Katherine Frances's Blog, page 349
June 28, 2015
"1. You must let the pain visit.
2. You must allow it teach you
3. You must not allow it overstay."
2. You must allow it teach you
3. You must not allow it overstay.”
- Ijeoma Umebinyuo, three routes to healing (via thatkindofwoman)
June 27, 2015
The Raven Boys
Book breakdown ~ for Writers # 2
General– No Spoilers(Skip this if you want details with spoilers)
The Raven Boys by
Maggie Stiefvater is the first book of the Raven Cycle Series. Over all, it is
an extremely well written book, and one that tackles many dark, real-life
issues while also being totally fantastical and weird (in a good way). Probably
the best thing that can be taken away from reading this book is the impressive characterization.
There is a heavy cast of five main characters and then more than five essential
side characters. All of them are developed smoothly, throughout the entire
book, in a way that is shown to the reader, and they are all such vivid
individuals that by the end you can predict their reactions to situations. The relationship
between the four boys and Blue (main female protag) is also one of the best
points of this book. The boy’s friendships are a fantastic reference for anyone
wanting to write young men or friendships, two things that I would venture to
say are lacking in fantasy. All of the boys have an abundance of flaws, but
they are lovable all the same, and Blue is just the same. Also I found her relationship
with her mom very refreshing and another great reference that breaks away from
what we traditionally see in a lot of YA fantasy. Lastly, the plot and the
description were two other things that could certainly be learning points for
writers. The plot starts right at the beginning, and the reader is drawn in
very quickly. The descriptions and writing style is artful and magical, which matches
the tone of the story.
Obviously, no book
is perfect though. There were a few stylistic issues here and there throughout
the book, though for the most part those are the type of thing you just read
over unless you’re looking for it. There were some point of view issues through
the story that didn’t exactly harm the telling of the plot but simply removed
the reader form the story briefly. The book begins in what seems like third
person limited point of view with frequent but very clearly delineated POV
changes. However, towards the very end of the book that begins to get a bit
foggy, with brief slips of POV, times where POV isn’t strictly clear, and
instances where POV begins to change in a more fluid way within one scene. This
suggests to me that the book might have benefited from simply being told in
third person omniscient from the beginning. The last bit of trouble I had with
this book was actually a plot point (in an otherwise flawless plot) in the
ending of the book. I can’t discuss it without spoiling it, but if you do read
the book, consider what the reader was most likely expecting for the ending and
what was delivered. Was it a bit of a letdown? Was it somewhat confusing? If
you still have no idea what I’m talking about after reading the book—come back
and read below!
*Stop
reading this review now if you have not read The Raven Boys and care about
having major plot points given away. However, I will attempt to make this
section understandable even for those who have not read the books and don’t
mind spoilers.
What Worked
Overall Plot
The overall plot of
this book was absolutely fantastic. The setting was very unusual, even though
it was real-world, and Maggie wastes no time letting you know just how cool
this place is. You are immediately informed of Blue’s unusual family situation—
she lives with a bunch of psychics, and oh yeah, she’s been predicted to kill
her first love. All of this is given away in the first chapter which is
important because it draws us right in. By page 19 we are presented with the
main conflict of the story. She’s in a mysterious, creepy setting (the church
where they go to watch ghosts walk and use this to predict who is going to die
that year) she sees Gansey in a spooky premonition, and her creepy aunt says “Either
you’re his true love, Neeve said, “or you killed him.” At this point there’s no
way you’re not going to keep reading, and a hook like that is really an
important part of fiction, especially a fast pace genre like YA. Not to mention
by this point you already feel like you know Blue pretty well, which is
impressive given the fact that it’s only chapter one. Which leads me to my next
category.
Characters
One of the greatest
things about this book was the characterization, and if you’re going to read it
to take something away, it should be this. The characterization begins
immediately and so effectively, which
is honestly impressive as hell given the fact that there is such a large cast
to this book (5 main characters and 5+ essential side characters). I would
venture to say that the vast majority of characterization is show rather than
tell, and it usually fits right in with plot relevant scenes or just
interesting scenes that are otherwise captivating and move the story forward
with natural flow. These could be little things sprinkled here and there, like
how Blue gives funny names to people who she doesn’t know the name of (Gansey=
President Cell Phone on pg. 55), or they could be whole scenes worth. An
example of this can be seen on page 13 with Blue and her mother talking in the
shower about Neeve’s uncomfortable stair. This scene accomplishes a lot with
few words. Blue is in the bathroom while her mother is taking a shower and
their talking casually in a ‘confide in me’ manor involving Neeve’s creepiness.
