Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 64
July 16, 2012
Monday Book Recs--John Green's The Fault In Our Stars and Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
This is a story of a teen girl who has terminal cancer. It's killing her, making her lungs fill up with fluid, but she's on a medication that seems to allow her to keep living. The medicine isn't going to cure Hazel. It's just slowing down the progress of the disease. She has already finished her GED back when she thought she was going to die soon. Now she is working through some college courses, but has a kind of liminal life, a space between high school and college, where only a teen who doesn't expect to live to grow up can go. She has to deal with parents who are terrified of her dying, and friends who have pulled away from her so they don't have to live with more loss. She spends time in a group of cancer survivors, but she doesn't really fit in there, either.
Until she meets August, a boy who has gone into remission and is ready to show her how to use her "Wish" to proper effect. Hazel used hers up at 13 to go to Disney World, a fact which embarrasses her. But August has saved his and he takes her to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author, who turns out to be a jerk. I loved the meta-fiction there of an author writing about how authors can be jerks. Because like regular people, authors have good days and bad days and unlike regular people, most authors are kind of neurotic and some of us are really crazy. Most of all, I loved what felt like real meditations on life and love through the eyes of a teen who won't live long, like the following:
"The voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again."
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
This is a novel about two teen girls who live during WWII and work in various capacities for the British. One is a pilot and one is an undercover agent, but for a long time, you are not sure which is which, for good reasons since one has been captured by the Nazis in France and is being held prisoner and being tortured.
I am a huge WWII fanatic and obsessed with Nazis, so I knew this book was going to interest me. I also think Elizabeth Wein is a fabulous writer who deserves to have a huge following. She is so SMART and her research is always impeccable. But the real winner here is the relationship between the two friends. So many YA books these days are all about the romance. And hey, I love me some romance. But not every book has to be about finding love because it makes it feel like that's all that matters for girls--and it isn't. A good friendship is sometimes the most important thing that comes out of the teen years. And under the pressure cooker of war, the friendship is going to be even better--or even worse.
I loved that the girls in this book are not doing make work. There is no need to pretend that the girls were allowed to do the same things that the men were. There is a bit of grousing about that. And then the two go on about their lives, doing what's important in what their real choices are. No need to make things either better or worse for women in the time period. I am all for feminism, but I hate it when we pretend that just because women didn't have the same choices that they have now, they therefore had no choices of consequence. Smart women always find ways to have choices.
It's hard to talk about the book too much without giving it away, I realize. But I will say that beyond the friendship in this book, I loved how carefully drawn each of the minor characters was. Not a single throwaway character. Hats off for that. The "evil" Nazi commander has a daughter he loves. The guy who may betray them all is even-handedly described with good and bad. And the horror of war is thus made even more horrible--as it truly is.
July 13, 2012
Friday Tri: Life lessons from the Tour de France
I know most of you don't watch the Tour de France. I certainly didn't until a few years ago. Now I'm utterly addicted and set up my bike upstairs in the TV room so I can watch the whole thing unfold on the big screen. For three weeks, I bike every morning so I can watch TdF. I thought I would just tell a few of the things I think are worth sharing that apply to more than just sport.
Fabian Cancellara, race leader for 7 days, left at Stage 11 to go home and be with his wife as she delivered their second child.
Andy Schleck broke his pelvis and couldn't make it to the start. His brother Frank continued in the race. Last year they were 2 and 3 on the podium. But without Andy there, Frank seems to have no umph. Amazing how much these two need each other.
Jens Voigt crosses to a breakaway 5 minutes ahead all by himself. This guy is awesome. The same day, I saw him hand over some of his food to a competitor who had dropped his musee bag. He is a classy guy.
Mark Cavendish, a legend in sprinting, is on the same team as Bradley Wiggins. So he ends up being the guy who goes back and gets food and drink for everyone. The star turns into a domestique and takes it in stride.
Froome is ready to break away from Wiggins in Stage 11 and could have won it all. Instead, the team car calls him back and tells him his job is to take care of Wiggins. So he does.
At the end of a disappointing day where Teejay Van Garderen tried to bring Cadel Evans to the front and Evans couldn't keep up, Teejay talks to the cameras, shrugs, and says he hopes Evans has a better day tomorrow.
Tony Martin, world class time trialer, has in both time trials ended up with a flat tire. He doesn't win, but places well. Then he crashes and ends up with a broken scapula. And just keeps going.
Johnny Hoogerland will forever be famous as the guy who was hit by a race vehicle last year as he was in a breakaway. He flew through a barbed wire fence and ended up getting 120 some odd stitches. After he got back on his bike and finished the stage. The next day, there he was again at the starting line. He's still trying to get compensation.
