornered you. They pushed you up against the wall of a building. They ripped your clothes, groped you, laughed in your face, and spat on you. That was the worst part, somehow. That they spat in your face, on your hair, everywhere. They taunted you while they did it. When you finally, finally, finally managed to get away and get home, you scrubbed yourself until your skin bled, washed your hair until handfuls started coming out. But no matter what you did, you couldn’t get clean. You feel like you’ll never be clean again.

You won't even bother telling anyone about this. Not your parents, sister, teachers. Because you've tried before - you've tried so many times - and it never makes anything better. None of them are surprised anymore, horrified anymore, interested anymore. They'll just ask 'What did you do? Why were you there? Didn't you have any friends to protect you?' and by the time they've finished asking questions you, too, will have started to wonder if it was all your own fault. 

And you and I both know that this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.

Every day since you were eleven, you’ve gotten up, eaten breakfast, left your house, and walked into a nightmare.

You’ve been kicked, pinched, punched, tripped, pushed down stairs, stabbed in the back of your hand, had ink poured down your back, and on one memorable occasion, had eight separate pieces of chewing gum stuck in your hair. You’ve been shunned. Screamed at. Tortured in every way that a person can be, short of hot pokers and bamboo shoots under the nails.

You’ve watched every person you ever called a friend scatter because just being close to you was too dangerous.

You’ve seen teachers who pounce on improperly fastened school uniforms or kids holding hands in the corridor brush off your suffering by telling you to ‘Stop making a fuss' or 'just ignore it’. You’ve lived through punishments on the occasions when you dared to fight back.

You’ve heard your own parents ask each other, when they thought you couldn’t hear: ‘Why does this keep happening? What is she doing wrong? What is wrong with her?’

That’s the question I’m here to answer for you, fourteen-year-old Zolah. Just what the Hell is wrong with you?

Nothing.

Not a single, solitary fucking thing.

Shut up. Don’t start arguing with me. Don’t start crying. You’ve never let them see you cry, and now is not the time to start.

This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything to deserve this. There’s nothing missing inside you, no essential flaw, no reason at all why 50% of the kids at your school take pleasure in tormenting you, or why none of the adults in your life seem to be able to help you.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.

There’s some stuff right with you, though. Some stuff you’ve never realised because you’re too miserably depressed, lonely and self-loathing to realise it. Let me spell it out.

You’re brave. You’re incredibly, stunningly, wonderfully brave. You don’t know this. In fact, you think you’re a coward, that if you were just brave enough you could get people to leave you alone. But the truth is that the courage it takes to keep walking into that school, day after day, to keep putting your hand up in class, to keep studying and doing your homework, to keep reading your books and talking exactly how you want to talk? Is possibly the greatest courage in the world. I’m awed by that courage. One day you’re going to be awed by it too.

You’re also compassionate. Don’t ask me why that matters. I know it’s not a virtue anyone gives a crap about in your life right now, but one day your kindness is going to make you real friends. Friends who will do anything for you, friends who’ll stick with you no matter what, who would never abandon you and take cover. Friends who’ll make your life worth living.

And you’re clever – and it’s not anything to be ashamed of. You sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better if you were like everyone else, if you thought books were stupid, if you didn’t want to learn. But you’re dead wrong. Your intelligence is a gift, an amazing gift. Stop cursing it.

So here’s the deal. I’m not going to lie. Things aren’t going to look up straight away. In fact, you’ve got some bad stuff to come. Really bad. But you are going to survive it. And in the not-too-distant future, good things are going to start happening, things which will make up for everything you’ve gone through so far. I promise. YOU will make those things happen. The very traits the other kids hate about you, the bravery, compassion and intelligence that they try to beat out of you, will allow you to follow and find your dreams.

So put those scissors down, okay? You don’t have to punish yourself. You don’t have to keep hurting yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong. There is nothing wrong with you. You’re going to put the scissors down, Zolah. And someday - not any day soon, but someday - you’re going to be all right.

**This is a guest post that was written for the wonderful site Dear Teen Me. Check it out to read hilarious and inspiring letters from authors all over the world to their teen selves**

ARCHIVE TREASURE: YOU CAN STUFF YOUR MARY-SUE WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE

(Originally posted August 2011, now retrieved from the archive, gently dusted off, and re-posted for your reading pleasure)

Today I intend to tackle a controversial topic. You can probably guess what it is from the post title, but if not...well, here's where we wade into the Mary-Sue Morass. It's a deep one. You might want to bring a snack. And a spare pair of socks.

