Monday on the Awesomeness Factor

After I got off work today, I vowed to clean my disgustingly messy room. It didn't happen.

But... I did sit down in front of my bookshelf and I read passages from all of our favorite series, such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson. Ah, childhood. And procrastination. What an epic combination. It got me thinking: why were we all so captivated by these books at some point or another?

Let's delve into an analysis, then.

Harry Potter

-J.K. Rowling can truly claim that she captivated the 99.999% of the universe with her charming characters and exciting plot.
-What I was drawn in by: the thought of a magic school where kids cast spells all the time and lived with each other in beautiful towers got me. Seriously, who wouldn't want to be Harry or Hermione? I mean, yeah, Voldy was a little scary, and lots of people died, but they got over it. Eventually.

Hunger Games

-Suzanne Collins is a beast. How can a person introduce the idea of children killing each other and gain fans from it?

-What I was drawn in by: though I wouldn't necessary want to be a tribute in the Hunger Games, I really wanted to be a fly on a wall in the arena. Experiencing all the technology and and violence would be super cool (if I wasn't a part of it).

Percy Jackson





-Okay, I think we can all agree the movie wasn't superb, but I loved these books when I was in middle school. I really wanted to go to Camp Halfblood every summer and know that my father was Zeus, the butt-kicking Greek god of the sky.

-What I was drawn in by: exactly what I stated above. Wouldn't you want to play a game of Capture-the-Flag with... real swords? (gasp) And wouldn't it be great to meet all your half-brothers and sisters that have the same god or goddess as their dad or mom?

In conclusion to my short but pointed analysis, a pattern arises: The authors of Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson all created worlds in which we wanted so desperately to immerse ourselves. I think this is what makes the genre of fantasy great-- visionaries mold together what they most desire and make their own universes out of it.

So, if you write fantasy short stories or novels and are interested in the setting of your work, ask yourself: if I couldn't live in this time period, which one would I want to live in? If I like mythology, how can I use that to further add details to my world?

I'll be pondering those questions as I clean my room, unfortunately! Happy Monday.

Saturday Has A Thought On Plot

Or: I am too easily amused by puns.

Have you guys ever seen Kiki's Delivery Service? If you haven't, you might not want to read this post. I'm going to be talking about the plot of the movie and if you don't want to be spoiled, feel free to skip this post. (Although the movie is... like 23 years old. While it might be a bit less well-known, it's still like putting a spoiler warning before the fact that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.)

*waits for people to leave*

Ready?

Alrighty, so if you haven't seen it, Kiki's Delivery Service is about a thirteen-year-old witch who leaves home for to live on her own (with her cat) for a year as part of her training as a new witch. She's a witch, right, so you expect the movie to end with a fight with a villain/bad guy, right? (See: Almost every Disney movie ever.)

Except... not. It's a movie about a girl who learns to become more confident in herself, who makes friends in a new place, and matures. The movie has a definite peak of drama at the end, but there's no antagonist and even the climax of the movie is very much linked into Kiki's growth as a character.

That's something that's hard to do, especially when you have a supernatural element. It's very easy to have the plot distinctively linked to that element. And that's not bad (I do it myself) but this is a great example of not always needing that.

It doesn't make it a weak plot, either, as long as there is character growth. I think a plot like this is intricately linked to its characters. Kiki grows through the movie. She develops more confidence, begins to trust herself more, opens up to people more, and becomes more responsible. Especially the self-confidence which was a HUGE thing.

I'm not really good at this kind of thing myself (hey, we're always learning, though) so mostly I'm going to point you in the direction of this movie and tell you to watch it because it's a charming movie and absolutely adorable AND it's a good lesson on plots without "bad guys".

(Also I stand by my right to watch things dubbed in English because I don't really like subtitles and I like multitasking and you can't multitask with subtitles. At least I can't. And, dude, the UK dub of The Secret World of Arrietty has Saoirse Ronan. The girl is 18 and she's won an OSCAR. Plus hello, English accents are awesome. I'm not going to discuss the Disney dub because... way too many Disney voices. But... yeah.)

This blog post had very little point besides me recommending a movie. It's hot and I'm brain-dead, this is the best I got :P

Leave me stuff in the comments.

Peace and cookies,
Laina

Friday Performs a Switcharoo

If you read one of my posts towards the beginning of the summer, I mentioned I was starting a new project. A YA sci fi? Yup, that one.

