More Please: Quirky Characters

YA is full of diverse family lives: dead parents, alive parents, divorced parents, straight parents, gay parents, adopted parents, one sibling, dead sibling...you get the idea.

But in my opinion what we need more of are crazy/quirky families that make me laugh and wonder why humans are actually so dull. Like the characters in Arrested Development.

Maybe not even quirky families. Why not just quirky friends? Yes, guys, I am ready for some more comedy in my books. It's almost exclusively what I watch these days and I love it. Mostly for these weird characters I keep talking about.

Some books I can think of that have characters like these: The Raven Boys, Welcome Caller This Is Chloe, Past Perfect, Swim The Fly...and...well, that's all I can think of. What are some of your favorite books with crazy fun characters? Give me recommendations!

Jessica

Guest Post: What's Hot and What's Not In YA

Hey Y'all! I'm Arielle, and I blog at Amitygardens Revue. Since Jessica is on vacation, I'm here to do a guest post. I wanted to talk about the top five things that I hate and love in books. I’ve added the corresponding tropes, if you want to know more about them.

Top 5 Things 5 I Hate:

1) Insta-Love I hate when two people meet and are instantly in love and going to be together forever. It's one thing to be attracted and interested in a person, and another to fall in love with the second you see them. I want to watch your characters fall in love. I want the butterflies and tenseness, and to feel everything that comes with it.

2) Slut-Shaming I understand when you have a young character that their go-to insult are things like "slut" and "whore", but don't pretend that it's okay. Make them realize that that is not the way to treat other women. Show that the person they are calling those names are real and human.

3) Mary Sues Perfect characters are boring. Being klutzy is not a flaw- it's just means you have more bruises than other people. Screwed up people are much more interesting to read about. You can have your character be unlikeable, but it doesn't mean we won't care about them.

4) Token Minorities If you're including someone who's a minority just to try and make it diverse: don't. It shows that you just added that in there. It comes off fake and weird. Take the time to understand the person that you're trying to write. Try and get to know their culture and what it's like to be that person.

5) Bizarre Names I know that not everyone is going to have a name in the top 100 baby names, but do try and be realistic. I have suspension of belief for only so much, so please try and ease me into it and not overload immediately.


Top 5 Things I Love:

1) LGBTQ Characters We need more LGBTQ characters in novels. There is more to this community than the stereotypes in media, and they are under-represented in fiction.

2) Independent Heroines I like heroines who don't need a relationship to define them. I want them to be independent and self-reliant. Not to say they can't have one, but they should have an identity outside of being someone's significant other.

3) Cool Parents I love when parents are supportive of their children. They don't have to be perfect and make all the right decisions, but it's nice to see parents who care about their children. Not to say that crappy parents aren't beneficial to a story, but I like to see regular parents who are trying to do their best.

4) Real Friendships We need more realistic depictions of friendships in books. Even screwed up people have friends. I love seeing friendships where the people support one another even when they screw up. Less frenemies and more friends.

5) Did Not Get The Girl Romance doesn't always have to take center stage in a book. I like when it's secondary to the character's journey or alternatively, they don't end up together. Even no romance can be great sometimes- it's good to have a variation of romance/crushes, etc.

The Most Cliched Sentence Known To YA

Guys, I want you to tell me something. How many times have you read THIS:

It was so wrong, but it felt so right.

Probably a lot, right?

I swear every time I read a paranormal or bad-boy book (meaning a contemporary featuring, you guessed it, a bad boy) and it's gotten to the point where glancing at the sentence makes me gag a little. Because I have read it a LOT. And I didn't originally like it. Now I absolutely HATE it. I LOATHE it. I ABHOR it. Every time I happen to come across it I make this face:

Here is why.