All of this effortlessly informs us of Blue and her mother’s close and open relationship,
and also gives us clues about Neeve’s creepiness. It’s also a plot relevant
scene, believe it or not, because Blue’s mom draws the symbol on the shower
door that will later turn out to be heavy foreshadowing. When characterization
is done in this book, it’s never heavy handed, and it’s always right where it
needs to be. A lot of times, writers tend to want to tell all the important
parts of a characters backstory right off the bat, but Maggie doesn’t do that.
Ronan’s father is dead, and we know that from the start. We also know that he
doesn’t get along with his brother. But we don’t really get details about the
intensity of this until we’re shown the
intensity when the brothers get into a fist fight, and it says, referring to why
the brothers don’t get along, “On Sunday, Ronan stole his deceased father’s
car. On Monday, the lynch brothers stopped being friends,” (pg. 63). And that’s
pretty much all we get, but that’s all we need. That line coupled with the
implication that Ronan’s brother is trying to be ‘replacement dad’ and Ronan
doesn’t like that, we get it. We don’t need a lengthy explanation, we don’t
need a flashback, this is enough and it doesn’t ever pause the forward momentum
of the story.
This book also
nails teenage boys in an outstanding way. There is a lot of YA with young women
in it, which is great, but realistic and well rounded boys can actually be hard
to find sometimes. This book is packed with real, vulnerable, strong, and
divers young men that make the reader fall in love with them, flaws and
perfections accounted for. The dynamic between these boys and Blue is what I
think puts this book into a whole other level of characterization, because the
way each character interacts with the other is different. The bonds they share
are important as a group, but also special on an individual level. For example,
Noah and Ronan bond over cars and sort of doing silly ‘dude’ stuff, whereas
Gansey and Adam bond over Gansey’s adventures and slightly more deep/meaningful
conversations. We also see a magnificent amount of realistic conflict in the
boy’s relationships. Gansey wants to protect everyone (papa Gansey basically).
This motivates almost all of his decisions and he is there for desperately
trying to get Adam out of an abusive home. Adam, on the other hand, is very
proud and doesn’t want to accept handouts from his much wealthier friend, which
creates a healthy amount of conflict between the two. Gansey is also trying to
keep Ronan in school so he can graduate, while Ronan just wants to not be told
what to do by anyone because Ronan is a hot head. All of this conflict is never
over the top. It’s just enough to keep things interesting and make these
characters believable, and their relationships completely real.
General Writing
Craft
This book was
artfully written. The tone is mystical and captivating, fitting the vibe of the
plot as well. I recommend reading this book for style purposes as well as for
the description. There was some good setting in the book, though I wouldn’t say
setting or description is the main focus of Maggie’s writing style. I really
appreciate the amount of description, all the same, because I feel as though I
know what the houses look like and what the characters look like without having
to read pages of description. In my opinion, that is very valuable. For
example, Malory, the colleague of Gansey, is a very side character and yet we
get a brief yet pungent description of him. “There was a sound like he was
either chewing or wrapping something in cellophane. Gansey had seen his flat
and it was quite possible he was doing both.” This description is short and to
the point but it literally makes me smell my great aunt and uncle’s house when
I read it. These types of descriptions are tucked throughout the book for
people and places alike.
One of the things
that I thought was really tastefully done was the ‘tragic backstory’ of some of
the characters. There are a few characters that I could use as an example for
this, but I’m going to use Ronan. Ronan has a very tragic backstory, and all of
it could have come across very special snowflake, feel sorry for my rich
daddy-less ass. But it never did once, and a lot of it has to do with great characterization,
but also in the reveal of this information. I’ve already mention his father
issues and his brother issues, but there’s more. Ronan attempted suicide prior
to the story line of the book, sometime after his father dies. This is a very
‘tragic backstory’ and yet it’s not addressed in that way. It’s not the first
thing we learn about him, and Gansey doesn’t find himself thinking of his
friend as the suicidal recluse who needs to be sheltered from the storm. If
that had been the case, both Ronan and Gansey could have come across as
superficial and as caricatures. Instead, Maggie reveals this piece of Ronan’s
past in a moment that makes perfect sense; when the boys are suddenly worried
that it might have happened again. This is so stark and so real for the reader.