Well, sometimes that thing happens where you totally feel like working on another project instead of the one you intended to work on. Plus I don't feel like I'm quite ready to write this sci fi. It's going to take a lot of research and I'm not fond of its beginning. I think it's something to put off for the future (slightly ironic as it takes place in the future, hehe).

So, my switcharoo! I'm switching over to the project I'm feeling right now, which is my 2011 NaNo, Society Road. It's definitely screaming at me to be revised and I love, love, love it, so I know it's something I'll enjoy (the sci fi wasn't very enjoyable to be working on).

Since I'm that awkward person that never really talks about their books to other people, but I'm writing on this blog about writing books and whatnot, I feel as if I should actually explain what this book is about. Because I may be talking about it a lot in the future ;)

Society Road is a dual POV YA contemporary. It centers around a boy named Devin and a girl named Ember. Devin's just moved to a new town, and really just wishes to fit in, play soccer, the normal stuff. However, it's a little difficult for him and he ends up interested in a town rumor going around that there's a 'ghost' that lives in the large forest around the town. When he's feeling a bit lost, he ventures into the woods and finds a girl--not a ghost, a real girl who's been living in the woods alone since she was a young girl. The book follows the development of their relationship and her interactions with society (if you remember, Ember was the protagonist I talked about in my 'get inside your head' post).

There may also be a serial killer.

So. I'm excited to work on that again.

What about you guys? New projects? Old projects? A mix of the two?

Thursday Sets Da Mood with Disney Love

I really hate mood. It’s one of those things that I hate my English teachers asking about. Why can't I just say the mood was sad and that be the end of it? Better yet why couldn’t the author set the mood like Sebastian from the Little Mermaid.

“First, we got to create da mood.
Percussion
Strings
Winds
Words”

Now we can't exactly add a music number to a book to set up da mood unless we made a singing book like those greeting cards (which would be amazing for the record).

The key to mood is word choice.

There's a big difference between

It was a dark and stormy night.
and
It rained a lot at night

Choose your words carefully. Just because "it was a dark and stormy night" sounds good doesn't mean it's right for a perfect love scene at the beach or a happy go lucky wedding.

I suggest being in the mood when you write to strength the mood in a scene. It's like trying to write about being sick after being sick. After the fact, we tend to change up the details (why would we want everyone to know about how we puked our guts when we could sugar coat it). If we are sick, we know how full well how crappy it is.

When I'm writing a scary scene, I like listening to the rain. It’s been raining up here in Michigan which is making me so happy since I love rain. Maybe it’s because I’m from Texas where any amount of rain is much needed. Whatever the reason, I love rain. Rain is the perfect way to set the mood for writing.

When the rain starts, I itch to write. I love listening to the pitter patter of rain on my window and the roar of thunder. It’s like my ultimate background music. It get me and my writing in da mood.

Yeah mood is the kinda stuff I hate thinking about for English essays, but it's super important. Not only do you have to get your readers in da mood, but you also should be in da mood yourself.

How do you get in da mood? How do you write mood in your scenes? What's your favorite Disney movie (is it the Little Mermaid with the amazing Sebastian)?

BTW big things are in the future for YaLit Six, so be excited. Be very excited. If y’all want us to talk about anything or you need help/ advice, y’all can contact us on our twitter age (which I am finally learning how to use. YAY!), comment or email us at yalitsix@gmail(dot)com. We wanna hear from y’all.

Happy writing!

Tuesday's Posts That Were Supposed to Post but Did Not Post

1) Hello! I hath returned! And I hath had an amazing two weeks. I will also stop saying "hath." Anyway.

2) Apparently I am bad at Blogger, as (I thought) I had two posts all set up ahead of time to post in my absence. But they did not post. Which is sad. So here's what you missed (and it will sound silly now, remember I wrote these weeks ago) due to my miscommunication with Blogger:

For Tuesday, June 19th:

Hellooooo everyone! 

I had to say it like that because it's the kind of call one would make from far away, and I am currently far away both physically and time-ily. In the present I'm probably nowhere near a computer, and in the past (when I'm typing this) I'm, well--yeah. In the past. That's right, Blogger allows me to TIME TRAVEL. I love time travel. 

I decided for this week and the next I'll find a blog post from a while ago. Like, two years ago. I just realized I've been YA Lit Six-ing for two years. And a half. Two and a half years. No, more. Almost three. (Forget it. No math during summer. A long time.) Anyway, flashback time! 

