Dee Garretson's Blog, page 9

If you have to hide a book, it must be valuable

THE WHALES, a picture book by Cynthia Rylant full of beautiful illustrations of whales, naturally, was the first book I was driven to hide. Now, I'm as fond of whales as the next person, and I'm fond of picture books. Fondness can dim though, when a two-year-old asks for a whale book to be read not just once or twice a day, but once or twice an hour. We had stacks of picture books in the house. It didn't matter. They seemed to be invisible, so I admit it, I hid the chosen book for a few hours each day. For a child of two, out of sight was out of mind, and it meant I got a welcome respite to all whales, all the time.

The day did come when my son didn't want me to read the book more than a few times. Joy reigned. I read him at least ten other picture books I had waiting. Wonderful, colorful, fabulous stories. I was happy. But for those of you with book-obsessed toddlers, I'm sure you can guess what came next. A different book, this one called OUR NEW KITTEN by Harriet Hanes, became the new must-read all the time. We ended up with three copies of that book. After the first was in tatters, from the necessary practice of turning pages to him carrying it around like a talisman to me hiding it in the hamper and under sofa cushions, I bought two more. One, I cut up, putting each page in a protective sleeve, and then punching holes in the cover and rebinding it with string. The other I put away, because if a book is so well-loved, it must not be forgotten.

My son is long past that age, and now carries around books so that he can sneak in a few pages of reading when he has time. I still buy picture books, especially around the holidays. They are supposedly just a quirk of mine, but I find when I'm reading them, others in the family migrate to sit next to me just to keep me company. No whale books though. I might have to resort to hiding them.

Creating Memorable Main Characters

At first glance, THE DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, THE HUNGER GAMES, and the Hercule Poirot mysteries by Agatha Christie would seem to have absolutely nothing in common, beyond being very successful books. It's hard to imagine the three main characters (Greg, Katniss, and Hercule) sitting down to a congenial dinner together. If the three were relatives, it would be more like the worst imaginable family meal ever.  Greg would be drawing rude pictures of Great Uncle Hercule, while Katniss would be trying to figure out how to steal a turkey leg at the same time she was concocting a plan to dispose of the annoying wimpy kid.

I wouldn't necessarily want any of these three to be my own relatives, but they are so distinct, they are etched in the memories of readers. The challenge for us as writers is learning to create our own such characters. Many manuscripts are rejected because an agent or an editor will say "I just don't connect with the main character."  Nothing is more frustrating to hear about a character you created, nurtured, and nursed through whatever disaster you inflicted upon them.  You love them, so why doesn't anyone else?

How you go about creating a memorable main character depends partly on your story structure. If you've got a story that starts out with an ordinary character in an ordinary life, whether happy or unhappy, you've got to convince the reader your character is actually not quite as ordinary as everyone else. Give the character a sense of humor, an odd way of looking at life, a strange quirk, an unusual hobby, or a passion for something, anything that elevates them beyond average.  That's what author Jeff Kinney did in THE DIARY OF A WIMPY KID. Within the first few pages we know Greg is irreverent, smart and funny. I didn't need to know the plot; I kept reading just because I liked the character.

If the setting or plot of your story is unusual or exciting, then it's a bit easier, but you still have to get the reader to root for the character. If you're going to throw a character into a pit full of alligators, you want the readers to really hope he gets out, not just close the book with a yawn.

THE HUNGER GAMES is both unusual and exciting. Katniss, the main character, cannot be described as warm and fuzzy. She's tough, she's led a grim life, and she never shows much in the way of a sense of humor, but author Suzanne Collins does a fantastic job of making the reader care about her.  That happens within the first few pages, and it occurs because we see the chinks in the character's armor. She cares deeply about her little sister, Prim, and that hint of vulnerability drives the plot. As an interesting exercise, I've read the first few pages of the book leaving out all references to Prim and her cat. Katniss becomes a much less intriguing character.

Love or hate Hercule Poirot, if you've read Agatha Christie's mysteries, the fussy Belgian detective is an unforgettable character too. In his first appearance, in THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, the reader gets a very clear picture of a most unusual detective in just one page. When Poirot is discussing a murder with his friend Hastings, the juxtaposition of Poirot's fastidious behavior while he calmly talks about a grim crime is surprising  and odd. He arranges his moustache, he brushes off his coat, and he fixes his friend's crooked tie as he listens to a description of the victim's dying words. As Hastings says, "I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound."  Poirot's quirkiness is the main reason we remember the character.

