Writing Ze Book You Want to Read

Hey internet;

I believe I mentioned that I was working on another rant. That was true, and I liked the idea of it before I started. Then I got about three sentences in and got bored.

"I can't stand rules that are--SQUIRREL!"

The idea still lingers in my mind and maybe one day I'll return to it (the rant was about silly rules) but for now there's something else stuck in my craw that I would like to discuss.

I say discuss because I hope others will take the baton and run with it, either on their own blogs or on this one...just let me know, I'd love to hear your opinions :)

So, over at YAtopia (love the name, it's right up there with Libratopia) there is an easy-to-enter contest, open to everyone and with fabulous prizes. Free book? Possibility of a kindle? Squeee pick me pick me! I already have a stack of books without shelves to call home, let's make the pile truly outrageous!!

Well, in order to enter the contest you have to just say what book you are most looking forward to in 2012. Easy enough; that's a whole year of fresh publishing to choose from.

I've been following publishing news a lot, lately, but hadn't gone beyond this year. So I popped around on the mighty interwebz and found a few lists. I spent some time searching. And searching. A perusing. And searching.

And my face got longer. And longer. And frownier. And frownier.

Let me start by saying that I, like thousands of other faceless someones out there, have been putting a considerable amount of blood, sweat and tears into writing my own book. Ze Book. I love it. The characters are my friends, I care about them and want other people to care about them. The plot is exiting to me and the wordplay is my pride and joy. At the same time, all of the above can be excruciating to make happen. I know this.

Now that he's compiled all the drafts of Chapter 01, he can scrap them all and start over with what he's learned!

And I'm not even querying yet. So I give mad props to any and all who have reached that stage, found their agents, got their deals, and are now gleefully awaiting the due date of their hardcover honeys*.

So I'm not trying to be snide or flippant or disparaging. That's the last thing I'd do to someone who I know has worked their brains into mush and achieved THE DREAM.

But pretty much all of the 2012 books sound exactly. The. Same.

This book cookie-cutter illustrates my point AND makes me want little book cookies.

Here's the basic format:

Sad Underage Estrogenbot (we'll call her 'SUE' from here on out) has something tragic in her past. Then BOOM something happens that ushers Some Totally Uninteresting Dude (we'll call him 'STUD' from here on out) into her life. There's some sort of mystery or problem going on, the solution to which is painfully obvious to any reader with basic thinking skills but WILL be dragged on until the last chapter. SUE and STUD make painfully unappealing googly eyes at each other despite hating each other for legitimate reasons and/or already being so TOTALLY in love because the author says so.

SUE will be determined to fix the aforementioned problem/mystery, but will in fact end up doing little more than riding on the coattails of her supporting cast while loudly bemoaning her fate. She will get all the credit in the end because...well, because she's SUE.

There is some variation, of course. But not much. SUE is always super-sad or angry about something. If the world is a dystopian future (it probably is, because that's what's hot right now) SUE will approach everything with the morally justified eyes of someone from our time, even if it makes absolutely no sense for her to do so because she's known nothing but the dystopian world her entire life.


Oh, and the cover will be a picture of SUE in one of those floaty-puffy-dreamy dresses, just sort of...floating. Looking dramatic. Probably against a gray, watery, misty, or ashy background. I thought about making a collage of all the covers I've seen like that, but that would feel too much like I'm going after specific people, which I am definitely not.

But come on...I'd like to see some variety on the 'new arrivals' shelf.

To make matters worse (better? I don't even know) I think I understand what's going on. It's not exactly a secret that books (especially YA books, I believe) have a tendency to play follow-the-leader. One novel will come out, get a lot of people excited, and then for the next few years we see an increasing number of books in that style until there seems to be nothing but watered-down versions of it available.

Harry Potter --------------> thousands of fantasy, magicky adventures.

Twilight -------------------> thousands of vampire/human romances.

The Hunger Games -------> thousands of dystopian worlds with female leads.

Well, I believe/hope we are at the point where the schtick has run out. It's about time for a new genre boost. I'm rooting for something with more humor in it.

But what do you guys think? What's the next big 'thing?' Or, you can say I'm completely off my rocker. That's okay, too. Working on Ze Book may have made me hyper-critical of what others write, especially when I feel like I've read it dozens of time...or if the SUEs and STUDs are just so mind-numbingly boring, annoying, and unlikable that I find myself screaming at the book to "END. END."

