Author: Stephanie

ALA Frequently Challenged Books List

I should probably wait until Banned Books Week to write this post but recent discussions about the media and “fake news” have planted the topic of censorship firmly in my mind. I will still be addressing Banned Books Week in September. However, I didn’t want to wait over five months to talk about the American Library Association’s Frequently Challenged Books.

For those who aren’t familiar with this list and/or wish to see which books made it this year, here’s a link to the ALA website.

I have been following this list since high school. I stumbled across the site while preparing a presentation on the first amendment and censorship and got a kick out of the books that had been challenged. Ever since, I’ve revisited the list for updates and when I’ve needed a good laugh. Every time I read it, I feel a mixture of outrage and amusement. Sometimes I even skim it for new books to read.

First Edition Cover of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, art by Joe Pernaciaro, published by Ballantine Books, picture retrieved from Fahrenheit 451 Wikipedia Entry

Everything from children’s books to literary classics have been challenged. My personal favorite is Fahrenheit 451, which is number 69 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009.

What’s even funnier than the books are the reasons why they’re challenged. “Offensive language”, “sex education”, “inaccuracy”, the list goes on and on. Did you know that Captain Underpants made the list for being “unsuited for age group”? That Bridge to Terabithia was accused of occult/Satanism? That The Holy Bible was challenged for “religious viewpoint”?

If nothing else, the trends among the challenges reveal what is most on the minds of Americans the year(s) the data is gathered. That information in and of itself is invaluable. A wide variety of professionals can utilize these trends, from politicians to sociologists to, yes, writers.

I don’t mean to offend anyone by finding the challenges and the reasons behind them humorous. I have my own very strong viewpoints and I accept that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. I don’t want to hinder that. However, this respect deserves similar treatment in return.

Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine made the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books of 1990-1999 and 2000-2009

Published by Scholastic, picture retrieved from Amazon

There is no excuse for censoring literature. Literature always has and always will offend people. We can criticize it all we want. That’s the flip side of free speech. Nevertheless, that does not mean that we should restrict other reader’s access to these writings. We should be in control of what we read. If we stumble across something which offends us or strikes a nerve, well, lesson learned. Don’t read that book/story/whatever again. It doesn’t mean that you should force others to follow your lead. Everyone deserves the chance to decide what they do and do not want to see. Besides, you never know what you are missing if you do not explore controversial works for yourself.

I can hear the counterargument already: what if I don’t want my children to read it?

Yeah, what if you don’t want your children to read it? I suppose that you’ll have to pay attention to your children, talk to them about what they’re reading, and teach them what is and is not OK to read. Let them ask you questions. Try and explain why you don’t want them to read something. As they grow older, expand your conversations to allow them to tell you what their beliefs are becoming. You could both discover new writings and new ideas. You could grow as people together.

The wonderful thing about literature is that there’s no end to the ideologies represented and no limit to what you can find. Don’t restrict the possibilities because you’re afraid of an idea. If you don’t want to read it, that’s fine. Don’t read it. If you don’t want your children to read it, open a dialogue with them so they know what you don’t want them reading and why.

Remember, limiting your reading list limits your brainpower.

Were you surprised by any of the books on the list? Angered? Humored? Were you surprised that a book wasn’t challenged a certain year? Let us know in the comments.

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Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Stephanie’s Master’s Degree Adventures: Editing without Ruining

For the past two weeks I’ve been participating in my program’s second writing forum. Here, in a nutshell, are what these writing forums consist of: students are divided into groups in which they stay for the entire year, they post stories for feedback, and the students and supervising tutor give feedback on all the stories. The second week, as people are wrapping up their initial feedback, students ask/answer questions about the feedback and the tutor posts topics for general discussion. If they have finished their initial feedback, students can post general discussion topics as well.

This time I posed a question for my fellow writers: how do you change aspects of a story without ruining the parts that readers liked?

I have wrestled with this issue most of the academic year. The pressure has only gotten worse as the May 31st deadline for our portfolio inches closer. Well, “inches” takes the urgency from it. It’s more like how objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Since the deadline has gotten so close, I’ve begun to edit and rewrite the stories that I plan to include in my portfolio. The most prominent problem at the moment is that two of my stories have a very distinct feel that the readers enjoy. In attempting to address the weaker points of the story, I’m afraid that I will shatter that which makes the readers enjoy the stories already. I liken this conundrum to playing Jenga: if you remove or alter one piece, the whole structure may come tumbling down.

I know I’m not the only writer struggling with this issue. That’s why I want to discuss the answers I received on the forum.