Chris Horner and Jens Voigt are both over 40. And still doing this race.
Day after day, breakaways head off and are caught by the Peleton. Almost every single time. They still go, and then sometimes they end up winning.
After a racer crosses the finish line, the first thing that happens is that his team comes around to hold up the bike so he doesn't fall over. Then they get him off and help carry him to a rest zone. These guys are so spent they literally can't walk. But they do it again the next day.
July 11, 2012
My Advice from WIFYR 2012:
Don't wait to be “in the zone” as a writer. No one can tell the difference in the words you write in the zone and the words you write out of the zone except for you.
The middle always seems to take twice as long as you think it will.
Reward yourself for finishing a book. Reward yourself for finishing a chapter. There aren't trophies for this, but there should be.
You are in this for the long haul. Don't use up all your energy on one book. Don't ruin your health or your emotional well-being or your relationships for one book.
Keep focused on your own book and your own career. Don't pay attention to what other people seem to be succeeding at that distracts you from your own convictions.
Figure out the difference between the feeling of having gone off in the wrong direction in a manuscript and the normal feeling of the difficult middle.
Figure out what you are afraid of and deal with it. Find ways to short circuit your internal editor.
Stop telling yourself you aren't good enough. It doesn't matter if you write a good first draft. What matter is if you can rewrite well. And you can learn that.
Listen to what other people are telling you about what kind of writing you do well.
But also listen to yourself and what sings to you in your writing.
Let go of your attachment to the words you have written down the first time. Try rewriting everything from scratch. You've probably learned a lot in the meantime and it will be much better.
Don't worry about writing the right first chapter on the first draft. The first chapter will often come last.
Every action scene needs to be followed by a reaction scene so that the reader has a sense of why what happened matters.
Only three made up words allowed per chapter.
Only one paragraph of exposition allowed at a time. Must be interspersed with interesting conflict.
Readers read novels not for character, but for relationships. Make sure every relationship has conflict.
Dialog should not be flat. That is, for every word on the page, the characters should mean a lot that isn't written down, but can be inferred.
Keep away from Evil McEvil characters.
When beginning a novel, don't start with an explosion or a chase. Start with a smaller conflict that allows the reader to get to know the character. Then move to a larger one.
Make sure that the parable you want to tell in your speculative world is more than simply a parable.
Make sure that pretty language isn't getting in the way of your reader understanding clearly what is happening in the story.
Tell as much as possible in-scene, including flashbacks.
Give physical details that are unique and not throwaway.
Start every chapter with a character's name and a location and time. It can be as easy as “The next day, John was in his bedroom . . .”
Use a plot shape that isn't the standard single rising tension to climax and denouement. There are many others.
Avoid dialog where characters tell each other what they already know: “As you know, Captain, the Xindi have killed 7 million people and we must stop them now from destroying humanity competely.”
Not everything has to have the fate of the universe depending on it.
July 10, 2012
Tuesday TV and movies: Disney's Brave and Beastly Mothers
In Cinderella, the evil stepmother wants to put her own daughters forward as potential mates for the prince. In Snow White, the evil stepmother simply wants to be the most beautiful and is willing to kill to achieve this. In Brave, the mother wants Merida to make a match to consolidate the three kingdoms and avoid a war. She doesn't explain this at first, however. We are left to guess at her intentions as an audience. She wants control over her daughter's fate--that's all we see. She has power that equals and even surpasses that of her husband. And this is what makes her bad.
I am reminded of The Little Mermaid. King Tritan, who wants to have control over his daughter's life, is portrayed as a bad father, but as rather foolish and small. Ariel rather easily avoids him by going off to the sea witch. And what does the sea witch do? She gives Ariel power--at a cost. She does this not out of the goodness of her heart but because she wants to gain the kingdom back from Tritan for herself. This in itself is portrayed as evil. Think of how Ursula is depicted as hugely grotesque visually, as a corpulent octopus rather than the delicate mermaid tail that Ariel has. Why did Disney choose to portray the only mother figure in the entire movie this way? She isn't even Ariel's mother in this version (though she is in other versions of The Little Mermaid). She is an older woman with power and with designs on more power. This alone makes her monstrous.
