Moving Right Along...

With thirty-three days to go, I'm now writing Chapter Nine of my YA novel, about 65 pages to this point. There's a gap of maybe two additional chapters that need to connect with the rest of the novel's first draft, so that's material that I'll have to create during the next few days. Of course I'll have to revise that first draft. (And I have to write an ending.) I'm guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 70K words -- fairly short, even for YA.

I would certainly not recommend trying to put together a novel in so short a time (We're talking around three months start to finish.), but I wanted to (1) enter a contest and (2) see if I could push myself to meet a deadline. I think I'll make it, but will certainly wish I had a little more time to revise.

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I'm certainly enjoying Megan Whalen Turner's YA novel The Thief. I'm about halfway though it and know I'll also want to read the sequels. The novel makes allusions to myth and folklore, but in a very general (yet engaging) way. Which brings me to my next point...

There's nothing I love more than a great story I can get wrapped up in, but when I finish a work of fiction that makes me want to discover more about the elements of the book (the settings, worlds, characters, concepts, philosophies, etc. behind the story), that's a huge bonus. The Thief does that. So does Jeff VanderMeer's Veniss Underground and a whole multitude of other stories and novels in and out of the genre. I remember enjoying several of my friend Trent Hergenrader's stories at Clarion that were based on folk tales or myth. These are worlds you want to spend more time in, structures you want to better understand.

But, there's nothing I hate more than having an author haul out a whole litany of names/places/ships/swords/etc. from Greek (or any other) mythology, parading them in front of the reader's face in a heavy-handed, didactic way. I'll admit that I haven't read much mythology, and that's something I need to correct, but I also want to be able to read and enjoy a story without having to consult Edith Hamilton every paragraph. Maybe everyone else in the genre shares a common knowledge of this stuff, sort of a cultural literacy if you will, and my lack of Greek fundamentals is holding me back. Okay, if so, then I'll work on it. But in the meantime, while I'm reading current stories and novels, make me want to discover the foundations of those stories for myself; don't make me feel like a moron for not knowing who Autonoe's son was.

To paraphrase Jeff Ford, just tell me a story.


Now Playing = Led Zeppelin IV
Listening to = Saturday – Ian McEwan