What Does Young Adult Fiction Mean in 2016?

 Is young adult fiction a forest cut down of all of it's riches? Have writers mined every idea in each genre? Are audiences saturated with all the romantically undead characters, magical plots and dystopian worlds one can possibly envision? Has Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey been taken so many times it has become the treadmill of entertainment?

Ever since the reinvention of young adult fiction with J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter the literary landscape that is enjoyed by children and adults alike has been plundered for every idea under the sun. From magical child heroes, through legions of Abercrombie & Fitch vampires and werewolves to the far reaches of dystopian futures and back again to play the strings of the heart, stories that tap into the metaphors of our time and what it means to be a single voice in a ever-shrinking, and increasingly crowded global village are now like so much white noise.

Sure, there are always the random gems among the thousands of copycats, which truly entice readers to restore their faith in innovative storytelling once more, but they are few and far in between. Even the sudden appearance of a movie quartet (based on a book trilogy) or a TV show no longer holds the same guarantee that the original material was anything but a slight variation on themes formerly explored.

So, what does it take to become noticed as an author? Do we strive for gimmicks, a catch on familiar concepts no one has properly explored yet? Or perhaps, we view familiar worlds and plots through an R-rated lens or a filter woven in equal parts of sarcasm and cliche-aware humor? Can we rope in a celebrity to co-author our novel or at least praise it as 'the next [fill in the most recent story success]?'

I have no answers.

The belief that one should not try and write towards the next big thing or what audiences might want to read still rings true to me, although the temptation is always there to jump on the trend bandwagon. I enjoy writing, not just because I like storytelling but also because it reveals a lot about who I am as a person. No matter what genre you write, autobiographical elements always sneak into the story. However, I love plotting even more. Currently I have ideas for two dozen stories, all of them flirting with-what I think are-original and interesting elements of storytelling. I love mixing up symbology and metaphors into my plots. I like to lay with my characters in ways I wished other writers did. Above all, I don't want to play it safe.

But what are your ideas? Where should young adult fiction focus on next? Is there room for the wild and imaginative? Or instead of spreading our wings wide and exploring new concepts, should we delve deeper into characters and ignore the world dressing?

Where is YA fiction going next?

The Week of Whirlwind Writing

The title says it all. One week. Finish the book that has haunted me for almost 8 years now. It's in it's fourth draft and there really is nothing keeping me back. My lovely wife is away for work and has left me with this one message:

"Ship or get off the pot"

And she's right. The only thing stopping writer's from a potential bestseller success is the ability to ship. Act. Just do it.

So this week marks the last week I will work on Aelemental, Book 1. I've got the mind set that perfection will never be achieved (and then again if it's an EBook then I can always bring out a revision) and I've already gotten valuable input from my wife and a friend as proofreaders. What else do I need?

Bux or Books 2.0

Book by blindmanphoto (deviantart.com)

The way we read is changing.

At least this is one of the theories by Nicholas Carr, author of 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.' Basically, the way we use the Internet is rewiring our mind in how we absorb and in fact look at information. The skim-and-click technique we use to access what we need when online is making it harder for us to sit down with a 300 page novel and read for long ends at time.

So does this also mean we are entering a new era of how we write books? This question has subconsciously been playing in the back of my mind as I struggle to get not one, or two, but three books written in the last few years.

Book Project 1: The Traditional Fiction Novel

Fairy Tale by KaseiArt (deviantart.com)

The first book project is a young adult adventure novel, roughly 400 pages in length, but born out of frustration with the usual conventions of similar fiction of the time. Long, drawn out dialogues, zero character building and a quick wrap-up in the last 50 pages. Boring! I felt the need to cram a lot of events, character and world-building as possible into 300 pages. Only then it became 450. And then it 600 and then back to 400 until it became (in the opinion of seasoned test readers) a summation of bullet points.

