When the Wall Street Journal/YA Lit brouhaha erupted Saturday, I read the article and posted a link with the following tweet:

Wow. Broad brushes, cherry-picked examples, misinterpretations and exaggerations, bald-faced lies: http://on.wsj.com/lVxoqs

But then followed it up with this:

I actually think it’s possible to make a rational argument that some YA might be too dark, but that article is definitely not it.

The thing is, I actually agree that some select bits of YA cross a line that YA lit probably ought not cross. However, I define that line very differently than does Meghan Cox Gurdon, the author of that article. She defines it merely as content: this book contains rape, and that book contains self-mutilation, and this other book contains violence. True, but it ignores the much more important question: what does that “dark” content mean, and how is it treated?

“Hell”

For those of you who only know me from my upcoming national-release book, let me fill you in on a little of my background. I had my first novel published in 2004, in the niche LDS market. If you live outside of the intermountain west, you’ve likely never heard of the LDS (Latter-day Saint, or Mormon) fiction market; it’s similar, in some ways, to the Christian fiction market: these are books written by LDS people for an LDS audience. They may or may not be religious. Generally speaking, they are books with characters who are members of the LDS church–but they can still be any genre from romance to mystery to historical to whatever.

I published three books in this market: a romantic comedy, and two political thrillers (a weird mix, I know). While the LDS market is (and other Christian markets are) notoriously conservative in terms of content, and I was well aware of that, I ran into a situation that surprised even me.

The following conversation took place in one of the books. The two characters are both LDS, both early twenties. The girl is playfully trying to get the guy to tell her something:

“You know where liars go?” she said, looking stern.
Thrust down to hell.  Yep.  2 Nephi 9:34.  My Mom had it embroidered on a pillow.

For those who aren’t LDS, “2 Nephi” is a book in the Book of Mormon. So what I was doing here was quoting LDS scripture, in a book targeted at an LDS audience, about LDS characters.

So what’s the problem?

Well, jumping to the end of a drawn-out battle that involved me having to escalate the situation past my editor and up to the managing editor and eventually up to the managing committee: this is how the book looked in print:

“You know where liars go?” she said, looking stern.
Thrust down to … Yep.  2 Nephi 9:34.  My Mom had it embroidered on a pillow.

Yep, despite the context, despite it being a direct quote from scripture, despite me giving the scripture reference, the word “hell” was removed. The managing editor insisted that she got angry letters over this very type of thing, so it had to go.

Meaning and Context

I hope that the reason I brought this story up is obvious. There are some people who are so concerned about the specifics of “dark” content that they completely ignore everything else. (“Hell” is a swear word, so regardless of context it has to get cut!)  My example above is simple and ridiculous, and if it hadn’t happened to me I’d have a hard time believing it. But the Wall Street Journal article is different: it’s both more important and more common.

Look at what Gurdon does, over and over; she references a YA book, cites the specific content she find objectionable, and then moves on to another book. She never attempts to analyze why that content is there, or what purpose it serves to the character or the story. The one that I find most maddening (though it’s hard to pick just one):

In a letter excerpted by the industry magazine, the Horn Book, several years ago, an editor bemoaned the need, in order to get the book into schools, to strip expletives from Chris Lynch’s 2005 novel, “Inexcusable,” which revolves around a thuggish jock and the rape he commits.

So, she cites expletives, thuggishness and rape. Never once does she pause over the very title of the book! It’s called Inexcusable. That might be a tip that the book is not claiming that expletives, thuggishness and rapes are fantastic things that all kids really ought to try.

Look at every single one of Gurdon’s examples, and you’ll see a complete disregard for meaning and context. Hunger Games is “hyper-violent”! Shine is about drug use and sexual assault! OF COURSE these books are bad; they have bad things in them!

So What?

Like I said at the beginning, I think a rational argument could be made that some books cross a line that a YA book ought not to cross, but that line has nothing to do with the specifics of objectionable content and everything to do with context and meaning. If Inexcusable was called Excusable, and it was about how wonderful rape is, then yes, I think Gurdon would have a valid complaint.

