Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 75
June 14, 2012
The joys of revision
One of the paradoxes of writing is that it is a miserable, difficult, complicated, unpredictable, confusing activity that is a source of great joy, meaning, fulfillment, and satisfaction.
Go figure.
In that spirit, I greatly enjoyed this conversation over at Three Guys One Book called, "Why revising your novel is like wanting to throw up." The participants in this lively dialogue go on about self-doubt, writer brain vs. editor brain, rejection, and the temptation to give up. And--paradox alert!--even though I agree with practically every word they say, I also think writing is the greatest job around, and I'm not a martyr either. Here's a sample: "The saying goes, 'Everyone has a novel in them.' I disagree. Everyone has the first 50 pages of a novel in them. Writers are the ones who can finish a book." Also: " ... an agent once left my manuscript in the produce section of Gristedes supermarket, and I got a call from the manager saying he had my novel, and what should he do with it?"
In other news, I'll be part of a great event at Mendham Books (Mendham, NJ) this Saturday at 2 PM. From the store's blog: "Natalie Zaman, Charlotte Bennardo, Amalie Howard, Jennifer Hubbard, Alissa Grosso, and Margie Gelbwasser will be here on Saturday, June 16th at 2:00 P.M. for a joint discussion and signing of their recent books ... There will be activities, such as a twenty questions game, in which readers can ask the author a question about a book, writing, or the author. There will also be drawings for prizes."
And now, it's back to the joys of revision!
Go figure.
In that spirit, I greatly enjoyed this conversation over at Three Guys One Book called, "Why revising your novel is like wanting to throw up." The participants in this lively dialogue go on about self-doubt, writer brain vs. editor brain, rejection, and the temptation to give up. And--paradox alert!--even though I agree with practically every word they say, I also think writing is the greatest job around, and I'm not a martyr either. Here's a sample: "The saying goes, 'Everyone has a novel in them.' I disagree. Everyone has the first 50 pages of a novel in them. Writers are the ones who can finish a book." Also: " ... an agent once left my manuscript in the produce section of Gristedes supermarket, and I got a call from the manager saying he had my novel, and what should he do with it?"
In other news, I'll be part of a great event at Mendham Books (Mendham, NJ) this Saturday at 2 PM. From the store's blog: "Natalie Zaman, Charlotte Bennardo, Amalie Howard, Jennifer Hubbard, Alissa Grosso, and Margie Gelbwasser will be here on Saturday, June 16th at 2:00 P.M. for a joint discussion and signing of their recent books ... There will be activities, such as a twenty questions game, in which readers can ask the author a question about a book, writing, or the author. There will also be drawings for prizes."
And now, it's back to the joys of revision!
June 12, 2012
Break time
Taking a break.
Do you need one, too?
Do you need one, too?
June 10, 2012
Can you judge the quality of your own work?
Sometimes I think writers know in their guts when they've written something great. Sometimes I meet writers who are too modest about how great their work is. Sometimes I look back at work I thought was good when I first started out, and I realize it ... wasn't. Sometimes I look back at a story I wrote years ago and didn't think much of back then, but now I realize it has really held up.
Do you know how good your writing is?
Do you know how good your writing is?
June 8, 2012
Getting real and leaving the nest
In this interview over at Three Guys One Book, Joshua Henkin said: "But you’re right—in terms of where my interests as a writer lie, they’re in realist fiction. I think the world as we know it, the world as I know it, is infinitely wondrous; I don’t need any more magic than that."
Exactly.
To write realist fiction in today's YA world is to feel a bit second-best, a bit out of step. The success of realist writers like John Green and Sarah Dessen notwithstanding, it's undeniable that most of the attention right now goes to fantasy, paranormal, and dystopian titles, led by blockbusters such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. Most realist writers are urged by others, or perhaps even ask themselves occasionally: Oh why don't you just go ahead and throw in some vampires/zombies/wizards/angels/apocalyptic events already?
And there are a few reasons why I don't. The biggest is: although I've read some great books in those categories, books I recommend, those genres are not where I feel most at home. Now, I never say never. I may someday try my hand at, say, a ghost story, but if I ever do, it won't be a case of "throwing in" a paranormal element to try to fit in with the cool kids. People who write excellent fantasy and paranormal books do it, for the most part, because they're fans of the genre, they love their imaginary worlds, and they're excited by their stories. If I tried to fake it, readers would be able to tell, so I won't write it unless I can do so with genuine enthusiasm.