Book Project 2: The Experimental Travelogue

Travel Alone by Freexel (deviantart.com)

Then came my next book idea: a quick turn around experiment in writing and self-publishing (in draft) a book in only one week. It would just be a random collection of thoughts put on paper. A blog-to-book if you will. That didn't pan out. I simply couldn't find the time (or was it Internet-nurtured short attention?) to write the complete thing. It lay in my drawer of unfinished projects for over a year, before I picked it up again thinking: 'What if I turn this into an examination of why people write and read books?' Later it morphed again into a half fictional / half auto-biographical travel story where the main character is alone with his thoughts while riding around the world on his bike. Still: not fast enough.

Book Project 3: The Collection of Quick Reads

The Brothers Grimm by Fran85 (deviantart.com)

My latest project-to-mature is an anthology sequel to the Grimm's Household Tales (or fairy tales) done in a 'death match throughout time' fashion, mainly focusing on telling the stories in the abbreviated narrative the originals were told. What has never changed through all these years is my fascination with fairy tales. Something about their intrinsic simplicity of story and format. So I'm writing my sequels in the same fashion. This suits me just fine, what with each story only being roughly 2 pages long, except that I now have approximately 200 stories to tell.

I think I have an answer to why it takes me (and possibly many other potential writers) so long to actual finish a book and see it get published:

information time span deprivation

We all want the information now! I for one simply can't bring myself to write long descriptions of places, events and character interaction when all I really want is to get to the heart of the matter. And yes, despite that being the point of a novel (lest all the new bestsellers become 100 page 'shopping lists') I think I may have to bite the bullet and commit to writing perhaps the first ever skim-and-link novel. One that reads as fast as it does to order it through Amazon and text your friends about it.

Simplicity is Horseradish, Pt 1

Part 1: Simple Truths

This is the truth that I am faced with. I have been staring, obsessing and yes, actually reading Lemony Snicket's Horseradish in the bathroom for some time now. The book describes itself as this:

Life is a turbulent journey, fraught with confusion, heartbreak and inconvenience.

THIS BOOK WILL NOT HELP.

Many collections slap together the wit and wisdom of certain authors in the hopes of inspiring a reader at a crucial time in his or her life. Instead, this book contains a bouquet of alarming but inescapable truths from the work of Lemony Snicket, along with selections from his unpublished papers and remarks he has made at dinner parties and anarchist riots, in order to remind the reader that even the loftiest of inspirations contains a sharp, bitter kernel of dread - and vice versa.

Now this is not a book review, other than it is to say, that the sheer presence of 'Horseradish' kept on inspiring me in ways I have yet to understand. I know the following (and will use Mr. Snicket's sober prose to present):

• Many famed authors publish great works of art, only to follow up with more work, that actually feels like work: mystifying in purpose, dour in execution and with an added dash of expectations.
• The simplicity in which these 'follow-up' works are presented, belies the subtle nuance in which the new material aspires to follow the old work in style and form, but fails to be original in content.
• Books you feel need to be read in the privacy of a bathroom can never lead to anything great.

The above three points do not just apply to Mr. Snicket's work, a dear friend and esteemed colleague of mine, if indeed I had ever met him, he approved of me, and I myself had actually published something, none of which are as of yet the case. Miss Rowling has been known to approach her follow-up 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' in much the same way, as has Mr. Tolkien with 'The Silmarillion' and many other artists of the pen before and after. And as Mr. Snicket astutely comments on the back of his book: 'This book will not help.'

As an author who has never published anything yet, I find myself in the unique position of seeing the footsteps of others gone before me and the choice to not go down the same path, or take the bus that is now approaching and forget about walking altogether. I could preempt my eco-meta-fantasy (a possible revolutionary sub genre in YA storytelling) by first releasing my 'follow-up', however now inappropriately named. 

Horseradish First, Followed by a Feast of Seafood
No more than a blip on the steampunk radar this story could be elegantly simple in form and shape, while benefiting from today's excellent design and publishing tools online. The content would be of the same caliber as that of poor Beedle or the proverbial horseradish, possibly without the added misery of inappropriately raised hopes.

The Bored Becomes the Bard
I could gloriously revel in the content, which to me may not be original, but to the unsuspecting community of readers could be as surprising as stepping into an elevator shaft, expecting an elevator to be waiting for them. The story would be as new and sparkling as the cover that hides the mystery and the font type that slowly reveals it.

