Books I Read: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Like dystopia?* The Alliterati are giving away 4 YA dystopian novels over at the Secret Archives. Check it out!

* See what I did there?

Title: The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Author: Carrie Ryan
Genre: YA zombie dystopian
Published: 2009
Content Rating: R for zombie violence

All her life, Mary has only known the village--the Sisterhood that rules it, the fences that surround it, and the ever-hungry Unconsecrated trying to get in. Life is...okay--restricting, depressing, and the boy she likes is marrying her best friend--but things get worse when Mary learns secrets about the Sisterhood that threaten to destroy them all.

This book hooked me pretty fast. Even the cover and the title make me want to read it (plus I have a thing for zombie apocalypses). The writing--something I rarely care about in favor of a good story--is fantastic. It's beautiful, creepy, and tense.

I did have a problem whenever Mary did something stupid. I know, she's been through a lot and doesn't have much hope, but it was hard for me to excuse her occasionally-risky behavior in a world where the smallest risk can get you zombified. Other than that, I thought this book was great. The zombie scenes were properly scary, and the world was properly interesting.

I've read some folks who were upset that not all secrets were revealed, nor all questions answered, but that didn't bother me at all. They gave the information I cared about, and I can fill in what I like pretty readily. If you like zombie stories, check this one out.

5 Things to Know About Multiple POVs

1. It's a normal and common structure. I know folks who aren't sure if multiple POVs are okay or not. They are. Some examples: Westerfeld's LEVIATHAN, Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, most of Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD novels, Sanderson's MISTBORN trilogy, Card's ENDER'S GAME (those snippets of conversation at the beginning of each chapter constitute a separate POV), and many, many more.
2. Multiple POVs can be used with any narrator except an omniscient one. Third person limited is the most common, but in theory it could be done with first person too. Though I suspect it would be more difficult to signal whose POV it is.
3. Switching POVs is jarring. Readers get used to being in someone's head, and it's easy to forget what's going on when they rejoin an old character. You have to signal to the reader not only that the POV has changed, but who it has changed to, where they are, and what they're doing. Some ideas:
   
   • Switch only at chapter or scene breaks.
   • Switch consistently (e.g. alternate every other chapter between two characters).
   • Get the POV character's name and situation as close to the first sentence as possible.
   • Give each POV character a unique narrative voice.
4. Switching POVs is a chance for the reader to put the book down. That means, in addition to signalling to the reader whose POV it is, you also have to make each POV shift start somewhere interesting, with a hook to immediately draw the reader back in. Every. Time.
5. Each POV character should matter. Don't use a character's perspective just because you need to show certain interesting events. Use that character because they are interesting, because they have their own arc and crucial decisions. Ask yourself, if this perspective were the only one in your novel, would it be worth reading?

Have you ever written with multiple POVs? What would you suggest?

What Stops You From Reading?

It's rare that a book bothers me so much I have to put it down (especially if my to-be-read pile is small, an event which happens all too often out here). In 2.5 years I've read over 70 books (thanks, Goodreads) and only stopped 3. But there are a few things that might stop me from reading a book.

I hate a main character. They're arrogant, stupid, or both, to the point where reading about them makes me feel angry and/or dumb. It has to be pretty bad, though. I mean, I've never stopped reading a James Patterson novel.

It's boring. Usually this will be because there is some promised tension in the beginning, then pages and pages pass before the tension is ever brought up again. I'll put up with slow books, though, if something else is driving me: a fascinating world, witty banter, or sometimes just a friend who said it was worth the whole read.

The writing pisses me off. This is really, really rare. I don't normally care about quality prose one way or the other--even when it's not very good, I can still get through it so long as it makes sense. But there was this one book, with a host of featureless characters and As You Know, Bob dialog oozing out of its spine. I stopped that one on page 62 and never looked back.

So what stops you from reading a book?

Sketch: Harkonnens on Hard Times

So Emmet Blue called me out on my Quick and Dirty fantasy map. He made an educated guess (Indonesia), and now I owe him a sketch. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you: before putting a Google Fantasy Map in your book, maybe rotate it, tweak the coastlines, and don't ask Emmet if he knows where it is.

It's been over two months since I drew anything for you guys, though. Maybe I deserved it.

The commission was, and I quote, "an Elvis-suited Baron Harkonnen singing karaoke while floating at an odd angle, maybe with Sting backing up on bass. That, or whatever that imagery makes you think of." Here's what you get:

What Can a Train Wreck Tell Us About the Future of Publishing?

You probably heard of the Jacqueline Howett fiasco a couple of weeks ago, wherein one self-published author got a bad review, yelled at the reviewer, and then began swearing at everyone who came to the reviewer's defense. In reading it, I understood the train wreck analogy: I knew people were getting hurt, but I couldn't not watch.

It got a lot of people thinking about self-publishing (and the social psychology of the internet), but to me it says that maybe the worlds of traditional publishing and self-publishing aren't as different as we think they are.