I liked the movie Brave. Don't mistake me. I was glad to see some of the gender roles reversed. I loved the visual step up this movie represented in terms of CG work. I loved that the story was about a mother-daughter relationship. I loved the resolution at the end. But I am surprised at the fact that no one seems to have noticed the symbolic meaning of the way in which the mother becomes a bear. At times she is a nice bear, but the real terror is that she will stop caring about her daughter and become a full bear, yes? That she will utterly selfish and forget all about her duty to her kingdom, her husband and sons, and to her daughter. That she will become not a mother, but a woman past menopause who has given up being told what to do by others and decides to have charge of her own fate. It's her daughter's desire to keep power which ultimately thwarts this move and turns her back into a much less threatening human mother figure.
The reason that this story strikes a chord with so many women in the audience is that I think we feel that it rings true to our experience of what it means to become an adult woman. We have to wrest our definition of femininity away from our mothers, and there is a horrible sense of guilt at either leaving the mother behind in the older generation's stereotypes of womanhood or accepting the sacrifice of our mothers and moving forward selfishly on our own. Perhaps a great deal of this fear is rooted in the realization at some point that if we watch our mothers do this for us, then what does that mean about when we have daughters and are in the role of beastly mother ourselves? Will we also step aside? Or will we choose to cling to our power and swallow up our daughters instead?
Motherhood is a very complicated emotional and social role for women to play. I see this in the way in which a woman's story ends with the beginning of marriage (traditionally also the start of childbearing). Think about the last book in Twilight or how many other novels depict pregnancy as a grotesque, alien possession that the mother fights against? This is deeply rooted in our cultural psyche. I think part of it is because women more than men (?) identiy overly strongly with their daughters and see themselves mirrored back a la Snow White more than men do when looking at their sons? Or maybe not. There are plenty of fratricide stories in literature. This is perhaps just the female version, with monstrousness added because feminine power is always depicted monstrously.
July 6, 2012
The 14 Best Bits of Advice from WIFYR 2012
Remember when Jennifer Grey fixed her nose and became as good-looking as every other actress? Don't take all the flaws out of a manuscript. (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
When you start cycling, adding in a bit and then taking it back out—it's time to turn in the manuscript (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
Your book starts on the day that is different (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
Don't write in an echo chamber (Ann Cannon)
Being a published writer did not make my life that much better (Ann Cannon)
Ogres are sexy to other ogres (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
If you write non-humans, you must work even harder to humanize them (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
If your character doesn't have to be an angel, then don't make him an angel (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
Notice a vacuum in the market that you as a reader want filled. Then fill it. (Cynthia Leitich-Smith)
Don't say the obvious (Ruth Katcher)
Voice is the story that only you can tell (Ruth Katcher)
Stand out by being good and being yourself. (John Cusick)
Teens do not read for pretty prose. (Alexandra Penfold)
A list is an investment portfolio, designed to spread out risk. (Alexandra Penfold)
July 3, 2012
Analysis of Perfect Plot: The Futigive
1--how backstory is handled. The beginning of the movie does a lot of backstory, but it tells the backstory as a story in itself. It's not boring details being narrated by someone else. It's all in-scene and we get to see the emotions on the faces of all the characters. But it's also interspersed with the front story, as Richard Kimball is loaded onto a bus to take him to Death Row with a bunch of other bad guys and a couple of guards. There's plenty of tension in both storylines and there's never any doubt which one you are seeing because besides Richard Kimball, none of the characters overlap.
2--sympathy for the Richard Kimball character. It may seem cheesy, but there are some key moments where we find out that Kimball couldn't possibly have killed his wife. It isn't because we see it in flashbacks. There's a few key moments held back to keep the audience in a little suspense. But then we see Kimball risk his life to save the guard who has been shot. And we see him helping the guard again in the hospital. And the little boy whose X-ray he looks at and whom he risks his life again to save. The man is clearly a compassionate person, and it's impossible for us to believe he would have killed his wife or that he is acting when he says he loved her.
3--Kimball's competence and daring. This is established over and over again. He's a brilliant surgeon, asked to scrub in on a friend's surgery. He struggles with the one-armed man. He helps save multiple lives. He is inventive, not fearless but not willing to let fear get in the way of his goals. He jumps over a waterfall and gets free. He stitches up his own wound. He makes a fake ID card by himself. He faces down multiple people who might or might not recognize him. He is super competent, but it's all in a good cause. He's not ever showing off. He's deadly serious. Gerard, for that matter, is also shown as super competent. He immediately suspects that the guard is lying about the prisoners being dead. He does a bit of simple math to talk about containing the area and how far a man can get on uneven ground. He knows what he is doing when he shoots the other prisoner while his man is being held. He says he never bargains. We love him for it, too.