If you regularly read book (or film or TV or other media - but most especially book) reviews of any kind, whether in magazines or on Amazon and Goodreads or on book review blogs, you will more than likely (moooore than likely) have come across the term Mary-Sue. And if you didn't already know what the term meant, you might have tried to work it out using the context in which the term was used. But, because hardly any of the people throwing this term around themselves understand what it means, you'll have a tough time of it.

In fact, even if you've read a hundred reviews talking about Mary-Sue characters, you probably still don't know for sure, although you'll have gotten the idea that Mary-Sue = bad news. Bad character. Bad writing. BAD WRITER, NO COOKIE!

When I read reviews, I see the term Mary-Sue used to mean:

1) A female character who is too perfect
2) A female character who is too badass
3) A female character who gets her way/a male love interest too easily
4) A female character who is too powerful
5) A female character who has too many flaws
6) A female character who has the wrong flaws
7) A female character who has no flaws
8) A female character who is annoying or obnoxious
9) A female character who is one dimensional or badly written
10) A female character who is too passive or boring

Do you see, Dear Readers, how many of these aspects of the commonly used term Mary-Sue are...umm...just a teeny bit contradictory? How can Mary-Sue mean 'a female character who is too perfect' when it is also used to mean a female character who is 'annoying or obnoxious'? How can it mean that a character has 'too many flaws' and also 'no flaws'? How can these people have anything in common? It's all so confusing!

Except that it isn't.

Take another look at the list of complaints against so-called Mary-Sues and you will see one thing all of them have in common.

'A female character.'

What many (though not all!) of the people merrily throwing this phrase around actually mean when they say 'Mary-Sue' is: 'Female character I don't like'.

That's it. That's all.

So why don't they just say 'I didn't like the female character' and explain why? I mean, there's no problem with a reviewer not liking a female character, is there? Everyone is entitled to like or dislike a character according to their own lights. A character that one person loves may seem utterly vile to another reader, and that is a wonderful thing we should all be very happy about as individuals.

How did this strange, contradictory, badly defined term come into such common use in the first place? Clearly it doesn't mean what people think it means - so why not just honestly lay out the reasons you didn't like the female character, the same way you would any other character (by which we mean, a male one) instead of throwing the term Mary-Sue like a mud-pie?

Maybe it's because the reviewers in question, the reviewers who keep saying 'Mary-Sue' as if it was all that needed to be said, don't want to have to explain the reasons why a particular character didn't work for them. Maybe it's because their reasons for finding these female characters just too obnoxious, unrealistic, stupid, passive, badass or talented are as contradictory and badly defined as the term itself. Maybe it's because the reason they don't like the female characters isn't that they're just too...anything. Except just too...female.

For the record, at this point let's see if we can't dig out the actual meaning of the term Mary-Sue. Because it did have a useful definition once, before it was co-opted and turned into a two-word mud-pie to diminish female characters. And that definition was this:

"A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in literary criticism and particularly in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. It is generally accepted as a character whose positive aspects overwhelm their other traits until they become one-dimensional."

The term was made up by people writing StarTrek fanfiction, to describe the author-insert characters (often given names like Ensign Mary Sue) who would show up in pieces of fanfiction as a new ensign or science officer and immediately prove to be the best looking, most intelligent, spunkiest, wittiest and most perfect StarFleet officer ever recruited. All the other characters would immediately realise this and hail Ensign Mary Sue as a genius. If they did not, they were obviously motivated by spite and jealousy, since Mary Sue was so clearly perfect (and modest! And humble! And unaware of how beautiful she was!) that no one who wasn't wicked could do anything but embrace her.

She would not only miraculously solve every problem that the Enterprise faced and make instant friends of all the crew, but all the significant male (and maybe female) characters would fall in love with her. Usually Ensign Mary Sue would bravely die at the end of the piece of fanfiction, because the established characters and setting would have become so warped around her utter perfection by then that if she had lived she would have gotten married to either James T Kirk or Spock (or both) and become Captain of the ship, and no one would ever have had to have any adventures again.