Their advice boils down to four simple points: trust your intuition, do what’s best for the story, step away, and save your revisions.

  1. Trust Your Intuition: If something in the story doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason. You know what you want for your work. External feedback points you to weak spots and helps put you on the right path but at the end of the day, it’s still your story. Did your readers suggest alterations to the dialogue that felt artificial when you put the advice into practice? Step away to give yourself some space and then take another look at it. Did your readers really like a scene in your story but you don’t feel that it fits with the newer version? You’ll have to decide which is better for the story, that scene or the entirety of the revision. Deep inside you sits your inner writer, the one that is connected with the essence of all your writing, and if he/she starts telling you that something isn’t right, you need to listen. It may conflict with feedback but it’ll be worth the risk. You can always start over again.
  2. Do What’s Best for the Story: This idea seems obvious but, in fact, it’s often forgotten. We end up worrying more about what the readers want than what will help our stories become what they should be. Readers and their opinions are important but, as I said in #1, you have to trust your intuition. You can’t make your gay character straight just because your target audience wants. You have to ask yourself, will it make the story better? Or worse? If a reader suggests adding exposition to the dialogue, you have to decide if it will weaken the integrity of the narrative. You won’t be able to please everybody. Your only real obligation is to the story and your inner writer.

    Quote retrieved from Goodreads
  3. Step Away: I’m going to give you this advice a lot. Might as well get used to that right now. In this case, I was given this advice by the published writer supervising my program’s forum. We read our own pieces to death. Our objectivity all but disappears and we risk missing weak points that objective readers see instantly. We skim over spelling errors, holes in continuity, and flat out bad writing. Almost more importantly, we become bored by our own work and so we don’t know when we’re bored with ourselves and when something will genuinely lose the reader. Robert Frost once said, “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
  4. Save Your Revisions: I made this point bold and red because I cannot stress it enough. Keep copies of all working drafts. Our tutor also recommended labeling them clearly and/or using track changes. Every time I make a change that isn’t very small or I make several small changes that add up to a significant change, I save it as a new file. I have five to seven copies of one story on my computer at any given time. Trust me, when you suddenly decide that you’re writing from the wrong character’s perspective and attempt to rewrite nine-tenths of the story, you’ll be happy to have those earlier drafts. Don’t think that it’s only with major changes like that for which you’ll need copies. You may decide that you liked how a sentence was worded the first time but you don’t remember it exactly. Maybe there’s a small gesture by a character that you removed, thinking it insignificant, only to realize that it was much more important than you first thought. You’ll hate yourself if you have that sort of epiphany but not the earlier draft to refer to.

Revisions and implementing feedback are rarely easy. (I’ll go more into revisions and feedback in future posts.) Despite what common sense may dictate, fewer or smaller edits do not necessarily mean the process is easier. Instead, you find yourself in the limbo of “I need to change this but changing this may ruin that.” There’s no clear-cut answer. However, the four points above are a good place to start.

If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: SAVE YOUR REVISIONS.

Have any ideas for making small edits without destroying your stories big time? As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Friday Fun-Day Writing Prompt: And Then the Murders Began

Welcome to another regular feature on The Writer’s Scrap Bin: Friday Fun-Day. Every Friday I’m going to dedicate at least one post to something fun, like interesting facts about a famous writer, literary crosswords, etc.

Today’s Friday Fun-Day post is a writing prompt. Three or so weeks ago my mother brought to my attention a particularly entertaining trend on Twitter. Marc Laidlaw tweeted “The first line of almost any story can be improved by making sure the second line is, ‘And then the murders began.'” As you can imagine, Twitter had a lot of fun with this concept, taking famous first lines and following them with “And then the murders began.” Thus #LaidlawsRule began.

In addition to getting a kick out of the tweets, I was inspired to create a new writing prompt.

Find a generic, horrible first line and add “And then the murders began” or some variation of it. Use this combination as the opening to a story and keep writing.

I haven’t had the time to fully pursue my idea yet, but I will put the opening as an example:

“Around here, strawberries don’t ripen until late spring. And then the murders begin.”

Make the first line as hilariously terrible as you can. Have fun, roll with it. When you’re done, post your opening in the comments. I’d love to see what everyone comes up with.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Contest from Writer’s Digest

Happy Friday! The weekend is here (well, technically). I’ve decided to start the day with a brief announcement about a contest via Writer’s Digest.

