Blog Tour Kick Off Redux
SPLIT -- in paperback, with a brand new, beautiful cover. (Thank you, Knopf marketers!) I'll confess: I LOVE IT!
And to celebrate its release and to honor the upcoming National Teen Dating Violence Month, I'm going to re-post the 2010 October Blog Tour for SPLIT in paperback ... uh... electronic... uh... a different (?) format. Which is to say, it will all be here on my website, instead of elsewhere in the world.
Note: I'm skipping the first post because it was all about October and the attached fundraiser / auction.
Hope you enjoy.
A Place Called Characterby Swati Avasthi
See, there are these things called issues and there are these things called novels and, according toplenty of people, the two should never go together. Otherwise you are treading into after-school-special zone. No one wants preaching disguised as fiction.
That was drilled into me. If not through conversations and lessons, then through my ownexperiences while I winced, embarrassed for writers who would blatantly hammer in the moralof the story. And the morals were always so self-evident: If Ugh hit wife, then Ugh baaad. Nohit wife, Ugh.
And yet, both as a writer and as a reader, I found myself drawn to issue narratives, pulled to theserious and heavy one-word title books: Speak, Godless, Twisted. They would jump out at meand I'd devour them. Plenty, plenty, plenty of writers have written great issue novels. Look atChris Crutcher or Jay Asher or Laurie Halse Anderson.
But I was still afraid to write them, especially afraid because I came to Split with a history ofworking with survivors of domestic violence. (I coordinated a domestic violence legal clinic forthree years and spoke to thousands of survivors.) I came to Split after giving lectures about thecycle of abuse; I came to Split with statistics that clattered around in my head, and stories that Icouldn't shake loose from my brain. So, I was worried that if I wrote about domestic violence, Iwould pull out the soapbox that kills a good story.
But, to get onto a soapbox, you must have answers. And I only had questions: what would itbe like to grow up watching your dad hit your mom? What if you loved your dad anyway andlooked up to him the way that every kid does?
I had left the clinic almost ten years before I sat down with a cup of coffee and my computer anda 16-year-old boy in my head. The deeper I dug the more muddled I became, uncovering morequestions. But somehow, I didn't feel like I was the one asking the questions anymore. Mynarrator, Jace, was. And the nature of the questions were slightly altered and the stakes muchhigher. Instead of "What would happen if you loved your dad anyway?" my questions becamemore specific and were asked in Jace's voice: "Why, in the name of all that is holy, do I stilladmire my creep-of-a-father? WTF is wrong with me?"
I had no more worries about my soapbox. All I worried about was whether I could get my storyright and what would happen to Jace. The challenge became not to flinch when the story gothard, how to be honest now matter what. The story stole the soapbox's spot.
Much later, after the ARC came out but before the novel was printed and we were deep intocopyedits, a friend read the book and commented that she was upset with something I'd written– something minor, but valid – about culture. And I suddenly was so tempted to use Jace as amouthpiece. I struggled for two days, trying to find a way to make the idea work. My friendwas astonished and wondered why I could "make Jace" argue with Mirriam about issues, butcouldn't find a way to "make him say this." I told her I could never "make Jace say" anything.
About a year after I wrote Split, a colleague of mine was working on an issue novel. In her fearthat she would preach, her novel ended up saying nothing and she asked, "how do you write anissue novel without preaching?"
So, I could tell her: See, there are things called issues and these things called novels. And theyshould go together right through the juncture of a place called character.
This was originally posted at: Karen's For What It's Worth blog. Which is a spectacular blog, run by a spectacular lady. After drumming up comments and donations for the October fundraiser for SPLIT, she did another great push for Doctors without Borders. Subscribe and find her on twitter @teamsheltie.
And to celebrate its release and to honor the upcoming National Teen Dating Violence Month, I'm going to re-post the 2010 October Blog Tour for SPLIT in paperback ... uh... electronic... uh... a different (?) format. Which is to say, it will all be here on my website, instead of elsewhere in the world.
Note: I'm skipping the first post because it was all about October and the attached fundraiser / auction.
Hope you enjoy.
A Place Called Characterby Swati Avasthi
See, there are these things called issues and there are these things called novels and, according toplenty of people, the two should never go together. Otherwise you are treading into after-school-special zone. No one wants preaching disguised as fiction.
That was drilled into me. If not through conversations and lessons, then through my ownexperiences while I winced, embarrassed for writers who would blatantly hammer in the moralof the story. And the morals were always so self-evident: If Ugh hit wife, then Ugh baaad. Nohit wife, Ugh.
And yet, both as a writer and as a reader, I found myself drawn to issue narratives, pulled to theserious and heavy one-word title books: Speak, Godless, Twisted. They would jump out at meand I'd devour them. Plenty, plenty, plenty of writers have written great issue novels. Look atChris Crutcher or Jay Asher or Laurie Halse Anderson.
But I was still afraid to write them, especially afraid because I came to Split with a history ofworking with survivors of domestic violence. (I coordinated a domestic violence legal clinic forthree years and spoke to thousands of survivors.) I came to Split after giving lectures about thecycle of abuse; I came to Split with statistics that clattered around in my head, and stories that Icouldn't shake loose from my brain. So, I was worried that if I wrote about domestic violence, Iwould pull out the soapbox that kills a good story.
But, to get onto a soapbox, you must have answers. And I only had questions: what would itbe like to grow up watching your dad hit your mom? What if you loved your dad anyway andlooked up to him the way that every kid does?
I had left the clinic almost ten years before I sat down with a cup of coffee and my computer anda 16-year-old boy in my head. The deeper I dug the more muddled I became, uncovering morequestions. But somehow, I didn't feel like I was the one asking the questions anymore. Mynarrator, Jace, was. And the nature of the questions were slightly altered and the stakes muchhigher. Instead of "What would happen if you loved your dad anyway?" my questions becamemore specific and were asked in Jace's voice: "Why, in the name of all that is holy, do I stilladmire my creep-of-a-father? WTF is wrong with me?"
I had no more worries about my soapbox. All I worried about was whether I could get my storyright and what would happen to Jace. The challenge became not to flinch when the story gothard, how to be honest now matter what. The story stole the soapbox's spot.
Much later, after the ARC came out but before the novel was printed and we were deep intocopyedits, a friend read the book and commented that she was upset with something I'd written– something minor, but valid – about culture. And I suddenly was so tempted to use Jace as amouthpiece. I struggled for two days, trying to find a way to make the idea work. My friendwas astonished and wondered why I could "make Jace" argue with Mirriam about issues, butcouldn't find a way to "make him say this." I told her I could never "make Jace say" anything.
About a year after I wrote Split, a colleague of mine was working on an issue novel. In her fearthat she would preach, her novel ended up saying nothing and she asked, "how do you write anissue novel without preaching?"
So, I could tell her: See, there are things called issues and these things called novels. And theyshould go together right through the juncture of a place called character.
This was originally posted at: Karen's For What It's Worth blog. Which is a spectacular blog, run by a spectacular lady. After drumming up comments and donations for the October fundraiser for SPLIT, she did another great push for Doctors without Borders. Subscribe and find her on twitter @teamsheltie.
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