Sell One, Then Sell-A-Million
And finally I could grace the hood of the toilet paper roll (or where I live - the water spout) together with the greatness of Lemony, J.K. and J.R.R, whose familiarity I would now feel confident in sharing, having been published, but without the awkward situation of having been sold out of a $1 bin. The 'lead to greatness' would not refer to the odd fellowship of missing wizards or mysterious triplets, but instead the roll of soft toilet paper underneath (or cool refreshment of pressured water) which always promises relief after relief.

So Horseradish has given me a valuable a valuable lesson in writing and releasing a book into the world. In it's own words:

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.

I agree. We should instead steal the idea of sailing into the unknown in search of gold... and return with spices instead.

(part 2 can be found on my other blog at MuseFlight.wordpress.com)

It's Time. My Time.

Today I've decided something important. I've decided to just write the story I want to tell for the last 6 years.

Yes it has been 6 years ago since the Muses started haunting me and I've come a long way. I have plotted all 5 books in my Ælemental series. I have written the first book, redrafted it and redrafted it again. I have started writing the second book. I have done a lot of research on fairy tales, rain forests, Mayans, Aztecs, Toltecs and Incas. I have learned a lot about writing, about rhythm and characters. I have read the most helpful books on writing and telling a good story. I've made drawings. I've invented an alien alphabet. I've kept this blog, started another one and released a tie-in called 'Impulse' on Twitter and Facebook.

But this is not so much about what I've done as what I'm no longer going to do.

I'm not going to:

• 'just' write a story
• write for a specific audience
• try to become the next J.K.Rowling
• write to become a millionaire
• perfect my story until my fingertips bleed
• rush redrafting because people want me to be finished
• include everything I find interesting
• cut out everything except the bare essentials
• have the characters 'come alive' and lead the story
• have the plot hi-jack the characters
• put gimmicks in the book to sell it
• feel bad about blogging, telling people and texting about writing the story

So, Anonymous? Get of my back and crawl back into that miserable little hole you came out of. I am glad for your 'criticism', but grow a pair and take credit for your complaints, cuz anyone can anonymously spout venom without taking the responsibility to use sound arguments.

Writing should be fun. You should not have to deal with pressure of performance. This is not an Olympic event. I'm writing a fictive tale, not a research paper on curing cancer or AIDS. The quality of my writing is not subject to any of the bullet points listed above, because for every rule there are exceptions. Books that break all rules become popular reads all the time. On the other side, I read crappy books all the time as well. I finish them too. I just don't pick up sequels if they're really not worth it. As a reader I can be judgmental. As a writer I cannot. 

I have a story to tell and I need all my concentration to weave that tale well.

So, after money, audience, comparisons with other writers, fame, page counts and attractiveness to publishers have all imploded as motivators due to their lack of substance, I am left with the final (and most subtle until I find the next) hurdle to penning a good yarn: time. I need to write when I can write (Sorry, Mr. King, we're not all as 'dedicated' as you are), at the speed I feel is right and damn those (including myself) who bug me about when they get to hold a copy (Sorry Geoff, Ray, Marcus, Dawn and others, I know you all mean well). This is my brain child and I will deliver her when she's ready, even if it takes me another 6 years.

Ælemental, 12 years in the making. Simon was born back... as was his audience.

And blogging? I'll keep doing that anyway, because it's like therapy to a writer: it clears my head and holds a mirror in front of me, like right now. But that's a story for another time...

Impulse Writing

Follow #Impulse on Twitter now!

So it's 2012 and we all make new year's resolutions, right? One of mine for the new year was to just do it. Whatever I needed to do to get an IT job, vent my creativity or otherwise needed to work off my To-Do list, I just needed to stop faffing around and get cracking. 

Just Do It!
So with regards to Ælemental, this meant get the damn book finished. Last time I had worked on the 4th (and final) draft was back in November 2011! I need to get this book done. Too many people know I'm writing yet too few people have actually seen any results. And I mean, c'mon, there are less interesting works filling up the bookshelves every month. In fact I picked up a book in the YA section the other day, which had an interesting fantasy cover, and not only did it turn out to be more of the same '13 in a dozen' material that has appeared ever since the boy wizard became big, the author had churned out 3 books since I started plotting my series back in 2006!