Right now I am--like Joshua Henkin--still so dazzled by the possibilities of realism that it's what I'm writing (and mostly what I'm reading).
A staple of YA literature, whether realist or paranormal, is the coming-of-age story. And I want to share a real-life coming-of-age story that's up on Tracy Abell's blog right now. It's a very short story, and it's told mostly in pictures. But it captures perfectly that moment of "leaving the nest"--literally. The last photo on the post especially got to me: it's the essence of what I try to capture in any YA protagonist, even though in this case it's a hawk rather than a human.
As a supplement to her post, the moment when the final hawk (the one looking like he is dealing with the weight of the world in that last picture) leaves the nest is captured here. To me, that sequence of photos and that video rank right up there with the best YA books. The next time someone asks me why I read and write YA, I should just point them to Tracy's blog post.
Exactly.
To write realist fiction in today's YA world is to feel a bit second-best, a bit out of step. The success of realist writers like John Green and Sarah Dessen notwithstanding, it's undeniable that most of the attention right now goes to fantasy, paranormal, and dystopian titles, led by blockbusters such as Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. Most realist writers are urged by others, or perhaps even ask themselves occasionally: Oh why don't you just go ahead and throw in some vampires/zombies/wizards/angels/apocalyptic events already?
And there are a few reasons why I don't. The biggest is: although I've read some great books in those categories, books I recommend, those genres are not where I feel most at home. Now, I never say never. I may someday try my hand at, say, a ghost story, but if I ever do, it won't be a case of "throwing in" a paranormal element to try to fit in with the cool kids. People who write excellent fantasy and paranormal books do it, for the most part, because they're fans of the genre, they love their imaginary worlds, and they're excited by their stories. If I tried to fake it, readers would be able to tell, so I won't write it unless I can do so with genuine enthusiasm.
Right now I am--like Joshua Henkin--still so dazzled by the possibilities of realism that it's what I'm writing (and mostly what I'm reading).
A staple of YA literature, whether realist or paranormal, is the coming-of-age story. And I want to share a real-life coming-of-age story that's up on Tracy Abell's blog right now. It's a very short story, and it's told mostly in pictures. But it captures perfectly that moment of "leaving the nest"--literally. The last photo on the post especially got to me: it's the essence of what I try to capture in any YA protagonist, even though in this case it's a hawk rather than a human.
As a supplement to her post, the moment when the final hawk (the one looking like he is dealing with the weight of the world in that last picture) leaves the nest is captured here. To me, that sequence of photos and that video rank right up there with the best YA books. The next time someone asks me why I read and write YA, I should just point them to Tracy's blog post.
June 6, 2012
D-Day: A tale of two writers
On this day, I think of 6/6/44. It happened before I was born, but this is what I think of:
--Soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy. Among them, JD Salinger.
--Anne Frank and her family clustered around a radio in their hiding place, listening to the news that the long-awaited invasion had begun. Their excitement that freedom was finally close at hand.
--The beaches where I walked myself about 50 years after D-Day, beaches still marked with bomb craters and pieces of bunkers. Beaches where we were told not to dig because of the risk of unexploded ordnance. Cliffs that I was glad I did not have to climb while wearing waterlogged combat gear and dodging enemy fire.
On that day, Anne Frank was safe. Her family would not be captured for another two months. JD Salinger was in a battle with horrible casualties. (More battles with high casualty rates would follow.) Yet he survived the war; she did not.
We never know how the story will turn out.
--Soldiers landing on the beaches of Normandy. Among them, JD Salinger.
--Anne Frank and her family clustered around a radio in their hiding place, listening to the news that the long-awaited invasion had begun. Their excitement that freedom was finally close at hand.
--The beaches where I walked myself about 50 years after D-Day, beaches still marked with bomb craters and pieces of bunkers. Beaches where we were told not to dig because of the risk of unexploded ordnance. Cliffs that I was glad I did not have to climb while wearing waterlogged combat gear and dodging enemy fire.
On that day, Anne Frank was safe. Her family would not be captured for another two months. JD Salinger was in a battle with horrible casualties. (More battles with high casualty rates would follow.) Yet he survived the war; she did not.