Ronan goes missing one night, and Gansey is suddenly terrified that Ronan might
have tried to take his life again, and the night when he did it once before is
suddenly fresh in Gansey’s mind. This is precisely how traumatic memories work
for real life people. We don’t harp on them all the time, but unexpectedly
something will trigger that memory and it’s as if that experience just happened
yesterday. We would never introduce our friend to someone as “this is Ronan who
tried to kill himself once” so why should an author introduce a character to a
reader that way? Especially since we met Ronan through Gansey’s POV. Instead,
the horrific memory is told to us when Gansey recalls it, and as the reader we
experience Gansey’s fear so much more vividly because of it. All in all, very
effective scene, very dark and climactic, and yet completely tasteful and mindful
of people who do struggle with mental illness. Ronan is not defined by his past
attempt at suicide, but it does affect his life still, and it does affect his
friends lives. Very well done.
What Didn’t Work
Point of View
The POV in this
book seemed to be third person limited with changing POV, meaning that the POV
was limited to one character at a time but switched between different POVs
throughout the story. This was well established throughout the book. We would
get chapters of Blue’s POV, and then in a new chapter we might get Gansey’s or
Adam’s, but for the majority of the book, a new chapter would separate new POV.
This started to change as the book went on, creating an effect of POV disarray
as the reader gets closer and closer to the end. There are times where POV
changes in the middle of a chapter that is only denoted with a scene break. I
had the ebook format, and in that format there was nothing to denote the scene
break except a larger indent between paragraphs, so this was extra confusing
given the fact that it had never been done until halfway through the book, and
it wasn’t made extremely clear when it was finally used. This alone wasn’t that
big of a deal, however, and only took me out of the book briefly. Towards the
last few chapters of the book is where the real problems started to occur.
Sometimes it’s merely that the POV is made unclear, and therefore it seems as
though the POV is changing back and forth between scenes.
“For the love of
God,” said Whelk when he saw Adam standing beside the bowl he had just kicked.
Whelk held a very large and efficient-looking knife. He was scruffy and unshaven
and looked like an Aglionby boy after a bad weekend.“Why” His voice
held genuine aggravation.” (pg.316)
All of this is the first few lines of a
chapter, and it implies that Whelk is the POV, mostly because we’d been getting
Whelks POV quite a bit just before this, he’s the first to talk, and he’s the
first to get a POV-like action (said when he
saw Adam). It’s true that Adam could have observed Whelk seeing him and
then talking, but what’s implied is more that this is all Whelks POV. But the
next line, “Adam had not seen his Latin teacher since he’d discovered he’d
killed Noah…” implies Adam’s POV, only just vaguely, since Whelk also knows the
last time Adam saw Whelk… so it leaves the reader a bit muddled as to who’s POV
we’re actually reading about, but it’s later made clear that it’s Adam’s. There
is another scene (the scene in which Whelk and Neeve are struggling to gain
control over the pentagram ritual to awaken the lay line) in which the POV is completely
flip flopped. On page 311, Whelk’s POV is clearly established with things like
“He missed Czerny. He had not let himself think it once in the past seven
years.” Those are internal thoughts that only Whelk is privy to, not Neeve (the
other person present for this scene). But later in that same scene, “Neeve
caught a glimpse of him and imagined that he was upset over his approaching
death.” This is Neeve’s imagining, and there is nothing to imply to the reader
that Whelk thinks Neeve is imagining this. This sentence is followed by some
POV-less dialogue and then it appears to be back in Whelk’s POV, “When she
turned her back to get her knives, he slipped his hands from the binding.” It’s
clear that Neeve didn’t see this happening, so this can’t be Neeve’s POV
anymore, and the rest feels more like Whelk’s POV anyway. This scene in of
itself would not have been a problem for me if the whole book had used third
person omniscient. I wasn’t confused by the POV switches, nor do I think that
they were detrimental to the telling of the story. Quite the opposite, I think
they were necessary and useful. But they
took me out of the reading because there was no use of omniscient POV earlier
on in the book. I think the entire story could have benefited from a more Omniscient
viewpoint given that the story was told from so many character’s viewpoints
already, and had frequent yet varied POV changes. If the viewpoint had been
established as fluid from the very beginning, I don’t think there would have
been any issue.
