Creative kids can't spell

This is a personal rant against a trend in children’s literature.

This rant does not represent the thinking of Pen Parentis, just of me.

Ready?

I am so frustrated by the current trend of books aimed at a younger child audience that are filled with intentionally misspelled words (Junie B Jones, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc.) – presumably to show that the main character who is writing the book is a child.

Not only does it presuppose that all kids are dismal spellers, it pushes the (false) notion that creative people must have terrible spelling. And it enshrines the belief that spelling doesn’t matter.

Idea#1 – "It makes the book more real." My son actually said this to me in defense of one of these books.

I seem to recall plenty of diary books written in first person from the point of view of a child who had no spelling issues: Are you There, God, it’s Me, Margaret comes instantly to mind. Nothing was more real. I never had any doubt that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s main character was a child who grew up on a prairie writing on a slate--never! She didn't have to write letters and numbers reversed for us to know she was young.

As far as verisimilitude goes, I don’t recall The Outsiders having misspelled words among the slang S. E. Hinton used throughout. Far as I recall, the book uses the apostrophe very properly. And its author was actually a child. Well, ok, 19. So they say.

Idea #2 – "creative people all have terrible spelling."

Not going to grace this one with an answer. Well, okay. One: what about Harriet the Spy? 

Idea #3 – Spelling doesn’t matter.

It duz. Rilly. Its soupr annoing to reed bad speling. Even if you CAN.

I’m hoping that this trend will pass. You learn to spell mostly from early reading—just like you learn language from the people that surround you when you are an infant. If your parents have an accent, guess what, you have one too. It’s hard enough for a kid to figure out how to spell Light when it is spelled Lite on every package of food she has ever seen—can’t we petition the schools to please ensure that the books our kids read for reading class follow proper spelling and grammar rules?

The other books can all be in the library – I dislike censorship - but any assigned reading should really help the kids learn to write. If you're going to supply only broken tools, don't expect anyone to be able to build a birdhouse. 

I know, it’s a losing battle (heavy sigh) –which is why this is a rant and not a post.  Go write something. Sit in the sunshine. Listen to your inner editor. Buy him a cup of ice coffee. I'm buying mine an aspirin and a huge glass of water.

Publishing or Self-Publishing for Kids

This rambling post isn’t about what you think.

My kids and I have a ritual of me reading while they eat breakfast. It started because my son had read Castle in the Attic for school in third grade and wanted to share with his little sister, so, with his own money and without telling me, he bought it, along with its sequel, at his school’s book fair. Let’s just pause a moment over how awesome that is.

Yeah. Books are awesome. Kids who buy books, super-awesome.

Anyway, when he asked me to read the books aloud to both of them, it started an amazing practice of read-aloud at breakfast. She liked Castle in the Attic a lot, even though it was clearly a boy-targeted book (the only female characters are an overly busy mother and an old British caretaker who sits and sews and encourages the boy to think and act for himself). The book, however is a fun adventure story. Not perfect, but charming. We couldn’t wait to read the next part.

None of us enjoyed the sequel as much – it felt rushed and irrelevant, my daughter hated the excessive violence, my son was frustrated by the unmotivated villain (Why was there a big rat? Who made him? How did he control the other rats?) and I hated the irrelevant fake-swearing (What 12 yr old says “blast” and why put swearing in at all if the kid is only going to fake-swear? ) But ok. I figured this two-book series was a double book sale, where the new author won awards with a book she’d slaved over for a decade, and had to get the second one out within a year. The book ended and we wanted to move on to something else right away.

So I needed another book.

Last year at BEA—after seeing my badge and assuring himself I had kids—an author thrust a chapter book into my hands. “Your daughter needs this book,” he said. I remember wanting to throw it immediately into the nearest circular file, just based on his arrogance.

But it had a pretty cover, which was not pink or sparkly. The title intrigued me, and the summary implied the book would help girls learn about environmentalism.