We never know how the story will turn out.
June 4, 2012
Frustrations and joys
In 1952, Jack Kerouac was trying to get his second book published. After this book, On the Road, was initially rejected, he wrote a different manuscript but reused the title On the Road. This revised "On the Road" would be published much later under the title Visions of Cody (and I'll call this manuscript OTR/VOC for the remainder of this post, to differentiate it from the more famous and different book that became On the Road).
While living in Mexico, Kerouac asked Allen Ginsberg, who was in New York, to be his agent in trying to get OTR/VOC published. The two were friends and colleagues before entering into this business arrangement.
Ginsberg wrote Kerouac a letter that was blunt, though not malicious. Ginsberg recorded not only his own reactions but those of their colleagues John Holmes and Carl Solomon. The gist of the letter: "I don't know if it would make sense to any publisher." Calling it "great but crazy," Ginsberg told Kerouac what he thought the manuscript would need in order to be publishable.
Kerouac responded with the kind of letter many writers have written (even if only in their heads) and, if they were smart, never actually sent. Here are a few choice phrases: "... why they publish Holmes's book which stinks and don't publish mine ... Do you think I don't realize how jealous you are and how you and Holmes and Solomon all would give your right arm to be able to write like the writing in [OTR/VOC] ... what right has [Holmes], who knows nothing, to pass any kind of judgment on my book ... You're all a bunch of insignificant literary egos ..." He goes on to say not only "never speak to me again" but pulls out all the stops with "so die. ... and die like men ..."
Well, wow.
Not a month later, Kerouac was writing to Holmes to thank him for sending him $50, and to Ginsberg to continue both their friendship and business relationship (Ginsberg wanted to represent another manuscript of his). Ginsberg must have recognized that letter for what it was, an emotional lashing-out, the frustrated expression of what writers often wonder: Why did that book get published and not mine? Why don't people see what I'm trying to do here?
When one has poured heart and soul into a work, has given it everything, it's easy to feel that the work deserves an audience. That is one of the hardest things to accept about the marketing of artistic works: that hard work does not correlate directly with reward, that effort does not produce a directly proportional outcome. In my experience, those who succeed do indeed work hard, but many of those who don't succeed also work very hard. I think this is the source of much frustration with gatekeepers, with the literary establishment, with everyone who seems to have been placed as an obstacle between the writer and the audience. Writers can ask everything from Why didn't they publish my book? through Why didn't they review my book? to Why won't those stores carry my book? and Why won't they promote my book more aggressively? Or, if self-publishing, Why aren't people buying/reviewing/spreading the word about my book?
As it happens, I've read Visions of Cody, the book Kerouac was defending so passionately. I loved it myself, but I would not call it a mainstream work. It's mostly for Beat aficionados and fans of experimental writing. I think Ginsberg's assessment of it was generally correct: it's esoteric, personal, difficult to follow. It's a challenging read. And I say this as a fan of the work. If I owned a publishing company, and this work came across my desk by an unknown writer, is this the book I would expect to make me a fortune? Or--forget fortunes--just to help my company keep the lights on? I'm not sure.
I won't argue that perfectly good books get overlooked by mainstream publishing--and that some of them become breakout successes through nontraditional channels. I don't claim that gatekeepers are perfect. My point is this: It's hard to accept that the mere fact of writing something doesn't obligate anyone to publish it, or buy it, or read it. When we're wearing our reader hats, we don't feel obligated to read every book we encounter (nor could we if we tried); we are choosy. We want to read what we want to read. We don't care how much sweat went into the book, how much the author loved it, how many hours he spent over it or how deeply in poverty he lived while writing it. (If we love the book, we might become interested in the author to the point of caring about those things--and then even read the author's letters sixty years later--but that's unusual.)
Which is why the best part of writing is the writing itself. Many joys come later, if the work finds an audience. But the writing is the part we can enjoy daily, no matter what anyone else thinks.
source: Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1940-1956, edited by Ann Charters.
While living in Mexico, Kerouac asked Allen Ginsberg, who was in New York, to be his agent in trying to get OTR/VOC published. The two were friends and colleagues before entering into this business arrangement.