I had a long path to getting published, and along the way analyzing popular books helped me tremendously. In my own writing for the middle grade audience, I had to find a way to make my main character in WILDFIRE RUN likeable. Luke Brockett is the son of the U.S. President, and with that setup, it would be easy to fall into the trap of making him the epitome of a spoiled rich kid. Instead, I tried to show him as a geeky MacGyver kid, more interested in playing jokes on his friends and building weird contraptions than in taking advantage of all the perks that come with living in the White House.  I hope the combination of an unusual setting with a character the reader doesn't expect makes the book work.

Creating good characters is all part of the process that goes into writing a marketable manuscript, and while it can be a time-consuming job to get it right, it's hard to succeed without them.

Why YA Dystopian Fiction is Important

Some of the most memorable books I read as a teen were dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories, what were categorized most often as adult science fiction back when I was reading them. I think most of my sixth grade class read EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart after my older brother gave it to me and I passed it along to friends when I finished. It's still one of the books I remember most clearly.

Now that I write myself (not dystopians, at least not yet), I've been fascinated to see the rise in popularity of young adult dystopian fiction in recent years. I've discovered it is far harder for me as an adult to face these stories now. Yesterday, I checked out THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan from the library. I started it when I got home and read until 2:00 AM because I just had to find out what happened. At times, I wanted to put the book down, because at my age I've experienced far too much real-life loss and grief and sadness and rage at things I can't change to make it easy to read about those feelings in others. But I know I'm not the target audience for these stories.

My conflicted feelings about dystopians, and the change in how I read them made me wonder what exactly it is about them that pulls people in. Clearly, the intensity of the emotion is one reason, and as with so many good stories, the feeling of wondering how you, the reader, would feel and act if you were in those situations.

Dystopians are important beyond the story though, because outside of getting drawn into fascinating and unique situations, these types of books show that the world as we know it is not the only possibility. While life is not easy for everyone now, most of us in the more prosperous societies are far better off than at any other time in history. But life could have turned out differently for us, based not on our choices, but on the choices and events controlled by those in power in a past we didn't experience.

These stories raise the questions of "What if?" What if a science experiment had gone wrong? What if a disease had developed that couldn't be controlled? What if a crazy person had come to power and others had not tried to fight him? What if we let only a few dictate the rules of society?

While no one is purposefully reading YA dystopians for the lessons they can teach, they can make readers aware that paying attention to how society functions is important. They can show us we can't assume the future will follow a perfect path, and we, in a small way or a major way, may be able to influence a part of it in what we choose to do with our lives, in how involved we get in the political process, in how we raise our children, or in what we study and pursue as a career. All in all, they expand the small bubble each of us lives in to see the greater world beyond us. And that's a good thing. I want my own children to read these books.

If you are looking for some classic dystopian or apocalyptic books to read to see what came before the YA trend, here's a list of a few possibilities.

THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR by George Orwell

FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

THE CHRYSALIDS by John Wyndham

THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood

ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute

EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert A. Heinlein

A Picky 11-Year-Old's Book Choices for 2011

I thought I'd post a list of books that are recommended by an 11-year-old girl who is very picky about what books she reads. We literally have hundreds of middle grade books in the house at any particular time, between the books I've checked out from the library, buy, or that we already own from when my son was reading middle grade. When my daughter has free time though, she usually chooses an art project or playing outside or building with Legos over reading. She finished a few more books that aren't on this list, some for school and one she said was too sad to include, but these are most of the ones she finished and enjoyed.

Sprinkles and Secrets by Lisa Schroeder

The Sisters Eight: Petal's Problems, book 6 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The Sisters Eight: Rebecca's Rashness, book 7 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The Sisters Eight: Zinnia's Zaniness, book 8 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick

The Mother Daugher Book Club: Much Ado about Ann by Heather Vogel Frederick

Just Add Magic by Cindy Callaghan

Now and Zen by Linda Gerber

The Sherlock Files – The 100-Year-old Secret by Tracy Barrett

Tumtum and Nutmeg: The Rose Cottage Tales by Emily Berne

Tumtum and Nutmeg: Adventures beyond Nutmouse Hall by Emily Berne

The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaeffer

The Secret Ingredient by Laura Schaeffer

Gossip from the Girls' Room by Rose Cooper

Rumors from the Boys' Room by Rose Cooper

The Goddess Girls: Artemis the Brave by Joan Holub

The Goddess Girls: Athena the Wise by Joan Holub

The Quest of the Warrior Sheep by Christopher Russell

The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens (She read this on our ereader, and I think she would have been reluctant to read it otherwise, because it is much longer than her normal choices.)

Wolf Storm by Dee Garretson (Mom's book-She probably wouldn't have picked this up in a bookstore though!)

I've come to realize she is definitely a kid who likes series or books by an author she has already read. We'll see what she chooses in 2012!