4--the bromance between Kimball and Gerard. It begins when Gerard and Kimball face off in the tunnels above the waterfall. Kimball gets Gerard's gun, holds it on him, but ends up throwing it away. "I didn't kill my wife," he says. "I don't care," says Gerard. That's where they begin, but every scene between the two of them that happens after that, their relationship grows. Kimball calls Gerard directly when he is at Sykes house. Not only does he give him information, but reminds him of their first conversation. And then Gerard gets to meet all these people that know Kimball and believe in him. And finally, in the climax on the tower, Gerard knows that Kimball didn't kill a cop. He knows that the helicopter up there is full of people who think Kimball did kill a cop. So he gets the helicopter out of the way. He knows that Nichols is the bad guy. He has all the evidence and he offers it to Kimball. Kimball then saves Gerard's life one final time, and you can see the connection between them as Gerard walks him to the car and unlocks his handcuffs. So perfect.
5--the pacing. There is tension in nearly every scene, but the writers knew how to vary the kind of tension. There are funny moments between Gerard and his team, but you never get bored. Gerard has a purpose and his team helps him achieve his goals, with cameraderie. Kimball on the other hand, is always trying to find the one-armed man, but he sees the bigger picture. He needs to change his appearance. He needs to get money. He needs an apartment to stay at for a while. He needs to get into the hospital with an ID. Smaller goals that lead to the larger one, and allow the audience to relax a bit between the gun fights and life and death kinds of stakes that occur in the other scenes.
6--the reveal. I don't love the fact that it's a German who is the bad guy. I don't love the fact that a handicapped person is the other bad guy. I don't like the easy answer that it's the big bad pharmaceutical company that has arranged everything. But I love that it's Kimball's best friend who has betrayed him. I love that as an audience, we also feel betrayed. It all makes sense, too. You see why Nichols has been playing both sides, trying to deal with Kimball without the US Marshals involved because he needs to know how much Kimball knows.
There is something to be said for using a simple plot structure for your book. If you can make it clear from the beginning that your protagonist has a clear goal, then set up natural obstacles for him to get around, and then show how awesome your character is as he gets around them--you don't even need an antagonist as great as this one. But if you do have one, make him as clear-sighted and as interesting as Gerard is. He's the hero of his own story.
July 2, 2012
Monday Book Recs--Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsay Leavitt and Younger Next Year
I found the main character in this novel charming. Contemporary writing can feel a little "unmagical" to me as a fantasy writer. It's not that I think of fantasy and contemporary writing as completely different animals, as I think other people do, but I don't see the world with those big dividing lines. Contemporary writing with a little fantasy or historical writing with a little fantasy feel very similar to me (when done well) as good writing without fantastical elements. And there is a lot of great "fantasy" that really has no fantastical elements per se (Guy Gavriel Kay and Matt Kirby as examples). But Lindsay is a fantasy writer and I think has a great facility in writing with a great flow and with a sense of style and, well, verve. I liked the romance with Sean Griswold (I'm a romance lover, also when it is done well and isn't stereotypical). I especially liked the backdrop of triathlon, obviously. The idea of a girl going off on a bike ride with a guy she likes when she really has no experience seemed very real to me. And the consequences aren't watered down at all. You would puke if you tried that. But you also might decide to try it again, not because of the guy, but because you realized that you were a little changed by the challenge.
Younger Next Year for Women by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge
This is probably targeted at women slightly older than I am, but I so much agree with everything in the book. I love Harry's rules, including: Exercise hard 6 days a week. Eat healthy food. Be positive. Keep connections. I'm all about the exercise and the healthy eating, of course. But I also think that we can't forget how humans are social animals. I think about our social interaction in much the same way as the authors here, as animal instinct, based on years of evolution. There's no point in saying that you're an introvert. You're still human. You still need interpersonal contact. You need to give back not because other people need you, but because you need it. I also just loved the voice and the writing here. It was so funny. I think if I said stuff as bluntly as this, I'd get bonged by my editor. But the authors are so funny, they can get away with it. It's hard to get out and dedicate so much of your time to exercise, I know. We're all busy. But if you don't, you will regret it. You will pay for it in your health and you will sacrifice good time later on in life. Everyone is going to die, but you can sometimes put off the date and you can definitely make the years before you die better if you keep yourself in better shape. Yes, talk to your doctor to be sure. But otherwise, get started, and get started today. You're not too old to start feeling younger.
June 29, 2012
Friday Tri: The Sky is the Limit
There does still seem to be something to the idea that you need glucose to fuel your muscles and that if you don't get it, you will bonk. But this may be entirely due to your brain, and not your actual muscles. The latest studies show that if you put a real sugar liquid in your mouth and then spit it out, your body will respond in exactly the same way as if you swallowed the liquid. But if it's a fake sugar, your brain reacts the same as if you drink plain water.
