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.