What Makes Me Stop Reading?

Like most librarians and writers, I love to read - novels, poetry, picture books, biographies. You name it. BUT, when it comes to critiquing somebody's manuscript, it's hard to read everything. Here are a few of my pet peeves in writing, sins that make me yawn or lose interest immediately and put a story down.

1. Stories that begin with a long, unpopulated description of a place. Unless you're writing a segment of The World Without Us, who cares? Put a living being in there, for god's sake, then perhaps I'll have a reason to keep reading.

2. Cliches. A work of fiction that begins with a character waking from a dream, starting at a new school, etc. or that opens with a cliche phrase, such as the infamous, "It was a dark and stormy night."

3. Too much backstory. I lack the patience to read through a lot of meandering background information. A little here and there is okay, but the opening chapter of a novel needs to pull the reader forward, not muddle around in the past. I want a story that begins with action and by that, I don't mean a violent or shocking scene that practically makes me wretch or one so bizarre I can only laugh, but one that makes me care enough about the characters that I want to read more.

4. Stock Characters. You know them -the jolly fat man or lady, the mad scientist, the wicked stepmother, the blond haired, blue-eyed hero or heroine, the world-weary reporter, etc. I don't want to read about the same old same old.

5. Too much description. Here's one sin I'm often guilty of. Sometimes the story gets buried under heaps of adjectives and adverbs and it's hard to know what's going on. The advice to use strong verbs instead of using adverbs to prop up your weak verb choices is a good one. And take it easy on the adjectives. Let the story speak for itself, when you can.

6. Poor grammar and punctuation. If you're not sure how something is spelled or punctuated, then look it up. Easy enough. A manuscript littered with errors is a big turn-off and no editor is going to wade through it to see if there's a story worth salvaging from the wreckage.

7. Talking heads. It's hard to follow a story when you don't know who's speaking. Use dialog tags (a simple "he said" is enough) or add another sentence that lets the reader know who's speaking.

8. Nothing happens. I've read lovely settings and been introduced to some interesting characters, but sometimes absolutely nothing happens in a first chapter, leaving me to wonder if it's a story at all. To keep me reading, you need to introduce a dilemma or conflict otherwise why bother?

These are a few of my biggest writing pet peeves. What are yours?

What's the Point?

Lately the administrators I work for - the superintendents and principals - have acquired a taste for picture books that tout a message. Not a subtle theme, mind you, but a heavy-handed "message" we're all suppose to swoon over or something. One recent picture book our superintendent drooled over was The Invisible String. I don't remember the author's name, but clearly this was one of those message driven books that teachers and administrators like and kids clearly don't. The book was about our interconnectedness. Certainly a good theme - a great one even - but kids don't want a book that's all about a message.

Kids want stories that pull them along head first, head over heels - characters they can empathize with and laugh with, cry with, worry over. After 20 years of reading many books to thousands of kids, I know kids love good stories with believable characters, not books whose primary purpose is to send a message, to moralize, to edify. Nothing will make a child's eyes glaze over more than a heavy-handed message meant to educate them. As Samuel Goldwyn said, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." Not that children's books shouldn't have a theme - they should - but the theme should emerge organically, subtlety from the story, the story where we worry about the characters and only later realize we also learned a little something in the process.

A Deft Touch

The photo above is once again by my friend, Joan C. Jones and the flowers you see are bluebells. She took this photo on a recent visit to England. In clumps, even the humblest flower radiates a certain beauty. For me, this forest looks magical, like a setting for a fairy tale.

5 Things On a Friday

Photo by my talented friend and former colleague, Joan C. Jones.

Friday already! During the summer, the days melt into each other in endless succession. I lose track of time, forget about the calendar, sleep in 'til 8:00 or even 9:00 am (gasp). Lately I've had to pay closer attention to the quickening pulse of life, though.