1: It is so. over-used. Sweet Kevin Bacon guys, I swear this sentence is not only in YA, but in movies, tv shows...I feel like everywhere I turn, BAM the horrible sentence is assaulting my eyes. You know what happens when a sentence gets over-used? You're supposed to STOP USING IT. Remember when that song Bad Day came out, and every radio station everywhere was playing it to the point that we were like, "STOP! GIVE US SOMETHING ELSE." Do you ever hear Bad Day on the radio anymore? NOPE. And there's a reason for that (well, besides it being a crappy song).

2. It is probably one of the cheesiest things I've ever read. No, really people, go read it again. Go. Look. Look at all the cheese oozing from that. I am allergic to dairy and cannot handle the amount of cheese gushing from this sentence.

3. Show me it's right, don't tell me. I feel like this is one of those sentences that is trying to convince me of a romance that isn't there. It doesn't feel believable or romantic or anything it's meant to be; it feels cheap and forced. I feel like as soon as an editor reads that line, they should be scribbling over it with their red pen.

Also, publishers: Don't use it as a tagline.

Pushing The Limits. Luckily that line wasn't in the book. Trust me. I would've noticed.

That sentence is bad, m'kay?

Upcoming Book Covers

It's time for me to dust off my old friend: the soapbox. Or as I like to call him, Mr Soapboxy (it's not original or anything, but I'm not that clever when I'm aggravated, so it's fitting).

Anyways.

Covers.

I am noticing some patterns with them.

And it displeases me.

Is it just me, or are do we only have two categories of covers any more? Or, at least, that's what late 2011 and early 2012 cover artists seem to think.

First, we have the face of the protagonist looking dramatically into the the camera:

The second category is the girls doing pretty poses in pretty clothes with a pretty background:

I mean seriously? Am I the only one who's noticed this and finds this annoying? I've never been huge on either of the above types of covers and I'm frustrated that they're becoming the norm.

I want more covers like the one Gone, Gone, Gone has; simple, eloquent, and grabbing.

 Or like the beautiful artsy cover of The Night Circus:

I know some people love the covers I dislike, but how do you feel about them? How do you feel about the covers I like?

 

I Don't Get It...

Click to view it larger.

Like so many bloggers, I was not going to write about this article. But--like so many bloggers--the more I thought about it, the more it totally and completely pissed me off.

It's not because the article says things about YA we haven't heard before: reading about bad things will make teens do said bad things, they shouldn't be exposed to such dark material, where have the Judy Blumes of the world gone, etc.

No, I've read crap like this before. And, sadly enough, I'm fairly sure I'll be reading it again.

I just don't get why so many adults think that teenagers are blind, idiotic sheep. They don't think the next generation deserves a little respect?  I DON'T GET IT.

I don't get why we would recreate a characters life when we see how horrible it is for them. I DON'T GET IT.

I don't get what they want us to read if we don't read YA. Is it adult fiction? Is that so much better? Or are we just supposed to keep reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar until we're "of age"? I DON'T GET IT.

Well, Wall Street Journal, let me introduce myself to you:

My name is Jessica Secret. I've devoted a good portion of my life to reading, writing, and reviewing YA literature since I was 12.

When I read The Hunger Games, I did not stab anyone--despite my strong urges, as The Hunger Games really glamorizes killing and death.

When I read Looking For Alaska, I did not start smoking, drinking, pleasuring men, or self-destructing. And I read that book twice!

When I read Crank, I didn't go out and try meth.

When I read Hunger, I didn't start starving myself.

When I read Twilight, I did not start biting people.

No, instead, I am no longer blind to what goes on in the world. I am not sheltered or ignorant to any of it. And--shockingly--I'm not that bad of a kid. I spend most of my time writing, actually, thanks to some of the above books I've mentioned, even if they are challenged.


Please explain to me who these teens are that have been morally corrupted because of YA fiction, because I cannot find them.

Suck it Love,
Jessica

(This was a purely rant-y, repetitive post written in a time of pure rage. If you'd like some other better-written, more heartfelt blogger's views on it, go read Nicole's post, the Bloggers[[Heart]]Books post, and Forever Young Adult's post. Then go read Gayle Forman's thoughts about it, cause that woman says genius things.)