Before I go on, though, a little Professionalism 101:  

DO NOT RESPOND TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS!*

Okay. What was interesting to me about this incident was what happened on that book blog was the same thing agents complain about in the slush pile. Namely, an unprofessional author got mad about a rejection.

The only difference is, this time, everybody got to see it.

It's like the slush pile is being made public, along with everything that means--unprofessional authors arguing with rejections, berating reviewers on their blogs, complaining about the unfairness of the system. Except now, "the system" isn't a centuries-old institution trying to make money off authors. It's just people.

Some revolutionists say this New World, in which anyone can find their own audience, removes the gatekeepers. But seeing a slush-pile-like reaction like this seems to imply the opposite: the gatekeepers are not gone, they're changing.

A gatekeeper's job is to sift through the slush, separating the good from the bad using the only measuring stick they have: their opinion. Book bloggers, like the one Howett railed against, are among those new gatekeepers. They can't keep people from buying something, of course--just like Random House can't keep me from renting my own printing press and hand-selling throughout the country--but they have a very strong word-of-mouth influence. Many book bloggers even have a very agent-like process, with submission guidelines, queries before full requests--and, apparently, dealing with the angrier members of the slush pile.

Understand, I don't think this incident says anything about self-published authors in general. For one thing, traditionally-published authors sometimes do the same thing.

For another, all the indie authors I know are professional, stand-up folks. Howett is an outlier.** My point is that the same outliers are, and always have been, in the query system. What happened two weeks ago is the same kind of thing agents deal with all the time.

It makes me think the Old World and the New World might not be as different as we thought.


* I do believe that, in theory, an author could respond to a negative review in some positive way. Something like, "I'm really sorry you didn't like that aspect of my book, but I appreciate the constructive criticism. I'll try and improve that in the future."

But it's only a theory. I've never seen it done, nor done it myself, so I don't know how it would be received.


** Also, Ms. Howett may have been having a very bad day, or any other number of things, that might have contributed to her public outrage. This post isn't intended to mock her, just to take a look at how similar it is to a slush pile.

Five Things I Love

I don't remember where I got this meme, but here it is. You may see it again in the future.

Also, you may notice there's a poll in the upper-right corner (some of you will have to click through to see it). I'm thinking of doing polls this way every once in a while, but probably not if nobody's voting. It's up to you guys.

Anyway, 5 things I love:

Ninjas

 

Rainy Days

Princesses

Deep Fried . . . Whatever

Wash

Hook, Hook, Where is the Hook?

The hook is what you say when your friends ask, "So what's your book about?" It's how you tweet about your book. It is the fundamental concept behind the plot of your story, written in such a way as to make the reader say, "Cool, tell me more."

But how the heck do you distill 100,000 words into one sentence of cool? It's not easy. The internet has some good tips already, but I'm going to throw my own version into the mix because with something as subjective as a novel hook, you can't have too many ways to think about it.

I think there are 7 things the hook should have:

1. Protagonist. Who is the story about?
2. Antagonist. Who or what is against the protagonist?
3. Goal. What does the protagonist want to accomplish?
4. Stakes. What will happen if the protagonist does not accomplish their goal?
5. Conflict. What is keeping the protagonist from accomplishing their goal?
6. Setting. Where/when does the story take place?
7. Theme. What is the story's main subject or idea?

Figure out that information, then stuff it into a sentence. That's your core. The rest of your query, synopsis, and even your novel needs to be focused around that. For example:

A cowardly bookworm receives a package from his supposedly-dead mother, so he joins a crew of air pirates to find and rescue her.

This is the hook for Air Pirates. Can you see the elements? Some are weaker than others, but they're there:

Protagonist: cowardly bookworm
Antagonist: not specified, but implied in the word "rescue"
Goal: to rescue his mother
Stakes: his mother will be hurt or die (implied in the word "rescue")
Conflict: he doesn't know where she is, and presumably someone doesn't want her to be rescued
Setting: implied with "a crew of air pirates"
Theme: a coward overcoming his fears

As you can see, not everything has to be stated explicitly, but the more clear the 7 elements are, the stronger your hook will be. (There's a lot to be said for voice, too, but I'm not dealing with that here).

Also be certain nothing else is included. The more you try to cram in, the more questions are raised. In the example, I didn't tell you about the future-telling stone in the package because, although it is important to the story, it raises a lot of questions. And as far as the hook goes, it doesn't matter what's actually in the package, just who it came from, and that he thought she was dead.

So an exercise for you. Take a look at the (current) hook below for my Shiny New Idea,* and see if you can find the 7 elements in it. Which ones are weakest? How could they be made stronger? (I'm not asking you to do this in the comments, though you're welcome to, if you want).

A fugitive ninja must convince a young con-artist to take the throne, before the nobles kill everybody in civil war.

Then take a look at your own hook and do the same!


* Post-Apocalypse Dragon-Riding Ninjas (with Mechs!). Don't worry. It all makes sense in my head.

(This post is a remix of an older one)