Naila, our heroine

No More Mr. Lazy Writer
Get your act together and this sucker published. Yet, the attitude is right, but being a father, husband and unemployed IT web designer looking for work does not leave me with much time to sit down, focus and write. After all, without making excuses, I do need at least 4-6 hours to really get into the deep mythological world I've created, with all of it's emotional ups and downs, character and plot developments and keep the editing now consistent. After all: draft 4 is where I turn the 'bullet list' of a book into a smooth read - something that's crucial if I want to stand out over the rest.

Naila's mother

Dedicated Writing Time
'Just doing it' is all nice and dandy when you're drafting your first book, but by the time you get around to the 4th version of your writing, you really need to be able to dedicate all of your attention, be immersed in your story and edit with care. Be that smooth operator, I talked about earlier. Yes, I have to act, but I have to also be smart about it. This means taking a week to clear out my schedule from all the job interviews, social 'catching up's and chores, so I can seriously book my time for the next few weeks and dedicate every breathing moment to my writing.

Naila's warrior father

Start With A Fuse

So where does this leave my momentum? My jazzed enthusiasm to just do it? Well, have you heard of Twitter? :) While I free up my schedule, my mind and my workspace to Ælemental Book 1: The Tree of Life, I can still keep the spark of my Muses going. I can lit that creative fuse leading to the explosive event (of wrapping up, DTPing and self-publishing my first big work) while at the same time remaining within the realm of my vast fantastical microcosm. Enter Naila.

Impulse is a teaser to Ælemental

The kidnappers

Naila is Impulse
Naila is one of the side characters in The Tree of Life, a little girl who helps Sally through the worst of times. Sally of course has been kidnapped and so have other kids all around the world. But this truth holds more secrets than may be apparent at first sight. And so does Naila. In a brief teaser to the main event, I am telling Naila's story through a number of tweets, three of which I am publishing every day for the next ten days. Limited to 140 characters (120 when an image is included) this forces me not only to be concise and tell a lead-in story in it's essence, it also allows me to disconnect quickly, so I don't spend too much time with it.

The Snowy Forest

A Taste of Ælemental

Impulse is not meant to be a full story, worthy of sitting down for, let alone any kind of literary masterpiece, but hopefully it will keep the awareness on Ælemental, while experimenting with Instant Storytelling. I'm not sure if Twitter has ever been used to tell a story, but I kind of like the immediacy of it. It's like a serialized free status update from a person that only exists in our imagination. From a secret world that is opening its door for you to glimpse through. A secretive race within a hidden domain is revealing its secrets in a series of quick tempting flashes.

Mr. Myst

Free is the New Sell
This is truth: offer your creativity for free to get the awareness for your work, so you can sell it later. I'll publish Ælemental as an e-book and charge an acceptable fee for it. If popular enough it might get me a published hard copy as well in the long run. But for now, nothing is more exhilarating and freeing than seeing my imagination come to life immediately and share it instantly with everyone. It is the new business model of our times after all for that same reason. So Impulse will be free to follow and comment upon. Let me know what you think. And to get you started: here are the first 11 chaptweets:

A mysterious helper

Impulse, The Story So Far
C1: Naila hadn't meant 2 start d fire. Rlly, she hadn't. But d flames had leapt off her fingers n on2 d man b4 she could stop them.
C2: Running thru d snow, Naila sucked on her black fingers n smiled. She heard d kidnappers yell bhind her.
C3: Naila stppd bhind a tree n thought of her mom. She missed her. 1 Spark Spell later n her mom appeared.
C4: Naila remembered when her family was whole. Her father, a fierce warrior, had taught her d pwr of fire.
C5: 'No time 4 daydreams,' she reminded herself. D burnt kidnapper n his gang were near!

Friend or foe?