A Couple of Things, Including A Giveaway.

1. I haven't been reading lately. And by that I mean at all. It's very strange. I tried to read one book (that will remain nameless, ((but FYI it wasn't The Ylem), gave up on it, and now I'm reading Afterlife by Claudia Gray. I know I'm really going to like it, because I seem to have some kind of soft spot for this series. But I just don't want to read right now, so I'm not going to force it. Hopefully this weird-ness will go away soon. (Note: I think I'm blaming Jellicoe Road for this, because this is probably a really bad Good Book Hangover.)

2. I was over at a friend's from Monday til today, so I apologize for the blogging break. It was an unexpected sleepover. *cue Apologize*  To be honest though, my blogging probably will be slowing down until I start reading more.

3. I'll draw the winners of my Summer Contest very soon. Promise.

4. Do you guys call it a "contest" or a "giveaway"? I seem to alternate between the two... But, speaking of which, CONTEST/GIVEAWAY ALERT!

One winner will win an e-book of The Ylem by Tatiana Vila.

An ancient book, a seventeen-year-old girl and an exotic boy from a supernatural world hold the key to freedom for a long-oppressed race, but that freedom could come at the cost of the human world.

Seventeen-year-old Kalista is suffering from a broken heart, so when her playwright father proposes they move their lives from New York to New Mexico because he is in need of inspiration Kalista is 100% on-board with him. New Mexico proves to be the perfect balm for her wounds and she is just starting to feel some of her old spunk when Tristan Winfield comes into her life and pulls all of her barriers down. Kalista is captivated by Tristan's unusual silver eyes and feels an inexplicable connection to him, which begins to manifest itself in her dreams with bizarre images of a waterfall and an orb. 

While searching for an explanation for her troubling dreams, Kalista discovers an ancient book which holds the secrets of a supernatural race of creatures. But when Killings hit town, she realizes her finding has come at a high price. She's in the middle of a power struggle now, and a secret seems to be wrapped within the pages of that book. A secret she's part of...

Sounds cool, right? Well one winner will receive a Smashwords coupon, so go see if it's compatible with your ereader. The contest will run until the night of June 13. As it's an ebook, it is international. You can get one extra entry if you follow Tatiana's blog. Fill out THIS FORM to enter.

Good luck! And special thanks to the lovely Ms. Vila herself for providing the contest/giveaway/whatever you call it.

We Will Not Be Silenced. We Will Speak Loudly As Long As We Breathe.

You have obviously heard about today's cruel injustice done to lovers of YA and books in general by a small paper in Missouri and a certain delusional man going by the name of Wesley Scroggins. I have never read Speak (but trust me, I will be very soon), nor the other books he mentioned, Twenty Boy Summer or Slaughterhouse Five. But that doesn't mean that this man, or anyone, for that matter, has the right to say I don't.

I showed a friend who had read the book, and she insisted that he had obviously not read the book (I, personally, have to question if he even read the summary) and should be ashamed of himself. I wholeheartedly agree with my awesome friend, even though I've never read the novel. Rape is, never has been, and never will be anything resembling "soft pornography", which is what Scroggins' so disgustingly said. Here is my letter to the editor:

I cannot begin to tell you how disgraceful I find Wesley Scroggins' article, demanding a book ban on Twenty Boy Summer and Speak and calling Speak "soft pornography." Let me just say that he clearly hasn't read Speak and probably not even the summary.

If he finds rape (including a teenage girl) pornographic then he is obviously sick and has no place telling children what to and not to read and I honestly hope he receives the help he so desperately needs.

In fact, as an avid reader, NO ONE should be telling me or any other minors what to read unless they are our guardians. It's one of the things that I love about this country, and as a newspaper editor, I'm sure you agree.