Ginsberg wrote Kerouac a letter that was blunt, though not malicious. Ginsberg recorded not only his own reactions but those of their colleagues John Holmes and Carl Solomon. The gist of the letter: "I don't know if it would make sense to any publisher." Calling it "great but crazy," Ginsberg told Kerouac what he thought the manuscript would need in order to be publishable.
Kerouac responded with the kind of letter many writers have written (even if only in their heads) and, if they were smart, never actually sent. Here are a few choice phrases: "... why they publish Holmes's book which stinks and don't publish mine ... Do you think I don't realize how jealous you are and how you and Holmes and Solomon all would give your right arm to be able to write like the writing in [OTR/VOC] ... what right has [Holmes], who knows nothing, to pass any kind of judgment on my book ... You're all a bunch of insignificant literary egos ..." He goes on to say not only "never speak to me again" but pulls out all the stops with "so die. ... and die like men ..."
Well, wow.
Not a month later, Kerouac was writing to Holmes to thank him for sending him $50, and to Ginsberg to continue both their friendship and business relationship (Ginsberg wanted to represent another manuscript of his). Ginsberg must have recognized that letter for what it was, an emotional lashing-out, the frustrated expression of what writers often wonder: Why did that book get published and not mine? Why don't people see what I'm trying to do here?
When one has poured heart and soul into a work, has given it everything, it's easy to feel that the work deserves an audience. That is one of the hardest things to accept about the marketing of artistic works: that hard work does not correlate directly with reward, that effort does not produce a directly proportional outcome. In my experience, those who succeed do indeed work hard, but many of those who don't succeed also work very hard. I think this is the source of much frustration with gatekeepers, with the literary establishment, with everyone who seems to have been placed as an obstacle between the writer and the audience. Writers can ask everything from Why didn't they publish my book? through Why didn't they review my book? to Why won't those stores carry my book? and Why won't they promote my book more aggressively? Or, if self-publishing, Why aren't people buying/reviewing/spreading the word about my book?
As it happens, I've read Visions of Cody, the book Kerouac was defending so passionately. I loved it myself, but I would not call it a mainstream work. It's mostly for Beat aficionados and fans of experimental writing. I think Ginsberg's assessment of it was generally correct: it's esoteric, personal, difficult to follow. It's a challenging read. And I say this as a fan of the work. If I owned a publishing company, and this work came across my desk by an unknown writer, is this the book I would expect to make me a fortune? Or--forget fortunes--just to help my company keep the lights on? I'm not sure.
I won't argue that perfectly good books get overlooked by mainstream publishing--and that some of them become breakout successes through nontraditional channels. I don't claim that gatekeepers are perfect. My point is this: It's hard to accept that the mere fact of writing something doesn't obligate anyone to publish it, or buy it, or read it. When we're wearing our reader hats, we don't feel obligated to read every book we encounter (nor could we if we tried); we are choosy. We want to read what we want to read. We don't care how much sweat went into the book, how much the author loved it, how many hours he spent over it or how deeply in poverty he lived while writing it. (If we love the book, we might become interested in the author to the point of caring about those things--and then even read the author's letters sixty years later--but that's unusual.)
Which is why the best part of writing is the writing itself. Many joys come later, if the work finds an audience. But the writing is the part we can enjoy daily, no matter what anyone else thinks.
source: Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1940-1956, edited by Ann Charters.
June 2, 2012
Emoticons
With the advent of text and email, an interesting phenomenon has sprung up in our language: emoticons.
I rarely see them in formal communications addressed to large audiences, because the larger an audience, the less personal and more general a message becomes. The more formal a message, the more polished it usually is, and the less it will presume upon shared history and personal knowledge. In such communications, nobody needs to stick a smiley or winky face on the end of a joke to say, "This is a joke." That's not the purpose that emoticons serve: they're not intended to emphasize or telegraph what is already clear from a message's content.
Emoticons occur more in short-form and personal communications. They especially occur in messages that used to be transmitted via the spoken word. And what they are doing is taking the place of visual and audio cues that normally accompany spoken words.
Consider the phrase: "Get out of here." In itself, it could be a statement either of dismissal or jest. In face-to-face encounters, we tell the difference partly from context and partly from cues such as tone and loudness of voice, facial expression, and accompanying gestures. A hushed, tense, "Get out of here," accompanied by the turn of a back, is much different from a jovial, "Get out of here!" accompanied by a grin and a playful nudge.