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 

What do you do once you finish a book in English class? Oh, that’s right…you write a paper on it. And holy cow, are there a lot of topic opportunities for Tale of Two Cities. Feminism Lenses, Character Analysis of Sydney Carton (!), Comparison of Foil Characters Like Miss Pross and Lucie, Why The Heck Does Lucie Choose Darnay and not Carton, Pick Some Symbolism Any Symbolism, Et Cetera. 

Mine, though, doesn’t stem from any of those. My idea came from a random thought of vaguely avian creatures with Stars Upon Thars. 

Yep, my in-progress paper compares Tale of Two Cities with The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. And that got me thinking: yeah, Dr. Seuss writes about animals that look like Big Bird crossed with an emu and a teddybear named Sylvester McMonkey McBean. But he also writes about humans. In The Sneetches there’s a not-so-underlying lesson about how groundless and ridiculous discrimination is. 

Once the ball of thought got rolling I looked at other stories by Dr. Seuss, and they’re riddled with commentary on human nature. The Butter Battle Book, for instance. Go read it, and then tell me it’s not a brilliant narrative about rising tension and danger rooted in something completely trivial and misunderstood. (Cold War?) And my English teacher mentioned that the Cat in the Hat and that Goldfish that’s always a downer are like Sigmund Freud’s id and ego.
So do your inner psychoanalyst slash sociologist a favor. Put down that vampire/fallen angel/heartbreak novel and go catch up on your Sneetches.

And for Tuesday, June 26th:

Greetings from the past! 

I chose this one because the Katie mentioned in the story is currently gallivanting around the world with me. (I assume. Maybe she's gotten lost by now? Hi Katie. I hope you're not lost.) Anyway! 

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I’ll admit, I’m a thesaurus addict. When I’m writing I love to use the thesaurus to find even better or stronger or weaker, even, words to describe something. The smallest differences between words can create the largest differences between visions for me. It also helps build a huge vocabulary. 

But. 

There’s a difference between knowing words and knowing how to say them, as I’ve found out. Multiple times. At one point I was reading aloud a section of Rain at BookFest PA and I got to the word “beige.” In my mind I read it as beejsh—you know, with jsh being the J sound in Jaques. (And I got that part right.) 

“…a beige dress…” I read, and a motion caught my eye. It was my friend Katie, shaking her head and giving me a weird look. I spared her a look of my own before finishing the reading. After I was done and back at my table, she came over with her arms crossed. 

“Beejsh?” she demanded. 

“Um,” I said, “yes?” 

She pursed her lips. “It’s bayjsh.” 

“Oh,” I said. She shook her head again, and went on to grumble about past pronunciation offenses I’ve committed, which include “botanic” and “queue.” 

The moral of this semi-rambling story: thesauruses are great. But look up a pronunciation before you actually say your new words.

Hope you enjoyed. As for today, happy Tuesday the third of July!

Kieryn

www.kierynnicolas.com

Monday Craves Motivation

Initially, I kicked myself when I remembered last Tuesday morning (and the one before that) (and it probably doesn’t help that it’s nearly midnight here) that I forgot to post, but my horrible blunder actually serves a purpose in my post this week.

 Early on in my sophomore year, our school’s college counselor had our class take an aptitude test to see what our personalities and work ethics looked like. I was skeptical at first; even the most in-depth personality test I had ever taken online had been vague and uninformative at best. Nevertheless, I took it (after much persuasion on my college counselor’s part), and I was shocked at how, well, meaty it was. It asked around 90 questions (my ADHD kicked in around #30) which ranged from inquiries about group projects to music tastes. We didn’t get the results right away; instead, they were given to our parents at a later meeting for us to read.

The bullet point that caught my eye instantly was the one that read, “While Victoria is a spontaneous and outgoing individual, she probably finds that she cannot commit to long-term projects and is not easily motivated.” At first, I was shocked, but then I realized that everything the statement suggested was absolutely true. I am a spontaneous and outgoing person; however, as you can tell from my lack of posts and the fact that I’ve started to only post every other week (curses! I truly am horrible), I do have commitment problems as well as motivational issues.

 After I read my test results, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about all the times I had started novels and short stories, but kicked them aside to pursue other ideas. Seriously, I was haunted, and I felt so guilty. How could I call myself a writer and not, well, write on a daily or weekly basis? When I get around to actually writing a piece, my creative side comes out and I can crank out a word or two, no problem. But you can obviously tell from my lack of posts that I continue to have trouble with this.

 I don’t have a sure-fire way to motivate myself and work on my commitment issues, which is why I wrote this post, wondering if anyone could help me out. What do you guys do for problems like mine?