In remembrance of Armistice Day – A letter from France 08/06/1918

My great-uncle Wendell Garretson, a doctor and a Quaker, spent much of World War I working in military hospitals in Europe. The following is a letter he wrote to his parents back on their Iowa farm after he joined the French Red Cross. He didn't want to worry his parents, and in reading this letter, it is clear he was glossing over aspects of war just for that reason. In later letters, he never mentioned that a few months later he and another doctor volunteered to set up a small tent hospital in the field to care for six hundred soldiers with influenza. I hope to post more of these in the future. 

Dear Parents:

"I suppose you have received my letters stating that I have joined the French Red Cross and was shortly to leave for France. I am at my destination at this writing, having had an uneventful journey across the channel, on Saturday night last. Spent a day in Paris, arriving at 11 p.m. and leaving at 6:10p.m. on Monday. I think Paris is a beautiful city and in fact, the most beautiful I have seen in my travels. I had an opportunity of seeing the effects of 'Big Bertha,' the long range German gun which is firing on Paris at 745 miles distance. While I was walking, on Monday morning, along a well-know thoroughfare, I had the novelty of seeing and hearing one of the shells explode, at a distance of two hundred yards. The shells are comparatively small and do only slight damage compared with the airplane bombs which were dropped n London during the numerous raids last summer.

I was in my hotel when the explosion of the first occurred, and the porter, unconcerned, announced to me in French, that it was 'Big Bertha.' I thought of remaining under shelter in an airplane raid, but I noticed from the doorway that the people on the street went about as usual as if nothing had or was likely to occur, thereby treating the shelling with the utmost contempt, a remarkable attitude to one unaccustomed to it, though I soon saw the wisdom of ignoring the danger, which is almost neglible, mathematically speaking.

Ris-Orangis is only 15 miles from Paris, up the Seine, in a a beautiful situation overlooking it. The "hospital" (the French for hospital) is situated in an old monastery, which had been abandoned some ten years ago, presumably at the time of the separation of the church and state in France. It has been easily rearranged into a first class hospital the addition of sanitary arrangements and enlarging the "carsine' department, and is able to accommodate about 200 patients all or nearly all from the French army.

Though essentially a French Hospital, it is staffed by American doctors and financed by New York people.

Rural France is beautiful just now, especially the foliage on the shrubbery and the trees; the latter are quite numerous, much more so than in Iowa, thereby resembling England in that respect. The farms are very small, to our way of thinking, but the crops look well. One observes oats and wheat being harvested with the scythe, and the sheafs bound by the straw; though I did observe several binders of the International Harvesting Co. type at work in the larger fields I wish that I knew more French that what I do, which would make it less difficult to get about.. I was alone in Paris, and when I couldn't make them (the French) understand my French,  I usually could find some Britisher or Yankee who was bilingual enough to enable them to interpret for  me.

The French people, so I am informed , have lately been more helpful than during the March offensive of the Germans.

I hope you are in the best of health, and the harvest have realized your previous expectations .

I will write you a more elaborate letter of Paris and the French in general when I know them better.

I am very truly,

Wendell.

NaNoWriMO – How to win at National Novel Writing Month (just for fun)

I've never attempted NaNo and I doubt if I ever will because I edit as a write, and a thousand words a day is about all I can manage on a good day. I do admire those who do, so here's a little video to ease the tension. If you enjoy this, you might like a couple of my other xtranormal vidoes, Punctuation Man- The Secret to Getting Published, and A Writer's Day on my other blog here.

Top Ten Reasons you should give Books as Holiday Gifts

1. They don't make noise. No explosion sounds, no horn sounds, no baby crying sounds.

2. They don't have to be assembled in secret at midnight when you can't find the right size screwdriver.

3. They don't take up as much room as nearly life-size dollhouses or train tracks that encompass your living room.

4. They are easy to wrap. If you have ever tried to wrap a light saber umbrella, you will be glad to wrap something nice and rectangular.

5.  They don't require batteries.

6. They take longer than five minutes to play with.

7. The dog probably won't chew them up, unlike doll hands and feet.

8. You don't have to purchase expensive accessories for them, since they don't require cunning $25 berets to complete the cover.

9.  If they are left on the floor and you step on them in the dark, it won't hurt nearly as much as stepping on a Lego, and it won't be as dangerous as stepping on a toy car.

10. It's fun for the giftgiver to shop at bookstores. You can buy yourself a book as a treat.

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Writers, are you tired of the Snark Monster?