But onscreen, we don't have tone of voice, facial expression, or gestures to help us transmit and decode such messages. And so, rather than clarifying by saying, "I mean this ironically," or, "You have really angered me," we do what we can with punctuation, capital letters, and emoticons to convey the meaning.
Consider this message:
A. I don't like him.
B. I DON'T LIKE HIM!!!
C. I don't like him. ;-)
D. I don't like him. :-P
E. I don't like him. :-(
Version A is plain and unadorned, and is likely to be taken at face value. Imagine the dismay of someone intending that to be coy or ironic if it were taken seriously. B is emphatic, and may express anger, frustration, or even protesting-too-much. C is coy, implying an attraction the writer wants to admit without admitting. D implies disgust, while E suggests antipathy or possibly hurt.
We've probably all seen situations where someone unintentionally offended another by using words online that were meant to be taken one way but were taken another, just as we've seen real-life situations in which words that could sting if taken seriously were softened by a smile or a light tone of voice. Just kidding, the tone and expression say in person, and "LOL" or "jk" or ";-)" we type online.
In a face-to-face conversation, we might give "I'm listening" cues by nodding, maintaining eye contact, smiling, laughing, or clucking a tongue sympathetically. Online, we might just transmit an emoticon or even click a "like" button to say, "I've heard you; I'm here."
I'm not suggesting we all load up our writing with emoticons. I'm just suggesting that we understand their function in communication, and why it is they have crept into our world.
I rarely see them in formal communications addressed to large audiences, because the larger an audience, the less personal and more general a message becomes. The more formal a message, the more polished it usually is, and the less it will presume upon shared history and personal knowledge. In such communications, nobody needs to stick a smiley or winky face on the end of a joke to say, "This is a joke." That's not the purpose that emoticons serve: they're not intended to emphasize or telegraph what is already clear from a message's content.
Emoticons occur more in short-form and personal communications. They especially occur in messages that used to be transmitted via the spoken word. And what they are doing is taking the place of visual and audio cues that normally accompany spoken words.
Consider the phrase: "Get out of here." In itself, it could be a statement either of dismissal or jest. In face-to-face encounters, we tell the difference partly from context and partly from cues such as tone and loudness of voice, facial expression, and accompanying gestures. A hushed, tense, "Get out of here," accompanied by the turn of a back, is much different from a jovial, "Get out of here!" accompanied by a grin and a playful nudge.
But onscreen, we don't have tone of voice, facial expression, or gestures to help us transmit and decode such messages. And so, rather than clarifying by saying, "I mean this ironically," or, "You have really angered me," we do what we can with punctuation, capital letters, and emoticons to convey the meaning.
Consider this message:
A. I don't like him.
B. I DON'T LIKE HIM!!!
C. I don't like him. ;-)
D. I don't like him. :-P
E. I don't like him. :-(
Version A is plain and unadorned, and is likely to be taken at face value. Imagine the dismay of someone intending that to be coy or ironic if it were taken seriously. B is emphatic, and may express anger, frustration, or even protesting-too-much. C is coy, implying an attraction the writer wants to admit without admitting. D implies disgust, while E suggests antipathy or possibly hurt.
We've probably all seen situations where someone unintentionally offended another by using words online that were meant to be taken one way but were taken another, just as we've seen real-life situations in which words that could sting if taken seriously were softened by a smile or a light tone of voice. Just kidding, the tone and expression say in person, and "LOL" or "jk" or ";-)" we type online.
In a face-to-face conversation, we might give "I'm listening" cues by nodding, maintaining eye contact, smiling, laughing, or clucking a tongue sympathetically. Online, we might just transmit an emoticon or even click a "like" button to say, "I've heard you; I'm here."
I'm not suggesting we all load up our writing with emoticons. I'm just suggesting that we understand their function in communication, and why it is they have crept into our world.
May 31, 2012
Wait
Sometimes, waiting is a part of writing. (It's definitely a part of publishing, but that's a whole other blog post.)
Waiting until we know what happens next, or how, or why, or when.
Waiting until we're ready to write that book, or that scene. Waiting for enough perspective, or courage, or willingness, or empathy, or independence, or confidence.
Waiting until we have the skill, or have done enough research, to handle a certain topic or story.
