nindogs

I received an email the other day from a reader (who wanted to remain anonymous in this post - but we'll call her Sarah) who told me that she was having trouble getting into her protagonist, despite this being her most prominent POV. She is dynamic as many Young Adult characters are, but at the beginning she's anxious and self-doubting because she's in that adolescent phase when you realise everything you know about yourself is completely wrong and you're just starting to discover who you REALLY are. There's not much that makes her like me (or am I kidding myself?) even though I've been in the same position as her. Well maybe not exactly since this is YA SF, but as far as her emotional state goes, I've been through that. But I just feel like she should've developed more by now, and she still feels like a faceless stock character. Bildungsroman is the nature of YA above all, and that relatable trait for the protagonist is necessary. To some extent, ...

There is the infamous tar and feathering of SMeyer for her dream guy by the online community, and the condemnation of Mary Sue's and a fair amount of Crucible  witch hunting for author insertion. But it begs the question: what exactly is the spectrum of wish fulfilment, and is it ever okay? In many ways, writing itself is a form of wish fulfilment, beside the cathartic relief, in which you as a writer experience pretty urgent desires for adventure, love and triumph that you share with your readers. That  is the secret to the runaway bestseller, to the eleven-year-old at heart wanting to belong in a magical school for wizards, or a misfit thirteen-year-old girl who's beginning to believe boys think she's ugly and repellent. But it's when wish fulfilment detracts or damages the novel that I have to stand against it. It's almost inevitable in new and/or young writers, and is something that you grow out of with experience and practice. It is important to keep in ...

Teams and larger casts are set to boom, methinks, especially if these team-based casts (a la Hourglass ) and YA sci-fi, what with the starship crews and armies and expeditions to desolate planets, etc., continue to increase. But the problem with this is that YA is so used to focusing on a trio, with a couple memorable secondaries whose appearances are based purely on comic relief or plot, that some of these larger casts are having trouble growing from this trio. A book I recently read had this problem. Fluid, fast-paced writing, enjoyable. I hadn't felt any criticism itch until we got to introducing the "team" and what it is they could do/why they were there in the first place. Admittedly, introducing people with a focus on their abilities has the potential to be clunky, and a lot of writers take the easy way out with a dollop of didacticism.  This is Jack. Jack is sheepolopath. That means that he can read the minds of sheep, and it also means that he can contr...

BBC's  Sherlock -  the reincarnation of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective in 21st century London. In its second series, it only has six episodes, but confounds me in its ability to be perfect. I'm a snob about film and TV, but I'll also be first to say it's the finest piece of storytelling on TV in a while. We writers can learn from it, so welcome to my all-rounder series: Honey, You Should See Me in a Crown . I will be dissect this king of entertainment, created by Steven Moffat (of Doctor Who fame, a fan favourite since Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace and  Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead ) and Mark   Godtiss Gatiss (who also plays Mycroft Holmes in the series). From plot, to pacing, to characterisation, to relationships and dynamics, from themes to subtext, to stereotypes and archetypes, and all literary bad-arsery. (And thankfully this will tie in with my HSC crime studies, so HA! Board of Studies, ha!) Note: spoilers threaded throughout. No...

A friend recently recommended the BLUE BLOODS series (not some sort of novelisation of the cop show with Sergeant Lipton, unfortunately) to me. I scanned the blurb and found my processor not passing beyond two words. Schuyler Van Alen. Schuyler Van Alen . It took me a while to figure out how you're meant to pronounce that. Skew-ler van Halen. Yes, my mind read that as Van Halen. That, dear readers, is a teacher's worst nightmare in four syllables, or what I presume is four syllables. Who knows? I still haven't figured out how to say it. Is it Skyler? If so, why isn't it spelt Skyler? Basically, if I can't figure out how to say a character's name within a fraction of a second of reading it, I am going to put the book onto the Gifts pile. (Yes, I actually have a pile of books which I give to people for their birthdays which have only been used to the fifth page.) It isn't so bad for character names which I abhor. Usually, I'll suffer through a book ...

Okay, story time. In July, I attended the  Harry Potter midnight session for  Deathly Hallows Part 2  with a crowd who were dressed for the occasion, had brought chants, cutouts and books with them. Who, for the hour beforehand were prepping themselves for tears, laughter and the overwhelming reaction to the very end of these annual outings. We laughed through Hermione as Bellatrix, bawled through Fred's deathbed, sniffled through the Resurrection Stone scene, and rolled around in our seats laughing when Voldemort hugged Draco. But do you know what had half of the audience on their feet, the audience shrieking with cheers and laughter and drowned-out jokes? The kiss. Ron and Hermione's kiss. I am not exaggerating. It was, debatably, the most anticipated event of the entire film series. When it comes to YA, love interests and the baiting of a potential couple to the readers is basically what drives our trends and our most popular books. And you can argue the...