C6: 'Child,' a voice echoed over d white blanket of fine snow. Naila gulped. 'I know yur here. I smell Persia'
C7: D man called Mr. Myst drifted closr until he stood almost nxt 2 Naila. 'We r family, grl. I 2 know fire.'
C8: Naila was terrified. Not only was she alone, an orphan in life. She was also far from the cold city she called home.
C9: 'Psst' Naila heard a voice whspr. Rubbing her skin a soft Ghost Glow appeared of a girl w/ long gold hair.
C10: D ghostly girl image hovered over Naila's wrist. 'Use yur Persian fire pwr 2 distract Mr. Myst.'
C11: 'Gotcha!' cried 1 of d kidnappers, pulling Naila frm hr hiding spot. Naila screamed n went up in flames

Follow 'Impulse' here and let me know what you think of it.

The Middle Path of Extremes

I have been away for a few weeks, with the family on a cruise through the Pacific. It was fun, dancing upon the waves, island hopping and celebrating Christmas. A variety of ups and downs accompanied this vacation as if to mimic the very waves we sailed upon. But hose are not the waves I want to address just now.

This is the blog about Ælemental, my YA series and in particular how far along I'm coming with Book 1: The Tree of Life. Well, as it is it is slow sailing. And also an attempt to navigate through the extremes of high and low waters. Because I cannot tell you the exact nature of the story (that would be spoiling it) allow me to use the movie I saw tonight.

In search of a rhythm

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Good solid movie fare. Excellent acting, solid story, smart plotting and excellent sets. Yet I could only give it 4 out of 5 stars (yes, I dabble in rating my movies online). Why? Well, as I commented along my rating, it lacked Vaudeville. It didn't engage in presenting a clear platter of major and minor acts, of the 20/80 golden rule of storytelling, of comedy and tragedy acts.

In essence it lacked the middle path of extremes.

Any good story you come away from entertained. Any great story will blow your mind. Good is often discarded along the many other goods (there is a lot of creative talent to be sure), but great leaves memorable impressions for days if not months thereafter. You can cram all the juicy plot twists, exotic locations and snappy one-liners you want into a good flick, but a great flick will revolve around one or two pillars of epic intensity - usually surrounded by intentionally lesser intensive story elements. Sherlock Holmes had no singular moment or scene that stood out. No epic set piece that everything culminated towards. Not even an imposing set piece that brilliantly outdid the previous and following locations.

Too much of the same.

Mind you, it is a lot better than Tin Tin's animated venture or even the white (deafening) noise of Transformers earlier this year. And I'm even bold enough to lob Harry Potter into this category, because as good a read as the books were, I can't for the life of me remember the rhythm of each story or any specific details of the seven books. And that's my point:

a story needs to know when to slow down and speed up

when to dim the lights and when to crank up the sound. It needs to live like a living breathing entity.

There are not many stories that can pull this off. But I'm going to try it.

In fact, that's the whole reason I started this story six years ago in Ireland. As much as I liked the YA fare that was out there at the time, I felt I could write a better, more textured story, compose a better rhythm, weave a more brilliant tapestry. Ælemental's world is a world of symbolism and symmetry. The plot was carved out into five major concepts. The story was written kind of as a fun exercise in letting the leashes of the beast and see what I could write. That was the easy part. It was also of horrible quality. Every fairy tale and mythology aspect was crammed into one long string of events - the whole was really just one big lump of spaghetti. Subsequent drafts (2 & 3) weren't much better. I had cut so much, it was not only the same flavorless spaghetti, now it was also hopelessly incoherent. So now in draft 4 (the most intensive effort) I am bringing balance to the force, creating rhythm between action and emotion, driving characters through plot and sculpting intense set pieces by diminishing others.

This takes a lot of time, gauging all that I have written before and using the stronger elements and ditching the weaker ones. I have one thing in common with the depicted Sherlock Holmes and that is that I am blessed and cursed with seeing all the elements around me. The trick is to find the ones that count.

The journey may take some time, but the waves are now much more fun to dance upon...

The Illusion of Storytelling

I haven't written yesterday or today and I probably won't tomorrow or Sunday. The reasons are family related, but it doesn't keep me from analyzing the writing process. So here goes my...