Waiting until the draft cools off enough for us to read it (somewhat) objectively.
Waiting to ask for feedback until we're ready to hear it.
Waiting is not the same thing as procrastinating. From the outside, they can be hard to tell apart, and we can tell ourselves that one is really the other. But the gut knows. Frustrating as it can be, there are times when waiting is the best thing I can do for a work in progress.
Waiting until we know what happens next, or how, or why, or when.
Waiting until we're ready to write that book, or that scene. Waiting for enough perspective, or courage, or willingness, or empathy, or independence, or confidence.
Waiting until we have the skill, or have done enough research, to handle a certain topic or story.
Waiting until the draft cools off enough for us to read it (somewhat) objectively.
Waiting to ask for feedback until we're ready to hear it.
Waiting is not the same thing as procrastinating. From the outside, they can be hard to tell apart, and we can tell ourselves that one is really the other. But the gut knows. Frustrating as it can be, there are times when waiting is the best thing I can do for a work in progress.
May 29, 2012
Plots and plans
I've recently encountered two wonderful posts on plotting. Both came to my attention via the blog of Michael Merriam.
The first was written by Mr. Merriam himself and posted at the Musa Publishing blog. It's a humorous take on the question of how does a non-outliner, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants author, shape a story anyway? According to this post, it's not so much a matter of engineering the plot as discovering it. A sample: "30,000 Words: Considers buying plot--cemetery plot--because the novel and characters are starting to kill me. Story still moving along, despite no plot."
The second was by Patrick Sullivan over at Words from the Herd, and it discusses the importance of knowing where the story needs to end. And not only that, how it needs to end: the stakes, the main conflict, the source of the main conflict. And how the ending relates to the beginning. Wonderful stuff. An excerpt: "If you have an end in mind at the beginning of your writing, then the beginning of the story is able to ask the question that the ending must answer. Everything in-between is designed to move the story in a dramatically satisfying way up to that pre-defined conclusion."
So, here we have two seemingly contradictory ways of looking at plot, both of which strike me as equally true and valid. How can this be? I think that, for me, some of these elements operate just below the conscious level during the first draft, and the rest of them I tackle, more consciously, during revision. I've had both experiences. I've gone typing along, not sure where I'm going but just knowing instinctively that I need to go this way; I've seen unconsciously-planted plot seeds ripen perfectly later in the book, exactly when they should. I've also deliberately manipulated manuscripts to reach the necessary level of tension or significance; to make sure the main character has the most important role; to bring echo the beginning in the ending (or vice versa).
It can work either way, as long as it works.
The first was written by Mr. Merriam himself and posted at the Musa Publishing blog. It's a humorous take on the question of how does a non-outliner, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants author, shape a story anyway? According to this post, it's not so much a matter of engineering the plot as discovering it. A sample: "30,000 Words: Considers buying plot--cemetery plot--because the novel and characters are starting to kill me. Story still moving along, despite no plot."
The second was by Patrick Sullivan over at Words from the Herd, and it discusses the importance of knowing where the story needs to end. And not only that, how it needs to end: the stakes, the main conflict, the source of the main conflict. And how the ending relates to the beginning. Wonderful stuff. An excerpt: "If you have an end in mind at the beginning of your writing, then the beginning of the story is able to ask the question that the ending must answer. Everything in-between is designed to move the story in a dramatically satisfying way up to that pre-defined conclusion."
So, here we have two seemingly contradictory ways of looking at plot, both of which strike me as equally true and valid. How can this be? I think that, for me, some of these elements operate just below the conscious level during the first draft, and the rest of them I tackle, more consciously, during revision. I've had both experiences. I've gone typing along, not sure where I'm going but just knowing instinctively that I need to go this way; I've seen unconsciously-planted plot seeds ripen perfectly later in the book, exactly when they should. I've also deliberately manipulated manuscripts to reach the necessary level of tension or significance; to make sure the main character has the most important role; to bring echo the beginning in the ending (or vice versa).
It can work either way, as long as it works.
May 27, 2012
Taking off the parent hat
Today I'm posting at YA Outside the Lines on "Taking off the Parent Hat." It's about how "writers can’t parent their YA characters. We can’t protect them from their own mistakes. Sometimes we have to let characters do things we would never want our own children to do."