Dialogue Quirk
This is a small,
maybe nitpicky thing but, all the same, this did bother me enough to take me
out of the story on a fairly regular basis. Maggie has this odd habit of
summarizing dialogue when it is totally unnecessary to do so. I have a feeling
it’s one of those writer quirks that we don’t even realize we have, though who
am I to say. What I mean by dialogue summarization is say for example a
character needs to explain a scene that the reader was present for to another
character who wasn’t. The author will usually write something like “Sally told
Jimmy all about how her house was broken into that night.” Maggie uses dialogue
summarization this way at least once that I can think of, and that is more than
acceptable, it’s encouraged (how boring would it be to have to read a summary
of a scene we just watched play out?). However, she also uses this tactic in
the middle of dialogue scenes in ways that are unnecessary, sometimes add more words
than what the dialogue would, and take me out of the story. This could be a
personal preference thing, but it seems to me that when there’s a constant stream
of dialogue, it’s weird to break it with a random “he told her he didn’t know”
instead of just “I don’t know,” he said. It reminds me unnecessarily that I’m
not actually there with the characters, that in reality I’m being relayed the
story by the narrator. A scene should play out like a scene from a movie or a
script as much as possible, only we can’t see
the characters, so as the writer, we have to tell you that they blink with
confusion or blush or whatever. But the reader is there for the scene, why summarize
something where supposedly sitting there watching in our minds? An example of
how she does this is on page 76, ““Do you know how many people die in caves
every year?” Gansey replied that he was sure he didn’t. “Thousands,” Malory
assured him.” I feel it would be better to just have Gansey say “I’m sure I
don’t.” or “No”, since that would be shorter
than what she has and it wouldn’t take me out of the story. Every now and
then this sort of thing goes by pretty unnoticed, but this is just something I
couldn’t help but realize she does pretty regularly through the book.
The Ending
Okay,
here we go. This was by far my biggest buggabo with this story, but
consequently I think there might be the most to be drawn from it as a writer
because of that. The main thing I have an issue with is how many things were
left unexplained. Now, usually unexplained, cliff-hangery endings are totally
encouraged. I know I love them, and write them whenever possible. However, I
think this is actually a case of an attempted cliff hanger gone wrong?
(Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if her editors cut some of the explanation
out to make it more cliff-hangery because this honestly doesn’t fit with the
skill the rest of the book was written with. But that’s just my two cents.)
Cliff hangers can be a bad thing, believe it or not, if they feel too forced
and if there isn’t a proper bang to hold your reader up on the precipice with, using
the cliff metaphor. So this entire book has a lot building up to and revolving
around this lay line (a magical invisible line the main characters are trying
to find/awaken). It’s all about that, and the scenes in which the boys and Blue
are struggling to stop the bad guys from getting control of it are clearly the
climax. All of it is laced with Adam’s internal struggle, which is also
reaching a climax at this point as well. Up to this point, the whole plot has
been artfully crafted so the reader is on the edge of their seats, wanting to
know what the hell is going to happen when Adam ‘sacrifices himself’ to awaken
the lay line. The sacrifice is a big deal, it’s been what’s made Gansey and the
group reluctant to continue and has been a huge part of the obstacle to
uncovering the lay line for a good portion of the book (mainly because they
weren’t sure what they would need to sacrifice, or how dangerous it would all
be, though towards the end it becomes clear= very dangerous). So to downplay
the sacrifice needed to awaken the lay line would basically downplay the entire
struggle of the book. With that in mind, Adam sacrifices himself. We’re told
that he “knew what the hardest one (sacrifice) was,” (pg. 320). This tells us
that he knows what the sacrifice he
has to give up is, he’s just not going to tell the reader. We have no idea what
it is other than it isn’t necessarily his life. Okay, fine. Next comes, “The
most important thing to Adam Parrish, though, had always been free will, the
ability to be his own master. This was the important thing.” He then grabs the
pentagram and it says “On his terms, or not at all. I will be your hands, Adam thought. I will be your eyes.” So, this took me a bit to catch because at
first I thought this was him remembering something I’d forgotten about, but
after rereading it a few times I’m fairly certain that he is giving up his free
will to… something? What? What’s happening to Adam?! (friendly reminder that
all of this is just my guess from what was in the first book and I haven’t read
the next books so I legitimately don’t know—also if you comment or reblog this
don’t effing spoil the next book for me or I will find you).