I hope you and Mr. Scroggins realize just how many readers, writers, and rape victims you've infuriated to heights we didn't know possible. Here is my blog post, including this letter and links to other bloggers' thoughts. Combined, we have thousands of readers. Thousands of readers who will not stand for this, and will continue to speak out against book banning.

There isn't much more I feel like I can say, but here's just a few wonderful bloggers and who found different views and words to use:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Author of Speak
Word For Teens
Good Books and Wine
The Story Siren
A.S. King
Consumed by Books 
Bibliophilia-Maggie's Bookshelf 
Emile's Book World
Holes In My Brain
And there are countless others that I can't wait to read. (If you have a post, please comment giving me the link and I will gladly read and link to yours as well.)

#Speakloudly my friends. And don't stop.

What I Want In A Paranormal Book

As I have read more and more paranormal novels, I've come to want specific qualities from them that can sometimes be hard to find. These qualities, not including basic qualities that are needed in a novel, are:

Not original

ORIGINALITY. Oh, so your wannabe boyfriend is something suspiciously inhuman but he won't tell you what and there's something keeping you apart? Yeah, cry me a river, I've read about 10 series with the exact same plot. Now, tell me that in a world full of nasty demons who want to kill you and your sister, you and your betrothed faerie prince (who is a jerk and you're much more attracted to the hot werewolf) must defeat Lucifer himself...well, then I'm intrigued. Why? Because there's NOTHING like this in the YA market at the moment (and maybe that's for the best, but the point was that it should be new).

NOT BEAUTIFUL GUYS. Yes, beautiful guys are cool and all, but they're in just about every paranormal book I've read, and I don't know where they're coming from since there certainly aren't many around here. Is it just where I live? Have I been deprived of male eye candy for my entire life while the rest of you see ten "beautiful" boys walking down the street a day? If so, I think I need to move. Sure, I get that because inhuman characters can look better than the rest of us, but there always seems to be the beautiful human who's in love with our protagonist as well. Where'd HE come from, and where are all of my lovable dorks? I WANT DORKS. I usually find a person more and more attractive the more I like them, so why can't that be the case sometimes?

The romance in Fallen isn't very believable

SMART PEOPLE. "Oh, there are murders going on in town, and I've been getting suspicious notes shoved into my locker threatening to kill me...better not tell anyone!" SERIOUSLY? No. Not smart. Bad character, bad.

A BELIEVABLE, WELL-PACED ROMANCE. "Even though we've only known each other for two hours and he's so dark and mysterious that he's barely said a word, I think I want to have his babies...." WRONG. Even if you don't tell us the whole conversation, just say that the characters talked and joked and actually got to know each other, it's better than having the characters sucking each others face when they've barely spoken three words to each other.

Brownie Points (not required, but very appreciated):

At least one character that can kick serious butt

A lot of music/band references

Interesting, smart, unique side characters

A good amount of humor

A villain that scares the poo-poo out of me

A good love triangle

Some paranormals that I'd recommend that include some of the above qualities are: Shade, Nightshade, The Iron King, Hex Hall, Paranormalcy, Strange Angels, Almost To Die For, and others.

So, what do you think? Did I miss any?

STOP SAYING THEY'RE ALIKE

So, yesterday I finished Nightshade (will review soon) and saw that someone mentioned that fans of Shiver would like it.

I was just staring at the computer, going: UM, WHAT?! NO.

I love Shiver, there's nothing wrong with being compared to it...if your book is similar to it. Nightshade and Shiver, although both werewolf books, are very different. Nightshade has a lot more action and more of a paranormal aspect, where as Shiver is written in a more poetic way and beautifully romantic. Just because books have the same paranormal creature doesn't necessarily make them similar. That would be like comparing this: to this: I enjoyed both books a lot, but they are soooooo different and fans of one shouldn't really be pointed in the direction of the other if they're looking for a similar read.