It involves writing a very short story (maximum 700 words) for the picture prompt that they provide on the site. If you win, your story will be published in an issue of the magazine under their “Your Story” section. Deadline is April 10th.

Follow this link for the full details:

http://www.writersdigest.com/your-story-competition/story-81-submit-now

Remember, “short” doesn’t mean “easy,” so be sure to give it your best. It will be good practice in writing and competition submission. Good luck!

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Writers on Writing: Ernest Hemingway

Quote retrieved from The Guardian
Many, if not most, writers love to talk about writing. Their writing process, what they think about today’s literature, their thoughts on the literary world, odds are you can get a writer to discuss at least one of these. Thanks to the Internet we now have virtually unlimited access to their words of wisdom. In my “Writers on Writing” series, I will give my thoughts on one of these writers and one or more of their quotes on writing. Today I’ll be looking at one of the most praised American writers: Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway famously (maybe infamously) gave the advice to “write drunk, edit sober.” There’s no secret or debate behind Hemingway’s status as a heavy-weight drinker. A champion, really. But are we to take his advice literally? Should we get drunk–or just drink–to write and wait until we sober up to edit?

General consensus points to the literal. Even the article in The Guardian from which I got this quote takes it at face value. If that’s how you choose to take it, you’ll find that people are somewhat divided on the accuracy of the quote. The common thread among most of the analysis is that drinking may help relinquish inhibitions to a point, which can help writers to not censor themselves and be more creative. However, there is a point when drunk is too drunk and your writing will turn out like horse manure. I think the most intriguing take on this angle comes from this study, if you wish to look into it further.

My take on Hemingway’s advice is quite different. For personal but non-religious reasons, I don’t drink. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility but I don’t see myself drinking in the near future. What, then, do I get from Hemingway’s advice?

Let’s look at the first half, “write drunk.” As I stated before, the benefits of writing drunk seem to be a lack of inhibition and enhanced creativity. In that case, I equate “write drunk” to “write semiconscious” or, from my own experience, “write half-asleep.”

I don’t have any studies or scientific evidence to support this interpretation. I can’t even speak for other writers. However, my writing seems to come most freely when I’m not entirely conscious. I have discovered that my writing is most productive when I first wake up (even if I sleep in) and around 10:00-11:30 p.m, not long before I go to bed.

I’m normally too tired to read or focus on much of anything but I can write with minimal distractions at those times. Some people might argue that there’s not much going on that can take away my attention and that’s why I’m more productive. They may be right. Still, I don’t have as consistent of luck when I just isolate myself from all external stimuli. I also have to admit that there are noises echoing throughout my neighborhood at any time of day, which detracts from this theory. (By “noises” I mean a motorcycle speeding by the house at 1:00 a.m., someone’s dying car starting up around 2:00 a.m., and dogs and birds sounding off at all hours.)

One of my biggest problems with writing is my inhibition stunting my creativity. I have voices in my head that cause me to doubt myself and my work constantly. The more awake I am, the louder those voices become. My sleepy state silences these inhibitions enough that I can get about a solid hour of writing in before I start wondering if it’s utter garbage. In that way, “semiconscious/half-asleep writing” is my form of “drunk writing” without as strong a possibility of memory loss.

The second half of the quote is rather self-explanatory when examined from this perspective. If “write drunk” is “write semiconscious,” “edit sober” must be “edit conscious.” Of course, it’s probably best to be sober when you edit as well. You’ll have your full faculties at your disposal. You’ll also look at your work with a more objective eye. You won’t have to (entirely) shut up your inner critic at this point and it will finally have its say. You’ll remember the rules of grammar–or be able to research anything you’ve forgotten–well enough to know when you should and should not break them. The more sober and conscious you are, the better you will edit without totally destroying your work.

Ernest Hemingway dust jacket photo for first edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls, picture by Lloyd Arnold, retrieved from Ernest Hemingway Wikipedia Entry
Hemingway was a great writer but relied too heavily on alcohol. Let’s face it, he was an alcoholic. It doesn’t take away from his work but he may more have written well despite being drunk rather than because of it.

We don’t all have to get drunk in order to write well. Any writers who do drink shouldn’t get too drunk if they plan on writing. People end up regret drunk texting. Can you imagine drunk writing? Instead, find under what conditions your inhibitions are lowered. Is it when you’re a little tipsy? Tired? Comfortable? So stressed and crunched for time that you simply can’t stop and give heed to your inner critic? Once you figure that out, use it. You may be surprised at how much your productivity and the quality of your writing increases. Just remember to listen to constructive feedback once you start editing.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011