1. My son, Derek, left for Utah today to attend The Violin Making School of America. Last night he packed the little U-Haul with nearly all his worldly possessions and drove it to our house. Alas, when my husband opened the back door of the trailer, things slid out onto the road. They spent all morning repacking the trailer to distribute the weight evenly. Early this afternoon, he left, feeling a little nervous and anxious about the future. I cried. I know I won't see him again for months.

2. I got my late August letter from my superintendent, welcoming me back to work on the 3rd. The first day is always a series of long, boring meetings. I went in earlier this week to order the magazines, since I missed the last few days of work in June due to illness. The new books still hadn't come in. The arrival of the new books is something I always look forward to, like Christmas. Each of those plain, solid brown boxes is a gift. I have some great titles coming in that I can't wait to open -- House In the Night, January Sparrow, The Magician's Elephant, Knucklehead, Chains, Lucy Long Ago, Beware of the Frog to name a few. There's never enough money for all the books I want to order.

3. The temperature has taken a steep dip into the 60s. I wore a jacket to the gym today. It's been a weird summer - perhaps the weirdest yet.

4. My WIP is coming along, but much more slowly than I'd anticipated. What starts off as one chapter, often becomes two. When I start revisions, I'm sure I'll need to do much cutting and tightening.

5. I recently discovered that my youngest - the one who was too ADD to crack a book, for the most part -- has a growing appreciation for poetry. For his birthday, I bought him a book of Billy Collin's poems and he loved it. I think he likes language and wordplay much more than he realizes. Maybe all those years of reading to him when he was little have paid off in more way than one. Maybe some of the poetry of the English language seeped into the recesses of his gray matter. I hope so!

And I want to add one more thing: If you visit this blog, couldya, wouldya please leave a comment (or something)? Lately I've felt a little like one of those strange old ladies who talks to herself in the grocery store. It's getting lonely, sigh.

On Edge

It's almost the end of August and I'm feeling twitchy because a few big things are looming on the horizon. For one, the beginning of a new school year is approaching and I'm nervous about it. This year the geniuses in charge of scheduling have decided to place another librarian and I in three different libraries! I told them it was pure madness, which it is. Fragmenting the program like this will make it a managerial nightmare. There's also the issue of collection development, learning student names (always a challenge for me) and trying to keep the automated systems up to date. Every year the company we use (Companion) updates and changes the rules for setting up the system and I spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone with them trying to figure it all out. It is not intuitive. Anyhow, when I protested, one of the principals told me I should try to approach it with a more positive attitude. Of course being a former gym teacher, she has no idea of what it takes to run a library. Okay, I'm a little pissed off. When the kids still aren't able to take out books after a month, maybe they'll give their brilliant plan a second thought.

My eldest son, Derek, is also leaving for Salt Lake City this Thursday to attend a violin making school - The Violin Making School of America. Right now the job situation out here is abysmal. He lost his job several months ago and hasn't been able to find anything else. Living on unemployment isn't exactly what he had in mind. It's like being in limbo. He also doesn't relish the idea of working at a desk in a cubicle. He wants to do something with his hands. Several people have suggested different graduate programs, but most of them lead to a job behind a desk. Blah.

I've discovered that many people have a kind of snooty attitude toward people who work with their hands, as if they suffer from some sort of mental impairment. I can only think that our public schools are partly to blame for this. In New York at least, most students are suppose to be on an academic track, as if all students are college material. Consequently, many of the high schools have done away with their tech programs (formally known as "shop"). Too bad, really, because as we know, many kids aren't college bound and those auto body, woodworking and robotic programs gave the nonacademic students some practical skills they could put to use in the real world as well as a place where they could shine. As my youngest has said many times before, there are different ways of being smart. Some people are good at tackling academics and others have a different sort of gift that schools seem to turn a blind eye to and that almost always means a gift for using one's hands.

Of course this is not to say that somebody can't be both good with his hands as well as academically bright. And why is it that schools hold athletes and musicians in higher regard than mechanics and woodworkers? We want good craftsmen, people who know what they're doing when they work on our car or build our furniture, but we do little to nurture those talents in our public schools.

