A Foray into Fantasy

While at a graduation party last Saturday, I had an encounter with the man who inspired my character, Daschall. He's the kind, academic Uncle who raised my protagonist by himself in an enchanting old bungalow.

Lauren is the father of my friend Elaine (the happy graduate). He doesn't have a college degree, and he doesn't speak Latin, but he is truly one of the most intelligent and curious men I have ever met. At fifteen, I regarded him with a distant sort of awe. He was the only adult I knew who had a room designated for writing. He had earrings, and he didn't go to church. I found this completely fascinating! And now, I hope he will fascinate other teens through my novel.

We were talking fantasy books because I told him about a particular teen who I was forever trying to find more books for at the library I work at. He recommended an author named Gene Wolfe. We were wikipedia-ing him (yes, that is now a verb), and we came across this wonderful quote:

"All novels are fantasies. Some are just more honest about it."

That is the thought I leave with you today.

Real

There is this cute blond junior high school student who comes into the library I work at. She recommends me books, I recommend her books, and we chat. When I write, girls like her are my audience, and being able to talk about books with her while getting paid for it is nothing short of a miracle.

I'll call her Jenna, as an homage to the Sara Zarr character I quoted incorrectly last time. Jenna is a voracious reader from a religious family who is currently flirting with paganism. How do I know this? I hesitantly recommended The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman to her, and she whispered her stories of frustration and skepticism to me in the stacks. I told her I had come from the same place, and she opened up to me more.

I gave her a few books that would satisfy her voracious curiosity and love of escapism fiction. I understood all too well why she needed to escape. I told her about the religious themes in the books, and why I thought them a good read.

When she left I considered my young adult characters. Would Jenna find them realistic, engaging? Would Jenna get respite from her zealous family by hanging out with them for a while? It is good to be reminded of the real people I am trying to reflect through my fiction. And it is good to be reminded how difficult it really is to be a teenager in this world.

The Art of Restraint

Sara Zarr, young adult writer extraordinaire, is the author of three poignant novels: Story of a Girl, Sweethearts, and Once Was Lost. Sweethearts, my favorite of the three, chronicles the friendship of a boy and a girl growing up in Salt Lake City.

As I think about why I like this book, for why's are so much more important when you are a writer or an artist of any sort, I decide it is her authentic character development. But as I consider the novel more closely, I realize why this character development feels so genuine. Young adult novels can be angsty, dramatic, and fantastical. Sara Zarr claims none of these cheap devices in her writing. She is a writer of restraint.

Throughout Sweethearts one is led to believe through a series of fractional flashbacks that the protagonist, Jennifer/Jenny, may have been sexually abused by her friend, Cameron's, father. But as the flashback is completed near the end of the book, we find out that she narrowly escapes. All of the trauma Jenny feels year after year is due to an event that almost happened, but didn't.

Similarly, the close friendship Jenny has with Cameron feels like it may turn romantic through much of the book. It doesn't. Instead, Zarr weaves a stunningly real connection between the two teenagers that is not fueled by romantic attraction, but by that indefinable emotional attatchment some people just have with one another. She discards the more traditional and easy path of romance in young adult fiction in favor of writing a book about a deep friendship.

This realization makes me pause when I am about to write a dramatic scene. I think, perhaps writing is like eating. That cupcake tastes so good while you are eating it, but afterward you feel that lump of processed sugar in your stomach. It is far better to eat an apple or something lighter instead. I consider what I could do in each scene to minimize the unrealistic elements, much like minimizing my calorie intake. I take more time to develop friendships between my characters, because it is only through time that you can convince your readers that what you write is a mirror of what they live.

It is too easy to put in rape scenes for a tear jerking effect, too simple to make my characters scream with rage. And it becomes clear why I like Sara Zarr so much more than Nicholas Sparks. It is what she doesn't write, where she doesn't go, that makes me respect her.

In art, more is not always more. And less can often be nothing less than amazing.

The Noise of Failure Growing Beautiful

There is a poem that Anne Lammot quotes in her writing book Bird by Bird by Bill Holm that reads as follows:

Music of Failure

Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off the Aspen
tree a month too soon. No use,
wind, all you succeed in doing
is making music, the noise of
failure growing beautiful.

She cites it as an encouragement to one of her writing students who, despite his best efforts, wrote something that was, well, bad. I think every artist creates something bad more often than they create something of beauty. But maybe the process itself can become a form of beauty. Maybe it is enough to write or draw or weld metal into jewelry every day. That's what this blog is about: the journey of art.

I can't promise it will always be interesting, but it will be honest. Thus begins my chronicles of being a writer. Hear me bleed.