No, seriously, it's working!
It's too late at night to discuss this in depth. I'm just going to leave this hear for people to get their space opera geek on.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Idea Garage Sale: Intrepid Girl Reporter!
So my husband sent me a link this week to a story of a 9-year-old intrepid girl reporter who scooped adult reporters in breaking a murder story, and took some heat in the comments section for it.
And of course my first thought was: "Whoa, book!"
Possibly series, because Intrepid Girl Reporter is a premise that can keep right on giving.
The author of this theoretical book/series would do well to sit down and work some stuff out ahead of time. The very first question is: What kind of tone to go for? Because there's no question that a comedy/adventure 9-Year-Old Girl Reporter would get better marketing and fewer challenges than a realistic contemporary or suspense 9-Year-Old Girl Reporter. But there's no room for the murder in the comedy/adventure book, and the realistic contemporary or suspense book would get much the same reaction from the gatekeepers as this little girl is getting in the comments section. Do it well enough, you might get awards; do it not quite well enough, or (even worse) do it well enough and be let down by your publisher and marketing department, and all you'll get is grief, banning, and vitriol.
Because we live in a world that is hysterically determined to pretend that 9-year-old girls would be safe if we could shield them from the knowledge of bad things. Which is BS, especially considering what happens to so many real 9-year-old girls who are living in poverty, or in affluent cages, or hospitals, or refugee camps, or INS holding pens, or -
Well, you get the idea. I'll spare you the rant.
But you won't be able to spare yourself your own rants as you look into the kind of news that a 9-year-old could report, and observe the kind of abuses that they're subjected to in the name of preserving their innocence - I'm sure most of the people who came down on her in her comments section felt self-righteously certain that they were only trying to protect her. You will get angry in the process of working up the material for this book, even if you go the comedy/adventure route.
A lot of questions need answering before starting Chapter 1. Is the focus on solving a mystery, or on doing her self-appointed job? A reporter's life is a series of stories moving by at breakneck speed, many of them unresolved; but a book, even one that is structured as a string of anecdotes, needs some cohesive structure. Will this be a plot structure, or a character structure? What resolution will signal the end of the book? Will such a resolution provide a solid platform for construction of another book, should you want to go the series route?
Either way, What motivates her? In real life, 9-year-old girls are perfectly capable are deciding out of the blue that they were born to report the news, and then making it happen. In a book, this is artistically unsatisfying and will be read as poor characterization. She needs, if not some specific precipitating event, a backstory and character arc that "explain" the reporter vocation. If she's an Asperger's kid who has found that the structure of formal interview situation makes talking to people more interesting than uncomfortable, or if she has some deep mystery in her own life which she plans to solve once she's got enough experience in tracking down The Truth, or whatever, the audience will Get It - but you'd better talk to actual Asperger's kids, or have a pretty good idea of The Truth of her deep mystery, or you're getting called out.
What about her parents? Not just any set of parents will support and encourage any vocation, let alone one that involves knocking on doors to interview strange adults, in a child this age. Parents exist in the background of children's stories, and cannot be allowed to supply motivating forces or solutions; but they should not be shadowy nonentities either.
Finally, you'd need a clear picture of her community and her place in it. "Realistic contemporary" versions of the story with identical premise and plot would have very different effects, if one is set in a middle-class suburb in Ohio, one in working class Houston, and one in affluent gated community in Connecticut. In any of these settings, the heroine would have very different relationships to the community she was trying to serve, if she went to private school, public school, charter school, or was home-schooled. Her resources and challenges will vary with her setting and social position, as will her supporters and her detractors.
Or, you could do some investigative reporting, find out the real story of the real little girl (which will be messy and full of loose ends because life's like that), and write a non-fiction book.
But I really think that's her book to write, eventually, don't you?
And of course my first thought was: "Whoa, book!"
Possibly series, because Intrepid Girl Reporter is a premise that can keep right on giving.
The author of this theoretical book/series would do well to sit down and work some stuff out ahead of time. The very first question is: What kind of tone to go for? Because there's no question that a comedy/adventure 9-Year-Old Girl Reporter would get better marketing and fewer challenges than a realistic contemporary or suspense 9-Year-Old Girl Reporter. But there's no room for the murder in the comedy/adventure book, and the realistic contemporary or suspense book would get much the same reaction from the gatekeepers as this little girl is getting in the comments section. Do it well enough, you might get awards; do it not quite well enough, or (even worse) do it well enough and be let down by your publisher and marketing department, and all you'll get is grief, banning, and vitriol.
Because we live in a world that is hysterically determined to pretend that 9-year-old girls would be safe if we could shield them from the knowledge of bad things. Which is BS, especially considering what happens to so many real 9-year-old girls who are living in poverty, or in affluent cages, or hospitals, or refugee camps, or INS holding pens, or -
Well, you get the idea. I'll spare you the rant.
But you won't be able to spare yourself your own rants as you look into the kind of news that a 9-year-old could report, and observe the kind of abuses that they're subjected to in the name of preserving their innocence - I'm sure most of the people who came down on her in her comments section felt self-righteously certain that they were only trying to protect her. You will get angry in the process of working up the material for this book, even if you go the comedy/adventure route.
A lot of questions need answering before starting Chapter 1. Is the focus on solving a mystery, or on doing her self-appointed job? A reporter's life is a series of stories moving by at breakneck speed, many of them unresolved; but a book, even one that is structured as a string of anecdotes, needs some cohesive structure. Will this be a plot structure, or a character structure? What resolution will signal the end of the book? Will such a resolution provide a solid platform for construction of another book, should you want to go the series route?
Either way, What motivates her? In real life, 9-year-old girls are perfectly capable are deciding out of the blue that they were born to report the news, and then making it happen. In a book, this is artistically unsatisfying and will be read as poor characterization. She needs, if not some specific precipitating event, a backstory and character arc that "explain" the reporter vocation. If she's an Asperger's kid who has found that the structure of formal interview situation makes talking to people more interesting than uncomfortable, or if she has some deep mystery in her own life which she plans to solve once she's got enough experience in tracking down The Truth, or whatever, the audience will Get It - but you'd better talk to actual Asperger's kids, or have a pretty good idea of The Truth of her deep mystery, or you're getting called out.
What about her parents? Not just any set of parents will support and encourage any vocation, let alone one that involves knocking on doors to interview strange adults, in a child this age. Parents exist in the background of children's stories, and cannot be allowed to supply motivating forces or solutions; but they should not be shadowy nonentities either.
Finally, you'd need a clear picture of her community and her place in it. "Realistic contemporary" versions of the story with identical premise and plot would have very different effects, if one is set in a middle-class suburb in Ohio, one in working class Houston, and one in affluent gated community in Connecticut. In any of these settings, the heroine would have very different relationships to the community she was trying to serve, if she went to private school, public school, charter school, or was home-schooled. Her resources and challenges will vary with her setting and social position, as will her supporters and her detractors.
Or, you could do some investigative reporting, find out the real story of the real little girl (which will be messy and full of loose ends because life's like that), and write a non-fiction book.
But I really think that's her book to write, eventually, don't you?
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