Let’s start with the above, and talk about self-publishing.

• ·      This guy has written a (let’s presume) good book.
• ·      He wants to market it to girls only.
• ·      He does not want it to be turned into a “pink, cursive” book.  (You don’t think the publishing industry does this? Have a look at this.)

So, he decides to self-publish.

Awesome, say I. We need more books for girls that don’t force a societal “you will be pink and cursive” style on them.

Ah – but.

Now comes the next step of our saga.

Cue this morning, when we finished the highly-unsatisfying sequel to a book we had all liked, and needed something new. Immediately.

I pulled this old BEA freebie-book off my shelf. My son was willing to give it a whirl because the girl wearing a long dress in the forest on the cover was not in pink and had no tiara. Yes, the book’s subtitle mentioned a princess, but after all, fairy tales have great plots. The illustrations promised some pretty vicious bad guys, so okay.

We began.

I read the introduction. It was a scene from nature: a butterfly’s flight. My son stopped me when the chapter ended. “What was that?” he said, bewildered, “Some kind of symbolism?” I told him to give the book a chance. (Meanwhile, I was stumbling over the plethora of adverbs. The insect didn’t just fly: it flitted happily, fluttered gaily, flew hurriedly…and at the end, darted off deeply saddened.) This author wasn't writing a book, he was narrating a screenplay for a blind person who was also a little bit...slow.

The second chapter, also called “introduction,” began with a detailed description of the castle. When I say detailed, I mean: the ornate grand piano handcrafted of rosewood was actually described as a “highly ornate and handcrafted grand piano made of imperial rosewood and other exotic materials. These materials are only known to be owned and imported by those elite enough to do so. The craftsmanship on the piano is the highest level known and the attention to detail is painstakingly meticulous.”

I can forgive a bit of excessive detail. I kept reading. My kids squirmed.

A few paragraphs down, the kitchen whisk was called a “wisp” which I corrected as I read aloud. Two pages into the description of the castle, my son pushed back from his breakfast with a loud sigh and an eye-roll, “Ok! Ok! We get it! It’s the nicest, fanciest castle in the whole world!”

And that’s when I realized what excellent readers children are. Because of television and the accessibility of movies, our kids have grown up on narrative. They have been raised on action in the first moment, they have been raised with characters that have great backstory, clear motivations, and concise descriptions. They ask pertinent questions (why are all those lights flashing when he only pressed one button? Why did the bad guy not just shoot them, why talk to them first?) and they remember things that adults have long forgotten (I thought the girl had put the button into her vest pocket. When did it get into her jeans pocket?). They might be our best editors. Certainly they are the harshest critics: This book is boring. Let’s read something else.

After his sister goes to bed, I’ve been reading Jules Verne aloud to the ten year old: he is fascinated by every archaic word. The descriptions all matter – things you are assumed to know are not described, unfamiliar things are. Every character’s motivation is obvious and many chapters end with huge surprises.

Had this princess book been better edited, I have no doubt it would have been an excellent read. As is, even my daughter was squirming after the first ten pages. I’m purposefully leaving the title and author out of this post, because I hate to discourage any writer – the lesson in this post is merely: edit with a kid’s eye. They are quick to grasp and have vivid imaginations - they will fill in all your details without even trying.

And they read every single word, so they notice unintentional typos lightning-quick. My son is reading Matilda for class and he has already caught two typos (c'mon Scholastic!) and nothing pulls him out of the narrative faster.

But this isn’t a blog for children’s book authors. Here’s my question to you – given that self-publishing allowed this guy full creative control over his cover and presumably also allowed for the rambling over-detailed writing that made at least two kids not want to finish his book…what do you think? Should he have held-out for a publisher? Should he have hired a high-end professional editor? What should authors do in this day and age to ensure they have the best editing possible, hire kids?

Three-part writing process: a theory.