In short, Mary-Sue is a wish fulfilment fantasy.

I'm not saying characters like this don't exist. I'd argue they're not even necessarily *bad*. In fact, an example of a Mary-Sue in a well-known novel is the character Bella Swan in Twilight (I'm sorry Twilight lovers, I'm not dissing Bella, I'm just stating a fact about the kind of character she is).

Bella moves to a new town and immediately finds that everyone there wants to be her friend (except for two female characters who are mind-cripplingly obviously jealous) despite the fact that she is not interested in any of them. Bella has no flaws apart from being adorably klutzy. She is convinced that she is plain, and wears no make-up, but everyone reacts to her as if she was ravishingly beautiful. She captures the interest and then the undying love of the main male character despite the fact that he nearly has to turn his whole character inside out to make it happen. She also gets the love of the secondary male character. And all the other boys her age start fighting over her too, even though she's got no interest in any of them either. Bella undergoes no character growth or development within the story because she is already perfect when the story begins. And, as has often been pointed out, the detailed description of Bella is a perfect description of the author, Stephenie Meyer.

So this is what a Mary-Sue is:

1) A character who is based, at least partly, on the author
2) A character whom has no significant flaws (except possibly ones the other characters find cute)
3) A character to whom everyone within the story reacts as if they were beautiful and wonderful except characters who are clearly evil and/or motivated by jealousy
4) A character with whom, during the course of the story, every available character of the opposite (and occasionally the same) sex will fall in love given any contact whatsoever
5) A character who undergoes no significant growth, change or development throughout the story

Believe me, when you come across one, you will know.

And yet I see the term Mary-Sue applied to characters who bear no resemblance to this definition at all. I see it applied to such diverse people as Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, Mae from The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan, Clary from the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, Alanna from The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce, and Katsa from Graceling by Kristin Cashore. These guys, honestly, couldn't be much more different from each other. The only thing they all have in common? Is that they're all girls.

Not a Mary Sue!I recently read a book that I loved. In the course of the book the heroine underwent immense physical and mental and emotional ordeals. She was by turns denigrated and treated with contempt, and excessively sheltered, patronised, and lied to. She was kidnapped, dragged across rough terrain, attacked, threatened, lost people that she loved, was betrayed by people she had trusted, and had almost unbearable burdens thrust onto her shoulders. She evolved - inch by painful inch - from a very smart, yet extremely insecure and self-centred person, to one who was compassionate and empathetic and able to use her intelligence for the good of others. She changed from a passive and largely physically inactive person to one who was physically strong and active. She worked and scrabbled and fought and whined and cried for every bit of progress she made. She lost everything she loved and wanted and pulled herself up and made a new life for herself, bittersweet though it was.

And I thought: How wonderful!

And then I saw a review calling this character - this amazing, flawed, revolting, inspiring, broken, beautiful, ugly character - a Mary-Sue. Dear Readers, my head nearly exploded.

Definitely not a Mary Sue!I'm sick of it, Dear Readers. I'm sick of seeing people condemn any female character with a significant role in a book as a Mary-Sue. I'm sick of people talking about how the female characters were too perfect or not perfect enough, too passive or too badass, too talented or too useless, when what they really mean - but don't even KNOW they mean - is that the characters were too much in possession of lady parts.

So now I turn away from my wonderful blog readers, who are lovely, kind, sweet people who would never make my head explode, and I turn to you, the reviewers. Not all the reviewers. Just the ones who are making my head throb dangerously and causing the silvery lights to float in front of my eyes.

I beg, I implore, I get down on bended knee and grovel: next time you're about to use the term Mary-Sue, stop and look at my little checklist above. And if the character you are about to describe does not hit all the points on the checklist? DON'T.

And if you're going to ask how on earth you're supposed to know, without photos of the author, if the character is partly based on them? You've just proved my point. YOU CAN'T. Therefore, you shouldn't be using the term Mary-Sue. Because in doing so, you are making a claim about the character/author relationship which you cannot substantiate. Simple as that.

Absolutely, positively not a Mary Sue!Instead of slapping 'Mary-Sue' in your review and leaving it at that, make a list of four or five traits or decisions or actions that you think were bad, or unrealistic, or obnoxious, about the character. Perhaps you should discuss those points, and why they bothered you, in the review instead.