If the book just
ended here, and we didn’t get any more information, I would be okay with it. I
would be a little miffed that we didn’t get a better explanation as to what the
hell was going on (and of course crawling to read the next book like I am now), but I would still consider it a successful
cliff hanger. Where the real issue comes in for me, is that this isn’t the end. We get another chapter of
wrap up stuff, and a scene (a great scene) with Blue and Boys burying their
friend’s body. It’s a great scene, and I’m not saying I didn’t want it in the
book, but basically it pushes back the end date of the plot from minutes after
the mysterious thing takes away Adam’s free will, to a few months later! In all
that time, no one notices anything wrong with Adam? If he sacrificed himself to the lay line, isn’t anyone worried that there’s some creepy shit going on with him? If they’re not
worried, which it doesn’t seem like they are, why aren’t they, cause I sure as
shit am! So, essentially, the lesson to learn from this is that cliff hangers
can back fire. I think Maggie was just trying to give as little away about what
happened with Adam as possible, and I’m pretty confident that it’ll all be
explained in the next books. That being said, I expected to finish this book
breath taken and totally in awe. And I could have, even if there had been a
little bit more explained about what happened with Adam, maybe just some foreshadowing
or some kind of mention of him seeming different or Blue being worried about him. But instead I was just confused and a bit
let down because it made the so called sacrifice that had to be made to the lay
line seem like nothing. Sure, in later books it may be revealed to be true that
Adam did give up something (again,
don’t know), but we need to know that in this book, or at least be foreshadowed
about it in this book, to feel like the stakes of the book weren’t all
overblown and anti-climactic.
Conclusion– What to take away
This book has some of the best characterization I’ve ever seen, and if you plan on reading something to try and hone your skill in realistic characterization, this is a great book to look to. It shows a good example of how to draw someone in, though the ending is not a very good example of an effective cliff hanger or plot resolution so it should not be looked to for that. This book also had a fantastic way of handling difficult subject matter, mental illness, abuse and doing so without making the characters into caricatures of their issues, but rather human beings who have suffered but are not defined solely by that.
World Building Resources
World Building Worksheet (Great for Fantasy/Science Fiction)
Types of Art - Perhaps the culture you’ve built doesn’t emphasize painting and drawing, but glasswork or sand art as an art form. Be creative.
7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding - What NOT to Do
Cyberpunk Derivatives (Steampunk, Clockpunk, etc.)
Rules of Building Believable Mythology
Fantasy Resources
Medieval Demographics Calculator
Fantasy Calendar Generator - (Can also be used for Sci-Fi)
Social Organization - List of Worldbuilding Questions
Magic in Fiction - Wikipedia, discusses ways characters can use magic.
Science Fiction Resources
Designing a Hypothetical Alien World
List of Emerging Technologies - Wikipedia
Applications for Artificial Intelligence
Misc.
Things to Remember When Writing Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
10 Universal Myths of the Ancient World
Future Timeline - Predictions technology, natural disasters, etc., for future; organized by year. An easy to use resource.
k-frances:
Do you ever read over your writing in a scene where you were particularly cruel to your...
Do you ever read over your writing in a scene where you were particularly cruel to your characters and you’re like
why would I ever do this to myself?!?!
But then you realize the whole point is readers will read it and go through the same thing and you’re just like
June 26, 2015
"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me..."
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
"And I belong to the way the wind changes direction – unapologetic & relentless in its need to..."
- splatterofchaos (via wnq-writers)
"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside,..."
- C.G. Jung
(via quotethat)
Do you ever read over your writing in a scene where you were particularly cruel to your characters...
why would I ever do this to myself?!?!
But then you realize the whole point is readers will read it and go through the same thing and you’re just like
