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Showing posts from March, 2011

Do Your Middles Hang Low? Do They Wobble To and Fro? Can You Tie Them In a Knot? Can You Tie 'Em In a Bow?

Can you throw 'em over your shoulder like a regimental soldier? Do your ears hang low? Surely you learnt that song as a kid. Well, maybe with ears. So, if you guessed, today we're going to talk about saggy middles. Don't worry, there shall be no Tyler Durden scouring the trash for your novel's fat arse tonight (just to sell it back to you in a bar of soap). But firstly: maybe you noticed that you didn't hear from me all of last week? Maybe you didn't. It's cool. I didn't notice either, until I sat down to write this week's post. I had a seminar to create over last weekend for Extension English, so on a procrastination front, I was either going to write a post or waste hours of my life being moody and adolescent on Tumblr . I know, excuses, excuses, "why have thou forsaken me?" and all that jazz. Well, I apologise - hey! I might even write another post tomorrow. So, I'm going to begin (for the second time) by telling you that there will

Honey, I've Got a Non-Teen YA Protagonist (Or, "Mum, Dad, I'm Moving in With a 907 Year Old Time Lord")

I'm unsure whether I write this post more as a reader or as a writer. Alas, we shall have to stay tuned to see what the verdict is. Just very quickly before I begin, I'd like to divert your attention to another matter: the absolutely gorgeous Aimee L. Salter took time away from her life to write a post about none other than moi. And you know what? It made my week. A snapshot: "If her profile is to be believed, at just sixteen years old this chick has developed a voice, intellect and amusingly snide pretentiousness I can only aspire to". *Gives bow* Hon, I am indeed sixteen, seventeen in October. I also wish I could send you a planet or something gift-wrapped for the post. Now, age. Specifically, protagonist age. I see this matter pop up every-bloody-where . The basic question seems to be: can you classify a novel as YA if the protagonist doesn't fall within the Holy YA Age Range of thirteen to eighteen? And the general consensus? MCs beyond this range = très t

Young Adult Needs Better Adults (Or, Stop Trying to Imagine Justin Bieber in Briefs and Imagine Mr Clooney)

I would like to start this post off by reiterating the fact that I am a sixteen-year-old girl and was indeed born in the year of 1994. Just saying. Indeed, Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson are supposedly the heart throbs of my generation. I am here to tell you to look beyond the dishevelled youth (Except that new Spiderman. He's the sex.) *Clears throat* Hem hem. I pose you this question: who was the last significant secondary adult character in a YA book who was as well-developed as other secondary adolescent character? Exactly. For this post, I shall be focusing on male adult characters, as I find that I've encountered more of them as significant secondary characters than females as of late. (I apologise, this may be more getting to talk about older men I'm in love with than coherent writing talk) So, first off, we're going to look at the 25 Under 25 from last year. The boys? Shia LaBeouf (who doesn't count because when was the last teenager he played besides Sam W

Gone But Not Forgotten, a Blogfest (Or, "Zoe, I'm Paying You Too Much")

There's a common saying in my house: "Of course it's a great show, they cancelled it". Yes, I am referring to television shows that have ended or been taken off the air and really shouldn't have because us devoted fans loved them so tenderly. And what calls for this post? As alerted to me by the darling Trisha , some astounding women are hosting the Gone But Not Forgotten Blogfest , where the participants are to list our top five favourite TV shows which are no longer running but which reside in a special place in our hearts, specifically, the Taken-Off-The-Air-And-So-I-Tried-To-Assassinate-The-Producers-But-Failed-Dismally place. So, let's kick it off with an obvious one (and these are in no particular order). 1 FIREFLY: "The hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne" is still my alternative to singing the school song at assemblies. I cannot believe that they cancelled this show. Pardon my French, but what the fuck? Don't producers know they