Or it'd be like calling this: and this: alike. Yes, they are both about faeries, but one is about tiny little faeries who's biggest threat are crows, where as the other is...well, a lot darker. Again, both are good books (although I did like The Iron King more) but they shouldn't be called similar!

This doesn't just apply to paranormal novels, I'm sure, but I've got much less experience with other books at this time.

Please think about the content of the book before just saying "Oh, there are vampires in this one, just like Twilight! I should totally recommend Interview With A Vampire to fans of Twilight!" Otherwise, you will get people like this:



OK...rant over.

A Book Rant: Linger Name Change

In case you didn't know, Linger is the sequel to Shiver, both by the wonderful Maggie Stiefvater. And, again, if you didn't know (why are you so out of the loop?) I loved Shiver. When I read about this on Alex and Lauren's blog, A Flight of Minds, I was outraged. Confused. Very, very angry. It's...well, read this for yourself, it was written by Maggie herself:


"The more observant of my readers on my Livejournal blog have noticed that the main character from SHIVER has changed names. This is sort of eerie, since I hadn't realized I'd babbled about them enough to realize the names weren't the same, but the fact is, it's true. Sam Roth (which is, for the record, the best name ever) the character from SHIVER who becomes a wolf for the winter, is now Lee Spence.

That sentence, my friends, is the result of 16 hours of baby name book searching, thousands of calories of cookie dough consumption, silent raging, not silent raging, denial, googling, and finally, acceptance.

Because this agony is something that other authors will probably have to go through and because it gives me an excuse to look at a photo of Lee Pace, I'm going to tell my sordid little naming story here.

So. This all started way back when my werewolf story was only a twinkle in my eye. I'd had the dream that sort of laid down the premise, but only two of the characters (neither of them main characters) came with names in the dream. (And one of the two names in the dream was "Robert de Niro" so I had to change it anyway). I can't start writing a novel until I have the Perfect Names for my main characters, so I was in the brainstorming phase. I wanted something sort of timeless, soft-sounding, and inherently sad and emotastic. Which brought me to Sam, partially because of the way that Meg Ryan said, "Oh, Sam," in Addicted to Love, after she's torn his heart into little tiny pieces and feels bad about it, but is stuck in the floor, so she can't do anything but watch from afar and say:

"Oh, Sam."

I just thought . . . whooo, shivers. I imagined the scene where Grace, the other main character, first sees him as a person after years of obsessing over him as a wolf. And when she asks his name, he says, "Sam." And I knew that was it.

Except it wasn't. Because there is this author y'all may have heard of, Stephenie Meyer, who apparently has also written about werewolves. Who knew?That's sarcasm.

Anyway. So apparently, she also had a wolf character named Sam. Who knew?

That's not sarcasm.

I'd read TWILIGHT, but it's been a few years, so I'd completely forgotten that there was a werewolf named Sam in it. And my editors had too. And my crit partners. And basically all of the folks that had worked on the novel since last fall when I first began writing it. But not someone at the Scholastic sales meeting. And not, my editors reasoned (once they had this brought to their attention), the hoards of passionate TWILIGHT fans who had the demographics of every TWILIGHT character stenciled onto their arms with glittery pink ink. Sorry, sparkly. Sparkly pink ink. So at the very end of the editing process, after I'd lived with my characters as Sam and Grace my editors said that "Sam" had to go.

I sputtered and begged and pleaded and finally googled "sam werewolf," where I was greeted by one gagillion hits to Team Jacob and Sam Uley, The First Werewolf Named Sam. And I hung my sad head in defeat, because my editors were right, as they often are. Which meant that my favorite bit of dialog in the entire novel had to completely change:

"Grace,” I said, very softly. “Say something.”
“Sam,” she said, and I crushed her to me.