Psychologist Carl Jung named the face which we present publicly, which we use to hide things we don't like about ourselves, the persona . He also coined the flip-side, the shadow , which is something similar to the three-dimensional version of our physical shadows. This is teeming with everything that we try to hide, sometimes even from ourselves. In order to create a three-dimensional character, we need to individuate , or integrate, their archetypal parts into a cohesive sort of unit-y whole. This, of course, includes both their persona and their shadow. Now, the mark of a good villain in any story falls under his ability to force his opposition, the hero, into the spotlight where he'll find ways to highlight and criticise the things your hero would like to hide. Now, Shadow: Recognising It The shadow is upsetting the acknowledge, so we shove our awareness of it down to an unconscious level, thereby making the only way to truly know the contents of your shadow to co...

You know the saying. Write what you know . People do it. People don't do it. People advise it and against it. People debate about it. Well, I'm here to slide my two cents across the table to you, and tell you that what you might perceive as writing what you know isn't necessarily writing what you know. Oh, and the caption on the poster to the left? It says Anyone is a weapon if you twist them.  So, today I sat down in my Extension English I lesson to a discussion with director Adam Blaiklock, whose first feature film Caught Inside  (It's actually phenomenal. Support him and Australian film and try and catch it wherever you are if it's nearby) I saw a couple weeks ago. Its theme surrounds the concept that we don't want to take responsibility for the monsters we create . Essentially, this film is about a surfing trip off the coast of Indonesia, where the only law is set by one's skipper, and a group of Australian tourists find themselves faced with a ...

Bam . And she makes an appearance. You really can't look anywhere without the word Mary Sue plastered on something, or slipping over in its messy trails and into the pool of endless circular arguments. And if you try and take all of the arguments off of the table and ask one of these people what their perception of perfection was, they'd just stop and smile at you. They might be able to tell you someone's name, or something vague like success or like too pretty or something, but the truth is that we all strive for some degree of perfection, whether it be mentally, physically or emotionally, and there are many perceptions of that big word: perfection . Some may view perfection as an unfaltering sense of humour. Some may view perfection as a cellulite-free hourglass figure of a tanned 20-year-old. Some may view perfection as an ability to see the best in everyone and everything. Some may view perfection as Adam Levine deciding to strut about semi-naked and sing about ...

In short: I'm AWOL a lot, I've abandoned you a lot, I'm a terrible person - Yes . To clarify: I'm really trying to finish this godfucker of a novel so I don't have to wait ten weeks again before I can hack at it, having forgotten every idea I have devised now, if I don't get it done before the new school term begins. Oh, and it's been killing me to find a topic I can actually stand for long enough to write a post. (Breathes) Oh -kay. Shall we? My novel is a glorified hybrid of YA, Urban Fantasy, Action and Thriller, with a smidge of Drama to keep things interesting. Because of the Thriller aspect, the prelude to my action sequences at the climax are often overwrought and chilling, and as you begin to tease your protagonists, you need to assume your antagonist's shoes. You need to figure out why he's doing what he's doing. So, today we're going to have a wee bit of a look at some types of villains and what it is that they really want, and if ...

Surely, surely , by now you have seen Darren Aronofsky's Oscar-nominated Black Swan; oh, you know, the one about that dark, twisted ballerina? Right. Now we're on the same page. So as someone who probably spends far too much time analysing film and novels for the hell of it, I can tell you now that Black Swan has a lot of depth to it. I, however, will not be reviewing it or talking about any concepts you could expect; rather, I will be using it to talk to you about character perfection . I don't like the term 'Mary Sue'. Like paranormal , or star-crossed or danger , it's misuse or even its overuse in YA has led to loss in its meaning. To defame a character by crying "Mary Sue!" is not as much of a scandal as it once was, and to some extent, the misunderstanding amongst the literary world has only led to repeat-offenders and the persistence of a worn formula in not smothering itself in its vapid-ness. Yes, in my own way, I'm talking about dimension...

( Psssst : Did you get my terrible punny joke?) I love series. (Eugh, plural rules, why do you rain on my autumnal parade?) I really do. HARRY POTTER, INFERNAL DEVICES, CURSE WORKERS, MORTAL INSTRUMENTS, etc. When it comes to YA, there is nothing that does it for me better than a good series. But I stand before you today, perched upon my shiny soapbox in my Sunday best (And yes, by that I mean slippers, pyjama bottoms and a Doctor Who t-shirt) to tell you that some later additions to these series are amazingly unnecessary. Yes, you heard me. Unnecessary . And to sum up the general feeling toward these unnecessary additions that are only in place because the publishing industry are cash-cows that really like to milk things until they're about as dry as an infertile woman's uterus (Bare with me: it's late and my metaphors and similes come to me from a strange place that's only visible to the naked eye at midnight.) you could have a quick look here , here and well, here ...