But before you do, take a moment to imagine that the character you are thinking about was a boy or a man. And don't say 'Well, that's different' or 'But I just can't see a girl behaving this way' or 'It's not about their gender!' or any other excuse. Look at your list again, really look at it. See if, suddenly, magically, all those traits, decisions or actions don't seem bad, unrealistic or obnoxious anymore but like perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable traits or decisions or actions...for a boy.

By attempting this exercise, you might come to realise that you (like every other human being ever born on this planet, except maybe Jesus and the Dalai Lama) have an unconscious prejudice, an unexamined blind spot. And it doesn't mean you are A Sexist Pig, or A Bad Person, or that I Don't Like You. It means you're human. And humans, oh glory, humans can change.

If you can change enough to realise how damaging and unfair the term Mary-Sue is when used indiscriminately and incorrectly to denigrate female characters, you might start to notice some of the damaging and unfair assumptions which are generally made about ACTUAL FEMALES in this messed up sexist world of ours. You might change enough to start dealing with that and make this world a better place in the process. I believe you can. I believe in you.

But only if you shove the term Mary-Sue into a deep dark closet somewhere and leave it there except for very, very special occasions.

Note: I'm well aware that there's a male variant of the Mary-Sue, called a Gary-Stu. When was the last time you saw that term used as a method of dismissing a male character who was clearly nothing of the kind? Or even to dismiss one who clearly WAS a Gary-Stu like, oh I don't know... Batman? Yeah. That's what I thought.

ARCHIVE TREASURE: DO NOT MISTAKE PLOT FOR CHARACTERISATION

(Originally posted November 2012, now retrieved from the archive, gently dusted off, and re-posted for your reading pleasure)

Hello, Dear Readers! It's time for another one of my opinionated posts about writing. Half of the credit for this one goes to the inimitable and lovely Holly of my online writer's group, with whom I was recently grousing on this topic. Hi Holls!

So, what were we grousing about? The fact that both of us (reading on opposite sides of the Atlantic ocean, no less) had lately picked up stacks of books which had fantastic central premises, which were well paced, pretty well written, full of exciting incidents and maybe even had some initially interesting characters but which - despite all this! - somehow in the end left us feeling... unsatisfied. Cheated. Unmoved. Convinced, somehow, that the whole exercise of turning pages - despite the exciting incidents and great premises and decent writing - had been a waste of time.

After we'd been talking in detail for a while about the various books which had disappointed us this way and trying to figure out just what was WRONG with them, one of us suddenly put our finger on it. The problem was character development. Or, rather, a strong lack of it.

Now, you might think this would be an obvious problem for two writers to notice and figure out. But what we realised was that the lack of character development in these books was masked by the fact that the main character's life was often left totally transformed by the end of the story. All kinds of seismic shifts in their abilities, their home environments, their romantic lives and their understanding of the world. It seemed crazy to say that these characters weren't changing. But they weren't.
 
In all these books, the hero or heroine saw massive changes in their situation by the end of the story, but they very rarely experienced any shift or development in their character. They were always essentially the same person by the finale of the story, no matter what they had been through. And the finale normally consisted of this person getting what they had wanted all along - without ever having reassessed those desires, made a significant sacrifice to fulfil them, or even question why they desired what they did in the first place.

In fact, it was like the authors had gotten confused on the difference between plot and character.

In my head, I could just imagine these writers proudly saying: 'Look at my character's amazing arc! She goes from a lonely teenager with no idea of her true heritage to a superpowered elf with a hot elvish boyfriend and lots of elvish friends!' Or maybe: 'My character develops from a cold and solitary existence as a lab rat in a secret government facility to a free person and a member of a warm, happy family!' I found many reviews which talked about the plot and the character development in this way, as if they were interchangeable.

But those descriptions above do not touch on any character's arc at all. Nor do they count as character development. They describe plots. And when a plot is serving double duty - trying to be a character arc too - the events (no matter how well paced, well written and exciting) of a story will feel essentially empty. It doesn't matter if the stakes are as small as a girl longing for a date to the prom, or as epic as The End of the World. If the change in the character's situation isn't significant enough to change *them* in any way, then how could the book feel satisfying, let alone leave the reader feeling changed?