Ultimately, I don’t think her op-ed will mean much. In some ways, it’s good that she wrote this–the articles that have already been written to counter Gurdon’s blind, irrational attack have done far more good for the benefit of quality literature than she and the Wall Street Journal have ever done to undermine it.

The last several weeks have been intense crunch time to finish the first draft of Feedback (sequel to Variant). I have until the end of next Wednesday to meet my self-imposed deadline, and I’m optimistic. It will require some long days and sleepless nights, and the end result will be a very very rough draft, but I think I’ll make it. (By the way, the awesome Shannon Hale posted a fantastic description of drafting on her Twitter last week: “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” I love that.)

However, despite being busy I’ve been doing a lot of reading. And, since it’s been a while since I’ve blogged and it’s been an even longer while since I’ve given a report of my media consumption, I figure we’re due.

Here is some of the media I’ve consumed lately. This isn’t necessarily the list of the best stuff, but it’s the list of stuff I find interesting to talk about.

Books

Incarceron:

I’d heard a lot about this one for a long time, but somehow I’d never crossed paths with it. I didn’t know much about Incarceron, but it committed one of my speculative fiction pet peeves: a science fiction world that looks like a fantasy world. Fortunately, I was happy to find that there’s a pretty interesting explanation for it and, unlike many in that category, it seemed there was actually a good, story-based reason for that setting (rather than just lazy worldbuilding).

My second pleasant surprise was that the characters are screwed up. One of the main characters begins the story as a thief and (reluctant) kidnapper, and the other is kind of a snobby aristocrat. Even better, the side characters have all sorts of secrets–and the secrets make sense and aren’t intended for the sole purpose of yanking the carpet out from under you!

I realize that all of these compliments are mainly saying “This book was good and I wasn’t expecting it to be!” and for that I’m sorry. But really, this book was good and I wasn’t expecting it to be.

All the Devils Are Here:

A major gear shift from YA science fiction here. I’m a big fan of The Smartest Guys In The Room, the Enron expose authored by Bethany McLean, so when I saw she’d written this detailed account of the current financial crisis I had to get it.

Short review: it’s fantastic. I’ve been annoyed for a long time by the simplistic coverage of the financial crisis by the media, and more annoyed by the partisan fingerpointing–conservatives blame the an overregulating, idealistic government while liberals blame greedy Wall Street bankers and real estate speculators–so it was a breath of fresh air to read an objective, detailed account of what actually happened.

Well, I should actually say “it was a breath of disgusting, noxious air”. The title of the book, a quote from The Tempest (“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”) is an apt description of the players involved. While some are definitely painted as more devious than others, few people or organizations come across as innocent as the complicated tangle of deceit, greed, hubris, ignorance and ridiculously blind optimism brings America to its knees.

One criticism: there are actually two authors–Joe Nocera joins Bethany McLean–and while I don’t know who wrote what, this book is definitely a harder read than The Smartest Guys in the Room. There are passages of detailed and dynamic storytelling, like McLean had previously used, but there are a lot of drier passages as well, and it often feels disjointed.

Even so, definitely a worthwhile read. If you’ve ever watched any of the fingerpointing and wondered who was right (or if you’ve pointed a few fingers yourself), you owe it to yourself to read this.

Cherub: The Recruit:

Jumping back to YA again (because that’s the bulk of what I’ve been reading this last year), I picked this one up at Barnes and Noble without knowing anything about it. I’d never heard of the book or the author, but I was intrigued by the premise, and I love a good YA adventure targeted at boys.

After reading it, I was not at all surprised to find that the author wrote it specifically for his nephew–it reads very much like tween boy wish fulfillment: kids are spies for the government, they learn martial arts, they vandalize (as part of their job!), they go to parties with older teenage girls and drink beer. And, despite all of the obviousness of the “I’m giving my nephew exactly what he wants”, it’s a dang fun read. It’s not great literature, but I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Apparently, this series is popular all over the world–there are already twelve novels in the series, in dozens of countries!–but it didn’t really get much a release in the US until 2010.