Over the last few months I've been shaken by the amount of snark a few writers are throwing out about other writers. Most writers are wonderfully supportive of each other, but the few that aren't adds a sour note that isn't needed. A little snark can be entertaining, I admit, but to go to the point of ridiculing someone for their newbie mistakes or disparaging writers' work without reading it is just wrong. One of the latest examples was from someone on Twitter referring to the incident of an author who self-published their old short stories and ran into a legal tangle with their publisher. The commenting writer referred to the author's work as "crappy short stories" and derided her decisions. This sent up a red flag to me. Did the commenter read the author's stories? I don't know, but after that, I did. "Crappy" is the last word I would use to describe them. I'm not here to do a review, and I don't often read short stories, but one of them won an O. Henry award and several others received accolades from recognized reviewers and authors who know the good from the bad.

We all make decisions based on our own lives, responsibilities and goals. If I've learned anything from the last two years in this industry, it's that I know enough to no longer judge a writer for the decisions they make. I haven't lived their disappointments, their dreams or their experiences, just as others haven't lived mine. Publishing is a tough business, and we all supposedly love books, so why would we undercut each other? Anyway, the point of this is to make me more aware that if we all want to survive and flourish, it's time to slay the snark monster. I had a very prim and proper grandmother who mostly drove me crazy, but when people were being nasty to each other, she would say, "That's just ugly behavior." You did know something after all, Grandma.

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And you thought math couldn't be funny?

I thought this was hilarious:

Making a Book Trailer – A Brief How-to with the Costs for a Movie Trailer-Look

There still seems to be much debate about the value of book trailers. I, for one, love them and think they are very useful for children's literature. I know some teachers and school librarians use them to encourage children to read. An author-made book trailer can't compete, of course, with a big-budget trailer produced by a professional at a publishing company, but I think we can still make ones that showcase our books. I wanted to post how I did mine for my latest book, WOLF STORM, and how much it cost, so that other authors who are considering trailers can use this to look at some of their options.

There are many ways to make trailers. I learned on the fly, so to speak, and have no previous experience, so there may be better or cheaper ways to do this than my method. First of all, I couldn't have done this without my 15-year-old son, who knew far more about the movie-making software than I did.

The costs first: We used an old video-editing software called Ulead, which we bought about seven years ago for $80.00. I've heard IMovie, available for Macs is very easy to use, and I know there are many choices out there. I purchased all the music, video clips and illustrations from Istockphoto.com. At Istockphoto, a buyer purchases a block of credits, and the larger the block purchased, the less expensive each credit becomes. A credit ranges in price from $1.25 if you buy a huge block to a $1.63 if you only buy a few. That's why it's best if you can search out what items you need, add up the total number of credits required to buy all of them, and then purchase the block you need right before you are ready to put the trailer together. You can download samples for free to rough out a trailer, and this helps insure you have exactly the right bits before you actually buy them.

My trailer was far more expensive than many author-made ones, because I decided to use video clips as much as possible, rather than still images. I wanted the feel of a movie trailer and thought that would be the best way to accomplish it. There are also different levels of quality of images and clips you can buy, which affects the price. I chose to purchase "big web" images because I wanted them to show up clearly when viewed full screen.

If you haven't seen the trailer, here it is:

Here's what I purchased with the credit price (not dollar price) next to each one:

Video Clips:

Space ship animated 55

Sweeping mountain scene 55

Nice snow scene 30

Creepy snow scene – 30

Snow falling – 30

Black Wolf – 30

Still images:

3 photos of girl at medium quality 10 each- 30

Spaceship illustration 15

Music:

Total of 3 different clips at 15 credits each – 45

I was not very familiar with Photoshop then, so the poster image is one I paid someone to make. Now I would be able to do it on my own. I also filmed one clip myself, begging my husband and son to participate, making that one was free. The boy who did the voiceover is a friend of my son's, and I didn't pay him, except to give him a $25.00 gift card to an indie bookstore in our town.

The total number of credits I used was 320 credits. I purchased two different blocks because I didn't anticipate the exact number I needed, so on average, I paid $1.45 a credit. That brings the total to $489.00 with the gift card.

How I did it: I wrote a rough script and blocked out different ideas for images. Once I started searching through Istock, I ran across others that I thought would work better, and continually adapted the script to the images. We put all the images together to see how long the video would be. I wanted it at no more than two minutes, so we did some shortening of various clips. After that, we recorded the dialogue and added it in to fit the images. This showed us where we needed to cut some of the clips and double others to get the timing right. My son added in the music around the voice, lowering and raising the volume to the appropriate levels.

It's a long process, especially searching for just the right images and music, but I enjoyed it. If you don't like that sort of thing, it would be very frustrating. Overall, I would do it again. Whether or not it's worth it in pure monetary terms as it relates to book sales, I don't know. Then again, so much of what we authors do is hard to quantify, so at least with this particular promotion attempt, I came out of it with something I'm proud of, and I enjoyed making it.