Random Writing Observation of the Week

The Meeting Metaphor

I am walking down a calm residential street in Bangkok. The weather is cooling as the winds from Russia slowly overtake the hot humidity that is normal around these parts. Walking with a friend, we talk about work. He tells me how he was confronted with two options of how to run a meeting. One option was to follow a strict set of rules, which would force participants to frame their opinions and thoughts into a ten minute segment, after which they would move to the next. Another option was to allow the participants to choose what was relevant to them and allow them to expand in a more open frame of discussion. The specifics are not of importance here. What is however is that one option was supported by the manager who ran the meeting, while the other was opted by the subject expert - my friend. There was a third party involved, who basically funded the whole meeting and wanted to score points with his company. The manager, a wise lady, agreed my friends option was better and told him they would play a game. She would present her (now undesirable) option first, after which my friend would voice his objections and suggest the second option (and in reality desired by both). The fundraiser/third party would most likely side with the expert (my friend) and choose his option, thus empowering the fundraiser himself in front of the audience and later his own company. Mission accomplished. Everyone was satisfied: the fundraiser got to carry the glory of 'having made the right decision', the manager did what she was supposed to do: manage the expert and meeting, and my friend got the results he wanted with his option.

The Writing Reality

We kept walking and something bubbled up within me. Writing and reading is just like that meeting. It's a game of empowerment and projection. A writer develops a multi-dimensional world, inhabited with interesting characters, locations and events. He wants to convey his experience to the reader. How to do so best? 

• One option is to tell the reader the facts. Push your view upon the reader by having your characters pulled around by events from one location to another. The equivalent in the meeting metaphor above would be for the manager to push her rigid option onto the audience. No one comes away happy. In this case the readers would not, claiming that the characters are artificial, the events contrived and the story as a whole wooden. 
• A better option might be to let your characters dominate events and locations, making it all about them, which is okay, but does not make a story epic.  The equivalent in the meeting metaphor above would be that my friend immediately suggested his idea, leaving no room for the fundraiser to feel empowered. The readers may have a good time, but will forget about the book after a while, because they did get to feel involved. 

In both cases the writer comes away unfulfilled as the reader never fully becomes a participant in the three dimensional world of the writer in which the story took place. The reader remains an observer.

The Illusion Option

Who is manipulating who?
Marvel Comics - art by Chris Bachalo.

Now, by playing a little shadow play the writer can achieve the best possible involvement of an audience, which approximates the vision of the writer and connects the two. The trick is to have a beautifully connected and constructed world and mythology (location), which inevitable draws tensions that lead to epic drama and conflict (events) all moved along by its characters. The leads, supportive cast and extras in the story are real, motivated and conflicted people, with flaws, dreams, motives and desires. This is no secret. At least not if you know how to write good characters. But like a great magician who draws your attention with one hand, only to do the actual trick with the other, the writer can have the characters make the events and locations their own. The writer erases himself from the equation. It's the person in the story who did it! Empower the hero by having her be a hero (and instigating an event in the story at the same time). Move the villain to greatness by having him move the event (to a location you need the story to be). In essence make the characters control and own the events and locations. This way the reader is empowered through the character and feels that he/she controlled the story.

(there is a little bit about keeping the controlled aspects (i.e. event and location) detailed and intense and the controlling aspect (i.e. the characters) ambiguous and bland - this contrast is made in order to have the reader become the character. But this is a topic for another blog entry)

End Credits

My friend - The characters

The manager - The events & locations

The fundraiser/third party - The reader

This is not to suggest that the reader has walked away in glorious vanity. Or to brag about having owned the story experience of the book. I am not suggesting this at all. I have just told you... by having suggested it. Get it? It's like suggesting to you NOT to think of the Eiffel Tower. What did you just do? The magic of a story well told is by not being there as the storyteller (noticed there was no writer 'role' in the end credits?). The creator was not there when the story was read. Only the characters were and they were the lens through which the reader created the story in his/her own way. In a very real way. 

...in the way you (as a writer) wanted to have your story told.