TV

The Chicago Code:

This is currently my hands-down favorite show on TV. I intend to blog about it in detail next week, once this first draft is finished. For now, suffice it to say that this show is a masterpiece of gray characters–no one, from the most noble cop to the baddest of the corrupt politicians–is all bad or all good. I know that most cop shows pretend like they do this, giving a character a minor drug problem or a secret mistress, but The Chicago Code gets it right. Man, I want to blog all about it right now…. It’ll have to wait.

Top Shot:

I’ve mentioned this show before on this blog, and I’m happy to see it back on the air. However, I’ve been watching it on DVR and skipping most of the interpersonal drama this time around. It manages to be just as entertaining, and a third the length.

American Idol:

Remember how I’ve blogged about American Idol every year since season three? And how I obsess, and how I actually devoted an entire blog to it last season (along with fellow author Tristi Pinkston)? Well, I gave up this year. Part of it was that I was reluctant to watch Steven Tyler, who I dislike, and Jennifer Lopez, who I hate. But the bigger part was that I just didn’t have the time to devote to it. And–shocker!–I haven’t missed it.

Community and 30 Rock:

These continue to be the best comedies on TV, regardless of what those Modern Family dorks say.

Movies

I’ve watched a lot of movies lately, but two in particular make for interesting discussion. (These movies are old: I rarely make it to the theater, so I see everything on RedBox or On Demand.) First, I watched Salt, starring Angelina Jolie as a maybe-she’s-a-spy-and-maybe-she’s-a-double-agent. Shortly after, I watched Knight and Day, starring Tom Cruise as a spy and Cameron Diaz as a normal person.

Remember when I posted about implausibilty in cop shows, and how it drove me crazy? My basic premise was this: We all know how the real world works, so if you’re portraying the real world, you have to do it realistically, or else we’ll all roll our eyes.

Salt and Knight and Day illustrate this well. Both Jolie and Cruise play super amazing James Bond-esque spies who can do insane stunts and defy gravity and kill all the bad guys without trying. The difference: Salt pretends like it’s the real world. It puts on airs of being a Very Serious Movie. And it obviously fails to acheive those goals because absolutely nothing that ever happens is believable.  On the other hand, Knight and Day is an action comedy, where the fact that Cruise is the quintessential superspy is played for laughs. (One quick sequence shows him hanging upside down in a torture chamber, and it’s the funniest scene in the movie, essentially saying: “Of course he’s going to escape, because he’s better than James Bond; he’s the love child of John McClane and River Tam.”)

In Salt, Jolie does ridiculous stuff and we roll our eyes. In Knight and Day, Cruise does ridiculous stuff and we cheer. The moral: if you want your story to be realistic, then you have to make it realistic. If you tell someone this is the real world, then we don’t suspend our disbelief nearly as much as we do if we’re told it’s fake.

Music

I don’t have much to say here, because I haven’t dabbled into too much new music lately. I did, however, get the new Iron and Wine album, and it’s awesome. I know Iron and Wine is not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. I’m not enough of a music critic to describe this in intelligent detail. But it’s fantastic.

Anyway, my deadline for the first draft is Wednesday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In a couple months I have to teach a class about writing dystopian fiction, so I’m reading as much as I can on the subject. The question that everyone seems to be asking is: why do teenagers love it so much?

While I don’t think that there’s a single answer, and I don’t mean to claim that all readers have the same motivations, some answers seem much more likely to me than others, and one answer in particular bugs me.

Before I start pulling out the quotes from other stuff I’ve been reading, let me tell you my theory (which, admittedly, isn’t terribly original):

Dystopian fiction is almost always about oppression and control, and there is no group of Americans who views themselves as more oppressed and controlled than teenagers. They’re at an age where they are becoming more and more capable–physically, mentally, etc–and yet they’re still not allowed to make many choices about their lives. They are in a very structured environment, moving every hour at the ring of a bell to a different room where they learn things they’re required to learn, whether they want to or not. Depending on their school, they might not be able to wear what they want, sit where they want, or even set foot off campus during a certain period of time. After school they may work at a job which gives them responsibility, but still no real choices–they can use their minimum wage salary to buy some consumer goods or some fast food, but they can’t use that small amount of money to change their situation in life. At home they have to follow their parents’ rules, continue studying things they don’t appreciate, and do chores–forced labor–for a system they have little or no say in (kind of a taxation-without-representation scenario).