Tragedy.  I wrote this idea out in an email to a friend. Wrote it in gorgeous, bloggy detail. Then I cut it from the email, realizing that she (not a writer) wouldn't be interested in my theories. Intended to paste it into a blog entry.

But, as life would have it, I got randomized and forgot to paste it...anywhere. So when I finally got to this window, I discovered the computer actually has the link to a website stored in the paste function.

Rats.

But! It was my brain that thought it up to begin with, so I'll recreate. Less than spontaneously, but maybe more thought out.

Here's the concept. Writing has always been considered a two-step event. Writing and then Editing. You write your novel. Then you edit it. Sometimes you edit it over and over again. 

But let me pose this theory:

Great writers write in three steps.

Creating. Polishing. Editing.

Yes, those are in the correct order.

Writing is really a combination of creating and polishing. This is where the various "writing styles" come in - some people create an outline first, then fill it in with details. Others write copiously, then cut and rearrange. No matter how you come up with your fully functional narrative - that's your goal in the creative phase. A narrative draft that is "finished". That's what people mean when they say "I finished the first draft of my novel." It means, "I have written a narrative that holds together, and I won't be rearranging it in any significant way." 

(probably.)

Most of the work of new writers is to figure out how they best hammer out the skeleton: whether through the inspirational and copious bloodletting known as "getting it all on the page" followed by major manuscript surgery (as I do) or by thinking hard and writing from an outline that's been a few months or even years in the making and then filling in the prescribed scenes and details (my friend Nick Kaufmann writes his fantastic urban-sorcerous crime novels this way).  Professional writers are really good at knowing when a skeleton is unfinished. They are slaves to the feeling that "something isn't right here." And they will tweak and cut and rearrange until it feels "finished."

Before sending out that "finished" story, they polish that filled out skeleton. This is where you edit your own writing. You choose better verbs. You cut characters that steal scenes for no good reason. After you absolutely know the frame of your story (Victor LaValle has some great things to say in interviews about this) you go through and "fix" -- whittle down scenes that are too long, add descriptions so that scenes don't happen in empty rooms with blank walls unless they're supposed to. 

This sounds so obvious, right? So why do writing students so often send out stories in the middle of the Creative phase? Teachers of writing often have to select the scenes to cut and mark where the story actually "begins". 

A great editor I recently worked with agreed with Victor that you can write your outline AFTER the novel is written, but you still have to have an outline.  Every story has to have a skeleton that makes sense and that can be filled in (with scenes that function...like organs?) and can be overlaid with details (skin, eye color, hair?)... despite my extended Halloween-induced metaphor, I do think that the skeleton of the story is important, and the creation of this core of every narrative should be thought of as a separate action from the polishing (finding the perfect words, describing the perfect weather, adding the crazy character traits that will make Mr. Blusty an unforgettable professor of science) -- but I also hold that the polishing of the story is NOT the editing of the story, because polishing is still fun. It's making your story all shiny and glimmery and yours. 

The editing is the painful part. After you already think the story is perfect. "As good as you can make it" - you give it to your trusted readers. Then your agent. Finally, professional editors. Each of these rounds will give you feedback which you can opt to use or not - but which you MUST look at with a critical eye. Not your inspired, vulnerable, genius writer self. A critical, consumer, teacher, word-count, sort of eye. And that is editing. Editing hurts. It's letting go of the paragraph you kept in (though you kind of knew it should go, certainly you moved it six different places)... 

So what do you think of my three-part writing process? 

multi-multitasking

Here's what happens to me: I'm writing a novel and it's great, the idea is as enticing as cupcakes, and I'm enjoying getting the words on the page. It swims along for about 150 pages. Then: crash. I take walks. I find myself wondering if the plot of this Adam Sandler movie I just hated might be a better twist than the one I'd thought of, I read Murakami and have lots of green tea, I eat chocolates (I do that anyway)... point is, writing becomes work. And it never stops being work after that. Sure, I'll have breakthroughs, and I'll write for a while in spurts, but it's never again the easy, fun, excitement of the initial ride.