Another study done recently, where people were tested to find out what their maximum sprinting pace was for a five minute test, on two separate occasions, and then told that they were racing a computer in a controlled environment against their previous pace, showed that being lied to can make you work harder. Every single athlete beat their supposed avatar's best time. And every one of them was lied to. Their avatar was going 1% faster than they had ever gone before, and they surpassed that when they believed they could. So the brain has a huge affect on what people can and can't do athletically.
I'm not saying that repeating a mantra like "I think I can" will turn you into Lance Armstrong. But it also seems like it would be a good idea.
When the first man broke the 4 minute mile, suddenly a ton of other people did the same thing the same year. When they saw it could be done, and believed it, they did it, too. The same effect happens in group training. If you see your teammate making a time, you work really hard to keep up. Training camps are revolutionizing American running and swimming as we speak. I heard last night while watching the Olympic trials that some of the best female swimmers are now swimming with the men's college swim teams. And this pushes them harder and makes them faster. It's not so much about competition as it is about believing it can be done, seeing it being done, and possibly analyzing how it is being done.
This makes me consider what it is that still divides men and women athletically. Sure, we think we *know* that men will always be faster and stronger than women. We have a bunch of science that supports this. But will it be blown out of the water at some point in the future? Women's times in marathon records and Ironman are getting closer and closer to men. Chrissie Wellington, one of my heroes, ran the fastest marathon time in her recent Kona World Championship of men AND women. She has placed second overall on the bike in certain races, including the men. She is smoking fast, and not just for a *gurl* either.
And what if we used the same technique in schools? What it someone told a bunch of test case kids who actually scored low on standardized tests that they had scored the best in their class? What if we took them out and put them in a special class and told them they were smart? How much would that change their actual performance? I think my parents believing in me had a huge impact in my life, the expectation that I would do well. Yes, I had advantages at home like books and parents who cared about my schooling. But I also had a father who expected the same things from his daughters as his sons. And he got it.
June 28, 2012
15 Ways to See Your Manuscript Differently
Try using a different font
Read your manuscript aloud.
Make a synopsis of your manuscript.
Make physical cards of each scene. Try reshuffling them in a different order.
Read your manuscript backwards, last scene first.
Open a new document and try rewriting the first chapter without looking at your previous draft.
Tell your story to someone who has never heard you talk about it before.
Sketch your story out in scenes like a movie. What is working? What isn't?
Print out your document like a book and have it bound. Then look through it again.
Pretend to send it into an editor or agent. Suddenly you will see all the flaws.
Write a list of 10 different ways to start the novel, or to end it.
Change all the character names.
Write what happens after the novel is over.
Write about your character's childhood nightmares. Or anything that isn't related to the story itself as you have framed it.
Write an editorial letter to yourself.
June 27, 2012
Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Clean House
Something there is that doesn’t love a clean house,
That sends dust motes through the air,
And muddies little childrens’ feet:
And streaks the windows and the walls.
The work of cooking is another thing:
I have cleaned afterwards, the stove, the table,
And the floor. The dishes that grow dingier,
The pots that will not be shined. But who is it,
Who makes the messes in the night?
Or when the house is empty and no one in sight?
I wake and find the beds unmade, and more—
The lines in carpet washed away.
The tiles smudged and the wood made wet.
I tell my husband and ask for his help,
To keep the house ready for guests,
Invited and not, who come and view our disarray
With pinched lips and shaking heads.
They know how to keep a clean house—
Why not I?
The hours of each day pass by with this book,
Or another. With worlds made of words that
Make no sense of time and dirt.
A child comes to interrupt. He points to
A bruised knee, a bleeding lip.
I kiss, I hug, I sing a song,
Then send him on his way,
as happy as he was before.
And open my book again, find unerringly the page
Where last I left my new best friend,
husband, lover, or King. And breathe the breath
Of sweet life, neither clean nor dirty, but real.
When I wake from that sleep, I see the dirt again.
And wonder—why must a house be clean?
Does it make our feet warmer in the night?
Does it keep a smile on our faces? Does it make us
Remember the taste of forgotten herbs on our lips?
And what would I lose if my house were clean?
An earthquake or flood would do its work just as well,
On clean floors or dirty.
But a child should cry where the tears can drip freely.
And a child should read, barefoot or in streaming boots,
Without a care. A child should be lost in a book.
Why not I?
And still the guests come, invited and not, who view
The dusty pictures and corners, the paintings on the wall,
In pencil or crayon, made by minds free to build.
And wreck. Or whatever they will.
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