I’m not saying high school or parents or homework are bad. I’m just saying that it’s easy to see how teenagers view themselves as oppressed and controlled.

I remember when I was in high school we’d protest everything. The school was less than a mile from the state capitol building, and there was more than one occasion when students would walk out and march up the hill shouting something or other. And it seemed like I was school board meetings every couple of months, joining my friends in the only way we could make our displeasure known. And lest you get the wrong impression, I wasn’t much of a hooligan–half the time I was protesting in favor of the status quo, protesting against other protesting teenagers. But the point is: teenagers want to fight for something. They want choices, and they want a voice.

Consequently, it’s not at all surprising that teens suck up books like Matched and The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games as though they were the last drops of water in the desert. These books are metaphors of the teenage condition, yet they all have heroic teens who break free from their oppressor’s controls.

So, that’s my theory about why teens love dystopia.  Here’s the theory that bugs me:

As author Paolo Bacigalupi put it in a recent New York Times article: “I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart.”

As my brother, Dan Wells, put it on his blog: “Dystopia is huge right now, especially in YA. This is probably due to the fact that we live in one–or, more correctly, this is due to the fact that YA readers are finally paying close enough attention to realize that we live in one.”

I have no quibble with either Bacigalupi’s assertion that the world is falling apart, or Dan’s claim that we live in a dystopia. Both of those claims are subjective, but I’d tend to agree with both, to some extent. No, my complaint is with the idea that our political and cultural climate is what’s turning teens on to dystopian fiction–and I especially worry that if you write a story with that mindset it could easily lead to pedantic, plot-driven fiction.

Teens may be paying more attention to world events, with knowledge more readily available at the click of a button, I think they’re also more media savvy, and if there’s anything that teens DON’T want, it’s to be preached to. I have many friends who read James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series with pleasure, until it became clear that the book’s underlying message was about the dangers of global warming, at which point they quit reading (and some of these friends are environmentalists themselves).

It’s not that this second theory about dystopia (from Dan and Bacigalupi and others) is wrong–it’s that it’s a dangerous mindset for authors to have as they approach their writing, because it implies the most important aspect of the book is the plot: that teens want to read dystopia because they want “What If?” scenarios and extrapolated futures. And I think that’s just plain not true. Above all else, most readers want (and teens especially) to be able to relate. They want an emotional connection to characters and situations. They want to say “This character is like me!” not “This corrupt government is like my corrupt government!” If that’s lacking, then no amount of frightening, not-too-distant-future dystopia will make the book worth reading.

Disclaimer: both Paolo Bacigalupi and Dan Wells are both fantastic, award-winning authors who write great books with great characters, and I’m sure they’d agree with me that emotional connection is extremely important. I’m merely saying that, as advice to authors, I don’t think you should approach YA dystopia with that kind of top-down look.

This blog is filled with spoilers, from one end to the other, so stop now if you care about that kind of thing.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Well, now that those people are gone, we can talk about things openly. (Man, I hate those guys.)

First, I just need to make a complaint. I like to support bookstores and such, but I ended up trying to buy this book at Walmart (because I work in a cultural wasteland that has no bookstores, and I was buying this on my lunch break). (That cultural wasteland is: West Valley City.) Anyway, Walmart failed me. They didn’t have Mockingjay anywhere–no displays, no shelf space, no anything–and this was the day after the book came out! I had to go next door to the Sears Grand, if you can imagine. They seemed shocked to have a customer (and rightly so, because their shelves were mostly empty). But, they had Mockingjay, and I purchased it, and the fourteen dollars I paid doubled that store’s revenue for the entire week.

But on to the book.

I loved it, and it bugged me. But mostly I loved it.

My loves are many, but the biggest thing that I liked about the book is that it was written honestly. Mockingjay was the natural conclusion to The Hunger Games. Any society that would treat it’s children as is protrayed in the first book, would do equally cruel things elsewhere, and overthrowing that society would reveal the worst elements of it. So, while some people have complained about the gore and the shock, I think they were absolutely necessary, and I really couldn’t imagine the book without them.

