A Couple of Must Read Posts On Writing

Just in case you missed the big kerfuffle last week about the misguided reporter's article in WSJ about how the current crop of YA books is just too dark and despairing for today's teen, I wanted to link to a couple of responses to her (rather ill-formed) thoughts.

The first is Sherman Alexie's rebuttal in the same publication about why YA books are written in blood. (If you ever get the chance to hear this man speak, do grab it, because he is so eloquent and articulate!) A choice excerpt:

When some cultural critics fret about the "ever-more-appalling" YA books, they aren't trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren't trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.

No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.

The second great response to this, and one of my personal favorites, by Laini Taylor.

Characters in books can make us yearn to be powerful -- some of us become fantasy junkies because of the exhilaration of embodying that power vicariously -- but they can also teach us to be brave. In the general sense, they can impart values like persistence, self-belief, integrity. And in a specific sense, they might actually teach a young person how to seek help for abuse. They might send such a powerful message of "you are not alone," as to prevent suicides. 
Fiction has a power that a news article can never have, because readers inhabit fiction.