These books would turn the POV character's whole world upside down. They might kill off a dear friend or family member right before their eyes, remove them from the only family or environment they'd ever known, or reveal that they had a secret heritage they never knew about. They would pit the main character or characters against life-threatening danger, maybe force them to develop frightening new abilities, offer them the chance to fall passionately in love. I should have been gasping, crying, thrilling.

Yet none of those events, no matter how outwardly shocking or traumatic or wonderful, ever really moved me. They were just that. Events happening to a person. The narrative skimmed over the surface, failing to explore or even acknowledge the profound emotional effects that should have been the point of those story events in the first place. It was as if the writers thought that these Big Important Events by themselves were enough to involve my heart. But the End of the (story) World and everyone in it means absolutely nothing to me if the writer cannot show me what this means to the POV character/s.

In the best books, characterisation and plot are so entwined, so integral to each other and to the events of the book, that they do almost feel like the same thing. But they have fundamentally different functions within a narrative, and trying to create a decent story without one or the other is like trying to have spectacles without frames, frames without the lenses.

Even if you do turn your plain, lonely teen into a superpowered elf and give her a hot boyfriend and an elvish family, you still need to make sure that her established traits, beliefs, insecurities and priorities are challenged, strengthened, destroyed or resolved by the end of the book. We need to see that everything she has been through has affected her meaningfully.

Remember that you're a writer, not the wish-granting fairy from Cinderella. Don't just look at your plot as a series of events that get your hero or heroine to their desired outcome. Not even a series of awesomecoolsauce events. Look at them as ways to push and challenge your character, to expose her deepest traits and develop her personality. Readers long to see the main character become the person they could or should be, not just get the stuff they want.

Your main character doesn't need to evolve into into an entirely new being by the end of the story. In fact, it's better if she doesn't. Changes that happen to the character throughout need to grow naturally from who they are at the start - their core qualities - and the particular pressures that the story and the plot events put on them. The last thing you want is to have the character do a complete u-turn and become someone unrecognisable. That's not satisfying either.

So maybe your elvish heroine started the story as a selfish and insecure girl who was callous to others because she was afraid people would see how vulnerable she was - and in order to get the family and the love she always wanted, she first had to realise that she must treat others well, and be willing to risk giving love, with no guarantee it would be returned?

Maybe she was frightened and timid, a girl who refused to take risks - and she had to find the seeds of courage inside herself, even risk losing the ones she hoped would love her, before she was worthy of them?

Or maybe she was filled with self-loathing, yearning for affection but still convinced she didn't deserve it - and had to learn to value and care for herself first, before she could finally find a place among people who would value and care for her the same way?

Those are CHARACTER arcs. See how they differ from the plot ones? They're about learning, changing, growing, not about getting stuff.

You need to ensure you're putting time and thought into your character's development even if you're writing the first volume of a trilogy or series. In fact, it's even more vital, because if I think you're holding stuff back from me in book one I'm probably not going to bother to go and buy book two. I need to feel that you've got a character arc in your mind as well as a plot one.

An easy way to figure out if you've achieved worthwhile character development is to give your main character or characters a choice. A pivot-point, somewhere near the end of the story. Arrange events so that things could go either way - disaster or triumph - and make the whole thing hinge on a moment of choice for the character. If they act the way they would have at the beginning of the story? Disaster. Even if they act the way that they would have midway through the story. They need to have grown and developed enough that you feel they could reasonably go in the other direction. Then you and the reader will be able to see that they have become who they were meant to be, and that they deserve their happy ending (if you've been nice enough to give them one!).

A great example of this is Katniss' decision at the end of The Hunger Games. At the beginning of the book Katniss' one priority is to win, to survive the Games by any means necessary, because she believes that Prim needs her - and because she doesn't believe in anything other than that. By the end of the book, she is willing to swallow poisonous berries along with with Peeta rather than sacrifice her soul by trying to kill him, and let the Capitol win. She has changed significantly because of the events of the story - but we still see the qualities of bravery, strength and self-sacrifice that Katniss had at the beginning of the book, too. Those traits have just been strengthened and honed by her ordeal.

In Closing: plot is about going places, doing things and getting stuff - changes in situation. Characterisation is about changing, growing and learning stuff - changes in the character's core. Make sure you have both these things running side by side, and you will make Zolah a very happy reader.

I hope this makes sense to you, my lovelies. Any questions? Pop them in the comments.