My solution is to write Ze Book I want to read, as writers have been encouraged to do since shortly before Methuselah was born. What's yours?

On Romance.

Hey internet!

Today, I wanted to talk about romance in Young Adult novels.

In preparation for the official beginning of Libratopia, I have been gorging myself on Young Adult novels. Mostly Dystopian novels, because that is what's hot--and therefore most readily available--on the market right now. Harry Potter came out, and it was all orphans with big destinies. Twilight came out, and we saw nothing but vampire romance novels for a long time. The Hunger Games came out, and now it's Dystopian futures, almost exclusively with female leads.

The thing is, something else has lingered from the 'Twilight' era. Female leads are prevalent in the YA shelves right now, and it seems as if every female lead has to find herself stuck in the middle of a love triangle. I personally do not care much for (see also: loathe) love triangles, because they just don't make much sense to me. If you really, truly, deeply care about someone, and are presumably a good person...are you really going to turn around and play suck-face with their rival at the first opportunity?

If your first thought is "You go, girl," we have nothing further to discuss.

It's not something that gets me rooting for the schmuck who's playing the herp-a-derp-tango with two people's hearts. So that bothers me right off the bat--especially when it is painfully obvious which of the attention-vyers is going to win.

Girl has been with Herp for years, but mysterious and shady Derp keeps catching her eye? Derp wins.

Boy always thought he wanted hot Derpette, and has been in love with her since grade school, whilst Herpina has only ever been a blip on the radar? Just wait 'til Herpina takes her glasses off.

Girl is in some way forced to be with Derp, and bumps into Herp in the woods outside her home...

Basically, it boils down to X wants/has Y, until X meets Z. There is no chance whatsoever that X will remain/choose Y. It's to the point that I wonder why any preview or snippet even bothers posing the question of "What will he/she do when he/she meets him/her?" Um, dur.

So those are my thoughts on love triangles.

Boo! Boo! BOOOOOO!!

But what about romance in general? Given the rant above, you may be expecting a rant below. You will not be disappointed.

As previously stated, most lead characters these days are females. And most of their love interests are dudes. And again, since a certain sparkly-moody-possessive male lead made his appearance, things have changed in the YA world. Almost every male romantic interest I've come across recently has been just like that: mean. Possessive. Pushy. Jealous. Troubled. Self-destructive. Selfish. But oh--so--HAWT.

There have, of course, been characters like this in the past. But they were rounded out by having actual soft sides, or self doubts, or figuring out their issues in the end, or at least getting their just desserts. They were HAWT, of course, but in no way portrayed as being the ideal man.

There may have been a reason I posted a picture of James Dean in this section. But I sort of got lost staring at him and forget what it was.

So somehow, things have changed. What were previously red flags for an abusive relationship are now major turn-ons. And the characters who don't fall under that category? Strawmen. No personalities, no hopes or dreams beyond the hopes and dreams of their designated love, no real...anything except for the proper plumbing and possibly some wimpy tendencies for the hero/ine to save them from.

Booooooo.

Obviously, with these weak-sauce characters, the romance that follows is unbelievable and unenjoyable. We're rarely given an actual 'falling in love' story, or any bonding moments. It's just, "Oh! What a HAWT guy/girl/shrub! We are now so totally in love because the author says we are!"

I'm going to let you folks in on a little secret. I'm a romantic at heart. True, it's buried deep under prickly layers of snark and sarcasm and a dislike of idiocy, but it's there. If there's going to be twu wuv in the story I'm reading, I want it to make me feel gooey and sweet on the inside, like a partially melted gumball. I want it to make me sigh and giggle and quietly cheer for the couple when they finally come to terms with each other. I want to be given a reason to read the book when no one is around to hear me do any of those things because it would damage my street cred.

I want real romance! Something organic, earned, and believable. I want to watch someone fall in love...I don't want to just be told that they have.

I want a couple I can cheer for. How about you?

Granted, those are some real deep feelings, which are not things that are often associated with teenagers. But that's what YA is; an acknowledgement and celebration of the depth and abilities of the future masters of the universe.

There's just such an opportunity in the YA world that is being wasted. Granted, there are a few good relationships portrayed in a few good books out there...just as back in the day, there were a few good strong female characters around. Time brings change, and this is a change I'd love to see.

What about you guys? How do you feel about romance in general, or the state of it in today's YA novels?

-J