This was when the silent raging began. Because I knew I had to do something, but I didn't want to. I still had a sequel to write, after all, and I was going to have to live with a not-Sam for another 95,000 words. It wasn't just SHIVER that was riding on this name change, it was the fate of the sequel, LINGER (probably LINGER), as well, and probably my entire sanity as well. My critique partner, Tessa Gratton, spent about 8 hours IMing me back and forth, sifting through hundreds of names, looking for the perfect replacement that would ellicit the same emotional response in me as "Sam."

The catalog copy deadline was, I should add, bearing down on us at this moment, giving us about two days to come up with a replacement. At that point, I think my mood was best classified as "angry/ morose drunk."

Examples of angry/morose drunk exchanges? This is sort of a montage of conversations that occured on Day Two of the Great Name Debacle.

DAVID (editor) to me and ABBY (other editor): How about Daniel? I've always been partial to Daniel.

ABBY to me and DAVID: Daniel is nice.

ME to TESSA: Daniel! Daniel!? Why do they keep saying Daniel to me in my hour of need? Have they not heard Elton John?

TESSA: There, there. How about Jonah? It sounds emotastic.

ME to my DAD: I need something other than Sam, even though Sam is the most perfect name invented.

DAD: Why, again? Because there's this other sampire in TWILIGHT?

ME: Werewolf.

DAD: But 'sampire' is funnier. How about Jack?

ME: Why was I ever born?

Eventually, I really buckled down, hit the stacks, and finally came back to the first name that had occured to me at the beginning of the Great Name Debacle: Lee. It was soft, reminded me of blue jeans, inherently emotastic, and moreover, was the name of the actor who I think of when I think of what Sam/ Lee looks like: Lee Pace. (cue audience reaction: awwww). So now I had Lee Roth. Like Kate Winslet's character at the end of Titanic, I was sad, but triumphant. I told my art critique partners about the name change.

One of them, my friend Nicole, said, "um, Maggie, have you, um, googled 'Lee Roth'?"

I did.

Those of you who were born slightly before me will probably already know what I found. Sigh. So, with a nod to irritating rockers who have ruined a generation of fictional "Roths", I changed his last name to Spence.

So there you have it. The story of how Sam Roth became Lee Spence and everyone lived happily ever after. And the other day, I actually said "Lee and Grace" all by myself, without accidentally saying "Sa-Lee" first. So maybe there is hope for me yet. "


NO! There may be hope for Maggie, but there is absolutely no hope for me. First of all, who cares if there's a Sam in The Twilight Saga who just so happens to be a werewolf? Not me. I honestly hadn't even thought about that while reading Shiver. I don't understand why her editors are making her change her name. I could sorta understand if she was still writing Shiver...but it's already published. And they're not going to republish it- pull each book off the shelves and replace it with the "Lee Spence" version, are they? They just expect us to be able to transition like that?

Secondly, I don't love Lee Spence, I love Sam Roth. They are different people. Why? Because they have different names, therefore they are different people. I have no idea if I will be able to change this frame of mind. Ever. The whole situation is...inconceivable. (Holy crap, I spelled that right!) Maybe when I get Linger I can buy my own copy and scribble out Lee and write Sam...it may take awhile...it's an interesting idea though....

I am a Twilight fan. It is my favorite series. But, the whole idea that they're changing the name of a main character just because fans are that obsessive is ridiculous. They should just get it in their head that coincidences happen, and that not everybody is copy-catting Stephenie Meyer.

Oh, and by the way, I just typed in "werewolf Sam" on Google, and nothing for Twilight came up. There was True Blood, there was Shiver, there was no Twilight (on the first page, at least).

Sigh. Now I'm sad.

Edit: Wow, I feel like a nerd. OK, after I posted this it was brought to my attention that Sam Roth is here to stay. Maggie posted what you just read above on her blog, and then left a comment of the same post saying Sam is Sam again. See it for yourself here. Thanks to Rerebs from Count Rebula's Concepts & Comments. Like I said, I feel like a nerd.

...But it's still stupid to even think of doing that.