But as far as natural conclusions go, I think Suzanne Collins excelled far beyond the requirements of the setting. Elana Johnson and I were recently talking about Hunger Games, and how the dystopian world was created. One worldbuilding technique for dystopia is to take a troublesome aspect of our culture, extend it out to it’s furthest, most dangerous conclusion, and look at the consequences. Using this model, I simplistically said that Hunger Games is an extension of our love for reality TV and voyeurism. Elana looked at it much deeper: it’s not just about reality TV, but it’s about using the media to control people.

Collins took that theme–controlling the populace through propaganda–and took it to its natural conclusions as well. Katniss has been a propaganda puppet in every book, though managed in a different way. In Hunger Games, she’s somewhat independent, but controlled by Haymitch, who teaches her how to perform on camera (and rewarding her when she creates the right TV story). In Catching Fire, she’s controlled by Snow, performing on camera to prove that she’s not a rebel leader–she’s just a girl in love. And in Mockingjay, she’s now controlled by the rebel government (which isn’t so much good, but the lesser of two evils), and she’s followed from photo-op to photo-op by stylists and producers.

(It’s worth noting that every propaganda campaign is foiled when Katniss rejects the control of her puppeteers–attempting suicide, destroying the force field, and killing Coin. She did all of it on camera, taking temporary control of the propaganda message being spread.)

So, to me, all of this kind of thing is what really makes the book work. There are smaller aspects of the plot and characters that I questioned, but it’s this ongoing consistency of the deeper themes and messages that really make Mockingjay a great conclusion.

I’m only going to quickly touch on the characters, since I didn’t really have any issues with them. I think that Katniss is also the natural continuation of Katniss–she’s exactly how we should have expected her to be. I think that there was a feeling among fans and internet forums that this book was going to be the romantic culmination: Team Peeta vs. Team Gale. But, while that is an interesting element of the book, I don’t think anything in the previous two books have led us to expect romantic happy endings. Katniss has been Katniss since the first chapter of the first book, and her actions and motivations have remained very consistent.

(Sidenote: From a storytelling perspective, I’ve never understood the Team Gale crowd. While Katniss liked him, he’s never had enough significant screen time for the readers to get to like him, and a romance where the readers don’t feel emotionally connected is the touch of death. So, I think that most Team Gale people were deluding themselves. They were Team Gale because they didn’t like Peeta; they liked the idea of Gale, not the actual character.) (TAKE THAT, TEAM GALE JERKS.)

(Another sidenote: I thoroughly enjoyed Peeta rediscovering Katniss and learning that she’s kind of a jerk. He’s always put up with her crap, because he’s in love with her, but when he’s no longer in love with her, he realizes that she’s always treated him terribly. I found that phase in his recovery delightful.) (This is not to say that I dislike Katniss. I just think it was a clever turn.)

A few problems:

I have two main complaints with Mockingjay, and they both have to do with the final third. First, it was hard to suspend my disbelief with all the “pods” in the Capitol. To have so many of them, and so creative and wacky, all over the place would have been insanely expensive and logistically impossible. (For example: the Meat Grinder or the street that opens up–when did they build those massive crazy things? How did they keep it a secret from the populace? How did could they afford them all (because, presumably, there are wacky, enormous things like the Meat Grinder all over the Capitol).

Second, and more important, everything that happens in the final third–from the point where Katniss enters the Capitol and heads for Snow–is ultimately a failure that doesn’t accomplish anything and costs a lot of lives. The government would have been overthrown just as effectively if she hadn’t gone (because the rebels get to Snow at the same time Katniss does). I have no problem with her failing; I just didn’t like that her failure didn’t mean anything. Nothing was gained, and the losses were only chalked up to “War sure stinks”, not “Katniss wasted all their lives for nothing”.

But, all of that said, I think this was a phenomenal book, and a really groundbreaking series. It’s always nice to see dystopia do well, but this one brought a whole new audience to the genre, and then kicked the genre’s butt.