Anyhow, all I know is that I will miss Derek but we'll be cheering him on wherever the road leads him. We have to put aside our yearning to help and let our kids find their own way in the world.

Out With Outlines

I've always told my students that when you open a book, you embark on a journey. Sometimes it's a brief jaunt of only 32 pages, but often the trip stretches out across 100, 200 or even as many as 700 pages. But the fun part isn't "The End". When you take a vacation, you look forward to adventure and fresh scenery. You're not thinking "When will this be over?" For me, writing fiction is like going on a journey, but without a well defined road map or a GPS or even reservations at some motel or bed & breakfast inn along the way.

I've heard the arguments for outlining a book before writing it and they make a lot of sense. An outline will keep you on track. An outline will help you cover everything important. An outline will ensure you make it through to those two big words, "The End". And granted, those are strong arguments when you're trying to complete a WIP, especially if it's your first. Perhaps I should have outlined my novel before I started working on it. Then I might have finished it by now.

But alas, when it comes to writing a work of fiction, I prefer to see where my story leads me. I know my ultimate destination - that's important. But if I stick to the outline, a character waiting in the wings may never have an opportunity to make his debut and it's possible he or she may have something very important or fascinating to say or some pivotal task to accomplish to add depth or an element of mystery to the plot. It's also possible that an important sub theme - one that I was totally unaware of - may never come to fruition. I enjoy the surprising twists in the road, the steep rises and sudden dips, the startling bumps and unexpected side trips. Without a well defined map, sometimes the journey to "The End" takes a little longer than expected. But man, what a trip!

The Magic Thief, Lost, by Sarah Prineas

In Sarah Prineas's fast-paced debut book, The Magic Thief, a crafty street urchin named Conn filches Nevery the Wizard’s magic tool – his locus magicalicus – yet manages to do the unheard of-survive. Intrigued, Nevery takes Conn in as his apprentice and ultimately Conn solves the mystery of the city of Wellmet’s weakening magic.

Prineas’s equally exciting sequel, Lost, picks up a few months later. Here we once more meet up with Conn and Nevery the Wizard, as well as Benet, Nevery’s muscle man (and perhaps Prineas’s most unique character). We also become reacquainted with the duchess’s daughter, Lady Rowan, and the sinister Shadowmen that turn people into stone.

Again, Wellmet’s magic is waning and the Shadowmen have returned in increasing numbers. Having lost his own locus magicalicus, Conn must resort to pyrotechnics, or fireworks, to speak with the magic that has always protected Wellmet. Nevery warns Conn that pyrotechnics are dangerous and forbidden. After all, they damaged his home, Heartstease. Undaunted and desperate to communicate with the magic the only way he can, Conn perseveres until his hopes are literally blown to pieces and disaster ensues, injuring somebody near and dear to him.

As expected, the magisters of Wellmet banish Conn from the city so he sets off for the city of Desh in search of the source of Wellmet’s weakening magic and the mystery of the Shadowmen. He is not disappointed.

Lost is as fast-paced and exciting as Prineas's first book, The Magic Thief, albeit slightly darker. As a streetwise, rough-edged character with a big heart, Conn makes an intriguing hero with a distinctive voice. Although gray bearded Nevery the Wizard is something of a stock character, he makes an apt mentor for Conn, and Lady Rowan, the duchess's daughter, serves as a strong-willed, sword-wielding foil for Conn.

The setting is as dark, intriguing and fully realized as the story line and the characters.

Antonio Javier Caparo's small black and white illustrations complement and enhance the story's mysterious atmosphere. In addition, Prineas includes some of Benet's favorite recipes, some notes on sword craft and a key to the runic alphabet used occasionally throughout the story.

Lost is a well-conceived story and artfully designed book for middle grade kids that leaves some room for the final book in the trilogy. If it's anything like the first two, it's certain to be a bumpy and enthralling journey.