And then the editing starts and the work is actually tough and painful. Bye-bye, two-pages of fantastic writing about cupcakes.

There are no rules in literary fiction, maybe that's why it's so satisfying to write it. But because there are no rules you can't possibly know when "the flowchart" is ready to hit your boss' desk. Why can't I leave the cupcakes in? Proust would. But here's what happens to me: I miss the fun. A week of this hard work goes by and I get a great idea for a new project...or...I write a blog post. Oh those blogs. And emails. And articles we get paid to write. And random other piecemeal work (anyone passed out free samples for money before? I have...)

I want to introduce you to @YuviZalkow a writer-with-kids who I think has a great blog. He's doing the hard thing and giving up making his hilarious videos for a specific period of time in order to work on his writing. We can all take a lesson from him.

(now please forgive me if the link takes you to a later blog-posting. the video i want to share with you is embedded in a blog entry called Project Mismanagement. it's four minutes long, and it raises a great question. What has to go?) 

Let's think of our lives as a novel we have to edit. He does it by making a pie chart, but I suggest creating a plot outline where you start as a writer who has kids and you end as a writer with kids who has a book deal.

Prioritize. Figure out where you want your life-plot to go. Edit down the chapters that don't help.

If you have artistic tendencies and want to email any of your charts to me, I'd be happy to post them.

Writing Groups

SO, writing groups. What are they and how can you get one?

Writing groups are a little like a workshop without a teacher. Of course, the easiest way to get feedback on your work is to sign up for a writing workshop (or if you are just starting a career, a writing class.) Thing is, workshops cost money. Always. And parents don't always have an extra $300-$1000 lying around. 

Sorry, just made myself choke on my coffee. the things I would do with an extra grand...

Anyway, writing groups. These groups of 3-8 writers make a professional commitment to meet on a regular basis and to read and critique each other’s work. Some groups are small enough that everyone gets read every single week. Most take turns—some allow one writer to have a whole book critiqued, some have a maximum number of pages. Many writing groups are online - you submit and crit via Yahoo groups or some other private message board option. Even Facebook Groups can be set up to accommodate, especially if people use Google Docs to share MS pages. 

Regardless of the format: if it is a well-run group, there will be guidelines, the people will be vetted in some way, and the critiques will be presented in some kind of orderly manner. My group is in-person, meets every other week (because we all have jobs and/or families) and all of us are published and or award-winning writers. You are never “too good” for a writing group – though you may want to leave after a while once you internalize the representative critiques. 

Or once you have a professional editor who is waiting for your pages.

Writing groups give you a connection to your readers, so chose wisely: if you write romance novels don’t join a writing group of men writing historical nonfiction. You want a supportive group that “gets” what you write. That is hungry for it. You also want the other writers to be well-read in your field, and hopefully, at least one of them will have actual editing experience and be able to catch the grammatical and spelling errors which spellcheck has missed. The critiques of your peers will definitely improve your writing, but what’s possibly even more important to parents – the deadline for needing to submit something to the group can keep you motivated when everyday life drains your very will to live. Wait, did I say that aloud? I meant, when everyday live makes it difficult to feel creative.

If you live outside of an urban setting or university town, it can be a little harder to find a group that will be suitable, but check industry publications for groups seeking new members. People do get publishing contracts and leave groups all the time—look for postings on bulletin boards, in church bulletins, anywhere. Make sure you interview the group first (and don’t be a pompous prick, no one likes a stuck-up writer) to ensure your personalities mesh.

If in-person critiquing isn’t possible given your situation, find an online group. There are many. These groups often form privately after attending a colony or conference together, or after graduate school. In general, going to a colony or taking a class, really any writing class will do, can give you the energy boost you need to get yourself back on the horse and in your creative space. A lot of time, all we need is a readership and the ideas flow like magic.